I Used to Say My Mother Was Shirley Bassey (21 page)

Technology has changed everything in strange and unpredictable ways. For example, since when did putting a little ‘i' in front of something make it cool? iPad, iPod, iPhone, iKea? OK it doesn't work for everything. iTV? The diary of iAnne Frank? No.

I remember having a pen pal when I was growing up. Whatever happened to the pen pal? He was called Gorge and he lived in Guatemala. He'd write to me regularly, telling me stories about his way of life, what he was up to, recipes for guacamole. I didn't know he was a sixty-year-old man who lived down the road. It was a more innocent time. Young people today seem to have lost the ability to write. They're too busy texting and typing, texting and typing.

Plus ‘abroad' is a lot closer than it used to be. Why write to someone in France when you can just go there instead? These days globalization means that people have a different attitude to international travel. Some young kids leave school and regularly ask their parents if they can go away for a year. A gap year to see Asia or America. Back in Tooting, if anyone said they were going away for a year we'd all know what that really meant. Prison. Apart from my trip to Nigeria I'd never left the country. There had been no further family holidays of any kind. After their time in Africa, my family had no rose-tinted view of the outside world as being full of palm trees and easy living. When they originally settled in South London, even crossing the Watford Gap seemed like taking your life into your own hands. Well, actually for a black family in the sixties it was. From their point of view a trip to the Happy Shopper meant opening yourself up to a world of trouble and strife. A family holiday for them meant driving to a street we didn't know very well and winding down the window. A bit.

When I was at school we learned in history classes about the great British Empire and I'd feel a sense of entitlement. Like I had every right to go anywhere I pleased and use my British pounds to live like a king. That was until my friend Paul Baker pointed to one of the pictures in the history books and said, ‘Stephen, you look more like the slaves than the conquerors.' I ran home and asked my mum and she said, ‘He is right. Now go and do the washing-up. Sweep the stairs. And clean up after your sisters.'

So when I took my first holiday as an adult it was quite the momentous occasion. And the great US of A was to be the destination. I'd been seduced by the movies and I wanted to see New York more than anything. Steam rising off the subway. Steaks as big as your fist. Harlem, hip-hop and graffiti. I was a young man of twenty-four and when I had the opportunity to go I seized it.

The only reason I could afford to go on this trip at all was because I'd taken advantage of a special giveaway offer. I had seen an advertising promotion in the national press placed by the famous vacuum cleaning company Hoover. They were offering two free tickets to America for anyone who'd buy a Hoover. Henry Hoover may look like a pleasant smiley face on the outside, but I knew him as the evil clown-face laughing at me as I attempted to clean the family home. Having moved out, I now wasn't particularly interested in domestic chores and as such I was a bit of a slob in my own flat.

But when I read the advert in the paper, I could hardly believe what I saw. A free holiday to America! It was too good to be true! I went straight home from the newsagent's promising to tell my flatmate Dustin all about it when he got home. Dustin and I had stayed living together throughout university and, once we graduated, we moved in together into a flat-share in Ealing. I really liked him and I'd have liked for more, if you know what I mean. Sadly, Dustin was totally straight. When he arrived home later that evening I pounced on him as soon as he entered the room. He was used to this kind of thing by now.

Although we had both enrolled in the same polytechnic in the same year, things hadn't panned out exactly the same for us. Dustin had been a diligent student and had graduated with a good degree and already had a good job as a primary school teacher. Student life for me had meant missing lectures and going out for the day with my newfound friends. I remember the joy of freshers' week. The thrill of discovering new mates and new activities was only equalled by the thrill of discovering the student bar. We put up with its ridiculous themed nights because of the cheap alcohol. In fact, you could even bring people from outside the college as long as you had your student ID. When it became common knowledge on my street that I had exclusive access to inexpensive alcohol, I suddenly had an army of new friends from Tooting who accompanied me wherever I went. It wasn't just the cheap alcohol that made them want to hang out with me at the student bar. Oh no. They were also trying to pull the naive students (Charlotte was game).

