TENTERDEN WRITERS

Short stories based on and around the subject of:The Street

 

Cup Cakes on The Street (By Pat)

 

Number 1 The Street was unusual in many ways. Firstly it was the only thatched cottage in the town, dating back to a time when it adjoined a long, lost windmill; it was numbered as No.1, when it was once the only residence on a winding lane to nowhere much. Now it sat in the middle of a full street of houses and although not the first house in the street, it still retained it’s No. 1 status, much to the annoyance of the Post Office! And then there was its owner, Mrs Snook, unusual in so many ways.

          Mrs Snook was like a tiny, twittering bird. Not pretty or song-full like a robin, but furtive and dowdy, with beady, knowing eyes, more like a dunnock. She was so small and thin, she could fit into children’s clothing, thus saving on VAT, and travelled around the town on a bike equipped with two baskets in case a bargain could be found. Mrs Snook was the font of all knowledge regarding ‘events‘ especially if there was free food in the offing, and could often be seen racing away from an event on her bike in order to arrive in time for the food at the next, and when she could eat no more, would fill her baskets with morsels wrapped in gaily coloured serviettes to be taken home. Mrs Snook was also the font of all knowledge on her neighbours, and would spend hours pottering in her front garden watching and making mental notes to divulge at her one, true, indulgence, The Ladies Luncheon Club, that met up every Monday lunchtime in the local pub at the end of The Street. The other ladies were Mrs Catchthroat, Mrs Ironmonger, Mrs Weasle and Miss Littlebottom. They resided at each compass point of the town with Miss Littlebottom right in the centre, being the spinster daughter of the town’s ancient vicar, each being witness to all the comings and goings of absolutely everyone, to be discussed, dissected and sometimes acted on, every Monday without fail.

          For Mrs Snook Mondays couldn’t come quick enough. There was always something to impart to the quivering ears of her associates, but this Monday was going to be special! A new family had moved in across the street. It was obvious to Mrs Snook that this family were ‘renters’ just by the standard of furniture being off-loaded from the back of a small van, that came and went hour after hour giving her an itemised inventory which she committed to memory. There seemed to be two adults, twin girls of about 13, a stunningly beautiful girl of about 16 and a boy about a year older. How are six people going to fit into a two bedroomed house? Mrs Snook pondered. Then an explanation arrived in the shape of a large garden shed! She watched, open mouthed, as the boy moved a range of bedroom furniture into the shed, an extension lead was then slung from an upper window and fitted through a gap in the shed’s roof which immediately filled the interior with light, and to her horror, sound! As it seems these days, young people must have music played very loudly around them at all times, this young man seemed no different, as he blasted his new neighbours with some very tuneless tunes! “Oh dear, oh dear!” muttered Mrs Snook “this is not good at all” as she scuttled back inside, nerves jangling at their first taste of hip-hop music.

          The ladies were indeed a-quiver on that first Monday as they devoured the ‘pensioners specials’ along with all the information Mrs Snook imparted. More information was also forthcoming from Mrs Catchthroat who thought she knew of this family who had been moved away from ‘the estate’ due to certain ‘problems’ with the young man. “Well” stated Mrs Snook, “I will have to keep an eye on him.” The other ladies nodded in knowing agreement.

            During the following week Mrs Snook’s garden was tended as never before as she kept watch on the house opposite, and by Wednesday she had noticed a thin stream of visitors to the garden shed. These slouching youths seemed to appear at all times of day and night, and looked, sometimes, like they should be attending the doctors, but by the time they left they were transformed! Then she noticed a car stopping for a few minutes every night around 10.30. It was a big car, she thought a Mecedes, and a man got out and went into the shed leaving the engine running. Why? she thought, but no answer sprang to mind.

          On Thursday morning as she pottered in the garden she suddenly noticed the young man standing by his shed door. He was smoking, tut-tut, young people shouldn’t smoke, she thought, and looking directly at her. She jittered a bit inside, dipping her bird-like head lower, then jittered a bit more when she realised he was crossing the road, coming towards her.

          “Hello” he said, “we’ve just moved in. Nice garden.” Her voice quivered.

          “Oh hello, yes I had noticed we had new neighbours.”

          “I’m Freddie.”

          “Mrs Snook.” He burst out laughing, then stopped as she looked sharply at him.

          “Well, thing is like, I do a lot of baking, cakes and things…” Mrs Snook’s jaw dropped at this revelation. “I watch all them telly shows ‘bout baking and stuff.” He shuffled about, his skinny frame moving around inside his baggy clothes. “Me sisters like cake, keeps ‘em ‘appy. I was wondering if you’d like to try some too?” Mrs Snook’s nose quivered like a mouse who had suddenly happened on a piece of cheese, free food!

