A White Rose: A Fairy Tale of London

By Roland Nwankwo

In a virtual world everything is stupidly easy, if you choose to be alone you do not feel lonely. However with advance graphics you can feel dread or apprehension as the scenes change. When I decided to walk across the bed of a sea; stupidly easy of course; the avatar did not drown. Then I discovered the always run button with regard to other avatars, and hence ended my anxiety at being unable to operate the communicate box. I never heard from the virtual friend I had earlier made and sent second life to the waste bin after I signed off or escaped.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Apr 24, 2020
• ISBN: 9781984594792

Roland Nwankwo

At Liverpool University, Nwankwo studied African American literature. He left his hometown for London at nineteen the year he went to Nigeria and returned to study in London, where he earned degrees in consumer behavior and economics. Nwankwo worked and performed spoken word poetry throughout England including in Bristol, Bath, Carlisle in Wordworth’s Cumbria, and Manchester. Nwankwo attended the Cyprus school of art as well as arts schools in England. Nwankwo has published in pamphlet form and in council magazines for over twenty three years, he is now 47, and hopes to build a relationship with readers across Europe. Nwankwo has socialized in intellectual and artistic circles in London and have built bridges to many men and women representing their own spirituality, politics, consciences and independence. Nwankwo has been painstaking in his research for the correct path to take with the literature he has produced and who to approach. Since leaving Bath Spa University in 1996 with an MA in creative writing, he has completed four novels, all edited with Becca Hayman of the Langton Agency in New York and an associate professor at City University of New York.

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Copyright © 2020 by Roland Nwankwo.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 04/24/2020

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Contents

For Miranda

Part One   London Bridge is Falling Down

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Part Two   What about us?

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 32

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Part Three   Ring a ring o’roses, A pocketful of posies. ah-tishoo, ah-tishoo. We all fall down.

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Part Four   Seasons End

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

For Miranda

London bridge is falling down

- Nursery Rhyme

London Bridge is falling down,

Falling down, falling down,

London Bridge is falling down,

My fair Lady.

Build it up with wood and clay,

Wood and clay, wood and clay,

Build it up with wood and clay,

My fair Lady.

Wood and clay will wash away,

Wash away, wash away,

Wood and clay will wash away,

My fair Lady.

Build it up with bricks and mortar,

Bricks and mortar, bricks and mortar,

Build it up with bricks and mortar,

My fair Lady.

Bricks and mortar will not stay,

Will not stay, will not stay,

Bricks and mortar will not stay,

My fair Lady.

Build it up with iron and steel,

Iron and steel, iron and steel,

Build it up with iron and steel,

My fair Lady.

Iron and steel will bend and bow,

Bend and bow, bend and bow,

Iron and steel will bend and bow,

My fair Lady.

Build it up with silver and gold,

Silver and gold, silver and gold,

Build it up with silver and gold,

My fair Lady.

Silver and gold will be stolen away,

Stolen away, stolen away,

Silver and gold will be stolen away,

My fair Lady.

Set a man to watch all night,

Watch all night, watch all night,

Set a man to watch all night,

My fair Lady.

Suppose the man should fall asleep,

Fall asleep, fall asleep,

Suppose the man should fall asleep?

My fair Lady.

Give him a pipe to smoke all night,

Smoke all night, smoke all night,

Give him a pipe to smoke all night,

My fair Lady.

P ART

ONE

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London Bridge

is Falling Down

Chapter 1

47380.png

In a virtual world everything is stupidly easy, if you choose to be alone you do not feel lonely. However with advance graphics you can feel dread or apprehension as the scenes change. When I decided to walk across the bed of a sea; stupidly easy of course; the avatar did not drown. Then I discovered the always run button with regard to other avatars, and hence ended my anxiety at being unable to operate the communicate box. I never heard from the virtual friend I had earlier made and sent second life to the waste bin after I signed off or escaped.

