games,' says Farrah, trying to
smooth over the embarrassment.
Anna Maria and another South American girl I have not seen before
bring in plates of Parma ham and figs. We eat with Marion's huge, heavy, silver
cutlery. I look round the table. Marion, who I notice only has figs, eats slowly
using only her fork while listening passively to Daria. She gives me a slow, subtle
wink which makes me feel ten times better.
Farrah is telling David something. The French boys have their
heads down low over their plates and shovel in their food ravenously, throwing in
lots of bread. I realise that I have one thing in common with them: we have to try
and eat as much as possible tonight because it's free food. Christopher Maurice-Jackson
takes a tiny mouthful, puts his elbows on the table and forms a roof with his fingers
as he chews.
My mother always asks for small portions of everything. 'Just
a little bit for me, please. Ooh! Far too much, someone else better have this one.'
I remember one Sunday lunchtime at my grandparents. My grandfather had had his first
stroke and was 'not quite himself', as everyone put it. I didn't know quite who
he was now but whoever it was, he wasn't very nice. He had never been very affectionate
or even very friendly towards his grandchildren. Me and Grandpa never went fishing
together and he didn't have a mysterious shed at the bottom of the garden full of
weird, dangerous things like stuffed fish and hacksaws.
He had a car, well, a series of cars, I suppose, over the years.
Always very nice ones - Mercedes, Jaguars and I think he was one of the first people
where they lived to have a BMW. When we went over for Sunday lunch, as we did every
Sunday, he would wash his car all morning and spend the afternoon waxing it, polishing
it and hoovering the inside, occasionally shooting me and my sister a suspicious
glance as we played on the lawn or in the driveway. At the time we thought it was
the one good thing about Grandpa that he left us to do whatever we wanted and play
anywhere as long as we kept away from the car. Looking back, it's a bit sinister
really that he didn't mind us messing about in the road or with the lawn mower,
just as long as we didn't damage his precious bloody motor.
God, I hated that house. It was a mean little 1950s bungalow
on an estate about three-quarters of an hour's drive from us. It always smelled
stale and musty. My grandparents' huge, ugly old furniture was crammed into it,
ridiculously out of proportion, hopelessly out of place. Doors wouldn't open properly
because there wasn't room. Wherever you stood, you were in the way of something
or someone. It was cold and empty and at the same time stifling and overcrowded.
When we arrived Grandma would check us over, trying to hide her disappointment and
we would kiss her very quickly on the cheek. I think she had seen Prince Charles
do something similar to the Queen when he was young. Grandpa would pass through
as quickly as he could. He died before I could tell him, 'I know how you feel. I
don't want to be here either.'
Their stuff had been brought back from India where they had 'stayed
on', as my grandmother called it. I realise now that she hoped to give the impression
that they had been part of the colonial service or that they were old army types.
In fact, my grandfather had worked for an electronics company out there until, as
with the colonials they always pretended to be, the Indians decided that they could
do it better themselves and needed no more help from the British.
This particular lunchtime we sat in their dining room as usual,
their large, grim dresser casting a menacing shadow over me and my sister as we
ate Grandma's thick, tasteless food and struggled with her huge, unwieldy bone-handled
cutlery in silence. Our parents' polite conversation was stretched like worn lace
across the table, ready to break at any moment. In the end it was broken by my grandfather
or, at least, the person he became after his
smooth over the embarrassment.
Anna Maria and another South American girl I have not seen before
bring in plates of Parma ham and figs. We eat with Marion's huge, heavy, silver
cutlery. I look round the table. Marion, who I notice only has figs, eats slowly
using only her fork while listening passively to Daria. She gives me a slow, subtle
wink which makes me feel ten times better.
Farrah is telling David something. The French boys have their
heads down low over their plates and shovel in their food ravenously, throwing in
lots of bread. I realise that I have one thing in common with them: we have to try
and eat as much as possible tonight because it's free food. Christopher Maurice-Jackson
takes a tiny mouthful, puts his elbows on the table and forms a roof with his fingers
as he chews.
My mother always asks for small portions of everything. 'Just
a little bit for me, please. Ooh! Far too much, someone else better have this one.'
I remember one Sunday lunchtime at my grandparents. My grandfather had had his first
stroke and was 'not quite himself', as everyone put it. I didn't know quite who
he was now but whoever it was, he wasn't very nice. He had never been very affectionate
or even very friendly towards his grandchildren. Me and Grandpa never went fishing
together and he didn't have a mysterious shed at the bottom of the garden full of
weird, dangerous things like stuffed fish and hacksaws.
He had a car, well, a series of cars, I suppose, over the years.
Always very nice ones - Mercedes, Jaguars and I think he was one of the first people
where they lived to have a BMW. When we went over for Sunday lunch, as we did every
Sunday, he would wash his car all morning and spend the afternoon waxing it, polishing
it and hoovering the inside, occasionally shooting me and my sister a suspicious
glance as we played on the lawn or in the driveway. At the time we thought it was
the one good thing about Grandpa that he left us to do whatever we wanted and play
anywhere as long as we kept away from the car. Looking back, it's a bit sinister
really that he didn't mind us messing about in the road or with the lawn mower,
just as long as we didn't damage his precious bloody motor.
God, I hated that house. It was a mean little 1950s bungalow
on an estate about three-quarters of an hour's drive from us. It always smelled
stale and musty. My grandparents' huge, ugly old furniture was crammed into it,
ridiculously out of proportion, hopelessly out of place. Doors wouldn't open properly
because there wasn't room. Wherever you stood, you were in the way of something
or someone. It was cold and empty and at the same time stifling and overcrowded.
When we arrived Grandma would check us over, trying to hide her disappointment and
we would kiss her very quickly on the cheek. I think she had seen Prince Charles
do something similar to the Queen when he was young. Grandpa would pass through
as quickly as he could. He died before I could tell him, 'I know how you feel. I
don't want to be here either.'
Their stuff had been brought back from India where they had 'stayed
on', as my grandmother called it. I realise now that she hoped to give the impression
that they had been part of the colonial service or that they were old army types.
In fact, my grandfather had worked for an electronics company out there until, as
with the colonials they always pretended to be, the Indians decided that they could
do it better themselves and needed no more help from the British.
This particular lunchtime we sat in their dining room as usual,
their large, grim dresser casting a menacing shadow over me and my sister as we
ate Grandma's thick, tasteless food and struggled with her huge, unwieldy bone-handled
cutlery in silence. Our parents' polite conversation was stretched like worn lace
across the table, ready to break at any moment. In the end it was broken by my grandfather
or, at least, the person he became after his
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