A Trip to England (Part III)

There are moments in your life that cloud things; that make things seem so difficult to comprehend that you just do not deal with them in a way that would seem proper. I was given that photograph of my half-sister and kept it hidden in a drawer from any curious eyes in my house. I did not mention it or even hint at it until my mother confessed that she knew all about her and we both realized that two lies were living in the same house. As I think about that scene between us, I realize that I would not believe it if I had heard about it from a friend (not even the film studios of Hollywood could have imagined such things). But it was too real and made me more aware of what was true and what was imaginary. I paid more attention to the racist graffiti I saw on an embankment wall as we travelled to a cricket match (contrasted with a wheat field that appeared like liquid gold, it was startling to see an attitude so honest). I noted that fruit sold in the markets came from South Africa. This was during apartheid and I made a point of buying a t-shirt that recommended that one Boycott South African Goods. I then looked carefully around that neighbourhood. Cramped homes, grey weather, narrow and mugger-friendly lanes and walls, appalling programs on TV (comedy specials seemed to have to volume of the audience turned way up for the weakest jokes) and I have already commented on the food.

What did this add up to? I pronounced England – to myself alone – as a culture with its own frustrations and unseen turmoil. There were problems specific to the nation that I just could not understand (political, sexual, aesthetic) and I felt hemmed in by them. A Canadian living in England experiences many of the same problems that other continentals feel. Many years later, I read an interview with Germaine Greer where she described her difficulties with the English. She mentioned how her gestures were too large for them and how she felt unimpressed by their titles and sense of deference towards people who held such things. I mentioned how I was unimpressed by most of the famous places and names I encountered and it was through that interview that I understood why that was the way I felt. I needed to see more than just cramped apartments and a one-day trip to the only field outside of the dirty public parks in the city that seemed presentable.

There was some luck in having relatives in Kent (near Wimbledon). I stayed in a home in Kent for the last two weeks of my stay and it was near perfect. Milk was delivered in bottles door-to-door; I met well-off West Indians who did not complain about how difficult things were for them because they had overcome the obstacles in their society. Added to this, they were not pretentious. I thought that this would be a problem with upper-middle class people, even the relatives from a community that I was learning to understand.

One relative, a man with a very bad stutter, enjoyed making up his own rhymes as a rapper (his manner of speaking did not have much of an effect on his rapping); I stayed in a room filled with journals written in a particular coded language (I now apologize for being so nosy). I once tried to cook some food in their microwave, setting off the fire alarm with the smoke that soon appeared. This was laughed off and I had a long laugh with the father of the home. I could not imagine this happening at the first home I stayed in. I felt free and comfortable enough to move through the neighbourhood without feeling a vague threat that I could not have named.

I did not stay long in this middle-class home. I felt that I had to go back to Plaistow for that final week and stay with the family that took me in first. This was a serious mistake on my part. If I had stayed with my relatives in Kent, I would have had a pleasant conclusion to my stay in London. Instead, I went back. This led to a fight over a gift for my mother. G. wanted me to bring home a ceramic sculpture in my luggage; I argued – very sensibly, I thought – that it would be reduced to shards by the time I got it home (even if it were wrapped in paper). The argument took place on the street near her sister’s home and she never forgave me for this. It was her very ugly attitude that accompanied me to the airport.

Did I learn anything during my stay? Did the time I spent in another country change me or how I saw myself, my family and friends, my world? I would answer “Yes”, if I now think about the way I behaved – my sense of things – after the return home. There were types of art – music, painting, literature, etc – that I learned to appreciate more than I could have been expected; I respected the amount of space I had around my home and the sense that I was not enclosed in an environment that drew boundaries around various neighbourhoods; and I saw that a life of complaining and whining was not enough (a significant thing to discover as a teenager). Apart from the general, there was also the specific: London was the first place where I travelled alone on a subway (this was also significant – a new form of travelling and seeing the world). This taught me that I had strengths and weaknesses that I did not know I possessed. It was the moment when I learned I could travel by myself and that I would not need to be with anyone in order to enjoy whatever journeys I found myself on. I was alone and saw that as an appropriate way of living and being. This has stayed with me since this trip and has never gone away.

Do I regret anything? Very little comes to mind. I have not spoken to G. since staying in her home. I wrote her a letter once and received one response that seemed forced to me (I had tried to apologize with my letter). I did not pursue a relationship with her, although my mother has mentioned how she wants to know all about my life now. I wonder why.

There is also the half-uncle who introduced me to my half-sister. I wrote a letter to him long after I had met her and was finally given an address that was reliable. He has never responded to me and I do wish that he would send me some sort of message. There is a history there that I do not know and wish to learn. This I regret. I should have gone to Kent first before staying in the cramped apartment in Plaistow with G. As a newly-arrived guest in London, it would have been easier for me to step down than to step up from the home I stayed in (my temperament would have allowed it). But this is not a serious regret. London opened my eyes to a lot of information about an important capital city; its people and habits; specifically, my own family. Most important to me, of course, was the half-sister. From a photograph to a real relationship, this provided the greatest gift I would ever receive in my entire life. We would eventually meet...but that is another story...