Got up at 4am to deliver Mom to the airport, came back to get the family off to their pursuits. I love to see the sun coming up and the slow waking of the highways, and the birds chiming in like harps in an overture. I napped on the couch for an hour, until the piano tuner arrived. Although I envied his coffee I stuck to water and sat watching him, listless and reluctant to move. He told me about his army days, and I told stories about my reporter days as he slid the keys up a quarter to half a note.
Surprising that I remember Ollie so well. The ex-villian who inspired scenes in Butterfly Eyes, who taught me how foolish and naive I'd been, haring around the ghettos of London in my British-racing-green mini as if being a reporter gave me some invisible shield.
One of our regular assignments were 'death calls'. Someone dies, we hear it on the police report, the editor sends you to interview survivors. In the posher districts, death came via accidents, or dodgy fire alarms and rollup cigarettes that slow-burned the carpet. But in the dicier parts of North London, you got blown up or stabbed or firebombed. I'd pull out the A-Z street atlas, get into the Mini with my notebook and pencil tucked into my purse, and go knocking on doors trying to get quotes from neighbors.
In the nicer districts, neighbours would open the door, invite you in for a cuppa, and say a non-committal sentence or two. In the dodgy places, you'd stand on some dirty, crooked and cracked step staring at a door that hadn't seen paint in two decades, and knock. Years later when I studied energy work, I learned to recognize the feeling of static electricity pillowing out from a door as a warning signal.
It took a couple years on this beat to learn how British police work. They didn't run out and arrest a suspect. They let him (or her) marinate for a few days, and kept poking back for questions, biding their time, gathering evidence. Then at 5am, they'd pounce and make the arrest. It gave the villain a false sense of security. It lulled him. And it gave the reporter time to go knock on his door and interview - guess who? - the murderer! We'd be invited in, would make cups of tea for this "devastated" partner, get quotes about how wonderful the little spouse was and what kind of maniac would do this? only to find out from police later that the bloody knife was under the bed in the next room. Not a pleasant job.
Now I've got a guardian angel who's been doing double-overtime since my birth, and this spell in London didn't give the heavenly hosts much relief. I remember my first interview with Ollie particularly well. He'd come into the newspaper offices, wanting to see a reporter about a story and I got sent down, a little cutie in a size six skirt and a red bolero jacket with a pencil and a spiral-bound. He had a tale about an upstairs neighbour who tried to kill him with a shotgun as he lugged groceries off the bus and up 15 flights to his apartment in the aptly-named (because it was so damned depressing) Dylan Thomas block of flats. I couldn't tell which pissed off Ollie more: that he dropped twenty-quid's worth of vegetables onto the linoleum skeedaddling to his apartment, or that the man had the front to try to shoot him. I agreed to come hear the whole story on Wednesday, when we'd finished putting the paper to bed.
The day comes and I find myself staring up at this tower block of concrete and steel with drab curtains in each dirty window. The elevator reeks of pee and vomit, and as the doors close I get the feeling: I'm not supposed to be here. I make it safely to floor 15, and find his door at the end of the concrete corridor. My knocking creates a scuffle on the other side as he shoots back bolts and finally peeks out through two inches of brass chain, then apologizes for being so careful.
Inside it's a dragon's cave. He's got turkish carpets, parquet, black leather sofas, a smoked glass coffee table: understated, expensive, and careful. I sit perched on the edge of the sofa, and make chicken-scratches in my notebook as he talks about this man, who had been in The 'Ville, and their mutual criminal acquaintances. I couldn't print these allegations - no way to verify anything. Like the Ethiopian refugees I'd met who'd seen relatives thrown to the crocodiles, Ollie needed to tell his story to someone, and I was 'it'.
After giving me a fruit juice glass of orange squash, and answering a few questions, I got up to leave. It occurred to me, I might not get out. That my editor didn't know when I'd be back or Ollie's address or his name. And with all those locks and bolts and fifteen floors between me and the car...but there he was, all gentleman, bustling at the door. That's when I noticed a square box on the wall next to the door. Balanced against the lintel on top of this box was a long, sharp, cruel-looking knife with a wooden handle. He noticed me noticing the knife and explained: 'in case he comes again.'
That afternoon I turned a corner. That afternoon I realized that crime and criminals are cheap glamour, and I'd bought into that kind of excitement, at my own personal expense. That afternoon I stopped doing death calls. I'd drive by a house, but I didn't have the heart to knock and go inside. When my editor said: "weren't they home?" I lied, and felt like a weasel but nothing could make me go back.
Thank you Ollie.
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