When my avatar first appeared it was naked but for the hair piece which eventually replaced the body I operated with my fingers on the keys of my laptop. I flew and blew through an imaginary landscape a sort of invisible man seen only by his wig. Looking out of a third floor window into the city street I notice the apparent reality of the passersby and it reminds me of the on screen antics of a virtual reality. My neighbours are almost all unknown to me. We have little in common, or perhaps we have so much in common we choose to ignore each other for the sake of sanity, as our skin tones differ. I prefer not to engage them because I feel I can work and think if left alone to myself; with engagement comes confusion.

I choose to remain in my flat; which is heated though the sun is shining; it’s clear, though it rained early this morning, the weather is perfect despite the rain. The weather is almost always perfect, whether cloud, cold, foggy, or damp; I love the climate here in London. Most of all here I challenge only myself with the objects of my life and so remain mostly in control of my urges. Where as in the street I challenge myself with the facts of other people’s lives and so remain always ill at ease. Engagement where it is forced is something unpleasant. Disengagement where allowed is something desired.

I could not remain inside indefinitely but I thought for today at least. I went to the website of an organic greengrocer that also sold and delivered alcohol. I did my shopping rapidly paid by credit card and awaited the order to be delivered at 6pm that evening it was 1:23 in the afternoon. The twenty first of June 2002. I went back to the window; and as though a sixth sense had called me there; noticed someone I knew in the street below.

‘Who was that?’ I asked myself. It was a drummer from the squat gigs I had attended several years ago. He looked like a young Rembrandt, with a slight whimsical unkept air of genius? I never forget a musician especially a good one and I recalled he had been extra keen one night laying the voodoo down. I had a network of friends and acquaintances in various locations and situations around London. Many have slept on floors or in squats. I never allowed anyone to sleep here as I would often be away and did not want the inconvenience of kicking someone out. Besides I rarely saw any of my musician friends now as I was rarely around the London scene.

I remembered that this man I saw in the street below me was called James. I felt a pang of longing to see him once more, if even for only a moment. The night of the gig I met James, I had been quite drunk, as I was stony broke. I had had no luck with gigs of my own and my band had broken up. I only went to the squats as there was always the possibility of rectifying the situation with some available and probably unemployed and so inexpensive musicians. As I recall I had approached James afterwards but he had turned me down. Things had improved since then two years is practically a lifetime in the music world. I had a tour, cut a successful record and moved into and redesigned the luxury apartment; where I now live. I look out onto St Paul’s Cathedral, the City of London, streets and statues seeming of gold.

My flat is over three floors the rooms long and narrow, the ceilings high, the windows huge. The light floods in, even on a grey day the white walls illuminate my interior with the blue sky; it is like a little taste of heaven! I live here alone and have very few visitors apart from a lady from a church I once attended who still calls round every now and then. After striking it rich I inexplicably found religion, though that was short lived. It’s not the money the church objects to but my solitude. Church people like to be together. They congregate as often as they possibly can, and they do not like to leave anyone out. If they know you are alone, they bother you: all in the spirit of Christ; but still it is a pest. So I kicked the church habit, and returned to the better self, that was in my comfort zone.

The days are not long. What with my creating new music on my computer, and reading magazines that come through my door, and watching day time TV, or listening to chill fm, and radio three, the days zip by as though I were never at a loss.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I am not a hermit and when on the road touring I am a very social person. Such as when I was playing in Milan. I decided to pay a visit to the Church of Santa Maria, to see the Cenacolo of Leonardo Da Vinci. I saw two lady’s outside in faded clothes at a table promoting and taking donations for a charity for recovering heroin addicts. I stopped and made a donation and on entering the church was embraced by the Master’s vision: Christ’s hands and face, and that of his disciples, also seated at a table. On leaving I engaged the two women again and spent the evening with them while they continued their charitable work: until the sun began going down and the small square before the church emptied and the last guests came out. The moment of conversation seemed enchanted, and as a stranger in a strange land, we might have been in a sort of purgatory before the end.

