32. Hello!

On Tuesday I met someone I haven’t seen for a long time.  We used to work together.  I was walking along Green Lanes in Palmers Green.  There was constant noise from the traffic and the pavements on both sides of the road were packed with pedestrians.  Above the hubbub, a voice cried out,  “TERRY!”

I stopped and so did everyone else within thirty yards.  I looked around and there, waving at me, on the other side of the road, was Reggie.  I smiled at him and nodded.  I was aware that everyone on my side of the road and on the other side too, was looking at me.  I was a little embarrassed.  He came over and we stood for ten minutes or so catching up on the last twelve years. 

Just now I realised that it brought back a memory of something that happened to me last year in Cayman.

Just before Christmas, Caroline and I went to the cinema at the new business/shopping complex, Camana Bay in George Town.  This mundane event was quite remarkable because we rarely go to the cinema and so remark upon it I will.  What I would like to ask you is why go to the trouble and expense of a visit to the cinema when you can watch the same film on a DVD at home?  

When we watch a DVD, a 135-minute feature usually takes about three hours to watch.  If I need a pee, I wait for an appropriate moment, press ‘Pause’ and go to the bathroom.  Then, when I return, I rewind a minute or so, just to make sure that I am up to speed with the narrative, and off we go again.  Try doing that in a cinema! 

Another good thing about a DVD is that it can be paused while you get something to eat or drink but the best thing about pause/rewind is that you can eventually hear all that is being said.  Do actors mumble more today than they used to, or is it yet another symptom of my advancing years?  Two or three nights ago we watched the same five seconds of “Unthinkable” over and over again because of Samuel L Jackson’s mumble.

At about 9:30 pm, after we had seen the film (The Time Traveler’s Wife) in Cayman, we went to the nearby Haagen Daz store on the complex.  As we entered a girl, whom I RECOGNISED AND KNEW, jumped up from the table that she was sharing with her family, ran over to me and gave me a huge, enthusiastic hug. 

“Hello, Kira.” 

“Hello, Mr Terry. What are you doing here?”

I explained and introduced her to Caroline.  Caroline realised that this must be a pupil I know from the school where I assist and not some random child that I had met in a supermarket.  She told Kira that she would be coming to her school’s Christmas concert on the following Thursday evening and that I would be accompanying her.  This was news to me, but I just accepted it without comment or any expression of surprise, as that’s how I always accept Caroline’s little bombshells.  Kira told us that she was singing, dancing, acting, and playing a flute solo. In fact, she was obviously going to be the star of the show, which didn’t surprise me, as she is clearly able, talented and very self-assured.  

“OK Kira,” I said. “I’ll be there but I don’t want to be blanked by you.  Say hello and smile if you see me.”  I didn’t really need to say that to her because, as I’ve told you before, children are very different in Cayman from children in London.  If I were walking through Muswell Hill on a Saturday morning and saw students I taught, most would either cross the road to avoid having to acknowledge me or else they would just ignore me as they went past.   In Cayman, it couldn’t be more different.  Even the boys go for a big hug.

The concert started at 7:00.  It was scheduled to begin at 6:30 but everything here, as I have also told you before, runs on, “Island Time”. The concert was not in the school hall but in a nearby church.  This church is unlike any English church I have ever been in.  It is octagonal, has a raised stage and an entertainment system and equipment that would be the envy of any West End theatre. There is comfortable, padded seating with lots of legroom in rows for about 800 people.

Caroline, because of her job in the education department, was a ‘guest of honour.’  She was greeted like royalty and a “shepherd” escorted us to our reserved seats on the front row.  She left me sitting on my own while she went off to schmooze with other important people.  I sat there feeling exposed and aware that parents with worse seats than mine were all muttering, “Who’s that nobody with the best seat?”

No one talked to me.  Teachers, whom I had helped when they had problems, ignored me as they walked past looking harassed and worried.  4-year-old children, who had sat on my lap and pulled my hair, tugged at my ear lobes and wiped their snotty noses on my sleeve as I read them a story, were stressed, and treated me as if I were invisible.  At last, the children began to assemble on the stage - the smallest, Year 1, at the front and the tallest, Year 6, at the back.  I looked for Kira to give her a wave but I didn’t see her.

Caroline took her seat next to me.  The audience went quiet, aware that things were about to start.  250 pupils were in their places but no Kira. Then she arrived.  No - she didn’t arrive – she entered.  She swept on to the stage and took her place right at the front in the centre.  She really was the star and was obviously going to sing solo.

The conductor came in and she stood in front of them.

The audience was silent. The conductor raised both hands to begin the music.

At this point, Kira caught my eye.

“Hello Mr Terry,” she bellowed, waving furiously with both hands. “Enjoy it.” 

Surprisingly, despite my huge embarrassment, I did – very much. 

31. Loose Ends

No constant theme this time and a few loose ends to clear up.

