I'd like butter too

The bricks are black, encrusted with centuries of grime growing like barnacles into the walls. The puddles, a pale grey, edged with black, stare up like eyes opaque, unseeing.

The city's dirt rises as if to heaven, changes its mind, and settles on the walls and windowsills until it grows into the fabric like a scar.

Two old tramps stand by the arched entrance to the largest building. Their voluminous and tattered clothes seem perfectly in place. They wait as if waiting is a pleasure.

One turns towards the other, an arm raised, his fingers tap his companion's coat lapel. "They did it, Custer. They said they'd do it, and now you'll see." The voice is soft, flowing almost aimlessly round the words.

"There'll never anythin' 'appen. Never at all." Custer looks up at the roofs opposite. He shifts his feet, planting them firmly on the pavement, defying contradiction.

"They did it. Something's got to 'appen now, you'll see." The breeze catches the bits of his coat which flap about him, and they both lapse back into silence.

What else is there to say? Repeat it all again? They've done that once already. Instead they concentrate upon their waiting.

Two other men walk slowly down the street on the opposite side of the road, muttering, and then there is silence. Even the cars look abandoned rather than merely parked, as the slight breeze piles up rubbish against a wheel, and city dust settles upon windscreens.

An old man with a walking stick comes tapping up the street. He is smartly dressed; his tie is neat, his shirt is old fashioned, off-white traced with a light brown check. His coat is trimmed with black fur at the collar, and his face has a tight, much-scrubbed look.

Mr Bentley always takes this short cut to the high street. He must be seventy now, but he walks with a lively step. His eager face and businesslike gait show he is going somewhere. He has a purpose, but the purpose must be beyond this street. This street has no purpose, it is a throwback to some era of dark satanic mills. It exists like a painting from the past.

Another man is coming along on the other side of the street. He is also walking purposefully. The stride is fast and nervous. His clothes swing about him. He looks like a tramp, but no tramp walks that fast.

As he comes closer he stops, faces the wall, and kicks it with his heavy boot. He kicks, and kicks, and a muffled sound of violent words echoes off the black bricks. He turns and walks back the way he came. Past the railings of the steelyard, skirting a broken paving slab, back towards the high street with the fairy castle spires of St Pancras station lifting up above the tatty shambles of back street Camden.

But he cannot see the street, or the delicate spires. His eyes are blurred by things inside himself he doesn't wish to see but cannot push away.

The man with the walking stick is thinking. He will stop at the bakers and buy some buns for his granddaughter. At tea-time he'll recite her favourite poem

The King asked
The Queen, and
The Queen asked
The Dairymaid:
Could we have some butter for
The Royal slice of bread?"

And her eyes will sparkle, and she'll fidget and giggle

The Dairymaid
said, "Certainly,
I'll go and tell
The cow
Now
Before she goes to bed."

And they'll put lots and lots of butter on their buns.

He swings his walking stick. His step is light and carefree. He looks round, beaming on the street that doesn't notice.

On the other side of the road the man in tattered coat is still pacing up and down beside the railings. His arms suddenly flap, his shoulders heave in a despairing spasm, like a dying fish on a concrete slab. He turns and clutches at the railings. He pulls at them, grasping with a desperate grip. His knuckles bulge, he stares unseeing through the black bars towards the grey tarmac of the school yard, deserted and silent.

He turns and looks briefly at the pensioner with his stick, briefly at the tramps, then his gaze travels up the walls of the great building towards the massive roof. His face is lined and stubbly. It's dirty like the street, and his eyes don't seem to focus. It is a young face, of a man still in his teens, but it is lined with pain and anger. His mouth is working, chewing words of anger that he cannot spit out. He cuffs the pavement, squats down, and stares at the stones in front of him.

The old man crosses the road, his stick tapping regularly. He smiles, "You all right son?"

The other stands, his fists clench in front of him. He kicks the wall and through clenched teeth he hisses, "Don't talk to me, just don't bloody talk to me," And blunders on round the corner.

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