From: [email protected]
Subject: Construction project candidate 0791898
Dear Ms Churchwell
Thank you for your application to participate in the upcoming Magdalen Arch Construction Project. I am satisfied that the skills and experience presented in your application meet the minimum requirements for you to be considered for inclusion in the project. I therefore invite you to attend the final selection event on Monday 13 June at 6.30am, prior to starting work. Please bring this email with you to gain access to the secure selection area.
Construction Resources Consultant
Over The Bridge Recruitment (on behalf of the Magdalen Arch Construction Project)
—
In December 1934, the Urban Housing Company built two walls, in the North Oxford suburb of Cutteslowe, to prevent residents of the recently built Cutteslowe Number Two Estate from walking to the adjoining, and also recently built, Urban Housing Estate. The company claimed this was in response to demands from some of their tenants who objected to having slum-clearance tenants as neighbours.
The walls, separating Wolsey Road from Carlton Road, and Aldrich Road from Wentworth Road, were over two metres high with revolving metal spikes on top. They replaced fences previously built by the company. Blocking the roads added a 600-metre detour to the walk from the Cutteslowe Estate to Banbury Road, the main road in the area.
In May the following year, a crowd of 2,000 people led by a Communist Party activist, attempted to demolish the walls but were stopped by police. The City Council also objected to the walls and demolished them in June 1938, only to have to rebuild them again after being sued by the company, who owned the land they were built on. During the second world war, a tank drove through one wall while on exercise. But again it was rebuilt.
The council had been heavily criticised for spending over £4,600 of ratepayers’ money on the legal case and subsequent rebuilds. But post-war legislation allowed for compulsory purchasing of land and, despite further legal challenges by residents of the Urban Housing Estate, the council was eventually able to do this. In March 1959, in front of cheering crowds, the Cutteslowe walls were demolished for the final time.
—
She reads and rereads the email on her phone. She almost has a job. She doesn’t not have a job. That’s better than the alternative, right?
‘Gotta go for it, Jak. Can’t let mum down. Gotta go for it, babe.
‘Just work something out with Tabs. She’ll hate it but you’ll think of something. Give some of your wages to the campaign… no she’ll hate that even more.
‘You won’t be working there forever, just keep your head down and get through it.’
—
Carly Marika Griffiths: Pub tonight?
Jak Churchwell: Dunno maybe
Carly Marika Griffiths: Maybe? You ok?
Jak Churchwell: Yes
Carly Marika Griffiths: Yes to pub?
Jak Churchwell: Yes to ok
Carly Marika Griffiths: You do know I won’t go away until yes to pub too?
Jak Churchwell: Dont want you to go away
Carly Marika Griffiths: 😌
Carly Marika Griffiths: Why not pub?
Jak Churchwell: No reason
Carly Marika Griffiths: In that case, pub tonight?
Jak Churchwell: Yes
Carly Marika Griffiths: Moonies
Carly Marika Griffiths: @7?
Jak Churchwell: Can we go the nuff?
Carly Marika Griffiths: Hmmm, why?
Jak Churchwell: Bit dodgy ankle so gettin bus
Carly Marika Griffiths: Ok. Nuff, 7.30ish?
Jak Churchwell: Yes
—
Sylvie walks through the Gardenhouse Cafe, looking left and right as she goes to see if her friends are already there. All the tables inside are free. But on a day like this, she can’t really imagine Polly or Ruth, certainly not Ruth, wanting to sit inside. Luckily, there are garden tables free.
Her friends soon arrive, together. She stands, hugs and air kisses. Ruth applies sunscreen to the back of her neck, shoulders and arms. Polly adjusts her big floppy straw hat and pulls down her white blouse sleeves to the wrists.
“I heard that stuff,” Polly points at Ruth’s tube of sunscreen, “gives you cancer.”
“Pfft,” replies Ruth, “I keep telling you to ignore all that kind of rubbish.”
