Just Between You an' Me

Te Ao Hou, March 1974, Page 37

Just Between You an' Me by Witi Ihimaera This is absurd! Here I am tiptoeing around this small bed-sitter as if I'm a burglar; yet I pay the rent for this room. By rights I should be making as much noise as I wish to. I should put my shoes back on and not care if the floorboards creak when I walk over them, hang my coat in the wardrobe and not worry if the door squeaks, and boil the kettle for a cuppa without fearing the noises I'll make with clinking cup and saucer. It's raining outside and I'm dying for a cuppa to warm me up on this cold English afternoon. But instead, here I am, George Campbell from New Zealand, scarcely daring even to breathe, and wincing at every little noise I make. My toes are getting cold and my mouth dry and I would so very much like to walk round instead of sitting rigidly here in this most uncomfortable armchair. The trouble is that if I do move, Martha might hear. She thinks I'm out but I'm not; I'm in. Just five minutes ago, she was cleaning the first floor landing and saw me locking the door. —You goin' out then? she asked. —Yes Martha, I answered. See you later. She waved her dirty polishing rag at me and disappeared behind the banisters. I walked to the front door, opened it, saw what the weather was like—dirty washing water complete with rinso clouds—and changed my mind. I let the door shut and walked back to my room. And that was when I heard Martha talking to that Henderson chap on the next floor. —Between you an' me Mr 'enderson, she was saying, we shoulden' let all these foreigners into the country. Dir'y the lot of 'em. Dir'y! They come over ‘ere without a mind your leave and what do they do, eh? Tell me that! Just what, eh? I'll tell you Mr 'enderson, they stick at 'ome and just lay abaht, that's what! Take that boy on the groun' floor. Now 'ere's an example of what I'm saying in that dark fella. You know what 'e do? 'E lays abaht, that's what 'e do! You mark my words Mr 'enderson, 'e'll be goin' on the Social Securi'y next! Just like all them uvver West Indians! They shoulden' be let into the country. I mean it's not right, int it! We pay for 'em out of our taxes, Mr 'enderson. You mark my words: we pay for the 'ole lot of 'em … I was stunned. My ears were burning. I hadn't meant to listen. But Martha, whom I thought was my friend, saying such things about me! And to Henderson of all people! Why, it had only been this morning that Martha had confided the latest about Mr Henderson to me. —Just between you an' me, Mr Campbell, that Mr 'enderson is just dir'y an' 'is wife is just common. Common as dirt she is. If this was my 'ouse, I woulden let ‘er pass through the fron’ door, not on your Nelly! Martha and that Henderson had continued to talk. I'd put the key into the door and turned it. Had they heard? No … Then I'd softly crept into the bedsitter and closed the door behind me. Now, here I am sitting here, trying to be as quiet as a mouse. Me, in my own room, practically hiding from Martha! I suppose I'll have to admit it: George Campbell, you are a mouse! You're too timorous to let Martha know you've heard what she's said about you. Get up, man, and confront the woman! Tell her off, give her a good talking to, report her! After all, she's only a glorified charwoman, just a common cleaner. Are you going to let her get away with it? Listen to the Campbell blood calling to you. Can't you hear the bagpipes blowing? George Campbell, you're a sorry excuse for a man… I close my eyes and mourn to myself. And when I open them, I see a small pink face with sniffing nose and tiny whiskers staring back at me from the mirror. Yes, I am a mousey person. But after all, it really is my

