Find Another Place

by Ben Graff

  It was certainly the case that no ball that went over her hedge was ever returned, and it was apparently held on good authority in The Bell that she kept a huge box of them. At times Matt and I (mainly Matt) would embark on a daring raid across her garden to save a ball from this fate. Occasionally Mrs Sawmill would see him and throw tea in his direction. But for all of her cursing, she wasn’t the fastest, and Dad was pretty immune to her subsequent complaints.

  Sometimes we would light fires and fail to properly cook sausages and tins of beans. We went through a phase of trying to launch rockets made of old torch shells filled with wood and firelighters. Science wasn’t our strong point and Dad never really showed much interest in our pyrotechnics.

  There was a grapevine on the side of the old shed, but my attempts to make wine with its tiny beads of fruit proved unsuccessful. Above the garage was a loft, which we used as a den, playing games there which involved CB radios and stacks of food and were based on us and friends dividing into rival gangs of boys and acting out scenes from The A-Team, albeit without any actual welding gear. The loft was good for birthday parties but less interesting in later years when our age outgrew our imaginations, at least for a while.

  “We’ll Always Have Bognor”

  – 8 August 1988

  We take the train the one stop from Ryde Esplanade to Ryde Pier Head, listening to the clack of the wheels on the wooden structure, looking down on the mud and sea through the slats. We are on our way to get the newish catamaran, Our Lady Patricia, from Ryde to Portsmouth. Made in Tasmania, a silver plaque proudly pronounces. It smells of plastic and clean carpet, more like a toy boat than the huge hulking passenger ferries Brading and Southsea, with their rust-speckled hulls and warnings to keep off the propellers. They had now been withdrawn from service.

  Martin said it would have cost more to fix Brading’s gear box than the ageing vessel was worth, so that was that. Besides, he told me that the catamarans save a lot of time, although I wonder if time really can be saved. I already suspect that it cannot be stored. I find myself thinking to things gone by and things no longer worth fixing, dreaming vaguely of one day buying the ferry company and wresting the vessels from their rusty, watery graveyard, making things again how once they were. In the summer sunshine when you are young all things seem both possible and unlikely in equal measure.

  As ever, on the journey from Mum’s parents to Dad’s, the atmosphere starts out tense. Both are braced, neither necessarily looking forward to this. He is baked brown by the sun, wearing dark blue cords and a short-sleeved shirt. It never takes long, a morning on a beach and he will be a completely different colour, although he could never just do that; once he is there he is there, a real sun worshipper, no matter how bored and I Matt might become over the hours.

  He has gold-framed spectacles with lenses that tint like sunglasses in the summer light. Somehow they add to his enigmatic aura. Jet black hair, a full head, his chest is still scar-less. Suede desert boots. A ruggedness and physicality about him that people notice. He smells faintly of aftershave and sweat. He doesn’t say much. It is the near silence that draws people in, keeps them guessing. On his wrist a Rotary watch with leather strap and gold face that he rarely looks at.

  Mum is in a flora-patterned summer dress and overlarge sunglasses. She carries a large bag with supplies and emergency provisions: water, biscuits, sweets, a bottle of suntan lotion, her paperback, The Daily Telegraph neatly folded on top for him. The crossword puzzle has already been half done. Her legs are scarred and it is only in the height of summer that she does not wear tights.

  As a student she had been hit by a bus while crossing a road and a number of operations on her legs had followed. Along with the scarring, she has an allergy to penicillin that she has told me comes from having had to take so much of it after the accident. A general weakening perhaps, certainly a nervousness about driving where she doesn’t know, even if this had all happened to her as a pedestrian.

  She is worried that we might miss the catamaran, and it’s true, we do end up running for it. I half remember him throwing a bag in her general direction on another occasion when we actually missed one, but I can’t be sure. Today we will make it. “I knew we left too late,” she says. He says nothing but looks irritated; to some extent his default expression.

  He points to the board that shows the boat is only just docking, the queue of people waiting to get on. If this was in the science lab no experiment would be necessary, a conclusion can be drawn by using our eyes. We have missed nothing and the day is still on track.

