ARISE NEWS June 29th 2015
And a link to readings from the Book Launch at the Big Green Bookshop Sept 2015 Readings from A Hippopotamus at the Table
And a link to readings from the Book Launch at the Big Green Bookshop Sept 2015 Readings from A Hippopotamus at the Table
This is a true story of a journey to a new life in Cape Town, South Africa in 1975.
Excerpt from the book: ‘Waiting at the reception desk to check in, I saw the toilet signs for the first time, in both Afrikaans and English – Blanke Dames (White Ladies), Nie Blanke Vrou (Non-White Females) … the first time I had to go, I stood outside, hesitating, feeling that by choosing one I was accepting their distinction.’
A
young woman, with her husband and baby travelled to South Africa in 1975 at a
time when apartheid was at its height. Their journey took them from a high rise
apartment in Johannesburg, to a chicken farm and then a thousand miles across
the Karoo to Cape Town. There they lived for over two years at a time of
growing social unrest against the rigid strictures of the apartheid system. Her
husband’s work as an actor took him touring from Cape Town to the townships and
into major roles in innovative theatre. Her journey became a spiritual quest to
make sense of the world in which she found herself, a world where black and
white mingled but were kept apart.
The government of the time was clamping down, enforcing
rigid censorship and the separation of people. It was the children of the
townships who fermented the riots of 1976, rebelling against the oppressive
rules of a hateful system. The murders of these children resulted in a huge
outcry across the world. Censorship kept that largely hidden from many of the
people who lived there.
This is a story of a young family living in those
times in South Africa. The effects of
apartheid crept up on them until two tragedies drove them to realise that
continuing to live there had become untenable.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Short Story
This story was published in Greenacre Writers anthology 2013
Word
count: 2246
This plaque is in Postman's Park, in the City of London. Postman'sPark is in the churchyards of St Leonards, Foster Lane, St
Botolph, Aldersgate and the graveyard of Christchurch, Newgate Street, in the
city of London near St Pauls’s Cathedral. Look at the address on the plaque, which is not too
far from the park, on the other side of the river - Union Street is, between
Borough High Street and London Bridge.
A shift in time
Jane always
looked forward to training days at Campbell House. She had a set routine. She’d walk through the
turnstiles at Borough Station – straight ahead was the news-stand, then turn
immediately right and right again into the entrance of the long narrow Italian
cafe. She’d walk past the glass food displays to the counter and ask for her
skinny latte. She’d say'Grazi' to the
girls there, they’d look mock surprised and say ‘Oh, you speak Italian?’ she’d
laugh and say ‘Not really’, as she picked up her latte and walked back down to
the exit. She never bought her pastry
there, not those big overblown fluffed-up things in the display cabinet. She would leave the cafe, walk past the news
stand and turn right across the dual carriageway, to cross the road. Before going in to Campbell House, her first
stop usually was the sell-everything grocer/newspaper shop next to it. She would smile at the Indian man behind the
counter to her right and head left towards the racks of pastries on the wooden
shelves, carefully laid out on white greaseproof paper. She’d pick up the big silver tweezers and
take a pecan lattice pastry. The thought
of that fresh, straight-out-of-the-oven smell made her mouth water in
anticipation. She would slip it into the
brown paper bag, pay her 60p and then head for the revolving-door entrance to
the training building. Her fingers would be sticky as she pulled a piece off and put it in her mouth. Then a
sip of cappuccino to wash it down, the two tastes intermingling.
Today though, as
she came up in the crowded lift at Borough station, she knew she had to
hurry. She was not going for training at
Campbell House (‘Thank God!’ she thought).
She was going for an Occupational Health check, in a building in Union
St, near the corner of Southwark Bridge Rd.
She did not have to sit in small groups with people she barely knew, to
‘brainstorm’ ideas on a piece of flip chart paper on how to improve the
service. (‘Thank bloody Christ!’ she thought again.)
That morning, she
had thought carefully about what to wear and put on her good black
underwear(she might have to undress for an x-ray - you never knew) and pale
grey, slim fit slacks, black slip-on mules.Then she'd decided on along canary-yellow
top, and added her loose silver chain belt.
