lot of undressing and dressing them in a variety of splendid outfits. It was while we were doing this that we noticed that they didn’t have any privates. How did they wee and poo? we wondered. We needed to do some research on this, so Kerry, her older sister Felicity and I all took off our knickers and started comparing parts.
When Kerry’s mum walked in to offer us some orange squash and biscuits, she found us all sitting there with skirts hitched up, bare-bummed. Bizarrely enough, for the only Fellowship girl in the room, I didn’t feel we had done anything wrong. We were just looking at our bits. But Kerry’s mother was very strict and she sent me home. Her reaction seemed a bit extreme and I didn’t understand why she made a fuss. But the main reason I was upset was that it threatened my friendship with Kerry. If her door was closed to me, that would mean no more playing with her pram, tractor and organ.
After that day I would often see Kerry playing in her garden behind her high, wooden gate, and sometimes I got up the courage to knock on her door.
‘No,’ her mum would tell me, again and again, ‘Kerry can’t play with you today.’
Chapter Eight
Trouble with the Neighbours
I suppose my street was typical of many of the calm suburban roads beyond the chaos of the town centre. The trees that lined the pavements were useful to us children for hiding behind when tracking intruders on our territory, and provided an invaluable supply of sticks we used for whacking each other.
I knew most of the neighbours, but of particular interest to me was Jim, who lived in the house opposite ours and had the largest front garden in the street. Jim was a war veteran and it was widely known that he had spent time in Japanese prisoner-of-war camps. This piece of information was passed between the neighbours, with knowing looks from the adults and unsympathetic sniggers from the kids. He was an easy target for us merciless children. With shouts of rage he defended his land and primly painted bungalow against any child or adult who so much as dared to stroll past the white picket fence that controlled the border between friend and foe.
He had almost met his match in me, though. I could also be fiercely defensive. I had good reason to defend my family, I thought. They would not defend themselves as they staunchly avoided confrontation. Having watched Jim reverse his car into Mum’s one day, without so much as a look at the damage, and witnessed him pouring bricks from a wheelbarrow over Mum’s feet, I decided it was time for revenge.
Gathering up as many of my friends as I could find playing out that evening, I laid the plans for the battle. Carefully splitting off the sturdy stems of Jim’s roses, we armed ourselves with rosehips and scuttled back to the protection of the cars parked opposite his house. One by one we ran across the road and flung those hard missiles at his windows. Time and again we watched the lights in his house go on and the curtains pull back. The thrill was superb. And then it was halted abruptly. We had been seen.
‘Lindsey! Come in, now!’ Mum bellowed.
One of the neighbours, Kathy, had rung my mum to say that her daughter was causing trouble.
Game over.
Legitimate revenge was never far away, though. For most people Sunday is a day of rest. But for Jim. Poor old Jim! That was the day that the Fellowship descended on Albion Avenue. Cars casually pulled up onto the kerb outside his bungalow and helplessly he looked on while a procession of men, accompanied by their long-skirted wives, ambled across the road and into our house, from where I watched Jim with a warm glow of satisfaction. Even he could not defend himself against us.
A new rule had come in that said all Fellowship families should, if possible, move to a house that was not joined to any other. But Mum and Dad could not afford to move, so we stayed where we were. Sometimes I thanked my lucky stars that I lived in a semi-detached house.
One evening a sound snaked its way through the walls of our neighbour Kathy’s house and into our front room, where I was sitting with Mum and Dad.
Thump-thump-thump-chukka-chukka.
My ears pricked up, excitedly. Mum carried on with her knitting, but Dad looked up from his paper towards the wall and tutted.
Thump-thump-thump-chukka-chukka.
I quickly got up and went into the kitchen. I knew what to do. I took a glass from the cupboard and crept into the dining room, where no one could see what I was doing, then pressed the container up against the wall. There it was again, but clearer now.
Thump-thump-thump-chukka-chukka.
For a brief moment I let the forbidden music pass through the crude amplifier into my ear and felt good. Then I pulled away.
Returning to the front room to do what I thought was right. I took down the horn that hung from a corner of a shelf.
Thooooooot! Thooooooot!
I blew as hard as I could.
Thooooooot! Thooooooot!
I had let the Devil into my soul and now I had to drown him out. After a minute or two, Mum and Dad expressed their objection to my awful racket.
But I had done it. I had resisted the temptation of evil and felt proud.
Satan was not coming into our house.
Perhaps the Fellowship was right to be cautious about living at such close proximity to the Devil.
Chapter Nine
Bound by the Rules
We all took it in turns to have Fellowship members to our homes on Sundays for a meal. Sometimes we had to have them after the morning meetings for the ‘Break’. I really liked the ‘Breaks’. Sausage rolls, crisps and sandwiches would come out on trays, like a kind of buffet. The other kids and I would run around stuffing food in our mouths as we played. I especially liked the evening meal. If it was Mum’s turn we would arrive home from the last meeting of the day and open the front door to the smell of meat and potatoes roasting in the oven that Mum had left on using the timer. Then it was a rush to get the table laid for ten or twelve visitors.
Mum used the best cutlery. It lived in a wooden canteen that Mum and Dad had received as a wedding present in the 1960s. I loved to open the lid and look at the dull shine of the stainless steel. I hoped that one day Mum would give it to me so that I could feel proud when I entertained the Fellowship.
My place would be set at a little trolley on wheels. If I was lucky, the visitors would have kids, and we would mess around the whole evening while the adults talked endlessly. More often than not, I ended up lying across Mum’s knee, exhausted. I’d drift off to sleep in that position, feeling secure with the drone of voices washing over me.
Mum and Dad groaned when we were told it was our turn to go to the Walkers’ house for dinner and we went with a feeling of dread. Once, a Fellowship member visiting the Walkers for lunch had found a hair in his cup of tea. This news had spread like wildfire through the Fellowship and now no one wanted to go to their house. It did not help that all the family had greasy-looking black hair – it wasn’t even as if the hair in the cup of tea would be clean!
So when I heard that Colin Walker was coming to live with us I was mortified.
This was my first experience of Fellowship members being ‘shut up’.
I had heard that it was a terrible thing, but I couldn’t see why. If it meant that Fellowship members came to stay at our house, well that was exciting to me. Victor’s bed was replaced with bunk beds, which were squeezed into his tiny room. Our house was buzzing with anticipation. We’d never had anyone to stay before. Colin arrived with one suitcase and was grinning madly. To me, a four-year-old, he looked like a huge gangly stick insect, with the Walker mop of black greasy hair on top. I soon grew to love having Colin around and forgot to check for greasy black hairs in our tea cups. From then on, my games became even more adventurous. I had two brothers to tease.
Colin had an obsession with lawn mowers and would bring them home to dismantle in the back garden. Mum was furious about it. The garden was her