  Matt fidgets while we wait in the line, which doesn’t improve either of their moods. Finally, passengers disembark and we run on, pushing our way through the queue to claim the aircraft-like seats by the bow windows, leaving Mum and Dad with the dilemma of claiming the neighbouring seats we have saved, which will entail admitting that they are travelling with us.

  Then we are underway and there is a lifting of sorts, as Our Lady Patricia churns through the Solent, grey on silver today in the sunlight, a twist of salt in the air. Slowly out of the harbour, navigating the sailboats and other pleasure craft, and then faster in the deeper, less sheltered water. She bumps on her wash as the engine briefly reaches full throttle, spilling diesel fumes in the air.

  We watch the view of car ferries and hovercraft, fishing and sailing boats, until all too soon she slows again as the battleship HMS Warrior comes into view and we are docked at Portsmouth Harbour, landing close to the green and white striped Gosport passenger ferries. ‘It’s shorter by water!’ they proclaim.

  Then forty-five minutes or so on the south coast train, filled with holidaymakers and local youths in football shirts. There is no air conditioning and the floor feels sticky to the step. A group of teenagers are singing a rude song about one of their friends that our parents studiously ignore, while Matt and I snigger. Until he is told not to, Matt picks at the seat cover, which has been slit open by a knife and bleeds foam, by which point a whole new pool of debris has formed and is sticking to his legs. We stop at some but not all of the stations, and I watch the names go by Portsmouth Harbour, Portsmouth and Southsea, Fratton, Hilsea, Farlington Halt, Bedhampton, Havant, Warblington, Emsworth, Southbourne, Nutbourne, Bosham, Fishbourne, Chichester, Bognor Regis. At last we arrive.

  Dave is waiting to pick us up at the station in his bright red Datsun, with the plastic covers over the seats and airfreshener hanging from the mirror. His white hair and chiselled features leave the potential for him to look distinguished, but his general demeanour, as much as anything, detracts from this possibility. He is in his usual attire: grey suit trousers slightly crumpled, white shirt, a tie that is not done up properly and hangs scruffily from his neck. A pen and pools coupon protrude from his shirt breast pocket. He seems to stand with the air of somebody who has learnt how to make himself appear invisible when need be.

  “How are you, Col?” he asks. Dad nods warily. They half pat each other awkwardly. “Have you put on weight, Col?” Dave asks, but turns to us before he can even register my father’s look. “Ben, Ben, Ben, Matt, Matt, Matt,” Dave sings under his breath, embracing us both as we wriggle to escape. He smells of cheap aftershave and polo mint. “How’s Ben? How’s Matt? How are you, bubalahs? Have you got a girlfriend yet, Ben? Matt? The key thing is to marry an older woman for her pension. You’ve got to think about that. You should have made more progress by now.”

  Dad sighs. “You know they’re ten and twelve?” He is sweating slightly in the heat and motions toward the car, but nobody moves for a moment.

  “Please take no notice, boys,” says Mum, “… he’s only pulling your leg.”

  “Well…” says Dave but Dad interrupts to suggest we should all get into the car.

  “Ben, Ben, Ben. Matt, Matt, Matt,” Dave sings, half-breaking the spell. He slips us both a pound note, which we pocket, smiling. “Let’s get you home and get some nosh in you.”
Mum winces slightly, which my grandfather takes as positive affirmation.

  Finally, with all of us in the car and with seat belts on, he turns his head to the back seat where Mum is sitting with us. “Do you know, Mary? I’ve never read a book in my life.”

  “I’m sure that’s not really the case, is it, Dave?” she says with a somewhat fixed smile. But she struggles to avoid taking the bait. “You must have read something at some point, surely?”

  “Load of nonsense, all of it,” he says grinning broadly, knowing he has won an early victory. “I get everything I need to know from The Daily Mirror. Do you read it, Mary? No? Well, you’re missing out. Thatcher would ban it if she thought she could get away with it. It’s all in there…

  “Had a good win on my accumulator yesterday – seven pounds could have been a lot more if the last one hadn’t fallen, but you know.

