Love, Nina, page 5
Will: How will you get there?
Me: Depends whether you come or not.
Will: If I come?
Me: Car.
Will: If just you go?
Me: Um, car.
Will: So, car then?
Me: I could walk, but that would take longer and Amanda might not have time.
Will: So car then?
Me: I could walk quickly—or we could both walk, it’s such a nice day and might clear your head.
Will: I’ve lost interest. Just tell me when we’re going…or not going.
At school gate:
Will: Can I come in?
Me: No, you’re ill, wait here.
In the playground:
Sam: Is Will in the car?
Me: No, we walked, he’s at the gate.
Sam: Can we go and see him?
Me: No, he’s ill.
Sam: But he walked here.
Me: For a bit of fresh air.
Sam: Can’t I just say hello to my own brother?
Me: No, he’s ill, he doesn’t want bothering.
Sam: Is he not seeing visitors?
Outside:
Will: Huh! Nice of Sam to totally ignore me.
At home:
Will: I feel better now—can I go and call for Robert?
Me: No, he’s off school with a sore throat.
Will: I’m off too.
Me: But you’re both supposed to be ill.
Will: I feel better.
Me: He might not.
Will: Why are you isolating me?
Me: Because otherwise I look irresponsible.
Will: You are irresponsible.
Me: I don’t want to look irresponsible.
Love, Nina
* * *
Dear Vic,
Mentioned to MK how much I hate the fishmonger.
Me: I don’t like the fishmonger.
MK: How can you not like the fishmonger?
Me: I just don’t.
MK: What’s wrong with him?
Me: He’s tricky to do business with.
MK: Like fish.
Discussing this further:
MK: It’s not him, it’s you.
Me: No, it’s him.
MK: It’s the way you approach.
Me: Like what?
MK: Barefoot for a start.
I don’t agree. I think the fishmonger is deliberately difficult with anyone who doesn’t know much about fish—i.e. me. He abuses his power.
Later, we were watching a film and some music came on the telly and we agreed we didn’t like it.
Sam: I hate this music.
Will: Me too.
Sam: I hate it when music does that.
Will: What?
Sam: Comes on in a film and makes the film seem sad.
MK: I think it’s meant to be happy.
Me: But it’s that film-style happy that actually seems sad.
Sam: Yeah.
Me: I hate emotional music.
MK: More or less than you hate the fishmonger?
Love, Nina
* * *
Dear Vic,
Had tea at the Lahrs’ as usual yesterday. I don’t know why it’s always so nice. It just is. There’s John Lahr and Anthea and their son Chris—a good friend of S&W and goes to Anna Sher (children’s theater company) with them. Usually Karel and Betsy, plus an assortment of other people.
The tea itself is a mixed bag. The cake/cookies are nice (Betsy?) and the people are nice, probably due to being mostly American, although Anthea isn’t (American) and is the nicest of all. But the tea (beverage) is always revolting, like tree-bark, and goes like dishwater if you put milk in. It’s either that or orange squash or milk—in a beaker.
John always brings things up for discussion round the tea table. And everyone joins in with their view. Even me. He likes to know what everyone’s been doing. He means what films or plays have they seen or, failing that, what telly or books. And then he likes to know what you thought of it (the play, film, book, whatever) and he really is interested in whether you thought the actor/actress was funny or not.
He wears a jacket (either tweedy, beige, cord, or checked), even inside. You never see him without one even on a warm day. Unless he takes it off, briefly, but then he’s got it over his shoulder with his finger in the loop thing. Also, he’s just written a book about the playwright Joe Orton who used to live on Saffron Lane in Leicester, near the Pork Pie library.
Anyway. They’re nice and we like going there and they love MK and always say how clever and sweet she is. She’d die if she heard.
Ring me on Tuesday. Definitely going to Greece. I know it’s a bit last minute, but would you want to come?
Discuss on phone on Tuesday.
Love, Nina
PS Anthea says I have the nicest feet she’s ever seen and she marvels at my ability to not wear shoes. She thinks it’s a wonder I don’t stub my toe. I didn’t tell her that I do (stub my toe). I just took the praise.
* * *
Dear Vic,
It’s a hard-water area, not bleachy tasting, but makes fluffy hair less so (good for me but bad for someone with coarse, thick hair). Some people have water filter jug things but they’re a bit of a faff, to be honest. You have to keep topping them up and it’s easy to forget. Also, if you pour quickly, the water comes out of the top (i.e. not filtered) so what’s the point. Plus, if everything else in your house is all charming and junky, why would you want an ugly plastic jug? You wouldn’t.
Been trying out a side ponytail. Quite short, but at the side (low). It’s OK but can’t decide if it’s stylish or strange.
MK: What’s happened?
Me: I’m trying a side pony.
MK: How’s it going?
Me: Can’t tell if it looks strange or stylish.
MK: It could be neither, or both.
Will played a good trick on Sam and me. The lights and telly went off.
Will: (shining a torch around) Shit, a power cut.
Me: Did you just turn the lecky off?
Will: What makes you think that?
