Читать книгу Searching Fifty Shades Of Grey - Audrey Ellis - Страница 9

May, James and their newborn infant eventually sought happiness in their post-war ‘House on a Hill’, tucked away amidst 3000 similar overspill homes. Some occupants seemed happy with their homes complete with inside toilets, fitted kitchens and gardens to call their own. Others seemed despondent with the quietness they found. Peace being a blessing. German prisoners of war had played a significant part in the earlier building of these homes. These foundations a result of bombed-out rubble left from the destruction of London. Demolished air-raid shelters used as hardcore on the spreading, winding and climbing roads where together they pushed Esther’s pram.

May pushed their child past safe wide spaces. She sat on a slatted seat, where she felt the need to pinch herself from the dream they shared; with some of her fears eased. Rooks wheeled round noisily above, painting the sky black, whilst house sparrows sang in the eaves close by. May rose proudly with her still sleeping infant, and tapped gingerly past muddy playing fields. Nearby, boys in red and white rugby shirts leaped as if to touch the sky, pirouetting then tumbling and slithering into a heap, whilst May, unseeing but ever-knowing, slightly breathless, continued her walk up the hill.

Into the shoe shop to buy laces for James, grocery, Player’s cigarettes and stamps for letters to send back home. Above these shops were flats where families got on with their lives. At the bus stop outside she heard a woman complaining.

“It costs ten pence to go to Romford and back”.

“Yes” answered her companion.

“I'm lonely here. I must have fun whilst I am young. I want to be part of life again. I would far rather live in a flat in London than a house in Harold Hill. If I have my way it will be a case of here today and gone tomorrow!”

May wondered, as she walked by them, stopping and crossing over to a Roman Catholic Church. There, a toddler in a white dress and matching ankle socks scampered towards a tree. |It was then May heard a deep voice that resonated and called out …....

“Stop and then wait!”

The wheels of this pram spun many more times after this. The babies that sheltered beneath its hood increased to two and then three. Esther learned to keep close to the pram never allowed to run free.

She loved playing at the bottom of their garden. Sometimes she’d linger as her father dug. One day burying her doll with his potato seeds! Once, he had said to her how he could do with a bigger garden, and she quickly replied, asking

“Why not move our fence a little bit?”

She would wait her turn each winter to sit on a sledge as it cruised and slithered on ice, or sit clinging in summertime onto an orange box go-cart her father had helped her growing brothers to construct. The steering would eventually spin out of control. They would tumble onto the ground laughing loudly whilst their mongrel dog Rex ran beside them barking.

Hot with excitement, they lay there beside the trees, whilst in the distance, washing blew on the lines.

In a moment Esther was seeing, yet of course not understanding, the Queen’s Coronation. Why all the balloons and sandwiches down at the little metal hut community Centre whilst Esther explored the hall.

So the years flew. It was May who led Esther by the hand and introduced her to Miss Adams her infant school teacher at Meads. It was Miss Adams who helped her to read in those early years. Slowly Esther realized her mummy and daddy were a bit different but she was proud about this. However she was unable to understand until some years later why her mum had tears in her eyes when she was guided to one of the tubular seats in the school hall by a teacher. Why she cried whenever she and her classmates sang.

In the years that followed there were trips to feed the ducks at Gidea Park and days at South end- where their toes dipped in warm sand. Innocent squeals of delight rent high in the warm air. Eating roughly torn tomato sandwiches ‘eye-ball sandwiches’ as their daddy called them, with juices rolling down their freshly washed clothes then into the sand. Ice pops, wind in their hair whilst the roundabout spun their fish and chips; just eaten out of newspaper on the promenade splashed in their stomachs. Their happiness set and sealed to go on forever.

Sometimes there'd be donkey rides on the sands. No matter how bad the weather their mum and dad standing shivering and saying....

“No, you can’t have another go”, or, “no you can’t go into the sea...it’s not safe to!”

They were unable to understand why their parents seemed anxious. They would be allowed on the narrow-gauge pier railway sometimes. Squeals of delight with tiny fingers glued with the remnants of earlier toffee apples and sugary candy floss. They always had sixpence pocket-money to spend with their father saying......

“Once it is gone it is gone”. Money spent at the seaside meant none to go on toys at Peters field only toy shop.

Material things didn’t matter for wasn’t there love in abundance? Although the realization their parents were somehow different only became apparent when friends asked why their mum and dad reached out when they walked, or why did they use a white stick and how did they read to them with funny looking books with bumps on the pages?

They were equally puzzled by the tiny bell in all their rubber balls, which jingled as they played with them. They all played snap together as a family, with Braille markings for their parents. At night-time there followed Braille stories with shrill voice squealing...

“Oh read some more please mummy I’m not asleep yet!”

'How much more must I read? You were nearly asleep there!”

She and her brothers giggled. Esther stuffed her pillow below her elbows, and waited patiently as her mummy sat down on the floor beside the single bed with her checked skirt swirling out around her. Her hands rushing across the brown paper as she felt the raised dots which Esther couldn’t understand then. As fascinated with the speed her mum’s hand shot across the page as to what the story was all about.

Esther didn't have girly frilly stuff; her brothers put paid to that! Dolls came into their happy home with arms that moved and body vinyl; soft to touch and eyes that clicked and dark lashes flashed until her brothers saw fit to twist and pull at arms and legs...sometimes removing the head altogether. Of course they were chastised.

Sometimes they'd chase her up the close and she'd scream whilst heading for the woods and the blue-bells, buttercups and shadows whilst they hauled themselves up what felt like enormous trees. Of course she followed, knees grazed on the bark and shoes, meant for school, scuffed to hell yet in all that chaos they were happy then.

French skipping, marbles that rattled in their tins-some they would share if she followed her brothers for long enough and pestered them till they sighed and let her join in with games on the close where their world was safe and happy.

Accidents followed in the most surprising of ways however when Easter eggs hidden on the top of the wardrobe had almost fallen on them as they had reached up to get this temptation down......with them eating the soft milk chocolate in February instead.

Life consisted of normal happiness as celebrations followed...

There were shrivelled skins of balloons on the floor near to the piano that their mum played; whilst her children pulled back cushions to find small sweets which had been hidden around the house. Their beloved mum gratefully resting her hands on the piano keys as they searched. Then there was the day….