New life

And so ad infinitum . .

Zenga Longmore

My sister Boko and I had a lot of catching up on gossip to do, for we had not seen one another since a chance meeting at the Notting Hill Carnival.

On that occasion, I had wheeled Oma- lara up Ladbroke Grove with the intention of enjoying what purported to be a chil- dren's carnival.

At first I thought that by an uncanny twist of fate I had arrived at the wrong place, and was now entering a policemen's carnival. From ground to sky the boys in blue swarmed, in vans, on foot and in airships. At any moment I expected to see floats with policemen playing steeldrums with their truncheons, shimmying to the calypso beat.

Then I heard a menacing voice from behind, 'Move along, there! Stay this side of the barrier. Don't you know it's very dangerous to take a child to a children's carnival!' Boko, clad in carnival steward's uniform, was waving her arms at me, like an incensed air raid warden during a blackout.

I wheeled Omalara away, Victoria bound. I had hoped that Omalara would catch the eye of a BBC cameraman and would be the little black baby posed on the shoulder of a jolly rozzer, but it was not to be. Being moved along by my own sister was more than I could bear. Besides, with all those police around, I didn't feel safe.

However, on this occasion, Omalara played quietly round our feet as Olumba stirred the tea in my Brixton flat. A polite knock sounded at the door. It was one of the newly reformed hippies.

'Hey, man, sorry to bust in on you like this, but you have got such a thing as a — like, er — screwdriver? I'm trying to change the lock on my door.'

'Yes, one moment, please. Have you lost your key, then?'

'Er, well, not exactly.'

'People round here only change locks for one reason — if they're illegally squatting,' remarked Boko when the mild-mannered hippy had departed.

'But why should he want to squat in his own flat?'

'Who knows what goes on in the mind of a hippy? Perhaps the pubs are shut and he has nothing better to do.'

Omalara began to peel a strip of wall- paper from the wall, and the subject was immediately changed. Why do I spoil her so much, did I know! was making a rod for my own back, and how could I have allowed my flat to get into such a state in the first place? A normal, cosy conversa- tion between two sisters.

That night, I awoke to a mighty banging coming from next door. Slipping on an old coat, I peeked through the front door. The hippies were trying to enter their flat by the curious means of biffing the door with their shoulders.

'Why?' was all I could manage.

'This is heavy, man. It shows the sado- military power of the 'Thatcherite state — you go away for a few weeks and get squatters! They've changed the locks and barricaded themselves in.'

The hideous truth dawned. My original hippies were as rude as ever but were now outside, not inside. The friendly hippies had been squatters! Any day now I expect to hear that the squatters have got squat- ters. Will this nightmare never end?