The blackbirds are building a nest in the ivy bush by our pond. Tip Little and Poodle Murphy sit on the windowsill, carefully watching all the activity, twitching and swishing their tails, shoulders up, ready to pounce, if only they could get through the glass. Minnie crouches at the foot of the ivy staring up but is soon spooked by the wind and waddles indoors.
A cruddy Tupperware box has been ditched with some old clothes on a chair by the bins. Inside is a half-eaten brown bread sandwich.
A group of middle-aged black women cackle infectiously and talk over each other on Underwood Road before heading in to work in the social services family centre.
An egg-sized growth protruding from the thin hair of a young man begs me to stare at it on the Commercial Road.
People have their hoods up, shoulders hunched into the wind, umbrellas out. The windows of the Codfather fish and chip shop have steamed up.
A lass checks her Hijab in the silver cracked windows of an old pub.
Two policemen patrol the streets on tall, beautiful chestnut mares. The men have luminous yellow jackets and flashing red lights on ankle bands. A gang of 15 or so Asian teenagers yell abuse and make noises to scare the horses. “TOSSERS”,“FUCKING CUNTS”, “WANKERS”. The police pretend to ignore them, muttering to each other to save face. Farther down the street someone opens their front door high up in the block of flats to shout “PIGS” before going back inside.
A sign in the barbershop window advertises the special price of £5.50 for something undisclosed. The 50 is written very, very small.
Outside the Post Office, a sleek Mercedes with blacked-out windows idles on double yellow lines.
A white-haired man coughs long and hard at the top of a tall ladder. His paint can wobbles.
A fat man leans against the park railings laughing into his mobile phone.
One of the local street drinkers hurries down Backchurch Lane. His straggly white beard is ginger-streaked with nicotine.
I walk past a short, stocky man who has worked on the markets in Whitechapel for 40 years, pushing carts and goods around for the stallholders. For as long as I can remember, he was always seen with his dog, a huge shaggy German shepherd. Now outside his council flat he wears a donkey jacket and a woolly hat. He is flustered and in a high pitched voice shouts at the ground where his pet used to be, “I keep not being able to find you! I don’t want to have to fucking worry about you”. He shakes and shuffles in tiny steps and is fighting back tears.
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2 comments:
There are People Who Write, those who decide, in a thought independent from circumstances, to put some words down on paper. Then there are Writers, people who see the world through a different lens. And when they write you can see the difference. Even if they wrestle with words there is no sign of struggle to those who read them. Your words are seamless. The pictures you paint are whole, the scenes complete. You have an economy with detail that makes your descriptions both intimate and universal. If you wrote a book i would buy it. You are a Writer.
Thank you. I really appreciate the feedback. In fact, you made my day. = )
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