The Generation Game

by Sophie Duffy

  Bob’s love life and therefore sinfulness has taken a turn for the better (or worse, depending on which way you look at it). For two months he’s been going out with a stationery rep from Newton Abbot called Linda who is a divorcee and mother of a young lad in the navy. Bob is smitten with her Farrah Fawcett hair and smart trouser suits. And she seems to have fallen for the Bob-smile that never quite worked on Helena.

  If I were still a child I would already be thinking of bridesmaids dresses and resisting the urge to call Linda ‘Mummy’. But now I am virtually a teenager, I have become a cynic. If even my own mother could fly thousands of miles to get away from me, why would someone with no blood ties want to take me on? So I keep Linda at arms’ length. Bob on the other hand, tries to keep her as close as possible. I think he is quite possibly a sex maniac.

  Despite my sometimes Ice Princess demeanour, Linda does make an effort. She even puts herself out to come and watch The Generation Game one Saturday. She convinces us to forgo our usual fish and chip supper and opt for a Chinese takeaway meal. Wink is won over by the prawn balls. ‘Why have you never got this before, Bob?’ she asks, accusingly, oil glistening on her lips so I wonder if she’s been at my cherry lip gloss.

  But Linda’s finest achievement is about to dawn when she suggests something that – no matter how many times we’ve thought, fantasised and dreamt about it – no-one has ever dared say out loud.

  ‘You should apply for The Generation Game, Wink,’ she says. Just like that.

  It’s as if Linda has whipped off all her clothes and done a cartwheel across Wink’s filthy rug for all we can do is stare at her, open-mouthed at this shock-horror advice. But really we are mortified at ourselves for never plucking up the courage to do what she has done.

  Bob breaks the moment and says: ‘Brilliant!’

  I take his lead and murmur words to that effect. Only Wink sits quietly in her chair. For a few moments it’s like all her Christmases have come at once and no-one loves Christmas as much as Wink because she can drink as much sherry as she wants and therefore it is the only time of the year she can sleep painlessly. But it is precisely because of this pain, because of her Multiple Sclerosis that she is sitting so quietly. For those few brief moments she is spinning plates, icing cakes and acting the buffoon in a farce while Bruce writes notes to himself in his little book. But then reality hits at her like a wet towel across the face.

  ‘But I’m just a sick old woman. Why would they choose me?’ She takes a gulp of brown ale. ‘And I don’t even have a son to make up a team. All I’ve got is this lousy old parrot.’

  At this, Captain takes offence, his feathers visibly drooping.

  But Linda strikes again: ‘What about Bob? Bob could do it. He could be your son.’

  Wink looks at Bob, perched on the pouf, scooping up the remains of his radioactive sweet and sour with a prawn cracker.

  ‘Bob?’ she says, bewildered. But it isn’t clear if her bewilderment stems from her inability to imagine Bob as her son or her inability to imagine him on her telly.

  Meanwhile Bob splutters on his cracker and Linda has to bash him on the back.

  ‘Well, I think it’s got to be worth a try.’

  Wink snorts at this latest from Linda.

  But Linda has really got me excited (and it isn’t just the effects of the heady monosodium glutamate). I can’t let Wink pass up this opportunity. I know exactly how to win her round.

  ‘Think of the conveyor belt, Wink,’ I say. ‘Close your eyes and think of the electric blankets, the sets of knives, the Thermos flasks. Think of it, Wink. Think!’

  And Wink does. She shuts her eyes and she thinks of all the wonderful electric goods and new-fangled household gadgets passing before her eyes. She thinks of Bruce urging her on. The audience shouting out items. The pile of luxury goods that she’ll bring home to her stinky house in Torquay. The chance of a lifetime.

  ‘Go on then, Bob,’ she says. ‘Let’s do it. Let’s write to the BBC.’

  A wave of near-euphoria passes round the room, drenching us in Wink’s sudden enthusiasm. But the tide soon goes out. ‘They’ll probably turn us down anyway,’ she says.

  But nothing can dampen Bob’s ardour for the lady in his life. He smiles at Linda and she smiles back at him (a little smugly, it has to be said). Then he takes her hand lovingly in his own before addressing the room.

