swanky one.
“What a difference a mile makes,” Mum had said when I took her with me to view the house. I watched her shudder as she took in the greasy pavement covered in gray disks of gum, the corner shop with sheets of security mesh protecting its windows.
“Mum, this is all I can afford. And anyway, I quite like it.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. What can you possibly like about it? The dirt? The homeless? The fact that you’re practically living on the railway line?” Then she got upset because she and Dad didn’t have the money to help me buy a house in our old neighborhood.
I insisted that the trains weren’t a problem. “You can hardly hear them—particularly if the wind’s in the right direction.” Then I launched into my spiel about how good it would be for Dan and Ella to be raised in a neighborhood where the kids weren’t ferried to school in the nanny’s Jeep Cherokee. “Plus there’s real cultural diversity here. They need to know that the world isn’t made up of rich white people.”
“Fine. Let them watch
Roots
or
Gandhi
.”
“Oh, so it’s OK for them to learn about ethnic minorities, but not to live among them.”
“You know I didn’t mean it like that. I may be a lot of things, but I’m not a racist.”
“No. Just a snob.”
“Sarah, you and my grandchildren are living in a poor, deprived, crime-ridden neighborhood. Are you telling me I shouldn’t be worried?”
I informed her that I had done my research and discovered that the crime figures were a fraction of what they used to be. “This is an up-and-coming neighborhood.”
“Who told you that? The estate agent?”
“No. I know for a fact that several of the kids’ teachers lived here. There’s an Italian deli just opened, a great new coffee shop, and the church hall holds judo and gymnastics classes for the kids. There’s even a gospel choir that invites people to join them for a sing-along once a week.”
Mum threw up her hands. “A gospel choir! I take it all back. What more could a Jewish girl want?”
The estate agent’s blurb had described the house as bijou. Mum said “bijou” was code for “suitable for contortionist with growth hormone deficiency.” “Compact” was even worse. That meant you could wash the dishes, watch TV and answer the front door without getting up from the toilet.
Despite Mum’s misgivings about the area, she agreed that the house had a lot going for it. The young couple letting it (while they went traveling) had spent the last two years renovating the place. They’d restored the cast-iron fireplaces, stripped the floors, put in a new kitchen and bathroom. There was only one downside. It was rather more bijou than I had imagined. The entire ground floor was about the size of the kitchen in the old house. I’d looked at umpteen bigger places, but they were shabby student houses. Thishouse was a little gem. It would be perfect—for the time being at least.
Back in the kids’ bedroom, I turned to my son. “So are we agreed? There’s to be no more talk of skeletons and maggots in front of your sister.”
Dan shrugged. “I’m only giving her the facts. Tom in my class told me how bodies rot. He found out from his cousin who’s twelve. He looked it up on the Internet.”
Clearly playdates chez Tom—Dan’s best friend—weren’t the innocent affairs they’d once been. “That’s a mean, cruel thing to do. He knows your dad died and he’s trying to scare you.”
“He didn’t scare me.”
The child was eight. Of course he was scared. Petrified, probably. And now he was paying it forward, bullying his sister the way this older child had bullied him.
“But Ella
is
scared,” I said. “You have to stop. I don’t want any more arguments.”
Dan shrugged. “OK.”
“My daddy’s not a skeleton,” Ella was saying now. “He’s in heaven. He’s with his mummy and daddy and all the angels.” She looked at me. “Do you think he’s still making TV ads in
“What a difference a mile makes,” Mum had said when I took her with me to view the house. I watched her shudder as she took in the greasy pavement covered in gray disks of gum, the corner shop with sheets of security mesh protecting its windows.
“Mum, this is all I can afford. And anyway, I quite like it.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. What can you possibly like about it? The dirt? The homeless? The fact that you’re practically living on the railway line?” Then she got upset because she and Dad didn’t have the money to help me buy a house in our old neighborhood.
I insisted that the trains weren’t a problem. “You can hardly hear them—particularly if the wind’s in the right direction.” Then I launched into my spiel about how good it would be for Dan and Ella to be raised in a neighborhood where the kids weren’t ferried to school in the nanny’s Jeep Cherokee. “Plus there’s real cultural diversity here. They need to know that the world isn’t made up of rich white people.”
“Fine. Let them watch
Roots
or
Gandhi
.”
“Oh, so it’s OK for them to learn about ethnic minorities, but not to live among them.”
“You know I didn’t mean it like that. I may be a lot of things, but I’m not a racist.”
“No. Just a snob.”
“Sarah, you and my grandchildren are living in a poor, deprived, crime-ridden neighborhood. Are you telling me I shouldn’t be worried?”
I informed her that I had done my research and discovered that the crime figures were a fraction of what they used to be. “This is an up-and-coming neighborhood.”
“Who told you that? The estate agent?”
“No. I know for a fact that several of the kids’ teachers lived here. There’s an Italian deli just opened, a great new coffee shop, and the church hall holds judo and gymnastics classes for the kids. There’s even a gospel choir that invites people to join them for a sing-along once a week.”
Mum threw up her hands. “A gospel choir! I take it all back. What more could a Jewish girl want?”
The estate agent’s blurb had described the house as bijou. Mum said “bijou” was code for “suitable for contortionist with growth hormone deficiency.” “Compact” was even worse. That meant you could wash the dishes, watch TV and answer the front door without getting up from the toilet.
Despite Mum’s misgivings about the area, she agreed that the house had a lot going for it. The young couple letting it (while they went traveling) had spent the last two years renovating the place. They’d restored the cast-iron fireplaces, stripped the floors, put in a new kitchen and bathroom. There was only one downside. It was rather more bijou than I had imagined. The entire ground floor was about the size of the kitchen in the old house. I’d looked at umpteen bigger places, but they were shabby student houses. Thishouse was a little gem. It would be perfect—for the time being at least.
Back in the kids’ bedroom, I turned to my son. “So are we agreed? There’s to be no more talk of skeletons and maggots in front of your sister.”
Dan shrugged. “I’m only giving her the facts. Tom in my class told me how bodies rot. He found out from his cousin who’s twelve. He looked it up on the Internet.”
Clearly playdates chez Tom—Dan’s best friend—weren’t the innocent affairs they’d once been. “That’s a mean, cruel thing to do. He knows your dad died and he’s trying to scare you.”
“He didn’t scare me.”
The child was eight. Of course he was scared. Petrified, probably. And now he was paying it forward, bullying his sister the way this older child had bullied him.
“But Ella
is
scared,” I said. “You have to stop. I don’t want any more arguments.”
Dan shrugged. “OK.”
“My daddy’s not a skeleton,” Ella was saying now. “He’s in heaven. He’s with his mummy and daddy and all the angels.” She looked at me. “Do you think he’s still making TV ads in
Similar Books