Even though I had loads of part-time jobs as a student and a government grant, the money wasn't enough to relieve the massive expense of books, travel, accommodation and the big bar bills. Looking back, I can see how it was a crime that banks happily lured all these eager young people who had just left school with cheap credit cards and overdrafts. This is the kind of luxury that should really be reserved for proper grown-ups. I passed my degree but didn't go into barristers' chambers, and indeed had to take any and all jobs to help me pay off my vast debts.

Because of the hefty credit card bills streaming through the letter box on a daily basis, air travel was well and truly out of my price range, which was why I was so excited about the prospect of taking a free holiday.

‘You'll never believe what I found out today!' I said like a puppy on amphetamines as soon as Dustin walked in the front door. I was so excited that he must have thought I was having some sort of episode. The confused look on his face said a thousand words – ‘get away from me, you crazy horny bastard' was just a small handful of them. Reeling from my bizarre greeting, Dustin slowly put his bag on the floor.

‘What is it, Stephen?'

‘Hoover! You know Hoover?' I sounded like some kind of child with learning difficulties. I was often trying to impress Dustin but usually came off sounding a bit like a knob head. ‘Hoover are doing a promotion!' I was trying to get a flicker of reaction out of his stony face; I really was obsessed with him.

‘So?' he said, nonchalantly.

I was dumbfounded. I was not expecting this lame noncommittal response and could barely contain my frustration. ‘Hoover are giving away two free return tickets to America. We could go to New York.'

Dustin's face once again showed no excitement as he paused. ‘Do you have to buy a Hoover?' he said, matter of fact. Imagination was not his strong suit.

‘Yes! But you get a free holiday to America,' I repeated sarcastically.

‘Well, they're not free then, are they? There's got to be a catch, Stephen. There always is,' he replied in a pedantic tone. ‘You're an advertiser's dream victim, Stephen. You get caught up in the hype. Remember when you bought those global hyper-colour T-shirts and magic-eye posters? All you got was a terrible headache and neon-green sweat patches. That was not an attractive look.'

‘This is totally different. It's a win–win situation. Do you have any idea how much tickets to America are?' I didn't know how much they were but they had to be cheaper than a Hoover normally costs. Unconvinced, Dustin picked up his bag and headed to the kitchen.

‘We don't need a Hoover,' he said as he went. This exchange really floored me. I couldn't understand why Dustin wasn't excited by the prospect of going to the States with me. Plus we definitely needed a Hoover. I knew Dustin was well travelled by my standards, but surely this was a once in a lifetime opportunity. We had to get in there quick! I thought it was a no-brainer. Go out, buy Hoover; get tickets, go to America; job done. And I told him so.

I followed Dustin into the kitchen. ‘Well, how much is a bloody Hoover then?' I shouted dementedly. Probably not the best way to get him onside.

Dustin looked at me sternly. ‘Stephen, we DON'T need a Hoover. You probably read the advert wrong. You're going to end up buying a Hoover and getting a free ticket to York. What kind of an idiot would give away two free tickets to America for the price of a vacuum cleaner? Next you'll be saying you've found a bag of magic beans.'

‘We can just get a basic one, it doesn't have to be top of the range,' I suggested.

‘It's just a scam for people like you,' he replied.

People like me? I thought. He thinks I'm a gullible idiot just because I bought a pet rock the year before. Now I had to teach him a lesson. ‘OK, I'll get the Hoover. A top-of-the-range one. I'll use it everyday. I'll go to America and take someone else,' I said confidently.

‘OK,' he replied. That had backfired horribly in every way.

The next morning, after a restless night of dreaming about what I'd do in New York, I was in the queue of my local Argos store. If you've never been to an Argos, think of it as a poor man's bookies; you go in, flip through a catalogue, write down your choice, take it to the counter to await your number to get to the top of a little screen and reach poll position. After around forty minutes, I was getting impatient with the large dole-like queue system. It was only then that I noticed most of the other customers were collecting Hoovers! Some large, some small and some extra-large. I began to feel nervous. Would I get mine? Will they run out of stock? Will there be enough tickets to America to go around?

