Albion park, p.1
Albion Park, page 1
Albion Park
Daniel Peppé
To Charlotte
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Copyright
Chapter 1
June 2014
Owen grabbed a large holdall and one of his guitars from the sleeper bus. His was the last stop. The rest of the band had got off in West London. He slammed the door shut and waved goodbye. As the bus drove off, Chalky leaned out of the window.
‘You can breathe out now, you fat git.’
Their tour manager liked to accuse Owen of sucking in his stomach whenever he was around Stuart, the much thinner – and much younger – lead singer from Run for the Shadows.
Once the bus was out of sight, Owen dropped his bag on the pavement and rolled himself a cigarette. Shielding his eyes from the early summer sun, he looked up at Keynes House. Like the other two blocks which comprised the Bevan Estate, the unremarkable low-rise flats needed refurbishment. Age, wear and neglect had left them looking unloved and unlovely. When he was a kid, the shared balconies used to be filled with plants and flowers. These days satellite dishes emerged from the facade like different types of fungi. Balconies were spilling over with bicycles, pushchairs and laundry. No longer testament to the pride of its tenants, the outward appearance of the estate betrayed the transitory nature of so many of its residents.
A man wearing a sleeveless high-vis jacket and an ill-fitting hard hat stood in front of the flats. He was peering through a device attached to a tripod. A colleague wearing a similar coat was standing about thirty feet away, clutching a staff. Owen sucked on his cigarette and watched as the man wandered around. Occasionally he would stop and hold the bar vertical to the ground while his colleague looked through a lens. Owen took a final drag from his cigarette, flicked it to the floor and picked up his stuff.
Owen’s flat was one of three on the top floor of the block, the only split-level apartments in the building. He had lived there for the entirety of his forty-one years. After his mum’s death, he had taken over the tenancy. He and Jacquie sometimes fantasised about moving to the country or perhaps exerting their right to buy. But these ideas were never close to being financially viable. The best they could hope for was a flat swap. So far, they hadn’t seen anything worth relinquishing their flat in Albion Park for.
‘Oh… it’s you.’ Jacquie said, opening the door. ‘Where’s your key?’
‘Were you expecting someone else?’
‘I didn’t think you were due back until tomorrow.’
Jacquie stepped aside as Owen walked in. He leaned towards her and attempted a kiss, but she was already making her way back into the flat. Owen followed her into the front room.
‘How was it?’ Jacquie said, sitting down on the sofa.
Owen puffed out his cheeks and nodded his head. ‘Yeah, you know. Tiring.’
‘Nice to be away, though, right? I wouldn’t mind a holiday.’
‘It was hardly a holiday.’ Owen clenched his jaw; the muscles at the side of his face pulsed with irritation. ‘Where are the boys?’
‘Harley’s out. Dexter’s in his room.’
Owen stood at the bottom of the stairs and called out for his son. Dexter soon emerged from his room, smiling. At least someone looked pleased to see him. Sometimes when he was away on tour, Owen would envisage his return home. He would imagine himself walking through the front door holding a bag full of gifts. Delighted to be reunited with her partner, Jacquie would greet him with open arms. Meanwhile the kids, giddy with excitement at their father’s return, would be eager to see what presents he had bought them. Jacquie would get them both a drink and, together, the family would sit down for a meal at the mini dining table. Excited at being together once more, everyone would be chattering over each other.
It was rarely, if ever, like this. At least this time, though, Owen had remembered to get the boys a present.
‘I’ve got something for you.’
Owen crouched down and opened the zip on his holdall. After rummaging around for a few seconds, he pulled out a scrunched-up replica Bayern Munich top. He threw the gift at Dexter as he came down the stairs. The boy held the shirt in front of him. He seemed happy. Owen kissed the top of his son’s head and ruffled his hair.
‘I’ve got a new game. Do you want to come and see?’
‘I’ll come up in a bit.’
‘Have you got to go away again?’