fault that I heard Martha and Henderson together. I should have gone out. I should have walked round in the cold and rain. Oh, I'm dying for a cuppa! I have been living in this London bedsitter for over a month now. At first it had seemed such a come-down from my home in christchurch, New Zealand. We Campbells are a proud family, used to lots of space and clean fresh air. In fact, my Mum didn't want me to come to London. —It's not for the likes of my young boy, she'd said. All them brazen women running around with nothing on! You just listen to me, George Campbell. Get away from there as soon as you can and go up to Scotland. Bring a nice Highland lass home with you! Ah, my Mum. Alas, how the Campbells have fallen! For here I am in this small room which my Mum would scream in despair for to see! One small bed in an L-shaped room, a small stove and dingy wall-paper, a toilet down the hall and bathroom up three flights … Mum would have a fit! And that is why, when I write home every week (a letter a week, George, a letter a week for your Mum), I always refer to the bedsitter as my ‘flat’. My Mum worries so much about me—are you taking your hay fever tablets, wrap yourself up well, watch out for the smog, don't talk to strangers, watch your pennies—that I haven't the heart to feed her anxieties by telling her I live in one room. If I did, I know I'd get an urgent missive from her asking me how can I possibly breathe, and get up to Scotland or come home right this minute! My Mum loves me, but I wish she would let me be. I'm a big boy now. I've even got a girlfriend to prove it. But one thing anyway, is that my ‘flat’ doesn't cost me much in rent. Another is that apart from myself, there are no mice. When I'd first arrived in London, it had put the fear of God into me to read the small white placards displayed in flat-letting agencies, to wit: Highgate: b/s kitch. fac., lin. supp., 2 min. from Tube, sleep one, visitors no ob., 5 pds p.w., NO MICE. I had therefore approached any prospective accommodation with trepidation. Even now that I have a ‘flat’ and even though I know there are no mice here, I sometimes think I can see the little beasties cavorting in the moonlight in the middle of the floor. At home, my Mum and our cat pounced on any mouse quick and smart. Here, I tremble and quake in bed and yet my mice are only imaginary … But all this is getting away from Martha. From the first meeting it was love at first sight. Marth seemed so like my Mum. Martha is the cleaning woman who is employed by Mr Halcombe, the landlord, to keep this four-storey house in running order. She arrives every day right on the dot of eleven to hoover the hall carpet, polish the banisters, scrub the front doorstep, clean out the two bathrooms and ensure that there is always a supply of pink toiletpaper in the four ‘conveniences’. She does all this with an air of quiet efficiency and sad martyrdom and every day I hear her whispering to herself:—I'ave to live, 'aven' I? Her efficiency isn't all that efficient. Every-thing she does is in fits and starts. She polishes one side of the brass but not the other. She hoovers the hall carpet in squares, one square hoovered, the other dusty. In this respect and also in her garrulous conversation, she is a far cry from my Mum. But as soon as I saw that broad beam of hers moving back and forth across the outside steps as she scrubbed, I knew that she would be my guardian angel. I was prepared to accept her faults. Martha also supplies clean sheets, linen, tea and bath towels every Friday afternoon. As well, she is supposed to make the beds and clean out the rooms of the tenants, but she has never needed to do this for me. I was brought up the proper way. —If you sleep in a bed, Mum used to say, you make it yourself. If you have a room, you keep it tidy, George. Cleanliness is next to godliness, George. It is referred to in the Bible—the King James' version. However, it seems that there is one tenant in particular, a certain Mr Henderson, who insists that Martha clean his room and make his bed. And she is always complaining

about it. —I've enough to do, 'aven' I? she says. 'oovering out the 'all, polishin' all them brass fings. 'Oo does 'e fink he is, a bloomin' King or somefink? 'E's just dir'y, that's what 'e is, just dir'y! And you know what 'e does while I'm slavin' around in 'is room? 'E just sits there in 'is armchair an' I 'av to move his bloomin' feet to 'oover under 'im. What's 'e got a wife for, I'd like to know. Bofe of 'em are just dir'y an' worse than that, they're mean! Bofe of 'em. This is what my Martha has said to me. But now, she seems to have gone over to the other side! What have I done wrong? Martha is a Cockney or some variation of that remarkable species. She swallows her “h's” with remarkable relish and substitutes a hiccup on almost every “th” sound. But this makes her all the more endearing to me. The Cockney, like the Scot and Welshman, given the dialect changes, knows that only he speaks the true tongue of this island. All in together we are! Anyway, Martha and I got on well from the very start. We hadn't spoken when I had first met her scrubbing the steps, but it didn't take her long to introduce herself to me. One morning she rapped on the door and I opened it to see her standing there—my Martha! —I'm Martha, she said, squinting through her glasses. ‘Oo are you? Stammering, I introduced myself. I told her I was from New Zealand and had been a teacher there. —Teaching's a good lark, int it? she said. That made me bluster a bit more and I had to explain that I wasn't in London to teach. I was here to study music at the Guildhall. Straight away, Martha thought I was famous. —What did you say your name was? she asked. —Campbell, I answered. She digested this for a second and then pursed her lips. —Never 'eard of you, she said. Oh, we had a fine conversation! Martha was very interested in me, I could tell. —'Ow come you're so dark? she asked. —I have Maori blood in me, I answered. —Is that some sor' of disease or somefink? she asked. So I had to explain that Maori people were Polynesian —Just like them West Indians, Martha nobbed. That shocked me a bit, so I asked her: —But do I really look like a West Indian, Martha? —Cor, no! she answered hurriedly. I mean you 'aven' got the curly 'air 'ave you! An' you 'aven' the same kin' of colour 'ave you! An' your name, Campbell, well I mean that's Welsh int it! No. I'd fink you was a Spaniard or one of 'em! I was glad that my Mum wasn't around to hear. However, Martha was more interested in my musical ambitions. She asked me if she could look at my guitar and I told her I wasn't in London to learn to play an instrument but to compose music. She was very doubtful about this, but soon accepted it once I began to bring home manuscripts with musical notations. In no time at all, she began disturbing me on one pretext after another. In the end it became a regular thing for her to drop in for a cuppa before going home. I loved to listen to her and she confided a lot of information to me. I must have been the audience of her dreams. —Cor, Mr Campbell, there's been some proper goings on 'ere, I can tell you! she would say. Then she would look round to make sure nobody else was in the room, beckon me nearer with a finger and tell me all about it. —Three people 'ave died in this 'ouse, Mr Campbell! Three! One of 'em, poor ol' soul she was too, I was just talkin' to 'er like I'm talkin' to you now an' she just went like THAT! An' then there was the boy in the next room before you come, 'e was on drugs. Cor! The fings we found after we kicked him out! 'yperdemic needles, cotton wool, rubber tubes … 'E was an addic' you know. Then there was the woman upstairs. I took one look of 'er when she come 'ere an' I sez to meself: Martha, that one's a trollop an' make no bones about it. An' she was, too, Mr Campbell! We soon got rid of 'er, I can tell you! You'd never believe there was such