I’ve had eighteen months of concerts: and now I prefer a little time at home. Although I do spend hours sometimes, hours and hours, looking out of my panoramic glass windows down into the streets and square below. I enjoy walking through the city streets with my head up, sometimes for miles. My favourite haunt is Saint James park. I love being there in all seasons: especially in spring and autumn, due to the profusion of trees and various fowl: robins, blue tits, blackbirds, starlings, crows, wood pigeons, pigeons, land gulls, hawks, and finches; and only these I can see and name. It can be incredible! beautiful almost like an earthly heaven, an outdoor and nature home from home. The coffee shops also in Holborn give me particular pleasure for their brusque and exquisite anonymity, especially on dismal rainy nights in Winter. The British Museum is in Holborn and the London school of Economics on Lincoln’s inn Field: the school gives free intellectual debates. And coffee is good, it’s sought of the thinking mans alcohol. Though alcohol is good also.

James didn’t look so good when I caught him walking by in a hurry. He could not have guessed I lived here. I might have called to him, but that was not my style. So I let him pass, unheralded, and I remained unheard. Silence sometimes can be truly golden, and sometimes it is violent; and maybe I had harmed myself, or maybe not. Around five thirty I picked up the phone to dial the grocers to check on my delivery and noticed the phone bleeping - I had a message. It could be my music agent in Stockholm as she was due to call, but she would have called my cell phone. I spoke to the grocer first. Everything should be running on time. Then I picked up the message. It might have been someone from my near past, as I retained the phone number from where I had previously lived.

Hi Samo how’s things? Long time no hear. How are those new sound waves coming? Love to hear your creations. Eddy! I put the receiver down.

Eddy was a woman. She was almost five ten and blonde. She spoke in a sort of trans-European vernacular, many of the phrases located somewhere in Hackney or maybe it was Chelsea; but she spoke perfect received English beneath that slang. Eddy always reminded me of Jane Mansfield only posher and skinnier. In fact she was a contemporary woman, a blonde bombshell with a pushy undeniably charming character. Always the person to engage with rather than ignore! How could you ignore Eddy? She was beautiful as well as being brilliant. Sharp as a pin, bright as a button, a real star.

She was a music enthusiast of no particular occupation. She sometimes did a little journalism sometimes promoted her own gigs. She didn’t seem to worry about her income, and had a desire to engage in these activities for pleasure. We had become casual friends over the past years, when she would turn up from city to city at my gigs. I had met her when I was not earning a great deal. She even came to a gig in Berlin as my guest. I hadn’t seen her since then. But here she was leaving messages on my home phone six months later.

I thought to call her back and noted she had not left a number. It would be on my cell phone. I decided to call her tomorrow. But then tomorrow may never come and just as I was dialling her number the doorbell rang and I climbed down to street level from the second floor and took possession of my groceries. No confusion there. But Eddy on the phone, after six months of no hear, and James stalking St Paul’s down below, that made me uneasy. The natural flow of the light had subtly been turned from a cool grey to warm grey, from a heartbeat to a drum beat. Something was coming round the corner, and headed my way. I could not be sure whether to bolt the doors and windows, or whether to throw them open and call out; ‘Here I am James. I am here!’

I was left with my food and booze. I have never had much of an appetite. I never had much purchasing power and so had always been a little short on food; now things had changed financially my appetite had not. Maybe it is the music, sounds, beats, electronic, rave, jazz, drum and base, jungle, house, hip hop; the underground. Music was a rare feat, on a sordid earth, and the music turned it sane! That was my staple diet, the music and my meals, coffee and alcohol; and oh, occasionally tobacco. I settled down to jazz a German Classical music radio station accompanied by computer generated images as a background on my wall mounted TV. I heard a knock at the door.

As I descended the stairs and opened the door there were two people standing there: James and Eddy. Eddy was known to James, and James to Eddy; and both were known to me. How they came to be here, at the entrance to my secret abode; I had no idea.

Are you going to let us in or what? Eddy stood to her full height, no hint of round shoulders or a slouch. She looked like a Mary Magdalene from a Veronese, only with yellow gold instead of red hair. James was the opposite with black hair; and looked more like a character from a nineteenth century drawing from Gustave Dore’s London Pilgrimage; the pictures in black and white. He slouched a little, and shifted on his feet not making direct eye contact, as though he knew, whatever they had come here for was going to be, for me if not for them, trouble!

