May Contain Nuts (24 page)

Molly's little turned-up nose wrinkled in confusion.

‘But … but I don't know her.'

‘But she seemed nice, didn't she? And she only lives round the corner.'

‘But … but we don't know their telephone number or anything.'

‘I already looked it up. Osafo, 23 Gisbourne House. It's surprising how many Osafos there are …'

It seemed to me the perfect arrangement. I could suggest to Ruby's family that she came round to play with Molly, and we could use the opportunity to have a quick look through any spare practice papers I happened to buy in the bookshop before Sunday. Ruby would have the space and peace she couldn't get at home, and Molly would see what it meant to sit still and study. And apart from anything else, Ruby seemed like the nicest, most unprecocious child I had met for a long time. It would make a pleasant change to serve lunch to an eleven-year-old girl who wasn't having a month off carbohydrates. ‘No mash potato for me, thank you,' Bronwyn had said last time she was round for tea. ‘It goes straight to my hips.'

On Sunday morning the doorbell rang and I tried to gee up Molly at the imminent prospect of having Ruby round to play. I had been hoping that this might be my chance to meet Ruby's mother, but through the frosted glass of the doorway hovered a giant silhouette. Either Ruby was standing on her
grandmother's shoulders or there was someone else at the door. I must confess I leapt back slightly at the sight of Ruby's enormous brother standing on my doorstep. I'd seen a photo of him at Ruby's house, but the picture didn't convey the Manhattan scale of the boy. He must have been six foot six or six foot seven, though his bony frame seemed ashamed of his height: his shoulders were hunched and his head hung low, hidden inside its grubby hooded top.

‘Brought Ruby round,' he mumbled, and his little sister smiled shyly from somewhere near his waist.

‘Oh thank you. Tell your grandmother I can drop her back after lunch.'

He managed a mumbled affirmative. And then I realized I had seen this boy before. He was one of the youths at the bottom of the road I had imagined were going to mug me that night I was walking to Blockbuster on my own after dark. And now here he was on my doorstep, mumbling and shuffling and avoiding eye contact – it was
he
who was intimidated by
me
.

‘See you later, Ruby. Be good …' he said, and then he was gone.

So he wasn't ‘Scary Youth #2' but ‘Ruby's brother, Kofi'. He had an identity and a place in the universe. He was seventeen years old, studying at Lambeth College with his friend Aubrey from Norbury; he was six foot six and he slept in the bottom bunk underneath his sister, where Ruby told me his legs stuck out the end of the bed. The more detail she imparted about her brother, the less frightening he became. That's why they don't let you get acquainted with the auks in
Lord of the Rings
. They're only terrifying while they're anonymous; they'd cease to be scary if Auk #3 turned to camera and said, ‘Hi, my name's Malcolm and I'm just mad about macramé and Lloyd Webber musicals.'

I was relieved to see Molly being so friendly and welcoming to Ruby, even though I had taken the precaution of giving Molly strict instructions to be friendly and welcoming to Ruby. There was still the statutory period of awkwardness that was probably exacerbated by having me hovering over them clucking, ‘Molly, why don't you show Ruby your bedroom?' or, ‘Why don't you show Ruby your doll's house?'

‘Oh yeah, my doll's house – like, I'm still six years old.'

It saddened me that my only daughter had already grown out of her doll's house. David and I had bought it when she was a baby; it had been as close as we could find to the big Victorian houses in Oaken Avenue, with the exception that the dolls didn't disappear off to a little doll's house in the country every Friday night.

Before long the two girls were jumping round on the dance mat, finding some deeper form of communication in the ancient leveller that is the Sony PlayStation. Molly claimed they were taking turns, though every time I went into the lounge it seemed to be my daughter's go. She had never had anybody so compliant round to play; everything that was suggested was politely agreed to, there were no arguments about which game to play next or who had won the last one. Molly chose the game, and then won it. And then I listened to them talking about which secondary school they were going to, and Molly said that she had got a scholarship into Chelsea College and Ruby said she had tried for a scholarship too but hadn't been clever enough, so it seemed that Molly had won that one as well.