people in the world, would you! Yes, Martha's seen 'em all, Martha's seen 'em all … I looked forward to Martha's visits and she never disappointed me. I think she liked having somebody to talk to. Very early in our conversations she told me she was a widow—just like my Mum. Her countenance had become sad as she'd narrated her woes. She was living on her pension but that wasn't enough to survive on. Hence the reason she was a cleaning woman. She described the events of her wedding day as if it had just been a half an hour ago. She had no children, although over a subsequent cup of tea she did mention a grandson—which was most puzzling. When she described how her husband died, she wept a bit, so I gave her a few bob. I vowed I would look after her a little. I hoped she looked on me as a son. For my part, I looked upon her as being a good substitute for my Mum. It was difficult to imagine Martha looking any different from what she was and is, at fifty-five. She is small and plump like my Mum, but her hair is kept artificially blonde. Her face is extremely mobile when she talks and her eyes almost disappear when she giggles. At any time, her eyes are difficult to see because her glasses are so thick. I suspect their colour is green—two little green peas, so infinitesimally small in that large round face. Actually, now that I think of if and considering the conversation I have heard, Martha is really nothing like my Mum at all. I have been doing Mum a great disservice. Forgive me, Mumsy … But Martha has been good to me, I must admit. She and I are always complimenting each other. I would tell her that her hair was looking nice and she would look at mine and hesitantly say it was looking nice too. However, the best thing of all, was that Martha took an interest in me. She was interested in everything I did and all the sightseeing I would do over the weekends. She was most impressed that I had actually been to the ‘Trooping the Colour’. —You really seen it? she asked, amazed. I've never seen it, she added wistfully. I seen the Queen though. An' did you 'ave to wear a morning suit? Them grey trousers and tails and top 'at and fings? An' did the Queen look nice? Cor, I wish I'd seen it! But I 'ave to live 'aven' I! On one occasion, I showed her my photograph album. I have taken lots of photographs of London to show my Mum when I get back to New Zealand. Martha and I played a guessing game. —Where's that, Martha? I asked. —That's Buckin'am Palace. —Where's this? —'yde Park! —And this? —The Chelsea 'ouseboats! Martha loved that game. Sitting with her that afternoon, it seemed as if I was back home again. Afterward, she was full of information about places I should also see in London. —'ave you been to 'ampton Court yet? No? Cor, you must go there! An 'ow about Kew Gardens? It'll be beatiful at this time of year with all them flowers bloomin'. Me 'ubby used to take me there you know, when we was just first married. An' did you know that lots of people, famous people, live around 'ere? Cor, there's lots of 'em! An' 'ave you seen the Crown jools? I wish they'd throw some over 'ere! Martha was a compendium of knowledge about London. She knew all there was to know about Billingsgate, Petticoat Lane and Bermondsey. Most times, Martha was a cheery soul. Sometimes though, she could become extremely bitter and critical. Some of her shafts she aimed at Mr Henderson; most of the others she aimed at the Common Market and the invasion by what she termed 'the coloureds'. About the Common Market, she used to say: —'oo wants to 'ave them Frenchies over 'ere! All they fink about is sex! About the coloureds, she had just one opinion: —They're just dir'y, Mr Campbell. The whole lot of 'em are just dir'y. They come over 'ere, thousands of 'em an' what do they do? Nofink, that's what! Then they expect the British Governmen' to look after 'em, the blighters. I seen 'em, whole queues of 'em

down at the Social Security drawin' on the National Assistance. I seen 'em! They don't come 'ere to work; they come 'ere to sponge, they do! I mean, they got to live same as I do, but why can't they get themselves jobs? Look at me, I'm workin' aren' I? An' you know what's the worst fing? That it's people like me, payin' taxes an' all, which gives them blighters their money? You woulden' call that fair would you? They should all be sent back where they come from that's all I can say. I comforted Martha after her first outburst against the coloureds. I was most alarmed at what she said, but I couldn't believe her. Martha was also extremely critical of the Australians. She seemed to like New Zealanders though, mainly because she liked New Zealand lamb. Martha and I grew very close in that one month. We had good times together. I learnt a lot from her, particularly about that Henderson chap. I have only seen him a few times, but I disliked him because Martha disliked him. That has been most unreasonable of me. Still, he certainly seems very pompous. But now what am I going to do! I have heard Martha and her arch enemy talking about me! I feel shattered, I feel wounded. I'm going to write home to my Mum. She's the only girl for me. But … Gosh! I'm dying for a cuppa. I can't stay silent any longer. I know what! I'll slip my shoes back on and go to the door. I'll turn the key in the lock and quietly look out to see if Martha is around. If the hallway is deserted, I'll creep to the front door, open it, and then shut it with a bang. Then I'll yell: —Martha! I'm home! And maybe she'll join me in a cup of char. I hope so. I like Martha.