[1994]

“I could murder a cup of tea,” she would say, heading for the kitchen. “The house of the ever boiling kettle” as my then boyfriend dubbed it. Tea for welcome. Rich Tea, Digestive, custard creams. Tea for comfort, tea for study. Tea for contemplation. Tea with three Hermesetas and two sugars for my Dad. Tea with a thimbleful of milk and no sugar for my Mum. Instant coffee for my brother, though now he’s graduated to filter, infected by my continental tastes. Amongst the sodden crusts and bacon rinds on the draining board with yesterday’s midnight cigarette butt stands the cafetière, gleaming, clogged with grounds. Lyon’s medium blend in a battered packet with tokens to collect and send off in an envelope with a postal order to cover postage and packing. He shares the flat with Val. Her flat. Unauthorised sub-letting on the first floor of a housing association building. A hand-me-down unit with snapshots in plastic frames of cousins and illegitimate babies grinning, dribbling, unkempt, gravy-stained in endless sunshine. Bookshelves with no books. The inevitable two-bar heater. Unwashed socks stuffed half way down the back of the sofa. Ashtrays of glass and metal, a mannequin piss dispensing a solidified stream that would not extinguish a match. Bottle openers and guitar plectrums. Records and a ghetto-blaster (without CD player). Glum, unlaced Doc Martens beneath a poster of Loch Tummel. A bedroom with walls painted black and a sheep’s skull with a bulb behind the eye sockets – a stale, crumpled duvet and well-trodden biscuit crumbs – view to the warehouses and pavements and orange street lights that flicker on at sunset. You can hear the neighbours rowing or partying. The cars driving into the tarmacked courtyard. Autumn is coming – put more coins in the electric meter – don’t waste the hot water, we can’t afford to switch the immersion on during the day. Val is a swimmer who has earned every award for endurance, distance and lifesaving. She enjoys plain food with no trimmings. H.P. sauce is too exotic. Mince and tatties, fried egg rolls and chips. None of us understand how she puts up with him. Now he’s having an affair and she doesn’t know.

When they came to [Waffle Central] for the first time, she impressed upon him the need to exercise self-restraint when irritated by the ignorance of others: “Dinnae ye batter naebody”. He had combed down his Mohican specially, but the combat jacket and slashed jeans were a dead giveaway. On arrival at Central Station a mob of adolescent Turks jeered and spat at them until the full fury of Val was unleashed upon them. Throwing down the overstuffed canvas travel bags with a vehemence that ruptured the delicate insides of the thermos, she challenged them: “I’ll tak’ yeez on, ye wee bastards!” They fled in astonishment. It was she who dredged up enough school French to keep them fed in their wanderings, she who tracked down the cheapest postcards amongst the display stands.

I took them to Pablo’s for an evening meal. A pleasant, run-of-the-mill painted wooden parrot and Corona joint, fans rotating endlessly from the ceiling like misplaced propellers, striped sombreros slumped on the sill behind the bar. A mid-price, generous portion place where they let you talk when the glasses were drained and the bill had already been paid. To them it was the giddiest opulence, the finest food: R even ate the salad.

Glossy leaves and disinfectant, windowsill cats and no entry signs. The ice cream van has departed, having sold no cones or tubs, 9.15 p.m. not being a commercially sound proposition in the September darkness. Not that G’s enthusiasm has dwindled. Summoned by the chimes, he climbs eagerly to watch the obstinate vehicle pause by the kerb. Does the driver spot him and hope for a wearing down of parental resistance? Our ice cream vans came far earlier in the days when the street was still populated by children. Crisps, lollipops (“Kojaks”), bubblegum, sherbet fountains, chocolate, even cigarettes (candy and tobacco varieties, insidious encouragement to the pure-lunged infants). Wait your turn in the queue to spend the last of your pocket money. Gobstoppers. Penny chews. Highland toffee.
A bluebottle buzzes around the study, bashing against the walls in a frenzy of aimlessness. Gormlessness. I’ll find it in a month or so, on its back, legs curled, behind one of the cardboard boxes stuffed with notes I’ve never re-read: the history of Schleswig-Holstein. The pipes are noisy in this flat. At first I thought an intruder had stopped to wash his hands before the foul deed, then, eyes rolling, eased back into slumber. A jet now trembles the window panes. Where is it going? Beyond the garages a naked bulb illuminates a neighbour’s wardrobe. Statutory net curtains do not disappoint the prying curiosity of an evening. Less eventful than a Hitchcock plot, no one lowers a shivering pooch in a basket. No one throws down a gauntlet to the world with smooth-chested nudity or waves as a rebuttal. The balconies are empty, the washing gathered in to fend off the dampness in the air, the parasols redundant in the moonlight. Up early tomorrow to coax my son to school.