by Mike Gayle
Hubert didn’t know what to think. The details of her story certainly seemed to add up. But what could have happened to reduce his oldest, closest friend, who had always been the smartest dresser and most house-proud man he knew, to such a state?
“You certain it was Gus you saw?”
“As sure as I’m talking to you.”
Without another word, Hubert set his basket on the floor and began walking toward the exit as Bernice called after him.
“Mr. Hubert! Mr. Hubert! Are you not going to give me a proper goodbye?”
Hubert called over his shoulder.
“Sorry, Bernice! Another time! Right now me have somewhere to be!”
20
THEN
August 1964
Hubert closed the wardrobe door and scanned the room they had called home their entire married life.
“I think that’s everything.”
Joyce wiped away a tear.
“It’s funny, isn’t it? All the nights I’ve spent dreaming of a place of our own and yet here I am getting upset about leaving this one.”
Hubert put an arm around her shoulders.
“There’s a lot of happy memories in here, that’s for sure. But don’t forget about all the lovely ones we’re going to make in our new place.”
He kissed her cheek tenderly.
“Let’s collect the children from downstairs and say our goodbyes.”
Getting a place of their own had been something Joyce had set her mind on from the day Rose was born. She had always wanted a garden for her daughter to play in, a proper kitchen to cook in, and space for them all to grow, and with the arrival of David two years earlier, the need had become even more pressing. To begin with, Hubert had suggested they might look for somewhere in the area, perhaps as far out as Clapham, but Joyce had been adamant that she wanted to head back to Bromley.
“I had such a lovely childhood there,” she’d said, “and the schools are wonderful.”
In her heart of hearts she knew this wasn’t just about giving their children an idyllic start or even a good education; it was about staking a claim on a piece of what was, after all, her hometown. It was her refusing to be driven out by ignorance and hostility—it was her refusing to be beaten.
Hubert hadn’t argued the point. As much as he liked Brixton, he was far from convinced it would be the best place to bring up a young family. They had discussed the fact that it would be difficult not just for Hubert, but for the children and Joyce too, moving to an area like Bromley where they’d stick out like a sore thumb. Ultimately they’d reasoned that as they were going to stick out wherever they were, it might as well be out in a leafy Kent suburb.
They found the children playing shops in Mrs. Cohen’s front room, the old lady pretending to be the customer and making them giggle with outlandish requests. It was good to see her so happy after losing her husband the year before. She loved Rose and David like the grandchildren she never had, and was always spoiling them with sweets and homemade cakes.
Mrs. Cohen caught sight of Joyce in the doorway.
“Is it time already?”
“I’m afraid so. Come on, you two, it’s time to go.”
David, with his chubby cheeks and wild mass of dark curls, shoved out his bottom lip angrily. Rose, smartly dressed in her Sunday-best dress, put a comforting arm around her brother’s shoulders. They reminded Joyce of her own childhood. How she had always been the one to calm down her younger brother, Eric. David resembled him a little: the shape of his eyes, the slope of his chin, even sometimes the way he laughed. Rose, on the other hand, strongly featured Hubert’s younger sister, Cora, or at least that’s how it seemed from the single photograph Hubert had of her.
“We’ll see Nana Cohen again soon,” said Joyce in a placatory tone as the children began to whine. “We’re not moving that far away.”
Hubert appeared and gave Mrs. Cohen a hug, thanking her for all she had done for them over the years. Everything from renting them a room when no one else would to allowing Joyce to continue using her downstairs rooms for her childminding business. In short, she had been a lifesaver and they would both miss her very much.
“You take care of yourself and this lovely family of yours,” said a tearful Mrs. Cohen. Then with a twinkle in her eye she added, “And don’t forget your promise to look at the sink in number ten. The tenant in there says the tap’s dripping so loudly that he keeps dreaming it’s raining in his room!”
Hubert agreed to look at it as soon as he could and then, scooping up the children in his arms, left Joyce to say her farewell in private.
Joyce hugged Mrs. Cohen tightly.
“Thank you. Thank you for everything.”
Heading outside, Joyce joined Hubert and the children in the council van Hubert had borrowed from work. The sum total of their possessions was stacked in the back, and as Joyce climbed into the passenger seat she couldn’t help but feel they were embarking on the biggest adventure of their lives.
Park Avenue was a wide tree-lined road made up of a mixture of 1930s duplexes and dilapidated Victorian villas, of which number fifty-one was a rather down-at-heel example. It sat next to a rickety wooden Salvation Army hall and had been lived in, since being built, by an elderly lady who had recently died after being bedridden for the last ten years. The roof leaked, the garden was overgrown, and the paint on all the woodwork had faded and was peeling so badly it was hard to imagine what color it had once been. Its saving grace was that it was cheap, and as so few people were interested in it and the old woman’s family was desperate for a quick sale, Joyce had pounced on it.
Catching sight of something, Rose pointed excitedly to the tree in front of the house that was now their home.
“Look, Squirrel Nutkin!”
“Maybe there’s a Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle in the garden,” said Joyce. “Perhaps we’ll put a saucer of bread and milk out tonight if we have time, and if you’re lucky she might come and say hello.”
