I Knew You Were Trouble by Pip Fox

Author:Pip Fox [Fox, Pip]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780008597122
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

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Charlie walked the longer way back to a different tube station, past the drinkers outside the pubs, past the shops with their shutters down, a tart, sweet pain in her wrist, which was now wrapped in cling film, and a sweeter pain just about everywhere else.

FOURTEEN

Franco And Charlie

‘Well, it’s all very adorable down here. Recherché.’

‘You’re doing it on purpose.’

‘I’m not.’

‘You are. Dissing my ends.’

Franco sat back, a sinuous pose that seemed to embody fox as much as it did human. ‘You’re the one who brought me here.’

Charlie and Franco had eaten lunch at one of her favourite places, up on Brixton Hill. The Cameroonian owner – who greeted her, as always, with hello sista and a beam – had turned it from a secondhand fridge shop into a sunny café selling veggie and vegan Caribbean food. They’d eaten galettes stuffed with jerk aubergine, plantain and green beans, and then walked down to Brixton Village, because if Franco kept insisting on South London being a village, she would bring him to one.

In some parts of Brixton, the march of gentrification was comically offensive – cocktail bars and small plate restaurants filled only with rich white people opposite the neo-brutalist Barrier Block flats, with its black old-timers shooting the breeze by the car wash. This area was her community; the mix of people gave it its soul, and always had. Brixton Village had been a run-down 1930s arcade-style shopping centre that began offering rent-free space a few years ago. But whilst Charlie had liked seeing the shops filled and the live music on Thursday nights, things were starting to change, with more expensive places moving in, the rents rising. It was currently a strange mix of hipster and local: expensive artisanal meats and vintage clothing alongside the Sierra Leone grocery store, and Jamaican shops selling super-sized bags of rice and red lentils, African hot pepper and stockfish cod; there was a cheap party shop and a long-standing wig bazaar, with plastic busts sporting luridly-coloured wigs. It was usually packed at the weekends, when people nursing hangovers crammed in to eat Mexican brunches, Thai noodle bowls and Taiwanese steamed buns.

Charlie and Franco had sauntered around the market with his arm slung over her shoulder as if they’d known each other for more than just a few hours in total. He’d only occasionally removed it to slide over to a window and point out a necklace or a bar of ginger soap, or to pick up a particularly glossy aubergine until the shopkeeper came out and scolded him, saying to buy it or put it back.

Now, they had left the market and gone further up Atlantic Road to another of Charlie’s recent favourites, Brixton Pound, named after the area’s own currency. The community café was pay-what-you-can, used surplus food from local shops on its menu and gave work experience to people with learning disabilities. Charlie realised that it had a similar feel to the farm, cheerfully raw and unaffected.

Now, she was telling Franco about Brixton having its own currency.

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