You won't have time to cook lover.

‘I thought Romany meant they were from Rome.

They used to bicker amongst themselves about your brother, “He’s Roma!” “He’s French, look at him!” “He’s Italian, so dark.” “No. He’s Roma.”

“How did you end up there?” I ask, cradling the phone.

‘Ah well. Your father was in the navy. He had married me and brought me to England and we were living with his father in Cambridge. He had lodgers. A woman and her husband. And their boy who I think was autistic. She was lovely, Bridgette, glass eye.  I didn’t like it there. I wanted my own somewhere.  You know?’

I nod though she can’t see me.

‘He didn’t have a TV. We would listen to the radio by the fire. That was okay though.

He said to me one day, “You’re not happy here are you? Come with me.”

I didn’t know where we were going.  The only place we ever went was to his sister and she wouldn’t speak to me. Nor her husband. Nor her son. They didn’t like foreigners. I would have to sit there in silence ‘til it was time to go. Horrid woman. But, you know, it was his sister.

He walks me across the road to this campsite where the gypsies lived and he knocks on a door and an old woman, Nanny Annie, comes out all smiling and says, “Ah, you’re going to love your new home.”

I have no idea what is going on.  Granddad and her take me to this caravan.

“I bought it for you,” he says. “Do you like it?”

He paid forty pounds for it.

I move in and they all come, all of them, with presents and food. I don’t need any food but it’s their way.

“You’ve got a little chavi,” they said.

I said, “No. His name is Sean.”

The first night they sent four girls about my age. Seventeen, eighteen.

“We’ve come to keep you company cos it’s your first night and we don’t want you to be lonely.”

They brought biscuits and cakes. I made endless pots of tea. In those days we used loose tea you know. No teabags then.  We smoked ourselves stupid until three in the morning, talking. Telling me how they lived.  At the beginning I was more friends with the younger people.

A year I was there ‘til Albie knocked on the door. “They’re moving us on. They’re tearing the site down and building houses here.”

I didn’t understand.  This was my home.

“We’re gonna have to move. Don’t worry, we’ll tow you. Wrap your ornaments in blankets and put them in the cupboards.”

We moved up the hill to Fen road. There was a railway track, a river and a big empty site.  They parked the vans in a circle and put mine right by the tap, so I just had to open my door to get water. Yes, we had outdoor taps and gas bottles. We had these little gas lights, like cobwebs really. But when you lit them they were brighter than electricity.

So, then one night, late, one in the morning, I hear this tap tap at the door. And then scuffling. I call out, “Who’s there?”  I hear back, “Your husband.”

I open the door and four men in their boxers are holding your Dad. Arms pulled behind his back, head held back by his hair. He’s so red. He’s trying to punch them all but he can’t move.  Stood there in his navy uniform. He looked like James Dean, your father.

“Do you know him?” Kelly asked.

“Yes! He’s my husband.”

They let him go and pat him on the back.

“Okay, in you go. We’re going to bed.”

And off they go in nothing but their pants. It was a hot summer.

‘How long did he stay?’ I ask. I look over at the black and white photo I have of Dad, about twenty four, tattoo’d, uniform, beer in hand, handsome and moody.

Sometimes a month. Then he would be gone for three. He went mostly to Iceland.  One time he came back and your brother would have nothing to do with him. Kept pushing him away.

“He doesn’t know you,” I said. And your Dad, he said, “Okay, when I finish my ten years I won’t sign on anymore.  I won’t have my son growing up not knowing me.”

Six months later he finished his commission and that was that. I sometimes wish he’d stayed in the navy. Sean would have gotten older, understood, and looked forward to seeing him. And your Dad. He hated the building sites. There was more snow in the 60’s it seemed. No security and so cold.

Anyway. The next morning at six am, your father is sleeping, and the men come and bang on the door.  I open up and they march in and start shaking dad. They give him a bottle of rum, a bottle of whiskey, a bottle of this, a bottle of that.   Then they pull their hair at the front, even the ones without hair, it’s a greeting, a welcome.  And then they march out again.  Dad is lying there stunned. After a moment he shouts, “What the FUCK is going on?”

She laughs.  And she laughs.

‘They are gypsies, I say. They are making you welcome.

I f they’ve got something to give you they walk in and out. They don’t make themselves comfortable unless invited.

Dad went out to explore the site. I watched. They were all patting him on the back. He made friends there. You know he didn’t like people.  They’d reassure him that they were looking after me. 

We used to laugh. Dad did impressions of them. But he could never make that sound though, that ‘choos’.

They were always stealing of course.  But if the police or social services came to the gate – any official car – they’d let all the dogs loose.  They were so trained. They would go out and form a forward facing circle and wait.  Big Alsatians.  I used to tell your brother not to go near them but they never touched children.  They never would. Kelly, Pat’s husband, he said to me, “If one touched a child we would bury it alive.”

I never saw a cat. They didn’t find them interesting.

Zack and Albie roasted a chicken and brought it round. “Here, you won’t have time for cooking lover.”

The way they do things.

Well I didn’t understand it at the time, what they meant.

They called me lover.

I told you how I met your father?’