The iron table rocks slightly as Sylvie pulls her chair out and sits back down. An ornate pepperpot wobbles. Polly kneels down and places a drink mat beneath one of the table legs. She then leans on the table to test if it is now even. The pepperpot falls over.
“Bollocks!” groans Polly.
“How’s Barney, Ruth?” asks Sylvie, ignoring Polly’s ongoing attempts to straighten the table.
“Oh, you know,” Ruth replies airily, “same old, same old. He was going to treat me to a meal out in town last night, apparently, going to drive round to Water Eaton and through one of the North Gates. His car’s registered through work somehow.
“But then he was needed at work, fire broke out some place on Cowley Business Park, had to go and do an assessment. Work, work, work. That’s all he ever talks about as well. To be frank, I’m thinking about options right now.”
Sylvie tuts sympathetically, “oh, I’m sorry,” before adding wistfully. “I haven’t been into town for over a year.”
“Closing down sale at Next,” recalls Ruth, “we all went down together, didn’t we? I think I went in every shop in Westgate that day. Half of them probably gone now. Gotta make the most of trips to town these days.”
Polly shouts from under the table, “there was a huge queue at Folly Bridge.”
“Oh, it’s such a pain isn’t it,” sighs Sylvie.
“Always such a huge queue at Folly Bridge…”
“Oh God, yes,” tuts Sylvie, “waiting for an hour I reckon.”
“Yeah but,” exclaims Ruth, “we had a good time.”
“Yeah, and I got these,” Sylvie lifts a foot to show off her sparkly silver trainers.
Polly is still on her hands and knees, trying various combinations of drink mats under table legs, when a young waiter arrives to take their order.
“Nduja on dark sour for me, please dear,” says Ruth, “and a bottle of Prosecco for us all.”
“Woo,” exclaims Polly hauling herself up, “gonna be one of those days is it Ruthy? I’ll have the eggs florentine, thank you.”
“Shakshuka for me please,” says Sylvie, “and a bottle of water for the table.”
“Not drinking?” asks Polly sharply.
“Yes, but only if London-based-for-salary-purposes but still somehow working-from-home Ruthy is paying. Have you seen the prices!”
All three laugh. The waiter taps at his electronic device, mutters to himself, taps some more and eventually walks off.
“That waiter is Arab, isn’t he?” exclaims Polly, “you don’t see so many of those skinny arab boys these days, do you? Such lovely firm arses!”
Sylvie, still smiling, rolls her eyes, “oh really Pols, he’s half your age.”
Ruth bounces up and down in her seat, “I don’t like you objectifying an entire race, Pols, I really don’t. But, hell yeah, lovely butt!”
“Anyway,” Sylvie tries to change the subject, “I had a Facebook memory the other day from a day out in Milton Keynes.”
“Was I there?” asks Polly.
“You both were, well you were both tagged anyway. It was mostly photos of coats and shoes I couldn’t afford!”
“I think I remember that day,” says Polly, “we drove round the same roundabout three or four times on the way back.”
“Yeah, that was it,” confirms Sylvie.
There’s a lull in the conversation and the prosecco, accompanied by three champagne flutes, and water arrive. Polly and Ruth pour themselves a glassful, Polly quickly sipping as it fizzes up. Sylvie gulps down several mouthfuls of water.
“How’s the world of East Oxford property management, Sylvs?”
“Don’t ask,” mutters Sylvie.
“That good, huh? Sorry.” Ruth changes the subject, “How’s your girl?”
“Studying hard, as ever. Hopefully getting a job on the Magdalen Arch.”
“Construction work?” asks Polly, surprised.
“Yeah,” confirms Sylvie, “Jak’s good with her hands and pretty tough.”
“Oh I see. Always was a bit of a tom boy, your Jacqueline,” Polly nods knowingly.
Sylvie doesn’t respond, unsure if Polly is having a go at Jak or just making an observation.