  ‘They probably will turn us down, Wink,’ he says. ‘But nothing ventured… ’

  Unfortunately a few Saturdays later, the unimaginable happens: it is Bruce’s last show and Wink is devastated. We all rally round and try to make the best of it. We are back to our usual cod and chips, but Bob splashes out on some mushy peas and pickled eggs. Then, as the tears roll down Wink’s cheeks at the final conveyor belt, and spurred on by Linda’s bolshiness (though of course these days it would be seen as assertiveness), Bob makes his own suggestion. All year the country has been building up to a certain day: June 7th, when all of us British subjects are expected to celebrate our Majesty’s silver jubilee. She’s been Queen for twenty-five years and, according to Bob, she is doing a bloody good job – despite a wave of general unrest gathering on the horizon.

  Bob is a surprisingly keen monarchist. If he was smarter and more dashing he could been mistaken for Tim Brook-Taylor on The Goodies because he stands to attention whenever he hears the National Anthem and even knows all five verses of it. There is a Union Jack in the outside toilet, a collection of coronation cups hanging from hooks on a high shelf in the kitchenette and, somewhere in the depths of the sideboard, a jigsaw puzzle of Henry VIII and his six wives (definitely a sex maniac). One of the strangest things Bob once said to me, in the months following Helena’s departure, was: ‘At least she chose Canada, part of the Empire, I mean, Commonwealth.’ I had no idea what he was going on about at the time, but in all the current royal furore, I can see what he was trying to say, in his own Bob-way.

  And right now, Bob is trying to take Wink’s mind off the end of an era and the crushing of her hopes to be on Bruce’s show. A party to end all parties might just do that.

  Fortunately for Bob – and the rest of the street – Linda takes it upon herself to do the bulk of the organisation, enlisting Patty’s help. Bob and Lugsy lend their (relative) muscle when required but it is quite clear that their respective girlfriends have it all under control.

  They organise raffles, coffee mornings, bring and buy sales in order to scrape enough money together to make her Majesty proud and to give the residents of our street a day to remember. There is party food to be made, trestle tables to be borrowed, bunting to be hung. There is a bonnet competition, a tug of war, a beautiful baby contest and a talent show to be organised. But most of all what we need is sunshine and sunshine is what we get.

  It is evident from the moment the seagulls wake us that it is going to be a scorcher. We have to be up bright and early to help cleanse the street of dog dirt and fag ends. I am part of the cleaning brigade, led by Lugsy who is used to early starts.

  ‘Not glamorous, I know, Philippa,’ Linda says, ‘but essential. Without the cleaning team this party would be a disaster. Can you imagine the tug of war taking place on a road full of seagull splats and last night’s grockle vomit?’

  Linda can be disparaging of the tourists that the locals call ‘grockles’. She conveniently forgets that the town relies on them. But, no, I don’t want to imagine this scenario and so, in an effort to please her Majesty (and Linda), I put in some elbow grease. Linda eventually passes our efforts before moving us on to the next task: blowing up red, white and blue balloons. This takes some time. Just as I am about to pass out, we use up all of Bob’s extensive stock and, finally, I am excused from further duties so that I can add the finishing touches to my jubilee bonnet. This is one competition where I am determined to shine.

  I’ve been working on my bonnet for weeks. The basis of my bonnet is an old boater of Auntie Nina’s that she left behind in her hurry to leave Torquay. I’ve
kept it all these years in the bottom of my wardrobe, for dressing up. I don’t dress up anymore as I am far too old for such childish malarkey. But I can’t bring myself to chuck it out because of the memories of Lucas that ripple through me whenever I look at it (and because I never tidy the bottom of my wardrobe).

  The colour scheme has been easy to choose: red, white and blue, obviously. But finding a novel way of displaying these colours has taken some thinking. I’ve thought about it a lot. And then it comes to me, one night staring at the pattern in the curtains (that I’ve decided looks like a Cavalier, quite possibly Charles I – which reminds me of a painting I’ve seen in an art book in the library called And when did you last see your father? A question I often ask myself.). It comes to me: Winning the bonnet competition rests on the judges. And who are the judges? Mainly old ladies from the street. And what do old ladies like? Flowers, of course.