‘No, not for a while.’
Dexter hugged his dad and scampered back up the stairs.
Owen walked into the kitchen. The room was stifling and airless. He grabbed a beer from the fridge and joined Jacquie in the front room.
‘Do you want one?’ he said, holding up the bottle. Jacquie shook her head and turned on the television.
The front room led out onto a small balcony. Beer in hand, Owen leaned against the balustrade and looked out over the nearly five acres of private park which sprawled out beneath him. The stink from the bins snaked up from below. It was a smell every resident of the small estate was familiar with. During hot weather, it was always that much worse. In mid-summer, the stench would sometimes become unbearable. Occupants of the flats were left with the unenviable option of either opening their windows and allowing in the fetid air or keeping them shut and overheating in their apartments.
Down below, Owen could see Georgi laying gravel out over the path. When he was younger, Owen’s mum, confident of knowing where her son would be, used to stand on the same balcony and ring a bell whenever she wanted him to come home. Wherever he was in the park, Owen would always hear the sound. A couple of neighbours began to employ a similar tactic. Initially it confused the children, but they soon learned to recognise the characteristic timbre of each respective bell.
In those days, everyone was allowed access to the park. It didn’t matter whether you were one of the lucky homeowners whose house backed onto it or whether you lived in one of the flats on the Bevan Estate. No one cared. Not like now. Anyone who currently lived around Albion Park was left in no doubt of its status as a privately owned and managed park. Several digitally printed aluminium safety signs were screwed to trees facing the flats. Each one warned potential trespassers that they would be prosecuted if caught encroaching upon the land. Not that it made much difference. Not for the kids anyway. If anything, the prospect of getting caught made incursions into the park that much more exciting.
Owen turned around and faced Jacquie, who was still sitting on the sofa.
‘There were some workmen outside the flat when I came in just now.’
‘Chartered surveyors,’ Jacquie replied without turning her head away from the TV. ‘They’ve been there for the last few days.’
‘I don’t even know what they do.’ Owen took a swig of his beer. ‘What’s the camera for?’
‘Apparently, it measures the rise and fall of the land.’
‘Why do they need to do that?’
‘I don’t know. Why don’t you go and ask them?’
Jacquie got up from the sofa. Owen followed her into the kitchen. As she reached into a cupboard, he tentatively put his arms around her waist. It felt intrusive, but he wanted to break the ice with an affectionate gesture. It seemed easier if she wasn’t looking at him. Leaning forward, he kissed her on the neck. Jacquie continued to rummage through the open cupboard as if oblivious to the other person forlornly clinging to her.
‘Are you hungry?’ she asked.
Letting go of her waist, Owen stepped back and leaned against the counter.
‘No, I ate not so long ago.’
He pulled himself up and sat on the worktop, his legs dangling over the front of the dishwasher.
‘Where did you get those shoes?’
Owen looked down admiringly at his white Converse trainers, customised with an embroidered Hokusai wave.
‘Amsterdam. Pretty cool, aren’t they?’
Jacquie’s nose crinkled with disapproval. ‘Bit old for shoes like that, aren’t you?’
Owen looked down at his feet again. ‘I like them.’ He took a swig of his beer. Jacquie watched his Adam’s apple move rhythmically up and down as he swallowed.
‘I bet they were expensive…’
‘I didn’t have to pay for them.’ Owen rubbed at the corner of his mouth with his fingers. The shoes had cost £175. ‘We all got a pair.’
He jumped down off the kitchen top and grabbed another beer from the fridge.
‘I’m going to need some money,’ Jacquie said.
Owen breathed in deeply. ‘How much?’
Having reeled off a list of things the boys required, Jacquie proceeded to run through all the stuff they needed for the house. This included a new hoover and a new dishwasher. Owen’s h eart sank. That was the thing he liked most about being on tour: the suspension of the quotidian. Yes, there was a routine, but you were in a different place every day, with different people. And no one bothered you about faulty household appliances.
