An unexpectedly early inheritance: poor Aunt Hettie shouldn’t have died so early, and Janine hadn’t considered the implications. However, hearts wear out, and as a result, Janine now owned a largish suburban house and just enough income to enable early retirement from a dull, mid-rank civil service post. Janine stepped out of her job and (at last) from an unsatisfactory marriage, kicking them both aside like dirty clothing. Free!
The house had a lovely garden backing on to a small copse. There was ample time in Janine’s rethought life to take on beekeeping, two hives of bees soon making good use of the garden.
A local food bank was looking for volunteers, so Janine joined the team there. She listened to stories of life at the sharpest of sharp ends: Anwar, whose asylum application had been rejected, worried about keeping his son safe; Marge, on the verge of losing her flat, plus her children were in care. Until she had a home there was little hope of getting them back.
With room in her large house, here were two people she could help. Just two rules, guys: respect others in the house and help out where possible. OK? Come in then!
Over the months three more asylum seekers joined the household: music lovers from Eritrea with a drum, eerie sounding whistle and a string instrument. Meanwhile Marge was negotiating to have her children returned, Afzal was busy with his boy’s schooling and making a fresh asylum claim.
There were rumblings in the post office about foreigners and down-and-outs taking over the area. Janine felt this could be ignored until Ayub (the drummer) reported that social media was confecting a story about weird goings-on at their house. Janine was portrayed as a witch cooking up potions and poisons, her guests were beating drums and singing to summon the devil. A demonstration was arranged to harass the occupants on Friday, at six.
A counter-coup was planned. First, a sign reading , ‘beware, killer bees’ was prominently displayed. Drumming in the bushes, weird sounds on the whistle and tortured notes on the string instrument echoed through the garden.
At six a few people congregated at a safe distance from the house shouting inanities such as ‘witches out!’ and summoning fierce looks of aggravated righteousness. The musical pageant began, the intruders stood firm.
Suddenly Marge flung open the front door and emerged with a huge tray with tea and cake. She made her way to the gate and offered refreshments to the small group of protesters.
‘Welcome, please have a drink to warm you up’.
‘We don’t like witchcraft, and we don’t like foreigners.’
‘Oh, you don’t know what you’re missing ‘ Marge laughed.
‘Why not come inside out of the cold’, Afzal suggested.
There was slight reluctance, but the cake was rather good so slowly the small angry mob became an appreciative group of visitors. One sang ‘Delilah’ with drummed and whistled accompaniment. Soon a shindig was afoot.
