Becky Bananas

by Jean Ure

  Another thing Mum says, and she always smiles sort of sloppily as she says it, is that “Hari was very good-looking.”

  Hari was my dad. He was Indian. He came from Madras, which I have often looked at on the map.

  Just in case one day I might bump into him in the street and not know who he was, though unfortunately I don’t think this is very likely as he went back home to India and Mum thinks this is where he probably stayed. She says his mum and dad didn’t like it when he came to England to be a drama student. Also they didn’t like it when he married Mum. It wasn’t because they didn’t like English people, just that they would have liked it better if he had married an Indian lady.

  I expect by now he probably has. I think she will be very beautiful and have a red spot in the middle of her forehead and wear a sari and that they will have four children.

  I wish I could have met him just once! How lovely it would be if he woke up one day and said, “I think I will go and visit my daughter in England.” And then he would turn up, all handsome, on the doorstep, and people would wonder, “Who is that gorgeous man?” and will not realise he is my dad!

  Maybe when I am on television they will be able to find him and he will fly over specially to appear on the programme!

  The name Banaras is a particularly special sort of name as it is another way of spelling Benares, which is the Holy City of the Hindus. Mum suggested once that I might like to change my name to something more English so that people wouldn’t call me Bananas all the time. She said, “You could change to Danny’s name, if you wanted.” But Danny’s name is Martin, and Martin is an ordinary name.

  I like being called after a holy city! And Mum never changed her name. At least, she did for when she has to sign cheques or anything official. Then she’s Marianne Martin. But when she’s on TV or being interviewed she’s Marianne Jacobs, the same as she always was. So I am going to stay as I am!

  Violet used to have this dog that was a cross between a German sausage and a Yorkshire terrier.

  I am a cross between Indian and English.

  I am also a cross between Hindu and Jewish. My dad was Hindu and my mum is Jewish. I think that is interesting. The Hindu religion is very colourful, it has Lord Krishna and lots of gods with names such as Siva and Vishnu. It also has Diwali, which is the Festival of Lights. You can buy nice cards at Diwali and send them to your Hindu friends if you have any.

  If I knew where my dad lived, I could send one to him. I would write in it, “Happy Diwali! With love from your daughter in England.” And I would put my address in case he decided to come and see me.

  The Jewish religion is in the Old Testament. It is full of ancient history and exciting stories, like the one about David and Goliath. It also has festivals. My favourite is Hanukkah because you get presents!

  I could be whichever religion I choose. I could be Hindu or I could be Jewish. At the moment I am not either. Maybe I won’t ever be. Maybe I’ll just be me.

  I’m not too sure about religion. God, and everything.

  I expect there might be a god of some sort, because otherwise how did we get here? But I don’t see how anybody can know. Not for certain. It seems a bit odd to me, going and worshipping someone that might not exist. And even if he did – though it might be a she – how do we know that it wants us to worship it, necessarily? And why would it want us to worship it?

  I tried talking to Mrs Rowe about this, but she wasn’t very helpful. She said, “Surely we are worshipping God in order to give thanks for our existence?”

  I said, “But suppose it’s a miserable existence like it is for people that are starving or paralysed after motor accidents?”

  All she did was lift her shoulders and say, “We must all take our chance in this world.”

  Another time she told me that “You have some very strange ideas, Rebecca.”

  I don’t see what’s strange about my ideas. Neither does Uncle Eddy. When I talked to him about God he said he didn’t think that a god that was worth worshipping would actually want to be worshipped. So then I asked him if he thought it was all right not to be religious but just to be yourself, and he said he didn’t see why not. He said that some people feel the need for religion, and some don’t. There are some people, for example, where religion gives meaning to their lives. (But my life already has meaning! I am going to be a dancer.) Then there are other people that religion is a comfort to, when they are ill, for instance, or afraid of dying.

  I have done a lot of thinking about this. I have tried very hard to believe in God, because I think it would be nice and that it would be a comfort. But I can’t. So I think I might as well give up trying.

