Tales from Two Cities by Dervla Murphy

Author:Dervla Murphy [Dervla Murphy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781780601229
Publisher: Eland Publishing
Published: 2016-09-15T05:00:00+00:00

The Grahams invited me to supper on the following Saturday evening. They lived near Handsworth Park, in a quiet, tidy, tree-line road of semi-detached stucco houses with rose-filled gardens. Like many Handsworth settlers, they had bought their home through a local authority mortgage, building societies being reluctant to lend to immigrants. It was an obviously cherished house, outside and in; numerous invitations to Pentecostal jamborees stood on the mantelpiece and elaborately embroidered religious texts (mostly of the warning variety) decorated the pink sitting-room walls between family photographs and pictures of Caribbean beauty spots framed by Theodore (Evelyn’s husband) whose hobby was carpentry. On subsequent visits I was admitted to the kitchen, to watch elaborate Caribbean meals in preparation; there too Jesus-texts, printed on steam-proof plastic, were prominent.

Evelyn had come to England in 1955, aged twenty, and trained as a nurse. Three years later she married Theodore – they had known each other in Jamaica – though “he only had a dirty heavy job in a car factory”. In 1981 he was made redundant and had since devoted himself to his own church, of which he was a Deacon. (He did not, I gathered, approve of Mr Plum-Suit.) Evelyn was still working, as she had been all her life, only taking time off to have three children – now all in their twenties. Clarissa was the eldest, a strikingly good-looking young woman who had recently qualified as a social worker and was engaged to Luke, a Black teacher. The boys however were a grievous disappointment and not mentioned during that first visit. Later Clarissa told me they had “gone Rasta” and were living in squats; not even DHSS pads but real squats in semi-derelict houses. One had fathered a child at the age of eighteen and been thrown out of the house by Theodore when the girlfriend (by then ex-girlfriend) arrived on the doorstep demanding marriage. Both sported dreadlocks and sold – as distinct from merely smoking – ganja; so the family lived in tormenting suspense, expecting them to end up in Winson Green.

Theodore declined to discuss race relations. “We done awright,” he said. “Don’t do no good belly-achin’. If White we done better. But if Jesus wanted us White he’d a made us White – right?”

Evelyn was more expansive. “When I come first I thought: No! I can’t live here, not even for a year! But then the shame! To run home and waste all that money! It wasn’t discrimination – that hurt, yes, that hurt a lot … We didn’t come expecting the English to be cruel – but the Lord gimme strength to keep cool, keep quiet, turn ’nother cheek when bad things happen. It was everything so gloomy I wanted to get away from – no sun or heat, all cold and rain and sharing one damp little room in Sparkbrook with three other girls and not enough to eat – I was hungry three months before I got into training. And remember I was one of the lucky ones, with good schooling.

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