It was a warm summer's day, too hot for a coat. Her blonde hair was
pulled back with a black velvet ribbon. She'd wanted to look casual, but
fashionable and felt confident she had succeeded.
In Occupational
Health, she would spend half an hour answering questions about her medical
history, explain that nasty bout of flu she’d had in the winter and that would
be it. Afterwards, she was going to meet a former boyfriend for lunch, in the
oysters and champagne bar opposite Liverpool
Street
HR would get the
Occy Health results, so that her seven days of absence in the last six months
would be verified. It was all so
ridiculous these days.... not as if she was taking months off sick! Anyway, there was just time still to get her
cappuccino and pecan lattice. She had
about ten minutes to spare! No sense in
being early, they’d only keep her sitting in some boring waiting room. She’d already worked out the quickest route
to the building, by Googling the post code and had printed off the map.
Walking down
Marshalsea Rd a few minutes later, she speeded up as she glanced at her watch
and realised she had about four minutes left to go. She took a swig of her cappuccino and bit
into the last chunk of pecan Danish, honey and sugar oozing onto her
fingers. Another swig of coffee and
there was nothing left in the bag but a pile of flaky crumbs. She sighed, those really were the best
pastries she’d had anywhere and the cheapest.
At the next bin she dumped the evidence, didn’t want to walk in for a
health check with those in her hands. Her fingertips were still sticky, she
looked around, but no one was close by, so she licked her fingers and then
wiped them on a tissue from her pocket.
At the end of
Marshalsea, she turned right into Southwark Bridge Rd and walked down towards
Union Street. She thought she smelled
smoke and lifted her nose to the air and sniffed, just a faint whiff – perhaps
there was a bonfire somewhere. Smelt
like burning logs. As she reached the
corner, she stopped and looked up the road, glancing at the tall buildings on
either side counting to herself, ‘three, five, seven.... must be that one’, she
thought and stepped round a bollard towards the curb, waiting to cross.
As she turned
however, her head felt light and she staggered slightly. The air in front of her eyes seemed to
shimmer and suddenly the burning smell became overwhelming. She could hear a
roar of flames and blinking, looked over at the building on the other side. She
realised that she could see the flames, licking through the wooden joists of
that building..... ‘What!’ She shook her head in total shock. This was not the same street she had looked
down a moment ago, surely. Her head
turned left, then right, ‘What the hell.....’
She couldn’t make any sense of what she was seeing, something was odd
about the people around her too, yes, they were all staring at the fire, but
look, look at their clothes. The men all
had funny black bowler-type hats; the women all had bonnets and long
dresses. No one seemed to be noticing
her at all. Even the street was all
wrong, it was muddy and rutted, carts pulled by horses were whizzing past her,
she jumped back just in time, as the wheel of a fancy carriage just missed her.
The nice well-kept wide pavement was gone. She moved back a bit more, letting
go of a long breath and then looked again at the building that was on fire - it
was an old fashioned house, rickety-looking, battered. People were shouting and pointing up to a first
floor window – a child, no more than seven, was leaning out, she was holding a
toddler and was that another child behind her she could see? They were all crying, crying for help, but
the smoke and flames were billowing up.
Who could save them?
She shook her
head again, she was either hallucinating or had wandered onto a film
set.....she couldn’t see any cameras though, she thought anxiously, scanning
the scene. Was that man the
director? He seemed to be in charge,
pointing and herding the gathering crowd of onlookers. Was anyone going to
rescue those kids? The flames looked
real enough and so was the smell of burning. The smoke was making her eyes
smart.
She looked around
again to see if any of these bystanders were going to do something... they were
shaking their heads, and tut-tutting, but none were lifting a finger. She wanted to scream at them and then
suddenly she saw the girl, ginger-headed, pulling her hair back into her ribbon,
tucking her grey dress into her bloomers.
She was plump and freckly, big blue eyes, turned up nose, very Irish
looking, she thought to herself. The
girl was now running forward and into the burning doorway. Jane wanted to
scream ‘Be careful... as the girl ran through, but she wouldn’t have
heard. The girl had a set look on her
face, determined.