‘I’ve paid for the summer clubs, the last two months’ council tax… electricity. I also had to buy Harley a new—’
‘OK, OK. It’s not a competition. I was just asking how much.’
‘Six hundred pounds… make it seven.’
‘I’ll sort something out tomorrow.’ Owen shook his head and sighed.
‘What?’ Jacquie said, taken aback. ‘Would you rather I didn’t ask for money?’
‘Give me a break. I’ve just walked through the door.’
‘Give you a break?’ Jacquie stared at Owen, her expression stern and unyielding.
‘I’m going upstairs to see Dexter.’
Owen’s younger son was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the room he shared with his older brother. Owen poked his head around the side of the door.
‘Hey, mate. Is it OK if I come in? Is this your new game?’
‘Yeah, Minecraft. Shall I show you?’
While Dexter explained to his dad the concept of creative mode, the need for shelter and the health bar’s importance, Owen looked around the bedroom. It was the same room he had slept in as a kid. The flat had seemed huge then. He was the only one of his friends on the estate who lived in a split-level flat. They all used to marvel at the space and the posh open-tread stairs with gaps in-between. Now it felt as if the walls were closing in on him. The lack of space made him feel anxious. Lots of things made him feel anxious these days. Perhaps it was depression. He wasn’t entirely sure what the difference was.
‘Basically, there are two different dimensions,’ Dexter said. ‘The end is the hardest place, like ever, because you must defeat the Ender Dragon, which can be respawned if you put crystals by the exit portal. Dad! Are you listening?’
The door slammed downstairs.
‘That’s probably Harley,’ Owen said.
Dexter looked up at his dad as he walked out of the room. ‘Don’t you want to watch me build a furnace?’
‘You can show me in a bit.’
Harley was standing by the front door talking to his mum in urgent hushed tones. He looked up to see Owen standing on the landing outside Dexter’s bedroom. He acknowledged his dad’s presence with a swift upward nod of his head.
‘Is that it?’ Owen said. ‘I’ve barely seen you for the last couple of months. Come here.’
Owen gave his elder son a crushing hug and stepped back to look at him. Harley’s tightly curled hazel blonde hair and green eyes revealed little of his Jamaican heritage. Owen was light-skinned himself, but nothing like Harley, who looked like a white boy. He reminded Owen of his mum; he had the same aquiline nose and pronounced jawline. Dexter looked more like him. Or at least Owen liked to think he did. It amazed him that within just three generations his grandparents’ shared ethnicity was almost undetectable in his eldest son. Harley had grown since he last saw him. His shoulders were squared off; he looked more thickset. A previously emerging surliness had now settled into his face.
‘What have you been up to?’ Owen asked. ‘You’re all sweaty.’
‘Not much.’ Harley glowered at the floor.
Owen looked down at his son’s trousers; there was a large rip in the fabric above his knee. On closer inspection, he noticed a ruddy graze on the side of his wrist.
‘Have you been in a fight?’
Harley shook his head.
‘We got chased in the park, innit.’
‘Who by?’ Jacquie said.
Reluctantly, Harley explained how he and a couple of friends had been messing about in the new playground when one of the residents appeared from nowhere and began to shout at them.
‘What was he saying?’
‘Not much.’
‘Care to elaborate?’
Harley frowned at Owen.
‘A bit more information please.’
‘He said that he was going to call the police and that we had no right to be there.’
‘You don’t have any right to be in there.’
Jacquie stared at Owen intensely.
‘What?’ Owen said. ‘Harley knows the risks of going in there. It’s half the fun.’
‘How did you rip your jeans?’ Jacquie took Harley’s hand and looked at his wrist. ‘And this?’
‘The man started chasing us.’ A hint of a smile appeared on Harley’s face. ‘He was vexed. I slipped, coming back over the wall. He grabbed Jack by his jacket. Me and Dom did a runner.’
‘Did he put his hands on you?’ Jacquie asked.
