I am pretty sure that she is a woman but I have to take into account that she wears men’s clothes and she shaves. But in my essay I will say she is a woman because she does wear red lipstick and she refers a lot to her massive but accommodating bosom.
She also uses some of the best swear words I have ever heard like, “Jesus fucking H. Christ what in the bleeding hell are those black cunts cooking this time?” And, “Fuck me, that stinks like a bleeding sailor’s arsehole!”
Thluuuuuump!
That’s the sound of her lifting her bum off the sofa and doing massive farts so that all the cat hair blows up into the air. But I probably will not include that in my essay. Actually, I won’t include those swear words either.
I must observe other details.
She smokes Kensitas cigarettes and sometimes she smokes more than one at once. She reads the Dandy and Beano comics because she likes the pictures. And she eats chocolate nut clusters by sucking all the chocolate off and leaving the nuts because she said nuts make her fart. She then offers the nuts to me and Emily. Obviously, we do not eat them as that would be disgusting, but she means well.
Yes, she does mean well. Take this morning, for instance. We were all sitting on the sofa together scratching and Auntie Dot said she couldn’t get any time off work so she would take us to work with her, which was a very nice thing to do or we would have been left on our own in the attic with the cat hair and fleas and the nut clusters, even if there was plenty of sausages and mash left over from last night. So that’s how we found out that Auntie Dot works for London Transport at the Stockwell underground station and those clothes she is wearing are her uniform.
When we got to the station, the first thing she did was to take us to see a secret tunnel that was even more exciting than that time I put my finger in the back of Nana’s old valve radio and touched the live terminal. We met some more Jamaicans who were hiding down in the tunnel from dangerous passengers. We had a nice cup of tea with them and they told me never to work on the underground because it’s too dangerous.
“We come all de way from a hot place in de Caribbean wid sand and banana trees. Ha, Lordy! We come here to better ourself. Ha! Praise de Lord, you is bee-you-tiful kids wid de faces like de shining sun.”
They also did not expect to be called wogs and niggers when they are British Citizens just like the rest of us. If they had known then what they know now they would have stayed in poverty because at least it was warm and there wasn’t a bunch of violent thugs trying to avoid paying their tube fares. They don’t get paid enough to get punched in the mouth for a sixpenny ride.
That’s when Auntie Dot pulled a train grab-handle out of her knickers.
“Some fucking drunk tried to punch me in the mouth because he hadn’t paid his fare so I whacked him on the fucking head with this,” Dot said, holding her weapon in the air.
“Dat is de right ting to do, ole Dot. De right ting.”
“Well, he sued me, the fucker. But the London Transport Workers Union defended me, and I won the case. I love the Union. But they said it was a dangerous weapon, and I was not to keep it down my knickers.”
“Lordy! No way should dat ting be down a woman’s knickers. But dat has not stopped you, Dot!”
“No fucking way! It’s staying down my fucking knickers as long as I want!”
“You are de example to us all, Dot. A wonder to be beholdin’.”
Dot put her weapon back in her knickers. We couldn’t spend all day chitchatting with the Jamaicans so Dot took us to see a stain on the tracks where a woman killed herself last week by jumping in front of a train. Dot said it was very thoughtless.
“No one would jump in front of a train if they saw the fucking mess it makes!”
She has to clean it all up along with the fire brigade and the head always gets chopped off so someone’s got to pick it up by the hair.
“God forbid some fucking bald man doesn’t jump! We’d have to pick up his head by the ears! We have to make sure we’ve got all the main body parts in the bag. They get caught in the wheels. We count them. Two arms and two legs. Feet and hands. The last thing you need is to put someone in their coffin and find that a foot is missing. Or a hand.”
We can’t go back tomorrow because the Station Manager said it was not appropriate for two small children to collect tickets and sweep the station platforms while Auntie Dot was having a cup of tea with the Jamaicans. We were only trying to help. He said we could fall in front of a train or get kidnapped. I think he was just jealous because people were giving us money to help our poor, widowed mother.
But the really amazing thing about today was when we were walking back home to Dot’s attic after eating our fish and chips, we saw a dead man lying in the road. He’d crashed his scooter into a lamppost. Auntie Dot said not to look but we did look and so did lots of other people. Purple blood was oozing out of his head and nose and it made a puddle round his head and he looked like a saint on a stained glass window in church with a halo and I told Auntie Dot about that and she said it was a very nice thing to say and she rubbed my hair. And she said to try not to think about the dead man but that’s all I can see when I close my eyes. His face was really white and that made the purple blood seem darker and the black of the road seem blacker.
People say that blood is red but it’s closer to purple. And it turns brown when it dries.
Auntie Dot says he had a white face because his soul had left him. Your soul is a part of you that lives forever and that’s why it’s alright for your body to be buried when you are dead. You don’t need your body in Heaven but it’s best to imagine someone inside their body or else they will just be a bright light and that’s not an easy way to remember someone when they are dead. It’s also best not to think about someone being dead inside their coffin, especially if he killed himself by jumping in front of a train.
