The Hand Stand

When I was a child I spent some of my time in a hand stand. No, it’s not what you think. Sure, I had natural good balance, confident cartwheels, some gymnastic moves, bit of breakdance. But I have always had my feet pretty firmly on the ground. I had to—when the world around me was always in motion. No, this was a different and unique hand stand.

            It was my mother’s idea—you know, necessity being the mother of invention (and my mother being the inventor of necessity—a single mother of two). She had to do something.

            Dad had left suddenly. We kinda knew it might happen, but when it did it was a shock for all of us—me, my sister and Mum. Perhaps it was his final gesture that planted the seed of the idea. The slap across my mother's face, which we all felt, left a raw bruise for many days after. To me it felt like he had hit the whole house. I thought the  windows might shatter. It didn’t really leave a hand shaped mark on my mum's cheek but I imagined she felt it that way. Anyway, he went away. We had to downscale and survive.

We had to survive. So she had this loopy idea of a business plan, guaranteed (in her mind at least) of success and future financial security. We were used to it—we had already moved around a lot, scraping by. She had tried it all: selling stews made from past-sell-by-date food thrown out of supermarkets (health and safety scuppered that one); Sculptures constructed from trash found in ditches (at least she was creative); Roadside haircuts for the homeless was never going to make much money. But this one, she assured us (as she always did), was the One. 'It's a calling,' she said, 'dead cert money-spinner and social service all rolled into one.'

Anyway, she got hold of an old decommissioned hot-dog van. God knows where it came from. She was mates with a local Scrappy so maybe it came from him. No engine or anything, but secure bodywork and 'with a lick of paint it will look a treat,' she said, 'come on, it's just round the corner.'

We pushed it—flat wheels groaning, axle creaking, all of us puffing—over to the derelict ground just down the street from our place. Plenty of bricks to stabilise it, a good padlock, and that was it. Oh – except for the sign. It took mum a few days to think on it. Then one morning, after a long exhale of her cigarette, she said, 'That's it, I've got it!' Me and my sister looked at each other wondering, 'What next?'

By lunchtime mum had painted, on the side of the van, in colourful bold letters: THE HAND STAND. It looked great – just like some circus side-show. We still didn't have a clue what she was up to. But at least something was happening and that always made us feel better.

Eventually we cottoned on to what her plan was. Now, just to clarify, Mum had never actually read anyone’s palm before, let alone read a book about the subject. She had some vague pretensions to mysticism. ('More like misty-schisms,' my dad once said in a rare moment of attempted humour). Anyway, that's my mum—not one to be thrown by technicalities. She figured that you could tell everything about a person from the clothes they wore and the way they walked. (It was only when I was older that I could joke with her about having so little insight into my dad's character). So, from the little sliding window of the Hand Stand van she could see everything she needed to know, before a customer had even knocked on the van window. 'Stand by my van and I'll read your hand,' she had stencilled under the main sign. I always thought that was pretty good (until she insisted on singing, 'Stand by your van...' that terrible Tammy Wynette song. Made her laugh though.)

            She didn’t get many customers, but she seemed happy most of the time. She made some food money and we scraped on through for a couple of months.

            One day a man turned up in a suit and tie, holding a black briefcase. ‘Not your average punter,’ she said. Mum never told us exactly who he was, but he was her last customer and she seemed to lose interest after that. ('I could see him coming a mile away,' she later joked.)

Later that winter I stood with a group of other kids and my little sister, watching the battered hot-dog van blazing in flames. We had seen it all before—the abandoned joy-ride cars or the dumped wrecks on the wasteland smoking away, sometimes for days. It was entertainment. But this time we were subdued as we watched the bright paint of my mum's ‘HAND STAND’ sign blister, bubble and blacken.

Mum still reads the occasional palm, but more often than not she just keeps a close eye on what people wear and how people walk. She keeps learning—she survives. And so do I.