Tender Earth
Page 13
‘That’s kind of what this bag is, Bubbe. We had a letter from an old friend of my nana’s to pick up some of her things. I shouldn’t have gone but . . .’
I wasn’t planning to tell Bubbe the truth about the letter and going to collect the Protest Book and how Simon gave me the Banner Bag. I wasn’t going to say anything, but Bubbe has that way about her, of making it easy to talk. She sits quietly and listens. It feels so good to tell Bubbe everything.
‘That’s why I needed to hide it at yours, because no one else knows about this,’ I say as I finish. ‘Are you going to tell Mum where I was?’
‘You can tell her when you’re ready,’ Bubbe says. ‘Though I can’t pretend I’m not intrigued to have a look at the Protest Book myself when you’re ready to show me! Your nana and I were about the same age, I think. You never know, we might have been on some of those marches together.’
Bubbe looks over at Stan’s silver box.
‘No, Laila, you hold on to your nana’s precious things. You’ll find a way to tell your family what happened when the time’s right.’ She taps my hand. ‘Now, don’t tell anyone this or they’ll think I’m losing my marbles, but sometimes when I’m looking through Stan’s old things I feel like he’s actually here sitting with me, drinking tea and listening to the radio . . . nothing ghostly, just companionable, you know?’ Bubbe laughs. ‘It’s silly, I know.’
‘I don’t think it is,’ I say.
‘So, tell me, Laila!’ she says, changing the subject. ‘How are you getting on at school? Kezia tells me you’ve made a new friend.’
I nod and keep my lips sealed.
She waits for a minute to see if I want to tell her anything else about my new friend, and when I don’t she nods and carries on. Bubbe knows me as well as I know Kez. Sometimes I don’t need to say anything and she gets what I’m thinking . . . ‘You know, the bat mitzvah really does take a lot of time to prepare for and Kezia’s committed to doing it as well as she can, but it’ll all be over by December and you can spend more time together then.’
‘I don’t think I really get the bat mitzvah thing. I didn’t even know she was religious before this.’
Bubbe folds her hands together. I follow the candle flame flickering this way and that, and for a moment I worry I’ve insulted her.
‘How can I explain? It’s this feeling of belonging to something beyond yourself – I think Kezia really needs that at the moment. There’s this saying in the Shabbat prayer, let me see if I can translate it . . .’ Bubbe mumbles it to herself in Hebrew. ‘First you must find who you are and then you can start to see how you connect to your community . . . The way I see it, a bat mitzvah gives you this . . . compass to help you on your way. At your age it’s quite natural to question where you belong in the world, and I think Kezia is just waking up to what’s ahead of her – but she’s not the only one, is she, Laila?’
Bubbe looks over at the Banner Bag on the chair and holds on to my wrist.
‘And then of course there’s the getting dressed up and the party afterwards! Oh my goodness, now that’s quite something! I never had one myself. There were only bar mitzvahs in my day, for the boys.’
‘That’s a bit sexist!’ I say and it makes her laugh.
‘Well, times change, Laila . . . at least I thought they had.’
Bubbe holds her hands in the air as if to say, ‘Just a moment –’ as if I’ve been the one chatting on, not her.
No matter where you are in a conversation, if there’s something she’s really interested in on the news, Bubbe stops to listen. She goes over to the radio, turns up the volume and leans against the counter while she listens. Right now a politician’s being interviewed.
‘Listen to the language they use! Quotas, swarms . . . as if people are insects – or vermin!’ She holds on to the delicate gold necklace that she always wears as she concentrates.
The presenter is now interviewing a boy called Amit – his voice sounds so sweet and young.
I am ten years old. I make this journey on my own. My feet always hurting from walking so far. Nothing in my home is left. All is destroyed with shelling. I don’t know where is my mother, where is my father, my sisters . . . We have no clean water, not enough food, and here are some not good people, you know? Please, give us some safety. Make your hearts open. How can you close your borders to us? We are only children. If you turn your backs from us, we will die. Once already I have died to lose my family. Now we die a second time.