          “Well yes, that’s very nice of nice of you Freddie”

          “Great! I’ll just go and get ‘em then.”

Freddie was there and back in a flash and presented Mrs Snook with a paper bag filled with cup cakes.

          “Enjoy” he said smiling broadly.

 

At Tiffin time, Mrs Snook found they were the nicest cakes she had tasted in years, and instead of making them last for days, scoffed the lot. She woke up with the sun full in her face the next day, still sitting in the armchair, lap covered in crumbs, with a feeling of peace and tranquillity she could barely recognise. She drifted about her chores not caring, really, whether they were done or not and then went out into her front garden to watch for something…

          Freddie was standing outside his shed smoking, but Mrs Snook didn’t care about that, she smiled and waved and sat down raising her face to the sun enjoying this lovely morning, even if it was a bit fuzzy around the edges.

          “How were the cakes?” Mrs Snook’s eyes opened slowly.

          “Just lovely Freddie, just lovely.”

          “I’ll bring you some more on Monday if you want.”

          “Lovely, I’ll share them with my lady friends.”

 

Monday morning found Mrs Snook in a tremor of anticipation. Freddie had delivered his cakes but she couldn’t wait, she had to try one now. Oh it was lovely, with such a subtle taste, something she couldn’t put her finger on, but she liked it. Later she shared the cakes with her lady friends. Each nibbled delicately, then tried another as they giggled at nothing in particular. By the third cake they were screaming like teenagers, so-much-so that the Landlord asked them to leave.

 

Mrs Snook and Freddie became firm friends and he moved out of his shed and into Mrs Snook’s spare room The importance of The Street and it’s residents was never the same again as she drifted into old age on a lovely, fuzzy cloud of cup cakes.

 

 

Metamorphosis (By Ken)

 

Back in 1948, late at night, Dad and I stood on the corner of Raleigh Road when a dustbin lid came rolling towards me, settling with a clang and a clatter at my feet. Seconds later the dustbin itself bumped off the pavement, spilling its contents in the middle of the road; a Guinness bottle spun like a top before clattering into the kerb and smashing into pieces. Then more glass as milk bottles were thrown from windows high up. One crashed onto the roof of a Black Maria parked with two of its wheels mounting the pavement.

    Accompanying the sound of breaking glass, there was shouting. Shouting from all sides, from street level, from open windows, everyone shouting at once. Then a different sound – singing, coming from further up the road but getting nearer. Four large men emerged into the light from the only lamppost in the road that hadn’t been broken. All were singing and laughing, swigging from beer bottles as they weaved their way along. Windows banged open as they passed – more shouting, swearing and fist waving from those inside. One of the men stopped, walked into the middle of the road and hurled his bottle at the house opposite him. A trail of foamy beer ran down the soot-stained wall. One of the three policemen on the spot blew his whistle. The piercing sound echoed along the road as all four men turned in their tracks and ran off into the darkness.

    Another man in a scruffy jacket had one arm held up his back by one of the policemen as he was pushed into the back of the Black Maria. I couldn’t see his face but I recognised the jacket he was wearing, its torn collar and leather-patched elbows. It was my pal’s dad, Mr Pepper. He was slurring his words as he struggled to break free. An angry crowd had gathered, yelling at the policeman holding Mr Pepper. Whatever they were yelling about was suddenly drowned out by the clanging bells of another police car arriving. Four Bobbies jumped out of it with their truncheons at the ready causing the crowd to back away as the Black Maria finally drove off.

    “Come on then, Sonny Jim,” said Dad, “that’s enough excitement for one night and it’s late, you’ve got to get up for school tomorrow.” It was nearly eleven o’clock. We were on our way back from Ladbroke Grove after visiting Auntie Doris and Uncle Percy and that always meant I could stay up late.

    “But wasn’t that Mr Pepper?” I asked, “being taken away in the Black Maria?”

    "Yes, it was,” Dad said, sighing. “Come on, let’s go.”

    "But what has he done?”

    It was bitterly cold. Dad jammed his hat down further over his ears “Who knows,” he finally said with another sigh. I pulled up my scarf to cover more of my face and then tried to keep in step with Dad’s long strides as we covered the last few hundred yards home.

I never did find out what Mr Pepper did but we didn’t see him for a while.

