In Search of Adam
In Search of Adam
Caroline Smailes
A taut and beautifully written debut novel by an exciting and accomplished new author.Motherless, rootless and unprotected, Jude Williams' childhood is fractured by the horror and experience of sexual abuse, forcing her to exist somewhere and nowhere in-between childhood and adulthood. Caught within the limitations of her own language and trapped within a family secret, Jude becomes the consequence of her mother's tragedy. As she moves through the 1980s, Jude's life is buffeted by choice and destiny and she collects experiences that layer her personal tragedy and plunge her into the darkest of worlds.
In Search of Adam
Caroline Smailes
Praise (#ulink_1e34f6f3-f039-5387-92ec-9f542e10c733)
‘An utterly riveting tale from a word magician who truly knows the beat of the grieving human heart.’
—Elizabeth Baines, author of Balancing on the Edge of the World
‘Staccato prose that crackles with experience.’
—Danny Rhodes, author of Asboville
‘Original, authentic and technically brilliant, Caroline Smailes’ In Search of Adam is a debut of remarkable quality and devastating power.’
—Nicholas Royle, author of Antwerp
‘Caroline Smailes has done for child abuse what Mark Haddon did for autism.’
—Lynne Hatwell, dovegreyreader review
‘An engrossing and touching read from a new talent.’
—The Big Issue in the North
‘Caroline Smailes’ writing combines a unique and compelling lyricism with a truly courageous authenticity. In Search of Adam is a beautiful, brutal and highly original novel. It blew me away.’
—Megan Taylor, author of How We Were Lost
‘An accomplished, courageous and insightful debut novel.’
—Damian McNicholl, author of A Son Called Gabriel
‘In Search of Adam is a profoundly affecting book. It deals with the horrors of a damaged childhood caused by a mother’s suicide, a father’s neglect and child abuse. Dark stuff, but it is handled with a deep sensitivity and realism by Newcastle-born author Caroline Smailes.’
—The Journal (Newcastle).
‘A stunning insight into the disturbed mind of a girl living in the North-East. It has re-defined what writing can do for the reader—it can change the way you look at people.’
—Terry Deary, author of Horrible Histories
‘I think it [a novel] should impart emotional energy. Not every good novel will do this, but most will. In Search of Adam is one of them. By the end of the first chapter, I was saddened and uncomfortable. The book has an emotional engine that Smailes guns mercilessly. The story succeeds as a study of disconnection, contamination, and the loss of momentum in a young life.’
—Spike Magazine
For my Gary
Table of Contents
Cover Page (#u3212d590-337b-5632-8542-26b91f196b47)
Title Page (#ufda017f7-8a2e-5232-88e1-71eae1ab124e)
Dedication (#ub1f06bba-0ddc-5683-9cc1-f4b8aeed9888)
Epigraph (#u6db20b95-fb03-5540-962f-694bdcbfb03d)
1980 (#u101d2bdc-81f2-551e-9b0a-f14df71f9e6d)
1981 (#udbbebddc-7ec5-589d-8946-2b5c2c0fac6f)
1982 (#litres_trial_promo)
1983 (#litres_trial_promo)
1984 (#litres_trial_promo)
1985 (#litres_trial_promo)
Ever After (1992) (#litres_trial_promo)
Happy Ever After (#litres_trial_promo)
Thoughts (#litres_trial_promo)
Afterthoughts (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Praise (#u54356434-be90-57dc-b9b9-c97e5ae247be)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
Genesis 01 : 003 : 016
The Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to sea In a beautiful pea green boat.
Edward Lear, 1871
1980 (#ulink_ee19277a-49d5-5f26-95a1-5ae18b7fa04e)
On March 26 1980, I was six years, four months and two days old. I was dressed and ready for school. It was 8:06am on my digital watch. My mother was still in bed. I went into her room to wake her. I found her lying on top of her duvet cover. She wasn’t wearing any clothes. Her ocean eyes were open. She wasn’t sleeping. And from the corner of her mouth, a line
of
lumpy
sick
joined her to the pool that was stuck to her cheek. Next to her, on her duvet I saw an empty bottle. Vodka. And there were eleven tablets. Small round and white. And I saw a scrap of ripped paper. There were words on it.
jude, i have gone in search of adam. i love you baby.
I didn’t understand. But I took the note. It was mine. I shoved it into the pocket of my grey school skirt. I crumpled it in. Then. Then I climbed next to her. I spooned into her. Molded into a question mark. Her stale sick mingled and lumped into my shiny hair. I stayed with my mother, until the warmth from her body transferred into me. We were not disturbed until my father returned from work. At 6:12pm.
Exhibit number one—my mother’s note.
In the days between my mother’s death and her funeral, I noted that someone from every one of the thirty-one other houses in my street came to visit. Some just stood in silence in the hallway. Some drank coffee at the wooden kitchen table. Others sat with my father in the lounge. Smoked cigarettes and drank from tin beer cans. My father liked these visitors the best. There were some neighbours who came each day. Just to check on my father. And between them they decided on how best I should be cared for.
I was six years old. I was more than capable of taking myself to school at 8:30am. My father left for work twenty minutes before I left for school. 8:10am. That was fine. I loved those twenty minutes. I was alone in the house. I was king of the castle. I spent the twenty minutes sitting. Sitting on the bottom red stair. Staring at my watch. Glaring. Terrified that I would be late for school. I loved those twenty minutes. School was a ten-minute walk away. Over only one main road. But a lollipop lady watched out for me. They’d had a word. Then coming home from school. I could manage the walk. But. But they thought it best that I wasn’t at home alone. My father came home from work between 6:10pm and 6:17pm. So together. Those smoking drinking neighbours and my father. They decided where I should go each night.
I had my key. Tied to a piece of string and fastened with a safety pin inside my brown parka. That key was to lock the door each morning and only for emergencies at night. That key would allow me to escape from my neighbours.
During those days. Between my mother’s death and her funeral. I used to watch my neighbours slowing down as they passed by my mother’s house. I could sit on my bed and watch them from the window. I could open the window. Just slightly. Just enough to let their words fly in. They didn’t look up to me. I was already invisible. They never saw me. They never looked for me. Some neighbours would stand talking. Curlers in their hair. Slippered feet. Dressing gowns pulled across their chests. They would point at my mother’s house and they would chitter and chatter and yackety yacker. Gossip. Gossip. Gossip. Always about my mother. My precious, my beautiful mother. She was in the tittle-tattle. She was in the chitchat. Her demise. My demise. My mother’s house, Number 9 Disraeli Avenue was the centre of the universe. Front page gossip. The neighbours talked of a pure evil that was within my mother. They spoke of her lack of motherly instincts. They talked about a murderous past. I didn’t understand their words. But. But they were tinged and tanged with mean-sounding twangs. They talked. I listened. I heard them. Through the open bedroom window.
On the day of my mother’s funeral. Five days after her death. My father told me to put on my school uniform. A grey skirt. A blue blouse. A blue and yellow stripy tie. My blouse was creased. Crumply and worn. My tie was stained with baked bean juice.
My mother’s coffin was in the box room. The lid had been removed. She looked so beautiful. Her long blonde hair had been styled. She looked like a glamorous film star. She was covered in a white sheet and her bare feet were poking from beneath it. I crept into my mother and father’s bedroom. I took my mother’s favourite shoes from her wardrobe. I also took a blouse and hid it under my pillow. Her scent still clung to it. Combining Chanel, musk and Mary Quant. Then. I returned to the box room. I took her purple stilettos. I lifted the white sheet to see her ankles. I placed her purple shoes onto her blue feet. Touching her skin sent a throbbing ache into my stomach.
I feel sick. I feel sick.
I fought my weakness. I stopped myself from being sick. I needed her to be wearing shoes. I didn’t want her feet to become raw. She was off to hike through foreign lands. My mother was not smiling. Her face was blank. As I looked at her I realised that all expression came from her eyes. I longed for those ocean eyes. Open your eyes, please open your eyes. Just to connect with her one last time. My hair was tangled, still matted with her sick. So I sat on her hairdressing stool. Next to her coffin. In the box room. And I counted each stroke as I brushed my hair. One…two…three…four…five…six…seven…eight… I needed my mother. I needed her to get rid of the tatty tatty clumps. I reached into the coffin. Her coffin. I held her cold hand. I heard people laughing and chatting downstairs. Ding dong. Ding dong. Chatter chatter. Laugh laugh laugh. Aunty Maggie from Number 30 had brought rice, Mrs Clark from Number 14 had brought a platter of sandwiches and with each ding dong my father poured drinks and welcomed his guests. I sat. Holding my dead mother’s hands. Wishing that she had taken me with her on her journey. Downstairs they talked loudly. And then. Then hushed and whispered. She hadn’t left a note, she was so very selfish, how could she be so cruel to little Jude. They talked badly of my mother. I wanted to go and scream at them. To stop their evil gossiping. My father said that he wouldn’t speak ill of the dead. But. Sarah was an evil whore and ahm glad that she’s deed. And. She’d been threatening te dee it for years. And. She was an evil lass. A selfish murdering whore. She divvnae care aboot anyone but horsell. I hated my father. I hated that he fed the neighbours lies. I didn’t understand. Liar liar. Pants on fire.
My mother loved me. She did care about me. I didn’t understand why my father was telling lies. My mother was magical. She was beautiful and she loved me. Right up to the sky and back. She was thirty-two. She was clever. She was just going to explore the world a little. She would come back when she was done. She had gone in search of Adam. Her explanation was simple. I had no idea who or what an Adam was. She would tell me all about it when she found it. She’d come back then. She’d come back and carry on being mine. I’d wait. I’d always wait. I stroked her long slender fingers. She was cold. Too cold. Back into my bedroom. A hot water bottle. I took it into the bathroom. Turned the hot tap till it was burning. Burning. I filled my plastic hot water bottle. Then I returned to my mother. I placed it under her sheet. I gave her the shiny fifty pence that Aunty Maggie, Number 30, had given me the day before. Just in case. She may have time to buy herself a treat. An ice cream and a ten-pence mix up.
My father shouted for me. I stood. Over my mother’s coffin. I looked at my mother. The last time. She did not look back at me. Her eyes were closed. Sleeping. Sleeping Beauty. I would not cry. I could not cry. I had to be brave. They would think badly of my mother. My father had told me. He had warned me. Big girls don’t cry. Do you hear me? Big girls don’t cry. I bent down and kissed my mother. She did not wake. I was not magic.
I sat next to my father in the large black car. I lowered my head and tried to name all the foreign places that I could think of. My fists were clenched. I recited names. I could think of only five.
Spain…
France…
Scotland…
America…
London…
Spain…France…Scotland…America…London…
Spain…
France…
Scotland…
America…
London…
I tried to picture my mother in these countries. The Tower of London. Loch Ness. Disneyland. The Eiffel Tower. On the beach. Sunbathing. And in my head I could see her smiling. Her eyes twinkling with excitement. As she grasped her sketch book, charcoal and lead.
The funeral ended. Mr Johnson, from Number 19, took me to school in time for lunch.
Mashed potato.
Peas.
And carrots.
Mixed together.
Fish fingers.
One, two, three.
Jam sponge.
Custard.
The afternoon of the funeral passed quickly at school. Children avoided me. My teacher cried at the front of the class. I sat at my small wooden desk and held my tightly clenched fists in front of me.
Spain…
France…
Scotland…
America…
London…
Spain…
France…
Scotland…
America…
London…
Spain…
France…
Scotland…
America…
London…
I would not cry. I did not move during afternoon playtime. Teachers walked past the classroom window and peered in at me. My nails dug into my palms, but my knuckles were fixed and I concentrated through the pain.
Spain…France…Scotland…
America…London…Spain…
France…Scotland…America…
London…Spain…France…
Scotland…America…
London…Spain…
France…
Scotland…
America…
London.
I didn’t draw an Easter card. I didn’t practise my writing. I didn’t listen. I didn’t speak. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
The final bell rang.
I left my desk. Children moved out of the way. Terrified that a touch from me would make them catch the evil eye. I had the evil eye. Mothers at the school gate turned their backs. Talked in packs. Always in hushed tones. No one wanted to look at me. No one could find the words. My mother was fresh in the ground. I was at school. The neighbours were drinking. Eating. Celebrating. I had to walk home alone. Alone. Alone. Alone.
It was a Wednesday. But Mrs Clark was at my mother’s wake. In a pub called The Traveller’s Rest. A wake. The neighbours were trying to wake my mother. I had tried that too. Given her a kiss. It hadn’t worked. She needed a handsome prince. The neighbours would wake her. They were old and clever. Aunty Maggie was nearly one hundred and ninety-five years old. She was the oldest person in the world. She had to be the wisest person in the world.
I used my key and let myself into my mother’s house. It was cold. It was silent. I rushed to the box room. Ran up the red stairs. Quick quick quick. Just in case she was still there. But. But the room was empty. She was gone. I went into my mother and father’s bedroom. I opened my mother’s wardrobe. It was empty. She had taken her clothes with her on her travels. She had packed. She had gone. I went downstairs. Into the kitchen. I found her things. Next to the door. Waiting to go into the garage. They were in black plastic bags. Waiting to be thrown into the garage. Ready for the bin man. One bag for her clothes, one bag for her secrets. For her stuff. I took her secrets. A bag full of letters and beads and books and her sketch book and a box. I took that bag. I hid it in my room. Buried within a basket of teddies and dolls. I would keep it for my mother. I wouldn’t look. She could show me when she came back. We could take it with us. When she took me away. When she had found herself an Adam.
When it was time.
I took my mother’s blouse from under my pillow and held it to my nose. I tried to sniff in her smell. But. But already it was fading. I was forgetting. I curled onto my bed. Onto my blue duvet. I curled into a question mark. I held my mother’s blouse tightly to me and I stared out of the window. I stared up to the sky. I watched the day fall into night. My father and some of the neighbours returned home. I heard them chatting and laughing and cheering and singing. I felt their happiness. It kind of stuck into me like a fork. They sat downstairs, smoking and drinking beer out of warm tin cans. They didn’t come into my room.