  What I believe is what Gran said. When Gran knew she was going to die she told me that it wasn’t anything to be scared of. She said that when you were dead you got to meet up with all the people that had gone before you.

  I said, “In heaven?” and she said, “You can call it heaven, if you like. It’s only another name for what lies beyond.”

  Gran said she was looking forward to it. She was sorry she would have to say goodbye to me and Danny, and Mum and Uncle Eddy, but she knew she’d see us all again one day. She said, “In the meantime, darling, we must be patient.” She said, “I’ve lived a long time and I’m tired.” She said that life beyond was going to be lovely and peaceful “after all this strife”. No more pain or misery. No more wars or cruelty or people starving.

  I said that it sounded beautiful, but it made me so sad to think that Gran wouldn’t be here any more. That was when she told me that if you’ve loved someone, they would be with you always. She said, “You might not be able to see me, but I’ll be around. Never fear!” And she is, I know that she is.

  She told me that she was really disappointed that she wouldn’t get to see me grow up and become a famous dancer, but on the other hand she couldn’t wait to be with Granddad again. So although I missed her terribly, I knew that she was happy and that it would be selfish to want her back.

  Mum agreed. She said, “Your gran was in a lot of pain at the end. It was a blessing for her when she went.”

  I hadn’t been thinking about the pain; I’d just been thinking of her being with Granddad. Gran loved Granddad ever so much. She kept a big photograph of him on her bedside table and she told me that she never went to sleep without saying goodnight to him, even though he’d been dead for years and years.

  Granddad died before I was born. And I’ve never seen my Indian grandparents, so Gran was the only one I ever had. Sarah has four.

  I’ve met one of Sarah’s grans. She isn’t like a gran at all. She wears these really trendy clothes, including short skirts that show all her legs.

  And her eyes are all spikey with mascara, and she has these incredibly long nails, like claws, that she paints blood red.

  I’m glad my gran wasn’t like that!

  My gran was a real gran. She was little and old and she had white hair.

  I think this is how a gran should be. A gran shouldn’t be glamorous, she should be soft and cuddly and comfortable. My gran was all of those things. I know she sometimes smacked my legs when I was naughty, but she always came and tucked me up at night and once when I had a really bad dream and Mum was away she let me go and sleep with her in her big old bed where she had slept with Granddad. I can’t imagine Sarah’s gran letting her do that.

  Gran’s bed was so big it took up almost the whole of her bedroom but she wouldn’t ever get rid of it because of her memories of Granddad. That is how much she loved him.

  My gran was born in Bethnal Green, just two streets away from Samuel Street. She lived there the whole of her life (except when she and Granddad were on tour). She spoke Cockney even better than Uncle Eddy does. Mum used to shake her head and say, “Honestly, Ma! I couldn’t take you anywhere.” She used to call her a denizen: Denizen Daise, on account of her name being Daisy.

  I didn’t know what a denizen was so I asked Violet and she said it was “sort of like an inh
abitant … someone that lives somewhere.”

  It didn’t make any sense to me. Why should Mum call Gran a person that lived somewhere?

  Next time she said it, I asked her. I said, “Why are you calling Gran a person that lives somewhere?” and she said, “I’m not. I’m calling her a denizen,” and I said, “Denizen means someone who lives somewhere,” and Mum said, “Not when I use it. When I use it, it means low life.” And she laughed as she said it.

  Gran laughed, too, as if she didn’t in the least bit mind being called low life, so that now I think perhaps it must have been some kind of joke between them.

  Sometimes when Mum and Eddy talk about Gran, Mum still refers to her as “the poor old denizen”, though not at all in a nasty way. I think she really loved her.

  I like to hear Mum and Uncle Eddy remembering the old days, when they were young. Uncle Eddy says that Mum was the bane of Gran’s life.

  “A proper little madam!”

