Hackney to the Hilton ?... about one million miles!

Jenny had been gone eighteen months without one word from her. Late, cold winter creeping through these rooms, evenings in darkness.

A strange stillness stretched over my life, inconceivably, Hackney had sunk to even further depths than any of us poor mortals could have visualised. Besides every other misfortune, the poverty, the grating struggle through every day, the dustmen had been on strike for months, streets full of high, long mounds of rubbish. Outside our street door rubbish piled twelve feet high, fifty feet long, the smell, the rats.. a situation even we could not have imagined.
A great apathy reached over us, despair stretching into us, we, so used to deprivation, it went almost without murmur, unnoticed, accepted, the subsidence, the slide into a deeper deprivation. imperceptible, little by little each ragged day.

Xmas approached. For myself always traumatic since Australia, since having my Xmas dinner in 33deg on the lawn, cutting the Turkey, sweat pouring off me ..the "Family" about me, mother in law presiding, Lucinda there, that way she had of looking at me, whenever she deigned to, which was not often. I had been a intrusion, a interruption, an anathema to Desaumarez Street... to her and to her sister.

Always a profound feeling of emptiness, a void in my life over those few weeks of the "Holiday". It would be Mark's and myself second Xmas without Jennifer. She had always stayed with us over that period... phone taken off the hook. I would go to Smithfield, buy the turkey, the pork, get a Xmas tree, She decorate it. Peace would settle on Clapton Common. Would hide any feelings whatsoever I had, ignoring our isolation, sure Jennifer and the boy, they too perhaps knowing there should be more, more than the three of us. My mother, my sister, her mother, any relatives we may possibly have... no sign of... Brenda had gone with the children to her relatives', at the Seaside.


Unable to recall what time of day, a ringing on the street door bell. In itself unusual, no one ever comes to this flat other than Brenda. Hardly bothered to open the window and look out. Mark home, school holiday. He went to the window, came back quietly said "Mummy is downstairs". Thought he must be joking, had given her up, nevertheless curious. Looked out, could see this rather glamourous woman, long hair, fur coat, standing between the rubbish and the street door. It did look vaguely like Jennifer... too well put together, too altogether out of her class. What such a person was doing round here, could hardly imagine. The woman looked up "Well, aren't you going to let me in!". Momentarily hardly knew what to do, looked like a hermit with my woolly hat, baggy trousers...not shaved for days... the flat more or less a shambles. Mark became very agitated. Told him to wait while went down to sort it out.

Yes, Jenny all right, a very expensive one, the works, including a sun tan, hair, so different, become thick, absolutely straight, not one strand out of place, as if stepping straight from another World, another Planet… maybe she had.

The reunion between mother and son went only as expected after such a long silence. Perhaps other men would have strangled her on the spot, indeed there are very frequent cases reported of men doing just that in the "Hackney Gazette". But taken by surprise, my guard completely down, disheveled, half beaten by time and circumstances... unable to say anything at all to this woman... so composed, cool, so expensive... Reminded me of the elegant expensive ladies along the Old Brompton Road. " Oh. Good evening driver, could you possibly run me to Annabel’s'? Actually I am in a frightful hurry".

They always are, always will be, never speak. The mirror comes from their handbags , a quick perk, a quick adjustment to the coiffure, the Channel sprayed discretely, its aroma drifting into the driving compartment.
How had Jennifer become one of those ? No trace of the girl I had known, the one who had hysterics as I dragged her trunk up the stairs, how we had fallen straight in the bed never getting out of it other than briefly, very briefly. All that another time, long ago in my existence. Another Peter, another person... I, simply a shadow of that person.

Numb, completely numb inside my being, nothing at all between us... Total strangers, different sides of the tracks. Nothing she wanted from me... not now, not any more, not ever... Only the boy, the boy... she wanted him... wanted him back, to take him, my last shred. She wanted to take him... to take him to America, to California, to El Segundo.. .not simply round the corner, not just up the road.

Went to the window, surveyed the putrid piles of rubbish, the disconsolate, squabbling, seagulls soaring about the Pond, the bleak, ice covered landscape.
No question in my mind... Mark silent... he knew the situation precisely, knew all to well, the hardship out there on the wretched streets, my having to say "Take him".. the difficult part. How she could simply walk in here and walk out with our son, to her, a forgone conclusion. Obviously, I, not worth considering, no consideration necessary, just someone who had cared for her child while she adjusted herself to the good life. Now, time to collect... half expected her to offer me money... compensation.. such was her attitude.
Kept an axe behind the door, still there to this day, considered the idea of chopping her up, shoving the remains in a couple of black plastic bags, put them on top of the pile outside the house...
Who would care?... round here!? No question of the smell, the rot, people had been walking about with handkerchiefs over their faces for weeks. No one willing to verify as to her coming, or going. No one caring about anything whatsoever, only survival.
No one asks questions in Hackney...it being most unhealthy.
Again, Mark and I, stuck here over Xmas. Last year had been bad...this was going to be worse. Desperately looked about for a solution whereby she would not get all her own way, to show, maybe, the old dog still had teeth... Asked where she may be staying?
"The Hilton".
Thank you........What possible chance? what option did I have?

Hackney to the Hilton ?... about one million miles!
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