turning 41 on the 38

“From the United States? From the United States? It come on plane? Verrry very big present.”

“Yes. No. Not from United States. From town.”

“Town! Oh! Very big present. From United States. And Mr Obama from United States, yes? Good man, good man. Verrry good man. Let go all prisoners. All prisoners go free. Very good man. Very big present.”

“From mother and father.”

“Ah! Oh! Verrry good. Lucky lucky. Very lucky. Birthtime! Birthtime! And Obama? You like Obama?”

“Well… he’s better than Bush for sure. Yes. So far, so good.”

“Very good. He let prisoners free. No one prisoner.”

“She means Guantanamo Bay, I think. Yes, but lady, let’s wait and see yeah?”

“Wait and see? No. He free now now. Free prisoners, yes, Guantanamo! Yes! Free now now. And Mr Bush. Oh, he only fight. Like fight with everyone. Everyone. Verrry bad man. Very bad.”

“Now, yeah. There, we agree. Very bad man.”

“But he should go to prison. Don’t you both agree?”

“Oh! You funny lady! Bush prison! Oh! Funny funny! That won’t happen! Very funny! You very funny at birthtime!”

“No no. She’s gotta point. He should go to prison.”

The lady’s mobile phone rings. Her hands disappear in to layers of scarfs, the phone goes quiet. She lifts it to her ear and begins to talk Somali. Her voice becomes louder and louder until she is shouting into the phone, holding it in front of her mouth, then replacing it to her ear each time the caller responds. She talks all the way down Balls Pond Road. Or shouts, rather. The man, hooded, in shades, stands up and tuts at her. She smiles to him, nods and lifts a hand in peace. She keeps shouting in Somali and the man and I both hear the word mobile mentioned. Finally the call ends.

“Oh, sorry sorry! Verrry sorry! Verrry verrry old man. No hear. His ear no hear! Very old man. I have to shout! Mobiles. Very bad. Oh, mobiles! Very bad. Sorry sorry sorry.”

Dalston. They both get off. The tall man with the hood and shades holding her arm gently to help her balance her bulging body clambering down from the bus. They wave at me as the bus pulls away, and she points at the large wrapped box at my side, smiling and smiling. The man has turned. He’s gone. I hug my box and remember Johannesburg.

another Schutztruppe

She’d obviously been around the block a few times. She kept saying, ‘You have no idea, you really have no idea,’ and then laughing intensely. Funny thing to say, he thought, because of course none of us really have any idea. Maybe you were a man once, he thought, now that really would be a surprise. ‘You can’t imagine! You really can’t,’ she said again, almost shouting. He nodded in agreement – and meant it. She’d lived in war zones, genocide zones, controlled zones, communist zones, capitalist zones and inner city zones. Nothing fazed her. Those local boys hanging about, shoulders swinging, shouting, a thigh hanging across a bike seat, hoods up, loitering… not even they fazed her. ‘Let’s be frank,’ she said, ‘they’re black boys, and they probably resent us, we know that.’ He nodded, and smiled gently. Not that she noticed. She was telling him about one of her former careers. She’d had so many, and always succeeded. Then he said, ‘I do get a bit nervous actually, of the boys up that end of the street. I don’t mind the ones down the other end. But that end – they really scare me.’ She was focusing on the green washing-up gloves that she was pulling over her hands, as if she was preparing to carry out surgery: ‘Oh, don’t be silly, just look straight through them. Don’t, whatever you do, show you’re scared.’ He smiled a bit, ‘I do like it round here. I do.’ But she was talking about how much she hated Tony Blair, and how upset she felt about sending her daughter to private school. ‘I’m so angry about it. Wouldn’t you feel angry?’ He tipped his head, trying to think of an answer. He was too slow. ‘My daughter’s so clever, she could teach the teachers at our local school, and I’m just not prepared for that to happen. I will not let my daughter be put through that.’ Then she laughed again. ‘I bought this place for nothing, really nothing. Done it up all myself. It cost peanuts. People say you can’t buy cheap round here, but I bought this for peanuts. You just have to be prepared to do the work yourself.’ The gloves were on now and she was exercising her fingers inside the rubber. He was looking at her long brown hair, thinking about how he’d like to stroke it and wondering how he would ever get close enough. ‘I’ve got to do this now,’ she said, adding, ‘I’m sorry.’ She dropped a pile of plates into the sink and began washing up. Occasionally, her long hair fell over her shoulder in front of her face; she pushed it back with a wet gloved hand. He watched the bubbles burst and longed to touch her hair.

