An Extra-Ordinary Beginning, Page 3

  Chapter 3 - Parents Pet Project

  A black crow circled over Ursula’s head before landing on a broken CCTV camera only a few metres from where she stood. It stared at her through its beady, dark eyes and gave a loud squawk.

  Even the birds have attitude in les banlieues, thought Ursula and tried to scare it off. The crow refused to move and continued to stare.

  It hopped towards her and challenged her right to be there on the roof, eight floors above the ground.

  “I’ll only be a minute,” Ursula told the crow.

  Apparently satisfied with this statement it flew away over her head. Ursula followed with her eyes as it passed over her neighbourhood and towards the Stade de France.

  Despite being only half a kilometre from Ursula’s home, it was another world away. The stadium was covered in advertising boards and was made of the latest materials all welded and concreted stylishly together. It was an arena which people flocked to and marvelled at. When people saw Ursula’s neighbourhood, les banlieues of Saint-Denis, they were just relieved that they did not live there and beat a quick retreat.

  Ursula lived in a seventh-floor apartment on a square of four-high-rise blocks. It was a concrete cuboid embedded with small windows, balconies that rarely saw any sunlight and passageways where lights, if they were working, were permanently on. None of the CCTV cameras which watched these areas worked and, like the blocks themselves, they had been painted grey.

  The occasional flashes of colour, on these crumbling urban tombstones, were impressive pieces of graffiti that belonged to unknown nocturnal artists or flags of the residents’ home countries. From numerous windows proudly hung the flags of Algeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Congo, Djibouti, Guinea, Cote d’Ivoire, Morocco, Togo, Tunisia, Zaire and more. To residents they were colourful symbols, which brought welcome relief from the oppressive and overbearing grey. To middle class Parisians who walked past, on their way to the stadium, they were viewed as warning signs telling them to stay away. Ursula liked the flags, could name them all, and was proud of the fact that so many different nationalities were present in her neighbourhood.

  Enclosed by these high rises was an outside communal area set in concrete. It had a basketball net woven from metal chains, and around it were patches of green. Three trees continued to survive in spite of the amount of engravings on their trunks, and under them were several broken benches. Ursula knew that there were better places to live, but she loved the area anyway, and it even had its own soundtrack. As she stood on the roof, she could hear Arabic Rai, Euro Pop and French Rap echoing between the blocks.

  On the corner of her building, she had painted a little, white cross overlooking the communal area. She approached like a panther, bent down and placed her hands firmly between the cross and the edge as she kicked her legs in the air. The world turned upside down. She gazed momentarily at the building above the sky, before swinging her legs down and gripping the edge tightly. Her body turned through one hundred and eighty degrees; she let go and landed almost silently on a balcony below that was completely covered in lush green plants.

  The plants emerged from numerous yoghurt pots on the balcony’s ledge, from old plastic buckets on the floor and burst footballs hanging from the ceiling. Amongst them all, in a large, flowery dress and with a watering can in her hand, was Ursula’s Grandmother Benjamin or Mémé, as she liked to be called. She was a short woman shaped like a pear with the largest bottom in the block. Her black hair was wrapped around baby blue curlers, and she looked decidedly unimpressed.

  “Salut, Mémé,” greeted Ursula and smiled meekly.

  “I’ve told you not to jump down onto the balcony. You will get yourself killed,” she scolded in her thick French African accent. “Where have you been anyway? You have been away a long time!”

  “Pardon Mémé, I was enjoying the weather.”

  “At least someone is. I’m hotter than a burning coconut. It wasn’t even this hot when I lived near the equator.”

  “I know, you keep telling me.”

  “You have been enjoying it for a whole afternoon. The pharmacy is only over the road,” and she pointed into the distance.

  “It was closed,” lied Ursula. She hated herself for saying this but continued truthfully, “I had to go to another one.”

  Mémé clasped her rough hands around the battered watering can and looked at Ursula with eyes that had seen it all. She knew Ursula was not being completely truthful. However, the girl had been brought up to know the difference between right and wrong, and she did what she was told without complaint.

  “Well, at least tell me you’ve got Granddad Benjamin’s medicine.”

  “Yes, it’s here,” and Ursula pointed to her pocket.

