Today I was assailed by a group of young boys in the park, who attacked me with water bombs. I couldn't be bothered to move and my brain wasn't working fast enough to react anyway, so I watched, as if in slow motion, as two landed on the ground by my feet, and one popped against my knee, splashing soggily into my shoe. 'Good shot!' I thought vaguely, as I watched them run up the slope behind the slide.
I felt I should reprimand, respond, do something, but I wasn’t sure what to yell. It was bloody cheeky, but not the worst behaviour I’ve witnessed by a long shot. Babe took my silence as compliance and shot up the slope after them, the traitor, so I had to move my sticks and stones and get up there after him. Sure enough my soggy shoe slipped and my nose grazed the turf. My handy shopper did a 180 degree turn and my keys, mobile, purse etc. slid down onto the woodchips at the bottom.
Should I follow Babe, or gather my valuables? He was nearly out of sight, so I bolted after him (he’s only two, but bloody hell, he’s fast) and lo and behold the little buggers completed a circle and grabbed my… cheesy oatcakes, and made off with them.
Whatever! I don’t understand why other people in the park didn’t do something. Perhaps they were all catatonic through lack of sleep as well.
I seem to attract random and slightly ‘off the beaten track’, shall we say, incidents with small groups of eleven-year-olds.
This happened a lot during my university years. I was regularly harangued by one such small group of boys who hung out on a bridge round the corner from a flat I lived in, in Cardiff. The kind of kids who called you a ‘tight bitch’ if you gave them a mere 50p for the guy on 5 Nov, despite the fact that you were broke and saving a quid to call your mum with at the weekend. On my graduation day, another asked my step-father for a tissue which he managed to produce and then had it shoved back at him because it apparently had ‘huge greenies’ in it.
One evening I was walking in the dark to somewhere or other with my green umbrella. My granny’s. It had a long handle, not a modern folding jobby. But was smallish and stylish and I loved it. (Have sadly lost it but I digress.) As I walked up the steps and onto the bridge, I saw an eleven-year-old approach. As we reached one another, instead of stepping to one side, he blocked my way. And grabbed my umbrella. I wasn’t going to let go of it easily so we both held on, two hands apiece, staring at one another. I don’t know why neither of us said anything. It was quite a tense and physical stand-off. I remembering wondering when it would end, but was concentrating on maintaining my grip of steel.
Suddenly, he grabbed both my breasts. One in each hand. And squeezing them, shouted, ‘Beep, beep!’. Then ran off.
What a nerve! What a cheek! But at least he’d left me with my brolly.
Now that I think about it, a very similar incident happened in Barcelona, where I also spent a year as a student. Except that the intruder, so to speak, was a tall, greasy and very fat eighteen-year-old. I saw him lolloping towards me along the pavement, but didn’t expect him to grab my boobs as he continued past me and on his way.
As I am blonde, I expect he took me for a tourist and did not expect me to yell in fluent Spanish, ‘You perverted son of a gun! Stop that pig, someone!’ (“Pig” being an appropriate expletive given the context, in Spanish. I appreciate that it does not sit very comfortably in English.)(Ignore the 'son of a gun' bit, I'm exaggerating about what I said.)
He probably even less expected that I would give chase, which I did, shouting as I went so that a straggling line of pursuers joined me in my quest. Eventually he ran, panting horribly, into a square that had no exit, and stood, sweating and heaving behind the central fountain, which as it happens was a cast iron naked beauty.
‘What did he do?’ yelled an accompanier as they arrived and gathered round. All men, incidentally, and all panting too. I was trying to work out what I was going to do next.
‘Did he take your bag? Your wallet?’
‘No! He grabbed my breasts!’ I cried.
This met with confusion.
‘He grabbed your breasts?’
‘Yes. And now I’m going to sort him out!’ I threatened, moving towards the centre of the square.
Two of the men grabbed me. Another told the boy to run off. When he had disappeared, they let me go. By heck, I was angry. Perhaps they were saving me from myself? I think about that incident, trivial as it may seem, when I read of people who have a much harder fight for justice on their hands, and are not heard, do not have their rights respected, and worse.
But… back to Cardiff, and I was intending that this should be a happy, humorous entry.
One evening I was sitting alone in my flat, some time in November, when the intercom rang. I pressed the button to ask who it was, when two eleven-year-old voices burst into song. Quite quiet and somewhat pitiful and I couldn’t help but imagine that they were desperate for cash and the victims of abuse.
‘Once in royal David’s city…’ they droned.
I didn’t feel I could interrupt.
They continued. A full three verses. Perhaps they expected me to interrupt. My finger on the buzzer was sore. I had to imagine their pale little faces.
At the end they stopped and one coughed.
‘Hold on, I’ll be right down!’ I said, and ran back into the living room to find them some cash.
I didn’t have any. Or any crisps or biscuits. Half a cold cheese and onion Gregg’s pasty wasn’t going to cut the mustard. My last two Silk Cut (those were not the days)? Nope… All I had was two apples. I walked downstairs slowly and with embarrassment and went to hand them over.
But then realised they were just two of the bridge lads, blagging what cash they could out of people.
‘Oh, sod OFF!’ I said.
One winked and the other showed me his tongue, then laughing, they ran off.
Perhaps I'll dream about my Uni days tonight. They seem as long ago and as far away as they now are. We've all had a sick bug over the last few days (OH had to spend all today in bed, BTW, although he is sitting quite happily on the sofa watching X Factor and eating a sandwich as I write this). How I long for just a bit of tickety-boo normality. As least the kids are in bed and my mum is coming to stay for a few days tomorrow to help me get some stuff done.
Buenas noches...
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