  “Ben, Matt. I’m telling you, I’ll win the pools before I’m done. Then it will be Rolls Royces all round. Anything you want.

  “I’m telling you, Mary, we’ll soon have Thatcher out and things will be different then, you’ll see. When Arthur Scargill’s prime minister. It’ll all be different. The workers have had enough. It might take another strike but these Tories will all be in jail soon enough. They’re all murderers. You mark my words. Let’s get you all back and we’ll have a good nosh.”

  It is not far to 8 Nyewood Gardens, where Theresa is preparing lunch in their first floor flat within a small retirement block. There are garages outside with pale blue doors, and often when we pull up a neighbour will be wiping a windscreen with an ageing shammy cloth, or peering under the bonnet of a vehicle that has seen better days. Dave will grunt knowingly at them and occasionally make a tentative introduction.

  The whole exterior of the block of flats is tidy and well maintained. The flowerbeds are carefully kept. There is an order here, and somehow a mild form of retreat from the world.

  Dave opens the front door at the bottom of a small hallway that leads to the stairs which take you up to the flat. We are greeted by the usual shrieking.

  “Echo, Echo, Echo. My name is Echo, Echo, Echo. Who is a pretty bird, then? How do you do? Echo, Echo, Echo. My name is Echo, Echo, Echo. Whosa pretty bird, then? Whosa pretty bird, then?”

  On and on it goes on, mixed with high-pitched whistles, screeching, clicking and flapping; there could well be a colony of topical parrots up there, judging by the noise.

  Mum looks at Dad as we stand at the foot of the stairs. It’s the same as last time, despite what was said then.

  Dad looks at Dave. “We did talk about this, didn’t we? You know Mary doesn’t like birds?”

  “Her brother chased her with a dead one when she was a child and she’s never got over it,” I interject, helpfully, puzzled that from the looks I get no one else seems to think that this is a useful intervention.

  “Just stretching her wings, no harm in that; she always likes to see everyone. Especially Mary.”

  “Dad.”

  He hesitates.

  “Bit of a shame to put her away on a day like this. I’m sure she’d like to see the boys.

  “OK, OK.” He finally sighs. “Wait there a second.”

  A lot more bird singing follows and there is the sound of flapping wings and muffled swearing (him, rather than the mynah bird I think), followed by breaking china as a vase falls from a shelf, more swearing, then silence.

  “OK, you can come up now,” says Dave nonchalantly, as if he had just popped up ahead of us to turn the heating on.

  The gate at the top of the stairs has a piece of A4 paper attached to it which reads ‘Burglars Beware ALARM ON’. Behind it, on a bookcase, a plastic yellow hand-shaped sign says ‘Welcome To Our Home’. There is a dark wooden stairgate that Theresa opens as she makes her triumphant appearance to greet us.

  “Hello my bubalas,” she says, handing me and Matt the knitted giraffes she has made to mark the occasion, and planting wet kisses which we squirm to avoid.

  “You look nice, Mary,” she says doubtfully. “Are you hungry?”

  The giraffes have sticks in their legs to enable them to stand up.

  The table, pulled away from the wall specially, is stacked with breads, crisps, cherry tomatoes in a bowl, half a cucumber, processed meats, sausage rolls, quiches, jars of peanut butter, basic cheeses, pickles, bottles of fizzy drinks and a large biscuit barrel. A cheap bottle of wine that no one touches sits at the corner of the spread.

  We load up plates of food and sit on the red plastic horseshoe sofa (red was my grandmother’s favourite colour) looking out on the balcony and shared garden beyond. The residents don’t like ball games being played down there, we know.

  There are sideboards filled with photographs of me and my brother, and china figures locked in a never-ending card game, one with a secret card half-hidden under its bare foot. Copies of The Daily Mirror and unsuccessful betting slips fill other surfaces. A plastic tree with lights on it is propped up near the television, flashing different colours when switched on for special occasions such as these. There is an oil painting on the wall that they had got an artist to do of us from a photo. Everyone mocked it, but I always secretly thought it was quite sweet.

