Hungry

by Grace Dent

  Around now, despite being merely a stubby little thing with scabbed knees poking out of a sixth-hand Brownie tunic, I was experiencing a subtle awakening on class.

  On every third Sunday of the month, the most shining glory was awarded to one of us: the chance to carry our bright-yellow flag up the aisle at church, during ‘parade’.

  Here, as one of the stars of the show, you would parade side by side with key members of the Boys’ Brigade and Currock Girl Guides. The Guides were so impossibly chic I trembled in their presence. They wore neat navy shirts with a pencil skirt, navy-blue bonnet hats and forty-denier tights. Through the congregation, made up largely of sour-faced OAPs, local businessowners and people nudged towards God by their Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, you’d walk up the aisle hoisting your flag. Then, to a tuneless rendition of ‘To Be a Pilgrim’, it was placed behind the altar by the vicar, who asked God to bless our pack for another month.

  Flag-carrying was a role I was never, ever given.

  We were all normal, everyday sort of people where I came from. We were all more or less the same. Except I was starting to suspect that maybe sometimes we weren’t. There were tiny, subtle differences. Some of us were better, a bit fancier, and I had my suspicions that, in the eyes of Brown Owl at least, I was a bit common. Brown Owl, in real life, was a woman called Joyce who lived in a detached house, drove a Ford Cortina with a National Trust sticker and was once spotted by my mother in our newsagent’s buying the Telegraph. She had her card marked as ‘up herself’.

  Brown Owl was not supposed to have favourites, but I knew I did not make her eyes light up like, say, Darlene Phillips. Lovely Darlene, with her long legs, blonde bob and nose smattered with freckles – evidence of her family’s two-week Canvas camping holiday in France. ‘Camping? Pghghg, lying in a bloody tent being feasted on by bugs,’ my mam tutted when I asked if we could go to Brittany instead of Pontins, Weston-super-Mare.

  Darlene’s life was much fancier than mine. Her dad was a builder, and by this I mean an actual builder, not just someone with a spirit level conning the dole. Her dad built them a breakfast bar – with tall barstools to sit at – and he designed and hammered up a lean-to on the back for their washing machine, which Darlene loftily called ‘the utility room’. And she had her own SodaStream at home.

  An actual SodaStream.

  She sat at her breakfast bar drinking SodaStream Dandelion & Burdock in tall glasses with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. When we did our Cookery badge she brought all her ingredients in Tupperware and carried it to the hall in a wicker basket. I brought mine in a crumpled Lennards carrier bag full of old ice-cream cartons. What dismayed me most of all was that Darlene was a natural type of pretty; whereas by the age of nine I was already wondering how I might improve. Just a dab of my mother’s blusher on my cheek gave a defined cheekbone, I found. A touch of pale-blue shadow on my lids made my eyes bluer. Darlene’s mother, a gossipy type who came to church each week, once took Brown Owl to the side and tipped her off about my tinted lip-gloss. It’s not right, she said, that a girl that age should look so much like a little tart.

  ‘How can you decorate your Christingle orange with sweets when you’ve eaten all your sweets, Grace Dent?’ asks Brown Owl as I sit beside an empty Revels packet with my cheeks distended like a pre-autumn hamster.

  We are making Christingle oranges. I am trying extremely hard to symbolise God’s fruits on earth by attaching a packet of Revels to an orange with cocktail sticks, but it’s a shambles. This is the wrong sweet for the job.

  The whole point of Revels is that they are a random assortment: the Malteser one, the coconut one, the orange cream and the coffee one that has to be a joke as it tastes of armpits.

  Revels are a surprise each time. Christingle is a task that needs definites. I haven’t thought this through.

  At least I’ve got my ribbon wrapped around the orange, representing Christ’s blood, which he shed to save us.

  Darlene Phillips’s Christingle orange is perfect.

  It has a perfect red ribbon around the centre. It is festooned with midget gems on cocktail sticks, representing Mother Nature’s abundance. She has scooped a hole out of the top and pushed in a candle to symbolise Jesus, ‘who is the light of the world’.

