Open Writing

My grandmother organised my birthday party last week.

She is like that. She likes organising, and everybody seems happy to let her get on with it. That is not to say that she is very good at it. By English standards, that is. She doesn’t seem to be able to organise herself very well, but, because I am only fourteen, I don’t suppose that means a lot.

Her flat was probably the best place for a party in any case, because it is in the centre of London and the people she invited live on the outskirts. (Outskirts is a word I have just learnt, so I thought I’d use it here.)

If you are English you may think it strange that it was my grandmother who invited people, not me. It may also surprise you to know that not many of the guests were close friends of mine or even my age. I’ll give you a bit of background to help you understand the situation.

I was born in what is now called Ukraine. When I first started to learn English I was told it was The Ukraine, but nobody says that any more. My parents lived in Zaporozhe, about which I remember almost nothing, except that it was very cold in winter. Then we moved to The Czech Republic. (That’s another thing. Why doesn’t English have a single word, like in Russian: Chekhia? It’s so much shorter and simpler.) When we moved I was upset because I had to leave my school and the nice flat we lived in. Only later did I discover that my grandmother was behind the move. She had moved from Ukraine to England and wanted all of us to join her there - or here, I should say, because that is where we all live now. She couldn’t get us here all in one go, so she decided she had better move us westwards a bit at a time.

I was too young to appreciate all this then, but my father explained later.

But I’m getting away from the birthday party, aren’t I? And that’s what this story is all about.

I knew that my grandmother and my parents, Igor and Natasha, would be there, but I wasn’t certain who else. In fact, it was only a couple of days before that my grandmother (not my parents) told me that there was going to be one. She is like that - not much of a planner, like the English. Something or, perhaps, someone reminds her and she then rushes about doing things.

It was the same with my birthday party. No hand-written or printed invitations. Just a few phone calls. “Come Thursday at seven. It’s Diana’s birthday. We are having a party.”

Yes, I’m Diana. It’s not a Ukrainian or a Russian name, of course, but my grandmother thought it might help to get us to England if my parents could show that they loved the country so much that they had named their first and only child after the most famous princess in the world. It was certainly not my parents’ choice.

My grandmother’s sister, Anna, was the first to arrive for the party soon after I got to the flat straight from school. She and my grandmother don’t get on very well. They are both doctors and they get jealous about the number of patients they have. They don’t work in the NHS because their Ukrainian doctor’s diplomas aren’t recognised here. I like Anna, but I’m not very close to her. She has no children of her own, so she doesn’t really know much about them.

Then David arrived. He is a nice old man, a friend of my grandmother’s. She cured him of something (I forget what) and I think he fell in love with her, although he is very old and my grandmother must be nearly sixty. She put him in an apron and told him to start peeling potatoes and carrots.

My parents arrived next. My father had some office work to do, so he went into another room with his laptop. My mother started to prepare a salad.

Next was Ruben. He is a friend of my father’s from work. I don’t know much about him, except that he’s Jewish.

Then Irina and Simon. She is twenty-one and is technically my aunt, that is she is my grandmother’s daughter by her second husband, not her first husband, my father’s father. Don’t bother to try to remember all this. To me Irina is like a big sister. She’s at university now doing fashion and I go around with her sometimes when I’m not at school. She’s good at make-up and I’ve been photographed showing off jewellery, scarves and shoes. When I’m a bit older I’ll do more of this, because Irina knows the right people in the fashion business.

Simon is her boyfriend. He’s much older than her, about 40, but he looks younger and they are very happy, even though they don’t have much money. He teaches ju-jitsu and goes abroad a lot.

The last to come was Bernard. He’s even older than David and also a friend of my grandmother’s. When she found that he had come by car she put her coat on and said they must go to Marks and Spencer to buy more food for the party. He started to complain. He often does this, but my grandmother never takes any notice and she just pushed him out of the door. When I first came to England he helped me with my English. He can be very sarcastic (which I didn’t understand and which upset me at first), but he laughs a lot and we get on very well.

I had to put on my new party dress, of course, which my mother had brought with her. It is very swirly and flimsy (you see how my English is getting better all the time!) and is cut very low at the front so that quite a lot of my small breasts get shown. My grandmother doesn’t like this (although sometimes she shows quite a lot of her own leathery chest) and wants me to cover up more, but my mother takes my side and they usually have a bit of an argument in Russian. I am never going to have large breasts, I know, because I take after my mother, who is slim and a very nice shape, but I don’t see why I should pretend I have no breasts at all, which seems to be what my grandmother wants.

When I appeared in my new dress, everybody clapped and I felt a bit shy, because everyone was staring at me. This wouldn’t happen if my friends had been invited as guests, but there was nothing I could do about it.

My father was called in to open the bottles of red and white wine for the adults and fruit juice for my grandmother and those who preferred it, and the party got under way.

Then the toasts began.

In the part of the world I come from no party is a proper party unless there are dozens of toasts. I find it all very boring, but I have to put up with it. We had just finished the hard-boiled eggs cut in half with mayonnaise and sprinkled parsley when Ruben proposed a toast to me with all those embarrassing words like “beautiful” and “young lady” and “English rose” and we all stood up and clinked glasses. Everybody has to clink everyone else and David and Bernard felt that they had to check that they hadn’t missed anyone out.

Then, just before the main course, my mother proposed a toast to my father, thanking him for this “wonderful, wonderful daughter” and then lots of stuff in Russian, because her English is still not good. Then my father had to do the same for my mother, but in rather better English. Bernard smiled to himself, because (well, I think this is the reason) he knows that my parents got married because my mother was pregnant with me at the time. Nobody ever mentions this, of course, but everyone knows it’s true.

Just before the Napoléon, which is the traditional Russian party cake, my grandmother proposed a toast to my mother’s parents who had looked after me a lot when I was very little and both my parents were out working. She made a sort of little speech about grandparents and how important they are for bringing up young children and how things are changing for the worse these days and a lot more like that. I heard my mother muttering, but I didn’t catch what she was saying.

After that Simon and Irina disappeared into the kitchen and suddenly all the lights went out and they came in with my birthday cake with fourteen candles on it and there was a lot of clapping and I had to blow all the candles out with a single breath and then make a wish, which I was not allowed to tell anyone about.

Then, when the coffee came round, Anna asked us to raise our glasses again for my great-grandparents on her side (of whom I remember only my great-grandfather, Anna’s father) who were marvellous people and would have loved to be with us.

It was about this time that David and Bernard started looked at their watches. I think I was the only one who noticed this, but I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t really understand whether they had enjoyed the party or not, because, of course, neither is related to me and they must have found all this chatter round the table very boring. I reckon my grandmother thought of the party as somehow hers as well as mine, which is why they were invited.

David gave me a pair of earrings in a lovely box, and my father told me that Bernard had contributed to an iPod, which he is getting next week.

I changed out of my party dress and then my parents and I went home to White City, which is where we live now.

So: that’s my birthday party.

You may say “So what?” and I suppose you’d be right, because there’s no point to this story, except that Miss Middleton says that it shows that my English is coming on quite well. She’s one of my teachers and when I first started school in England she did a lot to help me with the language. She said that I must read a lot and write a lot, so that is what I have always done and I have come to enjoy both. This summer I shall be going back with my parents to The Czech Republic for a holiday and I will be taking notes, like I’ve been told how to do. Which means that I may have another story for someone somewhere to read.