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Buns on Saturday.

I woke up to the sound of Mum coming back from the shop. She dumped the bags and I heard her jump over them to scuttle quickly to the bathroom, bash the door, wittering to herself, and just preventing an embarrassment in her tight jeans. I wandered down the twirly stairs, in my pastel green nightie, that rubbed together to make sparks in the dark, to see what treats Saturday shopping had brung.

(‘brought’, said my brain, ‘whatever’, it said back.) 

Mum opened the bathroom door. I tipped my head, like our wee jack, Sally, eyed her with my one awake eye, my left one still asleep, as was usual. 

“We’re making buns” Mum said, with a firm resolve voice I recognised. There was more to this than bun making. My curiosity peaked, I took care of my abloutions and nipped to my room to get my RaRa skirt on. It was grey and magenta striped and it swished in all the right ways when I spun around. I had the big room because I was the oldest and I always wanted the wee room, but not today, spinning round on my tippy toes, leg warmers twisting. I was ready to hear the mission. I sashayed to flare my skirt and watched it all the way down the stairs. This was such a great skirt. 

All the ingredients were lined up ready for bunning, mum had fed the dog, made coffee and was having a Berkeley red out the back. Her pink lips and matching nails looked cool as she puffed. 

“The buns aren’t all for us” there was that firm tone again. (Where’s this going said me to me)

“Oh?”I offered, aloud.

“A new family have moved in over in Priory Avenue and we are going to welcome them.”

“Why?”

“Because they might need some friends round here and they are right beside the bonfire field,” mum explained. 

“Oh, I see, are they Catholics like us then?” This was a perfectly valid question in 1988 in the White City estate.  

“Shhh…no, well, yes they are, but it’s not quite that, never mind, just run up and get your hair brushed,” she whispered. 

We made the buns and put them in a quality street tin, walked up our street and past the bony hut. I eyed it covetously. I longed to play in it, no matter what it stood for, but I wasn’t allowed to, by Mum and Dad, (only little sluts hang out at the bonfire..said my brain- I had heard her say this, harshly, only the week before). We got to the end of the street. She handed me the tin, then turned me gently by the shoulders and crouched down to look me straight in the eye, her tiny bony hands cupping my ball like joints. 

“It is always important to show that you are there for people if they really need you, Clare.”

She licked her two indexes and smoothed my eyebrows.I shuddered in disgust but kept my face still so she did not have to do it again. We continued and when she knocked the door we stepped back off the doorstep, out of respect. Mum stood behind me, hands still on my shoulders and as the door opened the hugest man I had ever seen beamed down at me. (‘he’s even bigger than daddy’ said my brain.)

“Hallo,” he boomed and grinned, greatly. I liked him immediately, but his teeth were so white I wondered if he ever ate buns. 

“Beverly, Nadia, come and look we have visitors!” his voice was bassy, like Daddy’s records.

I held out the tin, mutely.

“We just wanted to welcome you to the neighbourhood, so we made some buns. Hello there”. Mum was nervous, I could tell that by her annunciation. (‘Annunciation is a great word’ said my brain) 

A little girl was peeking out from behind her mummy’s very bright skirt. She was extremely beautiful, she had brown eyes like me, which was rare, and her hair was jet black and all braided a special way (I want Mum to do my hair like that, it’s cool, my brain said) She was too small to be a proper friend but I could totally take her for a walk, she was very cute and all my friends would want to hold her and touch her hair. 

I crouched down on one knee, like mum had done with me, and looked at the tin to find the lip of it. Then, I looked straight at her and watched her eyes widen with delight as i popped it open and she saw the sugary treasure I had brought. 

I felt proud that we had come, Mum didn’t welcome everybody who moved in like this so they must be important people (that would be it, my brain mused). The Mums said words above us and little Nadia stretched out her shiny plump hand for a cornflake cake. She liked me already. For years after that Mum and Beverly would talk, for what seemed like an age, every time they met. I was always bored waiting. It never seemed important to me.