My number was called; a lump appeared in my throat. Heading up the counter, I could see a long red box saying ‘Hoover'. It was emblazoned with ‘Flights to America Offer Inside'. I handed over a fistful of crinkled pounds and grabbed the box off the lady at the collection counter. I had my new vacuum cleaner.

When I got home, I eagerly ripped open the box like an overexcited child on Christmas morning. I was on a mission to find my golden ticket and I barely took a second look at the suction device. It was a real
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
moment when I saw underneath the contraption written in bold:
‘How to claim your 2 free tickets to the USA.'
There was a telephone number to call. Never has the purchase of a vacuum cleaner been a moment of such excitement.

I still wanted Dustin to come with me, but I didn't want to come off needy and desperate by bringing it up again. So at six o'clock, when he normally got home from college, I made sure to be nonchalantly vacuuming the hallway carpet. Dustin came in and ignored me as I extravagantly Hoovered around the front door. He went into the sitting room and I followed dragging the vacuum cleaner body behind me. Dustin turned on the TV and made a point of ignoring me in spite of the hurricane of noise coming from the vacuum cleaner. It wasn't until I actually began to vacuum the socks on his feet that he looked up. ‘Oh, so you got it, did you? Glad to see you're putting it to good use. If you want to vacuum something else, my room's a bit dusty. You know where it is.'

Switching off the machine, I was about to resume my persuasion tactics when the voice of Trevor McDonald came from the television screen. ‘Hoover, the great American brand of suction vacuum cleaner, is threatened by bankruptcy following an ill-fated promotion offering residents of the UK free tickets to America. Extraordinarily, the offer was made to anyone who purchased the vacuum cleaner in question. And there seems to have been no catches or caveats to the offer. Heads appear to be rolling in the offices of Hoover Europe amid claims the company will not be able to honour its no strings attached promotion. Kate Adie has more.'

The television cut to a woman wearing a flak jacket and helmet being buffeted from all sides by a massive crowd trying to get into the Argos superstore. Bits of Hoover and Hoover boxes lay destroyed and mangled in the background of the shot. It looked like a war zone. ‘See!' I said, pointing to the television screen. I turned around but Dustin was already at the phone, dialling the number at the bottom of the Hoover box. ‘See!' I said again with a satisfied grin.

‘What have you been doing since you got home? Just sitting around and waiting for me to come home to Hoover my socks? What if we're too late?'

‘Oh. It's
we
now. Who's the gullible fool? Ay? Who is a sucker for hype, ay?'

Dustin looked at me like I was being a total idiot. ‘Great, Stephen. So, you're right and I'm wrong and we may miss out on tickets to America because you didn't pick up the phone the minute you got home. Are you satisfied?'

Actually, I was satisfied. To be proven right is always something that satisfies me even if in the end I lose out on something. Some call it pettiness, I prefer to call it justice. The phone rang and rang, but Dustin hung on the phone like his life depended on it. I did what I could to help out by making endless cups of tea for us to slurp. Then I started doing impressions of famous American stereotypes, trying out my Harlem walk or pretending to be a Texan oil baron and acting out famous scenes from
Dynasty
.

As the minutes stretched into hours, I started to make us margaritas – a very poor version of a margarita, bearing in mind I didn't have the correct mixes and I wasn't a cocktail barman. It was more like bitter lemon and vodka over crushed ice. I tried massaging Dustin's neck, which was getting stiff from having the phone cradled against it for so long. I made us dinner. We ate it. I even started to vacuum the stairs just to pass the time. Finally, after about two hours, Dustin screamed out, “Turn the vacuum cleaner off! I've got through!”

I raced downstairs and listened in with Dustin as a very harassed-sounding woman spoke through the receiver. ‘Hoover free flights promotion. Can I help you?'

‘Yes! We've bought a Hoover and we want our free flights.'

‘Where would you like to go to?'

‘New York!' we both cried in unison.

‘We're a bit oversubscribed to New York. How about Alabama?'

‘In the Deep South? We've been on the phone for hours. New York, USA is what we want,' said Dustin calmly.