Somewhere Only We Know

Wotsits, Surnames & Muttley, For Danny

Tony, me and Paul, Dartmoor circa 1988

I last saw my friend Danny McDonnell on the last day of primary school in 1989. St Joan of Arc in Highbury. As eleven year olds, we accepted that the last day of school meant we would never see each other again and that was that. He went to a boys’ school and I went to a girls’ school and our memories of each other — at least mine — faded and faded until he was a small pin of light, like that of a tunnel left behind.

As a child, there were difficult circumstances for my family, what with being refugees, having left our entire family back in Vietnam and then suddenly abandoned by my father, our only source of security. Everything was hard for us but we told ourselves we were much better off than the fate of our family, who could not depart from the post-war era of Vietnam.

We lived every day as it came, on the breadline, my mother scrambling to feed two children with pennies. We were faced with constant racial hatred and seclusion. But going to school was a haven. Not only were the teachers incredible, supplying me with pens, paper, colour, scissors, glue and canvases along with all they could give to people who had nothing. I had the kindest friends who helped me settle and showed me a kindness I can now see, with hindsight, was the best there was. One of these kids was Danny McDonnell, who always kicked the ball towards me so I could score a goal, shared a sip of his delightful sugary drinks, let me open and learn all the flavours of crisp packets when I didn’t have anything at break time. He shared his food with me and bought extra apples or let me have half his cheese and ham sandwiches. He might not have thought anything of it. To him, kindness was a supply he naturally had plenty of. He giggled with me at strange English words and pronunciations, like “moon”. If we said moon over and over and over, we had no choice but to laugh. He explained the difference between there, their and they’re, and you’re and your, and made sure I was always smiling. “You’re so clever,” he would say, quickly glancing over at my textbook then transcribing it to his.

With a mix of hand gestures, charades and broken English, I explained the difference between gà, chicken; ga, train station; gã, a guy; gả, to give away in marriage; gá, to lean. Danny and I crackled hard and belly laughed with Tony Birch, Jamie Drew, John Curry, Fernando and Stacy Streena. We chanted and kicked around singing gà, ga, gã, gả, gá.

We couldn’t help it. We proudly identified each other by our first and surnames, as if the daily register recognised us as whole people. I was never just Uyen, I was Uyen Luu, and my friends nurtured my adaptation from Saigonese to Londoner. “He always remembered you,” said Stacy Sterna. “We often talked about our childhood days at St Joan of Arc and you’re always in the stories.”

He did? I thought. I had carried the memories of us for nearly forty years until they became worlds, like novels in my mind. I could make up any truth and we could fall onto our backs daydreaming towards the stars on Dartmoor and laugh. Laugh like it was a way to breathe.

It was Stacy who remained in touch with Danny and his best friend Jamie Drew throughout the years. She was assigned to me when I arrived in reception, when I was calling myself “sô-cô-la” and expressing myself through drawing pictures. She was my best friend, someone who showed me the ropes, took me to the dining hall and recommended what to choose. She walked me home, had playdates with me and always made sure I was settled, that I was understood and had everything that I needed.

When she messaged to say Danny McDonnell had passed away and sent the funeral details, I peeled off layers and layers of memories to find him. He was there before the hours I sat in front of a hand-stretched canvas waiting for oils to dry. He copied my school work while I spent years alone with a red light in the darkroom, waiting for the latent image and its silver to emerge. He cheered over shortbread and ate jelly while I found myself in the sound studio and editing suite, surrounded by reels of tape and celluloid with a chinagraph pencil behind my ear. He chuckled at silly faces I pulled before the beaches of Italy where I swam and ate potato focaccia. He stood before the Earlham Street boutique and the nights on end in old men’s pubs. He bounced the football among all the cooking and the birth of my daughter. He always said, “bet you can’t laugh like Muttley”.

I sat alone at St Joan of Arc church in my black funeral dress, the same one I wore to my father’s funeral, with wet, scruffy tissues. I was the only one there mourning an eleven year old boy while everyone else grieved a grown man who had lived a life of friendship, love, journeys and dogs. I painted an image of him at secondary school, acting comedic like The Inbetweeners with Tony Birch, Fernando and John Curry.

We had sat together here during First Holy Communion, where the boys wore grey suits and the girls wore wedding dresses. “You look pretty,” he said. “I like your makeup.” He knew I was embarrassed by my mum’s lipstick and blue eye shadow. He always read me. I was a book in his pocket.

“Hello Uyen,” said Jamie at the exit. I hadn’t seen him since I last saw Danny McDonnell either. We hugged and cried in each other’s arms. Everyone wanted a kiss from you, I said, only in my head.

As the crowd gathered outside, ready to attend the wake, Tony and I caught each other’s gaze. It took a few seconds because our brains could not compute how the past was standing in the present in a place we both held dear and had locked away in the vaults, like finding an old photograph. “Uyen!” said Tony in loud exclamation. “Tony!” I said, falling deep into his tight embrace. We both hailed ugly cries. We both returned to our childhood and crying our hearts out turned into pure laughter.

Even in death, Danny McDonnell returned us to the place where we were most happy, where all we needed was each other. At the wake I found Fernando (he was always just Fernando), the beautiful boy with the eyelashes so beautiful they made him play the Ugly Sister in Cinderella. He wore a red dress with white polka dots, or was it a white dress with red polka dots? I met the horticulturist John Curry, who walked home with me every day, him with 10p and me with 10p, and we would share a bag of salty, vinegary onion chips from Helen at the Arsenal Fish and Chips bar. “How’s your brother?” he asked and I was amazed he remembered that level of detail, “and your mum?”

Danny would never have known how much he meant to me. He would never have known how his kindness towards a refugee child meant everything to her, through all her life, she carried his kindness.

Danny took his own life. I told his mother all of this and how he must have gotten his love and kindness only from her.

*The names of my childhood friends have been changed slightly here to protect their privacy.

Supper Club Dates

10, 17, 24, 31 July

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4, 5, 11, 12 Sept