Outside, an old man wearing a Schutztruppe and a beautiful silver suit with long silver tails, bicycled slowly past. A pile of old newspapers from Jamaica was tied to an old metal rack that he’d strapped to the back of his bike. He was whistling, and drunk.

walking to the Lea

He was rolling her nipple between his fingers. She was old and overweight, so the nipple hung low near her waist. He was leaning on her, his head resting between her shoulder and the breast, and I imagined him suckling it. He would have been but her mustard-coloured T-shirt was in the way. (I would have stopped and waited but I was with another, and we were walking.) He looked very happy. Immensely pleasured, relaxed, soothed, calmed, nestled. They were both drunk. A pair of alcoholics. Pink-cheeked, ageing middle-agers who probably sleep by the canal at least twice a week. It was hot. Where else can you have a bit of slap and tickle if you haven’t got a home? Why not a park bench? As good as anywhere else. Tall blue cans surrounded them, as if they were enjoying the intimate moment within their own lager shrine. I couldn’t help wonder what he was thinking about. His mother came into my head. Remembering the last time he was that happy.

The sun was very warm. Not far away, a woman in a bikini lay on a beach towel, self-conscious but desperately trying to enjoy the heat. A little further on, another. She had one eye open, surveying the path for wierdos. A little further, and another. There must have been four or five bikini birds lying alone on Hackney’s fields. And then lots of other birds, including a huge swan that’s been sitting on its nest for weeks now. A man opposite did eighteen push-ups on the twin bars. He didn’t see me counting. I was willing him to get to twenty.

Later we drank Rioja, listened to The Clash and Nick Cave, and talked about oil in Africa and Joe Strummer. Apparently, at gigs, he used to shout out to the audience questions. Thinks like, ‘So what are you gonna do tonight?’ and ‘What are you gonna do about it tomorrow?’ I felt almost overwhelmingly depressed. And I’ve spent a lot of today wondering about how much I should be thinking about oil not just in Angola but the whole Gulf of Guinea, and whether focusing on recent history and government and death is really missing the point. Or should we all always do all of this, as writers, researchers and thinkers and journalists? Would I be most useful if I was investigating the oil industry? Or is investigating people and their lives just as important?

Reading: Untapped, the Scramble for Africa’s oil by John Ghazvinian.

4.58am

At two minutes to five in the morning, the lights go out on Powerscroft Road, Hackney, East London. I’m thinking about the people in Viana, who will have begun their daily trek into Luanda city centre. Someone across the street is awake. The front room light is on. Did they leave it like that, or are they up, working? I don’t know anything about those people across the road. They’ve lived there for ten years, four more than me, and they keep almost entirely to themselves. I once saw the woman at a Tai Chi class and she pretended she didn’t recognise me. Maybe she didn’t. Believing strongly in neighbourly communication, I once went over there – I just knocked on the door and said hello – and asked myself in for a coffee. They said that would be awkward, “the kitchen’s in a bit of a mess”, and I’ve never spoken to them since. It still makes me laugh. I once saw another neighbour at the pub. I recognised him, “hello!”, and he stared straight through me. I said, “I’m your neighbour, the person who told you about the guys who were trying to break into your house the other morning,” and he said, “oh, yes, right, hello”. We have also had no communication since. I sometimes think I should have left the burglars alone. They were climbing up a ladder at about this time, 5.30am, at the front of the house. One of them looked a bit drunk. They were in their mid-fifties. They couldn’t reach for the window so in the end they gave up, remarkably casually, and walked off. I banged on my window – forever the curtain-twitcher – and they just gazed at me. Later, I banged on the neighbour’s door and told them what I’d seen. “You ought to be careful,” I said. They didn’t seem in the slightest interested. That also still makes me laugh.

