Sounds Of Silence In Spitalfields

Anthropologist & Writer Delwar Hussain sent me this latest in his series of pieces, describing his experiences of self-isolating with his mother in the family home in Spitalfields

Portrait by Patricia Niven

Silence is something we have been living in – and some of us struggling with – for many weeks. The house where my mother raised twelve shrieking children, her own and members of our extended family, now holds just her, the cat and me.

Siblings who usually live here are self-isolating elsewhere whilst nieces and nephews are being socially-distanced from Nani. Around us, the streets are silent. The Spitalfields Market has its gates locked and security guards patrol. The Truman Brewery is shut. On Brick Lane, most restaurants and all the bars and clubs are closed. The advertising office opposite our house is deserted. With no one there to do watering, I have observed their once extravagantly coiffed plants die a slow, thirsty death.

For several months before lockdown started, builders had been gutting the house next door. Banging, drilling, sawing, hammering, and demolishing to remove every last vestige of the family who were our neighbours for the last twenty-five years. The developers who have bought the house are not only intent on eradicating the history, but they are destroying the garden in order to build an extension to the kitchen, something every human being needs to live a good life, it transpires. The cost of a floating kitchen island has been the sacrifice of plants and an aged tree. All of the noise, the shuddering and juddering that the destruction causes, has mercifully ceased, if only temporarily.

Yet silence does not mean entirely noise-less. Everyday we hear the whirring of the hospital helicopters, the air vibrating as they fly low over us. The church bells and the azan from the mosque alternate through the day. As talk increases of the lockdown being lifted, people are venturing out more in their cars. The sound of traffic from Commercial St, like the swelling of waves, advances towards us with its foamed edges and recedes again. Then there is the chorus of birds – the cooing of the doves amusing themselves on the flat roof of our neighbour’s house, the drilling of the robin that visits our garden, the sweet twittering of blackbirds, the squadron of high pitched blue tits, the chattering magpies, the marauding gang of seagulls that took a wrong turn somewhere a week ago and barked at the cat, and the ka-ka-ka-wing of crows. This symphony grows from morning to a final crescendo at evening.

I do not know if the birds were always there or, if with less human presence in the city, they too are venturing out more. Maybe it is simply that I am noticing them now? My query was answered soon enough by my mother. ‘Poor creatures,’ she said, looking out of my bedroom window at the doves. ‘Their stomachs must be empty – not a single restaurant open, having to make do with the leaves on the trees.’ I had an image of the birds with napkins around their necks waiting to be served by a haughty waiter. They did not look hungry to me, these doves were as big as footballs. Nonetheless I am guessing that my mother is familiar with them, whereas I have only just become aware of their presence.

The two of us have been living with other sorts of silences or, rather, it may again be just me who has noticed them for the first time. My mother and I, despite our love of chit-chat, gossip, storytelling, and sociality, are silent people. Not quiet nor silenced, we dream, we have voices, we speak, we demand, we see and listen. Yet our tread as we walk around the house is silent. We open and shut doors silently. My mother gardens in silence with only occasional humming, so that you might miss her if you went out to look for her, crouched amongst the branches in her brown cardigan, plucking a leaf here, or pinching another there. I read and write in silence, hence my vexation at the construction work next door. There is no radio in the kitchen.

These are our varieties of silences as we go about the house and exist in the world. Then there are the silent silences, the ones we hold and keep to ourselves. These are the purposefully unspoken ones, the gaps and the omissions. There are silences that are impenetrable, cannot be confronted or broached, least of all when my mother and I are self-isolating with one another.

What is it we each wanted to achieve with our lives? What is it that we did achieve? What are our failures? Whom did we fail? Did we learn from our mistakes? Do we forgive each another’s mistakes? They include unspeakable traumas and unspeakable loves. My mother wants me to marry, but I need her to accept the partner I have chosen. She would like me to cut my hair, shave and get a proper job, while I would like her to recognise her children’s achievements.

We live with these silences. They are solid, ever-present and are not things we can ignore. They are the substance of our relationship as much as what is said, the spoken and the noise.

When the lockdown is lifted, we shall be holding minutes of silence to remember those who have died and are suffering from the virus. These will be public rituals of remembrance and reflection. For my mother and me, remembering and recalling is an everyday act, it is what seeking out and living with silence means.

Portraits copyright © Patricia Niven

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