Islington, 1976

It was the distinct odor of stinking fish that got me bolt upright. I looked to Ron for some insight, but his bed lay unmade and empty. My nose screamed blue murder as the gut-churning stench of charred fish skin swam about the room, contaminating my stacks of Famous Five and Bobby Brewster books. I leapt up, pinched my nose shut, and scrambled into my clothes—shorts, tee, plimsolls—and charged downstairs to find the source.

On opening the kitchen door, a sharp sting to my eyes rocked me back on my heels. Blinking away tears, I took in the scene: sizzling fish, bubbling stews, knives chopping, Lata Mangeshkar’s melancholic vocals, and frantic chatter filling the void. A young man with red mahogany skin and a long wolf-face slouched in Dad’s chair at the kitchen table, his furtive eyes roaming about the kitchen.

In front of him sat a battered maroon suitcase, heaped with the familiar bounty from Guyana: dried white belly shrimp, bright yellow mangoes tipped with scarlet beaks, sticky golden apples, and lengths of fat sugar cane. Atop the kitchen counters, fried Gilbaka and Banga Mary fish lay next to black and red Sherriger crabs—all resting after their long journey until Lita bagged them for the freezer. Nadira ripped the flesh from Katahar pods, discarding the leaves onto soiled pages of the Stabroek Times that lay crumpled on the floor like Christmas morning wrapping paper.

Ron struggled with three cheap plastic containers filled with 5 Star Demerara rum, secured by lashings and lashings of brown packing tape, the official contraband seal of Guyana. Mum opened a plastic container with Pine Tarts, Salara, Tennis rolls, Pumpkin and Cassava Pone.

“Oh mi gawd! Look how much Pone dis girl send!” she said, looking up in amazement to see me for the first time. “Bai, what you standing there for with you face all mash up so? Look! Guyana come to London!”

She grabbed a tiny green fruit and tried to stuff it into my mouth but I blocked her with a firm hand.

“Mum!”
“It’s Ginip! We love dis as kids. Try it, you bite de middle and suck out the sweet. It have a seed so be careful.”

I examined the fruit as Mum demonstrated how to eat it. She bit the middle of the skin and the fruit made a pleasant popping sound.

“That smell is horrible! What is it?”

Mum savored her Ginip for a short second, frowned at me then looked at the stranger on the chair, who forced a smile. Dad picked up a tiny fig banana and swallowed it whole, much to everyone’s amusement.

“Wow!” We yelled.
“David!” Mum scorned with mock anger.
“Dis rass ting! When we all was kids, we climb tall, tall banana tree fo pick dis. It’s sweet you know. Dis dey call fig banana...”
“WE KNOW!” We replied in chorus, giggling at our parents' excitement.
“You cousin bring fish from home. Say hello to Cyril. Cyril dis is me baby, Roger.”

The man stood, slightly taller than me and, in doing so, revealed his scrawny frame. He offered a limp, sweaty palm. The white handkerchief tied loosely around his neck reeked of Limacol.

“Please to meetchu.”
“Does that hanky help with the fish smell?” I asked, causing Jenny to snigger at the frying pan and make a stink face.
“Dis ting,” he said, tucking a skinny Guyanese gold chain under the hanky, “no dis a for keep fresh! You know what is Limacol?”
“Yes I do. We all do. Mum! I can’t stand the smell of that fish!”
“That’s Hassa bai!” Dad yelled above the lyrics of Sundar Popo’s Nana and Nani.
“It makes me feel sick. I’m going inside.”

I shut the door and bit into the Ginip. It was a hollow bite until I tasted the sweet flesh on the inside. The skin was green as a Granny Smith apple and had mottled brown specs. I sucked the delicious flesh until it dissolved and left a smooth seed in my mouth. Delicious! Only the fish pong stopped me from going back for more.

At breakfast the stink of Hassa made me want to wretch as I wolfed down my Rice Krispies. Mum, Dad and Cyril gorged on the newly arrived fish, which had been curried in a coconut sauce. The creature on each of their plates was a grey prehistoric specimen with long whiskers and an armor-like exterior that ran from head to tail. Dad and Cyril picked it up whole, sucked it clean of sauce, and set about breaking off the head, tail and body in between scooping up hunks of rice, mango and Wiri Wiri peppers. This eating technique sent frequent volleys of noxious fish sauce across the table in all directions.

My sisters and I ate in silence. It was us against them until Ron arrived cradling a steaming plate of Hassa curry and…sat beside me. I glared at him. He smirked back, aware of his betrayal but unable to resist a taste of his childhood.