I have been thinking a lot about Auntie Dot and all the things that we have seen already on our holiday. I am going to write all the little details about our Auntie Dot but also the dead man with the purple blood lying on the black road who will become a bright light in Heaven. That was the most interesting thing and I will say I thought he looked like a saint with a purple halo around his head, lying on the black road.
I wish Mum was here because this is the best holiday anyone could have and I am sure that no one could ever have a day as exciting as this one.
44
I was completely wrong. There are much more exciting things than seeing a dead man. We couldn’t stop scratching so Auntie Dot dropped us round to Nana’s flat for a break. And that’s where we met Auntie Dee who had a holiday surprise for us.
Auntie Dee is another woman who is not our real auntie. She also wears a uniform but her uniform is from the Salvation Army because she is saving souls for the Stockwell Citadel. She is a very brave Apostle of Christ because she takes her tambourine into the public bar at The Castle every Saturday night and promises eternal happiness for the righteous or endless punishment for the wicked. Nana says that most people settle for endless punishment and order another drink. It’s very dangerous being an Apostle of Christ in the public bar of The Castle because a man smashed her tambourine right over her head, which was not easy to do because she was wearing her Salvation Army hat at the time.
The sun has got his hat on, hip, hip, hip, hooray.
The sun has got his hat on, and he’s coming out to play.
Stand up, stand up for Jesus, ye soldiers of the cross!
Hold high his royal banner, it must not suffer loss!
Auntie Dee sings God’s praises all the time because an idle mind makes work for the Devil. And she keeps her grandson Danny with her constantly because he is only five years old and he is special because he was sodomized in the back bedroom by a boy called Arnold when they were only supposed to be playing snakes and ladders. And even though it has made Danny special to be sodomized, he now lives with Auntie Dee because he does not want to be sodomized again.
> Nana said I should not ask when I wanted to know exactly what it means to be sodomized and I don’t know why they told me that he was sodomized if I can’t even ask what it means. All I know is that there is a place in the Bible called Sodom and God burned it down with fire and brimstone.
Auntie Dee said she had a holiday surprise for everyone and if we were good and loved Jesus, she would tell us all about it.
45
We are going on the Salvation Army summer daytrip to Littlehampton. It will be sun, sea, sand, and salvation because our souls will be saved by the righteous songs that we will sing on the bus. And Danny is going with us because he has been sodomized and he is special. Also, Jesus wants him for a sunbeam.
For one thing, God knows it would have been better if we had had tickets. There were nearly two hundred bloody people trying to get on our double-decker bus outside Clapham Junction tube station. And those riff-raff, who have never been to church or even opened a Bible, didn’t listen to a word when Auntie Dee told them that God’s son died for them on Calvary so that they might be saved from mortal sin and eternal damnation. And if you want my opinion, it was very disrespectful when that man stole her brand new tambourine.
Rattle, rattle, rattle.
And another thing. It would have helped if there were more Salvation Army people there to control that crowd of riff-raff and not just our Auntie Dee and a small old man with a whistle who said he was the captain. It was lucky for him that someone snatched his whistle away from him before that other man pushed it down his bloody throat.
That’s when a fight broke out.
“We’ve got as much right as you to be on this bus!” squealed a woman, dragging a dirty, wild-eyed boy behind her.
“When did you last go to fucking church?” another shouted.
“May God strike you down for that language!”
“You ain’t set foot inside a church since your ol’ man died! And that was in 1945!”
“Don’t you bring my dear, departed Harold into this, you fucking old cow!”
And once they broke the fight up, it wasn’t much fun driving to the seaside because it should only have taken two hours but we kept having to stop so that the dirty wild-eyed boy could be sick and he was sick seven times including once on the bus. I held my breath and moved to the other side. And his mum slapped him every time he was sick, which made him scream, and Nana said no one should blooming well have to listen to that screaming on a Salvation Army bus to Littlehampton.
Also, we had to stop every time we came to some bushes because the grown-up ladies said they could not just stick their bums out the back of the bus to pee like some of the men suggested.
So, it took over four hours to get to the seaside and not two and as soon as we got there nearly all the grown-ups went into a pub called the Marine Hotel and Nana said she didn’t know why they came all the way to the seaside just to go into a pub when there were plenty of pubs back in Clapham. Not to mention the ten crates of beer that had already been drunk on the journey.
We did not sing any righteous songs on the way to the seaside because Auntie Dee was too angry about her missing tambourine. She was also very unhappy that an old man called Cecil kept taking out his teeth to show her that he could pop the caps off of beer bottles with them because no one thought to bring a bottle opener.
“If you stare out to sea,” the captain said, “you will be able to experience the eternity of the Holy Spirit.”
Auntie Dee agreed that she felt closer to God than she did in Clapham.