Life entered into a robotic routine. I existed. I grew. I was quiet. A thoughtful child. I had no friends. I carried the world inside my head. I carried the world on my shoulders. In my hands. There was no room for play. There was no way of playing. I sat. I thought. Always about my mother.
Aunty Maggie gave me a shiny fifty-pence piece. Every Monday evening when my father came to collect me. I saved all of them. And eventually. I was able to buy an Atlas. I held the world in my hand. It was a large hardback book. Glossy. The pages stuck together. New. Crisp. I learned of new places. Unsure if my pronunciation was correct.
Spain…
France…
Scotland…
America…
London…
Libya…Malta…Tibet…Victoria…Boston…
Greenland…
Spain…
France…
Scotland…
America…
London…
Libya…Malta…Tibet…Victoria…Boston…Greenland…
Spain…
France…
Scotland…
America…
London…
Libya…
Malta…
Tibet…
Victoria…
Boston…
Greenland…
Spain…France…Scotland…America…London…
Libya…Malta…Tibet…Victoria…Boston…
Greenland.
I placed a small heart-shaped sticker onto a country. Onto a place. Then. I moved it around each day. I plotted my mother’s travels. I watched her move through my book. I watched her move around the Atlas. I held the world. I held her world. I carried the world with me. Always. Always with me. My room was tidy. Always. I asked for and received so very little. Yet with the uncluttered space came calmness.
I started to write poetry. I started to draw. I spent hours scribbling words. Or sketching my mother. In different countries. Outlines of her, with signs pointing to her next destination. My drawings weren’t very good. They weren’t good enough. I had no photographs of her. My father had taken them all. I tried to sketch her. In case I began to forget. But. I couldn’t capture her ocean eyes. I wasn’t good enough. My drawings were rubbish.
But.
Her eyes.
They penetrated to my soul.
At night.
As I closed my eyes in the cold darkness of my room.
My mother appeared and her eyes warmed me.
I longed for my mother. My precious mother.
As I closed my eyes.
In my darkness.
My mother.
Behind her a signpost.
Pointing.
Four different directions.
All leading to Adam.
All searching for Adam.
Her bag of secrets.
Her bag of her. Still buried. Untouched. Waiting. Waiting for her return.
In the year that followed my mother’s death, my father entertained many women. I would be sent to my room, as he played his records, smoked his cigarettes and drank from cold tin cans. Lionel Ritchie would float through my floorboards. He would dance around my room. I hated his voice. I hated my father’s music. I hated those women who giggled and groaned in my mother’s front room.
The women came and went. Good riddance.
But. But then one woman started coming around more and more and more. It was in December 1980. Just over eight months after my mother went away. I didn’t take much notice at first. Thought she’d be replaced. Like the others. My father liked to have a different woman to visit. A different woman every night. Then. Then she started coming back. More and more. She was in my mother’s house every day. Every night. Her voice was squeakier and her groans were louder than the rest. She called my father babe and she slept in my mother’s bed. She slept under my mother’s purple duvet. She slept on my mother’s sheets.
She was introduced to me.
She was called Rita. Jude pet, come and say hello te Miss North East 1981. Jude meet Reta. I didn’t understand my father’s words. He was smiling. He was excited. Rita’s hair was bleached white and she wore short skirts. Her thighs were really fat and dimply. She wore blue mascara. It clogged on her lashes. Her lips were ruby red and her skin was orange.
She was a monster.
She talked of sunbeds, fake tan and keep-fit videos. She was fat and ugly. She wasn’t like my mother.
My father liked Rita. She kept her toothbrush in our bathroom and within the year after my mother’s death, Rita would walk around my mother’s house without any clothes on. Her breasts were saggy and her nipples were huge. She was hairy. Black hairy. She was scary. She wibble wobbled about. Her fat wibble wobbled about. She smoked cigarettes. Between twenty and twenty-four a day. She drank out of tin beer cans. One two three four five. Sometimes she would wake me in the night. She’d be giggling. Cackling. Squealing. Falling downstairs. Or. Coming into my room. I didn’t like her coming into my room. She banged the door. She cackled. She breathed her nasty smell into my room. Onto my things. I didn’t like Rita. She didn’t smell very nice and her eyes didn’t sparkle.
I missed my mother. As I curled up in bed. I covered my ears so that I couldn’t hear them. I thought of my mother’s ocean eyes. I longed to be with her. Maybe. Maybe one morning I wouldn’t wake up. I’d just go away. I’d go off looking for an Adam too. If I was really lucky. If I wished and wished and wished. Then just maybe I’d wake up in my mother’s arms. She’d have come back for me. If my mother wrapped her thin arms around me. If she pulled me tightly to her. Then. Then I’d be safe and nothing else would matter.
I could sleep. I looked forward to bed. It was the waking that destroyed me.
1981 (#ulink_43174fdc-275b-521d-b2b0-368f6f6fc790)
Two years, six months and twenty-one days before I was born, my parents moved to New Lymouth. From a block of flats that were as high as a giant. My mother’s house was brand new. It was shiny. Spick and span. There were two new estates being built in New Lymouth. The housing estate that I was to live on and another one. They each had four parallel streets and formed a perfect square on either side of the main road.
On this Coast Road, there were The Shops. Dewstep Butchers was also New Lymouth Post Office and displayed a smiling pig’s head in the window. New Lymouth Primary School. My primary school. Was a perfect E-shaped grey building with a flat roof. Mrs Hodgson (Number 2) told Rita that many cuckoos were put in nests on that roof. I didn’t understand. New Lymouth Library was on the Coast Road too. It was a rectangle. Like a shoe box. Inside the library there were eighty-seven Mills and Boon novels and three Roald Dahl books. There were signs everywhere. ‘Absolute silence at all times’. The grumpy librarian liked to read her Introducing Machine Knitting magazine. I read the first chapter of Danny Champion of the World twenty-seven times. I read all of Matilda and The Twits. Thirteen times each.
Brian’s Newsagents stretched across 127-135 Coast Road. Inside the shop I heard gossip being tittled and tattled, as I stood looking at the jars of delicious sweets.
Rhubarb and Custard. Chocolate Raisins. White Gems. Aniseed balls. Coconut Mushrooms. Brown Gems. Cola Cubes. Pear drops. Cherry Lips. Licorice Comfits. Toffee Bonbons. Jelly Beans. Edinburgh Rock. Pontefract Cakes. Pineapple Chunks. Sweet Peanuts. Scented Satins. Sherbet Pips. Midget Gems. Sweet Tobacco. Chocolate Peanuts. Toasted Teacakes. Rainbow Crystals. Sour Apples. Lemon Bonbons.
Unable to decide. I wished that I had the courage to ask for one from every one of the twenty-five jars.
On the other side of the Coast Road there were five really big houses. My class teacher Mrs Ellis and Mrs Hughes the local librarian lived in two of them. I didn’t know who else lived there. The children in those houses didn’t go to New Lymouth Primary School with me. The children in those houses didn’t play foxes and hounds around the estate with us local bairns. I walked down that road on my way to school. I peered into those large houses. I stopped walking to stare in. I tried to look past the fresh flowers in the window and I thought about all the nice smelling things that would live inside.
The Coast Road ran a slope from New Lymouth down to the Lymouth seaside. The estate that I lived on was at the top of the hill. As the road continued up, it travelled through a number of similar estates and villages. Signs warned drivers when they were leaving one village and arriving in another. My father said that the nearer yee lived to the coast, then the richer yee were. We lived about a ten-minute walk from the coast. I’m not quite sure what that made us. All I know is that when my mother was alive, my father talked about one day living on the sea front. The houses there were enormous. Five stories tall. They went up and up and up to the sky. You could stand on the roof and your head would be in the clouds. I thought that really important people lived in those kinds of houses. People like the Queen could live there. A hacky lad in my class at school lived in one, with about twenty other children. His mother and father hadn’t wanted him. They, the twenty other children and the hacky lad, lived in their mansion that looked out over the beautiful Lymouth cove. They were very very lucky. They must have been very very rich. They must have been the richest people in England.
Lymouth Bay was shaped like a banana. There was a pier at each end and three caves lived in the cliff. Just over the left pier. Sat tall on a throne of rocks. There was a lighthouse. The most beautiful. The most elegant. A white lighthouse. Legend had it, that hundreds and thousands of small green men with orange hair lived in it. I never saw them. But. Paul Hodgson (Number 2) had seen one buying a quarter of toasted teacakes in Brian’s Newsagents.
There were one hundred and twenty steps to climb down. One hundred and twenty steps before touching the grey sand. The sand was unhappy. It looked poorly sick all the time. A green handrail wove next to the steps. I never had the courage to touch it. The paint was covered in carved initials, decorated with lumps of hardened chewing gum and topped with seagull droppings. Yackety yack. Hundreds and thousands of lumps. Hacky yack yack. Paul Hodgson (Number 2) told me that his uncle caught an incurable disease from touching that handrail. He said that his uncle’s hand had dropped clean off. I wasn’t going to risk it.
To me, the Coast Road seemed to go on for ever and ever and ever. I was told that it was a perfectly straight road, which travelled from the seafront and through four villages. You could catch a bus on the Coast Road. The road passed by my school, up the slope, close to my house and then on through village after village into lands that were unknown. Into lands that sounded magical and exciting. North Lymouth. Marsden. Hingleworth. Coastend. Mrs Hodgson (Number 2) told me that Coastend was famous for its cheapness of tricks. A magical place.
I lived in Disraeli Avenue, in between Gladstone Street and Campbell-Bannerman Road. The neighbours all said it dizz- rah- el -lee (four chunks) Avenue. My mother’s house was a semi-detached on a street with 31 similar-looking houses. They looked identical but I knew that they weren’t. There were differences.
Thirteen had red front doors. Seven had green front doors. Five had blue front doors. Seven had yellow front doors. The garages matched the front doors. Except for Number 17. Mr Lewis had a yellow front door and a green garage. I didn’t know why.
green,
red,
red,
yellow, green, red, red, yellow, yellow, green, red, red, red,
green, blue, blue,
red,
blue,
green,
yellow, red, blue, blue, yellow, green, green, red, red, red,
yellow, red, yellow.
I wanted the numbers to fit better. I wanted the colours to fit better.
It should have been sixteen red front doors. One half. Eight green doors. One quarter. Four blue doors. One eighth. Four yellow doors. One eighth. It was simple. The colours could look really nice. I had worked it all out.
red,
red,
green,
red,
green,
red,
blue,
blue
green, red,
yellow, red, green,
red, yellow, red,
red, green, red,
green, red, blue, blue,
green, red, yellow,
red, green, red,
yellow, red, red.
I wasn’t happy with Mr Lewis (Number 17). His colours didn’t match. Maybe he didn’t realise. I wished that I had the courage to talk to him about it.
There was a little wall in front of the garden. A dwarf wall. A dwarf wall for Snow White’s friends to play on. There was also a drive for my father’s Mini. There was a garden to the front and a slightly larger one to the back. The front lawn was just big enough to squeeze onto it a folded tartan picnic blanket. The soil surrounding the perfect square of grass was always packed with flowers. I watched the flowers. I noted them all in a little lined book. It was green and lived on my windowsill. Thorny rose bushes, coordinating colours and then down to a mixture of blossoms. Depending on the month.
Gaillardia ‘Burgunder’.
Shiny red flower, with light yellow centre.
June-October. 30cm.
Dahlia.
Really orange and red.
June-November. 60cm.
Narcissum ‘Amergate.’
Orange outside with a darker orange
in the middle.
March-April. 45cm.
I liked to write things down. In the green notebook that I kept on my windowsill. Flowers. Colours. Number plates. Full names. Times. Routines. All of the first chapter of Danny Champion of the World. So I wouldn’t forget.
Hold your palms out. Let me read your fortune.
I see that you are destined for great things.
Love…yes. A great love.
Children…bend your little finger…
Ah. I see a boy and a girl.
It’s all here. Written within your palm.
Aunty Maggie lived at Number 30 Disraeli Avenue and every Monday she looked after me. Her hallway walls were jam packed with black and white photographs of her darling husband Samuel. Who passed away in his prime. They were all the same photograph, but in different-sized frames. Aunty Maggie had never been blessed with children. I didn’t understand. Before my mother died, she liked Aunty Maggie. Aunty Maggie used to make boiled rice for my mother. She’d cook it to a fluffy perfection in one of my mother’s pans. Then. She’d walk along Disraeli Avenue. Number 30 to Number 9. Both hands clutching the black handle of the steaming pan. My mother used to pretend to my father that she had cooked it. My father used to like Aunty Maggie’s feathery white rice.
When Aunty Maggie looked after me. I would sit in her pink room and she would open a cupboard brimming with untouched toys. They were shiny and perfect. Treasures. Aunty Maggie was always old. Always one hundred and ninety-five years old and her face was a web of wrinkles. I wanted to run my finger along the tracks. Round and round and round and round. I never did. Her breath was smelly. Mint. Toothpaste mint. And about her lingered a flowery scent. Sweet and lasting.
In the pink room, where everything was pink, I was surrounded by smiling faces on photographs of school children who sometimes visited. I would play with her Bible Fuzzy Felts and sip at milky tea. I was on my best behaviour. As I left she would always give me a shiny fifty-pence piece. A whole shiny fifty pence. I was rich. Aunty Maggie spoke with a swish accent and her house was always tidy. Always. She used to watch me from her window and I knew that she longed to be my mother. I was glad that she was not my mother.
On February 1 1981 I was seven years, two months and eight days old and it was within the first year after my mother’s death. Although Rita was nearly always in my mother’s house, I still visited the neighbours after school. Aunty Maggie was expecting me. As I entered her house, cigar smoke was swirling from her pink room.
She had a guest.
