“I was outside putting the rubbish out, right” Ideal Brown says “and I saw this kid in a nightgown running around with an electric toothbrush in the dark”.
I ask if she was white and blonde and he said yes.
She was the child whose “mam” was “in bed” when I was out scouting for the cat. she was about 5 or 6.
I relax and think “Good. If she’s got an electric toothbrush, she can’t possibly be neglected”
and then to replace that thought “`What if she falls while the toothbrush is in her mouth?”
Two weeks after we moved into our new home Lyndall and Greg came to stay with us.
In accordance with the law of moving cats, Stan had been locked in the house for two weeks solid. To be fair, he’d been a good sport about the whole thing too. In fact, I was telling Lyndall how chipper and surprisingly decent he was the night he busted open his cat flap, leaving both the flap itself and its frame at the bottom of the stairs in our yard.
I suppose there was just no stopping him. And what an awfully hard head he must have.
I immediately got to doing an unconvincing portrayal of not worrying while Stan was out probably shitting his spotty pants, completely lost in the neighbours’ four foot square concrete yard.
After a night of creating hideous visions of some horror getting my mobile number off his shiny red collar and sending me graphic images of Stan being butchered (seriously. All logic fails after a night of drink and the staggering un-logic that is not being able to sleep thereafter) we headed into town to get food. The plan was to supply ourselves with everything we might need so as to avoid any football fans at all. It was the day England played USA, you see.
Lyndall suggested that we take a walk up my back road and look out for a scared, lost cat. I must’ve been stinking of fear (and loss, because I honestly thought my cat’s days we done).
She’d barely said “this looks like one of those depressing Billy Elliot streets” when I saw a cluster of children (eek!) peering into a felled wheelie bin.
I started doing my cat-whistle (yes, I have one. what?) When one of the boys bellowed “What’a youse doin?’”
I nearly double shat. First, because children scare me and second, because he referred to us as “youse” which makes me want to shit singularly.
I thought “nut-up bitch. This is for Stan”
So while Lyndall hung back, I strode forward, all mock-confident announcing “I’m looking for my cat”. Before I knew it, they had clustered around us, babbling about various fluffies of different colours.
I could barely keep tabs of where they illegally pooed and slept (because these were their offerings of knowledge) so I just sort of overran them with “My cat is spotty. Have you seen a spotty cat?!” I think this is when my nerves started to waver. There were so many of them and not all of them were wearing shoes.
Once we had established that the chit-chat was a complete waste of my sodding time, we pushed forward through the broken glass and jigsaw pieces lying in the street. It was then that I realised that my heart was hammering as if I’d been accosted by somebody legitimately scary.
One of the last things a small grubby girl said to me was “There’s a cat that sleeps in our house” followed by “Me mam’s in bed”. I said something like “Isthatso?okbyebye!” and Lyndall laughed muttering “what the fuck”.
The whole experience made me thankful- for a bunch of things. First, that my mother made sure I bathed. Second, that Stan found his way home before a bus ran him down and third, for the ice cream we had waiting for us at home. It saw me through the time when Stan left and turned up again.
fee-yoo! Here he is, not helping at all with the packing:
Ideal Brown is pulling a lot of hours at the moment, so we don’t get a whole lot of time to see each other. When we do get to talk is on the walk into work. For about 25 minutes of the journey we’re headed in the same direction.
Last week we were running late. The thing about running late is that Brown struggles to get any sense of urgency about him. He’ll still take the time to correctly wrap his scarf around his neck, or pop to the loo. Me, I tend to grab my shit and finish putting it on as we leave the house. Coat, gloves, shoes- whatever.
I headed upstairs to announce his final call however, the conundrum that is matching your tie to your shirt was still being worked out, so I left the house on my own.
Not 15 meters from my door stood a woman with her stomach closely facing one of four police cars (I want to say “cruisers” but cruise they do not).
She was shouting something about how “disgusting” the situation was. Her rasping voice carried over the top of the car and up our street and I thought “shut up, you fucking bint” and “holy fuck, a real arrest at the end of my road!”.
I don’t really want to know what she did, but I am inclined to wonder at the four police cars. Why not just one or two?
It reminded me of that story about the woman who tried to sue the council when her son sustained a head injury after a brick he lobbed at a bus stop bounced off the plastic and hit him in the head.
Her reasoning was the fact that her son had already broken the glass of the very same bus stop on numerous occasions and that his prior knowledge meant that he never expected the brick to come back at his face. In short, the council did not follow protocol and foxed the little fuck.
Indignant scum. All the nothingness they do for society gives them a really swollen sense of entitlement.
but only when they’re not yours.
Yep, glancing up a back street on my way to the shops I saw two little boys rooting through a ripped bin bag.
One of the boys held an empty jammy dodgers packet. I didn’t see what the other was holding because I was busy noticing the jammy dodger thing.
I thought “what gross kids” and carried on.
On my way back, I saw that the two boys had gone. In their place were two grown women and a little girl, all rooting through the same bin bag.
They all looked presentable to the extent that they had their own clothes, food and homes.
I never saw that in Jesmond, but I saw it a lot in South Africa, so I suppose I should just pretend it’s totally normal.
Ideal Brown dismissed the grossness by saying “there MUST’ve been something good in there” but I disagree (see above line regarding jammy dodger packet)
When people asked where I was moving to, I’d say “Fenham” and most of them said “Ooh” and a few said “Maybe get home insurance”.
So Fenham has a bit of a chequered past, so what? It also has trees, bits of green and decidedly fewer rich tosser students; the combination of which I happen to like very much.
Maybe it’s luck of the draw, but everyone I know who has been broken into, has had it happen to them in Fenham.
Less threatening, but still irksome is that Ginge said little yobs would kick their footballs off against parked cars. I get scared of yobs, especially the little ones, with or without footballs.
And then there was also the double murder incident last year.
So what.
“So far, so good” I thought. The sun was shining, the boxes mostly unpacked and the home insurance signed up and paid for.
Ideal Brown and I set off to our new corner shop. Lots of people were in the street with their kids who were screeching and playing- nicely.
“It’s quite sweet, isn’t it?” I said and Ideal brown agreed. We were talking about how pleasant and relaxed it felt what with everyone being outdoors.
Then we rounded the corner in time to see a policeman making a house call.
I thought “week one”.