  Mémé’s face softened and, still clasping the watering can, she waved Ursula towards the balcony door with her fleshy arms. Ursula squeezed between the plants and her grandmother. As she passed, she gave Mémé a quick hug before being shooed away by the smiling old lady.

  The balcony door led directly into the living room, and Ursula stepped inside onto the orange paisley carpet. Instantly Mémé appeared in the doorway.

  “Take off your trainers, ma cherie. I’ve just cleaned.”

  Ursula sat down on the brown and beige sofa to remove her shoes. She placed them on the mat next to a huge, old television with a small screen. As she stood up she admired the random trinkets in Mémé’s glass cabinet. These included five blown glass animals, a wind-up clock standing on a CD which they had never played, Kinder egg toys and china ornaments. The trinkets and the furniture were all much older than Ursula, but the room was spotlessly clean, and everything had been carefully looked after.

  Ursula walked through the living room; past the white Formica table and chairs, past the kitchen and into the short hallway. This led to the other three rooms in the flat: the bathroom, her room and her destination, her grandparents’ bedroom.

  It was dim in the room, but she could still see her Granddad who lay fast-asleep on top of the yellow, nylon sheets. He was wearing a string vest and faded black trousers held up by green braces. A thin beam of sunlight from a crack in the purple curtains bounced off his bald, ebony head and lit up the glass on the bedside table. Inside it, covered in water, were his dentures. One day, when she had money, Ursula wanted to replace these with a pair of wind-up teeth. The thought of them in his mouth chattering away uncontrollably often made her giggle, and she knew he would chuckle at it too. Granddad Benjamin had the best and loudest laugh in the world. It was a roaring laugh which everyone found infectious. Unfortunately, he also had the worst and loudest snore in the world. A trumpet blasting snore which could have been put to better use warning ships in fog. Ursula decided to save her ears. She sat softly on the end of the bed, away from the noise, and took hold of Granddad Benjamin’s naked left foot. Gently, she shook it until the old man woke up.

  “Hello Granddad,” she said, “I’ve brought your medicine.”

  Ever since Ursula was a baby Granddad Benjamin had only spoken English to her, rather than French, and he expected only English to be spoken back. He had told her on numerous occasions that he had been made to learn English, French plus his own language. His view was that if he could learn three then he was sure she could learn two.

  He raised his head to look at Ursula, smiled a gummy grin and replied, “Fang oo, dear.”

  “Put your teeth in Granddad.”

  “Solly.”

  He sat up and in one movement took his teeth out of the water, threw them in the air and caught them skilfully in this mouth. Once again he smiled but this time his teeth were at right angles to where they should have been. Ursula laughed, and he waved his hand in front of his mouth until he revealed a beaming crescent moon of a smile. Granddad Benjamin was full of little tricks and, even though Ursula had seen them many times, she still didn’t know how he did them.

  “Hand it over then little miss,”
he said with a smile as he put out a calloused palm.

  Ursula retrieved the box from her pocket and asked, “Will I get your illness, Granddad?”

  “Oh no, I suffer from a problem only men and normally only old men get. With better medicine, I wouldn’t be so bad but these are the best for now,” and he shook the box. “But you are trying to distract me. Where is my change?” he asked gently.

  Ursula sighed, removed the twenty Euro cents from her pocket and handed it over.

  “Is that all?”

  “I bought some bonbons,” she lied.

  “After running around for your Granddad I’m sure you deserve them. But don’t tell your Grandmother!”

  Ursula smiled with relief and promised she wouldn’t. She hated lying, but she felt she really had no choice. Granddad Benjamin needed the medicine, and it was her job to get it for him.

  Since Granddad Benjamin had developed his mysterious illness, and Mémé refused to leave the flat without him, Ursula had inherited all the outside chores. Primarily, this meant shopping and going to the pharmacy for medicine. At first, it was difficult for their weekly allowance to stretch to both, but Ursula learnt to shop around. She soon found the cheapest shops for different items and used her keen mental mathematics ability to make it work. However, when prices rose during the financial crisis this quickly became impossible.

