New life

The Pardoner's tale

Zenga Longmore

Calling on our evangelist friend Mrs Starman a couple of weeks ago, Olumba and I were perturbed to find her distraught and crying aloud to Providence. A large, bi- annual gas bill was the cause of her woe. After a hasty consultation, we offered to lend her the money.

'God send you to me, you know. I have never yet been late in paying a bill in all these years. No need to 'fraid I don't pay you back, as in two weeks' time I'm in line for a Pardoner.'

'Pardon?'

'No, Pardoner. Not the 'pardon my trans- gressions' kind of pardoner, but the club Pardoner, where you pay in and draw out.'

'Oh, a Pardoner Pardoner. A Partner Club.'

(A word to the non-black reader. Self- help Partner Clubs were popular in the

Fifties and Sixties, and still thrive in certain parts of Brixton. A group of friends from 'back home' pay money into a kitty each week. On a strictly honest rota system, each member scoops the whole kitty every so often. As long as the payments keep coming in, the Partner Clubs continue. Some are over 30 years old.) Knowing Mrs Starman as I do, I was not surprised when she turned up at my flat the other day with a smile which clearly said, 'Howdy, pardoner', and emptied a heap of notes on to my lap.

'Now if you two young people want to go out one evening, I will be happy to baby-sit for Omalara,' she announced.

At once we began to make plans. Olumba would go to a meeting arranged by Uncle Bisi, where men from his district in Nigeria discuss problems, politics and palm wine. I arranged with my friend Adrian that we would go and see Carmen Jones at the Old Vic, a musical I have been desper- ate to see for many weeks.

On the night in question, Mrs Starman brought round a pile of Ladybird Sunday school books, and attempted to read them to Omalara.

'What do you think of the Reverend Al Sharpton, the American preacher who has come here to Brixton?' I asked, for want of anything better to say.

'What? Him! Is nonsense him talk!'

'Oh I don't think he's too bad. I think the newspapers are dying for another riot, so they whip their readers up against him in a most ridiculous manner.'

'Eh eh! Pure, pure garbage the man talk! Him nine thousand year old and helped to build the pyramids? Non-se-e-nse! Him don't even look sixty.'

'But Mrs Starman, I don't think that the Reverend Al claims to be nine thousand years old. You must be mixing him up with the late Father Divine, whose followers give out tracts at the Tube station.'

'Him the same person come back from America. All American preacher same American preacher, y'know. Him claim to be nine thousand years old, an' he say, "Before the world was, was me too". Ha! Noah would never let him on the Ark, in my opinion. If him think he could survive the Deluge, then him suffering from a del- ugion. Also, if him make the Pyramids, is why he didn't make them burglar-proof? All the tombs robbed, innit? The man is pure baloney. Nine thousand years old! If you arks me, he's only come here for a pen- sioner's bus pass.'

'That can't be right,' announced Olumba, firmly. 'London Transport passes aren't valid in New York. I've got a cousin there and he told me he almost got arrested in Brooklyn for using a three-zone bus ticket — there again, it was out of date-o.'

By this time my mind had begun to bog- gle at a furious rate. What with all this eccentricity around me, I thought it best to hurry on to Carmen Jones, where it was to be hoped that sanity would prevail.