Eddie was her brother. He was fat. He wore brown and his big belly was forcing the buttons on his shirt to cling to the holes. His trousers stretched over his solid fat belly. Up and over. Up and over. He looked like a brown egg. With little chicken drumsticks coming out the bottom. He was perched on the edge of Aunty Maggie’s special chair. Not daring to touch her plump cushions. He wore a brown cardigan with a thin mint green tissue sticking out of the pocket. His hair was flat and looked like it had been drawn on with black felt tips. He was shiny. Very shiny. But he had a laugh like I imagined Father Christmas would. Ho Ho Ho. He boomed and he chuckled. I thought that I liked him. When I left he gave me a fifty-pence coin too. I was rich. Two fifty-pence coins. One hundred pennies. One whole pound. They asked if I would like to visit them again the next day. I knew that I would be given more coins and I had had a nice time. So Aunty Maggie said that she would have a word with Mr Johnson.
On February 2 1981 I went to Aunty Maggie’s straight from school. Eddie was perched on the edge of the special flowery chair. Ready to swoop. I saw him watching me through the dirt-free windows. Edged with coordinated flowery drapes. He was ready. He opened the door. A fat cigar balanced in between his fingers. His shirt was a dirty cream. A hot wash of whites and browns. Tight shirt. Old shirt. His forehead glistened with tiny beads of sweat. A tiara of sweat. His nose was a purple plum and as he spoke stale smoke escaped between his narrow lips. He smelled. Sweat. Sour smoke. Chip fat. Smelly smelly man.
Eddie was happy to see me. I liked that he was happy to see me. He’d been looking forward to it all day. He smiled. He smiled and showed me his painted brown teeth. Aunty Maggie had had to nip out. She wouldn’t be long. He led me into the pink room. Where everything was still pink. He told me to take off my shoes. He liked my white socks. Aunty Maggie didn’t like shoes to be worn in her house. I didn’t know that. Eddie had shoes on. Brown shoes.
He sat down on the pink chair. Daring to sink into the freshly plumped cushions. He patted his lap. He wanted me to sit on him. I stayed still.
Again.
He slapped his thighs with the palms of his fat hands. He was telling me where I must sit. I didn’t want to. I didn’t feel happy. I didn’t want to sit on Eddie’s lap. I wanted to sit on my own chair. He told me not to be a naughty girl. His face went all screwy. Angry lines sprouted on his forehead and around his eyes. Not happy anymore. Not smiling anymore.
I sat on his lap.
He rubbed his fat fingers over my cold thighs. Pushing the tips into my skin. He was strong. He kissed my neck. Kiss nibble kiss kiss. A nibbling eagle. His breath was getting faster and faster. His fat fingers were playing harder and harder. His hands moved up to the top of my thighs. Up up up. Gripping. Gripping. Gripping my thighs. Pulling me into him. He asked me if it felt nice. I didn’t say anything. Silence. Fear. Silence. He told me that it felt good. His angry voice asked me to like it. I said yes. I said that it was nice. It wasn’t. Really it wasn’t. I didn’t like it. I didn’t want to be on his lap. I didn’t want him to touch me. I didn’t know what to do. I was drowning. Drowning. Drowning.
A key in the door.
A humming accompaniment. Aunty Maggie was home. Eddie jumped onto his heavy feet. I was pushed forward. My legs were shaking. Shaking quaking shaking shaking. My knees buckled to the floor. I stayed on the floor. He scuttled to help his sister with her heavy bags. I stayed still. Rooted. Rooted. I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand what was happening. I wanted to cry. Big girls don’t cry. Do you hear me? Big girls don’t cry.
Eddie and Aunty Maggie came into the room. Aunty Maggie was looking at me. She wasn’t smiling. She was looking at me. Over me. Up and down. Up and down. Eddie told Aunty Maggie that we were just about to play Bible Fuzzy Felts. He winked at me, as he carried the box from the cupboard that brimmed with toys that failed to excite. Eddie was excited. He was all happy and jolly and all ho ho ho. I didn’t understand. He was happy again. He was funny again. He liked me again. As Aunty Maggie prepared her feast, she bustled in and out of the pink room. I placed Noah beside his arc, but baby Jesus could not be rescued. Two by two. Two by two. There had to be two. I knew that baby Jesus would die. Two. There had to be two. Eddie sat close to me. Too close. Knees touching. His smell was next to me. His smell was on me. Waiting. Waiting. It’s oor little secret. You’re me special girlfriend. Here’s an extra fifty pence.
As I left, I clutched my shiny coins. Three shiny coins. One hundred and fifty pennies. Two days of coins. Totalling two hundred and fifty pennies. I was rich. Really rich. Eddie said that he liked having me around. It made him feel young. It was nice to have a youngster around the house. Aunty Maggie thought I might like to come again the next day. She would have a word with Mrs Clark. She liked to see her only brother happy. He was very dear to her. He was such a lovely man.
On February 3 1981 Eddie was lingering with a camera. He wanted a nice shot of me to take home with him. Aunty Maggie had a spare frame. I was to have pride of place on his mantel. Over the electric fire. In between his Madonna and a clock that had stopped working at ten minutes past three. But he wasn’t sure if it had happened in the morning or in the afternoon. Ho ho ho. Aunty Maggie thought that it was a wonderful idea. Her brother was such a lovely man. He was so very dear to her. Aunty Maggie was cooking in the kitchen. She was humming. She was buzz buzz buzzing. I could hear her. Eddie could hear her.
He told me to lift up my skirt. He told me to do it. An angry voice. I knew that I had to. No choice. No choice. I had to keep Eddie happy. Aunty Maggie liked her brother to be happy. Pink knickers with tiny butterflies fluttering over them. They were too tight. A little bit too tight for me. Click. Click. Flash. Quick. No one need know. I was a funny-looking thing. He thought that I was a funny-looking thing. He asked if I had a boyfriend. He asked if I would like a boyfriend. I didn’t understand. I was seven years old. I didn’t understand. He told me to sit on the chair. On the edge of the chair. He told me to pull up my skirt. Higher higher. He told me to open my legs. Wide wide wide. Click. Click. Flash. Aunty Maggie droned a happy song. It’s oor little secret. You’re me special girlfriend.
My father came for me. He told Eddie that there was no need to give me money. Eddie insisted. He was such a nice man. A real gent. I clutched my shiny coins. Two coins. One hundred pennies. Totalling three hundred and fifty pennies. Three pounds and fifty pence. I was rich. Very very rich. Eddie told my father that we were having such good fun together. Ho ho ho. He winked at me. He smiled his special smile for my father. A brown painted smile. Eddie asked me if I had had a good time. I said yes thank you very much. I hadn’t had a nice time. I was being polite. I was being a good girl. Good manners were very important. I had to be polite. Please and thank you. Please and thank you. My father suggested that I visit again on Thursday. He was sure that Mrs Roberts wouldn’t mind. Eddie was pleased. I didn’t feel very happy.
On February 4 1981 Eddie put his hand up my school skirt.
We were sitting at the table. In the pink room. Cups of milky tea and still hot scones were placed on white lace doilies. Aunty Maggie went to fetch a jar of strawberry jam. Eddie pushed his fingers up my skirt and inside my knickers. He rubbed and rubbed. It hurt. He was being hard. Big, heavy, fat fingers. He was trying to push his fingers into my skin. Aunty Maggie was coming. He swiped them out. He lifted them to his mouth and sucked.
Suck suck suck.
He turned to me, just as Aunty Maggie bustled nearer. It’s oor little secret. You’re me special girlfriend. Here’s an extra fifty pence. Eyes down, cheeks red. I didn’t understand. Aunty Maggie spooned the jam into a delicate bone china dish. She didn’t speak. She didn’t speak to me. Eddie heaped the jam onto his scone. Dribbling in delight. Eyes glistening. He guzzled scone after scone. One two three four. Forgetting to swallow. Scoffing. Wolfing. Devouring. Moaning with pleasure. Staring at me and smiling. Not a nice smile.
His eyes were not smiling. A dollop of strawberry jam escaped. It tumbled down his brown shirt. Tumble tumble tumble. It stopped. Next to button number five which was desperately clinging to its nearest hole. When I left he gave me an extra fifty pence. One hundred and fifty pennies. Totalling five hundred pennies. Five pounds. I was richer than I had ever been.
On February 5 1981 I went to Aunty Maggie’s house. I thought about the two or even maybe three fifty-pence pieces that I was sure to get. Eddie asked me to go for a walk with him. It was getting dark. We would have to hurry. He wanted to see the Lymouth coast. The street that I lived on was a ten-minute walk from the beach. Surfers enjoyed the North Sea. Pirates explored the Lymouth caves. Eddie told me all about pirates. Eddie told me that there was buried treasure in the caves. He had a map in his pocket. But it was a secret. It was our secret. I held his hand and he took me into the cave. It was dark in the cave. It was salty. I could see him. Just about.
He took off his brown cardigan and laid it on the grey floor. I kneeled onto it. Waiting for the treasure map. I wanted him to hurry up. Before the pirates came. Eddie told me to lie down. I did. He unfastened his belt and pulled his trousers down to his knees. He put his hand up my skirt and pulled off my knickers. He threw them into the cave. I didn’t speak. I watched as he climbed onto me. I was winded by his weight. He hurt me. He burned into me. He ripped me. He filled me with damp sand. I opened my mouth to scream. No sound came. He placed his hand over my mouth and he ripped into me further. Rip rip rip. The pain. Such pain. It took away the sound. I tried to scream. No sound. No sound.
He stopped.
He told me to move off his cardigan. I could not move. The pain ran from my belly and down my legs. He pulled his cardigan from below me. It rolled me onto the damp sand. My knees were shaking. My body was shaking. Cold cold cold. He shouted at me. His cardigan was ruined with my blood. He threw it deeper into the cave. His cardigan. My knickers. Buried treasure. It’s oor little secret. No one would believe a strange bairn like yee. Tell anyone and I’ll get yee. He left me. I lay on the wet sand. Shaking shivering shaking. I could not move. I tried to think of my mother. She did not come to me.
Spain…
France…
Scotland…
America…
London…
Spain…
France…
Scotland…
America…
London…
I knew more countries. I used to know more countries. But. But they were gone. I wanted the sea to visit me. To sweep me away. I was riddled with sand. My teeth chattered. My knees were shaking. I needed help. I didn’t understand. Pirates. Treasure. Pain. Such pain. I was dying. This had to be the end. My mother had not saved me. Eddie had taken her memory from me. I had nothing left. Nothing nothing nothing.
I stood. Blood and wee slid down to my white ankle socks. He had lit a fire inside me. My hair was matted with sand. My blue school blouse was ripped. I was seven years two months and twelve days old.
I walked out onto the beach. It was quiet. It was dark. Too dark. The lighthouse was still. No eye. No yellow eye. No green and orange little men. No one was watching. I climbed the one hundred and twenty steps. I did not touch the green handrail that wove next to the steps. I had to keep stopping. Doubled in pain. Difficult to breathe. Difficult to carry on. I walked myself over and along the main Coast Road. The lollipop lady had gone home. I walked past the Dewstep Butchers that doubled as the New Lymouth Post Office and displayed a garnished pig’s head in the window. Past New Lymouth Primary School. Past New Lymouth Library. Past Brian’s Newsagents. Stretched across 127-135 Coast Road. Past the detached homes which housed the professional types. I walked to my mother’s house. Eyes never looking left or right. I hoped that a car would hit me. I walked slowly. I had ripped clothes but my brown parka covered them. I had a single line of blood trickling down my inside thigh. Inside my brown parka. I was covered in sand. Nobody stopped me. Nobody asked me what had happened. People looked away. Neighbours called their children in from play. Nobody. Nothing.
A greedy decision. A need for shiny fifty-pence pieces. A greedy need. I was saving to buy a globe. One that lit up with the flick of a switch. Paul Hodgson (Number 2) had gotten one last Christmas. I needed fifteen pounds. That was a lot of money. A greedy need. Misguided trust. My whole life stepped onto a path. I stepped onto a path. I sometimes imagine that my palms were smooth and blank. Right up until that week. That precise week. That my palms had promise. I still had a future. That I still had exciting challenges and a glossy journey ahead of me. With my decision. With my greedy need. The lines appeared. Abracadabra. Hey presto. The lines were engraved. Tattooed. Forever. Scraped in a web of complications. My palms told of the self-destruction that lay ahead.
I never bought the globe.
Sand
In my pants.
Itchy itchy sand monster.
Sand
In my tummy.
Sand
In my head.
Nasty nasty sand monster.
Sand
Make me vomit.
Sand
Make me die.
Naughty naughty sand monster.
Never to be gone.
Dirty dirty sand monster.
I used my key. It was tied to a piece of string and fastened with a safety pin inside my brown parka. I fumbled with the pin. My hands were shaking. Sand and blood poked from the tips of my nails. I was dirty. Sand clung in between my fingers. Dirty dirty dirty. I needed to wash my hands. I needed to scrub and scrub and make my hands clean again.
I let myself in. Wiped my feet on the welcome mat and slowly climbed the ruby carpeted stairs. Each tiny footstep sent a flame up my inner thigh. Rita and my father were in the kitchen. My movements were slow. I wanted them to come out. I wanted them to see my pain. I had no voice. Eddie had stolen my voice. I could not speak. No energy. No power. Slowly. Slowly. Slowly. A tiny skulking mouse. Pain flicked with each step. My father shouted a hello and then turned his attention back to Rita. They did not come out to me. She was giggling again.
Alone in the bathroom. I took off my school uniform. Blood damp socks and ripped school shirt. I neatly folded my soiled clothes and placed them beneath the radiator. A perfect pile.
Undressed. Exposed. Naked in the centre of the small square room. Too late to cry. I did not cry. I had not cried. Big girls don’t cry. Do you hear me? Big girls don’t cry. My father and Rita had moved into the lounge. I could hear their laughter. The cackles and giggles and boom boom booming. They were drinking from their tin beer cans. Their laughter glided up the red stairs and squeezed under the locked bathroom door. Their joy rebounded between the ceiling and linoleum floor.
Bounce
bounce
bounce
bounce.
