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raincoats. They played keyboards and sang in unison, describing elements of the world that appealed to the audience:
    ‘If I see a building burning
I try to find a baby
I can throw in through the window.
God rot you-ou!
God rot a-you-ou!
Booga, booga, booga, booga!
God rot a-you-ou!
I’m only flesh and blood
I’m only splashin’ blood
I need the darkness ’cause it matches my mood.
God rot you-ou!’
    In the interval, Mauve left the table. While he waited, Fred became conscious of a conversation in the next booth. People named LeRoi, Poker and Marlene were discussing what sounded a lot like
The Time Machine
. He looked round cautiously and saw three well-dressed blacks.
    ‘… a long time in the future, dig? There’s two races left on earth, the Eloi and the Morlocks.’ LeRoi Washington was telling one of his stories again. Marlene nodded her head, but she wasn’t really listening. LeRoi’s stories never had any point.
    ‘And the Morlocks live in underground ghettos, dig? The Eloi live on top; they got the best of everything, they never need to work.’
    ‘Awright,’ said Poker.
    ‘They got nice clothes, great food if you dig vegetarian; they jus’ bop around all day, dancing and that jive.’
    ‘Awright,’ said Poker.
    LeRoi continued. ‘Only when it gets dark, the Morlocks come up, dig? They come up and they grab one of these Eloi turkeys and take him downstairs to the ghetto and they eat him.’
    Now Marlene was listening, and Poker laughed.
    ‘Naw, I mean they really cut him up and eat him. That’s their food. They just keep the Elois around for meat. Like beef cattle.’
    Marlene stopped listening again, and Poker looked puzzled.
    ‘You dig? It’s us. We’re the Morlocks, and them white fuckers are the Elois.’
    ‘Shit is that?’ said Poker. ‘It gotta be the other way around. We don’t got no work; we just jive around all day, waitin’ to be eat up. Just like the LeRois.’
    ‘The Elois. Naw, you –’
    ‘Yeah, and they come and tear us up, just like the Moorcocks.’
    ‘The Morlocks. Naw, you got it bass-ackwards, Poker.
They’re
the Elois, and
we’re
the Morlocks. They get all the high living, but we own the fuckin’ night. We live off what we can get from them, bite their asses, drink their fuckin’ blood.’
    ‘Right on,’ said Marlene, suppressing a yawn.
    Mauve returned with two friends, whom she introduced as Honesty Shoot and Bill Fold. Honesty’s hair was dyed in a pink and green chessboard, while Bill wore a more conventional green Mohawk, and they both dressed in black. Fred felt old, remembering the era in which London kids had gone in for these elaborations, not long after Bill and Honesty were born.
    ‘You starin’ at my hair?’ Bill said.
    Fred tried a disarming smile. ‘Not at all. I was just thinking about the history of the Mohawk. How the original tribal head-dress became an emblem of wildness that has stayed with us, coming to the surface periodically. There was a spell of Mohawks in the 1950s. Then there was
Taxi Driver
, then some skinheads in Britain revived the craze, then some punks. Now it’s come full circle, almost, back to its native land …’
    Mauve said: ‘Don’t you just love the way he talks? That cool accent? Like on TV.’
    Honesty was not fooled. ‘That’s just an English accent. Hey, my mom would like that; she’s nuts about anything English.’
    Fred raised his eyebrows but refrained from saying
really
.
    ‘Yeah, she like watches “Masturbates Theater” alla time. Anything English.’
    At that moment, a man brushed past the booth and gave them a peculiar look. He was a short pie-faced man of advanced middle age, far too old for this place, just as his clean looks, large spectacles and flamboyant Hawaiian shirt were out of place among the general dirt and mourning.
    ‘There goes Hook,’ said Mauve. ‘I think he’s English, too, ain’t he?’
    Honesty shrugged. ‘English or queer or something.’ She tapped Fred on the hand.