Lethal White

Can you spare me an ideal or two?
Henrik Ibsen, Rosmersholm
“You’ve been brainwashed to think it’s got to be this way,” said the
anarchist. “See, you need to get your head around a world without leaders. No
individual invested with more power than any other individual.”
“Right,” said Robin. “So tha’ve never voted?”
The Duke of Wellington in Hackney was overflowing this Saturday evening,
but the deepening darkness was still warm and a dozen or so of Flick’s friends
and comrades in CORE were happy to mill around on the pavement on Balls
Pond Road, drinking before heading back to Flick’s for a party. Many of the
group were holding carrier bags containing cheap wine and beer.
The anarchist laughed and shook his head. He was stringy, blond and
dreadlocked, with many piercings, and Robin thought she recognized him from
the mêlée in the crowd on the night of the Paralympic reception. He had already
shown her the squidgy lump of cannabis he had brought to contribute to the
general amusement of the party. Robin, whose experience of drugs was restricted
to a couple of long-ago tokes on a bong back in her interrupted university career,
had feigned an intelligent interest.
“You’re so naive!” he told her now. “Voting’s part of the great democratic
con! Pointless ritual designed to make the masses think they’ve got a say and
influence! It’s a power-sharing deal between the Red and Blue Tories!”
“What’s th’answer, then, if it’s not voting?” asked Robin, cradling her barely
touched half of lager.
“Community organization, resistance and mass protest,” said the anarchist.
“’Oo organizes it?”
“The communities themselves. You’ve been bloody brainwashed,” repeated
the anarchist, mitigating the harshness of the statement with a small grin,
because he liked Yorkshire socialist Bobbi Cunliffe’s plain-spokenness, “to think
you need leaders, but people can do it for themselves once they’ve woken up.”
“An’ who’s gonna wake ’em up?”
“Activists,” he said, slapping his own thin chest, “who aren’t in it for money
or power, who want empowerment of the people, not control. See, even unions—
no offense,” he said, because he knew that Bobbi Cunliffe’s father had been a

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trade union man, “same power structures, the leaders start aping management—”
“Y’all right, Bobbi?” asked Flick, pushing to her side through the crowd.
“We’ll head off in a minute, that was last orders. What’re you telling her, Alf?”
she added, with a trace of anxiety.
After a long Saturday in the jewelry shop, and the exchange of many (in
Robin’s case, wholly imaginary) confidences about their love lives, Flick had
become enamored of Bobbi Cunliffe to the point that her own speech had
become slightly tinged with a Yorkshire accent. Towards the end of the
afternoon she had extended a two-fold invitation, firstly to that night’s party, and
secondly, pending her friend Hayley’s approval, a rented half-share in the
bedroom recently vacated by their ex-flatmate, Laura. Robin had accepted both
offers, placed her phone call to Strike, and agreed to Flick’s suggestion that, in
the absence of the Wiccan, they lock up the shop early.
“’E’s just telling me ’ow me dad was no better’n a capitalist,” said Robin.
“Fuck’s sake, Alf,” said Flick, as the anarchist laughingly protested.
Their group straggled out along the pavement as they headed off through the
night towards Flick’s flat. In spite of his obvious desire to continue instructing
Robin in the rudiments of a leaderless world, the anarchist was ousted from
Robin’s side by Flick herself, who wanted to talk about Jimmy. Ten yards ahead
of them, a plump, bearded and pigeon-toed Marxist, who had been introduced to
Robin as Digby, walked alone, leading the way to the party.
“Doubt Jimmy’ll come,” she told Robin, and the latter thought she was
arming herself against disappointment. “He’s in a bad mood. Worried about his
brother.”
“What’s wrong wi’ him?”
“It’s schizophrenic affection something,” said Flick. Robin was sure that
Flick knew the correct term, but that she thought it appropriate, faced with a
genuine member of the working classes, to feign a lack of education. She had let
slip the fact that she had started a university course during the afternoon, seemed
to regret it, and ever since had dropped her “h”s a little more consistently. “I
dunno. ’E ’as delusions.”
“Like what?”
“Thinks there’s government conspiracies against him and that,” said Flick,
with a little laugh.
“Bloody ’ell,” said Bobbi.
“Yeah, he’s in ’ospital. He’s caused Jimmy a lot of trouble,” said Flick. She
stuck a thin roll-up in her mouth and lit it. “You ever heard of Cormoran Strike?”
She said the name as though it were another medical condition.
“Who?”

