In the Kettle
Cross-posted from my LJ.
Parliament Square, 9th December 2010.
We are surrounded.
Just half an hour ago the sun was setting behind Big Ben, coating it with gold. A Japanese tourist stopped to take a photograph of my banner. Back then—after the initial push into Parliament Square—the atmosphere had been relaxed, people smiling in the winter sunshine. When the police took off their fluorescent jackets and raised their shields I’d drifted around the crowd, keeping to the fringes but not yet alarmed.
Now the cops stand shoulder to shoulder across Parliament Street, where not so long ago people had been walking up-and-down freely. They are clad in black, their helmets glinting in the evening light. The crowds have thinned and I wonder if the Japanese tourist is still among them, caught up—bewildered—along with the other sight-seers who at first couldn’t believe their luck.
The stench of solvent creeps up my nostrils as I lean against the sandstone, scribbling into my notebook. Some guys are spraying graffiti onto the walls.
I take out my phone and try to call John. At first the call fails to connect and then all I can hear is sirens.
Someone walks past with a banner that reads ‘This Is Not A Good Sign’.
*
I don’t get any information from the officers. It is clear that they’re letting nobody out. Bizarrely, the entrance to Westminster Station is in front of the line. I walk down the stairs and come to a set of shutters. Of course the station is closed, as are the streets above, the traffic lights changing eerily from red to green to amber.
“Don’t you think it is against the law not to provide toilets if there is a public gathering?”
The woman who says this is petite and dressed in a flimsy cardigan and thin overcoat. She looks annoyed. If we’re lucky it will be against the law to let people freeze to death or to crack open their skulls with batons, but I think we are on our own now.
For a while we stand in the station corridor, but we decide it’s better to go outside and turn our backs to the shutters when a dozen cops push down the stairs and past us.
They leave us alone. They are patrolling the corridor. So far, the police don’t seem to do anything other than push back when people try to break through and dodge the odd missile that is thrown at them in an idiotic attempt to provoke.
It is getting cold. I wave to the woman and set off around the square, carrying my banner on a march of one. It’s important to keep moving, to keep warm.
Some semi-naked boys are climbing up the railings, more are dancing on the shoulders of others to the surreal tunes of reggae music. For a while there is an almost carnival atmosphere, tinged with acrid smoke as more fires are started. Somebody asks me if they can burn my banner.
We are entering ‘Lord of the Flies’ territory.
The light is failing quickly. It’s now almost completely dark. Beating drums signal movement ahead: another break-out attempt, this time towards parliament.
I try to call John again, send a text. No answer. Can they stop messages from getting through?
The bustle stops and I carry on with my march. It’s important to keep warm. Occasionally people bump into me. Groups huddle haphazardly around fires and where music is played. I have a feeling that there are at most a few hundred people here, but the numbers seem to be growing. There is no sign of panic yet. There is some wood scattered about from discarded signs, but it’s diminishing quickly. Somebody drags a big sheet of plastic onto the flames. Somebody else lets off a firecracker.
A girl calls out for a cigarette.
Black smoke rises in billowing clouds, temporary extinguishing the golden clock face of Big Ben. I am reminded of Stephen King’s ‘Under the Dome’.
We are all under the Dome now.
*
Five o’clock and it feels like deepest night. Big Ben chimes. There are some cheers.
Somebody stops to look at my sign and smiles. Somebody else asks me if they can put it onto the nearest fire.
I bury my face in my thick wool scarf. I’m glad I’ve brought my college scarf along.
My solitary march takes me past the double line of riot police in front of parliament. There is an impromtu disco on the corner. Somebody throws a smoke bomb across the barricades. It doesn’t matter who it is, we are all in this together.
I look up as another helicopter sweeps its searchlight over us, temporarily blinding me with its glare. The helicopters have been buzzing over our heads all day, intensifying the feeling of being contained underneath an invisible dome.
There is a notable feeling of electricity in the air. The first stones smash against the windows of the treasury, and for once I’m glad that we don’t stand on cobblestones. No beach underneath the tarmac.
Sounds of determined pounding. The reinforced windows do not break. The police do not make a move, but if they decide to charge…
Glass shatters. Frustrated by their futile efforts, some demonstrators are taking out their anger on the red phone boxes. A fire burns on one of the windowsills, gets swept off and onto a girl’s clothing. She shrieks, jumps up and stomps out the flames. Thankfully nobody is wearing nylon in this weather.
I’m shaking, and it’s not from the cold. I should have left, shouldn’t have come in the first place.
I carry no ID, no wallet, and my phone is old. Does that implicate me?
I delete the remaining contacts one-by-one, leaving only John’s and another friend’s.
*
And then John is there, standing in the street, illuminated by the changing traffic lights and the sweeping helicopters, grinning incongruously. He holds up his curiously diminished banner in greeting. He looks twenty years younger in his sweater and his college scarf.
“I had to come and get you,” he says.
He has been looking for hours. The sirens I heard when I phoned him were real: he’d stopped three police vans from advancing, standing on the pavement and holding up his banner so that they could not move past him, until one of the officers grabbed it and threw it across the street and another two man-handled him out of the way.
But they let him go. He broke into the kettle to find me. His phone battery is dead.
I’m proud of him.
“Honestly, it’s not so bad. They’re letting people out. Come on, let’s try.”
We start to walk, my hysterical jabbering ebbing off as we enter Parliament Street.
The police are gone. People are walking past Westminster Station and towards Whitechapel, slowly and peacefully. I have a strange feeling of anti-climax. Is this it? Are we free to go, just like that? Surely they won’t let us go past Downing Street.
And then the police are there. The crowd keeps pressing on, but they stand firm. Then they start pushing back.
I grab John in an arm lock and try to pull him away before they begin to charge. I have been caught up in a stampede before. Grudgingly, he relents.
I stop shaking back on the balustrades in front of the treasury. Somebody asks to take a picture of our banners. Behind me, another phone box gets smashed.
I’m keeping an eye on the street, expecting the police to move forward, to contract the kettle, to pick us out one-by-one.
They scare us. But we must not stop.
*
It is six o’clock and Big Ben chimes. This time nobody cheers.
I sit on a wall back on Parliament Square, scribbling furiously into my notebook while trying to calm down. I’m shouting at John for being so stupid. I’ve sent him the text message to keep him out of this. He shrugs. His battery is dead.
A girl comes up and asks whether she can burn our banners. This time the only light comes from the remaining fires and the solitary traffic light on Bridge Street, changing from green to amber.
Eventually John convinces me to try again, up Broad Sanctuary where things are quiet.
*
They let us out.
It is like queuing in front of a nightclub, the bouncers letting people through in twos and threes, only without the “sorry love, no trainers” line and with the bouncers dressed in riot gear. It can kick off at any moment.
We walk away without looking back.
This isn’t over. It has only just begun.
Tags: London, Travels on my Doorstep, Tag Index
Denni