Shoot Up Hill to Fortune Green

Where Shoot Up Hill meets Kilburn High Road they stopped, in the forecourt of the tube station.

Wait here.

Nathan left Natalie by the ticket machines and walked in the direction of the flower shop. She waited until he was out of sight and then followed, stopping by the edge of the awning. He was in the doorway of the Chinese takeaway, talking with two girls, whispering with them. One in a short lycra skirt and a hoodie, the other a small girl in a tracksuit with a headscarf that had fallen far back on her skull. The three of them stood huddled together. Something changed hands. Natalie watched him put a hand on the head of the smaller girl.

What did I just say? Don’t make me say shit twice.

I ain’t saying anything.

Good. Keep it that way.

Nathan stepped out of the doorway, spotted Natalie, groaned. The girls walked off in the opposite direction.

Who were those girls?

Nobody.

I know things. I used to be down the Bow Street cells every night.

Closed now. They take you down Horseferry now.

That’s right, they do.

I know some things too, Keisha. I’m deep. You ain’t the only smart one round here.

I see that. Who are those girls?

Let’s go Shoot Up Hill then cut across.

The street was longer and wider than ever. The houses and flats are set far back on that road, they look like hide-outs, as if the people who live here still fear the highwaymen who gave the place its name. To Natalie it seemed impossible that they would ever get to the end of it.

You got money on you?

No.

We could get two tins.

I don’t have anything on me, Nathan.

They walked for a time without speaking. Nathan kept close to the walls, never taking up the center of the pavement. It struck Natalie that she was no longer crying or shaking, and that dread was the hardest emotion in the world to hold on to for more than a moment. She couldn’t resist this display of the textures of the world; white stone, green turf, red rust, gray slate, brown shit. It was almost pleasant, strolling to nowhere. They crossed over, Natalie Blake and Nathan Bogle, and kept climbing, past the narrow red mansion flats, up into money. The world of council flats lay far behind them, at the bottom of the hill. Victorian houses began to appear, only a few at first, then multiplying. Fresh gravel in the drives, white wooden blinds in the windows. Estate agent’s hoarding strapped to the front gate.

Some of these houses are worth twenty times what they were worth a decade ago. Thirty times.

Is it.

They walked on. At intervals along the pavement the council had planted an optimistic line of plane trees, little saplings protected by a coil of plastic round their trunks. One had already been pulled up at the roots and another snapped in half.