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“Private detective,” said Flick. “He’s been in the papers a lot. Remember that
model who fell out of a window, Lula Landry?”
“Vaguely,” said Robin.
Flick glanced over her shoulder to check that Alf the anarchist was out of
earshot.
“Well, Billy went to see ’im.”
“The fook for?”
“Because Billy’s mental, keep up,” said Flick, with another little laugh. “He
thinks he saw something years ago—”
“What?” said Robin, quicker than she meant to.
“A murder,” said Flick.
“Christ.”
“He didn’t, obviously,” said Flick. “It’s all bollocks. I mean, he saw
something, but nobody bloody died. Jimmy was there, he knows. Anyway, Billy
goes to this detective prick and now we can’t get rid of him.”
“What d’you mean?”
“’E beat Jimmy up.”
“The detective did?”
“Yeah. Followed Jimmy on a protest we were doing, beat him up, got Jimmy
fooking arrested.”
“Bloody ’ell,” said Bobbi Cunliffe again.
“Deep state, innit?” said Flick. “Ex-army. Queen and the flag and all that
fucking shit. See, Jimmy and me had something on a Conservative minister—”
“Did you?”
“Yeah,” said Flick. “I can’t tell you what, but it was big, and then Billy
fucked everything up. Sent Strike sniffing around, and we reckon he got in touch
with the gov—”
She broke off suddenly, her eyes following a small car that had just passed
them.
“Thought that was Jimmy’s for a moment. It isn’t. I forgot, it’s off the road.”
Her mood sagged again. During the slack periods in the shop that day, Flick
had told Robin the history of her and Jimmy’s relationship, which in its endless
fights and truces and renegotiations might have been the story of some disputed
territory. They seemed never to have reached an agreement on the relationship’s
status and every treaty had fallen apart in rows and betrayals.
“You’re well shot of him, if you ask me,” said Robin, who all day had
pursued a cautious policy of trying to prize Flick free of the loyalty she clearly
felt she owed the faithless Jimmy, in the hope of extracting confidences.
“Wish it were that easy,” said Flick, lapsing into the cod-Yorkshire she had

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adopted towards the end of the day. “It’s not like I wanna be married or anything
—” she laughed at the very idea, “—he can sleep with who he likes and so can I.
That’s the deal and I’m fine with it.”
She had already explained to Robin at the shop that she identified as both
genderqueer and pansexual, while monogamy, properly looked at, was a tool of
patriarchal oppression, a line that Robin suspected had been originally Jimmy’s.
They walked in silence for a while. In the denser darkness they entered an
underpass, when Flick said with a flicker of spirit:
“I mean, I’ve had my own fun.”
“Glad to hear it,” said Robin.
“Jimmy wouldn’t like it if he knew all of them, either.”
The pigeon-toed Marxist walking ahead of them turned his head at that and
Robin saw, by the light of a streetlamp, his little smirk as he glanced back at
Flick, whose words he had clearly caught. The latter, being engaged in trying to
dig her door keys out of the bottom of her cluttered messenger bag, seemed not
to notice.
“We’re up there,” Flick said, pointing at three lit windows above a small
sports shop. “Hayley’s back already. Shit, I hope she remembered to hide my
laptop.”
The flat was reached from a back entrance, up a cold, narrow stairwell. Even
from the bottom of the stairs, they could hear the persistent bass of “Niggas in
Paris,” and on reaching the landing, they found the flimsy door standing open
and a number of people leaning up against the walls outside, sharing an
enormous joint.
“What’s fifty grand to a muh-fucka like me,” rapped Kanye West, from the
dimly lit interior.
The dozen or so newcomers met a substantial number of people already
inside. It was astonishing how many people could fit into such a small flat,
which evidently comprised only two bedrooms, a minuscule shower room and a
cupboard-sized kitchenette.
“We’re using Hayley’s room to dance in, it’s the biggest, the one you’ll
share,” Flick shouted in Robin’s ear as they forced their way towards the dark
room.
Lit only by two strings of fairy lights, and the small rectangles of lights
emanating from the phones of those checking their texts and social media, the
room was already thick with the smell of cannabis and lined with people. Four
young women and a man were managing to dance in the middle of the floor. Her
eyes growing gradually accustomed to the darkness, Robin saw the skeletal
frame of a bunk bed, already supporting a few people sharing a joint on the top