 

It is now 2015 and I’m standing on that same corner again. And it’s all so different today. Everything is. I note with some amusement that even the name of the road has changed. It now rejoices as Lakeside Road, not ‘Railey’ Road as everyone called it back then. No one ever pronounced it as ‘Raleigh’ and, thinking back, without sounding too snobbish, I doubt its residents ever associated it with Sir Walter. No longer does it look remotely like the fearsome road that, as both kids and adults, we were too scared to walk down in the dark. It has become ‘respectable’.

    The old metal dustbins have disappeared, replaced in this recycling age by a collection of ‘wheelies’ in various colours. Most of the houses have been converted into modern flats with the outside walls painted in gentle pastel colours. There are no broken windows, no basements piled up with rubbish, no screaming or shouting. No babies crying. Two young mothers are strolling along with their silent running, space-age pushchairs. It is all so very quiet. There were virtually no cars all those years ago but now there are Jaguars, Mercedes and the inevitable 4 by 4s, parked nose to tail the whole length of the road. The lampposts with their panes of broken glass have become tall, steel, giraffe-like structures towering almost protectively over this new community. Window boxes flourish and, every thirty yards, the pavements have been planted with lilac trees.

    What was once virtually a slum area has undergone a metamorphosis.

    This part of the once notorious Shepherds Bush has become a haven of pied-a-terres – homes for a new generation with fresh dreams and ambitions. Its dark history and fearsome reputation has been organically cleansed. Nothing remains of what it was once upon a time.

No need now to close the curtains and lock the doors when the rent man comes to call. The ‘Man from the Pru’ would have no customers here. I sniff the air but the smell of stale beer and vinegar-soaked chips has long since vanished.  A young man, dressed in a sharp suit and an orange tie nods toward me before reclamping his mobile phone to his ear. The two young mothers have stopped at the door of one of the houses, chatting animatedly while thumbing out text messages.

    A traffic warden is poised by my car. I catch his eye and he smiles but I’d better go.

    Was I right to stop and reminisce? The changes are obviously for the better but in some strange way I resent them.

    Don’t ask me why.

 

 

The Street (By Sheila)

 

January 31st 1938 was my thirteenth birthday. I had one present, Mama’s special box.

    That morning my three grandparents had joined my parents, my ten year old brother Karl and I, for breakfast. We sat in the back kitchen of our second floor apartment in Helmet Strasse, a predominantly Jewish neighbourhood in Berlin, eating a birthday treat of porridge with tinned cream and the last tin of apricots from Mama’s secret store. None of us could remember when we last had such luxuries.

    Grandpa and Grandma Rosenfeld’s delicatessen, just two doors away from our bakery, had been subjected to looting since the early days of the boycott; German SA men had been officially instructed to stand outside Jewish owned businesses, to deter any elegantly gloved hand, from turning our door handle and entering; but a blind eye had been turned on their unofficial activities.

    Grandma had prudently hidden non-perishables all over their home, and ours. Tinned goods were glued to the underside of their large oak dining-room table. With the white damask cloth in situ, the German guard sneaking in, had been too eager to secrete valuable china dishes inside an overcoat pocket to think about looking under the table.

    My ingenious Mama had a store of preserved food hidden in every room, even inside the imposing ceramic fireplace in the lounge. Fuel supplies had long been exhausted. Winter coats and blankets rarely left our shoulders, or our beds, since winter spread its chill.

Clutching large mugs of weak coffee, my family watched as I raised the lid of the decorated, black lacquered box; Mama’s treasured possession, her memory-box.

    “Are you really giving me your box?” I asked, looking at Mama’s face.

    She nodded. “It’s yours now Hilda. The family photographs are from Grandpa, Grandma and Nanapop. They have written notes on the backs to say who the people are, and where they were taken. It’s your history; you must keep it safe,” then quietly, “who knows what our future will be.”

    I put the bundles of photographs carefully aside and lifted out Mama’s early diaries; her wedding tiara, Karl’s and my first shoes, school reports; small personal belongings that mapped my Mama’s life. Finally I opened the tiny red-velvet box.

    I had seen her engagement ring before. Even the weak January light caused the diamonds to sparkle. “It’s so pretty.”

    “That was the first ring Nanapop was allowed to make when he finished his apprenticeship. It belonged to Nana until she died, then Pappa was given it for me. Your grandfather made hundreds of rings over the years, but he never made another of that design. It’s unique, I always felt special when I wore it. And now it belongs to you.”

    Throughout that day, family members came with good wishes for me. The collection of photographs, now spread out on the large dining room table, were picked up, mused over and replaced. Quietly my relatives remembered. Remembered when Helmet Strasse shop-fronts proudly displayed brass lettered name-plates; remembered when their owners were the well-dressed, well nourished, smiling people in the photographs.