  Ursula’s grandparents were not economically minded and could not understand it. Even if they could understand, they did not have enough money to change it. As a result, Ursula was forced into an impossible situation - either get Granddad his medicine and have no food, or buy food and deny him his medicine. Neither was a good option so Ursula, even though she knew it was wrong, chose a third way. She was thinking about this when Granddad Benjamin playfully hit her with a newspaper.

  “Hey daydreamer, take a look at that,” and he thrust a tightly folded paper into her hand.

  Ursula took it, opened it out in front of her and scanned the front page. It was the previous day’s Le Monde, which a neighbour always kept for her Granddad. The headline announced, ‘Hailstones Destroy Vineyards’ and Ursula was not interested enough to read on.

  “What’s the big deal?” she asked, scratching her head.

  “Not that,” said her Granddad and shuffled up the bed to sit beside her, “but this.”

  He opened the paper to page 3 and tapped a full page advert repeatedly with his finger until Ursula started to read it.

  WIN 10,000 EURO!

  10,000 Euro prize money will be given tax-free to anyone in Europe who can solve this puzzle!

  She glanced briefly over the puzzle and then read below:

  All entries should include name, age and address and are to be received within seven days of publication at the following address:

  WIN 10,000 EURO PUZZLE, BP 1357911, FRANCE

  In the case of a draw, please include a similar puzzle you have written with its solution.

  “So, what do you think?” Granddad Benjamin asked. He was barely able to contain the excitement in his voice.

  “What do I think about what?”

  Ursula was confused.

  “For a smart girl you are slow sometimes,” he mocked. “The puzzle! Do you think you can do it?”

  Ursula stared intently at the puzzle. It took up most of the page and was made up of an irregular hexagon with letters, numbers and symbols she had never seen before, dotted around its outside edges. Some of them appeared inside smaller hexagons within the larger one, but they were scattered around in what appeared to be a totally random pattern. There were no instructions, no rules and no guidelines given.

  Granddad Benjamin took her arm with a sweaty hand and looked at her expectantly.

  “Well, can you?”

  “Granddad this puzzle is in Le Monde, a newspaper for adults. How am I supposed to do it? I’m only eleven!”

  In spite of what she had said, Granddad Benjamin still looked excited. His hand left her arm, patted her on the back, and he said, “I know, but if anyone can do it you can.”

  “Okay Granddad, for you I’ll try.”

  Ursula gripped the paper tightly and strode purposefully out of the room.

  Granddad Benjamin lay back on his bed and thought about what he would do with the money. It was a simple dream, but one that would not go away and one that he had had since Ursula first started talking many years earlier. He would place it all in a saving's account and, when Ursula was old enough, he would send her away to get a good education, to university, and to a better life away from les banlieues of Saint Denis

  Ursula’s room was only big enough for a small amount of furniture. The neatly made bed rested against one wall and on top of the pink blanket slept Ursula’s teddy bear, Fred. On the opposite wall, separated by a thin strip of carpet underlay, was a wardrobe and the desk. The wardrobe was so old that the wood had warped, and the doors no longer shut. Mémé would not permit anything to be stuck on the walls of the room, as she thought it looked unsightly, but allowed the wardrobe to be used instead. For this reason, Ursula had completely covered it in clippings from Granddad Benjamin’s newspapers. Zinedine Zidane fought for space with cyclists in the Tour de France who overlapped with French astronauts who partially covered Lady Diana, who nudged against Nelson Mandela and so on.

  Next to the wardrobe, was her worn little desk and Ursula sat down. It had been used so much that the letters, words and sentences were etched into the wood. Until Granddad Benjamin placed a piece of glass on the surface it had been too bumpy to use, but now it was perfect and, if Ursula became bored while working, she could read what was written underneath it. At the moment, she was not bored. School work bored her as it was all too easy. Crosswords and puzzles from Mémé’s magazines bored her, but this puzzle was something else, and it definitely was not boring.

  There was a quiet knock at the door, and Granddad Benjamin entered sheepishly. Ursula was so deep in concentration that she didn’t notice. On the desk in front of her, the puzzle lay untouched next to an old chess set. She absent-mindedly spun a stubby pencil in her left hand as she pondered the problem. Granddad Benjamin watched and leaned against the wardrobe door which creaked and broke Ursula’s concentration.

