Mister God, This is Anna. Papas

      She made a little screech, looked at me, and grinned and squirmed in closer to me. ‘You wouldn’t!’ she said sleepily.

      Anna’s first summer with us was days of adventures and visits. We visited Southend-on-Sea, Kew Gardens, the Kensington Museum and a thousand other places, most times alone, but sometimes with a gang of other kids. Our first excursion outside the East End was ‘up the other end’. For anyone not familiar with that term it simply means west of Aldgate pump.

      On this occasion she was dressed in a tartan skirt with shirt-blouse, a black tammy, black shoes with large shiny buckles and tartan socks. The skirt was tightly pleated so that a twirl produced a parachutelike effect. Anna walked like a pro, jumped like Bambi, flew like a bird, and balanced like a daring tightrope-walker on the curbs. Anna copied her walk from Millie, who was a pro, head held high, the slight sway of body making her skirts swing, a smile on her face, a twinkle in her eye, and – you were defenceless. People looked and people smiled. Anna was a burst of sunlight after weeks of gloom. Of course people smiled, they couldn’t help it. Anna was completely aware of these glances from passers-by, occasionally turning her head to look at me with a big, big grin of pleasure. Danny said she never walked, she made a royal progress. Her progress was halted from time to time by her subjects: stray pussies, dogs, pigeons and horses, to say nothing of postmen, milk-men, bus-conductors and policemen.

      As we walked west of Aldgate pump the buildings got grander and bigger and Anna’s mouth opened further and further. She walked round and round in small circles, she walked backwards, sideways and every way. Finally she stopped in bewilderment, tugged at my sleeve, and asked, ‘Does kings and queens live in them and are they all palaces?’

      She didn’t find the Bank of England very impressive, nor for that matter St Paul’s; the pigeons won hands down. After a little talk we decided to go into the service. She was very uncomfortable, fidgeting about the whole while. As soon as the service was over we hurried outside and made straight for the pigeons. She sat on the pavement and fed them with great pleasure. I stood a few paces off and just watched her. Her eyes flicked from place to place, at the doors of the cathedral, the passers-by, the traffic and the pigeons. Occasionally she tossed her head in disapproval of something. I looked about me to see what it was that affected her so much. There was nothing that I could see which would account for her mood.

      After some months I could now read her distress signal accurately. That sharp little toss of the head wasn’t a good sign. To me it always looked as if she was trying to dislodge some unpleasant thought in the same way that one might shake a money-box to get the coins out.

      I went over to her and stood waiting. Most times just being near her was all the trigger she needed. The move towards her wasn’t in order to give her counsel. Long ago I had given that up. Her reply to the question, ‘What’s up, Tich?’ was invariably the same: ‘I can get it, I think.’ On those occasions when she couldn’t get the answers, then and only then would she ask questions. No, my reason for moving over to her was simply that my ears were at the ready if she needed them. She didn’t, and that was a very bad sign.

      From St Paul’s we moved off towards Hyde Park. After all these months I was beginning to be rather proud of the fact that more and more I was learning to think along with Anna. I was beginning to understand the way she thought and the way she said things. This particular afternoon I had forgotten, no, not forgotten, hadn’t realized one simple fact. It was this. Up to now Anna’s visual horizon had been one of houses, factories, cranes and a toppling inwards of structure. Suddenly there were the open, and to her, the very open, spaces of the park. I wasn’t ready for her reaction. She took one look, buried her face in my stomach, grabbed me with both hands, and howled. I picked her up and she clung to me like a limpet, arms tight around my neck and legs around my waist, sobbing into my neck. I made all the appropriate noises, but this didn’t help much.

      After a few minutes she took a sneaky look over her shoulder and stopped crying.

      I said, ‘Want to go home, Tich?’ and she shook her head.

      ‘You can put me down now,’ she said.

      I think I had expected her to give one whoop and gallop off across the grass. A couple of hearty sniffs and a moment or two to gain her composure, and we started off to explore the park, but she held on to my hand very tightly. Like any other child, Anna had her fears, but unlike most children she recognized them. And with this recognition came the realization that she could go on in spite of them.

      How can any adult know the exact weight of that fright? Does it mean that the child is timid, alarmed, anxious, petrified, or frozen stiff with terror? Is a ten-headed monster more frightening than an Idea? If she hadn’t exactly mastered her fear, whatever it was, she had got it well under control. By now she was prepared to let go of my hand, to make a little sortie after something that interested her, always looking back to make sure I was there. So I stopped in my tracks and waited for her. She was still a little bit scared and she knew that I was aware that she was scared too. The fact that I stopped whenever she let go of my hand brought forth a grateful little smile of acknowledgement.

      My mind flipped back to the time when I was her age. My mother and father had taken me to Southend-on-Sea. The sight of the sea and the press of all those people was like being hit by a bus. I had been holding my father’s hand when I first had a sight of the sea, and then, suddenly, I was holding a stranger’s hand. I can’t remember very much except that then and there the world came to an end. So I did have some inkling of her fears, whatever they were.

      Her little explorations were slowly bringing things back to normal. She’d return with her usual treasures, different shaped leaves, stone, bits of twigs, etc. Her enthusiasm could not be restrained any longer.

      Suddenly I heard the gruff shout of a park-keeper. I turned, and there she was, kneeling in front of a flower-bed. I had forgotten to tell her to Keep off the Grass. Anna would not have given way to Lucifer himself and certainly not to a park-keeper. Having negotiated one catastrophe, I didn’t want to face another. I ran and scooped her into my arms and stood her down on the pathway.

      ‘He,’ she said indignantly, pointing an accusing finger, ‘told me to get off the grass.’

      ‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘you’re not supposed to be on this bit of grass.’

      ‘But it’s the best bit,’ she said.

      ‘See those words.’ I pointed to the notice. ‘They say “Keep off the grass”.’

      She studied the notice with great concentration as I spelt out the words for her.