But she also sees compassion, and different people rubbing along together. People come here to drink and take drugs and have a quick shag, and people come here to laugh, and hear music, and dance, and to eat sticky sweet cakes and dumplings, or snails cooked in garlic butter, and drink chocolatey coffee and red Bordeaux, and watch plays, and hear music.
And it’s home. She doesn’t totally know what a home is but she guesses it’s got something to do with friends and family and also something to do with being in a place that you feel has left its mark on you, for better or worse, and also being in a place that you’ve left your own mark upon, for better or worse. A place that remembers you’ve been there, that bears your imprint, like a squashy chair you’ve sat in a bunch of times.
When Precious thinks about it, she realizes that is what it means to her, and why she doesn’t want to leave. She is pushed onto the steps by Tabitha and Candy. Someone hands her a conical loudspeaker and shows her which button to press. She grips it in her right hand, curls her fingers around the handle, puts her forefinger against the trigger. When she pulls there is a click, and any words she chooses to speak will be shot through the air.
“Hello,” she says. Her words are loud, but they sound strange, as if she’s shouting into a cardboard box. It takes her a couple of seconds to realize she doesn’t need to raise her voice as the device will do the work for her. Tabitha and Candy and Young Scarlet and the others are looking up at her expectantly. Tabitha has taken off her Darth Vader helmet and is smiling up at Precious like an encouraging parent watching their child in a school play. Precious doesn’t know whether the sight of her friends makes her feel better or worse. Would she rather embarrass herself in front of a group of strangers or in front of people she knows? She isn’t sure.
“Thank you all for coming. It means a lot to us all. When we started fighting this battle we had no idea anyone would notice. We thought we were completely alone. And if today does anything, then it shows us that people—some people at least—care about us. And that, well, that’s always a nice thing. I haven’t got a speech planned, or anything, but I’d just like to ask a question. What will Soho be without people like us? Whatever it is we are. There will still be plays about us, and musicals. There are even operas about women like us over in Covent Garden, where all those fancy people sit with their champagne and their little binoculars. People will go to Piccadilly Circus or Leicester Square to see shows and films where people like us sing and dance, where people like us get naked and have sex or where we get murdered or die of tuberculosis, or fall in love with some twat who wants to rescue us. But if these evictions go ahead, we won’t be here anymore, real people with real lives. And some people might think: big deal. Get them out. Clean up the neighborhood. But the thing is, where will we go? Look, it’s not easy to talk about this stuff without painting everything like it’s black and white. I’m not saying that it’s the perfect job, or the job we all dreamed of doing when we were little. But that’s life. Most of us end up a long way off from where we started out. But what we have going here is a good situation. Not everyone is as fortunate as us. If we get kicked out our work will be more dangerous, not less. And I’m just fed up with the hypocrisy. People have sex for loads of different reasons. And, well, we have sex for money.”
A cheer goes up. Candy is whooping. Cynthia has her hands raised above her head, and she’s clapping them together like she’s at a rock concert.
Then Precious sees the men. They are wearing dark uniforms, stab vests, black lace-up boots. She looks down a thin alley connecting this street to the next, and she sees them jogging in a line, parallel to the crowd. They are clutching shields and batons. Precious panics and spins around to see if there are any more coming. She sees a van pull up in the distance. The doors slide open and more masked men jump out and begin to rush in their direction. Precious turns again and sees another group of masked men at the other end of the street. They are already nearing the crowd and are walking slowly towards the assembly of protesters. The drumming stops. Its rhythm is replaced with that of steel-capped boots on hard tarmac, tapping against the ground like a set of chattering teeth.
“It’s a kettle!”
Precious doesn’t know what a kettle is in this context. She looks around desperately. Other people, apparently, do know what a kettle is, and it doesn’t seem good. She sees people beginning to run away. It doesn’t occur to Precious to run away. She loses sight of Tabitha and tries to find her, but the crowd has become a tangle of frightened faces, and she can’t for the moment see anyone she knows.
The police close in around them, and form a blockade. They are trapped. Nobody