As I stood stark naked. In the centre of the bathroom.
I faced the bathroom cabinet. Focused on a perfect thumb print smeared on the bottom right hand corner of the mirror. I forced my eyes to fix on the girl who was hidden beneath that smudge. Through the smears. I stared into myself. I saw my blue eyes. My mother’s blue eyes. I stared at my matted brown hair. Dirty dirty hair. I needed the sand off me. Get off me. Get off me. Nasty nasty sand. It was everywhere. It was swallowing me up. I opened the bathroom cabinet. I took out a pair of scissors. They were sticky and blunt. I tugged at my hair.
Chop.
Chop.
Chop.
Clumps fell into the sink. A nest of hair. Grooming and nurturing collected and then plunged. Congealed feathers over onto the linoleum floor. I didn’t have my mother’s skill. Long strands clung to my gluey fingers, mingled with the knotted blood and sand. I needed to be rid of the sand. I wanted it off my skin. I wanted it out of my hair. It clung. Sticky sticky sand. I yanked. I tugged. It had climbed my hair and grafted onto my scalp. I wanted to scream. I wanted rid. Get off me. Off off off.
I turned the chrome taps. Hot and cold. I waited in the centre of the room. I climbed into the pea green bath. The water was cold. Rita had used all of the hot water. Rita liked a hot bath. The bath had not been cleaned. An orange ring clung to the slippery sides. I climbed in. I gasped. I was numbed. Pain pain go away. Pain pain go away. I lay stiff. I was rigid. Straight. Head bobbed. Ears submerged into the rising cold. Muffled reality. Frozen sounds. Arms stiff. Blue feet. I dared not move. Sand began to sink onto the bottom of the pea green bath. Floating in my sea. Sailing in my dirt. Away away for a year and a day. I drifted. I danced by the light of the moon.
The water needed to enter me. To wash away his dirt. I stung. The fire roared. I dared not move. I could not let the water in. The fire roared. And roared. And roared. Tiny white body. Flat and smooth. A swarm of bruises erupted from my veins. Gobbled up my skin. Decorated my secret places. Pain pain go away.
I heard my father calling. I sat to attention and listened. He was going to the pub with Rita. A swift half. Then they would be back. A swift half and then I would tell him all about Eddie. I had to tell him. I didn’t understand why, but I knew that it didn’t feel right. I needed my father to make everything better. He would know what to do. Too many secrets. Hush hush. My head was pounding. Whirling. Swirling. Round and round. Twirling secrets round and round. Hush hush.
Again. My father called. I wasn’t to open the door to any strangers and I could have some chocolate from the fridge. It was Rita’s chocolate, but I could have some. Just that once. Four squares. They were in a hurry to get to the pub. Meeting Mr Johnson from Number 19. Just a swift half. Don’t open the door to any strangers. Didyou hear me Jude? I didn’t know what a stranger was. Surrounded by neighbours. No strangers in Disraeli Avenue. No need to fear strangers. I was alone. All alone. I was naked in the bath. I was seven years, two months and twelve days old.
My father and Rita went out. I heard the door. Slam.
He left me all alone. I needed him and he had left me. I needed someone to make me better. I needed someone to explain the pain. I needed someone to make that pain go away. Pain pain go away. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Slam and alone. Fear attacked the veins in my toes. I stayed upright. Bolted within the bath. Shivering. Blue. Trembling. Shuddering. I was alone. The house suddenly seemed so big. So empty. So still. Cold. So cold. I was terrified that Eddie would come back. He would be watching them leave. He would know that I was alone. He would enter my mother’s house. I was naked in the bath. I would be trapped. He would kick down the door. He would hurt me. Aunty Maggie had a spare key. He could let himself in. I wouldn’t be able to stop him. Help me. Help me. Help me.
I was sick into my bath.
Sand and sick mingled. Dirty dirty bath. I dried myself. Delicate touches made me gasp in pain. Numbness faded and my secrets flared. I dressed ready for bed. Purple pyjamas covered with cream teddy bears in purple boots. Father Christmas had left them for me on Christmas Eve. I had been on the good list. I would not go to bed. I wanted to wait for my father. I needed to wait and ask him about Eddie. Slowly, I moved down the stairs. Tiny steps caused cascades of pain to rumble in my tummy and tumble down my inner thighs. I sat on the bottom red stair.
Through the frosted glass panel on the green front door, I watched the darkness stumble down to the ground. I saw the streetlamp flame. I waited for shadows. Then. I hid in those shadows. I watched the twinkling star. In sight of the frosted panel of glass. I was a guard. A quivering sentry. I waited.
I heard my father. He was singing as he walked and Rita’s pixie boots click clacked a rhythmic beat. I heard them coming. He had had his swift half. He was happy. I had not turned the light on. I was rooted on the bottom red stair. Alone in the dark. My nails dug into my palms, but my knuckles were fixed. I concentrated through the pain. So much pain.
Spain…France…Scotland…
America…London…
Libya…
Malta…
Tibet…
Victoria…
Boston…
Greenland…
Spain…
France…
Scotland…
America…
London…
Libya…
Malta…
Tibet…
Victoria…
Boston…Greenland…Spain…France…Scotland
…America…London…Libya…
Malta…
Tibet…
Victoria…
Boston…
Greenland…
Spain…
France…
Scotland…
America…London…
Libya…Malta…
Tibet…
Victoria…
Boston…
Greenland…
What are ye doin in the dark ye silly bairn?
My father broke my journey. I didn’t say that I wanted Eddie to think that I was out. I didn’t say what Eddie had done to me in the cave. My voice had not returned. I had been waiting to tell my father about Eddie. I needed my father to explain my throbbing. I was crying. Big girls don’t cry. Only whinnying bairns cry.
My father saw my hair. He was staring at my hair. I had forgotten. I had forgotten about the nest of hair. On the linoleum floor. Rita laughed at me. Rita said it was sweet. My wanting to be a hairdresser like my dead mother. My father got angry. He said that my mother was an evil whore. He said that I was a whore’s brat and then he slapped my ear. Buzz fuzz. I was sitting on the bottom red stair. I turned and dashed up those stairs. As fast as I could caper. He caught my ankle and pulled me down. My chin counted each step. One two three four five six. He pulled down my pyjama pants and he slapped me five times. Rita was cackling. As she exhaled the room was filled with stale fumes. Invading. I could smell their swift halves. He pulled me up and twisted me over. He slapped my face. An erupting sting peaked and lingered. He yelled. Loud. In my face. In my ear. No brat o’ mine could be s’ fuckin strange. I looked down to the floor. I could still feel his palm on my cheek. Pain. More pain. I focused on a tiny swirl woven into the carpet. I had never noticed it before. Not until that moment. That precise moment. Snot and tears twirled together at the tip of my chin and gently dripped onto the ruby fitted carpet, just missing the peak of that perfect swirl. I counted six drips. Drip
drip
drip
drip
drip
drip.
The carpet absorbed them. My father went into the kitchen and Rita staggered after him.
I stayed. Feet rooted to the hallway carpet. Alone. Rita wobbled back struggling with a glass basin. Rita would fix my hair. She put the empty fruit bowl on my head. She cut around it. Her fingers never touched my hair. The scissors scratched and slashed. When she had finished, she removed the bowl. She chuckled. She said that I looked like a boy. She wasn’t my mother. She had a funny smell. She pinched my arm. It hurt. More decoration. She whispered just loud enough for me to hear. Evil brat just like ye killer of a mam. I hated Rita. She was fat and ugly. She was not like my mother. She was a nasty nasty beast. I didn’t like the way she looked at me. Her eyes were angry. Little piggy stare, with lines and lines exploding from them. Lines buried in her skin. Lines that made her look angry and sad and mean and ugly. She was never happy. She was not my mother.
My hair looked silly. I looked silly. My pain bubbled inside. I ached and I ached. I went to my room. I lay on my blue bed. Reached under my pillow. I took my mother’s blouse. I held it to my face. Her scent was gone. I held it to my chest. I slept.
Hoping.
Eddie went away. He had been a guest. How nice of him to visit. He came for a week. He ripped me. It’s oor little secret. You’re me special girlfriend. Here’s an extra fifty pence. Nobody noticed. On Monday. Three days later. I went to Aunty Maggie’s house. She was mad. She was all shouty. Eddie said I had run away on the beach. I was a rude little girl. She did not give me a fifty-pence piece. I was angry. I needed that fifty-pence piece. Saving to buy a globe that lit up with the flick of a switch. Eddie was such a nice man. A real gent and the perfect house guest. He would visit again soon. I was a naughty girl. It’s oor little secret. No one would believe a bairn like yee. Tell anyone and I’ll get yee. I didn’t say anything. Eddie had stolen my voice.
I never bought the globe.
Timothy Roberts (Number 21) was in my mother’s house. Rita was on the phone. Talking to Mrs Clark (Number 14). Rita was talking about Mrs Roberts (Number 21). Mrs Roberts had to go to the hospital. Had a woman thing wrong with her. She asked Rita to babysit Timothy. Just for a couple of hours. Timothy Roberts was two and a bit of a bugger at times. Timothy Roberts was emptying the kitchen cupboards. Banging pans onto the floor. I went to see him. Stood at the kitchen door. I listened while I watched him.
Apparently. Mrs Roberts (Number 21) had had a bit of Mr Johnson (Number 19). They lived next door to each other. Their garages joined onto each other. During the day, lazy arse Mr Johnson would nip round for a bit of how’s ya father. I didn’t understand. Apparently. Mrs Johnson was blind as a fuckin bat to what was going on right under her nose. I didn’t understand. Apparently. Mr Johnson and Mrs Roberts were taking the piss. Rita said that she’d been staring at the brat for the last twenty minutes and couldn’t figure out who the bugger was like. She reckoned that he was either Mr Dewstep the butcher’s, Mr Johnson’s or possibly Mr Scott’s (Number 25). I didn’t understand. Rita was laughing. Cackling. She thought it funny that Mr Johnson was pulling a fast one expecting to get away with fiddling on his own doorstep. She was telling Mrs Clark (Number 14) that Mr Johnson would be caught with his pants doon. I didn’t understand.
I stood in the kitchen doorway. Watching Timothy Roberts bang bang banging. I was staring and staring at him. Waiting for Mr Dewstep. Waiting for Mr Johnson. Waiting for Mr Scott. Waiting for the three men to step out of Timothy Roberts. I really didn’t understand.
Rita had changed her yackety yack yack yarning. She was talking about Karen Johnson now. A reet pretty bairn. She was telling Mrs Clark (Number 14) all about Karen’s accident. I’d seen it happen. I knew what had happened. I’d watched it from my bedroom window. Karen Johnson had been roller skating. Up and down. Up and down. Up and down the street. She had new skates. They were red and had huge rubber stoppers at the toe. I liked them. I really liked them. Anyway. Karen Johnson had fallen over. Apparently she had slipped on some crap or other that the lazy arse bin man had dropped. I didn’t know. I had seen her fall. I had watched her land on her hand.
Snappety.
Snap.
Snap.
Apparently. You could have heard her screams in Wallsend. I heard them through my bedroom window. I saw them escape from her mouth. All the neighbours came rushing and pushing to help. Emergency. Emergency. Help. Help. Help. I saw Mr Johnson. He came flying over the other neighbours. He was faster than a speeding bullet. He was faster than an aeroplane. He was faster than the wibble wobblers. Rita was telling Mrs Clark (Number 14) the story. Apparently. Mr Johnson flew in the air like fucking Superman. Mr Johnson was Superman. He had scooped Karen in his arms and ran all the way back to his house. From just outside Number 4 to Number 19. Rita was laughing again. Cackle cackle cackle. I wouldn’t mind suckin on his super power. Cackle cackle cackle. I didn’t understand.
Karen Johnson was taken to hospital. Mrs Roberts (Number 21) had given Mr Johnson and Karen a lift. Dirty buggers. Cackle cackle cackle. Apparently. Karen Johnson had been a reet bravebairn. Her wrist had snapped in two places. Snappety snap snap. Poor bairn. She had a white plaster cast on her arm. I saw her from my bedroom window. I had seen her every day for the last four. She sat on her front wall. Clutching her white plaster. Clutching it as it changed colour. One two three four days. All the neighbours stopped to talk to her. All the neighbours wrote their names. Some drew pictures. I saw the colours. I saw the squiggles. But. But I never wrote my name. Mrs Roberts (Number 21) took her sweets. Mrs Shephard (Number 15) bought her a little teddy bear. Karen Johnson kept them all with her. All her new things. Along her front dwarf wall. A reet pretty bairn. A reet brave bairn.
Timothy Roberts started screaming. Piercing. Shrilling to the ceiling. He had hurt his eye. Hit it with a wooden spoon. Rita was angry. Rita had had to end her natter. Her yackety yacking cut short. She stormed past me. Slapped my head. Sharp. Sting sting sting. Fucking useless ye are. Can’t be fucking trusted te look after a little bairn. Timothy Roberts stopped crying. He stared at me. He was sad. He was angry. I had let him be hurt.
Inside me
Thousands of your waste
Swim.
Penetrating, burrowing,
Tails wiggling,
Worming into my essence.
You forced them into me
And now I exist with part of you.
I long to turn my insides out,
To scrub,
Till blood-filled scabs replace the dirt.
I have become you.
We remain one,
Till death us do part,
Till your dirty thousands die with me.
I hurt inside. I felt sick. I had a strange feeling that was with me all the time. It made me breathe faster. It made me feel as if something bad was about to happen. In the days and then weeks following my walk with Eddie, I began to hear noises. I heard voices. I jumped with fear. I shook. I was cold. Everything was inside of me and it needed to come out. It needed to escape from me.
The neighbours weren’t always there after school. Eleven months and one day since my mother’s death and I was known to be a reet strange bairn. They said it was alright for me to be alone. They liked me to be on my own. They found me odd. She’s strange, that Jude. It was a Tuesday evening and I didn’t go to Mr Johnson’s (Number 19). I used my key instead.
