Little Bee - Chris Cleave [98]
To survive, you have to look good or talk good. But to end your story well—here is the truth—you have to talk yourself out of it.
After six steps I was inside the crowd, getting pushed this way and that way. I did not mind and I did not look back. I let myself be taken along by this river of human souls that flowed beside the water. I was happy. I smelled the mud on the banks of the river and the dust of the gray pigeons’ wings and the flat dry smell of the ancient stone buildings and the hot breath of cigarettes and chewing gum that floated through the crowd. Everyone was talking and shouting in all the languages they had carried with them to release in that place, and the words mingled in the London air which understood them all. I listened very carefully to the sound of the city and I wondered what name it would whisper me to call myself.
The crowd took me up onto a bridge and I started to cross it. It was good to watch the passenger boats pass out of sight underneath my feet, with the people relaxing in their chairs, and the bald tops of the old men’s heads turning pink in the sun, and the children shouting under the bridge to hear the echoes of their voices, and the tourist guide on the boat’s loudspeakers booming out, WELCOME WILLKOMMEN BIENVENUE BENVENUTO BIENVENIDO À LONDRES.
Near the middle of the bridge there was a boy selling magazines. He had a shaved head and a sliver ring in his nose, like a bull, and a green coat with a fur hood even though it was so hot, and he had light brown skin and he smiled when he saw me staring at him.
“What?” he said.
I smiled back. “Nothing.”
“Big Issue?” he said.
“No,” I said, “I am going to be fine now, I think.”
The boy laughed. “No! I mean, do you want to buy one of these?” He spoke slowly and he held up a magazine. “See? It’s called, the Big Issue.”
I giggled and I bit the side of my hand because I was embarrassed.
“Sorry,” I said. “I am new in this town.”
The boy nodded. “Me too,” he said. “What’s your name?”
I looked behind him at the huge city rising out of the river, mighty and illuminated. Then I looked back in the boy’s eyes.
“My name is London Sunshine.”
The boy grinned. “What kind of a name is that?”
“It is the kind of name that starts off heavy but ends up light.”
The boy blinked at me, and the next moment we were both laughing together. This was a good trick. In this moment I very nearly named myself back to life.
But while I was laughing I looked back across the river, and my eyes fell on something they could not look away from. Sarah and Charlie and Lawrence were still there, standing at the railings, talking and looking out over the river. They had not seen me, but I could not stop looking at them. The smile disappeared from my face.
“What’s wrong?” said the magazine-seller boy.
Sarah and Lawrence had their arms around each other’s shoulders, but Charlie was looking very small and sad. He was staring down at the mud on the banks of the river. He was firing some kind of a weapon at the mud, but the weapon was having no effect. I put my hand up to my mouth.
“You all right?” said the magazine-seller boy. “Looks like someone walked on your grave.”
I could not answer. How should I start to explain to him that I did not trust Lawrence? How was I supposed to tell him how all of the bad stories begin: The men came and they…?
It would be a long story to explain why I did not like to leave Charlie like that.
“I have to go,” I said.
I turned away from the magazine seller and I walked back across the bridge with heavy steps.
When I got back to the place where the three of them were standing, Sarah turned and smiled at me.
“Where did you disappear to?” she said.
I shrugged. “Nowhere.”
I looked down at the river. Something swam close to the bank but it did not break the surface. All you could