  “Granddad, what are you doing out of bed?” she asked caringly.

  Granddad Benjamin rarely left his bed other than to visit the toilet, which he often did. He gave her a big warm smile and placed one of his wife’s homemade, sunflower seed biscuits delicately on the desk, so as not to disturb the puzzle. Placing a finger to his bald head he silently mouthed, “brain food,” and shuffled out in small, careful steps.

  The moment he closed the door behind him, the smell of the biscuit reached Ursula’s nose, and it smelt delicious. It was still warm as she picked it up, and it felt comforting in her skinny fingers. She ate in small bites, savoured every mouthful and caught any crumbs that fell in her palm. Mémé’s biscuits were the best in the world, better than any Ursula had eaten from a shop, and the sunflower ones were her favourite. She finished off the remaining crumbs from her hand and, feeling suitably energized, she continued to work on the puzzle.

  Within sixty minutes, she had completed it and within another thirty she had written her own similar puzzle, with a solution, and was sitting on her grandparents’ bed explaining how she had done it. Outside, the sun had set but Ursula was basking in the warmth of her Granddad’s delighted smile.

  “I knew you could do it,” he said, more excited than he had been for years.

  “And I knew I would find you with your Granddad,” interrupted Mémé as she appeared in the bedroom doorway. “It’s bedtime for you young lady.”

  Her hands were placed forcefully on her hips, and Ursula knew that this pose meant Granddad Benjamin was in trouble.

  “But Marie-Thérèse,” he pleaded, in French, as his wife spoke limited English. “Ursula has just solved the prize puzzle in Le Monde,”

  “
I don’t care if she’s just solved the planet’s energy crisis. It’s bedtime! And that applies to you too, Jerome. I’m not happy with you at all, NOT AT ALL, I say.”

  Granddad is in for it now, thought Ursula.

  She looked for a place to hide, in case Mémé started throwing things at him. Even though Mémé had not done this for years, Ursula did not want to get caught in the cross-fire in case it happened again.

  “The whole of Europe will be entering that competition, millions and millions of people who are probably a lot cleverer than Ursula.”

  She looked at Ursula and apologized for the last comment.

  “But…” began Granddad Benjamin

  “But this means absolutely no chance of winning. Getting Ursula excited for no reason is one thing but getting yourself so excited at your age, and with your health, and with a lack of proper medications is just, just,” she hunted for the right word, “dangerous! Ursula, au lit.”

  Ursula was glad to leave, before Mémé gave her Granddad a proper roasting. She had only done the puzzle to make him happy; she hadn’t meant to get him excited or get him into trouble. Leaving the newspaper and her puzzle on the bed she stood up miserably and walked towards the door.

  “Bonne nuit, Mémé,” she said and gave her Grandmother a kiss on the cheek.

  “Bonne nuit, ma cherie,” replied Mémé, who moved away from the door.

  Behind his wife’s back, Granddad Benjamin pulled a rude face which made Ursula giggle as she tiptoed past her Grandmother.

  The moment Ursula had left the room, Mémé picked up Le Monde and Ursula’s puzzle and waved them in her husband’s direction.

  “I mean it Jerome, Ursula will be devastated if she lost you and so would I.”

  Granddad Benjamin dropped his head solemnly and mumbled an apology, but his wife hadn’t quite finished yet. She kept shaking the newspaper and puzzle, which were now screwed up together, and continued.

  “And none of this puzzle nonsense!” she warned before storming out of the bedroom and turning out the light as she went.

  In the darkness, Granddad Benjamin whispered, “She’s a softy, really. She’ll send it.”

  A victorious smile appeared across his face, and he promptly fell fast asleep.

  The next morning before anyone was up, Mémé took the screwed up newspaper and unfolded it as if it were made of gold. She cutout the completed puzzle as neatly as she could and put it with the puzzle Ursula had written. Taking extra care, she ironed each one and then placed them in an envelope she had addressed the previous evening. She slipped silently out of the flat, took the lift down to the post box on the ground floor of the block and secretly sent off Ursula’s entry.

