“Fuck this building,” says Tabitha. “Fuck this place.”
The friends look at each other, and without saying a word, there is an understanding. There is no way out. Whatever they thought they were going to do when Tabitha barricaded the door of their flat and they came up to the roof, it is impossible now. Tabitha needs medical attention. The only way to get it quickly is to submit themselves to the police.
They stand for a few minutes huddling together against the wind, drawing their night clothes closer to their bodies. Tabitha bemoans her lack of cigarettes, and for once Precious agrees that at this precise moment there would be nothing better.
“Don’t be annoyed right now,” says Tabitha. “But I’ve got a confession. I did actually hide some up here. They’re under that plant pot.” She nods in the direction of a large terra-cotta planter.
“I could kiss you.” Precious helps her friend onto the garden bench and lifts the pot to reveal a half-full packet of tobacco, some papers, filters and a plastic lighter. She joins Tabitha on the bench and begins to roll two cigarettes.
They hear men shouting downstairs. It is almost comic. The voices are deep, artificially deep, as if the situation has elicited the deepest frequencies in the human range. There is stamping and bashing, as if all the men are chasing each other around the building, up the stairs, down the stairs, through doors, in and out of rooms and cupboards, as if in a vast pantomime, an animated cartoon.
“You know something, Precious. I think this last year, while we’ve been having all this grief with the landlords, I’m not sure I ever actually thought we’d have to leave. I just thought it would all sort itself out somehow, and we would end up getting to stay on, and everything would go back to normal.”
“That’s funny,” replies Precious. “I thought the exact opposite. I never for a minute thought we had any hope.”
“Why did you fight so hard, then?”
Precious shrugs her shoulders and pulls her lower lip back and forth between her teeth. “I suppose I didn’t want us to go without a fight. I thought it was important to stick up for ourselves, whatever the outcome. And I’m glad we did, even though I’m not sure it’s made any real difference in the grand scheme of things. But it’s made a difference to me—a difference to all of us who were involved. And it was worth it for that.”
They will leave their home together and they will not come back. It is inevitable. It was always inevitable.
Precious hears someone calling her name. She hears it again, but the person, whoever they are, isn’t calling from the side of the street where the crowd have gathered and where the police are shovelling their friends and customers into the backs of vans and police cars. She hears the voice from the other side, from the alley behind the building, where the restaurants keep their bins; the entrance that she and Tabitha use when coming up to their flat.
“Hang on a second.” Precious lifts herself up off the bench and goes over to see who is calling. Down on the ground she sees a large man. His face is turned up towards her, but it is dark on that side, and although the moon is bright, a cloud has just cut across it, and she can’t make out who it is at all. The man calls again and she recognizes the voice. She had never heard a Glaswegian accent before she met Robert.
“Robert! What on earth are you doing?”
“I’m coming up!”
“For god’s sake. How? You going to King-Kong it up the side of the building?”
“Yes,” he shouts. “Yes I am. I’m coming to get you.”
Precious can hear the ruckus within more clearly. There is shouting and banging. She can make out the sounds of someone being arrested. The police officer is reading them their rights, and the arrestee is shouting obscenities. She can’t quite hear enough of the voice to recognize it. It might be Candy. Then again it might be Hazel.
“Go back home, Robert. You’ll hurt yourself.”
“I’m not going home without you. I’m going to get you out of here. I’ll fight them all off if I have to.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, you’ll do your back in.”
Despite their protestations, Robert begins to climb. First he raises himself up onto the bins, and then reaches for a drainpipe. It is a proper old metal drainpipe. Robert is a heavy man, but the drainpipe is securely attached to the wall, and it holds his weight. He grips with both hands, and puts his feet on the ridges, then climbs like a great silverback up the trunk of a tree.
When he nears the top, Precious reaches out a hand for him and he takes it, and she helps him up onto the roof. He stops for a moment to look around, panting heavily.
“Nice garden you’ve got up here,” he says.
“Yeah, it’s not bad, is it?”
Robert spots Tabitha and nods in her direction, and she smiles back, weakly. Spotting the paleness of her face, he says, “You all right, love?”
“Not really,” she says. She shows him her hand, and the blood that has dripped down her arm, having now dried hard. Precious explains what happened, then says, “We’ll have to go back down.”
“Bugger that,” says Robert.
“We have to. We need to get her hand seen to. We’re just up here having a last sit and cig and then we’ll go down.”
“No. You can’t. They’ll get you both on some bullshit pimping charges.”
“We’ll fight it, obviously. But what’s the alternative?”
“Come down the back way,” he suggests. “Down the way
