A Kid's Memory

14^th May 2017

We lived in an old tenement block, damp, mouldy, rodent infested. So many old properties like this existed in and around London. No one owned their own places. You were rich or a successful crook if you did. We moved around a lot. Dad was always at work, on duty or away.

I was sitting halfway up the stairs between landings pulling faces and making baby noises to 18 month old Michael who was in his pram on the landing near me. The rooms weren’t big enough for furniture and a basinet pram, so baby Michael spent a lot of time in his pram on the landing. My Mum was on the floor below in the laundry room; I could hear humming and see her through the gap in the stairwell.  I knew my 7^th birthday was coming soon and I was excited knowing that I was getting some Lego, and possibly sweets.

 I remember Michael’s Mum and Dad, Pattie and William. They were a young couple from Dublin who had been in the tenement for as long as Michael was old. William wasn’t around much but usually when I saw him, he had a hand rolled cigarette in his mouth and was always in a sleeveless vest. Pattie smoked a lot too; she used to bend over to talk to me and her hair always smelt of tobacco. I taught William to whistle and click his tongue because we were often at home on the landing together when I wasn’t at school, or out in the yard next to the coal bunker under the tree in the nice weather. He used to laugh lots when I pulled funny faces.

The radio was on in the background. It was always on. It always seemed to be the news. The news always sounded depressing and everyone would sigh and look unhappy or scowl.  I had hours to wait until “listen with mother” or “story time”. Mum had the radio on every day. There was no TV; only rich people had TV. 

One morning, I was sitting on the stairs pulling silly faces at baby Michael and waiting for Mum to finish the laundry, when Pattie came screaming out of their rooms, raced down the stairs, grabbed my mum by the arm and made her drop the laundry she was holding, shouting “you killed my grandfather!”  My mum just looked shocked, dropped her cigarette out of her mouth and said “I didn’t kill your grandfather! I didn’t know him” Pattie yelled back “you and your kind killed him” Mum just looked confused, and Pattie ran back upstairs and slammed the door behind her. William started to cry.

Mum was always very miserable and quiet after that. I didn’t see William again and I wasn’t allowed to play with Michael anymore. I suddenly noticed that the rooms on the next landing were empty. Pattie, Michael and William had gone. One day they were there, next day they weren’t. I asked lots of times where they’d gone; Mum would just get cross with me or not answer at all.

Dad’s leave was cancelled. A bomb had gone off somewhere in London.