I had decided that I'd let them have an hour or so playing together and then after lunch I would spend a little time with Ruby helping her prepare for her one last crack at a top-flight school. I had also been right when I had thought that Ruby
might be able to teach Molly a few things. Over the course of the morning I overheard Ruby saying, ‘Don't you know what “cuss” means?' And, ‘You don't know what “dissin” is?' Ruby eagerly ate up all her lunch, and Molly felt less inclined to mime vomiting and follow each agonized mouthful with a hasty gulp of water to wash away the disgusting flavour. And then, incredibly, Molly did her English homework in silence while I sat at the other end of the kitchen table going over some test papers with Ruby. She was so keen to learn, and it felt rewarding to teach a child who listened and who I could almost see making progress. By the time I dropped her back at her flat, I felt like the day could not have been a bigger success. The whole thing worked perfectly and left me feeling vindicated and, if I admitted it, a little proud of myself. Ruby had looked up at me with such a quizzical gaze, with such wonder in her eyes. It was as if she was thinking: Why are you doing so much to help me? Why are you being so kind? At least, that's what I imagined she was thinking.

‘She's a smart girl, isn't she?' said her grandmother proudly as she helped her off with her coat.

‘Oh yes,' I happily concurred. ‘A very smart girl.'

 

The Brain Allergy Cookbook

Are Wheat and Dairy Lowering Your Child's IQ?

By David Zinkin

Sunrise Books £6.99

Many parents are becoming increasingly aware of allergic reactions caused by our gluten-heavy Western diet. Allergies to wheat, dairy, nuts and shellfish can prompt highly visible physical symptoms such as skin rashes, swellings and wheezing. Much harder to identify are what nutritionists refer to as ‘brain allergies' – chemical reactions in the mind that can cause your child to fall short of his or her intellectual potential. Often the only symptoms are behavioural; you may have punished your child for being naughty when the fault actually lies with you, the parent, for feeding him nuts or tomatoes. Try these simple tests to see if your child is ‘brain allergic'
.

• Your child shows hostility to a sibling
.
This is a classic symptom of a cranial wheat allergy. Cut out bread, pasta, pastry, breakfast cereal and other wheat products.

• Your child has demonstrated a reluctance to do homework
.
Your child's brain may well be lactose- intolerant. Cut out milk, cheese, butter and yoghurt.

• Your child usually gets a cold in the winter
.
Your child may well have an allergy to additives. Cut out all prepared meals, tinned foods, packet food and frozen foods.

• Your child is pale, tired and listless
.
You have not replaced the food that you cut from your child's diet.

It was the first really hot weekend of the summer, when millions of Londoners are spontaneously drawn by some genetic migration instinct that sees us all jump into the Land Rover and seek out the lush greenery of the natural world that lies beside the garden centre car park. Ruby's grandmother had invited Molly round to play, and with David and the boys off watching a display by the Bombing of Dresden Re-enactment Society or something, I found myself sitting alone in the queue of traffic with all the other garden makeover refugees, adding to the carbon monoxide haze and doing my bit to help warm up the city.

This new friendship has been good for my daughter, I thought, staring at the cosmopolitan mix of south London pedestrians. Ruby was always so grateful and well behaved, and with Ruby's family being from Ghana, it also gave me the opportunity to open Molly's eyes to a bit of African culture, so I'd recently taken them both to the theatre to see
The Lion King
. Ruby was mature in lots of ways, but unlike Molly's other friends, there was nothing phoney about it. She was just at ease with herself; she took everything in her stride and
didn't seem to bear any resentment about not getting a pony for Christmas.