Me: You went into the utility room with a torch just before the lecky went off.
Will: I had a premonition and went for a pee.
Sam and I went to 57. Saw a basket of clean washing all neatly folded with a pair of Nunney’s boxer shorts on top (stripy, ironed). I threw them at Sam, Sam threw them back and they ended up out of the window (second floor). They were meant to drop down onto Nunney and Tom in the garden but they caught on a tree branch.
Then yesterday went to National Gallery with Nunney. He likes it there (the big scenes). After we’d looked at all the art, he tricked me into hanging off a high wall by the entrance steps and pulled my trousers down. Loads of people around. Me in Mickey Mouse pants.
Me: How could you do that in a public place?
N: I took no pleasure in it—simply a taste of your own medicine.
Me: I was vulnerable.
N: That’s when to strike—as you know.
Hope you’re well. Try to come down soon. Or I’ll go there.
Love, Nina
* * *
May 1983
Dear Vic,
AB has started bringing a little can of beer round with him (lager).
Me: Why don’t you bring a few cans over and leave them in the fridge?
MK: He can manage them one at a time.
AB: They are cold to carry.
MK: Wear gloves.
Will got new trainers. White with green. I liked the box.
Me: I’m going to keep this box.
MK: What’s this keeping boxes thing?
Me: It’s just one box.
MK: You kept one the other day.
Me: That was a bag.
MK: Boxes, bags—are you planning to run away?
Jez gave Sam a sexy pen. Press the top and the woman’s bra disappears. We all like it and keep pressing the top to see the bra disappear.
MK: Don’t take it to school.
Sam: Why not?
MK: Your teacher will confiscate it.
Sam: What do you mean?
MK: She’ll take it from you.
Sam: She won’t want it.
Mr. Mackie, Sam’s eye doctor, has suggested I consider a nose job (he’s got a friend who’s a plastic surgeon in the same consulting suite and he’d be happy to make an introduction, he said). Mr. Mackie thinks I’d be very pretty if I sorted my nose out. Told Nunney. Nunney thinks it’s unimpressive of Mr. Mackie to try and drum up business for his mate and that people shouldn’t fuck about with what nature’s dealt them—unless it’s life-threatening.
Me and Jez back 14th/15th. I’m going to teach him to drive. Have already done dummy run in Saab, but he’s not insured to switch ignition on unless we’re off the public highway, which you can’t be in NW1. They don’t have driveways. Except AB, and his is occupied.
Love, Nina
* * *
Dear Vic,
We’re considering canceling the milkman and getting cartons with the main shop. AB is trying to put us off, saying we should support the milkman (at all costs), otherwise there might not be any milkmen. The milkman here wakes me up every morning earlier than necessary, clanking his bottles and revving his float. I wouldn’t be that sad to see him go actually. But I know what AB means, they are a good thing, checking on old people. Noticing milk that’s gone off on the step because someone’s had a fall and not got it in, type thing.
MK hasn’t had a milk bill since 1981 and if she ever bumps into the milkman on the step, she tells him and he says he’ll look in the book. Still no bill comes. Maybe someone else is paying. Like someone else was feeding the cat.
We have those stubby little milk bottles too. I think they’re everywhere now. The days of the long slim bottles are gone. Remember the ones with embossed writing on (Kirby & West)? Maybe it’s the stubby little bottles that are driving people to get cartons with the main shop? Are cartons any nicer than the not so nice bottles? No.
Sam accidentally tipped Tom out of his wheelchair going up a curb. He came home all dramatic.
Me: What’s up?
Sam: It’s really bad, Tomalin’s wheelchair bumped into a moped and fell over and Tom fell out in the street and the moped went on its side.
Me: Oh dear, was Tom OK?
Sam: Yeah, I think so, he wasn’t hurt.
Me: Poor Tom. Poor you.
Will: Poor moped.
Fifteen minutes later:
Sam: Shall we go and check on him?
Me: Tom?
Sam: Yeah, see if anyone’s helped him up.
Me: What? He’s still there?
Sam: Probably, maybe, I don’t know.
Me: What, you left him there?
Sam: Yeah, I came to get you.
Me: But, Sam, you’ve had a peanut butter sandwich.
Tom was at home. He’d shouted, been helped up and wheeled himself home. He thought nothing of it (he was worried about Sam).
Love, Nina
* * *
Dear Vic,
Pippa brought new boyfriend round to show him off. S&W liked him because of what was written on his T-shirt. Will ran upstairs and put on his funny T-shirt (Registered piss artist) and the new boyfriend said he’d seen one like that before. Thoughtless.
Pippa seems keen. Can’t see why. He seems pleased with himself and pushes his glasses up on his nose all the time with his hand. Unnecessarily. It’s one of those habits that you don’t realize you’re doing but drives other people mad and can cause blackheads (all the nose touching). Then yesterday she told me that he has this thing. He has to masturbate every night or else can’t get to sleep.
Me: God!
Pippa: Yeah, but to be fair, he does it himself.
Me: What, and do you, you know, at all?
Pippa: No, we don’t.
Me: But you’re boyfriend and girlfriend?