Rita came to my mother’s house before my father got home from work. She cooked his tea and ironed his shirts. She wanted to marry him. She wanted to live in my mother’s house. She always came at the same time. Number 28 bus from Wallsend to Marsden. Arrived at 4.45pm or 5.15pm depending on which one she caught. I had sixty minutes. She had a key.
I went into my father’s garage. It was attached to the house, through a wooden door from the kitchen. The stone floor was cold. I felt the cold through my white ankle socks. I looked around. The walls of the garage were my father’s. Shelves of goodies and racks of tools. Half empty cans of paint. Brushes. Turpentine. Buckets. Jars of screws. Tins of nuts and bolts. Rakes. Brooms. Hammers. Screwdrivers. Saws. Spades. Never just one of a sort. I saw a tin. A pretty tin. A navy blue cylinder. It had a gold trim and E
R in gold lettering. It was dusty. It was neglected. It was too special to be on a shelf. In my father’s cold garage. My father liked his garage. His special things were kept there.
The bricks of the garage were damp. It stank of the oil which had leaked from the bottom of my father’s yellow Mini. A pool of oil was in the centre of the stone floor. A rusting lawn mower slumped against the wall waiting to be cleaned. I was looking for something to help me. I was standing in the doorway, scanning the room for something. Something to help me.
A paintbrush. Too soft.
A spade. Too heavy.
A hammer. Just right.
I took down a hammer from my father’s tool rack. It looked very old. A thick dull metal head, with a wooden handle covered in scratches and dents. It spoke of experience. It was heavy and cold. I went back into the kitchen.
The kitchen. A rectangle that was divided into two separate areas. One where you ate. One where you cooked. When the house was empty I sat in that area where we used to eat. Special occasions. Christmas Day. Ripped-open Selection boxes. Chocolate for breakfast. A Curly Wurly poking out, waiting to be sneaked before lunch. Turkey dinner. Snapping crackers. Paper hats and funny jokes. Toon Moor night. Fish and Chips from the chippie on the seafront. Eaten straight from the newspaper parcel. Placed onto a plate. A bag of candy floss saved from the fair. Fluffy, pink and promising to be delicious. Easter Sunday. A leg of lamb, roast potatoes and lashings of mint sauce. Easter eggs lined up on the kitchen worktop. In sight and waiting.
Timber panels were nailed to two of the three walls giving a Scandinavian woodland feel while we ate. It was a simple setting. A matching stained wooden picnic table, resting against the panelled wall. A themed location. Hardly used anymore.
I sat at the table clutching the hammer. Hovering its cold head over my wrist. Plucking the courage. Finding the courage. Deep within me. Somewhere. Just a little tap at first.
Tap
tap
tap.
It felt nice. It wriggled and jiggled and tickled. I liked it. I tapped a little harder.
Tap
tap
tap.
Pain. Physical pain. Actual pain. Throbbing, pounding, thumping pain. I could breathe again.
I hit a little harder.
Hit hit hit.
Pain. Again. Again. Again. The pain released me. The pain cleaned inside my head.
My wrist was red. The white bone was shining through the stretched skin. I saw my bone. It shone. Tears gushed from my eyes. My legs were shaking. Shock. Cold feet. Pain. Again. Again.
Enough. The hammer was too heavy to continue.
My wrist was swelling. I stood. Shaking. Colour jumped from my cheeks and plummeted to my toes. I wobbled. I went back into the garage, clutching the heavy hammer. The stone floor was cold. I wiped the handle of the hammer. I don’t know why. I replaced the hammer, back on my father’s tool rack. It swayed. I went back into the house. Slowly slowly.
A plan. A simple plan.
Fourteen minutes later. Rita came. I was sitting at the bottom of the stairs. I was crying and clutching my wrist. I could cry. My red swollen wrist made it alright to cry. I told her that I had fallen down the stairs. Fallen onto my wrist. It was a simple plan. She was worried. My father would be in trouble. No one was looking after me. She told me she would buy me sweets. She told me that I was not to tell anyone that I had been left alone in the house. It’s our little secret, bairn. Whirling. Swirling. Round and round. Hush hush.
She would say that she saw me fall. I didn’t have to lie. She would help me. She phoned my father at work. He came home and he hugged me. He hadn’t hugged me before. He smelled of cigarettes and his breath puffed out stale beer. I didn’t want him to let go of me. I wanted to stay. At the bottom of the stairs. Standing on the red carpet with my father’s arms wrapped around me. He said that it would be alright. My father promised to make everything alright. Rita would look after me too.
We all went to hospital. They told my story. I had an X-ray. My scaphoid bone was cracked. A clear crack in the small boat-shaped bone in Jude’s right wrist. This type of crack is consistent with a fall downstairs. The doctor didn’t know about my father’s hammer. He didn’t know about my tap tap tapping. I would have to have a plaster cast on for up to six weeks.
A nurse was waiting for me. She had blonde spiralling ringlets, coiling to just above her shoulders. Her silver eyes twinkled and sparkled. They had been speckled with enchanted fairy dust. She wrapped the soft white cotton wool around and around and around. My wrist felt safe. Snug. Warm. Then the bandages wrapped around and around and around the cotton wool. Securing. Cuddling. Then. Water was dripped onto the bandages. Magic. A white plaster oozed between the nurse’s fingers. I watched the enchanted nurse manipulate the white lumpy mess into a perfectly smooth shell. She created a faultless capsule. It shrouded my tiny wrist. I admired how she could manipulate the gluey substance between her slender fingers. I watched as the plaster began to dry and white patches decorated her bitten finger nails. I thought she was magical. So magical. When she finished, she gave me a real smile and then offered me a shiny sticker. It was a brown teddy bear with a golden star on his round tummy. I had won a prize.
As we left the hospital Rita and my father promised to look after me. I cried through the pain. I cried out my pain. It was fine to cry.
Crying made the pain real. I rested my heavy arm within a powder-smelling sling. I liked the pain.
I could have some time off school. I could eat sweets and watch the television. A ten-pence mix up. Pink Shrimps. Gum rings. Foam teeth. Black Jack. Fruit Salad. Candy watch. Strawberry lace. Flying Saucers. All neatly placed in a crisp white paper bag. Aunty Maggie brought me a magazine. The Beano. Edition 2015, February 28 1981. Sellotaped to the front was a shiny fifty-pence piece. I liked the pain. The pain made them notice me.
I was here again. I was visible.
The pain was lovely. The cold hammer was miraculous. The smell of the damp plaster made me happy. My father tucked me in bed. I was a clever girl for not telling the doctor. Some secrets were good. Hush hush. Pain was nice. My father was proud of me. I was not alone. That night I slept and wanted to wake up.
Exhibit number two—sticker from nice nurse.
My plaster cast had magical powers. Really really magical. I was magical when I wore it. My plaster cast made my father notice me more. It even made Rita nicer. Sometimes. The magic lasted for the whole six weeks. Forty-two happy days.
Rita and my father bought me sweets. Every day. They talked to me. Asked me how I was. Sometimes I was allowed to watch television with them. Coronation Street. I had to go to bed when it finished and I didn’t understand it. But. But I tried to be interested. Annie. The Rovers. Mike. Deirdre. Ken. Emily. I liked sitting in my mother’s front room. With them. Watching Coronation Street. The theme tune started and Rita waddled in with a plastic tray overcrowded with goodies. Always. A bottle of Cola. Three glasses. Four tin cans of beer. A large packet of Cheese and Onion crisps. Salted peanuts. A big bar of Cadbury’s Whole Nut chocolate. Rita kept it in the fridge. It was solid and stiff. I would sit on the floor, Rita and my father on the sofa. Rita would give me three chunks. Thick chocolate. Her special chocolate. I sucked. I savoured. I tried to work out what was going on between Mike, Deirdre and Ken. Rita said that she loved Mike Baldwin. She wanted him to do things to her. I didn’t understand. I stared into the screen. Tried to use my magic. Tried to magic Mike into whisking Rita away to Manchester. That was far far away. Practically the other side of the world. I liked watching television with my father and Rita. I liked the tray of goodies. I liked that the tray was not removed until everything was guzz guzz guzzled.
Forty-two happy days. But. But then my plaster was cut off.
A revolving blunt blade split my pod into two. The hairs on my arm were thick and dark. My hand smelled. Dead skin rolled and clung around my thumb. Dead pain clung in between my fingers.
My wrist was stiff and ached. My wrist missed its plaster. My plaster cast came off and my father was happy. Rita was happy too. They were not in trouble. They had tricked the doctors. Nobody knew that I had been home alone. We had a secret. Hush hush. I had more secrets. Whirling. Swirling. Round and round. Twirling secrets round and round. I wanted to tell them my secrets. They had been nice to me. I wanted to tell them about Eddie.
When my plaster cast came off. My magic was taken away. Stolen from me. And. Rita and my father just stopped being nice. They just stopped. They didn’t have to prevent my talking with doctors. They didn’t have to be nice anymore. No more shared secret. They said thank fuck for that. They could breathe again. They stopped buying me sweets. No more ten-pence mix ups. No more chunks of solid chocolate. I was alone again. No more hugs from my father. When I went near to him, he told me to move. I blocked his television. I was a big girl. I never cried. Big girls don’t cry. I was sent to my bedroom. They preferred me out of the way. Fuckin’ pain in the arse watching is all the time. Do you see sheh looks a’ the tray, to see wha sheh can ’ave? Fuckin’ greedy brat. Rita didn’t like me. I didn’t like her. I wasn’t allowed to watch Coronation Street. Things had changed again. My plaster cast was taken from me. I had nothing again. I didn’t understand. The hammer would understand.
Over the next two years, the hammer was used four times. Every six months. Every six months to the precise date. Always on the 27th of the month. Always. Nobody ever asked the question. I was such an accident prone bairn.
In the six months following Eddie’s visit, my hobbies began to slip away. No ballet. No Brownies. No friends for tea. Nothing excited me. Nothing interested me. I didn’t understand why I was different. I didn’t understand. My father stopped smiling at me. He stared. He glared. No brat o’ mine could be s’ fuckin strange. Rita told me that I was evil. Like your killer of a mam. My father had Rita. They had each other. He wanted to drink from tin cans. Every night he drank and played his records. Lionel Ritchie. Kenny Rogers. Dr Hook. He liked to make Rita squeak. He liked to make Rita moan and groan and screech and yell. He liked her. I didn’t. I chose to stop the violin. I didn’t want to play the recorder. I didn’t want to be in the end of year play. I hated music. I wanted my life to be silent. I was waiting.
Waiting.
Always waiting.
On the last day of term. July 16 1981. I walked home from school. Followed the crocodile of children that moved up the slope of the Coast Road and towards the estate. Head down. Anchored at the tip of the crocodile’s tail. Mrs Andrews (Number 18) and MrsHodgson (Number 2) walked in front of me. Big squishy bottoms in flowery skirts. Blocked the path. Wibble wobble. I tried to move past them. Tried to slide in between the round squishy wall. But. Their squishiness squashed me. Bounced me back behind them. I squeaked politely. They didn’t hear me. They didn’t want to hear me. Their children, Gillian Andrews and Paul Hodgson, were seven like me. They had raced ahead. Chatting. Laughing. Tig tagging. I tried to zig-zag my way through, but the huge flowery bottoms had swallowed my pathway. Mrs Andrews was talking about Mr Johnson (Number 19). Loud chatter. Tittle-tattle. Chitter-chatter. Snail trail. Wibble wobble. They blocked the pavement. I couldn’t get past. Instead I walked near to them. Almost brushing their backs. I listened. I liked to listen.
Apparently. Mr Johnson had been sacked from his job. I didn’t understand. Over a year ago. It must have been before my mother went away. He’d been full of booze once too often. I didn’t understand. Apparently. He’d gone to the library every day for two weeks. Apparently. He’d sat all day. Reading a newspaper or staring at the books. Never spoke a word. Apparently. He hadn’t had the balls to tell his wife that he’d been sacked and then one day Mrs Johnson bumped into Mrs Hughes the librarian in the Dewstep Butchers. Apparently. Holy hell had broken out that night. I didn’t understand.
I liked Mr Johnson. He was a nice man. He always picked Karen and Lucy up from school. He waited at the school gate with the mums. He held his girls’ hands and he talked to them. All the way home. I watched him. Chitter chatter. He smiled a lot. Yellowed mouth with a little gap in between his front two teeth. He often came around to my mother’s house, smoked cigarettes and drank out of tin cans with my father. He laughed a lot. Sounded like a horse hiccupping.
Hic-cc-cup-up-up-innnnnnng.
It made me smile. It made me giggle giggle giggle. Mr Johnson was a nice man. He wore jeans and bright white sports shoes. He wore a blue, soft leather jacket which had huge pockets. Squishy. Squashy. He jingled as he walked. He called Mrs Johnson wor lass and talked to my father about Challenge Anneka’s canny backside.
Mr Johnson had two girls. Karen was in my class at school. A reet pretty bairn. Her sister Lucy was two years younger than us. A bonny bairn and reet clever too. I didn’t play with them. I didn’t play with anyone. They liked Sindy dolls, make-up and Girl’s World. I didn’t see the point. I just didn’t see the point in piling luminous blue eye shadow onto a plastic blonde head.
The squishy bottoms slowed at the peak of the Coast Road slope. Wibble wobble. Huff puff. Mrs Andrews talked. Yackety yack. Apparently. Mr Johnson had been given his cards and it was putting a canny strain on his marriage. I didn’t understand. Poor Mrs Johnson was working every hour to put bread on the table. I didn’t understand. Apparently. Mr Johnson drank like a fish and thought money grew on trees. I didn’t understand. Mr Johnson was funny. He had a laugh like a hiccupping horse. He made me smile. Mrs Andrews spoke her words with a nasty twang. I knew that she was being mean to Mr Johnson and I didn’t like her doing it. Mrs Andrews told Mrs Hodgson that she shouldn’t tell anyone. Hush hush. I wouldn’t tell anyone either. Whirling. Swirling. Round and round. Twirling secrets round and round.