  A few weeks earlier, I asked Wink to help me out. Being an old lady, (but unfortunately not a bonnet-judge as she’s already accepted the honour of tug of war adjudicator) she has a whole stash of fake flowers and has given me free reign to select the best. ‘I never go out now, duck,’ she says, with a faraway look in her eye. ‘The only airing they get is funerals.’ That puts a dampener on things as we both remember the black and white church and the little coffin and Wink with her gammy leg out in the aisle.

  ‘If I could win first prize,’ I muse, ‘that would be something.’

  ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘It blinking well would.’

  After the marathon cleaning operation and balloon blowing effort, I nip down to the florists with a pound note that Linda has given me for doing such a proper job and buy a bunch of cornflowers, several sprigs of gypsophila and a single red rose. I carefully walk home with them, the scent making my nose twitch, the cellophane crackling with excitement. Forget the Queen, this is going to be my day. I will be holding the coveted fiver in my hand in a few hours if I pull this off.

  In my room, I sit back and admire my efforts so far: the silk and paper flowers arranged delicately around the rim of the boater and across the top. The neatly tied (red, white and blue) ribbons. The selection of sequins to add that bit of sparkle (it is a celebration after all). Now all I have to do is attach the fresh flowers as best I can and then, in the middle of the boater, sticking out the top, place a Union Jack from a set of Bob’s paper sandcastle flags.

  There. This is it. Not only will it appeal to old ladies but it also smells nice. A multi-sensory bonnet that is sure to win me that fiver and do her Majesty (and Bob and Wink) proud.

  I should’ve known by now that things never turn out the way you plan them.

  All day long I look forward to the bonnet parade. It is hot and sweaty in the tank top that Wink has knitted me from a pattern in Woman’s Realm. (Red, white and blue again, but with the added motif of a row of crowns around the bottom.) I have to sit through the knobbly knees of the street. Lugsy’s are surprisingly knobbly but not as knobbly as Mr Taylor from number thirty-two whose wife is extremely proud of his accomplishment, brandishing the winning voucher for ‘a Take-away for Two’ donated by the Chinese as if it were a Golden Ticket for Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory.

  Then there is the beautiful baby competition. Let it be noted that babies are not especially beautiful when they scream which is what every last one of them does as the judge – the Catholic priest of all people – tickles them under the chin. What a noise! There are only four entries (and to my knowledge only one of them lives on our street) but there could be a whole midget-choir of them for the racket they’re producing.

  Once the mothers have ssshh-ed the babies and the runners-up sulk over the winner (a Benny Hill look-a-like), it is time for the Bonnet Parade. A makeshift stage has been fashioned out of planks and milk crates ‘on loan’from Lugsy’s dairy. The contestants are told by Linda, who’s been chained to a megaphone for most of the day, to line up on the catwalk. Straightaway I am at a disadvantage as I am squeezed, in a way that I haven’t been for a long time, next to Christopher Bennett who completely overshadows my creation with his own. Christopher Bennett has put even more effort and planning into his hat than I have into mine; his eyes have been on that five pound note for far longer. He will shine brighter and bigger and… shinier than I could ever hope to in a million years. Whatever was I thinking? He’s got to the heart of the matter:

  Q: What do old ladies like more than flowers?

  A: The Queen. Her Majesty. HRH. Elizabeth II. That’s who.

  Christopher Bennett has engineered a bonnet Isambard Kingdom Brunel could only dream about. Christopher Bennett’s construction is something else. It is at least two feet tall, like a chimney. But it isn’t just the size that matters. It is the painstaking effort he’s put into decorating it. Every last quarter of an inch is covered in photos or drawings of the Queen in her various ages. There is Baby Princess Elizabeth in her golden curls sitting on her mother’s lap. Girl Princess Elizabeth with her little sister Princess Margaret toddling by her side. Bride Elizabeth with her groom, Prince Philip and the Coronation Elizabeth weighed down with her massive crown and orb and sceptre. There is Mother Elizabeth with her four children and there is Colourful Elizabeth in all her various hats and coats and handbags that she’s coordinated over the years in a way that must have impressed even Helena over the Ocean who still shares the very same monarch as me. (Who even now, if she is awake, could be celebrating at her very own Canadian street party amongst the Mounties and raccoons, Orville Tupper on her arm, pouting at the little people around them.)

