music, riots, joy

Like I said, I didn’t listen to music for years. It was part of my plan for getting through being a responsible mother. One of the things I switched off. Lately I’ve started again. My shiny new ipod, my endless requests to my sons: “I am on a train for four hours tomorrow, please give me everything you have by Nirvana, Radiohead, the Clash, the White Stripes, the Pogues. “ I am lucky they showed such impeccable taste when they stole all those songs. I have spent a fortune at itunes too – new things and stuff from my past.

Some of it has traveled well down the years, some falls flat now; and with all this sunny weather, my new resolution to get brown again – pale is not interesting I have decided – I’ve spent many hours with my ipod, lying prone on a big bean bag on the grass, breathing in the sunshine, listening and thinking. Sometimes I hear a track and I am right back in a particular place. It’s the same as old photographs - the sudden snapback in time

When I hear London’s Burning, I am back, lying in a field on a hot day. I came to this place – a little grassy island in the middle of a small lake– to have a smoke where I thought no-one could see me from the farmhouse. I am deep in the Cotswolds, at my uncle and aunt’s weekend house. I go quite often to see my grandmother who lives with them, and my eldest cousin – they’re really the only to members of my family I like. I came out here for a fag – my aunt disapproves of smoking. She also disapproves of me too I think. Too frivolous, not serious about learning, that awful hair, the make up – I am not Oxford enough for her. So I laid down in the grass, smoked my cigarette, and I must have fallen asleep because now my skin feels hot and burnt and my head aches. It feels so odd being here. I am not used to the sounds of the country, the gentle life, the scrubbed pine table in the big kitchen, the aga, the pots of home made jam cooling on the dresser.

In my world it’s even hotter, but in a different way. It’s melting tarmac, stifling traffic fumes, air so thick you can hardly breathe, crushed into a corner on the tube willing myself not to feel dizzy. There’s gossip about how you can preorder stuff from the riots – anything you want. It’s exciting hearing each morning about the burning cars, the looting, running street battles, smashing shop windows. I hope my friends are ok – I know they were there. Carnival is lovely – the stalls selling Red Stripe, the way the base goes right through you when you walk past the speakers, the smiling faces, the smells of goat curry and weed, and hot, happy people

I don’t belong here. I get up slowly and make my way back to the house to find the train timetable. I want to go home.

Now Jacques Brel is singing – the live version of Amsterdam - and I’m in Zachary’s little flat in Tufnell park. I’m older now - in the final year of my degree at North London polytechnic and Zach is at St. Martin’s. We’ve just done a line of smack – it’s wonderful when you want to get through things. I am trying to finish my final year project on May 1968 and Zach is helping me to put the art work together. I’ve been at this weird house in a leafy street in Camden – you’d never know from the outside who lived there. They were hard to find. They’re really paranoid about who knows. I guess they must still be up to stuff. I had to do some hard persuading before they invited me. Once I am in they are friendly and welcoming. The house is huge – those Victorian houses in Camden, a little off the beaten track – they’re enormous once you get inside. It’s so organized. They’ve divided it up. Some areas are private, some communal. The walls are lined with books and there are plenty of comfortable sofas. They’re so kind to me – I bombard them with questions and they all take their time answering, trying to make sure I’m able to write it all down. Finally I ask them what they remember most and their eyes light up – “it was the joy” they say – “it was just so joyful”. At the end they fill bags with things for me to borrow - books, leaflets, all sorts, and I thank them and promise to bring them back soon.

So I am back at Zachy’s and we’re going through my treasure trove – all those wonderful photos – when the students raided the costume department at the theatre nationale and faced the riot police with Roman shields and helmets – we must put that in – we can copy it and then do some hand colouring. We can do a mix of some of this art – this one belongs on it’s own – la beaute est dans la rue – oh and this one too – sous les pavees la plage and this – sois jeune et tais toi. Each piece is beautiful and I can understand completely why those people’s eyes lit up. We go through the written things, the Situationist pamphlets, the lovely well-thumbed books and I try to translate for Zach – he came over to stay with me the year before in France, to try to get clean, but he doesn’t speak enough French.

We do another line of smack, and have a drink. Leaning against the wall is a cartoon version of the bible that Zach is working on. We turn the music up and open the window, It’s getting kind of smoky. Now we’re sitting on the bed together, not the floor anymore, and somehow out of nowhere we are touching each other, very softly tracing lines down arms. We kiss. It’s so gentle. We’re lost in the music.

I am glad Hetty came home then, to break the spell. She was so lovely. I wouldn’t have hurt her for the world. She’d been working as a hostess so she was wearing her pink tutu. She only sold her company then, to get through art college. Later she was selling the rest of herself but her habit wasn’t big enough yet.

I never got to give those books back in the end. By the time I’d finished with them, I was involved in something myself at my college, and every time I went anywhere for months I was followed by a little group of skinheads. I’d got onto their list and they wanted to scare me. They even stood outside my bedroom door in my halls of residence. So anyway – I never got to see those people again – I wasn’t going to lead the National Front to their door. I hope they understood and didn’t mind too much, and I hope they realized they’d done their bit and passed some of the joy down to the next generation.