  Eric gripped Le Monde tightly in his right hand and a fountain pen in his left. He was worried, but he did not let it show as he stood in the centre of his parent’s luxurious Parisian living room. They had four other properties around the world, but this was undoubtedly his least favourite and, at nearly two hundred and fifty years old, the oldest. In his opinion, it belonged in the years before the French Revolution with its grandiose furnishings, marble flooring and fireplace the size of a shed. The decadent, crystal chandelier alone had just been valued at over one hundred thousand Euros, and his parents adored it.

  Eric could understand why the French peasants had wanted to chop off aristocratic heads when they entered these buildings. Simple bad taste in furnishings alone was reason enough in his mind. However, the worst thing about the room, which he loathed more than everything else put together, was the family portrait. It hung above the crafted mantelpiece in a gold gilded frame and dominated the room. There were two reasons he hated it so much. Firstly, he had not posed for it. Secondly, it had been painted in a romantic style with pinkish rose hues that made him want to retch. To keep his food down, he looked from the painting to his parents. They were sat in front of him on a rich burgundy sofa with finely carved, teak legs.

  Mr. and Mrs Meyer were sat very close together with knees touching and hands resting in each other’s. Eric had watched his father play poker and had seen that where money and gambling were concerned he was supremely focused. Eric had watched his mother on the catwalk and had seen that she oozed confidence from every beautiful pore. However, where Eric was concerned they were neither focused nor confident; most of the time they just avoided him. When they did spend time with him, they didn’t really know what to do, unless it involved giving presents.

  “So, let me get this absolutely clear,” said Eric.

  He threw the pen above his head. It spun around in the air so close to the expensive chandelier that his mother winced.

  “The only thing you wanted to tell me this evening is that you are running a rather childish competition in the international press of Europe, and the person who solves this silly little puzzle will win ten thousand Euros?”

  “It’s not that silly, Bambino,” said his mother looking hurt and pouting.

  “It took me slightly longer than an hour to complete it and I’m ONLY eleven! Of course it’s silly!”

  “But it vas designed by a man I hired vith an IQ plus 200, son,” his father said.

  “Next time why don’t you save yourself some money and ask me to do it?”

  Eric was on edge. He knew that his parents were avoiding telling him something else. Their stalling was unnerving his Saxon reason and awakening his Latin temper.

  “I’ll ask again. The only thing you wanted to tell me this evening was about this competition?”

  Mr Meyer’s eyes moved away from Eric and made contact with his wife’s. Without speaking but with an unsubtle nodding of his head, he prompted his wife to tell Eric the news. She looked guilty and flustered; began to pout again and shot glances at her son. Even though he looked calm and stood almost like a statue, inside Eric was turning to jelly. All he wanted was a normal family life, but his parents seemed opposed to such boring matters as bringing up a child. What else could he expect from a beauty queen and poker king who met in Vegas, dated in Monaco and were married by a pastor dressed as Elvis on the Great Barrier Reef?

  The pouting stopped, and Mrs Meyer began, “Erika, Bambino.”

  Eric’s back tensed. His mother would never let him forget that he was not the daughter she had so desperately desired.

  “We are worried that you are lonely. That you are talented and... gifted and... special.”

  Eric did nothing but waited for the punch line. He was being complimented which, he had learnt from experience, meant the news he was about to receive was really bad. His mother continued.

  “Therefore, we wanted to find someone who was a match or an equal to you.”

  “In other vords, son,” his father interrupted, “ve have decided to use the ‘Meyer Foundation for the Deprived, Needy and Challenged’ to find you a friend.”

  “I don’t need your foundation for the poor, dirty and stupid to find me a friend. I don’t need friends,” Eric stated forcefully and then blurted out, “I just need you.”

  If his parents had been tortoises, they would have chosen that moment to retreat sharply into their shells and not re-emerge until Spring.

  “If a suitable person enters a vinning puzzle into the competition, son, ve vill use the foundation to avard them a scholarship to your school in Prague.”

  Just as Eric was about to say, “Great! I’m going to bed,” Mr. Meyer nudged his wife. This new development was frightening, and it meant they had not finished yet. Eric’s mouth froze before he could utter the words.

  “As well as the scholarship, Bambino, we will also support the winner financially in Prague.”

