The House of Provisions

In 1942, my mother would sit on the bus home from school and eat an imaginary sandwich. The journey on the 436 from Guildford to Addlestone took over an hour and was followed by a long walk fromthe bus stop to the house. To outwit her hunger she stared into the aisle of the bus and pictured a sandwich. She was fourteen. Her name was Patty Cockle.

She began in the usual way with a slice of bread and gave it a cuff of white crumbs where the knife had taken bite.To this she applied a film of margarine sprinkled with sugar, and then another slice of greased bread, the whole thing pressed down and cut in two and two diagonally – a dainty sandwich on a pretty china plate. She sat down at a table, on her own, savouring the yeasty tack of the bread on her palate, the grit-sweet melt of the sugar. By the time she got off the bus, she felt nourished, if not fed.