  She was always getting into trouble, my mum. Uncle Eddy told me that one time when she’d given Gran some really bad mouth and Gran had lost her temper, Mum had come galloping out of the kitchen and up the stairs with Gran chasing behind her “yelling blue murder and taking these swipes with a tea towel”.

  He said that Mum got to the top of the stairs, shouted “Ha ha! Missed me!” and dived into her bedroom before Gran could get her.

  That sounds like Mum! She always has an answer for everything. “Smart mouth,” Uncle Eddy says.

  I wish I were a smart mouth! I would love to be able to think of clever things to say. But I can’t, and even if I could I would be too afraid of getting into trouble. I hate it when people are cross. Mum just doesn’t seem to care.

  I don’t think I take after Mum very much at all. I think I probably take after my dad, though of course it is hard to tell when I have never met him.

  There can’t be many people that have never met their dads. I should think it is quite unusual. You would have thought he would at least have stayed to see what I looked like, but Mum says he didn’t want them to have a baby because a) he didn’t think they could afford one and b) he was scared it might interfere with his career as an actor.

  It is hard not to have feelings of rejection, knowing that your own dad didn’t want you. Mostly I try not to think about it but just now and again it comes back to me and I get a little sad. Mum says she ought not to have told me and that she can’t imagine why she did. She says, “My wretched tongue runs away with me! I always was a blabbermouth. You ask your Uncle Eddy … he’ll tell you!”

  But I expect it is only right that I should know about such things. I can understand my dad thinking they could not afford me as I am sure a baby is quite an expensive thing to run, what with nappies and prams and suchlike. It would have been nice, all the same, to have known him.

  8. My Brother Danny

  When you were seven years old, your brother

  Danny was born.

  I was really jealous of Danny when he was born. I didn’t think it was fair that he should have a dad and I didn’t, especially as he’d sort of, in a way, Danny’s dad I mean, been my dad before Mum went and had Danny.

  I’m sorry now that I was jealous. It wasn’t Danny’s fault. He couldn’t help it. And he’s never minded me sharing. Even after I was mean to him that time and told him he was only my half-brother, he still talked about “Daddy” as if he belonged to both of us. If he’d wanted to be mean back to me he could have started calling him “My daddy”. But Danny isn’t like that. He is a truly nice little boy. He’s ever so quiet and gentle. Not like some of them that run around shouting and fighting all the time.

  I wish I’d played with him more! His most favourite game of all is having a teddy bears’ picnic with his soft toys. Danny has loads of soft toys. There’s Bruin the Bear and Winnie the Wallaby and a dirty old pink rabbit called Clyde that he used to suck when he was a baby. Then there’s Roly Rat and Dolly the Donkey and Horace, the hand-knitted giraffe. And of course there’s Teddy, who used to be Mum’s and then was Uncle Eddy’s and then was mine and now belongs to Danny. Teddy’s been mended heaps of times. He’s really old and moth-eaten, but if ever you ask Danny which one he likes best he always says “Teddy!”

  I should have played with him. He loves it when I join in. I give all the animals different voices, like high and s-q-u-e-a-k-y for Roly Rat and dark and DEEP for Bruin the Bear. And “Ee-aw ee-aw!” for Dolly the Donkey. And “Bloop bloop” for Winnie and “Woffle woffle” for Clyde. Danny gets all giggly and bunches his hands into little fists and stuffs them in his mouth. He’s so funny!

  Mum took us to a special children’s show last Christmas and afterwards she asked us if we’d enjoyed it and which our favourite bits were. Danny said, “I liked the bit where the man fell over.” Mum said, “But that was an accident! The poor man caught his foot in something. It wasn’t meant to happen!” Danny said, “That was the funniest bit. I liked that bit.” And he chuckled away ever so happily. Mum shook her head and said, “I don’t know!” But he’s only four years old. Four is very young.

  That’s why I wish I’d been nicer to him and made more time for him. I wonder if everyone looks back on their life and has regrets or if it’s only me?