“You should try it Rodge, it’s really good. Auntie Enid used to make this for me when we were little.”

He picked up the whole Hassa and snapped it in half like a plank of wood, sending spurts of fish guts and bone across the table.

“Ronald! Be careful wid you fish bai!” Yelled Dad, wiping his cheek.

I refocused on my bowl of Rice Krispies and saw a questioning eye looking back at me: The eye of the Hassa!

“Agghhhh! That’s it! I’m leaving home! I can’t! You!” I scowled at Ron, unable to comprehend or fathom his treachery, scrambled from the table and fled into the back garden.
“Wha wrong wid you bai?!” Yelled Dad.
“There’s an eyeball in my Rice Krispies, that’s what’s wrong!” I screamed.

I ran to the end of the garden and tried to expunge the image of the eyeball by visualizing fish fingers (Bird’s Eye, not Sainsbury’s Economy) crisp and crunchy. Captain Birdseye! He was a real fisherman with fish that didn’t have eyeballs or armor for skin. I lay, angry, wallowing in self-pity until Mum opened the garden door.

“You okay Bai?”
“No!”
“Come, breakfuss finish. Me clear the fish away okay? Come get some cushion turn with your brudder.”
“I hate him! I’m not sitting at the table or anywhere near him when you eat that food ever again!”
“You shut you rass and come inside and get some work done for me! You is one stupid English fool bai. I never see anyone frighten fish so.” she said laughing.
“If a fish eyeball landed in your Rice Krispies I bet you wouldn’t like it!”
“Come get some cushion turn for me now!” She said, returning inside.
“Stupid alien fish!”

As I crept back inside the doorbell rang. Mum opened the door to a gang of my new pals from The Flats. She smiled at the ragtag group of urchins and as they peered into the house and followed their gaze to the kitchen where I stared back.

“Hello?” She said, with some amusement.

Pudgy Paul stepped forward, wiped his nose with the back of his hand and spoke up.

“Wotcher Miss. Can Roger come play out?”

I dropped the cushion I’d picked up and felt my cheeks redden. Jenny pointed a finger at me with a “You’re in trouble,” look—my street pals hadn’t called at our house before.

Mum turned to me.

“Come,” she said, beckoning me with a tilt of her head.

I skipped to the front door and my heart skipped along.

“These boys you fren?” I looked at them then back at Mum.
“Huh boy?” She asked again.
“Yeah.”
“Where you go play?” She directed her question at Paul while the rest of the boys inspected their shoes.
“In The Flats at the end of the street,” Paul replied, with the most solemn choir boy face I’d ever seen.
“Hmm, well he have to finish turn some cushions first then he go come.”

It must have been sympathy for my earlier fish-eye trauma that changed her mind about letting me out, I’d never been allowed out to play in The Flats. Twenty minutes later my chest buzzed with the joy of new-found freedom, the Hassa episode firmly behind me. I raced down the street to join the gang outside Spiro’s house.

“Weheyyyyy!” They yelled as we rubbed shoulders grinning with self-conscious joy.

Nisar whispered in my ear:

“We’re gonna knock for Spiro now, watch out though. His mum’s crazy!”

Zain approached the door and looked over his shoulder in mock fear as we gawked back. Right on cue, the door was flung open by Anna, Spiro’s mum. She pushed Zain out of the way screaming in Greek, followed by her entire family of five daughters and two sons. Spiro looked at me with a mixture of embarrassment and amusement. I jumped back as Anna staggered by, ripping clumps of greying hair from her head. She turned and screamed at her family:

“You fuckin bastadz! I kill you fuckin bastadz!” Then threw herself to the pavement kicking, screaming and wailing.

Her devastated daughters tried to coax her up, but only succeeded in elevating her screams to a new, piercing register. Nearby windows were flung open to witness the commotion and the next-door neighbor ran over.

“Spiro, dear God! What’s happened?”

We listened as Spiro regarded Anna for a few moments, writhing on the ground like a possessed demon, hissing and clawing at anything that came near, then turned to us and, with the earnest expression of Oliver Twist asking for more porridge, said:

“Well, nothing really. We just installed a house phone as a surprise so she wouldn’t have to go to the phone box around the corner all the time…”

For her meager five feet of skin and bones, Anna was formidable—a ghoul with a Jurassic face, a fuzzy mole, and a thick mustache hidden beneath a sheer charcoal veil. She became famous on our street after that episode, and for answering the door wielding a kitchen knife to terrify the string of admirers who rolled up in metallic-painted cars, cigarettes dangling from their lips, to court her daughters. They fled, drowning out her screams with screeching tires.