As we walked past Brian’s Newsagents, Mr Johnson was coming out. Lucy and Karen had ten-pence mix ups. They were exploring their little white paper bags. Mrs Hodgson said a strange hello to Mr Johnson. She giggled and touched his arm. Then she just stopped. In the middle of the pavement. I carried on walking. Too busy watching. Walked into her back. She turned and shouted at me. Watch where ye gannin. I put my head down and carried on walking. Such a rude bairn tha Jude Williams. Past the window of Brian’s Newsagents. Past the library. Through the cut. Past Gladstone Street. Into Disraeli Avenue. Number 9. I used my key.
On Wednesday July 29 1981 Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer were getting married. Disraeli Avenue was having a street party. My father and all the other men who worked were given the day off. A national holiday. A day to celebrate.
My father was assistant manager of Rumbelows in Newcastle. Mr Johnson’s (Number 19) brother was the manager. Pulled a fewstrings. My father didn’t have to have an interview. He said that he was the luckiest bloke in the world. And. That if he fell from a plane, he wouldn’t land on his arse. It was an easy job. He just had to turn up and help people spend money. My father liked his job.
My father was the first person in Disraeli Avenue to have a Philips Betamax video recorder 2020. Could line up five programmes for up to 16 days in advance. He never did. That was too complicated. My father sold electrical items, but he could never work them. He liked to have the latest things. It cost a small fortune. £519.99. My father didn’t pay that. It was ex-display. He had an employee discount and it had a big scratch on the bottom. He made the big scratch on it. He was careful to make it on the bottom. Just enough damage. Mr Johnson’s brother had shown him how. Reet clever bloke. It cost my father three hundred pounds. The neighbours were amazed by it. Everyone must have thought that we were rich. That we were the richest people in Disraeli Avenue. Three hundred pounds. We were the richest people on Disraeli Avenue.
Wednesday July 29 1981. The Royal Wedding. We had been learning all about it at school. We even sent a card to the Prince and Princess. Mine had a drawing of a yellow-haired princess in a Union Jack-coloured wedding dress. It wasn’t very good. I only had forty minutes to think of the idea and to draw it. It was rushed. Inside I wrote. Dear Prince Charles and Lady Diana. Love Jude Williams. I couldn’t think of anything else to write. I was rush rush rushed. My teacher sent it thirty-seven days before the wedding. But. We didn’t get a letter back. I asked my teacher every day. I wanted to know if Lady Diana liked my card. My teacher said that the princess would be too busy to write to our school. I didn’t believe her. I didn’t want to believe her.
The Royal celebration. Red, white and blue bunting joined the opposite houses. Unified. Celebrating together. It swung in the gentle breeze. Ladders rested against houses. Front doors were open. Music blasted out of windows. The sun was shining. A day off work. A day to party. Posters of Prince Charles and Lady Diana were taped inside windows. They were free with the Daily Mail. A souvenir. I bought one from Brian’s Newsagents. Used one of the fifty-pence pieces that Aunty Maggie had given me. I didn’t stick it on my window. I kept it. Neat. Perfect. Flat. In an Oor Wullie album. 1978. In between pages 29 and 30. Like the date of the wedding. There were no page numbers though. I had to count from the beginning of the book. I placed the Oor Wullie album containing the special poster into my wardrobe. Carefully carefully.
I watched from my mother’s front room window. I watched the sea of red, white and blue. Flapping. Waving. Noisy. The party was in full swing. It was nine o’clock in the morning. Tin cans were already lying empty. Cluttering Disraeli Avenue. I stayed in my mother’s front room. I peeped through the window every now and then. I didn’t want to go outside. I wanted to soak up every moment that the BBC was supplying. I was excited. Really excited. A princess. I was going to see a real princess.
Every one of the neighbours joined in. It had been arranged. Mrs Hodgson (Number 2) had gone around with a list of food. Rita and my father had to bring sausages on sticks. It was all planned. The men had put up bunting. The women were fussing around the still folded tables. Waiting for someone to put them out. Needing someone to put them out. The children. Some children were playing hide and seek. Noisy. Rush rush. Run and hide. I could see Paul Hodgson (Number 2). He was crouched in my mother’s garden. It wasn’t a good hiding place. The street was noisy. Alive. Screaming. Squealing. Over the radios. Over music. Screeching. Over the blaring television screens. Everything was on full volume. Everyone switched on. Open front doors. In and out of each others’ houses. Rita had cleaned my mother’s house. It was polished and vacuumed and spick and span. She was happy to leave my mother’s front door open. In and out. In and out. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the neighbours being in my mother’s house. They were too noisy. I needed to listen. I needed to see. I needed silence. I needed to concentrate.
My father helped Mr Johnson (Number 19) and Mr Douglas (Number 8) set out the tables. They were wallpapering tables. Different sizes. They didn’t quite join together properly. Paper table cloths were put onto them. Red, white and blue. The tables stretched from Number 5 to Number 19 Disraeli Avenue. No chairs at the table, but there were some deckchairs. Placed along the pavement. The two entrances to the avenue were blocked off. Two chairs and a plank across. Mr Smith (Number 23) was a builder. He made the two blocks. Mrs Scott (Number 25) said that Mr Smith had done a good job. First time he ever did something on time. Bloody waste of space lazy arse. Everything was arranged. Tin cans of beer bobbed around in buckets of cold water. Scattered along the street. The food was foiled. Placed out along the centre of the table. Neatly. Aunty Maggie made rice. Mrs Roberts (Number 21), Mrs Johnson (Number 19) and Mrs Andrews (Number 18) brought plates of sandwiches. Spam, jam, ham and egg. There were other foods. They appeared in between my peeping. Cakes. Crisps. Scones. I wanted to know who brought them. I needed to know how they got there. I wanted to know. But. I was distracted. I was waiting. Watching. Waiting to see the princess.
Sausage rolls.
Crispy cakes.
Jelly.
Fairy cakes.
Scones.
Biscuits.
Crisps.
Hard-boiled eggs.
Crackers.
Spam sandwiches.
Ham sandwiches.
Jam sandwiches.
Egg sandwiches.
Rice.
A reet royal spread.
At the table, outside my mother’s house, Rita poked sausages onto cocktail sticks. She wore a commemorative apron over a short red skirt and a white shirt. Her white stilettos finished off the look. She looked quite normal from the front, but not from behind. As she bent over the table her fat dimply thighs squelched under the hem of the skirt. No tights because it was the summer. It was hot. The sun was shining. Rita was orange from her sunbed sessions. Like a wrinkled Satsuma. Mrs Lancaster (Number 7) told Rita that the tan made her legs look thinner. I didn’t understand. She had fat thighs. Big fat orange pork sausages. Juicer than the flimsy ones that she was poking onto sticks. I watched them all from my mother’s front room window. I heard everything through the open windows. But I would look only when there was a break or a boring discussion on TV.
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Caroline Smailes
A taut and beautifully written debut novel by an exciting and accomplished new author.Motherless, rootless and unprotected, Jude Williams' childhood is fractured by the horror and experience of sexual abuse, forcing her to exist somewhere and nowhere in-between childhood and adulthood. Caught within the limitations of her own language and trapped within a family secret, Jude becomes the consequence of her mother's tragedy. As she moves through the 1980s, Jude's life is buffeted by choice and destiny and she collects experiences that layer her personal tragedy and plunge her into the darkest of worlds.
In Search of Adam
Caroline Smailes
Praise (#ulink_1e34f6f3-f039-5387-92ec-9f542e10c733)
‘An utterly riveting tale from a word magician who truly knows the beat of the grieving human heart.’
—Elizabeth Baines, author of Balancing on the Edge of the World
‘Staccato prose that crackles with experience.’
—Danny Rhodes, author of Asboville
‘Original, authentic and technically brilliant, Caroline Smailes’ In Search of Adam is a debut of remarkable quality and devastating power.’
—Nicholas Royle, author of Antwerp
‘Caroline Smailes has done for child abuse what Mark Haddon did for autism.’
—Lynne Hatwell, dovegreyreader review
‘An engrossing and touching read from a new talent.’
—The Big Issue in the North
‘Caroline Smailes’ writing combines a unique and compelling lyricism with a truly courageous authenticity. In Search of Adam is a beautiful, brutal and highly original novel. It blew me away.’
—Megan Taylor, author of How We Were Lost
‘An accomplished, courageous and insightful debut novel.’
—Damian McNicholl, author of A Son Called Gabriel
‘In Search of Adam is a profoundly affecting book. It deals with the horrors of a damaged childhood caused by a mother’s suicide, a father’s neglect and child abuse. Dark stuff, but it is handled with a deep sensitivity and realism by Newcastle-born author Caroline Smailes.’
—The Journal (Newcastle).
‘A stunning insight into the disturbed mind of a girl living in the North-East. It has re-defined what writing can do for the reader—it can change the way you look at people.’
—Terry Deary, author of Horrible Histories
‘I think it [a novel] should impart emotional energy. Not every good novel will do this, but most will. In Search of Adam is one of them. By the end of the first chapter, I was saddened and uncomfortable. The book has an emotional engine that Smailes guns mercilessly. The story succeeds as a study of disconnection, contamination, and the loss of momentum in a young life.’
—Spike Magazine
For my Gary
Table of Contents
Cover Page (#u3212d590-337b-5632-8542-26b91f196b47)
Title Page (#ufda017f7-8a2e-5232-88e1-71eae1ab124e)
Dedication (#ub1f06bba-0ddc-5683-9cc1-f4b8aeed9888)
Epigraph (#u6db20b95-fb03-5540-962f-694bdcbfb03d)
1980 (#u101d2bdc-81f2-551e-9b0a-f14df71f9e6d)
1981 (#udbbebddc-7ec5-589d-8946-2b5c2c0fac6f)
1982 (#litres_trial_promo)
1983 (#litres_trial_promo)
1984 (#litres_trial_promo)
1985 (#litres_trial_promo)
Ever After (1992) (#litres_trial_promo)
Happy Ever After (#litres_trial_promo)
Thoughts (#litres_trial_promo)
Afterthoughts (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Praise (#u54356434-be90-57dc-b9b9-c97e5ae247be)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
Genesis 01 : 003 : 016
The Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to sea In a beautiful pea green boat.
Edward Lear, 1871
1980 (#ulink_ee19277a-49d5-5f26-95a1-5ae18b7fa04e)
On March 26 1980, I was six years, four months and two days old. I was dressed and ready for school. It was 8:06am on my digital watch. My mother was still in bed. I went into her room to wake her. I found her lying on top of her duvet cover. She wasn’t wearing any clothes. Her ocean eyes were open. She wasn’t sleeping. And from the corner of her mouth, a line
of
lumpy
sick
joined her to the pool that was stuck to her cheek. Next to her, on her duvet I saw an empty bottle. Vodka. And there were eleven tablets. Small round and white. And I saw a scrap of ripped paper. There were words on it.
jude, i have gone in search of adam. i love you baby.
I didn’t understand. But I took the note. It was mine. I shoved it into the pocket of my grey school skirt. I crumpled it in. Then. Then I climbed next to her. I spooned into her. Molded into a question mark. Her stale sick mingled and lumped into my shiny hair. I stayed with my mother, until the warmth from her body transferred into me. We were not disturbed until my father returned from work. At 6:12pm.
Exhibit number one—my mother’s note.
In the days between my mother’s death and her funeral, I noted that someone from every one of the thirty-one other houses in my street came to visit. Some just stood in silence in the hallway. Some drank coffee at the wooden kitchen table. Others sat with my father in the lounge. Smoked cigarettes and drank from tin beer cans. My father liked these visitors the best. There were some neighbours who came each day. Just to check on my father. And between them they decided on how best I should be cared for.
I was six years old. I was more than capable of taking myself to school at 8:30am. My father left for work twenty minutes before I left for school. 8:10am. That was fine. I loved those twenty minutes. I was alone in the house. I was king of the castle. I spent the twenty minutes sitting. Sitting on the bottom red stair. Staring at my watch. Glaring. Terrified that I would be late for school. I loved those twenty minutes. School was a ten-minute walk away. Over only one main road. But a lollipop lady watched out for me. They’d had a word. Then coming home from school. I could manage the walk. But. But they thought it best that I wasn’t at home alone. My father came home from work between 6:10pm and 6:17pm. So together. Those smoking drinking neighbours and my father. They decided where I should go each night.
I had my key. Tied to a piece of string and fastened with a safety pin inside my brown parka. That key was to lock the door each morning and only for emergencies at night. That key would allow me to escape from my neighbours.
During those days. Between my mother’s death and her funeral. I used to watch my neighbours slowing down as they passed by my mother’s house. I could sit on my bed and watch them from the window. I could open the window. Just slightly. Just enough to let their words fly in. They didn’t look up to me. I was already invisible. They never saw me. They never looked for me. Some neighbours would stand talking. Curlers in their hair. Slippered feet. Dressing gowns pulled across their chests. They would point at my mother’s house and they would chitter and chatter and yackety yacker. Gossip. Gossip. Gossip. Always about my mother. My precious, my beautiful mother. She was in the tittle-tattle. She was in the chitchat. Her demise. My demise. My mother’s house, Number 9 Disraeli Avenue was the centre of the universe. Front page gossip. The neighbours talked of a pure evil that was within my mother. They spoke of her lack of motherly instincts. They talked about a murderous past. I didn’t understand their words. But. But they were tinged and tanged with mean-sounding twangs. They talked. I listened. I heard them. Through the open bedroom window.
On the day of my mother’s funeral. Five days after her death. My father told me to put on my school uniform. A grey skirt. A blue blouse. A blue and yellow stripy tie. My blouse was creased. Crumply and worn. My tie was stained with baked bean juice.