Jane took a step forward slowly, holding her
breath. Everyone else seemed to be holding their breath too, waiting. Then she heard the crowd gasp, as the girl
appeared from the smoky atmosphere, holding one small child under her arm and
dragging the other, slightly older, by its hand. The two children stood bedraggled,
tear-stained, black streaks on their faces and clothes – the girl thrust them
into the arms of a woman standing there.
Now she was
turning to go back into the building.
Jane shouted, tried to warn her not to go, but her voice came out as a
croak. She felt helpless, an observer of
the scene, not a participant somehow. A
sudden gust of wind sent sparks and smoke flying out from the building into the
crowd, who all jumped back, yelling. The
woman holding the children was shouting something, her face distraught. Was she the mother?
Another glimpse
of the ginger girl, behind the doorway, this time with an older child. She was shouting something as she propelled
the child forward, pushing it towards the now sobbing woman. Just as the child
ran out of the doorway, a blackened beam dislodged itself and crashed down in a
great shower of sparks and flame. The
view was obscured in the pandemonium and smoke, the crowd groaning. Jane stood on tiptoes, straining to see. Oh, she hoped the ginger girl got out, did
she? She found her cheeks were wet, but
all she could see was the crowd backing away as the conflagration in front of
them took further hold.
The girl's
absence impinged loudly on the scene and the crowd were now subdued. The
mother, if that’s who she was, clutched the three children, who were clinging
to her long skirts. All appeared to be
wailing, their faces contorted, staring towards the burning building. The mother’s hand was outstretched – were
there more children inside? Or had the ginger girl been a relative?
The man she had
thought might be the movie director, she now realised was wearing some kind of
dark uniform and had a helmet in his hand. He was holding the mother-woman’s
arm, pulling her and the children away from the scene. The woman looked dazed as she turned away,
her head drooped and her arms fell hopelessly, encircling the children.
Jane felt giddy
again as the sadness of the scene overwhelmed her. She shook her head to try and clear it,
searching in her pocket for a tissue to wipe her wet face. She felt a steadying hand on her arm and
looked up. A woman was smiling at her,
‘Are you
alright?' she said. The woman was
dressed in a dark business suit, short skirt, green-glazed beads around her
neck, pointed high heels. Jane stared at
her, as if she was an apparition.
Looking over the woman’s shoulder, she saw tall buildings, a wide street
and a black London cab dropping off a fare.
She pulled the tissue out of her pocket and dabbed at her eyes...
‘Yes, yes, thank
you.... I’m fine', she said. ‘No, really, I must have got something in my eye’.
The woman half-smiled
uncertainly,
‘Are you sure?
‘Yes, yes! I’m
sure’ she said, arranging her face into a smile, she just wanted the woman to
go away and leave her to think.
‘Thank you!’ she
said firmly.
The woman
shrugged and walked on and Jane looked carefully at the street. She steadied herself, putting her hand out to
a lamp post. She squeezed her eyes shut,
then opened them again. No! The scene
was still the same. She sniffed the air
– surely she could still smell a faint whiff of burning wood? It must be her imagination. The whole thing was her imagination. Or was it a hallucination? Perhaps one of those left over garlic
mushrooms she’d had from the fridge that morning was dodgy? She’d heard they sold ’magic’ mushrooms in
Camden – could one have got into her bag of mushrooms....no, no, ridiculous ,
she’d bought them in Tesco’s Metro in Liverpool Street? Still there must be a reasonable
explanation? She’d better not mention it
to anyone,they’d think she’d flipped.
Imagine what the doc in Occupational Health would say? She shuddered at the thought. She glanced at
her watch and was shocked to discover it said 10 o’clock. That meant….. no time
had passed since the whole thing happened. She frowned, feeling confused. She was on time for her appointment. It felt
like hours had passed. She sighed, then
straightened and put her shoulders back, crossing the road.
Number Seven was
a black-glazed building and as she pushed open the big glass door and stepped
towards the semi-circular reception desk, her heart skipped a beat. The receptionist, a plump, red-head, with her
hair pulled back and freckles on her turned-up nose smiled.
‘Yes, can I help
you?’
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Some websites about time shifting:
realityshifters.com/pages/articles/timeshifting.html
http://realityshifters.com/pages/articles/awalkbackintime.html
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