A Friend Indeed

I was in love, completely and utterly in love; and it had all happened so quickly.  One day I was just ordinary me and the very next I had totally fallen for him.  Things were really improving at school; the teacher had finally got the gist of my name, although this did not stop the kids secretly marching behind me in goose-step style, the boys whispering Nazi, Nazi, Nazi but it had become more bearable, because of the love I had for my new boyfriend. And, what’s more, he was a “bloody foreigner” the same as me!

The first of The Windrush people from the Caribbean were disembarking in Britain, Tilbury to be precise.  They had been invited to come and work in the UK; a “shortage of labour” was the enticement given.  What a shock those poor, bewildered souls must have felt about the “promised land” arriving in such a drab, deadly, brutally ugly location.  They were smartly dressed for the occasion – the men in suits and wide-brimmed hats and the women in glorious, full-skirted summer attire topped off with dainty hats and white gloves; hardly adequate attire for the freezing, damp, cold that greeted them together with a brick wall of ignorance.  There was most definitely, no welcome in the air.  Only the poorest, bleakest, accommodation was on offer to them.  Only the most menial of poorly paid labour. Only the worst and barely available of anything. 

Among those people were some children and one morning one of them appeared in my classroom.

He was immediately placed alongside me.  At least now there were two objects of derision in the school and in no time at all he became the main target of the bullies.  I honestly cannot write down the words the kids chanted here, I would be ashamed on behalf of those who spoke them both in the playground and surreptitiously in the classroom.  I knew it was hurtful, very hurtful and bewildering, and when I saw his eyes fill with tears I reached out for his hand and squeezed it.  We were instantly bonded and we felt strengthened by being a pair.  Soon we were holding hands whenever we could and tore around the playground together playing imaginary games, usually along the lines of horses galloping away and leaping over fences to freedom.  We adored each other.

One lunchtime, after getting a whiff of the nauseous aroma coming up from the kitchens, I began to cry.  On seeing me thus, and feeling my despair, he said something of which I couldn’t understand a word and I answered in a way he couldn’t understand either. Yet instinctively he knew.  He made a display of pretending to eat and being repulsed.  I nodded in agreement and as the dinner bell shrilled its awful promise it was his turn to grab my hand a rescue me and we fled.  He was going home for his dinner and taking me with him.  Like two gazelles we hot-footed down the corridor, out into the playground and through the iron gates.  It was exhilarating, it was magnificent, I never wanted it to stop!  Well out of sight now, we came up to a tall house in a Victorian row: a building, pockmarked by bomb debris. Inside was a rickety staircase and then a room full of beaming black faces.  The men sat around the table which was, in fact, a huge door laid on top of a table base, with their jackets off and their hats still in place.  Each individual’s jacket was hanging on the back of their seats revealing a row of white shirts crisscrossed with black braces.  Although they had a casualness about them there was a definite air of respectfulness for the cook and the anticipated meal to come.  

Everyone offered up a smiling cheer of greeting.  In the corner, a woman was stirring something in a massive pot on a single gas ring and a kettle was coming to the boil on the tiny open coal fire.  The preparation counter was two wooden market crates topped with a plank of wood.  Whatever it was she had cooked, or how on earth she had managed it without countertop or a proper stove, bore no reflection on what came out of that huge container; such was the delectability of the flavour and the heavenly scent that I gobbled the food down like a glutton and not content with that, lifted the plate and licked it clean like a dog.  A roar of laughter went up and the ladle was passed down the table with another scoop for me.  The food was, in short, sublime – so very tangy so hot and so enjoyed by my dormant taste buds! Nobody seemed in the least bit concerned by my presence there or asked any questions.  The fact that I was obviously very hungry answered all they needed to know.  I was just accepted! 

Glasses of lemonade for us kids washed it all down a treat.  I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and sucked on a gigantic gobstopper which was given out by the cook.  God, did I enjoy it.  When we all rose to take our leave, the men delved into their pockets and presented us with some loose change to buy sweets. The prospect of returning to school did not loom half as bad on a full stomach and a few coppers clutched in my sticky paw.  Some of the cheaper sweet stuff was coming into the shops now and could be purchased without coupons.  The corner shop was full of it.  We could hardly make up our minds such was the display of utter rubbish but finally settled on a packet of sweet cigarettes with extremely red tips denoting a lit end and a set of false teeth made from bubble gum.  We sauntered along the road, hand in hand, pretending to smoke and then chewed on the false teeth until we made a delicious ball of gum which we shoved in our pockets for a surreptitious suck later on.  There was loads of syrupy stickiness left and it was such a weight off my shoulders to know that when school teatime arrived I could pass on the fish paste sandwiches.  