The unpacking didn’t take long. They’d bought a few items of second-hand furniture—beds, a table and chairs, and a sofa set—all of which were being delivered that afternoon, so for now they focused on opening all the doors and windows and clearing out as much of the rubbish that had been left behind as they could manage.
They worked hard until midday, when Hubert suggested they have fish and chips for lunch as a treat. Taking the van, he left Joyce cleaning the front windows, perched on a stepladder they’d found in the shed, while the children played hide-and-seek in the back garden.
He’d been gone fifteen minutes, and she was nearly finished with the windows when she heard someone call to her and turned to see a middle-aged woman laden with shopping bags standing by the front gate.
“Just moved in?”
Joyce put down the cloth and bottle of Windolene and, wiping her hands on her apron, climbed down the steps and walked up to the gate.
“Today, actually. I’m Joyce Bird, pleased to meet you.”
The woman put down her shopping bags and they shook hands.
“Irma Cook. I live up the road with my Bob. We’ve been saying how nice it would be for a young family to move in and take care of the old Partridge place. Have you come far?”
“Not too far, but I was born and bred on just the other side of Bromley so it really does feel like I’m coming home.”
“I bet it does. We’ll have to have you and your husband over for a cup of tea sometime.”
“Ooh, yes, that would be lovely.”
“My Bob works for the council. What line of work is your husband in?”
“He’s a plumber,” replied Joyce. “He does a lot of work for the council himself at the minute but he’s hoping to set up on his own someday soon.”
Mrs. Cook raised an eyebrow.
“Well, he’ll find no end of work around here, I can tell you. Last year we were looking for a plumber to do our bathroom—it’s not been touched since before the war—and the fella we finally got in cost an
arm and a leg and took forever to do it.”
“Well, at least now you know where we are if you need anything doing in the future.”
Mrs. Cook was about to reply when Rose appeared at the front door holding the hand of David, his small face wet with tears, his knee scraped and bleeding.
“It wasn’t my fault,” protested Rose, leading her limping brother down the front path to the gate. “I told him to slow down but he wouldn’t listen and tripped over.”
Joyce whisked a tissue from her apron pocket and dabbed at David’s knee until he’d calmed down. Drying his eyes, she turned around, ready to introduce the children to their new neighbor, but Mrs. Cook was nowhere to be seen.
“Are you looking for the lady you were talking to, Mummy?” asked Rose. “She pulled a funny face like this”—she screwed up her own face as if she had a sour taste in her mouth—“when she saw me and David and then she walked away.”
“Did she now?” Joyce was angry with herself for having let her guard down. Five minutes they’d been here and already it was happening. “Well,” she said, striving to put a smile on her face as Hubert pulled up in the van, “it doesn’t look like she’ll be getting any chips, then.”
In the end the beds didn’t arrive until Monday morning and the table and chairs were delayed until late the following Thursday. Despite all the setbacks and unpleasantness Joyce was determined not to let anything spoil their happiness.
On Friday morning, just before she and Hubert set out for work, she suggested that they throw a housewarming party that weekend.
“You get in contact with Gus and ask your friends from work,” said Joyce, “and I’ll do the same with mine. Warn them it won’t be anything too fancy, just a bit of food and a few drinks to christen the house.”
Hubert thought it was a great idea and the two of them spent most of Saturday making preparations for the party, sometimes helped but mostly hindered by Rose and David. By the time the evening rolled around, the kitchen table was groaning with food, and Hubert had set up a respectable bar in the garden in the dwindling heat of the day.
Gus was first to arrive, along with his latest girlfriend, a gorgeous girl from St. Kitts who clearly adored him.
Joyce kissed him on the cheek.
“Hello, Gus, and who’s this lovely young lady?”
“This is Irene. Irene, this is Joyce, Hubert’s good lady.”
Although Joyce chatted to Irene while Gus went in search of Hubert, and tried her best to sound interested, her heart just wasn’t in it. She still missed Lois, and although Gus had been out with some lovely girls since, none of them ever stuck around long enough for her to get to know them properly. She wondered whether he would ever settle down, and occasionally even worried that he might lead her husband astray. Hubert, however, always managed to allay her fears. “You think me want to be like Gus?” he would say incredulously, before bursting into laughter. “No, thank you, that life is not for me!”
While Gus went to talk to Hubert in the garden, Joyce showed Irene around the house, describing all the plans they had for the place, until another knock at the door signaled the arrival of more guests. There were friends both Black and white they’d made while living at Mrs. Cohen’s, families they’d become close to after Joyce had minded their children, and many others they’d collected across their six years together. As they all flooded into the house carrying various gifts and platters of food, Joyce couldn’t help but wish her mum were still alive, that she could’ve seen how happy she was with Hubert, how wonderful her grandchildren were, and how much they had achieved over these past few years. She had even written to Peggy, in part to invite her along today but mostly to tell her that she was back in Bromley, but in the end she had crumpled the letter up, recalling that in six years she hadn’t even received so much as a Christmas card from her sister.