  ‘Darlene really is so good with arts and crafts,’ says Brown Owl proudly. ‘She should take her orange up to the Reverend Kevin at the Christingle Ceremony.’

  I push the last of the Revels into my gob and seethe. Darlene is always up at that flipping altar with the flag and her mother cheering her on. The Son, the Father and the Holy Ghost must be sick of the bloody sight of her.

  1980

  ‘Worrya doin’, precious?’ my dad says, looking over his Evening News as I clamber up the back of the sofa, attempting to fish an object off the top of the dresser in our living room. I’ve been told off for this at least sixty times and warned it’ll topple over and kill me. It went in one ear, out the other.

  ‘I’m just gerrinthisbutton off the dresser,’ I tell Dad, mirroring his scouse lilt.

  ‘Whah button?’ he says.

  ‘The one that fell off me school blouse,’ I say. ‘Mam purrit up here to keep it safe.’

  ‘Mam’ll go wild about you climbin’ on that settee in yer shoes,’ he tells me.

  Dad is not quite telling me off; he is merely pointing out the inevitability of my mother’s ire. It is a technique he uses throughout my life.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ I say, remembering that I am wearing my Polyveldts; a pair of chunky treated-leather monstrosities that Mam has bought me and David. She cannot afford to keep up with our rate of destroying shoes. Polyveldts – a hybrid of moccasins and trainers – will survive the rough and tumble of Bishop Goodwin life. We hate them but have agreed to wear them ‘until they wear out’. This was sheer folly on our part, as Polyveldts do not ever wear out. They are unkillable.

  I sit down on the couch and take a small empty Lion matchbox from my grey school cardigan pocket. I open it and pop the button inside.

  ‘Worrayou up to?’ he says.

  I sigh in a defeated manner.

  Last week’s take-home task at Brownies was to find an empty matchbox – a small one like any of us would have around the house – and see how many little tiny items we could cram inside. And the winner would get a prize!

  ‘How about’, Brown Owl hinted, ‘if you took a grain of pudding rice? Or a tiny dried pea? Or you folded down the wrapper off an Opal Fruit?’

  We stared at her in wonder.

  ‘So next week’s winner will get these,’ she said, producing a small box of Terry’s Harlequin.

  ‘Wow,’ we all gasped, ignoring the fact that these chocolates had clearly been hanging around her house a bit, as the corner of the box had been gnawed by her golden retriever, Clement.

  Dad has put down his Evening News & Star and is stood up, peering into one of the drawers on the dresser.

  ‘There’s a tiny nut and bolt in here I saved off your roller skate,’ he says.

  He retrieves it and then unscrews the small, delicate fastener from the tiny bolt. He plops them both inside the matchbox.

  ‘Two things!’ I say.

  ‘Yeah, two things. The nut and the bolt count as two. Don’t be tellin’ Brown Owl that nut was ever attached to that bolt or she might count it as just one.’

  Dad’s ethos in life was always that rules were for bending. And that you can get away with anything if no one finds out.

  We add three more things to the matchbox:

  The corner of a 67 bus ticket from Five Road Ends, Currock, to the Town Hall.

  A piece of thread off the hem of my dad’s work sock.

  An apple pip we find on the floor, both rolling our eyes in agreement that my mam’s hoovering skills can’t be up to much. We’ll mention her slackness to her when she returns from driving Grandad to dominos at the Wor
king Men’s Club and has got all our teas on.

  ‘OK, let’s see what we can find in the kitchen,’ he says.

  (It’s funny how those magical moments that parents strive to create for their children very often make no impact at all. Daytrips to theme parks, Christmas pantomime afternoons, trips to the zoo; they can pass without much joy. But I remember vividly standing on a chair, shoulder to shoulder with my father, rooting through the kitchen cupboard in joint determination to win the matchbox game.)

  We add to my tiny haul:

  A tiny dehydrated pea from a Bachelors Barbecue Bacon & Tomato Cup-a-Soup.

  A tiny piece of dehydrated carrot.

  A grain of long-grain rice.

  A grain of tapioca pudding rice.

  A Whiskas duck and liver cat biscuit.

  A red lentil my mam put in pressure cookers of Scotch broth.

