Page 83 - Exile-ebook

82 AN EXILE OF THE MIND TIDDLERS IN A JAM JAR 83

the spectres of those immortalised in
their monochrome world. But then,
all that a photograph can offer is one
frozen moment of a life. I stared gap-
toothed in my Sunday glad rags as the
photographer took aim. A blinding
flash and the shutter clicked to capture
that split second. All that remains is the
true value of that treasured moment
until even that becomes a memory
eroded by time.
The dim gitty, the entry with lat-
tice above the door to let in a shard
of light, led to our pocket-sized yard
and also that of our neighbour. At six years old with my mother. The two-up, two-down terrace house in Rowan Street, Leicester.
Homes were rarely locked. The toi-
let was a brick lean-to, draughty wall. These dusty words read first Sack-covered men begrimed in with orange juice to lighten faces of
and cobweb-laced, where I sat then bottom-wiped until the next coal dust, their eyes peering lucent children crinkled with revulsion.
amongst spiders and learnt to read. lesson. white in swarthy faces, shouldered Housewives joined the long queues
My library consisted of newspaper With no running hot water the heavy bags to the coal cellar. The regardless of what was on offer. To
squares tacked to the whitewashed laundry bubbled in a copper tub over large grey horse could be heard clat- stand patiently for hours come rain
a blaze of coal in the washhouse. tering its massive hooves, feather
Clothes were scrubbed on a wash legged on the cobbled stones. Impa-
board, corrugated to guarantee tient for his warm stable next to the
early wear, blue-rinsed and roller- blacksmith down the road where I
mangled to dazzling spotlessness. would sometimes watch the horses
A tin tub hung on a nail for the being shod.
weekly bath with a low-tide ration of Long rehearsed queues of mothers
water to bathe in. The cleanest first, with babies joined at the hip and
the grubbiest last, and dried off with their brood clinging to skirts, snaked
bath towels cut in two for austerity. around welfare clinics for orange
And then to finally toast oneself juice, cod liver oil and vitamin
in the warmth of the fire with lip- tablets. A dollop of gnat’s piss slurped
Copper for washing clothes. scalding cocoa and a potato biscuit. from a communal spoon followed Lining up for a dose of cod liver oil.