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Some years
passed, and I returned again to London. I lived in a particularly dingy and
poorly lit basement room at St Johns, near Lewisham. I was told that the room
had previously been let to a black gentleman, who had rarely ventured out during
the whole of his three year stay. He had been studying the whole time for a law
degree, which he apparently achieved, and who then moved out. He probably found
solitary confinement ideal for exploration of the legal system, with its
statutes and precedents.
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Ike and Millie lived nearby. It was Ike who found me the room. The landlady
sometimes employed him for repairs to her building, and I did the odd
woodwork job for him. I remember being in the middle of making a pair of large
wooden gates, when I could see my mate Dennis coming up the lane. Exasperatedly
he shouted,
"Oh, I'm
finishing! He's beyond. I just can't believe that
man's antics!"
"Whose?" I
shouted back.
"Your
Ike! You know the conservatory he sent me to re-glaze? Well! I got as far as the
round panes at the end, when he came rushing in from nowhere with these daft
strips of hardboard. He climbs up a pair of steps, bends a strip to the shape
(Dennis held out his arms to demonstrate), comes down the steps with the strip
still bent, careful so as not to alter the shape, lays it on a sheet of
hardboard and shouts, 'Quick Den. Mark it! Mark it quick! It's the pattern for
that last pane of glass!" |
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