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London is a vast ocean in which survival is not certain. Essex Road and the unluckily named Balls Pond Road are areas of manifest greyness and misery. from London the Biography by Peter Ackroyd
I sleep high on the bird's nest. Trucks and lorries shake the house and make the bricks tremble, roaring tidal waves rock the bed and put me to sleep. There are odd wrecked Georgian houses beached between tyre shops and takeaways, Sometimes, people are murdered, police sirens shriek up and down all day like seagulls chasing sandwiches. On the second floor, we can look right into the 38 and see all the people but we think they can’t see us. And we can jump on the 38 ourselves, sail on the top deck down to Bloomsbury and Victoria. Our walls are stuffed with horsehair, on stormy nights, we hear them gallop. Like us, they don't want to leave. The ghost of a cat lives next door. Young black drivers play hip-hop and dance hall, when they stop its a five minute party and you never know when it might happen. The pink haired squatters dance topless on the concrete roof when its hot. John Ball's pond lies under our back gardens, the shades of his cows low at full moon. But it’s the roll of traffic that makes it more a ocean especially the sound of rushing wheels when it rains, and the uniformed Catholic children slip along the wet pavement like blue fish swimming down the Balls Pond Road.
The smallness of it, our bare knees poking out of our corduroy paisley dresses and the backs of our legs glued to the warm seats.
The bottle of water for topping up the radiator that always sat in the side pocket with a bottle of holy water in the shape of a see-through Virgin Mary.
My brother putting the plastic Virgin to his lips and drinking down great slugs before driving away to an exam which he failed anyway.
The crash at the junction of Pine Street and the fuss that was made of Fifi the dog by the staff in Casualty at the North Charitable Infirmary.
Waiting outside the Bank of Ireland while she made her lodgement, dreading the moment we would have to walk up to strangers, ‘Excuse me, my mother’s just learned to drive, could you turn our car and face it for home please?’
Shopping by the sea in Clonakilty, navy ‘wet look’ patent shoes for my mother, red shoes with buckles for me.
Fifi hanging her hairy head out the window, me hanging my boy’s haircut out of the window, the sweet taste of the gulps of flying air.
My mother driving to Limerick and getting up on the wrong part of the new road, workmen running after us, shaking their fists.
My father’s face when my mother put her foot on the accelerator and told him he was at her mercy.
The cloud of gravel when she drove out of the yard and the gasps from the men looking out the window.
I can’t remember how the Mini died only our disgust when she replaced it with a black Morris Minor for fifty pounds.
She laughed at us and said she didn’t care, she wasn’t ashamed of it, she would collect us from the convent in it, visit us more often in fact.
But in the end the Morris Minor refused to budge itself, mocked her view from the kitchen window, stuck to the stones of the rough ground where the salesman had parked it.
Our copybook covers were decorated with round towers, swallows and old Irish letters, I hoped every new one would be the one I would keep clean.
As clean as the milk white inkwells that fitted into the holes on top of our old fashioned desks like upside down top hats.
The dark blue ink swayed and swelled inside the china white bowls but never spilled no matter how much commotion there was.
And there was a lot of commotion, with boys being chased round the desks by the Master, getting kicked in the stomach and locked into cupboards.
I was slapped so much my fingers felt like great foreign sausages bursting out of their flimsy ink stained skins.
Being so bold it was a surprise to get the honour of filling the wells from the great earthenware pot that was the colour of Goldgrain biscuits.
But the pleasure of holding its sandy lip to each gleaming white brim was never realised. I dropped the pot before I got to the first one.
That inkpot’s been in this school for over a hundred years, Miss Cotter and it would take you to break it!
The Master was so astounded he forgot to beat me, just left me standing there with the stain spreading round my feet, the fall of ink so heavy the mark was still there when I checked twenty years later.
I was surprised not so much by the fact that she spoke but by the high opinion she had of me. ‘I think you’re great.’ she said and it was at this point I looked at her in surprise. ‘I mean,’ she continued, ‘the way you’ve managed to write anything at all! Fourteen court hearings and that horrible barrister, the way she looked at you.’ But you weren’t there,’ I said. ‘Oh but I can imagine it,’ said Eileen, her yellow eyes opening wide before narrowing into benevolent slits. ‘I only had to look at you, gulping down your red lentil soup when you came home after nearly three hours in the witness box defending your right to write. Did anyone ever hear the like? I could see it all in every swallow you took, her butty legs and her manly shoulders in that black suit, did she have dandruff? I hope not, because it really shows up on black. Saying those things to you, Oh Miss Cotter we would all like the luxury of sitting at home writing books! Holding up paper evidence between finger and thumb Here is another job you failed to get Miss Cotter. Trying to make you go out to work with radiation in a hospital and who would take care of us? What would the cats of this house do without the sound of your pen scratching on paper, the hum of your computer, your lovely lap and the sound of you on the telephone? The big dyed blonde head of her! And where did she think she was going? Well, earning a lot of money for her own words by the looks of things. And saying them to you! The best writer that ever heaved a can of Tuna or opened a pack of Science Plan. And as Mary Jenkins said about him who paid for the horrible utterances. Its just as well that Shakespeare wasn’t married to him And then when he was in the witness box, he wished you the best of luck with your writing....’ At this point Eileen paused, closed her eyes I was waiting for her to say something witty herself. After all it was a great opportunity for irony which for some reason I have always associated with cats. But when she opened her eyes again she requested a scoop of softened butter after which she licked her lips in detail and hasn’t opened her mouth since if you don’t count yawning, lapping, eating, washing miaowing, and screeching at intruders.
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