It’s a little windy. The small silver birches are swaying and switching. I can hear a dustbin truck, but no other traffic. No one is awake yet, apart from the Turkish shop on the corner. They never sleep. Two brothers run the joint. One, the fatter one who I like a great deal, speaks barely a single word of English. He’s been here 21 years. Who’s he been talking to? ‘Family. Turkey friends,’ he tells me. We have long conversations in Turkey-English which involve a lot of laughing and me telling him off. ‘Two decades! That’s too long to not speak a word of English.’ Now he wants to go home. I’ve told him he can’t – not until he’s learned more English. I’ve offered free classes. I’m not a fan of the English language per se, but I do like talking to people and I know, if he spoke more English, we’d laugh even more. ‘My brother go home,’ he said the other day. His brother’s already gone home. He spoke even less English, though to be fair he’d only spent 17 years here. The other day in the shop, the remaining brother said to me, ‘Why not you learn Turkey?’ And I thought that was a fair point, even though we’re in London. There are many Turkish people here. It might help my day to day life, particularly given how nosy I am. He also said, ‘Why not go holiday Turkey?’ and then tried to explain to me that Turkey is not like the journalists say it is, meaning it isn’t dangerous and full of terrorists. I told him I was sure it wasn’t. I’d like to go to Turkey. I’d like particularly to visit him and his brother in Turkey, see them in their homeland, laughing, and they could laugh at me trying to speak Turkish. Given how little he speaks it’s amazing how much we talk.

It’s 5.13am. The milkman has just passed. On this long street, I saw him deliver to four houses. I cancelled him when I went to Luanda. I must get him back. Long live the milkman. He uses real glass bottles. He’s been doing the job for years in Hackney. But only four people use him. On Fridays anyway.

At 5.21am, just while I was writing that bit above, I saw a short man lugging a large brown suitcase down the pavement across the road. The first thing I thought was, ‘Is there a body in there?’ What else would you be doing with a suitcase at this time of day? And he was not dressed to travel. Open shirt, jeans, trainers and only a suitcase. Nothing else. Don’t tell me that’s not suspicious. Perhaps he’s a magician.

At 5.25am, the 242 is going by. Four people on board. Two on top, two below. If that bus was in Viana, it would be packed.

For the last 8 minutes I haven’t seen a car or a person. This would never be the case in Luanda at this time. The world and his mother would be passing my door by now. Sebastião will be making the coffee, preparing the toast, burning some of it, and busying himself with his preparations. Here, we sleep. Hang on, no, yes, here we go – there’s a young woman, with pink-orange hair, striding down the street now. She might be Polish. I’ve noticed that lots of Polish girls have pink-orange hair. It’s 5.34am.

Worrying about the balance between character and privacy. I think I’ve overstretched the mark. How much should we say about the people we interview? About the environment in which we meet? Should we mention the state of their toilet?

another view from Cabinda

Someone said the airport at Cabinda is ready to be reopened today.
Someone said the President will be there today, and the people will be celebrating
Someone said there’s been a witch-hunt in Cabinda, and the people have been arrested
Someone said a journalist has been questioned by members of the secret police
Someone said Cabinda is literally under seige
Someone said the President will be opening a new supermarket
Someone said he will be hailed as the architect of peace and harmony
Someone said the supporters have been ordered to give a good welcome
Someone said that while the President’s there, no one can use their mobile phone
Someone said the President is frightened of the people of Cabinda
Someone said Cabindans are celebrating one year of peace
Someone said the year of peace has suffered no setbacks
Someone said they’re looking forward to the basketball tournament next week
Someone said that 362 illegal foreigners have been arrested to ensure the tournament is safe
Someone said Chevron has found more oil off the coast of Cabinda in Block 14
Someone said the opposition parties in Angola never do anything
Someone said that three members of the Front for Democracy were arrested last night
Someone said the President’s safety is paramount
Someone wrote to the Attorney General requesting that the three men be freed
Someone said the Attorney General is busy
Someone asked, where’s Cabinda?
Someone said, unfortunately it’s not in Zimbabwe

