What
started off as a Sunday treat has now become a Sunday habit.
When
I was growing up my Sundays consisted of sitting around the house with the
smell of meat roasting. The kitchen was always steamy hot, and my mam, it was
silently understood, should be left alone as she raced around the kitchen with
a tea towel across one shoulder and a utensil in each hand. Sometimes a sharp
knife, so it really was best to stick to watching TV in the living room. It was
usually either Lost In Space, or University Challenge (do you remember when
that was shown on a Sunday lunchtime?). Or Countryfile, when it was dull and
mainly meant for farmers and people who lived in the countryside. Given those
choices my kids would be going mad. But we used to accept it, because there was
no chance of ever having a choice in the matter. Of course, my dad was usually
in the pub, with the other dads. And not just any pub. Porters. A working man’s
club with middle-aged saggy-breasted strippers. This may sound awful, but was
an absolute must in the North East during the 70s and 80s. The working class
North East, anyway. Is there any other? Maybe Ponteland, or Dinnington. They
tend to class themselves as a cut above, but those towns are mainly overrun
with working class Geordies who can now afford an enormous mock tudor mansion
with a swimming pool, decorated in a completely unironic council house style.
I’m talking about footballers, tax-avoiding owners of building companies and
lottery winners.
So,
what started as a rebellion against the idea of reinforcing the stereotypes of
bygone days and adding a bit of spontaneity into our weekends has now become a
habit that is as hard to break.
‘So
are we going to the Chinese buffet after swimming then, Mam?’
It
isn’t a question, merely a statement of fact. That clearly isn’t quite enough
now, so it has become:
‘Can
we go for a look around the shops before we go the Chinese buffet, Mam?’ Of
course, the subtext being will you buy us
something?
Shopping today was a rare
treat. Not rare because we don’t do it very often. Rare, because town was
desserted. I thought I must have stepped into a film location, or a scene from
the Walking Dead. I was listening out for a deathly groan, or some shuffling
footsteps, when instead there was a huge cheer that had erupted from either the
Scotia or the Ship and Royal. Or both. A few weeks ago the Criterion crowd
would have joined the chorus, but now it’s another betting shop. Of course,
derby day. Someone had mentioned it earlier in the week. And somebody else had been
wittering on on Facebook about ‘drinking with the lads’ at eleven o’clock this
morning, and posting pictures of themselves in football shirts and funny wigs.
That godawful noise that came from the pub after the cheer was another reminder
of the childhood traditions that I had chosen to break free of. The continuous
monotone of a football match is enough to drive me to violence. Anyone who
hates football and was forced to endure that noise in a small car for hours on
the way home from some visit or other will understand. It only upset me
slightly less than the teatime pools. So we quickly hotfooted it to the buffet,
which was delightfully empty.
Clearly,
there were only eight people in the whole of South Tyneside who were ‘out
there’ enough to break free from the restraints of the Sunday Roast and / or
the football. And we were four of them. Of the other two middle-aged couples,
the men looked as if they had been dragged there under sufferance.
The
couple that arrived seconds after we did made it clear to the waitress that
they’d rather sit anywhere rather than next to a tattooed woman and her three
kids. So they sat a few tables away and started off by giving us a few unsubtle
looks. A few minutes in I started to think that they had asked to sit elsewhere
so that we didn’t have to endure their manners. Or his. He sucked his fingers
noisily after every Spare Rib, slurped his beer unashamedly and spoke to his
wife with a full mouth of food. Not that I was staring, but it was hard not to
notice when he was making such a foul racket.
So
we tried to distract ourselves by reminiscing about our summer road trip. We
compared roller coaster experiences and laughed about how Sonny had cried on
the log flume. Then we had a good giggle about the restaurant’s music. It’s
usually ‘Dave’s most hated number 1s’ on repeat, with such classics as ‘I Will
Always Love You’, ‘My Heart Will Go on’ and something by Mariah Carey. But
today they were playing recent hits including ‘Country Roads’, Lady In Red’ and
‘Holding Back the Years’ (who doesn’t think of Rodney’s wedding when they hear
that?). I always imagine that the owners of the restaurant asked the wrong
person where to buy English music from when they first arrived in England
(they’re all definitely authentic Chinese, with only a tentative grasp of the
English language between them) and were told to head to the nearest Little
Chef. There they could buy a variety of popular music CDs for the bargain price
of £1.99 each, or 3 for a fiver.
Aftwerwards,
as I was paying the bill, the middle-aged woman of the unsubtle glances came
over. Oh no, what was it? Was she going to accuse me of ruining her meal with
my giggling, three-visits-to-the-dessert-table children?
‘We’ve
been talking about you,’ she started. ‘We were saying that your children are
the best behaved that we’ve ever seen. They just sit there and talk to each
other and never fight. It’s lovely to see.’
At
that very moment Sonny decided to give Clara a shove, who screeched in response
and high-kicked him in the back.
‘Mam,
Clara’s kicking us.’
‘No, you started it, Sonny!’
Excellent timing.
‘See you next Sunday?’ asked the
now-chatty Chinese lady. You have to go there quite a lot for them to attempt
conversation.
‘Yes, I suppose you will.’
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