‘Nah.’
Harley didn’t seem too distressed by the incident.
‘Is Jack alright?’
‘Yeah, he’s fine. He wriggled free.’
Owen looked at Jacquie and raised an eyebrow. ‘Not a lot we can do, really.’
‘Are you OK with this?’
‘The park is privately owned. The residents can do what they like.’
‘They can’t go around grabbing kids.’
‘It doesn’t sound like he did. He didn’t even touch Harley.’ Owen asked his son if he had ever seen the man before.
‘Yeah, he lives in the big house next door to the chef.’
‘Has he got a moustache?’
Harley nodded. ‘Can I go now?’
Owen watched his eldest son take off his shoes and begin to make his way upstairs.
‘Where are you off to?’
‘My room.’
‘I’ve just got back. Have you not got anything to tell me? What’s going on at school?’
Harley looked at his mum.
‘He’s tired,’ Jacquie said. ‘It’s been a long week.’
As he watched his son shuffling up the stairs, Owen was struck with a profound feeling of loss. He felt the acute sadness of moments never to be repeated. Was it his inability to slow things down or change what had already happened which was at the root of his disquiet? Sometimes it felt like everything around him was accelerating while he remained at the centre, still and unmoving. Harley was growing up so quickly. So much had happened in such a short period. But rather than embrace these changes, Owen could only reflect on how they highlighted his own inertia.
The crack was undoubtedly bigger. In less than a month, the large horizontal fracture had more than doubled in size. Parallel sets of smaller fissures had now established themselves on either side of the primary rupture. They spread outwards across the wall like blood vessels in search of a heart. An online search had informed Kitty that one could estimate the severity of a crack by holding the edge of a pound coin against it. If you could fit one of these coins inside the gap, it was safe to assume you were dealing with something other than cosmetic damage. It didn’t say what type of damage one could infer from the width of three-pound coins.
Kitty placed one hand on the wall and the other on a nearby chair and pulled herself up from the floor. Shaking her head in disappointment at the restrictions imposed by an ageing body, she stood up and straightened her back. A ground vibration surged through the basement. Boxed bottles of wine rattled while bits of rubble tumbled from the cracks. Kitty’s phone rang.
‘Hello? Owen? I can barely hear you. The noise coming from next door makes it almost impossible. What? Look, why don’t you just come over? I’ll be here for the next hour or so.’
Kitty stomped upstairs towards the boot room, angrily muttering to herself. The door handle was stiff and offered more resistance than usual. She barged it with her shoulder. The door dragged across the floor like a stylus on glass. Kitty walked out into the garden, followed by her two spaniels, Echo and Hermes. The magnolia tree, which Kitty planted the day she moved into Albion Park, was covered in dirt and ash. Next to the tree, a spread of building detritus had obscured the petals of some blood-red peonies. Kitty faced her neighbour’s Victorian mini-mansion.
‘How many more rooms do you people need?’ she yelled.
The Rijkens had lived next door to Kitty for nearly five years. They moved to London from New York soon after the financial crash. Kitty had taken an immediate dislike to Nicholas Rijkens. Within a couple of months of moving into Albion Park, he had ingratiated himself with the park committee through a series of donations. His promise to pay for two new ride-on lawnmowers and a set of carbon steel Japanese gardening tools ensured members of the committee chose to look the other way when his own gardener ripped out a lilac tree, a well-established dog rose bush and a large fig tree. In their place, he planted an avenue of bamboo. The hollow-stemmed plants formed a corridor from his garden gate to the gravel path surrounding the park. Jennifer, Nicholas’ American wife, told Kitty that the bamboo was intended to provide continuity. At the bottom of their garden, they had created a miniature replica of the koi pond which Monet built at his house in Giverny. Jennifer told Kitty the ageing painter had also planted a bamboo grove surrounding the pond. Any complaints about the invasiveness of the plant and its potential to colonise had fallen on deaf ears.