Meanwhile, in the land of Lower Clapton, the following is taking place: the lady from yesterday’s post has passed by, quite quietly, twice already today. The 242 has passed about 5 times. I’ve lost count. And I’m listening to Traum. It’s great for working and thinking. It’s suitably solemn, but so beautiful I keep wanting more. It’s how I want bits of my book to feel. And I’m now not only adoring of The Sharp Side blog (does Ellis never have bad days? It seems not….), but of Jenny Diski’s reviews too. Another in this week’s LRB on a Princess Margaret biography is as good as last week’s. Possibly even better. Diski defines, for me, the art of writing beautifully acerbic and comic reviews of awful and awfully dull books.

the lady on my street

Her brow is thick, heavy with struggle, depression, anxiety. She walks in a rush, tipped forward, brow forward, the push-chair in front, wheeled at a pace you hear from the window. But I hear her come anyway. ‘You fuckin’ mind ya own business.’ Or, ‘You wouldn’t like it eever, you fuckin’ bastard.’ Always shouting, always swearing, always staring forward, rushing. Normally there’s no one there. She’s shouting up the street, normally behind her, but I never see anyone. Sometimes her phone rings, she grabs it from her bag, and screams at it. ‘Fuck off! Fuck off! Fuck off!’ Her child, about 4 years old, says nothing. Only sits very quietly in the chair, a beige colour, with knees knocked up, stroking a bottle. Completely quiet. I have never seen or heard the child make a single noise. No squeak. Occassionally the woman shows huge amounts of tenderness. She stops, steps quickly to the front of the push-chair, bends down from the hips, her brow always heavy, her long brown hair tied back with just a few thick strands hanging over her eyes, and strokes softly her child’s cheeks, hair, chin and ears. Then she kisses her child on the cheeks over and over, soothing her. The child says nothing but seems comforted, though no more comforted than her mother who is delighted. When she is calm and happy like this, she shrieks her love for her child to the whole street. ‘Aren’t you laaavally!’ And I sometimes want to open my window and shout my agreement. I never have, despite the fact she walks past my window about 14 times a day. Up and down. Up and down. Up and down. Yelling. But if she stopped, I’d miss her. I’d really miss her.

my mother

‘… throw it all in the whizzer and whizz it all up with one of those whizzers… ‘

I strikes me that my mother’s attitude to cooking is possibly where my attitude to my book was born, and that the single chuck-it-all-in-and-press-the-button method doesn’t necessarily have the same successful result for words as it does for avocado sauce on salmon. I need to develop more of an Elizabeth David approach to writing: have the final idea in mind, work out a structure, select the ingredients with care, and then start building methodically. But it’s a hard habit to break: the throw it all in method has worked well for nearly all other areas of my life. I remember thinking the same thing on my wedding day: you’ll only know once you’ve done it, so just do it and hold your breath. I remember looking out at all the people who’d come to wish us well, and wondering whether they could see that they were just being thrown in with us. (So far) that method for marriage has worked. I just threw myself at him, at it, and it’s coming out fine in the wash. Words are different. Ideas are different. Not nearly as pliable and compromising. They require much more time, affection, seduction, devotion and sacrifice. More discipline. There’s nothing disciplined about marriage.

And I see two tall slim men both in large dark sunglasses, both dressed in long slim black trousers, both pulling large black suitcases on wheels, and one with a large bouncy baby strapped to his chest, striding towards the church. One of them is smiling, broadly. The baby is very relaxed.

minded bloody

An old man on an old bike peddles past with two old sinks tied awkwardly to the back of his seat and a rack. His grey hair is long and flows, his back is bent, he is smiling into the wind. And the wind is blowing a giant Chinese dragon over the top of Stamford Hill, down to Walthamstow Marshes. I almost believe the huge weeping willow. Haggling over how many minutes to Charing Cross. Who travels furthest. Who compromises most. Agreement is reached with laughter, and my own huge relief. Friendships are almost as hard work as books. Never thought writing a book could be this hard. Is it this hard for everyone, or just me? It’s so very very hard. Michèle Roberts is music to the ears: ‘To be a writer you might need some talent and a passionate love of your subject, but without bloodymindedness you won’t get very far.’ I really hope she’s right.