During my second year at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, a nasty Russian cold front turned the whole area into an isolated, frozen mass prison that would have given Solzhenitsyn nightmares. The cheap, run down, mice infested village hovel I was renting offered little protection from the extreme cold. My lungs were severely strained and I suffered a life-threatening asthma attack.  

Barely conscious, struggling to breathe, I was taken to the local hospital. During this severe illness, I was transferred to the university medical centre. I was more or less comatose, and barely able to walk or speak for several days. The following encounter took place during my second day of illness at the centre.

....... I awoke from a blurry daze into a tiny cubicle no bigger than an Oxo cube.  My tongue felt liked I'd swallowed a bucket of sawdust.  I could feel my scalp drying up and shrinking. I could barely think straight and had to work hard to remember my own name. I didn't even know where I was. I looked around the room and spotted a faraway oxygen cylinder. A plastic breathing mask as well. 

I couldn't swallow properly. Where was some water? I had a vision – possibly a fake memory as I didn't know if it was real or not – of a man, stern-faced, bland, lifting up my arm and taking my pulse. Where was that man?  Where was my flat mate and best friend? Where was my girlfriend? Fuck them all - where was I?

I turned my head to one side and - much like an eerie, shimmering, David Lean desert mirage - an elderly cleaning woman appeared a few feet away from my bed. She was busy wiping her mop across the floor. I stared at her, licked my dry lips and tried to say something. A long, strangulated wheeze came out. 

My wheeze must have caught the Mop Lady's attention for she walked over to my bed and took a long, hard look at me. I returned her gaze. I was too busy trying to breathe to speak. 

Finally Mop Lady said, “Where are you from?”

I wheezed something back. Mop Lady didn't hear me and asked me the same question again. 

Embarrassed by my own weakness I tried to speak up, and told her the name of the local village where I was staying. 

Mop Lady's eyes remained as blank as my brain. I wasn't making any sense to her. Again, she asked me where I was from.

I needed a few deep breaths to power up my lungs. My chest sounded like the punctured tyre of a five-ton truck. “London.”

“No, where are you from?”

The proverbial penny dropped. “My parents are from Jamaica,” I said, hoping that would be the end of it.

My increasingly witchified interrogator said venomously, “When are you going back home?”

Jesus! I began to look for the emergency call button to summon a doctor! Anyone!  “I was born here,” I wheezed back.

Holding her dirty mop over her head like it was St. George’s very own blazing sword the old crone marched over to my bed and snarled, “I said when are you going home?”

Flat on my back I stared up at this wrinkled sack of evil pus, sucked some air down into my tired lungs, and said very, very slowly. “N-e-v-e-r.”

The bitter old thing turned her back on me and returned to cleaning the floor.  I could hear her muttering way.  I couldn’t understand the tense noises coming out of her angry mouth but her “get back on the boat you came here on and drown on the way home” sentiment was unmistakeable.

And fuck you too, I thought. Of course, I was too scared to say this out loud in case this horrible person decided to beat me with her broom while I was struggling not to die in my sleep.

For the next couple of weeks, I decided to improve Mop Lady’s life by expunging racism from her heart. Pumped up with ethical leftie charity and the good will of youth I would regularly walk past the medical centre. Every time I saw Mop Lady I would wave cheerfully at her. It was only a matter of time before Mop Lady would realise what a nice guy I was; ergo, everyone who looked like me was also equally nice.

Unfortunately, Mop Lady would keep on working and hardly bothered to acknowledge my good cheer or the spirited, redemptive love I was sending her way. 

One day, on yet futile another pass by the centre I caught Mop Lady’s Sam hating eye. On impulse, tired of wasting my energy and time on this awfully rancid creature, I gave her the finger. To my shock and horror Mop Lady’s eyes lit up and... she returned my nod.

I was stunned. What had happened?

Step by confused step I realised that I’d inadvertently made Mop Lady truly happy.

How?

With one little jab of my finger I’d confirmed to Mop Lady that I was indeed the cocky, undeserving black shit she’d always known me to be. With any luck a decent Norfolk copper would soon haul me off the University grounds and kick my bony backside along the A11, all the way back to my filthy coon hovel in London.

Was I fazed by this?

Not so much.

For Mop Lady had taught me a few invaluable life-lessons. I wrote a few of these important lessons down.

Dearest Sam, always remember that:

1: Not all grannies are as nice as their polished dentures.

2: An innocuous mop, in the wrong hands, can be as deadly as a pair of nunchakus wielded by Bruce Lee.

3: Don’t debate racists with words, when a well-aimed finger will do.

4: When you tell a racist to go f--k themselves, move on with no regrets. 

Many years have passed since my original meeting with Mop Lady. As I write these words her stiff remains are doubtless turning into some thick, soup-like soggy mush in some motley Norfolk burial ground. I feel compelled to salute her.

Mop Lady, you were a great teacher. Since our short time together, I have saved myself a lot of valuable energy.

I owe you a lot.