The reporter goes on to talk about something else, but Bubbe stares silently at the flickering flame of the candle for what seems like ages. Then she turns off the radio, walks over to a shelf and takes down two photos. I remember she brought them into an assembly talk she did when we were in Year Six. She places them gently on the table.
There’s a black-and-white photo of a little boy wearing shorts and a really tall girl with long, thick bunches who looks a bit like Kez.
‘Stan and me. We didn’t know each other then . . . but he was sure he remembered me from the train. Peas in a pod, he used to call us.’
‘But you look so tall!’ I say.
Bubbe straightens up and sticks her chin in the air, like she’s trying to remember what it felt like to be tall.
‘Maybe that’s why he noticed me! I was tall when I was ten, Laila. People used to think I was a really tall girl, but that’s about as far as I got!’ She laughs.
You can still see the little girl in Bubbe’s face, even through all her lines and wrinkles.
‘What colour was your hair?’ I ask.
‘I suppose you would call it chestnut. Like Kezia’s before she dyed it. Mine was quite a mane too!’ Bubbe touches her shoulder as if she can still feel curls there.
‘Stan had this story he used to tell people: he swore that we sat opposite each other on the train from Harwich to Liverpool Street. Remember the statue I took you and Kezia to see?’
I nod.
‘Sometimes Stan and I would go and sit on that platform we stepped out on to. I don’t think he can really have remembered me . . . I didn’t remember him. But he said I was crying so much I wouldn’t have. It’s true that I did cry all the way. That little boy’s voice –’ she nods towards the radio – ‘took me right back there. That’s the strange thing about parting. I remember it like it was yesterday.’ Bubbe looks over to my bag. ‘Do you remember my little suitcase I brought into school when I came to talk to you?’
‘Yes.’
‘You wanted to know what was inside . . .’
‘You said memories. I remember that.’
Bubbe smiles. ‘Would you like to see what I keep in it?’
I nod.
She goes through to her bedroom. I look at the photo of ten-year-old Bubbe, holding the suitcase. She looks so frightened.
Bubbe returns with the little leather suitcase she let us hold when she came into school. She puts it on the table, opens the clasp and takes out a pair of little shoes.
‘People might look at these –’ she points from the Banner Bag to her suitcase – ‘and see two old bags!’ She’s joking, but I don’t feel like laughing and I don’t think she does either. ‘They say you shouldn’t put new shoes on the table . . . but these are pretty old. We didn’t come with much, but these are the shoes I arrived in, Laila.’
They are plain little black shoes with silver buckles. They look a bit like tap shoes.
Bubbe bends down, slips off her shoes and tries them on.
‘They still fit! Your feet are so tiny!’ I laugh.
‘Do you know the strangest thing, Laila? They never grew at all from when I arrived. Not even half a size! Look – I’m still being carried around on my ten-year-old feet!’ Bubbe takes the shoes off and puts them back in the case. ‘I don’t get them out much.’
When I look down at Bubbe’s tiny old feet it makes me feel so sad. Like a bit of her could never grow properly again after she was forced to leave her home.
I block the door with a
chair and pull the Banner Bag out from under the bed.
Its leather ties are stiff and it smells a bit damp too, like it’s been in storage for a long time. I have to press the catches really hard to get the bag to open. I carefully lift out the envelope with the Protest Book inside. The bag seems to have lots of separate compartments and there are old cobwebs in the folds of the yellowing canvas and a few paint stains. On one side there are sections containing paint bottles. I take them out. There’s a blood-red colour, a dark blue, a nearly empty bottle of black, an orange and a turquoise. The turquoise paint bottle hasn’t been opened yet, but all the others have been used and have crusted-up paint inside. There’s another section for paintbrushes, thick ones and thin ones too. In the bottom of the bag is a roll of old ripped sheets and a pile of bamboo poles about the same length as my arm. There’s one huge sheet that’s all bright colours. I carefully take it out and unfold it over Mira’s carpet. This must be the banner Hope was taking down off Simon’s wall.
