30 Jan 2020
Dex had gone to the post office, leaving me in charge of Answering The Door. He had ordered a skateboard online, and he knew there was a good chance it would be delivered while he was out. I had my headphones on and he wasn’t remotely convinced I’d hear the bell.
—How are you going to hear it, Dad? You’ve got music playing and everything.
—I’ll hear it, Bean. I’ll listen out.
I was playing my alto when the bell went. With headphones on. And music playing and everything. But I recently installed new batteries in the doorbell and I had even told the postie off for overdoing it once it was working again. My ears are finely tuned to the brittle, insistent trill that cuts through music playing and everything.
There was a man I didn’t recognise, and another man I didn’t recognise, both in Post Office uniform, clutching a skateboard-shaped parcel. I opened the door.
—Ah, hi, is one of you Edward? I asked.
—I am, said the tall one, as the other one handed over the parcel.
I had heard of Edward. Heather had told me a couple of days ago that a postman had found a baby. A real one, in a box, around the corner. Someone had left a baby on some steps on Sandringham Road. An actual baby. Wrapped up in baby clothes, in a box. A baby, though. I can’t begin to imagine what the poor mother had been through to leave her new-born baby in a box. A postman called Edward had found the baby. Heather had come home and told me all about it, and how a postman called Edward had found the baby.
—How is the baby? How are you? Has the mother come forward? Are you really sick of people asking you about the baby?
—Erm, I’m not sick of it, I’m getting used to it. But it’s good to talk about it. I’ve got an interview with BBC news in a little while, and I need to think about what I’m going to say.
—Okay, let’s do it. I’ll be Brenda.
Brenda Emmanus is a BBC London News journalist who generally seems to cover local stories in E8. Some years ago, Heather had a show at Oxford House, then a Somali community centre in Bethnal Green. Heather had procured some old white metal kitchen items—a cooker, a fridge and a tumble drier, all that sort of thing—and had covered them in fridge magnets with her photographs on. Brenda Emmanus had done a piece about the show and, weirdly, had come to our house where she interviewed Heather in our garden. This is a tangential detail, I admit. Think of it as bonus contents.
Edward sketched out a little background info just to set the scene. He was doing his rounds. Classic opening, very confident, and now he was in his stride. He never would have found the baby without Paul, though (our regular postman who likes to ring the bell for slightly too long). He had gone down the steps to the basement of the rectory and a box had caught his eye. It had a pile of clean blankets in and he thought something might be wrapped in it, but he didn’t look. A while later, he told Paul about the box. It was bugging him, and maybe he was crazy but he needed to go back. And Paul told him that he must, so together they did, and he bent down and pulled back the blanket and there was a baby. A baby, just lying in this box. The mother hadn’t been found but the baby was fine.
—Amazing, I said.
—Thanks, he beamed, yeah it was alright, wasn’t it? That’s great, I’ll be fine now. Good to run through it though, brilliant.
I shook his hand.
—I meant it was amazing that you found the baby, but yes, you got the whole story out it one go. I’m really pleased.
His pal was shaking his head, smirking, threatening an eye-roll. He must have had whole a morning of it.