High on a hill

We went to meet our friend Isy and her baby Beti earlier today, in Crystal Palace where they live.

Although it’s perched high on a hill (with the sorts of views estate agents get moist about) I always feel CP has quite the seasidy feel. I’ve never been able to put my finger on why but today the wind whipped about, forcing me to give up on wearing my cap, and that buffeting in particular reminded me of trips to the sea. There too it is always colder than you expect and the wind always stronger than it is at home.

On a boiling day in London a month or so ago, I went to Brighton with my friend Anthony. With our swimming togs packed, we pelted along the motorway. The car windows were wound up and the hotter we got the more convinced we were that a dip in the briny couldn’t come a moment too soon. The moment we left the car park however we both regretted not having brought a pullover. And when offered an outside table at the Regency for our fish and chip lunch we said we’d rather be indoors, out of the chill, thank you very much.

Anyway.

Little Beti is a beautifully easy-going baby and we all sat in a cafe for a couple of hours and she was more than content. In there we bumped into our friends Helen and Martin and they moved from their table and joined us. How lovely, this all is, I thought. High on a hill that promises the sea, in my bag an extremely expensive pair of sausage rolls purchased in the farmers’ market just down the way, a fabulous independent bookshop a few doors along. I could live here.

Almost everyone I know who lives in London SE19 doesn’t have a proper job and I fantasised about all the coffee that could be drunk of a mid-morning.

Isy was telling us about a short film she’d recently been in where they had had to eat a good quantity of custard creams in one scene. A woman also involved was very unhappy about this aspect of the shoot. She was averse to custard creams apparently and told Isy that she had good reason to be as they stayed in your gut for up to thirty years.

Our conversation meandered about until it reached that apex of middle class worries. What to do with the awful gifts your cleaner gives you?

While I was holding Beti and playing a little game of peekaboo with her, occasionally tapping her on her nose to make her laugh, Isy explained that their cleaner had embroidered what appears to be a toadstool as a present for Beti when she was born. Obviously it now has to be on the wall in Beti’s bedroom and although it’s pretty rotten there’s nothing to be done about it.

“What’s her name?” I asked, always keen on unnecessary detail (see Brighton above). I meant their cleaner.

“Beti,” said Isy.

That’s weird I thought. A Bulgarian called Beti / Betty. Seems unlikely. Isy must have said err … what? Beppe? (My hearing, I’m convinced, is on the wane.)

Beppe sounds pretty Italian to me but who’s to say it might not be a Bulgarian woman’s name, too? Out of everyone around the table, Isy would be the one to know her own cleaner’s name.

“Beppe?” I asked, just to be certain.

Somebody came over to clear plates at that point and, distracted, Isy never answered.

Walking home afterwards, with a gentle horror I realised what Isy must have thought I had been asking. Maybe I’d been tapping Beti on the nose at just that point and Isy thought I was pointing at her instead? Dear god. I texted to apologise for this horrid misunderstanding.

“Oh that’s alright,” Isy replied. “I just thought you said ‘Beppe’ because that’s how you imagined a Bulgarian might pronounce it.”

Racist, as well as crassly indifferent to your friends’ children.

No one ever told me having staff would be this difficult.