This became a covert routine which I totally adored.   Now I had a partner and I was well fed and it wasn’t long before I began to look and feel better.  I filled out somewhat and didn’t dream of Babushka’s sweet curd tart quite as much, and all was of course unbeknown to my parents or teachers alike. Nobody noticed my lack of presence.  I put it down to the fact that sometimes when the register was called without the expected reply, the teacher would pause, her finger hovering above the name of the absent pupil, and look up in askance.  At this point a cheerful voice, usually a boy, would invariably pipe up “Gawn ‘op (hop) picking, miss!” or “His brother had his shoes, miss”.  I thought that, should somebody ask about my absence, the reply would probably be “Gawn for gobstoppers, miss!”  I thought that would do nicely.  This state of affairs continued until I left that school to live on a new housing estate somewhere far off.  A place I hated even more. The thing is, you see, I had ever-so-slightly got to love Portobello Road.

Sometimes, just by way of a change really, my little boyfriend and I would scoff down our Caribbean dinner real quick, and head for the market.  Here we would dart in and out of the stalls stealing fruit.  This was especially good if there were punnets of berries to be had.  My partner and I became expert in the art of theft.  Like a couple of guttersnipes from Fagin’s gang, we were ace at crouching down and ever so gently lipping our tiny paws over the edge of the stall and coaxing a punnet of berries down.  Mission accomplished, we would dart off, ducking and diving underneath the stands, crisscrossing the terrain, splitting up and meeting again until we ended up somewhere safe, usually on a bomb site.  Here we would stuff our haul and run back to school very often with a sweet cigarette on our lip, red juice stains around our mouths. Nobody ever caught us:  we were far too fleet-footed for that, of course; or perhaps a blind eye was turned.  It seemed to us that crime really paid off and this was a sure-fire way to get what we wanted out of life.

Had my mum had the slightest whiff of what I was up to she would not have sat so easily at her typewriter with a cup of tea and a real cigarette on the go.  She used to say she went to work for the rest, and since she was able to sit down, she was at least right on that front.  A faultless speller and swift shorthand typist, she loved going to the city over and above anything on offer at home.  Having to work was, of course, a necessity but if the truth be known it was a joy for her.  She loved being sociable and laughing with her work colleagues.  Who in their right mind could blame her?  It was the thought of the rushed fetching of me from school, the ticking off from the nurse, the collection of dumped vegetables from the gutter, the lugging up of my still bawling sister from the basement in her heavy pushchair, scratching her head, that she found the hardest. That was the toughest job of all. For her, it was an evening of cooking in the squat landing kitchen, bathing us and getting out the lice comb.  It must have been hellish.

Added to this, Jana was now posing a bigger problem.  She was an escape artist par excellence. Even the garden gate (from a bombsite of course) that dad had erected at the top of the stairs had to be padlocked in order to stop her antics.  Our parents were not unkind or intentionally cruel but they simply did not have time for her needs.  It was enough for them to make it through the day.  It was much too hard.  It left little time for the niceties. I knew instinctively that Jana suffered during her hours cooped up in a dirty basement full of other kids.

The days must have seemed endless for Jana.  Whether she was longing for Babushka and a dumpling with gravy, no one asked.  Perhaps she was scared? Nobody ventured to find out.  It was no surprise, then, that she was forever trying to escape and fight for her human rights from every corner. If I had the red crayon and she the blue, she demanded the red.  If I had the butterfly hair slide, she didn’t want the ladybird shaped one. What was it in my cup that was always better than hers? A thick, golden cap of hair had sprouted from her hitherto bald little head; hair so very thick and straight that it looked impossible on such a small child, yet immensely cute. It was hard to look the other way but there is no doubt that she was generally overlooked. Luckily, we loved each other and have always stayed close.  I sensed that she felt that I was somehow the leader in life’s instruction book of rules, and it must be through me that she would learn. The name of the game was quite simple – survival.