I hold my breath as I unroll it like a precious scroll. It’s my Nana Josie’s painting, and this sea of bright-coloured faces wearing clothes of every colour of the rainbow holding up banners is for me. I know it is. I can feel it. In turquoise letters across the back of the sheet is written ‘Women’s March’. In the background you can’t tell the features of the faces – it’s just hundreds and hundreds of people – but at the front there are three people I recognize even though they’re so young. It’s Nana wearing a yellow skirt reaching down to the ground, Hope with a massive wild tangle of Afro hair and Simon pushing his bike with flowers in the spokes of his wheels. They look like proper hippies all marching barefoot.
I can’t believe I’ve got this painting of Nana’s and the paint she actually painted it in. I wonder if paint goes off. I twist the lid of the turquoise paint; it’s really hard to open and I have to use every bit of strength to get it to budge. It does smell a bit stale.
‘Laila, I’m home!’ Mum’s voice makes me jump. She’s climbing the stairs now.
I quickly scoop up the paints, the banner and the Protest Book and push them under my bed.
Mum calls through the door, then the knob turns. ‘Why are you blocking the door?’
‘Just hang on a minute, Mum.’
I pull the duvet over so that it covers the gap at the bottom of the bed and then I unwedge the chair from under the door knob.
‘What’s going on?’ Mum asks, sniffing the air.
‘I was just getting changed. I need a lock on this door!’ I say.
‘We don’t do locks in this house, Laila.’
‘I might as well sleep on the landing then!’
Mum’s nose is still twitching. ‘Do you think it smells a bit damp in here?’ She goes over and opens the window. ‘How’s your eczema . . . any better?’ She takes hold of my arm.
I wish she wouldn’t just grab me, like my body belongs to her. I shrug her off and pull my arms away from her inspection.
‘I’ve brought you some colour charts to look at. How about a mauve?’ Mum scans down the shades of purple.
I pretend to shove my fingers down my throat.
‘Not mauve then! What about something more neutral?’ She hands me a chart of creams and whites.
‘Mum, I keep telling you, I’m not bothered about getting Mira’s room decorated.’
‘That’s the whole point, Laila. It’s not Mira’s room any more. You need to make it your own, and it would be so much easier for me if we could get it done before Janu visits.’ Mum rubs at a stain on the carpet. ‘We could maybe get you a rug. This carpet’s looking pretty ropey with all Mira’s art stains! I don’t want Janu to think we live in a mess.’ Mum sighs.
‘He runs an orphanage for street children, Mum; I don’t think he’ll care how my room’s decorated.’
Mum knocks against something with her foot, then feels for it under the bed.
Well, I suppose this is it. I’ll have to tell her everything.
‘What’s this?’ she asks, picking up the bottle of turquoise paint.
Maybe she hasn’t seen the Banner Bag.
‘Kez gave it to me . . . I like the colour!’
‘If you like that . . .’
Mum scans down the blues and turquoises on her charts.
‘You know, this deep turquoise was one of your Nana Josie’s favourites too! Lots of her paintings are in this and gold. It might be too much for all the walls, but maybe one would work in this colour.’
Mum looks happy, as if me liking the colour turquoise is somehow progress.
The phone rings and we bump into each other in our race downstairs to pick up the phone. I get there first. It’s Mira. Mum’s doing that thing that Nana Kath does – and Mum says she hates – of telling me to ask questions at the same time as I’m talking.
‘Mum wants me to tell you that Janu’s coming next Sunday. She needs to know which of the weekends you’ll come home to see him. It’s in half-term,’ I tell her as Mum carries on talking in my ear.
I want to tell her about Nana’s beautiful banner painting. But how can I do that without letting on that I’ve got the Protest Book too?
‘She says she doesn’t have half-terms, Mum.’
I tell Mira that I’ll call her on my mobile later because even she can hear Mum talking right in my ear!
