Open Writing

Say ‘Hello,’ I often had to urge our unsociable son in his toddling days when he refused to acknowledge anyone who didn’t offer a sweet. ‘I wouldn’t talk, would I?’ he said once, coming out from under his eyebrows after a particularly unresponsive session with an acquaintance.

Daughters, too, are often on the sulky side. ‘Show your pretty teeth to the lady,’ would sometimes instigate a pursing of the lips most unbecoming in a two-year-old. Then, just when their personalities are beginning to blossom into chattiness with all, we have to reverse the process.

‘Don’t stop to talk to anyone,’ we instil into schoolchildren, and, ‘Never accept lifts from anyone,’ we anxiously warn our teenagers. ‘No, not even if you know them,’ we feel bound to add these days.

But learning not to trust is difficult, especially when one has been brought up in an excessively friendly environment. I come from a family where any one who crossed the threshold was automatically entitled to a cup of tea or a dish of water, in the case of animals.

This tea making etiquette caused me a lot of anxiety during our first few years of marriage. When the coal merchant left his first load, I stood behind the kitchen door in an agony of embarrassment wondering which to give him first – his tip or his tea.

When my first workmen arrived to set up quarters for a week while they replaced some gas pipes, I stood talking to the door handle half an hour before I dare open it. ‘Er, do you take . . . ? Perhaps ‘Can I offer you . . .? sounded more experienced.

Actually I needn’t have worried. Dead on ten o’clock the door opened and a friendly voice said: ‘We’ve connected the cooker first, so you can put the kettle on, love.’

Asking intruders to produce their credentials was another agony, especially when the house and its contents still didn’t feel to belong to me. Understandable, I suppose, considering half of it didn’t. A stranger once knocked on our door and asked me how many light bulbs we had. This certainly had me stumped. How many were you allowed? At the time I was a ‘Candid Camera’ addict and, just in case Jonathan Routh was lurking round the corner, I giggled photogenically.

‘I’m from the Electricity Board and I want to see your light bulbs,’ he said sternly. I looked at his soiled mac, the small black case, the pencil behind his ear, but having never seen a light bulb inspector before anyway, what was one supposed to look for? I thought about asking for proof but ‘Show me your credentials,’ sounded a bit cheeky as he was twice my age. So cowardice to the fore, I asked him in.

We stood together under each light while he wrote something in his notebook. After he examined the lights downstairs, I led him upstairs. All the time he observed and scribbled a horrible suspicion grew inside me. And, as there was our baby growing there, I felt pretty choked. At last we were downstairs and almost at the door. Then he made a derogatory remark about my bloated appearance, which I did not find amusing, as it was true. In two minutes he was in the street.

Later I discovered through a neighbour, who had the sense to ring the Electricity Board and check before letting him in, that he was an impostor! They had never heard of him and no one had been sent on such a survey. This was my first lesson in keeping strangers on the other side of the door.

The second came a few years later when we were just discovering the disadvantages of living on the main road. As usual I was pregnant and immersed in my regular occupation of ironing clothes. I was just in the process of scraping the remains of a nylon vest from the iron when a man walked through the open door and asked for a drink. Uneasiness did not really hit me until I was returning with the glass. Walking steadily towards me, hands outstretched, was a tall red-haired stranger, dressed in a smart navy pin-stripe suit and immaculately blancoed plimsolls.

He took the water eagerly, then reached into his top pocket. But instead of an automatic complete with silencer, he produced a sheet of paper.

I managed to decipher the words ‘Hospital’ and ‘Manchester’ before he snatched it back. Ironing the scorch mark on the ironing board cover furiously, I tried to look interested as he described a cartilage operation and even found strength to shake my head when he started rolling up his trouser leg.

Next he limped professionally round the chairs. Then, hovering discerningly like a dog selecting a suitable tree he eventually sank into an armchair.

‘I’ve just walked from Manchester,’ he sighed. ‘Why?’ was the only word I could manage. It sounded stupid even to me, especially when he answered logically ‘No money.’ How much would he take to disappear I was beginning to wonder? My father’s entrance – he had been working in the garden – put new life into our visitor.

He was off down the road with remarkable dexterity for a man recovering from an operation.