  There was more to come. Eric could feel it, and his blood started to boil.

  “And Erika,” she paused, fearful to go on, “they can live in our house too.”

  That was it, the big news that they were scared to tell him was out in the open. The bombshell had been detonated.

  Phew, it’s o
ver, thought Eric.

  Despite being mightily annoyed at the future intrusion on his privacy, he relaxed. He congratulated his parents on such noble charity work, and he applauded his ‘Parents’ Pet Project’ as he had instantly named it. He hoped that the PPP would be happy in the cellar with the rats, bid his parents good night and spun round to leave. Behind him, his father let out an extremely false cough that he normally reserved for waiters in fancy restaurants. Eric stopped in a heartbeat and without hurrying, for fear of showing his concern, turned around on the spot.

  “You have not fully understood, son,” said Mr Meyer. He stumbled over his words as he said them. “They von’t be staying vith the rats, they’ll be staying vith us, sort of, in a manner of talking, if you see vhat I mean.”

  Eric’s mind went into overdrive. Shared dinners, wet towels in his bathroom, fights over the television channel, locks on his room, no chocolate biscuits... but all he could think of saying was, “Fine, I don’t have to communicate with your PPP, I’ll just ignore it and speak to you instead.”

  Mrs Meyer removed a frilly handkerchief from a satin sleeve and dabbed her forehead delicately.

  “Erika, Bambino, you may have to if we are not there.”

  “I’ll wait until you get home,” he answered and crossed his arms securely to show that he meant what he said.

  “That might be hard, son because your mother and me, ve have been speaking, and next month is our anniversary of fourteen years.”

  “Congratulations,” said Eric flatly but his father ignored him.

  “So ve decided to go on a second honeymoon.”

  “Good for you,” said Eric without any trace of enthusiasm. “Take a week or two weeks, I’m sure I can handle the PPP for that long.”

  Suddenly Mrs Meyer blurted out, “We’ll be gone from September until April.”

  Eric’s jaw hit the floor. “What? Eight months!”

  “Yes, we’ve decided to make good use of the yacht and sail around the world,” declared his mother as if she were just going down the shops. “But don’t worry, Andrea will be here to look after you both.”

  In a fraction of a second, Eric’s blood reached boiling point, and his brain spun out of control. He had no idea who was now talking to him. It could not be his parents. Parents would never leave their child for eight months! On the sofa, with reassuring smiles plastered all over their faces, sat his mother and father. They looked as if they did not have a care in the world.

  With a jolt that made him wince, Eric’s mind went blank. The thoughts that had been exploding in his brain like fireworks stopped, and a new one emerged. It flashed in his head like breaking news on the television, ‘PARENTS AWAY FOR EIGHT MONTHS TO BE REPLACED BY INSIGNIFICANT PPP FLAT-MATE. ERIC MEYER WHEN ASKED TO COMMENT STATED...’

  In truth, Eric did not know what to say; his dream of a normal family life had been put on hold for yet another eight months, and he felt, he felt, he felt... His thoughts were broken by a rather ill-timed comment from his mother.

  “Cuddle, Bambino?”

  It was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and Eric felt his rage about to spin out of control. His parents took this point to stand up, walk quickly behind the sofa and out of the living room into the hallway. They didn’t even say goodnight. Eric saw in quick succession yellow, orange and then RED. Without thinking he charged, like an Olympic long jumper, towards where they had been sitting and sprang into the air.

  Eric hit the bouncy sofa with the speed of a train, his feet sunk into the cushions and he sprang backwards up towards the high ceiling. He twisted effortlessly in the air, dropped Le Monde, put out his hands and caught hold of the chandelier. The force of his movement swung the chandelier upwards and just before it made contact with the ceiling Eric let go. He somersaulted towards the door, landed calmly on his feet and walked quietly out of the room as if nothing had happened. Behind him, there was a thunderous crash as the chandelier hit the ceiling and smashed into countless crystal hailstones which rained down upon the room.

  When at last the glass and dust had settled, Eric’s parents appeared from the hallway door.

  “I thought that vent vell,” said Mr Meyer gleefully.

  “I agree,” purred his wife. “Let’s go out for dinner.”

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