Later, when she remembers her last night in Soho, this is the image she will recall.
Men in uniforms arrive in the middle of the night. Precious isn’t working. She finished a couple of hours ago and is watching a true-crime series on Netflix. She’s engrossed by the real-life events, the ordinary people caught up in the debacle, the slow unfolding of the mystery, the injustices at the heart of the case. She ordered a food delivery and it has just arrived. The skinny lad stands outside her door in cycling shorts and a light-blue waterproof jacket. He’s rummaging in his bag for her vegetable biryani. She is already on her phone, giving his service a five-star review, deciding how much to tip. It is important to support people like him, she thinks. It must be a difficult life. She would tip a waiter in a restaurant at least ten percent of the total bill, if not closer to fifteen, so why not this boy. He rushes around the city in the middle of the night to scratch a living, and he is younger than her sons.
When she first hears the banging, it sounds very far away. It is a noisy neighborhood and anyone who lives in Soho must quickly learn to organize sounds into layers of importance and proximity. The sound is that of metal banging against wood and is most likely someone throwing beer barrels into a cellar, or empty crates out into the street. Precious is not even fully aware of the commotion. It is something her brain easily blocks out. Then there is shouting. Again, this could be anything at all: drunks being kicked out of a club; someone getting into a fight in the next street.
The boy pulls out a plastic bag containing her food and holds it out to her. Precious puts her phone back into her pocket, smiles at the boy, and takes hold of the bag.
“Fuck these fucking fuckers,” says Tabitha between her teeth. She rushes over to the door and slams it in the lad’s face. As it swings shut, Precious catches a last glimpse of his puzzled expression, hand still stretched out in front of him. He has no idea what is going on. Precious doesn’t know either.
“It’s a fucking raid, the fucking bastards,” Tabitha explains. She begins to dash around the bedroom, gathering items that might serve them well in any number of given circumstances, then changing her mind about what those circumstances might be and dropping the items onto the floor. “They are not getting their hands on you. They are not getting their hands on you. My god, if there’s one thing I hate on this earth it’s the fucking pigs.” Tabitha takes hold of the bedpost and tries to drag it. The bed is too heavy so she abandons the attempt and rushes over to the wardrobe, which is closer to the door. She shoves it with all the strength she can muster and it tumbles to the floor, blocking the entrance. Then she takes other items of furniture and begins to pile them on top of the wardrobe. She takes the drawers out of the bedside table then picks it up and places it on top, then adds the drawers themselves with their heavy contents. She has apparently forgotten about her bad shoulder. As she rearranges the room, Tabitha herself is transformed. As she builds the barricade, the years appear to fall off her. All of the energy she has ever possessed in her long life comes rushing back, from the past into the present, as if a collection of younger selves has gathered and come to the aid of their senior version.
Then Precious begins to hear the noise for what it is. The banging is coming from the bottom of the building, way down at street level. There is a slow, repetitive thud, again and again, and then there is the sound of ripping and splintering, as a way is forced through the thick wooden door.
Now the shouting comes from within the building itself, and she hears dogs beginning to bark. Two, maybe three. Big dogs with deep barks mean strong jaws, long teeth.
Precious stands, transfixed. She doesn’t know what to do. She feels suddenly incompetent, something she’s never felt in her life before. It’s as if all she has in this world are the clothes she’s wearing and the plastic bag containing the box of biryani she’s holding in her hands. Everything she’s able to reach out and touch feels suddenly very close. Anything she can’t reach out and touch feels very far away. The rest of the world, outside these walls, is remote. She hears the shouting from downstairs. Shouting and screaming.
Precious runs to the window and looks out.
The men behind the masks aren’t men. They are a natural disaster: a hurricane, a flood. There’s no reasoning with them. They cannot operate any of their human faculties. They are robots, cyborgs, automata. Tabitha once told Precious a story about her past, when she was still living in Leeds. The police picked a bunch of prostitutes up off the street then took them back to the cells and raped them. Precious knows not all policemen are the same. But, in those masks, they all look the same.
Tabitha is pulling at her arm; pulling at her jumper. Tabitha knows what to do. Tabitha’s seen it all. She’s been there, done that.
“Come on, Precious, come on. I won’t lose you. I won’t fucking lose you.”
Tabitha is crying. Precious has never seen Tabitha cry.
“I’m not going to prison and neither are you. Come the fuck on.”
Tabitha takes hold of