  A corner of foil from an Oxo cube.

  A corner of a Smith’s Salt ’n’ Shake salt packet.

  A hundred and thousand from a Birds Trifle.

  The toe of a Pickled Onion Monster Munch.

  Eventually, after some rooting around down the back of the sofa and in the lean-to at the back of the house, we have pushed twenty-eight items into the matchbox, cramming them in until the tray can barely slide into its white Lion outer cover.

  ‘’Ere, don’t be opening it again before you do the big count,’ Dad says, ‘cos we might not gerrit shut.’

  ‘I won’t,’ I say.

  ‘And don’t you be letting that Brown Owl make you feel daft,’ he says. ‘Does she know that you’re top of the class in your reading and your writing? You wanna tell her that.’

  I’m not sure how I’m going to drop that into conversation, but I like that he is clearly proud.

  My dad helped teach me to read at the age of four with flashcards made from the back of cereal packets.

  Cake.

  Bake.

  This.

  That.

  Tree.

  It took me at least another two decades to work out how poor he was at reading and writing himself.

  It took me years to realise how much he had shaped who I am. Dad taught me never to say no to paid work, even if you’re snowed under, because work dries up. Dad taught me that keeping money rolling in – no matter what – and relying on no one is the most upstanding thing a person can do. Dad taught me that no one is indispensable; never think you are above being replaced – perfect advice, though it wasn’t his intention, for a career in media. The story he used to demonstrate this, which he told me often, involved one of his friends when he was a young man in the REME, who accidentally shot himself through the head one weekend in the barracks. The following Monday morning everyone was very sad, until about lunchtime when all the man’s tasks were redistributed and no one mentioned him again. It took me at least three decades to work out that his friend had not accidentally killed himself. Dad also taught me that work is a fantastic place to hide. Head down, chop-chop, keep busy, keep working: you can keep on running from yourself.

  I have been finding tiny items to stuff in the matchbox for days. Rooting in drawers, opening folders, putting my face in places I really shouldn’t. I have been looking at two photos I have found stored in an envelope and reading letters that are not for my eyes. Some things I have seen are very confusing. I have found a black-and-white photo of two little girls in my father’s bedside drawer. Two happy little girls. Smiling and waving. I do not know who they are. I will not mention them to anyone for many years. My dad taught me that everyone has secrets. He taught me that no one is ever truly knowable. Dad taught me that everybody – and I mean everybody – fibs.

  I skip to Brownies the following evening, quietly confident that I am in with a chance of winning, because me and my dad have properly put the graft in over this.

  As all the little Brownies gather round the trestle table in the Methodist Hall clutching their Lion matchboxes, a whisper begins to grow throughout the pack that Darlene has forty-five items inside hers.

  ‘Forty-five?’ I say.

  ‘But her matchbox is different,’ says Tracy Fitzackerly.

  ‘How is it different?’ I say.

  ‘Her matchbox is sort of longer,’ Tracy says, not seeming overly fussed as she’s only stuffed ten items in hers anyway.

  I walk down the table to find Darlene Phillips holding a neatly packed-to-the-brim yellow Swan Vestas matchbox.

  Some girls are muttering that this doesn’t seem fair. The Swan Vestas box is much larger than a normal box. We all had to have the same size box. Brown Owl, who looks ruffled at first, is now saying she did not specify which type of matchbox we could use. Also, if you think about it, Darlene’s box is not as deep, so that makes everything fair. People seem to bend the rules for girls like Darlene. It’s like anything is possible.

  ‘I don’t think this is fair,’ mutters Tracey Fitzackerly.

  ‘Oh Darlene, that is very clever,’ says Brown Owl. ‘Jesus is in there too!’

  Brown Owl is thrilled that as Darlene opens the box, a tiny gold crucifix is inside among the other items. A tiny Jesus on the cross, borrowed from Darlene’s mum’s necklace.

  ‘Isn’t that marvellous,’ says Brown Owl.

  ‘It’s a bigger box,’ I say audibly.

  ‘No, it isn’t, Grace,’ says Brown Owl. ‘They’re the same size.’

