More Than Love Letters (9 page)

WITCH

Women of Ipswich Together Combating Homelessness

 

Extract from minutes of meeting
at Ding’s house, 21 April 2005, 8 p.m.

 

Helen has arranged to go into hospital over the weekend while Witch House is unstaffed. If it goes well, she may decide to do this regularly for a while. Pat T. has ascertained that this will not affect her housing benefit.

Lauren has been given another warning about noise after Mrs Robertson from number 27 complained again; she claims that some boys poured a can of lager on to the primulas in her front window box after she came out and told them to keep quiet. It was agreed to invite Mrs Robertson to attend the next house meeting, to air her concerns.

Joyce has been trying to reduce the levels of her medication, but in the interests of other residents she has agreed to do it only by slow degrees and under Dr Gould’s supervision.

Varnish ’n’ Nails started work on the repainting of the downstairs this week. Carole has gone to stay with her sister until it is finished, because the dust is giving her night-mares.

 

Marianne has unfortunately lost her job at the chemist’s, after Mr Singh found she had been inhaling the aerosol deodorants. She has applied for a job at the newsagent’s on Mawson Street.

 

It was decided that we couldn’t have the joint meeting with Women’s Aid at Witch House next week because we’ve got the decorators in.

From:
Margaret Hayton [[email protected]]
Sent:
23/4/05 22:13
To:
Rebecca Prichard [[email protected]]

 

Dear Becs,

I had my second meeting with Richard Slater today, and I think it went OK. It seemed to be a good idea, wearing my interview blouse, because this time he had his eyes fixed intently on my face the whole time, and seemed to be really listening to my arguments. And I know it’s not like me to notice something like this, but I have to say he has a very nice throat. I think what drew my attention to it was that his Adam’s apple kept bobbing up and down, like he was swallowing a lot. Maybe I was staring at it, because in fact he said that he had got a dry throat, and got himself some water, and I said, I hope you aren’t getting a cold, because sometimes my throat feels dry and scratchy just before I go down with one. And then I thought, what am I doing, blathering to an MP about sore throats. He must think I am a complete idiot!

Anyway, he had spoken to colleagues at the Home Office – apparently he’s pally with a junior minister there. It seems that what is supposed to happen is that asylum seekers who don’t have relatives or friends over here to support them are all channelled into housing in ‘reception zones’ (which under this ‘dispersal’ policy they have can mean wherever they choose to send you, Glasgow or Birmingham or anywhere with no housing shortage – in fact quite possibly Moss Side!). Or else one of those awful accommodation centres – you know, you’ve seen them on TV, I’m sure – usually some bleak converted barracks or something. It would be like being in prison! It’s so unfair – Nasreen is happy with us, and she gets the support of Emily and Pat T., plus I have been helping her with her reading, and she’s a really good influence on Lauren, one of the other residents, who she’s become friends with (sorry, with whom she’s become friends!).

But Richard says that although asylum seekers aren’t entitled to normal homeless persons’ accommodation, what we can do is persuade the borough council to designate Witch House as being appropriate temporary housing for Nasreen under the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, and then her rent will be paid by the Home Office. It’s a bit unusual, but he thinks it is allowed by the regulations. I went straight round and told Nasreen. Her English isn’t up to the minutiae of immigration law, but she was absolutely delighted to know she might be able to stay with us until they make the decision on her asylum application. In fact, she threw her arms round my neck and hugged me. Mock all you wish, but cycling home I found myself in tears.

Love,

Margaret xx

 

PS. How’s your dad? You haven’t mentioned him for ages, and I’m never sure if I should ask.

From:
Rebecca Prichard [[email protected]]
Sent:
23/4/05 23:50
To:
Margaret Hayton [[email protected]]

 

Hi there, Margaret! First it was nice eyes, now it’s a nice throat. You want to watch out, my girl, your eyes seem to be moving downwards, and anyway, isn’t looking lustfully upon a man against your anchoritic vows? But I’m very glad that you may have sorted things out for your friend Nasreen.

Speaking of lust, I just got back from Declan’s. He asked me to stay over, and I
sooooo
wanted to, but you’re not wrong about the ticklish problem of Zoe and bathrooms and underwear and difficult explanations. It’s bad enough trying to relax and enjoy Declan’s exceedingly attentive ministrations whilst suppressing the resultant noises of appreciation (and believe me, there is much to appreciate!). I’m scared of even breathing too rhythmically. Declan’s flat is very small. Unlike his other assets . . . I really want to sleep all night with him and wake up with his body wrapped around me. So I know I’m in big trouble, because this isn’t like me at all – normally I value my space in bed. I’ve always been a wham, bam, shut-the-door-on-your-way-out-and-I’ll-call-you-tomorrow kind of girl. What is happening to me, Margaret?