Pippa: The relationship is culture based, I don’t even have to shave my legs.
Told Mary-Kay about him/it.
Me: He can’t get to sleep unless he’s ejaculated.
MK: Oh, that!
Love, Nina
PS Me and S&W have a new code. If we think someone’s annoying we tap our fingertips on the table. It’s so funny, esp. when MK’s mates are round. They go on about this, that and the other and we tap our fingers and laugh. MK even said one time, “What’s this finger tapping thing?” and we said, “Nothing,” but laughed.
I told Helen about it which was a real shame and I regretted it because later she was talking to MK about Django Reinhardt (the Belgian guitarist with only seven fingers in total) and, though it started out interesting, it dragged on and on and I wanted to do the finger tap to S&W but Helen knew the code so I couldn’t. Will managed a half-tap thing, which meant the same. But the rule is not to tell anyone about these things. Apart from you. Obviously.
* * *
Dear Vic,
Hope you got pc from Rhodes?
Helen had good knowledge of how to be abroad in that kind of place. For instance, you try to blend in and not wear short shorts but long shorts or a skirt and you don’t smoke except with a coffee or Metaxa. She learned how to say certain phrases (in Greek) just in case, but never needed to use them. Except “Can we share one between us please?”
HH: You have to blend in when abroad.
Me: I did live in France for six months.
HH: But France is France and Greece is Greece and they’re worlds apart.
Which is true.
Rhodes town is the oldest inhabited medieval town in Europe and altogether foreign. The writing, heat and smells, all very foreign. The modesty thing is confusing—on the one hand you can’t really wear short shorts, but there are images of Priapus (Greek god with a huge erect penis) everywhere—key rings, pens, postcards, jewelry, bottle openers, statuettes, shoehorns.
A man told us that every new building in Greece now is left slightly incomplete, usually the roof and plumbing, because when a building’s finished the owner pays some kind of tax. I wish the bloke hadn’t told us that. Helen never stopped pointing out pipes and exposed workings and saying how the tax was ruining the skyline and how people should do something.
Helen put the vegetarianism on hold due to Greece being so limited in veggie choices. We had breakfast every morning at the widow’s café (χήρα καφενείο) where the widow cooked floppy bacon and eggs with bread and honey (μέλι). I wished Helen knew how to say, “Please can you cook the bacon for a bit longer?” But she couldn’t work it out and we decided to put up with it floppy.
The widow had some green herby stuff growing out of a Shell can, which turned out to be oregano, and two hens in an upside-down supermarket trolley called Elvis and Athena (both females).
Walked into the countryside—saw some goats eating watermelons with stained pink mouths. At nights Helen had lots of cocktails and got quite tipsy. One night she confided in me that she feels she let her parents down by not being a doctor.
HH: I feel I could have achieved more for them. I could have been a doctor.
Me: Are they doctors?
HH: No, but they’re bilingual and love opera.
Me: Well, you speak Greek and you’re vegetarian by choice.
HH: I suppose.
Then she went quiet and ate so many pistachios, her thumbnail was bruised the next day.
Anyway, it was all great. Hot sun, nice sea, arid countryside, history, sardines, and cheap sandals. And very foreign, which I loved.
Love, Nina
PS Have got you some worry beads. You fiddle with them when you’re doing nothing and worrying. People fiddle with worry beads a lot in Greece. They find it soothing. It’s instead of biting their nails.
* * *
Summer 1983
Dear Vic,
They came home from France, MK and Will both brown as berries. Sam not brown but glad to be home and back to normal, needed a trim.
Pippa is harvesting carrots and beginner’s veg in the garden with the kids she looks after. She’s surprised we don’t do any (kitchen gardening) here and keeps going on about it.
Pippa: Blah and blah get such a thrill growing their own carrots.
Me: That’s nice.
Pippa: Have you tried gardening with Sam and Will?
Me: They’re too busy. Will’s writing a novel and Sam’s an actor.
Pippa: But they seem to watch a lot of TV.
Me: For inspiration.
Pippa: The snooker?
I was defensive and annoyed but I did also think to myself, “Why can’t I work for a family like hers who enjoy growing carrots etc.?” It’s all telly and books at 55 and no one wants to set foot outside unless it’s to go somewhere. There’s Pippa munching away on homegrown radishes and making little vegetable people and entering fetes and winning Nanny of the Year, while I watch the snooker and loiter in a car park with a ball, some delinquents and Tom Tomalin.
AB came over after supper tonight. Didn’t want any leftover pie. Too excited for some reason. Then left early. I thought he might’ve been dressed up. But his dressed up is the same as his not dressed up, so who knows?
Me: Was Bennett a bit dressed up?
MK: No, he’s always like that.
Me: His collar looked crease-free.
MK: I never look below the chin.
Hope all’s well with you. The R Patel thing is amazing, sad/happy (poignant, like a short story).
Love, Nina
PS Sorry to hear about the prang. The thing to say to yourself about prangs is, “It could’ve been a lot worse,” which it always could (and sometimes is). And it’s all part of the learning.