  When Danny comes on my programme I’ll make it up to him! I’ll give him an enormous great kiss and tell everyone that’s watching that he is my real, whole brother. I will, I promise!

  Danny’s dad is called Alan Martin. He’s quite a nice person, really. I wouldn’t have minded if he’d stayed married to Mum. Mum brought him to our Open Day once and everyone went “Ooh” and “Aah” because they’d seen him acting with her on television.

  He’s in America now, making movies. Maybe when I’m on This is Your Life they could do a satellite linkup so that he could say “Hi!” They do that, sometimes, when people are living in another country and don’t want to make long journeys.

  I don’t think he’d fly over specially. I shouldn’t think he would. Not just for me. He sends me a present at Christmas and on my birthday, the same as he does Danny, but we don’t ever see him. He’s married to an American lady and they have a baby of their own called Emerald.

  I think it must be sad for Danny, knowing his dad has another baby that he loves more than he loves him. If he didn’t love her more, he’d come to England and visit us. He does speak sometimes on the phone, but it isn’t the same. Sometimes the line is crackly and once we heard Emerald bawling in the background. And Danny is always tongue-tied and never knows what to say.

  Maybe Mum will get married again. Actresses often do.

  It was ever so posh, when she got married to Alan. “A really glitzy do” is what Uncle Eddy called it. Not like when Mum married my dad, when they didn’t have any money and just went up the road to the local registry office.

  Mum and Alan also got married in a registry office, because of both of them having been married before and not being allowed to do it in church, but their registry office was a smart one, in Kensington. We all got dressed up in our best clothes. I had a special new dress made, orange and rose-pink, with a bunch of flowers to carry and confetti to throw. And loads of photographers came to take photographs for the papers because now that Mum was in Ask Auntie she was famous.

  It was very strange at first, Mum being famous. It meant that everyone knew who she was and recognised her in the street so we couldn’t go anywhere without people coming up and asking her for her autograph.

  Sometimes it was really funny, like when we were shopping in Safeway and this woman came rushing across the store and peered up at Mum and shouted, “It’s her! It is!” and this other woman that had been waiting immediately came flying over and asked Mum if she’d mind her looking in our trolley. She said, “I like to know what the stars are buying.”

  Mum and I giggled over that. For ages afterwards, whenever any of her friends came round, Mum used to act it out for them. She’d make me be her, pushing the trolley, and she’d be the
two women. Everyone always went into shrieks of laughter.

  But later on, when Mum and Alan decided they didn’t love each other any more, it was horrible. There were all these headlines in the papers.

  And then underneath they went on about how Mum and Alan weren’t going to live together any more. They seemed to think it was amusing. Just because Mum played the part of an agony aunt on the telly.

  I can see now why they call them agony aunts. When people write them letters all about their problems, I expect they probably are in agony. Especially if they are quite well known and everyone recognises them and they are being written about in the newspapers. It isn’t very nice having to go into school and knowing that everyone knows all about what is happening in your life.

  Elinor Hodges was ever so nasty about it. She said she thought it was disgusting the way people in television kept getting married and divorced all the time. She said she thought they were immoral and that marriage should be for ever.

  It made me really upset, Elinor Hodges saying my mum was immoral. Sarah told me not to take any notice of her. She said, “Her mum and dad are religious nuts.”

  It is true that Elinor’s parents are rather peculiar. They won’t ever let her act in school plays and she always has to wear a scarf over her head, even though she is not a Muslim, but I think I sort of agree with her, just a little bit, about marriage being for ever.

  I know people can’t help falling out of love, any more than they can help falling in love. At least, I suppose they can’t. It is difficult to be certain when I have never actually been in love myself, though I cannot imagine Darcey, for instance, ever not being my favourite dancer or Sarah not being my best friend.

  But just because love cannot last for ever, I don’t see that is any reason why people shouldn’t go on living together. Lots of people live together that aren’t in love. And then there wouldn’t be all this horribleness that happens, with stories in the newspapers and people like Elinor Hodges telling you your mum is immoral.