As she took people’s coats and pointed them in the direction of the food and drink, Joyce realized that she didn’t need to show her family she was doing well. She didn’t need to prove to them somehow that she had made the right decision in marrying Hubert. The happiness she felt right now was testimony enough.
Even though the party went on until late, Joyce was up at the crack of dawn the following morning tidying up. Later, while Hubert took the children to the park at the top of the road, she made her first ever full Sunday roast in the temperamental gas oven the old lady’s family had left behind.
They ate their meal sitting at their new kitchen table, Rose diligently consuming everything that was put before her; David picking at his food like he always did, throwing half of it on the floor and getting most of the rest in his hair; Hubert enthusing over every mouthful, even the charred roast potatoes and soggy cabbage. This was her family, thought Joyce. This was her home, where she and Hubert would raise their children and grow old together.
The next morning they were both up early, Hubert off to start work on a new housing development site over on the other side of town and Joyce to get the kids up and ready to take them with her to work in Brixton. As she left the house she noticed a single piece of mail sitting on the doormat, which she scooped up and placed in her pocket and didn’t get a chance to read until they were sitting on the train. The absence of a stamp should have set her alarm bells ringing but naively she’d thought that it might be a housewarming card from one of the neighbors she’d yet to meet. She took a thin cream sheet of paper out of the envelope and unfolded it. Scribbled across the middle of it in block capitals were the words NIGGER LOVER GO HOME.
21
NOW
By the time Hubert reached Brixton he’d conjured up all manner of theories as to how Gus might have ended up in the state Bernice had described. One strong possibility was that Gus had succumbed to dementia and had no one to look after him. Or perhaps he’d gotten together with the wrong sort of woman and she’d taken him for everything he had. Maybe he’d developed that glaucoma and he literally couldn’t see the mess he was in. Whatever the reason, one thing was certain: Gus Campbell needed a friend.
Reaching Gus’s front door, Hubert knocked firmly on it and when there was no response began shouting at the top of his voice through the hole in the flimsy door that was all that remained of the letterbox.
“Hello? Gus, man, it’s me, Hubert Bird.”
Nothing. He listened carefully but unlike the time before he couldn’t even hear a TV. Perhaps this time around there was no one home. Perhaps Bernice had got it wrong. Perhaps Gus was alive and well and living somewhere nice that was the complete opposite of this mess.
He knocked on the door again, calling out through the letterbox.
“Gus, man! It’s me, Hubert! Open up and let me in!”
Hubert was so busy banging on the door that he didn’t notice the dark figure that appeared several feet behind the frosted glass until a deep baritone voice from inside growled, “Go away!”
It was Gus. Hubert was sure of it. He would know his old friend’s voice anywhere. And as he peered through the glass at the blurry outline behind it, he was certain. He bent down and looked through the letterbox. It was Gus, but not the man he remembered. This version was wearing a green T-shirt splattered with food stains and navy tracksuit bottoms out of which poked gnarled unshod feet. What was left of the hair on his head was the same pure white as his matted beard. It was just as Bernice had said: the man was in a state.
“Gus, man, it’s me, Hubert! Hubert Bird! Don’t leave me standing out here like a fool! Let me in!”
There was a silence and then a voice spoke.
“H-H-Hubert?”
Hubert bent down to peer through the letterbox again.
“Yes, Gus! It’s me, man. Let me in.”
Another long silence, then the same voice spoke tentatively.
“Sm-Sm-Smiler?”
“Yes, man! It’s me! Open up, old friend.”
“I thought… I thought you were dead. I thought you must be dead and gone.”
Hubert’s heart
suddenly felt heavy.
“Not dead… at least not yet. Just let me in so we can talk, okay?”
There was a long silence, then Gus spoke again.
“I can’t… Smiler, man… you need to go… Just go and forget you ever come here.”
“No, me not going anywhere until you open this door and that’s a promise.”
Another long silence, but this time Gus came close enough to the glass for Hubert to almost make out his face.
“Hubert Bird, it’s good to hear your voice, man.”
“Then let me in!”
“I can’t.”
“What you on about? Just open the door.”
“Smiler, no bother make me explain. I just can’t.”
“Gus, you can’t make your old friend come all this way on a train just to turn around.”
There was a pause, followed by what to Hubert’s ears sounded like the beginning of laughter.
“Tell me, Hubert Bird, you still smile like the morning sun?”
“Yes, but me have to put me teeth in first!”
Gus laughed a deep raspy laugh and came even closer to the door.
Hubert could feel his heart racing. He was close, really close.
“Come on, man, you can do it, just open the door and let me in.”
With bated breath, Hubert watched as Gus’s hand slowly reached up to the lock, slid back the chain, and opened the door. Following Gus’s shuffling figure across the hallway and into the living room, Hubert was shocked to see that his friend’s home was exactly like the man himself: a mess. There were piles of bin bags in the hallway, towers of books and old newspapers on the floor in the living room, and apart from a tatty old armchair positioned opposite the TV, the only available place to sit was on the sofa next to two empty propane canisters. Although Gus could see Hubert’s struggle as he perched gingerly on the edge of the scruffy brown sofa with rips in its fabric covered over by gaffer tape, he made no attempt to address the situation.