On one particular evening when she had eaten and endured the lice comb raked through her thick mop, she was put to bed.  A group of Czechs visitors had arrived; friends of our parents from the Royal Air Force days. They were a lovely, jovial bunch and soon set about pouring glasses of beer and lighting up their cigarettes.  Being well mannered and of courteous nature, they had not come empty-handed.  Soon they produced a colouring book for sis and I and a whopping bar of chocolate.  Just what we fancied after our thick vegetable soup.  So it was that in the back bedroom we set about demolishing the entire slab of dark sweetness.

Sucking on square after square, it was not before little sis complained of dire thirst.  With the adults in the living room making merry and partaking of their beer, cigarettes and reminiscences, I felt it only right and proper that little sis and I should have a swig of something half decent also.  I went in search.  Our kitchen could hardly live up to the name, boasting only a cold-water tap, a draining board procured from the Cambridge Gardens bombsite and some floorboards fashioned into high shelves and a nasty little gas stove pushed up against the balustrade. A tall garden gate at the edge of the stairs to prevent a fall backwards whilst straining the greens completed the monstrous montage.  It was little more than an apology.  Nobody in their right mind would want to spend a moment longer than necessary there let alone try to produce a meal.  No wonder my poor mum hated cooking. 

A quick glance was all that was needed to tell me the miserable, wire fronted cupboard was bare; however, I spied some likely looking bottles up on the highest shelf.  Dragging a little stool over I managed to climb into the sink and from this vantage point surveyed a row of tinctures and bottles of cod liver oil; the antidote of orange juice was empty.  But one bottle, in particular, caught my eye.  It contained a particularly pretty, pink liquid.  Just like Alice’s bottle, it seemed to have “drink me” written all over it.  Just the job!  This I decanted into a glass with a little drop of water to mix and, after stirring vigorously, I presented it to Jana.  She grimaced at the first gulp and did not appear to like it.  Thinking it was probably sour-tasting I proceeded to stir in copious amounts of sugar.  This seemed to do the trick although I have to say a little encouragement was called upon to urge her to drink down the last dregs.

Then things took a turn for the worse.  It was not long before little sis became hot and restless and obviously unwell.  I ventured into the smoke-filled sitting room and whispered as much in mum’s ear.  She jumped up like a jack in the box the smile gone from her face and tore into the bedroom.  The whole ensemble of men did likewise and stood around the bed peering down at the yellow-skinned patient.  “What on EARTH did you give her?” demanded mum.  “That,” I replied pointing to the now empty pink bottle.  It was as if a bomb had exploded in the middle of the room… as if these ex pilots, who had bombed Dresden, were trying to land a failing aircraft.  Quickly, one of them mixed a glass of ENOS Liver Salts and poured it into the writhing child’s mouth.  Another plunged his fingers down her throat.  There was a silence for a moment or two before a massive wretch produced a jet reaction, the propulsion and velocity of which sprayed those hardy men in the room with pink spew.  Another pause and a catapult ejection of a bullet-shaped ball of undigested chocolate.  The finale was the evening meal of stewed, root vegetables which featured a good deal of perfectly diced carrot.  The clean-up programme was immense and involved a lot of newspaper, rags and buckets of water.  I stood on the side and watched on, fascinated.  I had apparently made little sis drink an entire bottle of Calamine lotion; an emollient used only externally for ailments such as sunburn, pimples and boils.  Murder, however, had not been a forethought and so I was forgiven. But even so, seeing my poor little sis exhausted and asleep with dried Calamine lotion stuck in her hair and a crusty moustache, I felt tremendous sorrow and determined there and then to insist that we have the Corona drinks man include us on his rounds and deliver a drink far more appetising.

Henceforth we were in receipt of one bottle of Cherryade every Friday evening.  A small addition to be sure, but to us kids, a step in the right direction.  Later, pouring a glass of the electrifying, red fizzy liquid, I raised the glass to examine its promising delectation.  “Oh look daddy,” I said excitedly “It’s a real cherry drink; you know, like the Czech cherries.”  His answer killed the moment.  “Cherries? Czech cherries? Don’t be ridiculous.  That stuff was never even near a cherry; it’s red dye and poisonous chemicals! Water would be healthier.”.

Nevertheless, what with my boyfriend, my daily Caribbean menu and red drink delivery, things were beginning, ever so slightly, to look up on planet Portobello.