My mother’s coffin was in the box room. The lid had been removed. She looked so beautiful. Her long blonde hair had been styled. She looked like a glamorous film star. She was covered in a white sheet and her bare feet were poking from beneath it. I crept into my mother and father’s bedroom. I took my mother’s favourite shoes from her wardrobe. I also took a blouse and hid it under my pillow. Her scent still clung to it. Combining Chanel, musk and Mary Quant. Then. I returned to the box room. I took her purple stilettos. I lifted the white sheet to see her ankles. I placed her purple shoes onto her blue feet. Touching her skin sent a throbbing ache into my stomach.
I feel sick. I feel sick.
I fought my weakness. I stopped myself from being sick. I needed her to be wearing shoes. I didn’t want her feet to become raw. She was off to hike through foreign lands. My mother was not smiling. Her face was blank. As I looked at her I realised that all expression came from her eyes. I longed for those ocean eyes. Open your eyes, please open your eyes. Just to connect with her one last time. My hair was tangled, still matted with her sick. So I sat on her hairdressing stool. Next to her coffin. In the box room. And I counted each stroke as I brushed my hair. One…two…three…four…five…six…seven…eight… I needed my mother. I needed her to get rid of the tatty tatty clumps. I reached into the coffin. Her coffin. I held her cold hand. I heard people laughing and chatting downstairs. Ding dong. Ding dong. Chatter chatter. Laugh laugh laugh. Aunty Maggie from Number 30 had brought rice, Mrs Clark from Number 14 had brought a platter of sandwiches and with each ding dong my father poured drinks and welcomed his guests. I sat. Holding my dead mother’s hands. Wishing that she had taken me with her on her journey. Downstairs they talked loudly. And then. Then hushed and whispered. She hadn’t left a note, she was so very selfish, how could she be so cruel to little Jude. They talked badly of my mother. I wanted to go and scream at them. To stop their evil gossiping. My father said that he wouldn’t speak ill of the dead. But. Sarah was an evil whore and ahm glad that she’s deed. And. She’d been threatening te dee it for years. And. She was an evil lass. A selfish murdering whore. She divvnae care aboot anyone but horsell. I hated my father. I hated that he fed the neighbours lies. I didn’t understand. Liar liar. Pants on fire.
My mother loved me. She did care about me. I didn’t understand why my father was telling lies. My mother was magical. She was beautiful and she loved me. Right up to the sky and back. She was thirty-two. She was clever. She was just going to explore the world a little. She would come back when she was done. She had gone in search of Adam. Her explanation was simple. I had no idea who or what an Adam was. She would tell me all about it when she found it. She’d come back then. She’d come back and carry on being mine. I’d wait. I’d always wait. I stroked her long slender fingers. She was cold. Too cold. Back into my bedroom. A hot water bottle. I took it into the bathroom. Turned the hot tap till it was burning. Burning. I filled my plastic hot water bottle. Then I returned to my mother. I placed it under her sheet. I gave her the shiny fifty pence that Aunty Maggie, Number 30, had given me the day before. Just in case. She may have time to buy herself a treat. An ice cream and a ten-pence mix up.
My father shouted for me. I stood. Over my mother’s coffin. I looked at my mother. The last time. She did not look back at me. Her eyes were closed. Sleeping. Sleeping Beauty. I would not cry. I could not cry. I had to be brave. They would think badly of my mother. My father had told me. He had warned me. Big girls don’t cry. Do you hear me? Big girls don’t cry. I bent down and kissed my mother. She did not wake. I was not magic.
I sat next to my father in the large black car. I lowered my head and tried to name all the foreign places that I could think of. My fists were clenched. I recited names. I could think of only five.
Spain…
France…
Scotland…
America…
London…
Spain…France…Scotland…America…London…
Spain…
France…
Scotland…
America…
London…
I tried to picture my mother in these countries. The Tower of London. Loch Ness. Disneyland. The Eiffel Tower. On the beach. Sunbathing. And in my head I could see her smiling. Her eyes twinkling with excitement. As she grasped her sketch book, charcoal and lead.
The funeral ended. Mr Johnson, from Number 19, took me to school in time for lunch.
Mashed potato.
Peas.
And carrots.
Mixed together.
Fish fingers.
One, two, three.
Jam sponge.
Custard.
The afternoon of the funeral passed quickly at school. Children avoided me. My teacher cried at the front of the class. I sat at my small wooden desk and held my tightly clenched fists in front of me.
Spain…
France…
Scotland…
America…
London…
Spain…
France…
Scotland…
America…
London…
Spain…
France…
Scotland…
America…
London…
I would not cry. I did not move during afternoon playtime. Teachers walked past the classroom window and peered in at me. My nails dug into my palms, but my knuckles were fixed and I concentrated through the pain.
Spain…France…Scotland…
America…London…Spain…
France…Scotland…America…
London…Spain…France…
Scotland…America…
London…Spain…
France…
Scotland…
America…
London.
I didn’t draw an Easter card. I didn’t practise my writing. I didn’t listen. I didn’t speak. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
The final bell rang.
I left my desk. Children moved out of the way. Terrified that a touch from me would make them catch the evil eye. I had the evil eye. Mothers at the school gate turned their backs. Talked in packs. Always in hushed tones. No one wanted to look at me. No one could find the words. My mother was fresh in the ground. I was at school. The neighbours were drinking. Eating. Celebrating. I had to walk home alone. Alone. Alone. Alone.
It was a Wednesday. But Mrs Clark was at my mother’s wake. In a pub called The Traveller’s Rest. A wake. The neighbours were trying to wake my mother. I had tried that too. Given her a kiss. It hadn’t worked. She needed a handsome prince. The neighbours would wake her. They were old and clever. Aunty Maggie was nearly one hundred and ninety-five years old. She was the oldest person in the world. She had to be the wisest person in the world.
I used my key and let myself into my mother’s house. It was cold. It was silent. I rushed to the box room. Ran up the red stairs. Quick quick quick. Just in case she was still there. But. But the room was empty. She was gone. I went into my mother and father’s bedroom. I opened my mother’s wardrobe. It was empty. She had taken her clothes with her on her travels. She had packed. She had gone. I went downstairs. Into the kitchen. I found her things. Next to the door. Waiting to go into the garage. They were in black plastic bags. Waiting to be thrown into the garage. Ready for the bin man. One bag for her clothes, one bag for her secrets. For her stuff. I took her secrets. A bag full of letters and beads and books and her sketch book and a box. I took that bag. I hid it in my room. Buried within a basket of teddies and dolls. I would keep it for my mother. I wouldn’t look. She could show me when she came back. We could take it with us. When she took me away. When she had found herself an Adam.
When it was time.
I took my mother’s blouse from under my pillow and held it to my nose. I tried to sniff in her smell. But. But already it was fading. I was forgetting. I curled onto my bed. Onto my blue duvet. I curled into a question mark. I held my mother’s blouse tightly to me and I stared out of the window. I stared up to the sky. I watched the day fall into night. My father and some of the neighbours returned home. I heard them chatting and laughing and cheering and singing. I felt their happiness. It kind of stuck into me like a fork. They sat downstairs, smoking and drinking beer out of warm tin cans. They didn’t come into my room.
Life entered into a robotic routine. I existed. I grew. I was quiet. A thoughtful child. I had no friends. I carried the world inside my head. I carried the world on my shoulders. In my hands. There was no room for play. There was no way of playing. I sat. I thought. Always about my mother.
Aunty Maggie gave me a shiny fifty-pence piece. Every Monday evening when my father came to collect me. I saved all of them. And eventually. I was able to buy an Atlas. I held the world in my hand. It was a large hardback book. Glossy. The pages stuck together. New. Crisp. I learned of new places. Unsure if my pronunciation was correct.
Spain…
France…
Scotland…
America…
London…
Libya…Malta…Tibet…Victoria…Boston…
Greenland…
Spain…
France…
Scotland…
America…
London…
Libya…Malta…Tibet…Victoria…Boston…Greenland…
Spain…
France…
Scotland…
America…
London…
Libya…
Malta…
Tibet…
Victoria…
Boston…
Greenland…
Spain…France…Scotland…America…London…
Libya…Malta…Tibet…Victoria…Boston…
Greenland.
I placed a small heart-shaped sticker onto a country. Onto a place. Then. I moved it around each day. I plotted my mother’s travels. I watched her move through my book. I watched her move around the Atlas. I held the world. I held her world. I carried the world with me. Always. Always with me. My room was tidy. Always. I asked for and received so very little. Yet with the uncluttered space came calmness.
I started to write poetry. I started to draw. I spent hours scribbling words. Or sketching my mother. In different countries. Outlines of her, with signs pointing to her next destination. My drawings weren’t very good. They weren’t good enough. I had no photographs of her. My father had taken them all. I tried to sketch her. In case I began to forget. But. I couldn’t capture her ocean eyes. I wasn’t good enough. My drawings were rubbish.
But.
Her eyes.
They penetrated to my soul.
At night.
As I closed my eyes in the cold darkness of my room.
My mother appeared and her eyes warmed me.
I longed for my mother. My precious mother.
As I closed my eyes.
In my darkness.
My mother.
Behind her a signpost.
Pointing.
Four different directions.
All leading to Adam.
All searching for Adam.
Her bag of secrets.
Her bag of her. Still buried. Untouched. Waiting. Waiting for her return.
In the year that followed my mother’s death, my father entertained many women. I would be sent to my room, as he played his records, smoked his cigarettes and drank from cold tin cans. Lionel Ritchie would float through my floorboards. He would dance around my room. I hated his voice. I hated my father’s music. I hated those women who giggled and groaned in my mother’s front room.
The women came and went. Good riddance.
But. But then one woman started coming around more and more and more. It was in December 1980. Just over eight months after my mother went away. I didn’t take much notice at first. Thought she’d be replaced. Like the others. My father liked to have a different woman to visit. A different woman every night. Then. Then she started coming back. More and more. She was in my mother’s house every day. Every night. Her voice was squeakier and her groans were louder than the rest. She called my father babe and she slept in my mother’s bed. She slept under my mother’s purple duvet. She slept on my mother’s sheets.
She was introduced to me.
She was called Rita. Jude pet, come and say hello te Miss North East 1981. Jude meet Reta. I didn’t understand my father’s words. He was smiling. He was excited. Rita’s hair was bleached white and she wore short skirts. Her thighs were really fat and dimply. She wore blue mascara. It clogged on her lashes. Her lips were ruby red and her skin was orange.
She was a monster.
She talked of sunbeds, fake tan and keep-fit videos. She was fat and ugly. She wasn’t like my mother.
My father liked Rita. She kept her toothbrush in our bathroom and within the year after my mother’s death, Rita would walk around my mother’s house without any clothes on. Her breasts were saggy and her nipples were huge. She was hairy. Black hairy. She was scary. She wibble wobbled about. Her fat wibble wobbled about. She smoked cigarettes. Between twenty and twenty-four a day. She drank out of tin beer cans. One two three four five. Sometimes she would wake me in the night. She’d be giggling. Cackling. Squealing. Falling downstairs. Or. Coming into my room. I didn’t like her coming into my room. She banged the door. She cackled. She breathed her nasty smell into my room. Onto my things. I didn’t like Rita. She didn’t smell very nice and her eyes didn’t sparkle.
I missed my mother. As I curled up in bed. I covered my ears so that I couldn’t hear them. I thought of my mother’s ocean eyes. I longed to be with her. Maybe. Maybe one morning I wouldn’t wake up. I’d just go away. I’d go off looking for an Adam too. If I was really lucky. If I wished and wished and wished. Then just maybe I’d wake up in my mother’s arms. She’d have come back for me. If my mother wrapped her thin arms around me. If she pulled me tightly to her. Then. Then I’d be safe and nothing else would matter.
I could sleep. I looked forward to bed. It was the waking that destroyed me.
1981 (#ulink_43174fdc-275b-521d-b2b0-368f6f6fc790)
Two years, six months and twenty-one days before I was born, my parents moved to New Lymouth. From a block of flats that were as high as a giant. My mother’s house was brand new. It was shiny. Spick and span. There were two new estates being built in New Lymouth. The housing estate that I was to live on and another one. They each had four parallel streets and formed a perfect square on either side of the main road.
On this Coast Road, there were The Shops. Dewstep Butchers was also New Lymouth Post Office and displayed a smiling pig’s head in the window. New Lymouth Primary School. My primary school. Was a perfect E-shaped grey building with a flat roof. Mrs Hodgson (Number 2) told Rita that many cuckoos were put in nests on that roof. I didn’t understand. New Lymouth Library was on the Coast Road too. It was a rectangle. Like a shoe box. Inside the library there were eighty-seven Mills and Boon novels and three Roald Dahl books. There were signs everywhere. ‘Absolute silence at all times’. The grumpy librarian liked to read her Introducing Machine Knitting magazine. I read the first chapter of Danny Champion of the World twenty-seven times. I read all of Matilda and The Twits. Thirteen times each.
Brian’s Newsagents stretched across 127-135 Coast Road. Inside the shop I heard gossip being tittled and tattled, as I stood looking at the jars of delicious sweets.
Rhubarb and Custard. Chocolate Raisins. White Gems. Aniseed balls. Coconut Mushrooms. Brown Gems. Cola Cubes. Pear drops. Cherry Lips. Licorice Comfits. Toffee Bonbons. Jelly Beans. Edinburgh Rock. Pontefract Cakes. Pineapple Chunks. Sweet Peanuts. Scented Satins. Sherbet Pips. Midget Gems. Sweet Tobacco. Chocolate Peanuts. Toasted Teacakes. Rainbow Crystals. Sour Apples. Lemon Bonbons.
Unable to decide. I wished that I had the courage to ask for one from every one of the twenty-five jars.
On the other side of the Coast Road there were five really big houses. My class teacher Mrs Ellis and Mrs Hughes the local librarian lived in two of them. I didn’t know who else lived there. The children in those houses didn’t go to New Lymouth Primary School with me. The children in those houses didn’t play foxes and hounds around the estate with us local bairns. I walked down that road on my way to school. I peered into those large houses. I stopped walking to stare in. I tried to look past the fresh flowers in the window and I thought about all the nice smelling things that would live inside.