  Somehow I manage not to say some of the best swearwords in my nine-year-old cursing artillery. I do not say ‘piss’ or ‘arse’ or the bizarrely effective showstopper ‘twat’.

  I do not say any of that.

  I don’t say anything.

  I stand quietly, inwardly bubbling, as Darlene Phillips is given the box of Terry’s Harlequin.

  And then, in the final minutes of the meeting, Darlene is made Sixer of the Pixies and is given her silver lapel badge.

  I find my BHS ski jacket under the pile of other coats, pull it on over my Brownie uniform and skulk home alone.

  As I reach the Five Road Ends I see my dad in Donny’s chip shop, fetching everyone’s tea. I tell him what went on. He hugs me into the armpit of his work jersey. It smells of sweat and WD-40.

  ‘Oh, presh,’ he says. ‘Bugger thalorro’them.’

  And then he buys me a pickled egg.

  Life, I was starting to see, was really not fair and some people simply had a much smoother ride than others.

  That said, seven years later, when Darlene Phillips had a surprise baby in their utility room, then wrapped it in a towel and handed it to her mother after she kicked the door down, everyone at church was completely scandalised.

  Except for me.

  I thought it was really, really funny.

  My mother is pushing a small rickety shopping trolley with a wobbly back wheel down a narrow aisle at Presto supermarket on Botchergate, Carlisle. She’s trying to do the big Friday shop between five o’clock and half past six, leaving enough time to drive across the city, drop off odds and ends to my gran, spin back, unload our car, then make everyone’s teas before my dad gets narky.

  ‘He won’t think to make his own,’ she says.

  Being a mam never looks like very much fun. I am starting to have notions that I do not want babies of my own.

  Even as a toddler, on being handed a Tiny Tears doll I was slightly flummoxed as to the point of it all.

  ‘Look, she cries,’ my mam said, ‘so you pick her up to cuddle her. And she wees herself so you can change her nappy!’

  It was fun for half an hour.

  Grocery shopping, however, felt more like a fun game. By modern standards, Presto was little more than a mini-mart – as big as a couple of tennis courts – but in 1980 it was one of the largest places in Cumbria to buy groceries. It even had a multi-storey car park with exciting concrete ramps. My mother never seemed more like a warrior t
han when she was jamming the accelerator on her Austin Princess and speeding up the steep entry ramp, yelling, ‘Weeeeeeeeee!’

  There were very few men in the supermarket.

  Women in cream tabards ran the tills, stacked the shelves and cut and weighed out slices of that spooky pork luncheon tongue slab with the boiled egg lurking inside. Women roamed the aisles, peering at shopping lists, trying to make housekeeping stretch a full seven days, pleading for their kids’ patience but inevitably losing them in the aisles. Leaving your kids at home alone became very much ‘not the done thing’ in the 1980s. A cacophony of ghoulish public-safety ads played on Border TV during all daytime ad breaks, warning mothers that slipping out to the shops was hazardous. Within moments of popping out to get bread we would drink bleach, drown in slurry or climb electricity pylons. Presto’s tannoy system rang incessantly with news of missing or found kids. Being one of the found kids, I learned quickly, was actually rather exciting. You sometimes even got a biscuit. Sometimes I’d lose myself purposefully, taking right turns and wrong turns along the aisles, merely for the thrill of sitting in the petty cash office in Lennards hearing my name being read out.

  ‘We have a little girl here who is lost called Grace. She is three years old.’

  This was my first taste of fame and I loved it.

  My mother found it less jolly. Once, in Woolworths, after being reunited with me by the Pick ’n’ Mix, she grabbed me, turned me round and smacked my arse as passers-by begged for clemency. This story, which is now part of Dent folklore, is always told humorously, but I can’t help but think that it was not remotely funny at the time, when Mam was struggling with two kids under three.

  My little brother had arrived very quickly after me. Me in October 1973, him in May 1975.

  ‘I still have no bloody idea where he came from,’ my mother has often remarked. ‘I could hardly stand your dad for most of 1974.’

  But I have a pretty good idea. My father was swarthily handsome. He was witty and devil-may-careish in a world of dour-faced, rule-abiding Cumbrians.