Howerd’s Up Pompeii on the telly. The soothsayer was depicted as an old wild-eyed woman dressed in rags who began every entrance with the litany, ‘Woe! Woe! And thrice Woe!’ This never ceased to crease me up because Wo Wo was our family Punjabi euphemism for shit, ‘Do you want to do a Wo Wo ?’ and ‘Wipe properly, get all the Wo Wo off …’ The first time I’d heard the soothsayer’s lament I’d said, ‘I think she must have constipation!’ which made my papa laugh proudly and my mother hide her smile under an expression of distaste. When I repeated the joke in the playground the next day, I realised it lost a lot in translation and vowed I would swot up on a few English jokes before I undertook challenging Vernon Cartwright again for the title of school wit.
Glenys wrung her hands a bit more and began chewing the ends of her bottle blonde hair, a sad dishrag of a haircut, but I guessed she’d long given up trying. I’d always assumed she was about fifty, in her shapeless sweaters and crimplene trousers with the sewn-in crease on each leg. But mama informed me, rather proudly I thought, that Mrs Lowbridge was not even forty, and that smoking and bad luck had chiselled all those weary dragging lines around her eyes and mouth. ‘That’s why you must always count your blessings, bed, and never think negative thoughts. If your mind is depressed, your body will soon follow. Me, I don’t even dyemy hair.’ I went around for days after that, smiling so much that my cheeks ached and Mrs Worrall next door asked if I’d got wind. I was terrified that my body would betray my mind and all the anger and yearning and violent mood swings that plagued me would declare themselves in a rash of facial hives or a limb dropping off in a public place.
‘Meena chick, have yow seen our Sam today?’
‘No, Mrs Lowbridge,’ I answered. ‘Maybe he’s gone up the shops,’ I added helpfully.
‘He shouldn’t be up the bloody shops, he should be here. He knows I’m gooing up bingo tonight …’ She sighed and chewed a bit more hair. ‘Ey, yow’m on the corner, int ya? If yow see him gooing past, give us a knock will ya, chick?’ She trudged back inside her yard and propelled by the growling waves of hunger cascading around my stomach, I ran home.
Mama was rummaging about in what we called the Bike Shed, one of two small outhouses at the end of our backyard, the other outhouse being our toilet. We’d never had a bike between us, unless you counted my three-wheeler tricycle which was one of a number of play items discarded amongst the old newspapers, gardening tools, and bulk-bought tins of tomatoes and Cresta fizzy drinks. Of course, this shed should have really been called the bathroom, because it was where we filled an old yellow plastic tub with pans of hot water from the kitchen and had a hurried scrub before frostbite set in, but my mother would have cut out her tongue rather than give it its real, shameful name.
‘Found it, Mrs Worrall!’ she shouted from inside the shed. Mrs Worrall, with whom we shared adjoining, undivided backyards, stood in her uniform of flowery dress and pinny on her step. She had a face like a friendly potato with a sparse tuft of grey hair on top, and round John Lennon glasses, way before they became fashionable, obviously. She moved like she was underwater, slow, deliberate yet curiously graceful steps, and frightened most of the neighbours off with her rasping voice and deadpan, unimpressed face. She did notsmile often, and when she did you wished she hadn’t bothered as she revealed tombstone teeth stained bright yellow with nicotine. But she loved me, I knew it; she’d only have to hear my voice and she’d lumber out into the yard to catch me, often not speaking, but would just nod, satisfied I was alive and functioning, her eyes impassive behind her thick lenses.
She would listen, apparently enthralled, to my mother’s occasional reports on my progress at school, take
Glenys wrung her hands a bit more and began chewing the ends of her bottle blonde hair, a sad dishrag of a haircut, but I guessed she’d long given up trying. I’d always assumed she was about fifty, in her shapeless sweaters and crimplene trousers with the sewn-in crease on each leg. But mama informed me, rather proudly I thought, that Mrs Lowbridge was not even forty, and that smoking and bad luck had chiselled all those weary dragging lines around her eyes and mouth. ‘That’s why you must always count your blessings, bed, and never think negative thoughts. If your mind is depressed, your body will soon follow. Me, I don’t even dyemy hair.’ I went around for days after that, smiling so much that my cheeks ached and Mrs Worrall next door asked if I’d got wind. I was terrified that my body would betray my mind and all the anger and yearning and violent mood swings that plagued me would declare themselves in a rash of facial hives or a limb dropping off in a public place.
‘Meena chick, have yow seen our Sam today?’
‘No, Mrs Lowbridge,’ I answered. ‘Maybe he’s gone up the shops,’ I added helpfully.
‘He shouldn’t be up the bloody shops, he should be here. He knows I’m gooing up bingo tonight …’ She sighed and chewed a bit more hair. ‘Ey, yow’m on the corner, int ya? If yow see him gooing past, give us a knock will ya, chick?’ She trudged back inside her yard and propelled by the growling waves of hunger cascading around my stomach, I ran home.
Mama was rummaging about in what we called the Bike Shed, one of two small outhouses at the end of our backyard, the other outhouse being our toilet. We’d never had a bike between us, unless you counted my three-wheeler tricycle which was one of a number of play items discarded amongst the old newspapers, gardening tools, and bulk-bought tins of tomatoes and Cresta fizzy drinks. Of course, this shed should have really been called the bathroom, because it was where we filled an old yellow plastic tub with pans of hot water from the kitchen and had a hurried scrub before frostbite set in, but my mother would have cut out her tongue rather than give it its real, shameful name.
‘Found it, Mrs Worrall!’ she shouted from inside the shed. Mrs Worrall, with whom we shared adjoining, undivided backyards, stood in her uniform of flowery dress and pinny on her step. She had a face like a friendly potato with a sparse tuft of grey hair on top, and round John Lennon glasses, way before they became fashionable, obviously. She moved like she was underwater, slow, deliberate yet curiously graceful steps, and frightened most of the neighbours off with her rasping voice and deadpan, unimpressed face. She did notsmile often, and when she did you wished she hadn’t bothered as she revealed tombstone teeth stained bright yellow with nicotine. But she loved me, I knew it; she’d only have to hear my voice and she’d lumber out into the yard to catch me, often not speaking, but would just nod, satisfied I was alive and functioning, her eyes impassive behind her thick lenses.
She would listen, apparently enthralled, to my mother’s occasional reports on my progress at school, take
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