When I was in Miami having various tests a couple of months before my transplant, I had a haircut. My hair had grown very long as I had decided to have one last go at the sixties, student look and had let it grow long and completely cover my ears. I thought I was looking pretty cool but Caroline didn’t and was nagging me to get it cut.

She got her way when one of the drugs I was taking in preparation for my transplant had extraordinary side effects upon my hair. It started to grow in all directions and it looked quite silly. It appeared as if I were standing too close to a Van de Graaff generator. 

A trip to a hairdresser on Miracle Mile, 15 minutes with an electric razor set at #3 and my hair was tidy once more although I looked like an American GI. I also thought I looked 20 years older but I no longer looked like a clown.

Two haircuts later, back in Prospect Reef, Cayman, Caroline came home with top of the range electric clippers and announced that we would save loads of money as, from now on, she would cut my hair for me. “It’s easy,” she told me. “It’s not styling - just clipping. I did my neighbour’s cocker spaniel once.”

I sat in my wheelchair, in front of the television, watching cricket while she got on with it.

“Oh dear!”

“What have you done?”

“Nothing,” she said, nonchalantly. “Nearly finished.”

There was silence for a minute or so. Silence - except for the buzz of the clippers.

“Do you know what?” she said thoughtfully.

“What?”

“Cutting hair is a lot like golf.”

“Really?” I said. “I don’t see how.”

“Well, they’re both much more difficult than they look.”

That took a bit of digesting but suddenly the penny dropped.

“What have you done? Get me a mirror!”

When she eventually allowed me to look in a mirror I realised that ”Oh dear,” was hardly a strong enough expletive. I had a two-inch wide bald streak right down my head, just off centre, almost an inverse ‘Mohican’.

We were due to go round to Paul’s house that evening. “I’m not going,” I said. “You go. I’m not.”

“Don’t be silly. No one will notice.”

“What!? Won’t notice? My head looks like a lay-by off a main road.”

“You could wear a hat.”

“I don’t want to wear a hat. It’s ninety degrees out there. Nobody on the island is wearing a hat. I’ll stay at home.”

“I know,” she said. “I’ll cut it all to match. Then it won’t look odd.”

“Aha, so it does look odd. People will notice.”

I stayed at home. Sorry Paul if you’re reading this but that was the real reason I didn’t come. I hadn’t been out in the sun too long at all.

Hair grows slower when you’re older and it took nearly a year to grow out.

************

Further to life in Islington: This morning when I went into “Sweet” for my breakfast, I met a young man who was wearing a skirt! Yes, a skirt. It wasn’t a kilt although I suppose that it was cut a bit like one but it was not plaid or tartan. It was monochromatic, light purple. Of course he was speaking fluent French to the girl behind the counter and that fact cheered me up a little. Perhaps he is French.

When I told Caroline about him she was very excited and was full of admiration, wanting to know its length; whether he was wearing a belt; what footwear he wore and how he was dressed above the waist. When she realised that I couldn’t answer any of those questions, she became exasperated and appeared to get fairly cross, even going as far as to call me, “hopeless.” 

I have quite enough problems with my own clothes and spend plenty of time on my own appearance, like checking that my zip is up, without making a detailed study of the clothes worn by other men.

I know I’ve been out of the country for five years but is this what we’ve come to while I’ve been away?

***********

Further to the making of tea (Chocolate pastry, August 7th): I read yesterday about White Tea that sells for £57 a pot. It is a tea made with buds and in some cases, very young tea leaves, which are sun dried or dried by steaming – though I don’t really understand how something may be dried by passing water through it. 

According to the article it is brewed at 85°C and never with boiling water. It is said to be good for the skin and low in caffeine and that probably means that it is low in taste too. I think I’ve probably discovered some more of the Emperor’s new clothes. £57 a pot! That guy in the skirt probably drinks it while chatting in French to his broker. I expect it’s very popular in Islington.

30. Chocolate pastry

For the last three weeks we’ve been staying in Islington, North London with Caroline’s sister, Joanna and her family.  This is because our cottage is uninhabitable.  We have had workmen in for the last two weeks and they will be there for at least two more. 

Our last tenants, two young women in their early twenties, left owing us several thousand pounds in rent and the furnishings and fittings so badly damaged that the causes can only be deliberate.  

They have left no forwarding address or phone numbers and so they have effectively vanished.  This means that the letters from the various debt collection agencies and businesses that they owe money to are building up daily.

Two bailiffs arrived the other day while we were inspecting progress in the cottage and demanded documentary proof that neither Caroline nor I are women with a Turkish last name.  

As we have not lived at this address for the past five years, we have no utility or council tax bills that we could show them.  

“We’ll be back,” they told us menacingly.  Caroline thinks that my calling her, “Fatima” all the time didn’t help matters.  She may be right.

