Whispers Under Ground

white, unremarkably dressed but strangely difficult to look at – as if resisting my gaze.
    I heard a whistle – loud, piercing, like someone signalling a sheep dog.
    ‘Somebody wants your attention,’ said Lesley.
    I followed her gaze to an alcove at the far end of the garden where a woman with hair extensions of silver and electric blue was waving us over. It was Effra Thames. Tall and elongated like a wicked Jamaican girl who’d got on the wrong side of Willy Wonka, she had a narrow face, a rosebud mouth and eyes that slanted up at the corners. When she was sure that she had our attention she stopped waving, leaned back in her white plastic chair and smiled.
    The platforms were connected by planks of wood laid between them. There were no safety rails and the planks bent alarmingly when you stepped on them. Needless to say, we took our time making our way across.
    Next to Effra sat a large black man with a serious face and strong jaw. He stood politely as we approached and held out his hand. He wore a scarlet frock coat with tails and white facing and gold braid over a black T-shirt tucked into the belt of his winter camouflage trousers.
    ‘My name is Oberon,’ he said. ‘And you must be the famous Constable Grant that I have heard so much about.’ His accent was pure London but deeper, slower, older.
    I shook his hand. It was large, rough-skinned, and there was just a flash of something. Gunpowder I thought, maybe pine needles, shouting, fear, exultation. He turned his attention to Lesley.
    ‘And the equally famous Constable May,’ said Oberon, and instead of shaking her hand lifted it to his lips. Some people can get away with stuff like that. I looked at Effra, who rolled her eyes in sympathy.
    Once Oberon released Lesley’s hand I introduced her to Effra Thames, goddess of the River Effra, Brixton Market and the Peckham branch of the Black Beauticians Society.
    ‘Sit with us,’ said Effra. ‘Have a drink.’
    My knees bent in an involuntary step towards the chair, but given that by this point just about every fricking one of the Thames sisters had tried the glamour on me at some time or other, the compulsion evaporated almost immediately. I pulled the chair out for Lesley instead, which earned me a strange look from her. Oberon smiled slyly and sipped his beer. ‘It’s a terrible habit she’s fallen into,’ he said and ignored a sharp look from Effra. ‘But it’s like that when you’re young and freshly minted.’
    We took our seats opposite.
    ‘I shall buy this round,’ he said. ‘And on my oath as a soldier there shall be no obligation upon you and yours for this gift.’ He lifted his hand and clicked his fingers just once and a waitress turned towards us. ‘But you can get the next round in, though,’ he added.
    The waitress skipped across the plank bridges to our platform without looking down, which was a neat trick for someone in white high-heeled sandals. Oberon ordered three ‘Macs’ and a Perrier.
    ‘Fleet says you’ve shown a sudden interest in the finer things in life,’ said Effra. ‘She was well startled to find you in the gallery last night, called me straight away and wouldn’t shut up about it.’ She laughed at my expression. ‘You’re thinking it’s south versus north London, aren’t you? That we don’t talk to each other? She’s my sister. I taught her to read.’
    I love the Rivers, upstream or downstream, they like to chat and if you’re sensible you just keep your mouth shut and eventually they’ll tell you what you want to know.
    ‘And here you are in my ends,’ said Effra. ‘My manor.’
    I shrugged.
    ‘It’s all our manor,’ said Lesley. ‘The whole bleeding city.’
    Whatever Effra planned to say was cut short by the drinks arriving, three brown and one green bottle.
    ‘You’ll like this beer,’ said Oberon. ‘It’s from a micro-brewery in the States. The management brings it over a crate at a time.’ He handed the waitress a fifty. ‘Keep the change,’ he said. ‘It’s damned expensive, though.’
    ‘So are you king of the fairies?’ I asked Oberon.
    He chuckled. ‘No,’ he said. ‘My master fancied himself a man of the Enlightenment and a scholar and thus I was named Oberon. It was the practice in those days, many of my friends were called similar – Cassius, Brutus, Phoebe who truly was as beautiful as the sun, and of course Titus.’
    I’d done the Middle Passage in year eight at school – I knew slave names when I