‘You get annoyed with Nana Kath when she does that!’ I say as I hand the phone over to her. But the truth is I feel so strange talking to Mira. Since Mrs Latif asked that question about lying, it seems like I haven’t stopped. I really want to tell Mira the truth about everything that’s been going on. It’s hard to be close to someone when there’s too many lies between you, and I hate feeling so far apart. But I just want to have a chance to take it all in before I own up to having the Protest Book. I think Bubbe understood that. I want to sit with Nana Josie’s Protest Book for a bit, just me and her and all the things she cared about.
I sit on the carpet, take the Protest Book out of the Banner Bag and start to read about all the marches Nana Josie went on. There are pages of them! And it’s not just marches – there are letters and campaigns and petitions too. There are even letters from prime ministers. Well, secretaries on behalf of prime ministers. Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair mostly . . . There are quite a few from Glenda Jackson, who I thought was an actress but turns out she used to be an MP . . . she must have been a good one, I think, because she wrote all these letters back to Nana explaining things. Most of the official letters that the politicians and organizations sent back are quite boring really. Just standard ones like they’d send out to everyone. It’s strange that they write in such good English – the kind of letters you’re supposed to learn how to write. But even though they use the right words, most of these letters don’t actually seem to say anything. I suppose they would just reply by email now. It would be much more interesting if there were copies of the letters that Nana Josie sent to them.
I read through page after page of newspaper clippings. I can’t really take in all the information. I make a note of the campaigns so I can research the things that mean something to me, like Simon said I should. Soon I will have to give this back to Mira and she might be angry with me for not telling her about it and take it away with her.
• Women’s March
• March on Lincoln Memorial – 1963 – Nana actually heard Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech
• Anti-Apartheid movement (ANC – National Membership Card) – Meetings where Simon and Hope said they used to meet together
• ‘Not in My Name’ (Banner Nana used for lots of things)
• Greenham Common
• CND
• Animal Welfare
• Anti-Arms Trade
• Anti-Vivisection
• Free People of Tibet (Vigil outside Tibetan Embassy, London) – Photo of Nana and Simon sitting holding candles
• Naked Bike Ride for Climate Change (That photo!)
• Bhopal Medical Ap
peal (Simon’s marathon fundraising runs)
• Iraq Anti-War March
• Refugees Welcome March (Simon’s last one)
There are lots of other local campaigns too that I don’t write down, but they’re kind of sweet, like ‘Save our local oak tree’! I like the picture of Nana and Simon and some other people linking arms together around the tree. I actually think I’ve walked past it on Hampstead Heath near the ponds – so that’s proof their protest actually worked.
I’m walking along the pavement thinking about the different protests Nana was part of. The oak-tree protest worked and so did some of the really big ones that people all over the world fought for, like the Anti-Apartheid movement and the Civil Rights marches. But lots of the other things Nana was campaigning against are still happening. Was it really worth them doing all that marching and protesting when it hasn’t changed anything? I wonder if Bubbe and Nana did ever go on the same marches. I can’t get the picture of Bubbe listening to the refugee boy on the radio out of my mind. Now she’s told me her own story I can see why she gets so sad when she sees all those children . . .
Someone sprints up behind me and taps me on the shoulder.
‘Sorry, didn’t mean to shock you!’ Pari’s really out of breath. ‘Thought I was going to be late. Had to catch the bus from the tube.’ Something glints on the side of her head.
‘Like the scarf jewels!’ I say.
‘Oh, thanks! Mrs Latif told me where to get them!’ Pari says, turning her head so I can get a closer look at the little diamond flowers. ‘She’s not sure they’re allowed in school, but I said if earrings are allowed then scarf rings should be . . . She said she thinks that’s right and that she’d make the case for me if anyone tells me to take them off! We got lucky with our tutor group, didn’t we?’ Pari smiles at me.
I don’t think she’s only talking about Mrs Latif. ‘We did!’ I say.