Ruth intervenes, “well, good luck to her I say. Good money to be made on the new wall by all accounts.”
“Bloody disgrace if you ask me,” complains Polly, “they could spend that money on the roads or more buses for pensioners or more community nurses. When my mum got flu they wouldn’t take her to hospital because it’s a community thing but there was no nurse available for over a week. Not a single one. She could’ve died in that time. What do they need a big wall for anyway?”
Sylvie shrugs, “Jak doesn’t like it either but needs must.”
—
Jak scratches one arm and then the other. A car slows down as it passes by. She feels an anxious twinge in her stomach. And scratches faster.
The car turns a corner and passes out of sight. Jak takes a deep breath and thrusts her hands into her dungaree pockets. And briefly sits back on the pub bench, feeling the sun on her face.
But it’s no good. Another car slows down, provoking another anxious twinge, before turning the corner. She stands up and goes inside the pub.
“Wadda ya want?” asks the young barman in a faux-New York accent.
“Um, I’m just,” Jak struggles, “waiting for a friend.”
“You gotta get a drink,” insists the barman.
“When my friend gets here…”
“You gotta get a drink if you wanna sit.”
“Um, look, um, okay,” Jak stalls, “I’ll look at what you’ve got…”
“We got beer. We got wine. Red, white or rosé. We got spirits. Gin, vodka, JD, rum. We got mixers. We got soft drinks. We got…”
Jak looks around. The pub is nearly empty – a couple of old guys sitting at separate tables, sipping lager and watching horse racing from America on a television that takes up most of one wall. One of them glances at Jak, shakes his head, and turns back to the screen.
“I’ll get it, whatever she’s having, I’ll get it!” announces Carly as she walks through the door, “sorry I’m late Jax, forgot how far this place is from anywhere. Is it really your local?”
“Not exactly,” shrugs Jak, “but it’s easy to get to. Bus stop right outside.”
“Right, what you having?”
“Rum’n…”
“… one rum’n’coke coming right up!” Carly hugs Jak and gives her a quick kiss on the lips.
The barman glares at them both in turn. But pours a rum’n’coke. No lemon. No ice. And then a Guinness for Carly, huffing and puffing as he does so about how long it takes before handing over a pint with a very large head.
“Top it up please, barman,” asks Carly politely.
“That’s how Guinness comes, lady,” his attempt at a New York accent faltering, “you just gotta have it the way it comes.”
Carly rolls her eyes, “I paid for a pint, just top it up please, barman.”
They find a small table in a corner that doesn’t have a view of the television. Carly runs her finger round the top of her pint and licks the foam off.
“Look, Jax, sorry for messing you about on Saturday. And you ending up like that. It was kinda my fault, and my stupid fucking uncle’s fault… well no, it was my fault for trusting my stupid fucking uncle. Anyway, I’m really sorry,” Carly puts her head to one side as she looks into Jak’s weary eyes, “do you forgive me?”
Jak shrugs again, “yeah.”
Carly frowns, “are you okay? You look pale. Do you want to sit outside in the sunshine?”
“No,” Jak shakes her head, “not really.”
“Not really okay?”
“I want to sit inside to drink. And then a walk. But not sitting outside, it’s too busy a road,” Jak lowers her voice, “but I don’t like it inside here either, to be honest Tabs. It was a bad idea to come here, sorry, the two of us. You know, I feel kinda awkward somehow, like I’m not supposed to… like we’re not supposed to… like we’re being made to feel we’re not supposed to be here, it’s you know…”
“Yeah, I do. Let’s just drink our drinks and go. Your ankle okay?”
Jak nods and they soon head off, in the direction of Iffley Road, through a maze of narrow, red-brick terraced streets. A small party of swifts screams overhead.
“You know swifts never land, never perch,” explains Jak, “if you see a bird perched on a wire, it won’t be a swift. Maybe a swallow or a house martin. But definitely not a swift.”
“Why do they scream like that?” asks Carly, “it’s a horrible noise!”
