Becky Bananas (6 page)

We talk a lot together, me and Uncle Eddy. The reason I love him so much is that he is like an uncle and a dad and a big brother and a best friend, all rolled into one. He is also, quite simply, the most beautiful person I have ever seen. The most beautiful man, that is. (Darcey is the most beautiful woman. After Mum!)

Zoë agrees with me about Uncle Eddy. She says that her insides go “all tingly” just at the sight of him. Even Sarah admits that he is quite hunky, and Sarah is a very difficult person to impress.

But I would love him just as much if he had cross eyes and a hump back and horrible whiskers growing out of his nose! (Which is what some men have and which really puts me off.)

I wouldn’t care what he looked like, he would still be my favourite person. After Mum and Danny.

One way I am lucky is that Uncle Eddy isn’t married and therefore has no children of his own. If he had children of his own I wouldn’t see him nearly as often, because why would he leave them to come and see boring old me? It wouldn’t be fair.

I am glad he isn’t married! I expect that is selfish, but I don’t care. I don’t want him ever to be!

Well, not for a
long
time in case his wife got cross and said, “Oh, you are surely not going off to visit that stupid, dim child again? I want you to spend more time with me!”

Sometimes people’s wives are like that. Like Zoë’s dad’s wife. Zoë’s dad got married again after he and Zoë’s mum were divorced and now he lives in Yorkshire and Zoë hardly ever see him. Even once when she was really sick and her mum called him and he came down, he could only stay one night because of his wife.

“She can’t manage on her own.” That’s what he said. So he went back off to Yorkshire and I don’t know when was the last time that Zoë saw him. I feel really sorry for her. That’s why I let her share Uncle Eddy. I wouldn’t let just anyone. Mostly I would like to keep him all to myself.

If Uncle Eddy got married and had children I would probably be jealous of them. That is another reason I don’t
want him to do it. And maybe he won’t because me and Sarah have discussed it and we think that perhaps he is gay. Elinor Hodges, at school, says we didn’t ought to talk about things like that. Not at our age. But I don’t see why we shouldn’t, there’s nothing wrong with it. Being gay, I mean. Mum has lots of friends who are.

I expect she’d tell me if I asked her, she’s always told me everything, like about babies and everything, long before we did it at school, but I’m scared to ask in case she laughs and says “No! What on earth made you think that?” She might tell me that Uncle Eddy has a million beautiful girlfriends, scattered all over the globe, and then my dream would be shattered.

My dream is that when I grow up he will ask me if I would like to go and live with him in a flat overlooking Hyde Park. Of course I know it is not very likely to happen, but that is my secret dream.

What Uncle Eddy does is, he makes me feel brave. I think I am quite wimpish, actually. Not like Zoë. She is brave. I can’t imagine Zoë ever being scared of anything.

Or Sarah, although Sarah as far as I know does not have anything to be scared of. She is lucky. Some people just are.

It is when I am on my own sometimes that I get frightened. I have these thoughts, and they scare me. But when Uncle Eddy is here, I feel like – like I could do anything! Like there is absolutely no reason to be frightened. Because while he is here you just know that nothing bad could ever happen. He is that sort of person.

They are my golden days, when Uncle Eddy is here. He comes whenever he can but quite often he is away on location. Being a TV cameraman means that he has to go all over the world, like at the moment he is in Africa.

I wish he was here! But I know that he can’t be. When you are away filming you cannot simply drop everything and come running back home. It is not like an ordinary job where you can just say to your secretary, “Tell them that I am out of the office” or “I will deal with it later”. If Uncle Eddy is not there,
then there is nobody to work the camera and the programme cannot be made.

It is no good wishing that I could have golden days all the time. I am lucky to have any at all. I know this.

I probably shouldn’t have thought of Uncle Eddy. It is silly thinking of things that upset you.

I will think of some more favourites.

No, I won’t! I will think about when I was little.

You were born in London, within the sound
of Bow bells.

I
am a true Cockney! Like Gran. The only way you can call yourself a Cockney is if you are born within the sound of the Bow bells.

Mum always tells people that she is one, but she isn’t because she wasn’t born there. She was born in Manchester, when Gran and Granddad were on tour. And Uncle Eddy was born on the Isle of Wight. I am the only one – apart from Gran – who is a real, true, actual Cockney!

I said this to Mum once and she laughed and told me not to be so pedantic. When I asked her what pedantic meant she said, “Boringly sticking to the absolute truth.” Well! I thought that was what you were supposed to do. But Mum insists that “For all intents and purposes I am a Cockney”, and that is what she tells people when they come to interview her for magazines, etc.

Uncle Eddy is more Cockney than Mum because he didn’t go to drama school and get rid of his accent. He
still talks what Mum calls “gorblimey”. She is always mimicking him, and pulling his leg, but Uncle Eddy doesn’t mind. I wish I could talk Cockney like he does! I probably would have done if Mum had let me, but she always used to keep on about how I had to speak properly.

I don’t see that speaking like Mum does, is any more proper than the way Uncle Eddy speaks. Uncle Eddy thinks it’s a joke.

“Gotta talk nice,” he says; and then he winks at me behind Mum’s back.

Uncle Eddy calls me his little Cockney sparrow (only the way he says it, it sounds more like “me liddle Cockney sparrer”) and he’s taught me all this rhyming slang. Sarah and me sometimes use it when we want to mystify people. Like Sarah might say, “I’ll be on the dog, Saturday morning,” and I’ll know she’s going to ring me. Or I might tell her that Mum’s meeting me after school to go and buy me some Daisy Roots, and everyone will look at me as if I’ve gone mad, but Sarah will nod and say, “Doc Marten’s?”

Oh, and one time when Mrs Rowe was collecting money for something, Sarah couldn’t find her purse and she cried, “Some rotten tea leaf has gone and nicked it! All my bread has gone!”

It was really funny because Mrs Rowe didn’t have the faintest idea what she was talking about. She doesn’t understand
any
Cockney slang.

Once when we walked into the classroom there was this simply terrific stink coming from outside, and Sarah said, “Cor, wot a pen!” and Mrs Rowe said, “Please don’t use expressions like that, Sarah. It’s not very becoming.” And Sarah said, “But there is a pen! It’s horrible!” and Mrs Rowe looked all round and said, “Indeed? Point it out to me. I observe no pens of any description.”

She thought Sarah was talking about fountain pens!

This is some of the Cockney slang that Uncle Eddy has taught me: