The Cornflake House (10 page)

‘Get off my back,' she cried.

I'd woken up as I rolled over.

After the dream and the dead body incident, I couldn't sleep again. But I did manage to transport myself back to the day the dream had been based on, the day when we'd made the real move. To feel again that wonderful build up of excitement which had highlighted and lengthened the wait. It was late spring and Grandma Editha was boiling with rage and sorrow. She couldn't keep us off her freshly sprouting crops. Our caravan was parked in her garden and although we slept there, on top of each other, we bounced into her house and over the smallholding like hailstones. Our feet must have seemed to be everywhere, but mostly, I imagine, under hers. We weren't dainty children. Nothing was safe in our wake. On the other hand, she was dreading being left alone with only Eric for company. Poor Grandma, she didn't want us to stay and she couldn't bear to think of our leaving.

Grandad hadn't wanted us there in the first place.

‘You and your tribe of bastards can camp in a ditch,' he told my mother at the time when she was evicted from the field we used to share with three other families. She ignored him, of course. So he wasn't the least bit sorry when we left. Perhaps he missed us later, the way a ball misses skittles or a dart longs for a bull's-eye. He used a fat round stick as a substitute for his lost leg and since he couldn't kick us, he swung this out at those who were careless enough to venture close. You had to be pretty agile to avoid bruised knees and red shins. This game was his only exercise, that and eating.

Finally the day dawned and we were off on our long-awaited journey. You'd be amazed how much you can fit into one small caravan and an old open-backed lorry. We stacked ourselves high, perching on toys, books, bedding, crockery, and that was only the caravan. Our furniture, such as it was, had been stored in a shed until that day. Now it sat in the lorry, exposed to the sky. Ancient moth-eaten sofas and wormy chairs wobbled under hastily tied ropes and on the very top lay a scratched white table, its legs pointing crudely upwards. We must have looked like refugees.

In my prison bed I lay and smiled to think of the consternation our arrival caused in that exclusive cul-de-sac. What were we? Gypsies? Tinkers? Tramps? A bit of each, all things abominable. The residents' worst nightmares, multiplied by eight and then added to by a number of dogs, cats and rodents. I suppose, if you belong to the middle classes, and if you have invested in a nice, tidy house in a smart location, the arrival of vagabonds in an old, open lorry and a battered caravan is not exactly a welcome sight.

God, it was brilliant to arrive. We were so fed up, having been cramped in that egg of a caravan for hours on end. Except for Fabian who sat like Lord Muck beside Owen in the cab of the lorry. Yes, the rest of us had reached the hair-pulling, head-banging stage, the point where torturing each other was the only way to stay sane.

They had built the houses of our cul-de-sac in an orchard, or on the spot where the orchard had once blossomed. This site was at the bottom of a steep hill and as we descended behind the lorry we were tipped to the front of the caravan and attacked by sliding crockery. Before we could yell at Owen to slow down, he was turning sharp left, swinging us against the windows, then shuddering to a halt. We picked ourselves up, turned around and squashed our faces on the glass to see why we'd stopped.

We had arrived.

It took me a while to understand this, because reality was nothing like my expectations. I'd conjured my own Cornflake House from the artist's impression and my version was prettier than any house I'd ever seen, but only two-dimensional. My imagined house stood, a cardboard cut-out in splendid isolation, in a watercolour meadow. I think there was even a thin, paper Eve gazing wistfully from a bedroom window. The sight I first saw through the caravan window was very different; far from isolated, these dwellings stood almost overlooking each other. In the small sphere of my vision I could see three homes at least, trim as dolls' houses and close enough together to share hammocks. Figures emerged from tidy hallways, people imitating goldfish, mouths opening, closing, dropping open again. Then Owen appeared at the caravan door, ‘Reception committee's waiting,' he announced in his finest fen voice.

Dogs escaped instantly, yapping, peeing, heading for the goldfish people. Merry followed them, pushing past Owen, running to catch up, tumbling, screaming and, not being encumbered by a nappy, copying the hounds by pissing against a flowering cherry. The rest of us formed a queue behind our mother, picking up on her anxiety, nervous of meeting our benefactors.

‘Which one? Which is ours?'

‘Number three,' Mum informed us, ‘the one with the flags flying.'

We were shoved back inside, driven in a neat semi-circle, and rearranged right outside our very own Cornflake House.

Like me, you'll have to wait to see the inside 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 and getting to the new.

But, as a portent of things to come, before my mother even had time to open her front door, one of our new neighbours strode over to complain. A dog – ours – had shat on his patio. Dino, the dog in question, padded along behind this man, tongue hanging out, tail wagging, looking most relieved. It would have been useless to argue with that.

‘It'll be cleared up by the time you get back,' Mum promised.

‘Is that it?' our neighbour growled, obviously unimpressed by this magical offering. ‘Aren't you even going to say you're sorry?'

‘Of course I'm sorry. I wouldn't be clearing it up if I wasn't.'

At this point, Django, who had been staring at the newcomer, tugged the man's sleeve. Reluctantly the man looked down, his face stiff with disapproval of my little brother.

‘You have a bogey,' Django told him, ‘you should wipe your nose, it's disgusting.'

Owen laughed and patted Django on the back. ‘Check mate,' he said.

There was more than a moment's silence and even at a distance, I understood that from this point of impasse things might go one of two ways. In terms of social blunders, we were equal, and we were neighbours. The man might find a hanky, use it, laugh too, shake hands and be friends. Or he might glare, stamp and become a sworn enemy. I hoped for the hanky, but was disappointed. This was a stamping, glaring man. His scowl encompassed my family, Owen, and the reception committee; but suit-man and co. met his gaze with well-rehearsed smiles which sent him thumping back to his soiled patio.

Mum turned to Zulema and me. ‘Come on girls,' she begged, ‘you should be here for this.' We hung back, reluctant to join an atmosphere which had turned sour. Over the years I've imagined that I heard my mother speak again, but I think she was silent. I don't know; she might have said, as she put the key to the door, ‘I wish Taff was here.' Even if she didn't speak aloud, she must have thought it, because there was a sudden honking of car horns, spluttering of engines, calling of excited voices; and there was Taff, all hair and grin, leaping from an open-topped sports car. She held a bottle of champagne in each hand and although several young men were emerging from her convoy, she eyed suit-man and shouted, ‘Extra rations, you're brilliant you are, Vic.' It was party time.

Thinking about it, I believe Taff was the first to step inside The Cornflake House. Mum turned the key, held back the door and Taff's stilettos sank into the newly fitted Axminster. By the time Zulema and I crept in, Taff was in full swing, swigging straight from the bottle, filling the empty house with ‘oohhs', and ‘just get a load of this, Vic'.

I saw a lot of floor, some banisters, and many adult knees as I stole from room to room. There wasn't much else to see, empty houses are sorry places, especially when decorated entirely in a wan blue. This colour was, next to having to contend with Taff, my greatest disappointment. I remembered the description Mum and I had hung over, the words I'd read to her so often ‘…
Enjoying a quiet, orchard setting, your three-bedroomed Dream House will have a modern, fully fitted kitchen complete with washing machine, refrigerator and stainless-steel sink unit. You will be able to relax in your pale turquoise bathroom before slipping into bed in the luxurious master bedroom. The walls will have been painted in Duck Egg Blue and the floors will be fitted with a carpet of your choice.
' Well, if this was Duck Egg Blue they'd been feeding the ducks the wrong stuff. I looked at the bright, positively garish carpet.

‘What'll it be, Evey?' Mum'd asked when we went to see Mr Pollard who ordered rugs and lengths of carpet for those who came to feel their way through his stack of hairy books. At least the Axminster was all it was meant to be.

‘Just needs a lick of paint,' Mum made me jump, as she so often did when reading my thoughts. She'd sneaked up behind me to admire the luxurious master bedroom, and with her arm over my shoulder I felt, at last, that what was happening was real. Or was it? It was down to her magic, our being there, our owning the place. But … one snap of her fingers would banish the house to oblivion.

She never did snap her fingers to break the spell. We lived in our Cornflake House because my mother believed it was meant to be. Had destiny intended us to stay in our caravan, then Mum wouldn't have bought the box of cornflakes in the first place. The artist's impression of a Dream House on the back of that box, the invitation to try her luck, wouldn't have caught her eye, enticing her to have a go at the competition. What's more, I don't believe Mum would have entered the competition unless she knew, without any doubt, that she would win. She was more than lucky. Nobody played cards with Mum more than once. Dice fell into any pattern she wished and we kids knew better than to invite her to play games of chance with us. I remember one time when Zulema and I were playing Pick-A-Stick, you know, that game where you drop a stack of coloured sticks in a tight formation and have to take them one by one without moving any of the others. Those bits of wood remained still in impossible situations for Mum, until we were forced to accuse her of cheating. ‘Can't help it,' she shrugged, and I don't suppose she could.

When Bingo became popular she used it as a method of getting us a bit of extra cash. She won raffles all the time and being so fatalistic she felt obliged to keep the prizes whether she wanted them or not. Of course a house is a little different from the average raffle prize, you can stuff a box of hankies or some unwanted soaps in a drawer and forget about them, but a house … Still, I'm almost certain she did want this particular prize.