We extend the birthday celebrations with lunch at a French café. I love sharing my birthday with the community and I’m taken back to being 24, my first birthday in the Cherry Orchard (the Wild Cherry now). I can remember it so clearly sitting at the big table surrounded by the whole team; the big pile of birthday cards; the warmth.
Knocking my new street is like cutting through cream-cake. Nine people in a row say ‘That’s interesting. What a lovely booklet. May I keep it for a few days to read it properly?’ I cross to the other side of the road. The sixth door is opened by a forty-something woman with a young boy. As the word ‘India’ leaves my mouth urgently beckons me inside. ‘I know’, she says’ ‘It’s awful. It’s on TV right now. Those poor children selling one of their kidneys.’ By this time I’m inside, sitting on the floor with her. The last minutes of the news Documentary are still showing. ‘Tell me what I need to do to give you some money.’ She’s saying. I pass her a standing order form and she fills it in for £10 a month. Her boy oversees, making sure she gets their e-mail address correct. ‘A mother sold her little boy’s kidney’, he tells me solemnly.