As far as Dad is concerned, I think you can assume no news is good news. He’s much the same. But believe me, I shan’t be shy about boring you with all the ghastly details if he gets worse.

Big hugs,

Becs xxx

 

PS. If Zoe ‘outs’ me at school, and I am denied my human rights by the Brunswick Road Governors, I may be seeking asylum in Albania.

 

 

From:
Margaret Hayton [[email protected]]
Sent:
23/4/05 22:55
To:
Rebecca Prichard [[email protected]]

 

Dear Becs,

It wasn’t lust – purely an aesthetic observation. And ‘anchoritic’ is only a 5.5.

Margaret xx

 

 

From:
Richard Slater [[email protected]]
Sent:
25/4/05 14:14
To:
Michael Carragan [[email protected]]

 

Hi Michael,

Thanks for helping with that information about housing for asylum seekers on Friday. I had my second meeting with Margaret on Saturday, and she seemed really happy with what you’d come up with for me.

May God and the National Women’s Executive Committee forgive me, but she really does have the most breathtaking breasts. Last time she had on jeans and a fleece which didn’t give more than a general impression of height and presumptive slender curves, but this time she was wearing a less than impregnable creamy blouse, with something lacy and insubstantial underneath. I found myself gulping somewhat in the manner of a concupiscent bullfrog. I tried hard to get a grip on myself by concentrating all my attention on her face, like someone who has been on one too many interpersonal skills courses. She’d got her hair scooped back from her face this time, in some kind of rather fetching clip arrangement, but wayward tendrils kept escaping at the sides. It is just one shade away from black, and her eyes, I decided after some very serious analysis, are not exactly hazel, more grey, but with little spangles of gold. And her skin is simply amazing – so white that it’s nearly translucent, with a delta of tiny blue veins just visible near the corners of her eyes. But then, of course, my reprobate male imagination kept returning to other areas of blue-veined whiteness . . . And she is terribly sweet, too. She asked me if I was getting a cold, which I found obscurely touching. I had this strange feeling that she might actually offer to blow my nose, as if I were a dribbly child in her class.

Good grief, what am I getting into here, Mike? I don’t have space in my life for a complication like this. I can’t just go out with her a few times, maybe a show, maybe bed, like with Laura last spring. Laura was a grown-up, we both knew what was what, nobody harboured any expectations and nobody created any. It’s not just that Margaret is young. (Though she undeniably is. I haven’t dared to ask her quite how young, but a qualified primary school teacher can’t be less than, what, twenty-three can she?) It’s that she’s so . . . unspoilt, somehow. And I don’t mean in the way you’re thinking, you old hound! I mean all that idealistic fervour, those blazing principles, all undiluted and untarnished, and not yet sunk beneath a cushioning layer of cynicism. I can’t take on all that – I don’t want the responsibility. Let’s have another drink soon, and you can remind me not to be such a crazed loon over a diaphanous blouse and a pair of earnest eyes.

Richard.

 

Richard Slater (Labour)

Member of Parliament for Ipswich

 

 

From:
Rebecca Prichard [[email protected]]
Sent:
27/4/05 22:06
To:
Margaret Hayton [[email protected]]

 

Hi Margaret,

Out with Declan again tonight, or rather in with Declan. I’m still feeling self-conscious about the escape of any unstifled mid-coital vocalisations, so we have taken to selecting his noisiest video as background to our activities, just in case Zoe wakes up.
The Guns of Navarone
would perhaps not hitherto have been my chosen mood-inducer, but I have begun to find that I quite enjoy all the gunfire while Declan is storming my mountain fortress. I haven’t even felt the need to imagine that he’s Gregory Peck.

Brunswick Road Primary continues true to form. In Show and Tell today Jamie Turcott informed the class that his mum’s throwing a party for his brother tonight, to celebrate his release from youth custody. Only Vrisha Chopra made the understandable assumption that this had anything to do with custard. Most of the class can barely tell you the days of the week, but they know that youth custody means prison for kids.