I had made real progress with her English and non-verbal reasoning, getting her scores up to scholarship level so that she was well prepared for the Barnes Girls' exam. Sometimes Ruby would walk round to our house on her own, though when it was time to go home I always felt I had to drive her back myself. Although her grandfather remained detached, I got to know her grandmother and her brother quite well. Kofi was an awkward boy, embarrassed by his enormous height. I began to think that he too must have enormous potential if only he was guided in the right direction. I had a bit of a brainwave about this. I made a few enquiries and then excitedly announced the way forward for him. ‘Kofi, I was speaking to someone who runs a semi-professional basketball team and they would be more than happy to give you a trial.' He was nowhere near as excited by my idea as I had hoped. I'm not even convinced he ever rang them up.

The traffic inched forwards and teenage boys on BMX bikes weaved at speed between the pensioners on the pavement with as much care as it is possible to take while doing extended wheelies that jumped alarmingly from road to pavement to zebra crossing, all pedestrians and drivers obligingly giving way to the new emergency vehicles: urban teenagers riding with one wheel in the air. A red light commanded me to stop and the urgent beep of the crossing hurried people to the safety of the opposite pavement. Barely registering the faceless heads that streamed past on the other side of my windscreen, I flicked through the radio presets in search of whichever station was playing ‘Mr Blue Sky'. But something made me look up again. Suddenly in the blur of the crowd, one face was sharply in focus. There crossing the road right in front of me was my daughter. Not
sitting behind me strapped into her seat, with me at the steering wheel dictating her direction, but walking freely on the other side of my locked doors – she was just
out there
, meandering down the high street on a sunny day. In her hand was a McDonald's milk shake and she was chatting excitedly with Ruby and a couple of other girls as they skipped up onto the pavement and towards Woolworths. I glanced round, presuming that Ruby's grandmother must be a few paces behind, but unless the girls were under the care of that beggar sitting by the cashpoint machine, there was no adult near enough to be supervising them. No chaperones holding their hands or stressed teachers at front and back pointing them in the direction of the school coaches – just four eleven-year-old girls walking free. The other children were clearly friends of Ruby's because they certainly weren't from Molly's school. I think I would have remembered a girl with pierced ears and a Florida ‘Gators Puffa jacket like that one. Molly broke off from her milk shake and accepted the offer of some chips from another girl, and I tried to press down the electric window to shout across to her, but the window on the wrong side went down and then the car behind me tooted impatiently because the lights had started to flash amber a good half a second earlier.

I looked frantically for a space to pull over, to park up and rescue her from this perilous situation, but buses were pulling out from the left and the side roads on either side were marked no entry. I was helplessly washed downstream with all the traffic, forced to drive straight ahead with Molly's head receding in my rear-view mirror. A tow-away lorry was just lifting an illegally parked car so I gratefully grabbed the vacated parking space and leapt out. Zigzagging between the traffic, I crossed the road, narrowly avoiding a potentially
fatal and particularly messy pile-up with a pizza-delivery moped that was speeding between the crawling cars. But when I arrived at the spot where I had last glimpsed Molly, she was nowhere to be seen. There was a betting shop behind me – maybe they'd dived in there and were now blowing Molly's pocket money on the greyhounds at Catford? There was a pawnshop a few doors down – perhaps they'd just got 50p for Molly's friendship bracelet? Or what about the pub next door? Maybe if I hung round till closing time I could catch my eleven-year-old daughter as she spilled out of the pub with a Bacardi Breezer in her hand, staggering over the road for a kebab?

Then I saw them. A stranger that used to be my eleven-year-old daughter was being ordered out of Woolworths by a uniformed security officer for eating burgers on the premises. The girls were giggling as they scurried back out onto the pavement and then one of them threw a bit of burger bun at Molly, who laughed and threw a chip back. And then her face fell as she saw the thunderous face of her mother, striding up the road towards her.

‘You realize you might have a brain allergy to wheat?'

‘What?'

‘Can't you just pick out the salad? Hello, Ruby … does your grandmother know you're out on your own?'

‘Yes.'

Silence. What I really wanted to do was take Molly away there and then, and drive her home till she was behind our electric gates safe from cars, muggers and gluten, but I realized I couldn't just pull her out in front of these other girls.

‘I've got a great idea. It's such a lovely day, I've got my car over there – why don't I drive you all to Battersea Park?'