“I like them,” protests Jak, “they’re just claiming their nesting territory. That’s what they do.”
“Ah, I like them now too. Activist birds sticking up for their housing rights. Good on them!”
Off Iffley Road runs Jackdaw Lane, a street that becomes a track that becomes a footpath down, through woods and meadows, towards the River Thames.
Jak leads Carly off the path to head through a dense thicket of trees, clambering gingerly over exposed roots to a shaded channel. A dried out mud bank descends to murky and sluggish water.
They sit on a fallen branch and watch insects skittering along the surface. On the other side of the water channel is an ivy-clad red-brick wall topped with barbed wire. Slightly upstream, a spiked metal fence hangs across, inches above the surface, completely blocking it to boats.
“What is this place?” Carly shivers, “a secret duck pond?”
“They forgot to tell the ducks,” points out Jak.
“Very exclusive, maybe the bouncers won’t let ordinary ducks in. Like one of those dingy basement clubs that trendy people are into but they turn the likes of us away because,” Carly puts on a posh, plummy voice, “we don’t much care for the cut of your gib.”
Jak shakes her head emphatically, “no.”
“Well, what is it then?”
“The River Cherwell,” asserts Jak, as if daring Carly to contradict.
“What? Wait, it can’t be, you’re kidding me. It’s way too small, it’s just a ditch.”
“One channel of it. The only bit you can get to, from our side. It gets all split up by the college boat houses so when it meets the Thames it’s just all these little channels not like a proper river at all.”
“Oh, I see,” Carly rolls her eyes, “typical. It’s like even the rivers have walls built now. The protest is going ahead, you know, against the Wall.
“On Monday morning, when the workers are supposed to show up, we’re going to try and stop it. Or disrupt it anyway. I’m helping organise. If we can get good number down there we can really make a difference, get more people questioning it, stop them seeing it as just another job, just another, you know, just another ordinary thing that’s happening. And really kick back against it rather than just accept it as somehow inevitable.
“Trouble is, it’s really early in the morning. Difficult getting people out that early, especially, you should know, students. But I’m working on it, working most of the days to be honest. Glad to see you though, Jax, of course. So glad to see you. Will do me good just to enjoy life for one evening.”
Jak says nothing. They struggle along the overgrown bank to its end – the final, diminished confluence of the Cherwell and the wide Thames.
As they head away from the river, across an open expanse of grass, a swallow darts fast and low in front of them. Jak silently raises her hand as a signal to stop. And she stands watching the bird fly back and forth, as if on a zig-zagging line of tracks, across the meadow.
“I love swallows,” smiles Jak, “they were a bit late this year. Sand storms in North Africa somewhere. But now they’re here, they seem to be doing well.”
“They’re migrants?” asks Carly, “From Africa?”
“Yeah. They fly back and forth thousands of miles every year. Amazing really. And such beautiful fliers. Look at the way she goes so fast but so close to the ground, even when it’s uneven ground.”
Carly lifts a hand to the side of her head, “courageous and brilliant Mrs Swallow, I salute you.”
“Yeah,” agrees Jak, “and she’s a great insect hunter. Flies and bugs of Oxford beware!”
“Ha ha, too right!”
A hush falls on the meadow, as if all the other birds and animals are also watching that one swallow. After some time, instead of turning for yet another pass, she abruptly banks up and to her right over a line of bushes and out across the river to seek a fresh hunting meadow on the other side.
They head back towards Iffley Road. And then Cowley Road.
“Quick one in Moonies?” suggests Carly, “promise there won’t be campaign chat, well not much. Just a whole lot of love, dreams and freedom.”
“Oh go on then, you’ve twisted my arm,” laughs Jak, before remembering to add, “and my ankle seems okay too.”
The evening sun is low as they walk down Cowley Road, arm in arm and each with a hand raised to shield their eyes. A big golden sun. But, even so, the streetlights, takeaway shop signs and phones of strangers are starting to glow.
