Brenda had rather a different story to tell, after "the tea, the cake and the ices", after some weeks had passed, after she had suddenly volunteered to virtually take Mark off my hands, to come to the flat, to put him to bed, to wait until I returned from work having changed to a day shift, trying to get some sense of security for the boy. He seemed far happier than I had known him to be for a long time.
An incredibly pleasant woman, incredibly unworldly in many ways, another one with a basically firm comfortable upbringing.
After the usual breakaway from the mother's strings, the usual run, looking for freedom in the Big City, she had married. Two daughters, comfortable house by the seaside ... settled for life.
Usually also, the fairy story does not go like that. Brenda became aware of a faint dissatisfaction, taking the children to school, waiting on her husband hand and foot, keeping her house in the most meticulous order, her long lonely strolls along the Seashore were not, somehow quite as she imagined, what she desired, no longer what she thought necessary in any woman's life. Nothing tangible to complain of, to be dissatisfied with, what more could she possibly want, what more was there to have? Slowly, imperceptibly, it occurred to her that she was bored, the rot of so many "relationships" if this is the word... Her husband, wet as a can of piss, would come home at four in the afternoon, every afternoon, lay on the sofa, have his nap, expect to get the five star treatment, which, indeed he did. Watch the telly, bolt all the doors at nine p.m. and so to bed, have his obligatory bunk up. End of yet another day. Amen.
Inconceivably, Brenda's husband decided to move, which can only be described as from the sublime to the ridiculous. From the Sunny Seaside Shore... to Deepest, Darkest Hackney. Her husband never offered any explanation for this upheaval other than the purely selfish one ... nearer to his work. Totally oblivious to the culture shock his family would suffer. Being White English they were in complete minority to their new neighbours.
Without much option Brenda closed herself up in the huge house. Not only huge, but cold, damp and bloody miserable. Regardless of Brenda's ever cheerful efforts to create a home. She was struggling up hill all the way, trapped, unable to go for her strolls, lost her friends ... isolated.
For her husband, he could now be on the sofa at two thirty, did not have the long drive to the coast each day ... still watched the television, still went round doubly bolting all the doors before climbing up the two flights of stairs to the "Master Bedroom" which overlooked precisely nothing. The dismal despondent street, the bleak houses opposite. Silent, shrouded, scurrying figures from other parts of the Planet.
The experience could only have been traumatic, especially when she saw the school. Mark, the only white face in his class, the teacher Indian and lisped English. By some coincidence I was to pick up a man who was to become very high in the Government, Heath or Thatcher administration. Mentioned the Class situation of my boy. He flatly refused to believe me. Shows how out of touch politicians are. It happened I had Mark's Class photograph with me. The Teacher, complete with Sari, slap in the middle of all the black smiling faces, Mark, sticking out like a sore thumb. Passed it to him. The man's face contorted to say the least.
"I say! ... must show this to Willie Whitlaw ... Could I borrow it? ... It is unbelievable!"
Told him to get on his bike, go and look at Tyssen School for himself. Told him, too late to do anything about the situation. We were outnumbered, if we remarked, the Labour Council would slam a Racist writ on us. Hackney Borough Council being about as Black as it can get.
One winter's night... before the curfew, before the ritual bolting of the doors Brenda, as she was wont, dutifully doing her knitting, subservient pinafore neatly tied round her waist, attempting to keep warm in front of the coal fire ... thinking of the battle she had fought and lost ... trying to hang a situation together with so much against her ... a whole culture against her, the very streets, the pavements, the air she breathed... the shops she shopped in... the people her eyes fell upon, the loss of sanctuary in the school for her children. Everything was against her everything was 'Alien' ... no other word.
Defeated, overwhelmed. She realised this quite clearly. Her attempts to create a home for her children in such surroundings. Quite decisively stood up, put her knitting tidily away ... walked out of the room, past her dozing husband .... walked down the long passage to the street door, opened it, stepped out into the frozen night air, just as she was, no coat, no money, no anything. The infliction upon the family, a position she could no longer live with, no longer tolerate.
Little recollection of what had happened in the following months, a mental wipe out. Obviously she would only have to have been on the street minutes before the first car stopped. Apparently this is what had happened. No other way she could have survived that nightmare. Vague recollections of strange men, cars that smelled of cigarette smoke. Strange, ragged rooms with broken beds, men that snored very loudly after heaving their bodies up and down on hers, of a few pounds being put into her hand, of being pushed back into the street at the first sight of day.
Brenda had told me all this quite flat, quite calm, one evening
... A sad story, sitting in the high room, the huge, ugly house with the expensive furniture, the heavy curtains closed, the silence... the children asleep. She held my hand as if it were something to hang on to, some reality, some comfort to her, something tangible, something she could draw strength from.
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