The coffeehouse was called Caffeine Messiah, less than a ten-minute walk from Oxford Gardens. Its furnishings were entirely religious, mostly given to statues of Jesus and rosary beads hanging from old chandeliers. A group of rickety tables had been pushed together at one end of a room lined with holy cards, which had been enlarged to poster size, featuring the somber images of martyred saints. At banged-up chairs around these tables sat ten of the poets from Wield Words Not Weapons, along with Ivan. They were speaking to each other over the coffeehouse’s choice of music, which was a Gregorian chant played at a nonheavenly volume.
They were served by a nun, or so she seemed until she came to get Joel’s order and he saw that she had a pierced eyebrow, a ring through her lip, and tears tattooed down her cheek. She was called Map, and everyone appeared to know her and she them since she said, “What’s it to be? Th’ regular or you changing your ways?” to several of them. Coins got tossed into the centre of the table to pay for drinks, and Joel wasn’t sure if he was meant to toss his fifty-pound note into the midst of the money since he had no other means to pay for whatever he ordered. As he made a move to do this, though, Adam Whitburn stopped him. He said, “Winner don’t pay, bred,” and he gave Joel a wink, adding, “Don’t make no habit of it, though, y’unnerstan? I wipe the floor wiv you next time.”
When Map had returned with their drinks and distributed them, a dark-skinned boy named Damon called them all to order. It turned out that this was no ordinary post-poetry gathering.
Joel listened and put it all together: The group were not only members of Wield Words Not Weapons, but also pupils of Ivan’s screenwriting class. Their meeting was about the film they were attempting to develop, and as Joel took all of this in, he saw how they’d divided the labour. Adam and two others—Charlie and Daph—had completed a fifth revision of the screenplay. Mark and Vincent had spent several weeks scouting out locations. Penny, Astarte, and Tam had sorted out equipment suppliers. Kayla had contacted the talent agents. Then Ivan made a report on funding, to which everyone listened in dead earnestness as he spoke of the potential investors he’d managed to unearth. From all of this, Joel began to see that making a film was no pipe dream to them. They were actually going to do it, with Ivan organising the experience for them and none of them wondering why a white man with no apparent need to find himself suitable employment would want to spend his time offering them options for a different kind of life than the one to which their circumstances otherwise propelled them.
Joel sipped his hot chocolate and listened in wonder. He was used to the people around Edenham Estate and other estates. He was used to his grandmother and her hopeless relationship with George Gilbert. These people had always spoken of what they intended to do on a someday that never showed up: fantastic holidays spent in villas in Bermuda or the south of France, cruising around the Mediterranean on a rich man’s yacht, buying a brand-new home on a sparkling housing estate where everything worked and the windows all had double glazing, zooming a fast car through the countryside. Even the youngest of them had impossible dreams of becoming rap singers with mountains of cash, of being cast on a nighttime soap. Everyone talked this sort of rubbish, but no one ever expected to do it. No one even knew where to begin.
But that was not the case with this group. Joel could see they intended to make things happen, and he could not sit there and not want to be part of that.
They didn’t ask him. Indeed, once their meeting began, they forgot all about his presence. But he didn’t mind this as it seemed to indicate a dedication to their cause. This dedication to a cause instilled in him a dedication to his own cause. He would join their team and help make the dream become real.
He determined that he would talk to Ivan about this the next time they met. It would mean more time away from home, more time away from Toby. It would mean relying on Ness to help him care for their little brother. But Joel was confident he could talk her into it. On this night, his life became filled with dreams.
21 Joel was not the only person in the Campbell clan to have sudden hope visited upon him. Ness, too, was blessed with it although she did not recognise this at first. Fabia Bender brought it to her at the child drop-in centre, accompanied as always by Castor and Pollux. When the social worker came through the chain-link gate, two separate reactions emanated from Ness and from Majidah. The former felt her back go up, assuming that Fabia was checking up on her. The latter—having never actually met the social worker but having only spoken to her on the phone—took one look at the dogs and raced out into the play area, coatless in the cold, damp weather and waving her arms.
“No, no, no!” she cried. “These beastly creatures have no place within these confines, madam. Aside from the danger they present to small children, there is the not small matter of defecation and urination, which cannot be tolerated. No, no, no, no.”
Fabia was surprised by the strength and volume of Majidah’s protest. She said, “Down, dogs,” and turned to reassure the Asian woman.
“Castor and Pollux only do their business on command,” she said.
“And neither of them will move from this spot until they’re instructed to do so. You must be Majidah, if I may call you by your given name?
I’m Fabia Bender.”
“
“Yes,” Fabia said. “I’ve come to see Ness. She’s here, isn’t she?”
“Where else would that girl be? Come in, come in. But if those animals move so much as an inch, I must ask you to tie them to the fence. This is a very dangerous business, you know, dogs like that running wild like so many wolves in the street.”
“I’m afraid they’re far too lazy for running wild,” Fabia said, and to the animals, “Stay, dogs, or you’ll become this lady’s dinner. Does this satisfy, Majidah?”
The irony was lost. “I do not eat meat that is not halal,” she said.
Inside the drop-in centre’s cabin, Ness had watched the exchange. Behind her, a group of three-year-olds and their mothers were playing a game of catch-and-fall-over with brightly coloured inflatable balls. Much laughter and squealing accompanied this. Across from them, several five-year-olds were building a stronghold from cardboard boxes painted to look like blocks of stone. Ness’s job in all this was to supervise and to fetch whatever the players required: more balls, more cardboard boxes, rubber mats to prevent excited children from smacking their heads on the lino. They were coming up to a snack time as well, so as Fabia Bender came into the cabin, Ness retreated to the kitchen where she began assembling biscuits and milk on large metal trays.
Fabia joined her, looking pleased. Ness assumed her expression had to do with finding a subject of probation doing exactly what she was supposed to be doing while on probation. But when Fabia spoke, it was on another subject.
She said, “Hullo, Ness. I have some good news. Some
Ness had given up hope of this. Anything other than her dismal music-appreciation course during the autumn term was a long-ago impossibility at this point, and when that had become apparent to her in weeks gone by, she’d dismissed the thought of millinery altogether, bitterly concluding that anything Fabia Bender had said about looking into matters in order to help her finance her dream was just an example of the social worker blowing smoke to placate her.
But Fabia was there to prove her wrong. She said, “We’ve got the money. It took some doing because most funding had already been allocated for the year, but I did manage to find a rather obscure programme based in Lambeth and . . .” Fabia brushed aside the rest of the explanation. “Oh, the details don’t matter. What does matter is the course itself and getting you into it for the winter term.”
Ness could hardly believe things had fallen into place since the rest of her life had never given her an indication that such could possibly happen. But now . . . The certificate course would mean that she had the opportunity for a real career, not merely a job at which she worked day after day just waiting for something to happen to alter her circumstances. Still, life had taught her to be cautious about excitement. She said,
