When Mike and Jimmy suddenly showed up unannounced at the start of the summer school holidays it felt as if we had been invaded by aliens. Jimmy had been a near neighbour in Liverpool, while his friend Mike was from the infamous Scotland Road, and spoke with machine gun rapidity in an almost impenetrable accent. Both in their early twenties, they had decided to take a working holiday in Australia before resigning themselves to lives of grim predictability and routine, interspersed with brief occasional moments of forgetfulness.My mum, who was only a little older than them herself, and who alone of the four of us was seriously missing England, was unequivocally delighted by their arrival, and insisted that they remain with us for several days.
Neither Mike nor Jimmy had much time for kids, although Mike did occasionally make an effort. “Betyerdedpleezdtheblueswuntheleagueehwack?” he would say, punching me playfully on the arm, aware that I, like him, was, at least ostensibly, an Evertonian.
In truth, however, although Dad had informed me of Everton’s championship success, it was not something that had made all that much of an impression on me. Nevertheless, I agreed politely that, yeah, it was great.
Jimmy, by contrast, seldom if ever addressed me directly, making me feel as if I was either invisible, or else some kind of common, but not particularly useful, household item, such as an egg separator. Instead, he spent most of his waking time in the kitchen with Mum, both of them smoking incessantly, drinking endless cups of tea, and laughing uproariously at shared reminiscences. Sometimes Gwen, Margaret or Maureen would show up, and my mum would revel in the role of interpreter. I especially enjoyed it when Maureen came; she would often bring a stack of 45s, which Mum would play on her recently purchased pride and joy, a new, deluxe, state of the art, Radio-Rentals radiogramme. To this day, I cannot listen to Elvis Presley, Frank Ifield, Johnny Cash, Chubby Checker, Helen Shapiro, Billy Fury, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly or Eddie Cochran without recalling that intimate, somehow almost surreal kitchen scene: Barbara and I on the floor, playing with Lego or toy farm animals or model cars, and the adults at the table, swathed in cigarette smoke, and laughter, and the all too brief shared illusion that life was, after all, worthwhile.
After Mike and Jimmy had departed, I asked my mum, “Why’d they have such long hair? It looks sissy.”
“Because of the beetles,” she replied, but it would be a while before this apparent non-sequitur resolved itself into the seeds of a lifelong salve.
