The Cornflake House by Deborah Gregory Page A

of this wonder-home. First you need to know where we were coming from. I described our caravan as an egg because it was cream, oval and had, at Grandma Editha’s, rested on a nest of uncut grass. We’d lived elsewhere in our short lives, in flats or bits of shared houses, but our young memories held only dim recollections of solid walls and roofs. To us, until the Day of the Move, home was the caravan, ten by twelve feet of damp, airless mess. There was only really room in there for beds and bedding, everything other than sleep had to be done outside. In summer we ate in the garden, in winter we sat at Grandma’s table. We peed in the privy by the side of her square brick house; at least we girls did, the boys watered the crops. Games, including pillow fights, sent us tumbling outside. Unless you sat on the caravan steps, you couldn’t even draw a picture without being jogged and distracted.
    If we’d previously inhabited an old cottage or a little town house, then the move would have been strange enough. But to zoom up the social ladder, from caravan to Cornflake House, to hatch from thin shell to insulated brick and plaster, this was truly remarkable. It was a little too much for some of us. After all the anticipation, all the excitement, I remember that Zulema and I hung back, timid, overawed, on the caravan step, while the others followed Owen, Pied Piper for a day, whooping, hopping, skipping up the short drive to the front door.
    Standing by Zulema in the caravan, I watched my mother shaking hands with a man in a suit, practically dropping a curtsey to him and his small party of colleagues. Her mouth moved, presumably she was thanking them for their boundless generosity. The man in charge was winded with surprise. During this, his first encounter with the lucky family, the poor man aged several years. His eyes did a fair imitation of Al Jolson, roving from mother to children, from Owen in his jeans which were held up with string, to Merry who was hanging semi-naked from a drain pipe. Well. What a shower. He glanced dubiously at his clipboard, as if it had lied to him. I suppose Mum’s name was written there and my guess is that he was searching for the word ‘alien’ in brackets. It was their own fault, those Cornflake people hadn’t bothered to check us out. We lived so far from London, where the cornflake company was based, that all communication had been by post. I bet companies vet folks nowadays, bet you any money that once this suit-man got back to base he instigated a new regime for checking on those they may later have to meet on doorsteps or at posh garages. His colleagues were pretty stunned too, although one woman – I later discovered she was the interior designer – couldn’t help smiling to herself. We were decidedly non-U, I’m afraid. Non-Surrey. It was an embarrassing while before the Cornflake man recovered his composure. No doubt, in this interlude, as Merry fell and scratched his bum and Samik howled for milk, the man considered ways of telling us a mistake had been made. That we couldn’t have this house and that it would be best for us to clamber back in that hut on wheels and go away.
    There was no escape for him, of course. The home was ours, fair and square. The photograph they took, of Mum smiling over the top of Samik’s baby head while flags of many colours flapped round her ears, was later framed and hung in pride of place over the mantelpiece. The suit-man said a few hesitant words of congratulations, then, with a look of undisguised apprehension, he presented Mum with a pair of scissors. The photographer adjusted his tripod and snip, Mum cut the red ribbon. A few hands clapped, a small sound in the great outdoors. Finally, Mum was awarded the key.
    We were going to be allowed inside. At last. Even Django, who had a bit of a problem with emotions, was excited. Zulema and I made a slight move, one step towards leaving the old home