Islington, in central London where Joanna lives, is very different from where we live on the outskirts in Winchmore Hill.  Exmouth Market, near Joanna’s house, is a wonderful place.  It is a narrow street about 400 yards long and the only vehicles that use it are those that are delivering.  

Consequently, Exmouth Market always has a vibrant mass of people ambling along it looking into shop windows, with others sitting at the many café and restaurant tables along both sides of the road 

There are lots of restaurants, bars, coffee bars and one patisserie in particular where I go for breakfast every morning.  All the staff working in it are French and they all speak perfect, idiomatic English but they hardly ever need to.  This is because, being Islington, all the customers insist on speaking in French.  All the customers that is except one - me!

I ask for a “Coffee and a chocolate pastry, please.”  I don’t and won’t even call them croissants.  All around me I hear Englishmen and Englishwomen asking for, ”Un café et un pain au chocolat, s’il vous plaît.”  Have they no pride?  

Are the events of August 1346 and October 1415 so quickly forgotten?  Do Crécy and Agincourt mean nothing today?  

These Frenchies (and I use the word in a non-racist, matter-of-fact, purely descriptive sort of way) came here to make money out of us.  They are not here to spread goodwill or Gallic culture, nor do they want to do anything to improve the quality of our lives.  They are economic migrants!  We should not pander to them.  

I fear though, that I am fighting a one-man, losing battle.  I also have a sneaking suspicion too, that Pierre behind the counter, with his stripy T-shirt, thin moustache and reeking of garlic, was born and bred in Peckham.

Recently, I have scored an own goal and weakened my strategic position in this battle.  One of my few faults is that I give too much of myself.  I even give to the French.  

Yesterday afternoon, at around four o’clock, I thought that it would be nice to have a cup of tea.  The tea was awful; the worst cup of tea that I have ever had.  It was so bad that I felt duty bound in that evangelical, generous way that I have, to inform Adrienne, the young lady who made it for me, exactly why it was so bad and how it should be made to make it perfect.  

I set out on this voyage of enlightenment with a heavy heart as I had already failed last week to get across to her the importance of the toast rack in the production of toast.  I was thinking that if the French brain was incapable of understanding the importance, significance and nuances of the toast rack, then I had little chance of getting them to make proper tea.

My cup of tea had arrived weak and milky and with the tea bag still in it! Just as I have educated you in the art of making proper toast (Toast - the proper way) so I shall now take you step by step through the art of making tea.

Some “Purists” will say that proper tea may only be made by using loose-leaf tea and a teapot.  They are right but only up to a point.  Modern tea bags allow the circulation of the water and the difference between tea made from a bag in a cup and that made from leaves in a pot, is minimal and to most people, undetectable.

The Frenchie girl made my tea like this:  1) She poured hot water on to the tea bag.  2) She added milk and brought it to me.

Unlike coffee, which is spoilt by being scalded by boiling water, proper tea needs boiling water to bring out all its flavour.  Indeed, the best cup of tea in the world is one made in the air-conditioned café on the shore of the Dead Sea where water boils at 101.5°C because it is the lowest point on earth and the average air pressure is greatest .  

By the way, the only reason that I have never climbed Mount Everest, the earth’s highest point, is that at its summit the water boils at only 69°C.  It is therefore not possible to make a decent cup of tea there.  What’s the point of slogging up to the top of Everest if you can’t have a decent cuppa while enjoying the view?

The tea bag then needs to be left to brew in the water for at least two minutes during which time it is stirred occasionally. The length of time that the bag is left in the water may vary depending upon your taste but I recommend at least two minutes.

Next, the tea bag is squeezed and removed. 

Milk may be added and sugar too but it is a totally different and in my opinion, a better drink without sugar.  

Hardly rocket surgery is it?

I remember when and why I stopped taking sugar in tea.  At around 6:40 pm on a weekday in June or July 1974 I was watching ‘Nationwide’ on television.  As he signed off, the presenter mentioned casually that he had heard that there was a sugar shortage.  

At 8:00 that evening I went to the corner shop run by the Shah brothers to buy some toothpaste.  The shop was packed and by 9:00 that evening there was no sugar to be had anywhere in London.  

A couple of days later one of the deputy headteachers bustled into my classroom to relieve me of my teaching duties.  She wanted me to drive another teacher, who knew someone who knew someone who knew someone who knew where black market sugar could be bought.  We would drive six miles to buy 20 pounds of it.  We came back heroes.  

I had already tried tea without sugar by then and had realised that it was a much nicer and more refreshing drink.

I shall go back to the patisserie tomorrow and see if I have been successful.

No, I wasn’t!  It was a different girl who served me today but that is no excuse.  I find it hard to believe that Adrienne didn’t call an emergency staff meeting first thing this morning to spread the revelational news to her colleagues.  She didn’t - but that’s the Frenchies for you.  

They don’t share nicely like we do.