Down a side street, the Moonshine awaits, filling up for the evening, window lights and vaping customers spilling out onto the pavement.
“Carly and Jak, my lovely lovelies, so glad to see you together tonight. Was a bit worried when Jak was here with some other luscious lady on Saturday,” Jazz winks at Carly, “but now your table awaits, complete with romantic candle.”
And so they drink. Just as they’re about to go, Jazz returns to the table.
“Would you like to be introduced to little Charlie?”
“Who’s Charlie?” asks Jak, puzzled.
“Charlie is an old friend,” explains Jazz, grinning, “Donny invited him but has gone to bed early, bit of a headache, not in the mood for Charlie after all.”
Carly leans over, nearly falling as she does so, and whispers in Jak’s ear, “cocaine. Only if you want to.”
“Okay.”
—
Jak stands, turning round and round on the pavement, arms wide open and facing upwards, and shouts at the top of her voice, “so many stars, I can’t see the sky!”
Carly starts singing, “It might seem crazy what I’m gonna say, Sunshine is here so you can take a break, La la la la-la gonna go to space, La-la-la la I don’t care baby by the way. Cos I’m…”
She cups an ear towards Jak, who stops spinning.
“Don’t just stand there, sing along,” insists Carly.
“Don’t know the words, Tabs,” frowns Jak.
“What? Oh. Cos I’m happy, Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof, Cos I’m happy, Clap along if you feel happiness is the truth, Cos I’m happy…”
Jak starts clapping along in time.
“Clap along if you feel happiness la, la, la-, Cos I’m happy, Clap along if you feel that’s what you want to do…”
And joins in, with a loud and tuneless, “Cos I’m happy!”
The second verse peters out as Carly tries but fails to remember the lyrics, la-la-las her way through to the chorus and ends up giggling so much she has to stop and bend over, hands on her thighs.
“What’s that song?” asks Jak, wiping away a tear of laughter.
Carly takes a deep breath, “my mum. She used to sing it to me when I was little. It makes me think of her. I like it.”
“Oh your mum…” Jak’s memory is foggy, “where’s your mum live again?”
Carly’s voice turns flat, “I told you before. She died.”
Jak feels a sudden emptiness in her chest, as if her lungs had deflated, and cocaine sweat burns on her brow. She struggles to speak, “oh, um, oh I’m sorry, I’m I’m, yeah, really sorry.”
“Cancer. When I was ten.”
“Oh yeah. I remember now. I’m really, really sorry. Tabs, I’m really sorry about your mum. And about forgetting.”
Carly quickly rolls and lights a cigarette. And wipes away a quiet tear.
They walk along St Clement’s and then up Morrell Avenue by the side of South Park, Jak’s hand brushing limply against the metal park railings. Carly reaches out to touch Jak’s arm, “it’s okay. You can’t remember everything all the time.”
A paving stone beneath a streetlight has coloured chalk lines round it, and the chalk lines continue, stretching away into shadow.
Jak stops and looks down, “what’s that drawing?”
Carly, who had continued walking for a few steps, glances back, “hopscotch! Let’s play!”
The young lovers skip and hop and giggle back and forth along the pavement, sometimes stumbling, sometimes missing a square or using the wrong foot, often ending up in each other’s arms.
The game continues for so long they barely have the strength left to walk to Carly’s flat. But as soon as they are up the stairs and through the door, they feel the hairs rise on each other’s arms as a new, urgent energy infuses their bodies from their fingers to the tips of their tongues.
They embrace, kiss and explore their bodies together without expectations or awkwardness, at ease with pleasure and with themselves. Jak wants this to go on forever, like the most beautiful dream where nothing, absolutely nothing, can intrude.
For a long time they lie, eyes wide, not wanting to let go, until Jak’s exhausted limbs go soft with sleep. And Carly eventually falls asleep too, smiling, with Jak’s arm draped across her gently rising and falling breasts.