New life
Squatters' rites
Zenga Longmore
0 lumba is busying himself in the kitchen having just prepared a dainty array of cold collations. Omalara plays around my feet, re-designing the carpet with a green felt tip pen. Occasionally she scrib- bles on her hand, like a schoolgirl about to take an '0' level. The telly purrs in the corner, depicting a giant pair of waving hands. The Radio Times informs me that Jonathan Miller is attached. I'm not actual- ly listening to what he's saying, but I understand he is busy revealing to the world that small children are capable of learning a language, but he doesn't know how it's done. From ten storeys below waft the strains of teenagers in the street, singing unprintable playground rhymes. If larks were to make their homes in Brixton, I am pretty certain they would not only be on the wing, but singing sweetly outside my window.
Hippy difficulty? Oh yes. Could it have been one week ago that my days and nights were tormented by the sound of my hippy neighbours thumping on the door of their flat, roaring insults to the hippy squatters within?
Oh, by the way, before I forget, may I say a big thank you to all those kind readers who offered to put me up in their homes, and also to those who suggested handy tips on getting rid of hippies who bang on doors: 'smear treacle on the door, then when they bang it, they'll get all sticky' (Mrs A. Basingstoke). Sound advice, but fortunately there was no need to act upon it, because last Sunday morn- ing, Olumba brought word that Mr Wright, the old lady from the ninth floor, had set things to rights. Apparently, she had asked the locked-out hippies where they were sleeping.
'We been gatecrashing punk parties down Railton Road, right, getting stoned and kind of like, dossing out where we lie.' ' 'Well, dearies, the squatters in your flat are having a party tonight. While you were away this morning, I saw them carrying up all manner of ale in little cans. They said that the joint would be jumping at owl light — well, something about a joint, anyway. So, young men, crash the gate of the party in your own flat.' The hippies duly obeyed. By about four in the morning, so Olum- ba tells me, maudlin sounds could be heard from next door's party, and it became apparent that the hippy squatters, and the original hippies had made friends. It was possible that each hippy had forgotten who was the squatter and who was the tenant.
The only trouble is, I now have twice as many hippy neighbours as before. Maybe I should call in Rentokil before the walls of next door's flat begin to bulge and erupt hippies into my living room. I have already noticed a crack in the wall, but Olumba shame-facedly admitted that, during my absence, he had tried to bang a nail into the wall, to hang up a photograph of Uncle Bisi.
'We're going to raze it to the ground.
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