Seventy-Five Not Out

Seventy-Five Not Out

Joy put the postcard down, dried her eyes, and stepped out into the East London morning, sun just rising over the trees opposite. It promised to be a glorious summer day and she had to do a few errands, like she'd done almost every day all her life, one of the things that got her up and out in the mornings. At 82 you needed to keep moving. She'd been talking to Sylvie, her friend of three quarters of a century. She'd shed a tear, not because she was sad, but Sylvie had sent her the card with a particularly smutty joke, one far too rude to print here. She hoped the postman hadn't read it. Three quarters of a century and they still made each other laugh.

Joy and Ivy were both born in East Ham in 1938, one either side of Guy Fawke's Night. They grew up in Langton Avenue, one either side of the road, everything ash grey and sombre in that most traumatic of times. Bombed nightly for months, it's a wonder people survived with their humanity or anything intact. But maybe humanity is the only thing we do have, or the only thing worth having.

They met out in the street, which belonged to the kids in the days with hardly any motor cars. Hopscotch, kiss chase, knock down ginger, all the boys and girls played together, all ages, all sizes, as many as thirty of them. Grubby hands, runny noses, dirty pinnies and scruffy shoes. One or two had no shoes. 'But we was 'appy,' they'd reminisce. And they were, despite the war, the austerity, they came through with their humanity, bringing the light of childhood laughter into the parents' troubled world.

Ivy and Joy went through infants and junior school together at Vicarage Road Primary School, still there today, that old Victorian brick building witness to generations of East Londoners. Joy excelled at English, Ivy at P.E. She was so quick on her feet she could even outrun the schoool leopard. Had they young girls nowadays they'd have gone on holiday together, but families in Langton Avenue couldn't afford holidays.

They'd be in and out of each others' houses as they grew up. Dolls and doctors and nurses gave way to combing each other's hair and talking about boys. Ivy got the first kiss behind the bike shed, and Joy was soon after, though not the same boy. They compared notes excitedly and wondered about 'the other stuff.' Nobody talked about you know what. About the only advice they got at home was 'don't you bring 'ome no trouble.' Breathless moments in a fast moving adolescence. It seems fast moving in retrospect, but time could drag, especially on a Sunday. They were so like sisters people used to think they were, and all through their lives they never lost that connection. Maybe it was no coincidence they'd been born in the same street.

Both left Burgess Manor Secondary at fifteen, Joy to work at Burgoyne's the local chemist's wholesalers, Ivy in a match factory. At seventeen they were both courting. Joy swept off her feet by tall athletic, gentlemanly Alan, several years her senior, Ivy by quiet, diligent Jack, who'd patiently spend hours doing thousand piece jigsaw puzzles. Ivy never paid much heed but once she happened to glance at the nearly finished montage and could clearly make out two naked figures in an Arcadian wood, Adonis' head down below, Aphrodite's face aglow. So that's where he got his inspiration.

Through the early days of their marriages, and bringing up their respective two kids, they lived a bus ride away, and despite work, home, children, and the unending demands on a busy mother's time, they always found time for each other. A cuppa in Joe Lyons' 'caff' in East Ham. A walk round the park, little one in the push chair, older one at school. Dinner together at home, the husbands both enjoyed a 'good drink' and the kids played happily, as if they sensed the harmony and closeness around. Which, of course, they did. After a few beers, Jack would do impersonations, magic tricks and tell jokes, most of which were only fit to be told in private. By this time the kids had been put to sleep, two to a bed, different ways up. When there wasn't space you made do.

You don't hit forty, forty hits you, and life deals out its blows. Kids left home, university, the army, the City, Glasgow, good for them but a feeling of emptiness in the home. By now the marriages were wearing thin, all four were 'playing away,' and soon the family cards had been re-shuffled and each had remarried. Ivy was there for Joy and Joy was there for 'Ive,' they knew each other so well it was as if they were the same person. They still had a weekly hour long chat on the phone and met up when they could, but Ivy moved up to Coventry with her second partner Rob.

Joy bought a second home in Spain with her partner Pete. Millwall, not West Ham, and for twenty years they'd spend as much as half a year there, Spain, not Millwall. But while they saw each other less often, the bond wasn't severed. Some bonds never are. They didn't need to talk, although they enjoyed it when they did. 'I was just thinking of you.' 'I knew it was you.' 'I was just gonna give you a call myself.' Grandchildren came along, the love both felt when hey caught the light in their eyes, the joy in their innocent laughter was, they agreed, more than they could ever deserve or wish for. All that heaven will allow.

Sitting in the garden one day, four year old Kevin on her knee, Ivy was explaining how trees grow, when a coldness pierced her heart. 'What is it, Nanny?' She didn't tell him but she knew. Rob's dicky heart had given out after a lifetime giving, and as the two old friends stood at the graveside, another of life's stages had shifted to the next one, as it does. When it's ready. Joy brought solace to Ivy, who battled her loneliness bravely, thankful for the light her five grandchildren brought to her. Joy, no longer travelling to Spain made it up to Coventry several times a year, and one night over a bottle of red, as Ivy sat down with their refills, they thought back to those early days. What had happened to the other kids they'd grown up with? A few passed on, a few moved away, most a mystery.

“But we're still here, eh, Joy?” They raised their glasses. In the background, applause came from the cricket on TV.

“A scintillating stroke there from Root, as he moves to seventy-five not out.”

Just like us, eh, Ive?”

For my mum, Joy Coulton, and Sylvie Roberts