We looked on in awe as Anna was escorted back inside. The whole episode had taken my breath away. I’d never seen an adult behave in such a shocking manner.

“Aww, I’m sorry you had to see that, boys,” Spiro said. “My mum doesn’t like technology. She did the same thing when we asked if we could have our own washing machine.”

Spiro and his younger brother, Nick, joined us, and we bounced along flanked by yellow-brick walls, still energized by Anna’s performance, toward the fortress known as The Square. It was a crimson clay playground secured by a formidable iron gate. Sharp gravel rolled underfoot beneath four white walls that reached twenty feet high, fixed with floodlights for night games. At either end stood black-painted goals. This was our stadium.

In seconds, we’d settled into a tense game of six-a-side. The earlier drama had created a bottleneck of nervous energy in Spiro that he released by becoming an uncoordinated cross between a flailing scarecrow and a berserk robot. He charged around with a fierce glint in his eye until he stamped hard on my toe.

“Spiro! Stop! You’re gonna kill someone. Calm down!” I yelled, grimacing.
“Aww, I’m sorry Rodge,” he said, dropping his head and backing away, “I’ll go in goal for a bit.”

The game continued without incident and at 6-6 Zain turned and hit a great shot over my shoulder toward the top corner. We expected a certain goal, but somehow Spiro dived and his errant hands plucked the ball from the air in a dazzling display of agile goalkeeping.

“Great save, Spiro!” I yelled, along with a chorus of similar exclamations. He clutched the ball tightly and smiled.

Precious seconds passed as Spiro smiled wider still, staring at the ball above his head.

“Ok, come on! What are you doing?”

Platinum clouds drifted by to frame his masterpiece, then he uttered:

“After seeing my mum like that, I just...need to savor...this moment.”

We howled as he clung to the ball, giggling. I ran over to grab it and he took off around the pitch skipping sideways, yelling:

“Leave me alone, let me enjoy my glory! Glory! Glory! Glory be to God on high, heaven and earth are full of thy glory, blessed is he who saveth the ball...”
“Church has made him bonkers!” laughed Nick.

Spiro sang his improvised church hymn until Zain rugby-tackled him and we pried the ball from his stubborn grip.

After the game we took a sweaty stroll to the off-licence for drinks and snacks. I chose Lilt, with the totally tropical taste, and a Mars bar. We found a curb outside The Square, leaned back and filled our young bodies with sugar. As I chewed on the delightful mix of soft nougat and caramel, Spiro stared at the low evening sun and said:

“That was a great game lads. Aww, what a larf we had ay? Remember that time when I made that great save from Zain and you all had to fight me to get the ball back?”
“Spiro, why do you always reminisce so early?” Pudgy Paul asked, between chuckles.
“Aww, it’s just in case nobody ever remembers it or mentions it again. I have to remember for myself, coz I’m never in the limelight.”

Nick jumped up.

“It’s the twins,” he whispered in awe.

We stood as the most famous twins in Islington approached and looked us up and down. These black mod twin-brothers wore pork-pie hats, stay-prest pants, winklepicker shoes, sharkskin jackets, purple shirts with skinny black ties and sunglasses.

“Alright Twinny!” Yelled Nick.

They turned, in sync, and nodded at us. We watched in silence. As they moved on Zain filled us in:

“They hang about outside Highbury and Islington Tube. It’s funny, they speak kinda posh but also say some funny African or Jamaican words with the accent too.
“You see that massive scar on the back of his head?” asked Nick.
“Yeah, they got jumped by Hells Angels.”
“Where?” Asked a nervous Pudgy Paul, checking along Gillespie Road.
“Up by Highbury Barn,” Zain continued, “Twin One got axed in the head but kept fighting, while the axe was in the back of his head! Hells Angels backed off as a show of respect. Twin Two pulled out the axe and threw it back to the Angels. Now it’s mutual respect!”

We were awed.

“If I were axed in the head...game over!” Paul said, looking over his shoulder.
“They must ave a lotta bottle man! To go up against Hells Angels, there’s only one person around here who would do that.” I said.
“Who?”
“Spiro’s mum!”

Spiro punched me on the arm amid chortles of laughter.

We said our goodbyes and as I wandered home, Spiro yelled:

“Rodge!”
“What?”
“Wot a larf we had that time we met the twins, ay…”

Hassa

Church and the First Goal