  This Queen montage, manipulatively manufactured by Christopher Bennett, earns respect from the three old lady judges who bestow the crisp five pound note on the Bogey Boy, who I know will put it to ill use on sneaky cigarettes and slot machines when he should really spend it on a jolly good barber.

  It is a disaster. All my best laid plans squashed and flicked away like one of his greenies. But things are about to get even worse. Christopher Bennett talks to me.

  ‘Hard luck, Smithy. Better luck next time… like, in twenty-five years, if the old bat lasts that long.’

  Trust my luck for these traitorous mutterings to go undetected by any other witnesses. If Bob heard his Republican views, Christopher would be out of this street before you could whistle God Save the Queen (the traditional version, not the new one by that Punk Rocker band). He would be blackballed by the shop, never to return for a packet of fags ‘for his mother’ ever again.

  And why can I never think of a witty put-down when I need one?

  ‘Oh, get lost, Bogey Boy,’ is what I eventually come up with.

  He laughs and shoots one out of his left nostril across the pavement in a way that I can’t help but admire. The boy is a pro, it has to be said, if a little uncouth.

  ‘Fancy a bag of chips, then, Smithy, or what?’

  And before I can stop myself, and because Cheryl has gone back to Solihull for the week and there is no-one else of my age to moan to about the grown-ups, I say, ‘all right then, go on.’

  And on things go, queuing up at the Jolly Roger Fish Bar, a roaring trade, despite the jubilations and the abundance of sausage rolls and scotch eggs to be had on every other street in Torquay. Too much salt and vinegar giving me a thirst so I don’t mind having a swig out of Christopher’s hip flask, his mum’s Pomagne with all the fizz gone so it tastes like one of Bob’s pear drops (oh-Bob-if-you-could-see-me-now).

  Another swig and another swig and suddenly we are in the Bone Yard, near the big angel, two rows down from Albert Morris. And Christopher Bennett decides now is the time and place to try it on with me. One rancid kiss later and Philippa Smith wallops him across his curly bonce and then legs it as fast as possible down and up the once-so-familiar rows until she can no longer hear his curses. Until she finds herself face to face with her old friend, her best friend, her Lucas.

  Lucas.

  It has been a long time. Long enough to make me feel guilty when I remember his
letter to me:

  Please keep on telling me.

  I haven’t kept on telling him. I used to come every day at first. Then maybe twice a week. Then it dwindled to once in a while. I stopped keeping on telling him because it felt like he wasn’t there anymore. Like he was off somewhere else, Heaven most probably. And now it has been too long. It isn’t like I haven’t thought about him. I think about him all the time. I think about him more than I think about Helena. Because he never wanted to leave me. He never chose to leave me. He just went. ‘Life’s unfair,’ Wink likes to tell me. That’s why Lucas went. But her philosophy doesn’t explain Helena’s departure. It didn’t just happen. Helena meant to go. She caught a plane and she flew across the ocean to a country of ice and snow and mountains and giant crashing waterfalls. And I am still waiting for her to find that big condominium (flat) with the extra bedroom for me, Philippa, her daughter.

  And, yet again, for the second time in a day, I can’t think of suitable words to say so I simply whisper: ‘I’m sorry, Lucas.’

  But I do have something for him. Something that every school child has been given. Something that has been burning a hole in my pocket ever since I received it, knowing that Lucas would’ve appreciated it far more than I ever would: a jubilee commemorative coin.

  I search for a stick and start digging a hole. Only a small one as I don’t want to be accused of grave-robbing (though in actual fact this is more like grave-giving). Only a little hole at the base of his headstone, big enough to bury the coin.

  ‘There you go, Lucas. I haven’t forgotten you.’

  Night isn’t far off now though it is still just about light in the Bone Yard despite the bell recently tolling nine times. The party sounds like it is in full throw and is set to go on indefinitely – which it can thanks to Linda’s organisation of coloured outdoor bulbs that hang back and forth across the street, like the ones along the seafront.