    Winter coats, necessary even indoors, were buttoned up, farewells said and my relatives opened our door and stepped onto the empty pavement. Walking with heads down, they returned to their cold, once loved homes, to ponder what was to become of a race ostracized by its fellow countrymen in the land of their birth.

 

Of all the shops in Helmet Strasse, the jewellers were the ones that attracted the most attention. Carefully selected pieces, handmade in back workshops, were displayed on black velvet mounds. Necklaces, rings, and brooches sparkled, caught the attention of smart, wealthy ladies who walked the length of Helmet Strasse in fashionable Berlin.

    But now all our exteriors displayed one decoration; a large yellow ‘Star of David.’ Their owners worth, recognised in one word crudely scrawled across the doors – ‘JUDEN’.

 

This was my world. The lofty buildings, pressing shoulder to shoulder were occupied by relatives of both my parents. Aunts, uncles and cousins circulated, celebrated and congregated in the lofty, long-windowed rooms of the upper floors, while below the daylight hours of the working week, were spent in baking, butchering, book-binding and tailoring, the necessities and luxuries the Jewish community and its neighbours had long enjoyed.

 

Summer came, hunger did not seem so important when the sun sent shafts of light and warmth through our long windows. We pulled our chairs and a table up to the light where my parents did their best to provide Karl and I with an education.

    Karl had been seven when our parents made the decision to stop our schooling. He had suffered more than me from the bullying in the playground.  The bigger boys set upon the younger pupils at every opportunity.  The teachers at first tried to control the behaviour, but the authorities would not listen to any complaints concerning the treatment of Jews. Jewish children were actively encouraged to stay at home.

Both my parents were educated and talented. We still had our piano. It had been shunned in the looting raids.   Pappa’s violin had been wrapped in sacking and hidden in the baking oven downstairs.

     We made sure all the windows were closed before our music lessons. One blessing during summer thunder and heavy rain, was the opportunity it gave my parents to play the music they so loved. A rare treat; escape from fear for a few short hours.

 

Winter swept in. Helmet Strasse windows gathered grime, paint peeled. The few non-Jewish traders had long since closed their doors, packed their stock and removed their name-plates. Our lives were lived in increasing poverty, persecution and ever present fear.

We kept our Jewish festival days but no-one danced, no-one sang. Dreams became nightmares, hope increasingly futile. Helmet Strasse encased its outcasts; human souls who whispered and dreaded the next edict.

          

November, we huddled around the radio set. The news reported the death of a Nazi ‘diplomat’ in Paris. The act was attributed to a Jew. Hitler was outraged. He reacted by ordering a seven day campaign of retaliation on the Jewish population.

    We slept fitfully under the bedclothes, no heat, the cold seeping through us hour by hour.

 

November the 10th. Hitler’s planned revenge.

    We heard the trucks, we heard the shouted orders, we held our breath; we held each other.

    The yellow-crossed doors yielded to the thud of heavy black boots. Cabinets, drawers and store-rooms splintered and shattered. Greedy hands stole brass fittings, mirrors once ignored by earlier raiders. Stairs were stormed, doors kicked open, orders shouted, windows smashed. The piano bundled through the gaping hole, crashing below with a many chorded death cry.

    We huddled together seeing our few remaining possessions ransacked and hurled after the piano.

    My precious box hit the window sill on its last journey. My photographs took flight and fluttered a last farewell as they danced to their destruction.

     I pulled my thick unruly hair further over my ears, and waited.

    Soldiers’ voices, rejoicing.

    A new sound, winding gear screeching into action.

    Black metal fire spouts took aim, spat flames up and down the shop fronts; left, right, now up at the second floors, bursting through the glassless windows; scorching, consuming the homes of the Jews of Helmet Strasse.

    Pappa, white faced and shaking, pulled us down the narrow back stairs.

    The smell of burning, smoke stinging our eyes, the sound of crackling as timbers buckled, flames racing to burn the Jews into oblivion.

Mama stumbled through the back entrance. Pausing to catch fresh breath, she looked around and visibly shrank into old age.

    Soldiers, each end of the narrow alleyway.

    Pappa bound his scarf around Karl’s burnt arm.

    We stood waiting; defeated.

    Mama whispered, ”We have lost everything. We have nothing.”

    I pulled her to me, took her hand and lifted it to my ear.

    She felt the tape and looked into my eyes.

    I peeld off the plaster. Taking her thin hand, I slipped her engagement ring over her knuckle, folding her hand over her treasure.

    Pappa put his arm around her.

    We stood, on Krisallnacht - four Jews from Helmet Strasse, a street in Berlin.