I tried not to look while Auntie Dee was getting undressed with a towel around her. That towel was nowhere near big enough. That’s why she ended up sitting down to do it and asked Danny to help shield her but all he could do was point at things that no one should be seeing. It was completely mesmerizing. But the captain just stared out to sea.
And we were not at all happy when the captain told us to get dried and dressed after only an hour.
“It is my responsibility to get all of you back to Clapham before dark. We should have arrived here hours ago! This has not been the experience that it should have been.”
The captain said he would leave without the grown-ups because they wouldn’t come out of the pub. I thought it was a very good idea when the captain got the driver to start the engine and he revved it up and even moved forward a bit and that nearly started another fight when everyone came running out of the pub, still holding their drinks, screaming for us to stop.
“And another thing,” the captain shouted, “We will not be stopping this bus forty-two times on the way back to Clapham. If you need to go, you will just have to do it in a bottle. Or out the back of the bus. And that’s final!”
“I’m not sticking my arse out the back of no bus just for you fucking men to have a good look!”
It was the woman with the wild-eyed child. Then she slapped the boy to show us she meant it. I don’t think she’s right. It would be dangerous for a woman to try to pee out of the back of a bus. But for the men to have a good look at her bum, they would have to swing out of the back deck to do it. Anyway, I think the men are too busy drinking all the crates of beer they brought with them from the pub. And this time, they’ve got a bottle opener so Cecil doesn’t have to use his false teeth.
We were only as far as the turn at the end of the esplanade when Auntie Dee smiled at me and started to sing a righteous song, even though her tambourine was still missing.
It’s an open secret that Jesus is mine,
It’s an open secret this gladness divine,
It’s an open secret I want you to know,
It’s an open secret,
I love my Savior so…
But the grown-ups joined in with their own song.
When I went home on Monday night as drunk as drunk can be,
I saw a horse outside the door where my old horse should be…
Ah, you’re drunk,
You’re drunk, you silly old fool,
Still you cannot see,
That’s a lovely sow that me mother sent to me…
You can seek Him, find Him, share this secret too…
Ah, you’re drunk,
You’re drunk, you silly old fool,
Still you cannot see…
Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life:
He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live…
And as I went home on Saturday night as drunk as drunk could be,
I saw two hands upon her breasts where my old hands should be…
“Stop the fucking bus or I will piss myself, do you hear!” shouted the same woman who said she would not stick her bare arse out the back of the bus to piss just to have a bunch of drunken old men peering at her drawers.
“Really! I am reciting from the Scriptures,” said the captain. “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life…”
“And I’m saying I will piss right here in this seat if you don’t stop this fucking bus!”
“Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak…”
“And another thing! The driver says he needs to stop. He’s thirsty, and he needs a fucking beer!”
This is the best time ever. I never want to go home to our haunted house again. I want to stay here forever.
46
When we got back home, we were still scratching so Mum put some white powder in our clothes. I asked about it and she said it was for humans but the container had a picture of a dog on it.
And I got a gold star for my essay.
Two more black people came to our house today as we are now welcoming another troubled soul to the refuge-for-troubled-children. I looked closely at them but I don’t think they have leprosy. I think this is on account of them coming from a completely different tribe.
“Where are you from?” Mum asked.
“We are from the Igbo tribe! Igbo! Yes, we escaped our country a year ago,” t
he black man replied.
“What did you escape?” Mum asked, leaning forward and lighting a cigarette.
“Oh, it’s complicated,” he replied.
“Go on. Go on,” Mum said.
“Well. There was a lot of political unrest,” he began, “and then, earlier this year, my tribe seized power in Nigeria. There were riots. Almost thirty thousand of my tribe were killed.”
“Thirty thousand? Good God!”
“Yes. My brother and auntie were killed, God rest their souls. You see, Nigeria is a country that was created by you!”
“Me?” Mum replied.
“Well, not you personally. The British. Nigeria wasn’t a country before the days of the Empire. We got our independence from Great Britain in 1960. That’s when the real trouble began.”
Mum took a long drag on her cigarette. “Really?” she said, moving in even closer.
“There was no recognition of the terrible tribal differences between my tribe and the Yoruba and Hausa-Fulani. Or the fighting that would start over the rights to Nigeria’s oil supplies.”
This was a bloody sight more interesting than the last two black people. All they did was cry but these people actually came from a warring tribe. Death, destruction and terror. I really wish I hadn’t taken my robot apart.
“This is the start of a civil war. Many more will die. Perhaps millions by the time it is over.”
“Millions? Die?”
“Maybe.”
“So, let me see,” Mum asked. “You are at war with another tribe?”
“Yes. Back home in Nigeria.”
“Which one, did you say? Which tribe are you at war with?”
“The Yoruba. Mostly the Yoruba. They are an evil people. And very tall.”
“Very tall?” Mum asked.
“Yes. Very, very tall. I’m sure there will be genocide before this is done. But we will fight to the death. And I will send money home to our brave soldiers.”
“Genocide?”
“Yes. Genocide.”
The Boy Who Lived With Ghosts: A Memoir Page 13