He stared down at the city below his feet. It was an illusion. The shimmering motion of the lights he saw was not the real city. They were part of it, to be sure, a necessary part… but the beautiful lights, so much more lively than those above them, were a simulacrum. They merely painted the surface tension. Below that thin veneer the water was still filthy, still dangerous and cold.
Saul held on to that. He resisted the poetics of the city .
Saul walked fast, making the passers-by ignore him, being nothing to them. He strode the streets like a cipher, invisible. Sometimes he stopped quite still and listened, to see if he was being followed. He could see no one, but he was not so naive as to think that was conclusive.
He approached Brixton from the backstreets, not wanting to run the gamut of its light and crowds. His pulse was up. He was nervous. He had not spoken to Fabian for so long, he was afraid they would no longer understand each other. How would he sound to Fabian now? Would he sound strange, would he sound ratty?
He reached Fabian’s street. An old woman walked past him, bent into herself, and he was alone.
Something was wrong. The air tasted charged. People moved behind the white curtains of Fabian’s room. Saul stood quite still. He stared at the window, saw the vague movements of men and women within. They milled uncertainly, investigating. With a growing horror, Saul pictured those within opening drawers, examining books, looking at Fabian’s artwork. He knew who moved like that.
Saul’s demeanour changed. One moment his shoulders were hunched, he was tightened into a drab stance, something to see but not notice, his disguise for the streets. Now he uncurled and sank towards the pavement. He bent in a sudden snap of motion, sidling simultaneously against the low wall. He crept through the thin strip of garden, the desultory tiny patios.
He was truly invisible now. He could sense it in himself.
He sidled along the wall, sudden bursts of motion interspersed with unearthly stillness. His nose twitched. He smelt the air.
Saul stood before Fabian’s house. Soundlessly he vaulted the low wall and landed in a crouch below the window. He placed his ear to the wall.
Architecture betrayed those within. Bluff voices seeped out through cracks and rivulets between bricks.
‘… don’t like that bloody picture, though…’
‘… know that the DFs totally losing it over this. I mean he’s fucking well lost it…’
‘… geezer Morris, why have a go at him?… thought he was a mate’
The police talked in an endless stream of banalities, cliches and pointless verbiage. Their speech served no purpose, thought Saul in despair, no fucking purpose at all. He ached for conversation, for communication, and to hear words wasted like this… he felt like crying.
He had lost Fabian. He put his head in his hands.
‘Him gone, bwoy. Him with the Badman now.’
Anansi’s voice was soft and very near.
Saul rubbed his eyes without opening them. He breathed deeply. Finally he looked up.
Anansi’s face hovered just in front of his, suspended before him upside-down. His strange eyes were very close, staring right into Saul’s.
Saul looked at him calmly, held his gaze. Then he let his eyes slide casually up, investigating Anansi’s position.
Anansi was hanging from one of his ropes, suspended from the roof. He grasped it with both hands, effortlessly suspended his weight, his naked feet intertwined with the thin white rope. As Saul watched, Anansi’s legs uncoupled from the fibres and swivelled slowly and soundlessly through the air. His eyes held Saul’s, even as his face turned one hundred and eighty degrees.
His feet touched the concrete with a tiny pat.
‘You damn good now, you know, pickney. Not easy keep track of you, these days.’
‘Why did you bother? Daddy send you?’ Saul’s voice was withering.
Anansi laughed without sound. He smiled lazily, predatory — the big spider-man.
‘Come now. Me want fe talk.’ Anansi pointed with a long finger, straight up. Then hand over hand he seemed to fall up the rope, which was tugged peremptorily from view.
Saul slid silently to the corner of the building and gripped it on both sides. He hauled himself away from the earth.
Anansi was waiting. He sat cross-legged on the flat roof. His mouth worked as if he were preparing to say something unpleasant. He nodded a greeting to Saul and indicated with a nod that he should sit opposite him.
Instead, Saul interlaced his fingers behind his head and turned away. He looked out over Brixton.
There were noises all around them from the streets.
‘Mr Rattymon going crazy waiting for you now.’ Anansi spoke quietly.
‘Motherfucker shouldn’t have used me as bait, then,’ said Saul evenly. ‘Rapist motherfucker shouldn’t have killed my dad.’
‘Rattymon you dad.’
Saul did not answer. He waited.
Anansi spoke again.
‘Loplop come back and him crazy mad at you. Him want you dead fe true.’
Saul turned, incredulous.
‘What the fuck has he got to be angry with me for?’
‘You make him deaf, you know, and you done also make him mad again, mad in him head.’
‘Oh for fuck’s sake,’ spat Saul. ‘We were both about to be killed. He was about to kill me and get fucking taken apart himself. I think the fucking Piper’s done playing with us, you know? I think he just wants us all dead now, all the kings. Loplop would’ve fucking died, I saved his life…’
‘Yeah, man, but him save you. Could’ve watch while the Piperman done kill you, but him try to save you, and you fuck up him ear…’
‘That’s a load of crap, Anansi. Loplop tried to save me because you all… you all… know the Piper can’t hold me, and you all know I’m the only thing that can stop him.’
There was a long silence.
‘Well, Loplop him mad, anyway. Don’t be getting too close to him now.’
‘Fine,’ said Saul.
Again, a long pause.
‘What do you want, Anansi? And what do you know about Fabian?’
Anansi sucked his teeth in disgust.
‘You still green, bwoy, fe true. You sure got all the rats dem upon you side, but you don’t know what fe do with them. Rats everywhere, bwoy. Spiders everywhere. Them you eyes, the rats. My lickle spiders tell me what the Badman do with you friends. You ain’t never ask. You not care till now.’
‘Friends?’
Anansi screwed up his face and looked at Saul disdainfully.
‘Him have kill the fat bwoy.’ Saul’s hands fluttered about his face. His mouth stayed shut, but it quivered. ‘Him have take the black bwoy and the lickle DJ woman.’
‘Natasha,’ breathed Saul. ‘What does he want with her…? How does he know who they are…? How is he getting inside me?’ Saul grabbed his head with both hands, began to thump himself in despair. Kay, he thought, Natasha, he hit himself more, what was happening?
Anansi was on him. Strong hands gripped his wrists.
‘Stop now!’ Anansi was horrified.
Animals do not hurt themselves, Saul realized. There was still human inside him, then. He shook himself and stopped.