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mattress. She could just make out an LGBT rainbow flag and a poster of True
Blood’s Tara Thornton on the wall behind them.
Jimmy and Barclay had already combed this flat for the piece of paper Flick
had stolen from Chiswell and not found it, Robin reminded herself, peering
through the darkness for likely hiding places. Robin wondered whether Flick
kept it permanently on her person, but Jimmy would surely have thought of that,
and in spite of Flick’s avowed pansexuality, Robin thought Jimmy better placed
than herself to persuade Flick to strip. Meanwhile, the darkness might be Robin’s
friend as she slid her hand beneath mattresses and rugs, but the party was so
densely packed that she doubted it would be possible to do without alerting
somebody to her odd behavior.
“… find Hayley,” Flick bellowed in Robin’s ear, pressing a can of lager into
her hand, and they edged out of the room again into Flick’s own bedroom, which
seemed even smaller than it really was because every inch of the walls and
ceiling had been covered in political flyers and posters, the orange of CORE and
the black and red of the Real Socialist Party predominating. A gigantic
Palestinian flag was pinned over the mattress on the floor.
Five people were already inside this room, which was lit by a solitary lamp.
A pair of young women, one black, one white, lay entwined on the mattress on
the floor, while podgy, bearded Digby had taken up a position on the floor,
talking to them. Two teenage boys stood awkwardly against the wall, furtively
watching the girls on the bed, their heads close together as they rolled a joint.
“Hayley, this is Bobbi,” said Flick. “She’s interested in Laura’s half of the
room.”
Both girls on the bed looked around: the tall, shaven-headed, sleepy-eyed
peroxide blonde answered.
“I’ve already said Shanice can move in,” said the blonde, sounding stoned,
and the petite black girl in her arms kissed her on the neck.
“Oh,” said Flick, turning in consternation to Robin. “Shit. Sorry.”
“You’re all right,” said Robin, feigning bravery in the face of
disappointment.
“Flick,” someone called from the hall, “it’s Jimmy downstairs.”
“Oh, fuck,” said Flick, flustered, but Robin saw the pleasure flare in her face.
“Wait there,” she said to Robin, and left for the press of bodies in the hall.
“Bougie girl, grab her hand,” rapped Jay-Z from the other room.
Pretending to be interested in the conversation between the girls on the bed
and Digby, Robin slid down the wall to sit on the laminate floor, sipping her
lager while she covertly surveyed Flick’s bedroom. It had evidently been tidied
for the party. There was no wardrobe, but a clothes rail holding coats and the

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occasional dress, while T-shirts and sweaters were halfheartedly folded in a dark
corner. A small number of Beanie Babies sat on top of the chest of drawers,
along with a clutter of makeup, while various placards stood jumbled in a corner.
Jimmy and Barclay must surely have been thoroughly through this room. Robin
wondered whether they had thought of searching behind all these flyers.
Unfortunately, even if they hadn’t, she could hardly start unpinning them now.
“Look, this is basic stuff,” said Digby, addressing the girls on the bed.
“You’ll agree that capitalism depends in part on the poorly paid labor of women,
right? So feminism, if it’s to be effective, must also be Marxist, the one implies
the other.”
“Patriarchy is about more than capitalism,” said Shanice.
Out of the corner of her eye, Robin saw Jimmy fighting his way through the
narrow hall, his arm around Flick’s neck. The latter appeared happier than she
had all evening.
“Women’s oppression is inextricably linked to their inability to enter the
labor force,” announced Digby.
The drowsy-eyed Hayley disentangled herself from Shanice to extend her
hand towards the black-clad teenagers in a silent request. Their joint passed over
Robin’s head.
“Sorry ’bout the room,” Hayley said vaguely to Robin, after taking a long
toke. “Bastard getting a place in London, innit?”
“Total bastard,” said Robin.
“—because you want to subsume feminism within the larger ideology of
Marxism.”
“There’s no subsuming, the aims are identical!” said Digby, with an
incredulous little laugh.
Hayley tried to give Shanice the joint, but the impassioned Shanice waved it
away.
“Where are you Marxists when we’re challenging the ideal of the
heteronormative family?” she demanded of Digby.
“Hear, hear,” said Hayley vaguely, snuggling closer to Shanice and shoving
the teenagers’ joint at Robin, who passed it straight back to the boys. Interested
though they had been in the lesbians, they promptly left the bedroom before
anybody else could offer their meager supply of drugs around.
“I used to have some of them,” Robin said aloud, getting to her feet, but
nobody was listening. Digby took the opportunity to peek up Robin’s short black
skirt as she passed close to him on her way to the chest of drawers. Under cover
of the increasingly heated conversation about feminism and Marxism, and with
the appearance of vaguely nostalgic interest, Robin picked up and put down each

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of Flick’s Beanie Babies in turn, feeling through the thin plush to the plastic
beads and stuffing within. None of them felt as though they had been opened up
and re-sewn to conceal a piece of paper.
With a sense of slight hopelessness, she returned to the dark hall, where
people stood pressed together, spilling out onto the landing.
A girl was hammering on the door of the bathroom.
“Stop shagging in there, I need a piss!” she said, to the amusement of various
people standing around.