The Street
I wonder if your street is as quiet as mine these days. It’s quiet like it was when me and my young family moved in thirty years ago. Kids played on the street: chase; bikes and scooters; footie. The street changed, of course. Kids grew up. Cars, vans and lorries grew more numerous. The street got busy and dangerous. The street thinks it’s an avenue, but it’s a street, a fine street and a busy one. But not now.
There is a junction with a major road, then a radio station on one side and a housing association complex on the other. There is a triangle of trees and grass, showing signs of early Spring growth, in the ironically pleasant weather.
After the radio station and the housing association complex, there are semi-detached family homes, built soon after World War 2 and containing the first indoor toilets at the time, so I’m told. They’re on one side, while the original terrace climbs the other, with two small streets of terraced houses off. There used to a shop at the start of the terrace. I remember a butcher had it, a well-known local runner, who did a good line in sausages and bacon for the weekend fry. The street rises and at the top there is a doctor's surgery on the left – it used to be a church for a Brethren community – and opposite, there is a much-used corner shop.
My street is bounded by one of the city’s arterial routes; by an avenue that leads to a great park and by another road that is named for an academy. There are shops, bookies, take-aways, hairdressers, pubs, cafés, a mini-mart and a terrific local vegetable shop, within walking distance. This is, as the French say, my quarter. Mon quartier. Or as they say in LA, this is the Hood. My neighbour-hood. And I am one of the neighbours.
A handy number of us neighbours stood at our doors last Thursday night at eight o’clock to applaud health and other essential workers, currently bearing the brunt of the burden of these times. It was dark and mild, calm and peaceful. Myself, and other neighbours and families, fidgeted about until I started clapping. Other people started clapping too, probably before me.
I saw a woman, at the top of one of the side streets. She clapped and held up her camera, as if she was at a party. The man next door, himself a health worker, clapped and waved. Two women, who live further up, clapped over the hedge to the people next door. Someone let out a whoop. Halfway up the terrace a woman held a torch and shined it about. I could see forms and silhouettes, in pairs and family groups, all separated and all joined, in the dark, in the action and in the moment.
A white saloon car drove by. The driver held his phone out of the window, taking video. It was an event he wanted to remember and to share. I am on facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, twitter or some other digital nowhere, standing at my front door, one of a two-person household, clapping and grinning. I am lost and preserved in the cloud.
The best moment was when the clapping stopped. People stood about, quietly chatting or calling across the street to each other. Then, four houses up, two pairs started clapping again. I thought – is it not over? There was someone outside the hedge, with a phone, taking video. The clapping was for the health workers again and this time it was for the camera. Like an encore. The clappers were so good the first time that their audience – and with camera phones and the internet, that means people in many parts of the world – their audience wanted to see the show again. Who knows, the people four houses up might go on tour?
Then it was over. Really this time. Everybody went in. Households shut up again. Street lights stayed on, but only to illuminate the quiet. The street was empty, like a crystal vessel, delicate and fine, ready to be filled with the red wine of life. But not yet. The clapping filled it briefly. And it will be filled again, when neighbours spill onto the street again, busy making it busy.
Broadcast on BBC Foyle, The Breakfast Show, 30.3.2020
Available on BBC Sounds
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