Free Blame It on the Bossa Nova by James Brodie Page B

doors by sticking slabs of hardboard over them. After that he demonstrated how to rip out carved ornamental banisters and replace them with ranch style railings, again hardboard figured prominently. It was called progress and he was getting paid for it. I turned the set off.
    “You don’t mind, do you?” I said. “Hitler could have used men like him but I can’t.”
    “I never asked you to turn it on,” she said.
    “Are you hungry?” I asked. She didn’t answer, but as I was very hungry I got up and went into the kitchen. I hadn’t been taking a lot of trouble to keep my larder well stocked. I looked through the torn, broken bit of the perforated zinc front to the meat safe:
    Six medium eggs, about five slices of streaky bacon beginning to harden and curl, an open tin of baked beans and a packet of eight pork chipolatas.
    “Did you ever read ‘Wind in the Willows’ when you were a kid?” I shouted to her.
    “That’s an English story isn’t it?” she replied. It was her way of saying no.
    “Yeah. It’s about a group of animals. A rat, a mole, a toad, a badger, an otter.... their adventures. But my favourite bit in the book is the part where the rat and the mole get lost and find the house where the mole used to live. And they go inside - It hasn’t been lived in for ages - and they improvise a meal out of all the things he’s got stored away. Can you imagine it - this little home, underground, all womb like, and these two little animals making themselves a feast on Christmas Eve?”
    “Why do the English always have animals in their childrens’ stories? Either that or objects like railway engines. Are they that scared of reality?” She had got up and was leaning on the kitchen door.
    “Shit scared,” I said. “Reality’s horrible, hadn’t you noticed? Why bring on the pains earlier than necessary. Reality’s a terminal cancer.”
    “These two animals, were they both men?”
    “Yes.”
    “I thought so. No wonder so many English are bent. It’s not just the public school system.”
    I was getting a little irritated by this blasphemous treatment of a work of literature which I held in such reverence.
    “Yeah, well the reason I mentioned it was because I think what I’ve got in this flat would make their spread look like Fortnum and Masons.”
    “What have you got? I do feel rather hungry after all.” She advanced and I showed her where to look through the hole.
    “It’s very nice, but I can’t see the little animal that’s meant to eat it. What did you say it was, a rat?”
    I found some bread and started the fry up.
    “When you do a meal like this,” I said, “... There’s a secret to enjoying it. You pretend you’re an escaped prisoner - RAF airman in the last war, Bolshevik revolutionary on the run from the Cheka... Whatever gets you going.”
    “FLN freedom fighter on the run from the Paras?”
    “Yeah, that’ll do.... And you haven’t eaten for three days. Then this peasant family takes you in. Needless to say they haven’t got a lot themselves, and at great risk to themselves and at great personal sacrifice they sit you down at their rough wooden table - In the middle of a forest, or the slums of Leningrad - and put this meal in front of you.” I slipped the plate onto the kitchen table in front of her.
    “There you are, sit down. It’s the best meal you ever had in your life. Hold on, I’ll get the HP.”
    She sat down and began to eat as if she really did believe the Paras were about to burst into the flat. It was a strange fantasy for such a fashionably dressed young lady. I made a pot of tea and got out two mugs. I gave her the Elizabeth II coronation mug to complete the effect.
    “There we are. A real building site breakfast.”
    She swigged at the tea like a navvy and I boiled up some more water and re-filled the pot. And as we sat and ate like pigs and swilled the lumps of egg and bacon and sausage down our throats with great draughts of hot tea, the barriers