There was separation: the two of them, then me: and on my doorstep!

Of course I replied, against my better judgement, and let Eddy and James up the stairs to my first floor living room.

None of the three of us had to go to work in the morning and I felt this could be a long night. Perhaps if I played stupid, nothing would happen and they would leave. Or maybe I should find out what they wanted? What had brought them this way; James especially, with his shock of dark hair? This wasn’t exactly his stamping ground, the square mile; he was strictly Lambeth Brixton crowd. He didn’t like men in suits.

I remembered being with him in Whitechapel on a visit to the East end’s premiere anarchist book shop. It was to see if we could flog some CDs, we had recorded at a gig. They took a dozen of the CDs, which they did not pay us for upfront; only on items sold. It seemed like a start, if a poor one; and we looked round some of the bookshelves. We were talking over the history shelf: the history of slavery, the history of empire, the making of the British working class, the coming of industry, the sexual revolution, the age of media and consumerism. I picked up a book on Scottish and English kings. it was the only book on the shelf I thought I might like to read. So I took that one down and thumbed through it. It mentioned strangely an Irish prince called O’Neil, who was buried in The Abbey at Westminster. As we were leaving the shop which was down a narrow alleyway behind Whitechapel art gallery, and stepped into the alley leading back to city life and main street; a man dressed in a blue pinstripe bankers suit came the other way. When he lifted his arms in a salutation and said hello chaps James actually punched him in the face, and said nothing! We walked on without mentioning it. And I remember feeling quite ashamed, not at the punch, but for saying nothing, and for having nothing to say. I felt as though the punch had been legitimate as London’s population was slowly frustrating black men to the point one of them might blind himself. I did not want to end up like Oedipus Rex: who murdered his father and slept with his mother; and blinded himself to retain control of his city. I wanted to express myself and live a good life. James was not black and had punched the banker for reasons of his own. We are all creatures of choice.

Eddy was concocting something, and she had dragged James here with her. The secret ingredient was obviously going to be me. Still whether I liked it or not I was just glad to see them. They brought the sunshine in like Schubert! Though I would never have related that to them, or to myself.

Is there anymore fish cooked? James asked, seeing my China plate resting on the oak table.

‘No, just some potatoes.’ I replied. Not being completely frank about the status of my larder.

‘Ok I’ll have them.’ He said brightening up.

I got the potatoes and for a while no one said anything. Eddy helped herself to a brandy and James ate.

‘Salt?’ James asked forgetting his former reticence.

I had to go and get some salt.

At this point with the BBC live in concert playing I thought it was not so bad to have some company: I came back with the salt; when Eddy said

So this is where you’ve been hiding!

I felt ashamed.

Chapter 2

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Can you get Capital Gold on that thing? Eddy asked. She surveyed the interior of the room we were in. It was a little spartan as it was so large; leather sofas, two wooden tables, the wall TV, and some original Hundertwasser woodcuts on the walls, a computer and keyboard and many books. There was a huge rubber plant in the corner, next to an electric fan from Harrodsburg, the one in the Lucian Freud: and the wall to ceiling fountain of liquid glass, windows ushering in the summer light.

Yes it’s easy to use. You just-I was in the process of replying when Eddy grabbed the remote and changed the channel. The images turned to a fluid hallucinogenic green. And the music turned from Schubert to early Michael Jackson, infusing the tri-shared space with a sweet intoxicating Pop.

Do you have any dope? James asked looking edgy yet again after having fed on the food I had given him.

‘I don’t smoke dope.’ I said strictly.

‘Well look at you. You don’t mind if I skin up then, I’ve got some of my own. ‘Eddy said taking out a small plastic bag of weed and long rizlas.

‘I’ll join you.’ Added James as he munched down the last of the organic potatoes.

‘No look I don’t want you to smoke dope in my flat.’ I insisted.

‘Don’t be funny about it; I’m sure I’ve shared a joint with you in the past. I’ll open the windows.’ Eddy countered.

‘They don’t open in this