  There’s Dad’s graduation photograph, in which he looks thin and serious, attired with gown and mortar board, against a London high-rise backdrop. It’s not a thinness he will still have in 1988, and the 2014 variation will somehow be very different again. A bright blue 1960s Morris Minor is also in shot. It all speaks of future.

  Theresa tells us again about the conversations she had had with the university welfare office, when Dad had taken a year out after his sister Helen’s death.

  “They were going to throw him out, but I told them that that simply was not going to happen.” It was never something he seemed particularly grateful about.

  Helen, at sixteen, stands in another photograph. She wears an orange dress and stands smiling in a park, by rows of flowers which are all in full bloom. The time left to them shorter than hers, but not by much. Here it is all spring or early summer and beginnings and newness, an accurate representation of the moment.

  I’ve seen a lot of photographs and a few reels of film. Helen swimming, Helen sunbathing, a group photo of the four of them, a little formal and stiff, as was the photography style of the time.

  A certificate from a secretarial course she had passed at Pitman College is framed and hangs in the spare bedroom, alongside a poster lamenting the trials of long-distance aeroplane travel. Her autograph book is on the desk below nestled next to my grandmother’s typewriter. Other than family members, Bobby Davro is the only name I recognise.

  Mum and Dad’s wedding photo, Mum in a red velvet dress. They did not think a white dress would particularly work if it was not a church wedding, but I don’t know why not. The eight of them in a row at the reception: Anna, Dave, Janet, Dad, Mum, Mike, Martin and Theresa. Mike with a 60’s style beard that he shaved off when he saw the negatives. A registry service the best compromise that could be wrought, even if that did rest uneasily for many of the years that followed.

  Theresa, trying to make amends, had brought a friend who was a priest to give a blessing. How this relationship was formed is unclear to me and is now lost in time. But it transpired he was an alcoholic and, whilst airbrushed out of the re-telling of the story in most accounts, Martin told me that he had been very drunk and his contribution had not necessarily been seen as being very helpful.

  There had also been a subsequent secret church ceremony, which my father forgot was secret and brought up during his twenty-fifth wedding anniversary speech. I think there was an unspoken understanding that it wouldn’t be mentioned again.

  A lot of their story was in that retirement flat, which followed years in London. They had lived in a high-rise flat which we had been to, but it was on an entirely different scale to this, i
n a block that dominated the skyline menacingly. I barely remember the redness of the carpet and the lift that didn’t work.

  Theresa was a legal secretary who wouldn’t take the necessary exams to become a solicitor, even though everyone said she would have passed them easily. My mother used to say that Theresa was very clever but was scared to step out of her comfort zone. Perhaps like Dave, career progression was never something that interested her; the pair of them focussed on travelling a different, less conventional path together. Dave had promised, when they moved to Bognor on retirement, that he would teach Theresa to drive, and she went on to fail her driving test many, many times, seeming to delight in the experience and the stories of near misses, clipped curbs and occasionally well executed three-point turns that were to follow. Her lack of any natural driving ability a genetic trait I was to inherit.

  He worked as a museum guard, a security guard, didn’t work. A picture of the Queen at the museum, with him in the background looking on, stood on their sideboard. He ran a laundry business for a time but it was not a success. If they had no money, he wouldn’t charge, and that was that, my grandmother used to say, neutrally. Years later Dad said that Dave had once had a trainee management position but he’d only lasted in it for a few days. “He just couldn’t be told what to do.” Martin, Colin and I were all conformists in our career choices, we did what was expected and made the compromises that went with that, but Dave was truer to himself. It might have been less lucrative and caused others to despair on occasion, but there must be a certain respect due to someone who could never be told what to do.

  During lunch we would sometimes go and stand out on the balcony, looking out on the manicured communal garden. The occasional black mynah bird feather could be found even out there. The residents in the flat below had a patio, with ageing blue and white deckchairs and brightly coloured pot plants. We were always advised not to chuck drinks away when leaning over the railings. There had been an incident once, but I think from memory Dave was the culprit.