Excellent Urban Behaviour

"Kimmy, I'm talking to her, I'm telling her what she did is wrong, and there's no need to hit her!"

An exasperated response on a 7.30am sunny street corner by a large determined woman, who every day walks like a Mama Duck with her three school-uniformed girl ducklings down the Holloway Road. Usually she marches at a regular pace, too slow for the oldest, the youngest putting on spurts of speed every ten paces to keep up. The middle child does ok, for a change, in this walk-to-school sibling set up. This morning was clearly not a good morning.

I have often caught her interrogatory glance as I stroll by on my return from the station in leather jacket and shades - she always keeps her face set but she is for some reason curious about me and often clocks me from afar, only averting her scrutiny when I come within range of a few paces. Perhaps she is severely myopic, although she doesn't look it. I sometimes wonder whether I should one day acknowledge the thousand times we have passed by over the last three years.

"Good morning, madam, girls, and congratulations! Today is the One Thousandth Time we have walked within inches of each other saying absolutely nothing!"

With a flamboyant flourish I would then pull out from my pocket a large printed and embossed certificate, I would place a fabulous medal on a bright blue ribbon around her neck, I would, if the going was good, even give her a dry peck on the cheek, standing back afterwards to beam broadly, encouraging the girls to congratulate their mother on her success. "Well done!" I would raise and deepen my voice for appropriate emphasis, hand out small posies of flowers for the girls, and as bystanders at the bus stop looked on, draw them into appreciation of the moment.

"This woman," I would state grandly, "manages that most difficult of tasks, day after day, without recognition, and without profit." Pausing to let that sink in, I would reduce my volume just enough to keep it above the traffic noise. "She provides breakfast. She delivers safely to school, and brings home at the end of the day. She prevents violence, dispenses justice, and copes with injury and bilious vomit. And yet...."

Here a pause, allowing the gravity of the moment to assume Greek tragedy proportions.

"And yet..." allowing the voice to soften and show compassion, implying just a hint of the human struggle we all experience, "We haven't a clue who she is."

Signalling for the playback to begin, as violins and brass ascend around us, I would bring the event to a stunning climax. "It gives me the greatest pleasure to present whoever this woman is with a Medal and Certificate of Excellence in Urban Behaviour, First Class, No Holds Barred. May God Bless her and all who stare back at her."

Tears, cheers, the bus queue applauding, shopkeepers out on the step, smiling. Mama Duck experiencing the joy of recognition with the shock of exposure. Strangers moved to approach and shake her hand. Triumphant, I would withdraw unnoticed, leaving Kimmy proud, the little one thrilled but slightly lost, and the middle one wondering about the effects of sibling rivalry on her ability to work well in groups and her future employment prospects.