Becs xx

 

 

From:
Margaret Hayton [[email protected]]
Sent:
27/4/05 22:32
To:
Rebecca Prichard [[email protected]]

 

Dear Becs,

St Edith’s, by comparison, is not exactly life on the edge. In Circle Time yesterday Abby Bentham showed the class a pencil. Rainbow coloured, I’ll concede, and with a rubber on the end shaped like a daisy, but nevertheless
a pencil
. Why is it that all Year 3 girls, and none of the boys, share an obsession with stationery? Vicky Taylor in my class has pencil cases rather in the manner in which Imelda Marcos had shoes – beyond need, beyond reason. It makes me want to tell her that there are small Philippino children who would be grateful for just one plastic zip-up in which to keep their gel pens. I wonder what it is in the female genetic code which creates this overpowering drive towards the hoarding of notelets and envelopes. The male compulsion to run and kick a ball (or a stone, or an empty Coke can) I can understand. It may presumably be tracked back to some distant evolution from the hunting instinct. All those little boys who want to be Thierry Henry are really aspiring to be the supreme hunter, the one capable of dragging the most carcasses back to his encampment. But from what primal imperative does the collecting of neatly sharpened crayons derive?

By the way, if Declan’s got the 1970s sequel, Mark made me watch it once and it’s dire. Unless you want to be able to picture Declan as Harrison Ford.

Margaret xxx

42 Gledhill Street
Ipswich

 

29 April 2005

Dear Gran,

I’m glad you’re using the mobile phone – Mum says she can chat to you a bit longer now when she calls. She says you’ve had a bit of a cold, too, so I’m sending you some echinacea to try. It isn’t from the chemist, nothing strong, but it is meant to be very good. A friend of mine called Persephone, who’s on the support group of our hostel, swears by it – apparently it boosts the body’s own immune system, and helps you to fight off the infection.

I’m on my own here tonight – Cora has gone out to a wedding anniversary party for somebody at her work. It wasn’t until she was getting ready that I realised, but I think it’s the first time she’s been out for an evening since I moved in last August. At least it means I’ve got a chance to sit down and write to you at last. I’m sorry it’s been so long, and it’s no excuse, I know, but I have had quite a busy time since I last wrote. I have had two meetings with my MP! Richard Slater, he’s called, and he’s in the Labour Party, and he seems quite helpful. He’s got dark hair, and he’s in that middle zone, you know, where I never know how old someone is. But I think he’s probably near the younger end of it, because there aren’t many lines on his face, except some crinkles round his eyes which make him look as though he might laugh a lot, though he was very serious with me.

The reason I met him was to talk about another girl in the hostel, called Nasreen, who is from Albania, and is seeking asylum in this country. Because she hasn’t yet got permission to stay in Britain she isn’t entitled to any housing benefit, and we were worried about how we could meet her rent. It looks as though Mr Slater may have found a way of getting round it, though, so we hope Nasreen will be able to carry on living in the house after all. I’ve been helping her with her English, especially reading and writing, and we’ve become quite close.

Hers is another harrowing story, though, Gran. Her family are Muslim, and from what I can make out they are fairly fundamentalist – even though all public religious worship is banned in Albania. It’s supposed to be a secular state, apparently, and no one is allowed to attend a church or a mosque. I’m not sure ‘fundamentalist’ is quite the right word. I mean, Nasreen only wears a coloured scarf over her hair, not the formal hijab, and she talks about her mother going out to work, and Nasreen was still at college, and her dad was giving her driving lessons. But they are obviously quite extreme in some ways, because what happened was that Nasreen met a boy, Gjergj, and he’s from a Christian background, and her father forbade her to go out with him. But they carried on seeing each other, meeting secretly after college, and then Nasreen’s brothers found out (she has three older brothers), and they started to threaten her about it. She was quite determined not to give Gjergj up, and in the end two of her brothers caught her with him one day, kissing in the bus shelter. They dragged them apart and started slapping her face, so Gjergj rushed in to stop them, and then they turned on him, and she says they had him on the floor and were kicking him in the stomach and the head, and he was shouting at her to run, and so she did. She left that night, just packing a few clothes and a gold necklace which her grandmother gave her, which she sold to pay for her passage from Durrës to Felixstowe. She still doesn’t even know if Gjergj is OK; she is too frightened to call him. She says it is because if her family knew she had been in touch with Gjergj they might kill him, or beat him again to try to discover where she is. They must do Shakespeare at school even in Albania, Gran, because after she had been telling me about it and her eyes were blurry with tears, she suddenly smiled and said ‘like Romeo and Juliet’. I think she’s incredibly brave.