The Coast Road ran a slope from New Lymouth down to the Lymouth seaside. The estate that I lived on was at the top of the hill. As the road continued up, it travelled through a number of similar estates and villages. Signs warned drivers when they were leaving one village and arriving in another. My father said that the nearer yee lived to the coast, then the richer yee were. We lived about a ten-minute walk from the coast. I’m not quite sure what that made us. All I know is that when my mother was alive, my father talked about one day living on the sea front. The houses there were enormous. Five stories tall. They went up and up and up to the sky. You could stand on the roof and your head would be in the clouds. I thought that really important people lived in those kinds of houses. People like the Queen could live there. A hacky lad in my class at school lived in one, with about twenty other children. His mother and father hadn’t wanted him. They, the twenty other children and the hacky lad, lived in their mansion that looked out over the beautiful Lymouth cove. They were very very lucky. They must have been very very rich. They must have been the richest people in England.
Lymouth Bay was shaped like a banana. There was a pier at each end and three caves lived in the cliff. Just over the left pier. Sat tall on a throne of rocks. There was a lighthouse. The most beautiful. The most elegant. A white lighthouse. Legend had it, that hundreds and thousands of small green men with orange hair lived in it. I never saw them. But. Paul Hodgson (Number 2) had seen one buying a quarter of toasted teacakes in Brian’s Newsagents.
There were one hundred and twenty steps to climb down. One hundred and twenty steps before touching the grey sand. The sand was unhappy. It looked poorly sick all the time. A green handrail wove next to the steps. I never had the courage to touch it. The paint was covered in carved initials, decorated with lumps of hardened chewing gum and topped with seagull droppings. Yackety yack. Hundreds and thousands of lumps. Hacky yack yack. Paul Hodgson (Number 2) told me that his uncle caught an incurable disease from touching that handrail. He said that his uncle’s hand had dropped clean off. I wasn’t going to risk it.
To me, the Coast Road seemed to go on for ever and ever and ever. I was told that it was a perfectly straight road, which travelled from the seafront and through four villages. You could catch a bus on the Coast Road. The road passed by my school, up the slope, close to my house and then on through village after village into lands that were unknown. Into lands that sounded magical and exciting. North Lymouth. Marsden. Hingleworth. Coastend. Mrs Hodgson (Number 2) told me that Coastend was famous for its cheapness of tricks. A magical place.
I lived in Disraeli Avenue, in between Gladstone Street and Campbell-Bannerman Road. The neighbours all said it dizz- rah- el -lee (four chunks) Avenue. My mother’s house was a semi-detached on a street with 31 similar-looking houses. They looked identical but I knew that they weren’t. There were differences.
Thirteen had red front doors. Seven had green front doors. Five had blue front doors. Seven had yellow front doors. The garages matched the front doors. Except for Number 17. Mr Lewis had a yellow front door and a green garage. I didn’t know why.
green,
red,
red,
yellow, green, red, red, yellow, yellow, green, red, red, red,
green, blue, blue,
red,
blue,
green,
yellow, red, blue, blue, yellow, green, green, red, red, red,
yellow, red, yellow.
I wanted the numbers to fit better. I wanted the colours to fit better.
It should have been sixteen red front doors. One half. Eight green doors. One quarter. Four blue doors. One eighth. Four yellow doors. One eighth. It was simple. The colours could look really nice. I had worked it all out.
red,
red,
green,
red,
green,
red,
blue,
blue
green, red,
yellow, red, green,
red, yellow, red,
red, green, red,
green, red, blue, blue,
green, red, yellow,
red, green, red,
yellow, red, red.
I wasn’t happy with Mr Lewis (Number 17). His colours didn’t match. Maybe he didn’t realise. I wished that I had the courage to talk to him about it.
There was a little wall in front of the garden. A dwarf wall. A dwarf wall for Snow White’s friends to play on. There was also a drive for my father’s Mini. There was a garden to the front and a slightly larger one to the back. The front lawn was just big enough to squeeze onto it a folded tartan picnic blanket. The soil surrounding the perfect square of grass was always packed with flowers. I watched the flowers. I noted them all in a little lined book. It was green and lived on my windowsill. Thorny rose bushes, coordinating colours and then down to a mixture of blossoms. Depending on the month.
Gaillardia ‘Burgunder’.
Shiny red flower, with light yellow centre.
June-October. 30cm.
Dahlia.
Really orange and red.
June-November. 60cm.
Narcissum ‘Amergate.’
Orange outside with a darker orange
in the middle.
March-April. 45cm.
I liked to write things down. In the green notebook that I kept on my windowsill. Flowers. Colours. Number plates. Full names. Times. Routines. All of the first chapter of Danny Champion of the World. So I wouldn’t forget.
Hold your palms out. Let me read your fortune.
I see that you are destined for great things.
Love…yes. A great love.
Children…bend your little finger…
Ah. I see a boy and a girl.
It’s all here. Written within your palm.
Aunty Maggie lived at Number 30 Disraeli Avenue and every Monday she looked after me. Her hallway walls were jam packed with black and white photographs of her darling husband Samuel. Who passed away in his prime. They were all the same photograph, but in different-sized frames. Aunty Maggie had never been blessed with children. I didn’t understand. Before my mother died, she liked Aunty Maggie. Aunty Maggie used to make boiled rice for my mother. She’d cook it to a fluffy perfection in one of my mother’s pans. Then. She’d walk along Disraeli Avenue. Number 30 to Number 9. Both hands clutching the black handle of the steaming pan. My mother used to pretend to my father that she had cooked it. My father used to like Aunty Maggie’s feathery white rice.
When Aunty Maggie looked after me. I would sit in her pink room and she would open a cupboard brimming with untouched toys. They were shiny and perfect. Treasures. Aunty Maggie was always old. Always one hundred and ninety-five years old and her face was a web of wrinkles. I wanted to run my finger along the tracks. Round and round and round and round. I never did. Her breath was smelly. Mint. Toothpaste mint. And about her lingered a flowery scent. Sweet and lasting.
In the pink room, where everything was pink, I was surrounded by smiling faces on photographs of school children who sometimes visited. I would play with her Bible Fuzzy Felts and sip at milky tea. I was on my best behaviour. As I left she would always give me a shiny fifty-pence piece. A whole shiny fifty pence. I was rich. Aunty Maggie spoke with a swish accent and her house was always tidy. Always. She used to watch me from her window and I knew that she longed to be my mother. I was glad that she was not my mother.
On February 1 1981 I was seven years, two months and eight days old and it was within the first year after my mother’s death. Although Rita was nearly always in my mother’s house, I still visited the neighbours after school. Aunty Maggie was expecting me. As I entered her house, cigar smoke was swirling from her pink room.
She had a guest.
Eddie was her brother. He was fat. He wore brown and his big belly was forcing the buttons on his shirt to cling to the holes. His trousers stretched over his solid fat belly. Up and over. Up and over. He looked like a brown egg. With little chicken drumsticks coming out the bottom. He was perched on the edge of Aunty Maggie’s special chair. Not daring to touch her plump cushions. He wore a brown cardigan with a thin mint green tissue sticking out of the pocket. His hair was flat and looked like it had been drawn on with black felt tips. He was shiny. Very shiny. But he had a laugh like I imagined Father Christmas would. Ho Ho Ho. He boomed and he chuckled. I thought that I liked him. When I left he gave me a fifty-pence coin too. I was rich. Two fifty-pence coins. One hundred pennies. One whole pound. They asked if I would like to visit them again the next day. I knew that I would be given more coins and I had had a nice time. So Aunty Maggie said that she would have a word with Mr Johnson.
On February 2 1981 I went to Aunty Maggie’s straight from school. Eddie was perched on the edge of the special flowery chair. Ready to swoop. I saw him watching me through the dirt-free windows. Edged with coordinated flowery drapes. He was ready. He opened the door. A fat cigar balanced in between his fingers. His shirt was a dirty cream. A hot wash of whites and browns. Tight shirt. Old shirt. His forehead glistened with tiny beads of sweat. A tiara of sweat. His nose was a purple plum and as he spoke stale smoke escaped between his narrow lips. He smelled. Sweat. Sour smoke. Chip fat. Smelly smelly man.
Eddie was happy to see me. I liked that he was happy to see me. He’d been looking forward to it all day. He smiled. He smiled and showed me his painted brown teeth. Aunty Maggie had had to nip out. She wouldn’t be long. He led me into the pink room. Where everything was still pink. He told me to take off my shoes. He liked my white socks. Aunty Maggie didn’t like shoes to be worn in her house. I didn’t know that. Eddie had shoes on. Brown shoes.
He sat down on the pink chair. Daring to sink into the freshly plumped cushions. He patted his lap. He wanted me to sit on him. I stayed still.
Again.
He slapped his thighs with the palms of his fat hands. He was telling me where I must sit. I didn’t want to. I didn’t feel happy. I didn’t want to sit on Eddie’s lap. I wanted to sit on my own chair. He told me not to be a naughty girl. His face went all screwy. Angry lines sprouted on his forehead and around his eyes. Not happy anymore. Not smiling anymore.
I sat on his lap.
He rubbed his fat fingers over my cold thighs. Pushing the tips into my skin. He was strong. He kissed my neck. Kiss nibble kiss kiss. A nibbling eagle. His breath was getting faster and faster. His fat fingers were playing harder and harder. His hands moved up to the top of my thighs. Up up up. Gripping. Gripping. Gripping my thighs. Pulling me into him. He asked me if it felt nice. I didn’t say anything. Silence. Fear. Silence. He told me that it felt good. His angry voice asked me to like it. I said yes. I said that it was nice. It wasn’t. Really it wasn’t. I didn’t like it. I didn’t want to be on his lap. I didn’t want him to touch me. I didn’t know what to do. I was drowning. Drowning. Drowning.
A key in the door.
A humming accompaniment. Aunty Maggie was home. Eddie jumped onto his heavy feet. I was pushed forward. My legs were shaking. Shaking quaking shaking shaking. My knees buckled to the floor. I stayed on the floor. He scuttled to help his sister with her heavy bags. I stayed still. Rooted. Rooted. I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand what was happening. I wanted to cry. Big girls don’t cry. Do you hear me? Big girls don’t cry.
Eddie and Aunty Maggie came into the room. Aunty Maggie was looking at me. She wasn’t smiling. She was looking at me. Over me. Up and down. Up and down. Eddie told Aunty Maggie that we were just about to play Bible Fuzzy Felts. He winked at me, as he carried the box from the cupboard that brimmed with toys that failed to excite. Eddie was excited. He was all happy and jolly and all ho ho ho. I didn’t understand. He was happy again. He was funny again. He liked me again. As Aunty Maggie prepared her feast, she bustled in and out of the pink room. I placed Noah beside his arc, but baby Jesus could not be rescued. Two by two. Two by two. There had to be two. I knew that baby Jesus would die. Two. There had to be two. Eddie sat close to me. Too close. Knees touching. His smell was next to me. His smell was on me. Waiting. Waiting. It’s oor little secret. You’re me special girlfriend. Here’s an extra fifty pence.
As I left, I clutched my shiny coins. Three shiny coins. One hundred and fifty pennies. Two days of coins. Totalling two hundred and fifty pennies. I was rich. Really rich. Eddie said that he liked having me around. It made him feel young. It was nice to have a youngster around the house. Aunty Maggie thought I might like to come again the next day. She would have a word with Mrs Clark. She liked to see her only brother happy. He was very dear to her. He was such a lovely man.
On February 3 1981 Eddie was lingering with a camera. He wanted a nice shot of me to take home with him. Aunty Maggie had a spare frame. I was to have pride of place on his mantel. Over the electric fire. In between his Madonna and a clock that had stopped working at ten minutes past three. But he wasn’t sure if it had happened in the morning or in the afternoon. Ho ho ho. Aunty Maggie thought that it was a wonderful idea. Her brother was such a lovely man. He was so very dear to her. Aunty Maggie was cooking in the kitchen. She was humming. She was buzz buzz buzzing. I could hear her. Eddie could hear her.
He told me to lift up my skirt. He told me to do it. An angry voice. I knew that I had to. No choice. No choice. I had to keep Eddie happy. Aunty Maggie liked her brother to be happy. Pink knickers with tiny butterflies fluttering over them. They were too tight. A little bit too tight for me. Click. Click. Flash. Quick. No one need know. I was a funny-looking thing. He thought that I was a funny-looking thing. He asked if I had a boyfriend. He asked if I would like a boyfriend. I didn’t understand. I was seven years old. I didn’t understand. He told me to sit on the chair. On the edge of the chair. He told me to pull up my skirt. Higher higher. He told me to open my legs. Wide wide wide. Click. Click. Flash. Aunty Maggie droned a happy song. It’s oor little secret. You’re me special girlfriend.
My father came for me. He told Eddie that there was no need to give me money. Eddie insisted. He was such a nice man. A real gent. I clutched my shiny coins. Two coins. One hundred pennies. Totalling three hundred and fifty pennies. Three pounds and fifty pence. I was rich. Very very rich. Eddie told my father that we were having such good fun together. Ho ho ho. He winked at me. He smiled his special smile for my father. A brown painted smile. Eddie asked me if I had had a good time. I said yes thank you very much. I hadn’t had a nice time. I was being polite. I was being a good girl. Good manners were very important. I had to be polite. Please and thank you. Please and thank you. My father suggested that I visit again on Thursday. He was sure that Mrs Roberts wouldn’t mind. Eddie was pleased. I didn’t feel very happy.
On February 4 1981 Eddie put his hand up my school skirt.
We were sitting at the table. In the pink room. Cups of milky tea and still hot scones were placed on white lace doilies. Aunty Maggie went to fetch a jar of strawberry jam. Eddie pushed his fingers up my skirt and inside my knickers. He rubbed and rubbed. It hurt. He was being hard. Big, heavy, fat fingers. He was trying to push his fingers into my skin. Aunty Maggie was coming. He swiped them out. He lifted them to his mouth and sucked.
Suck suck suck.
He turned to me, just as Aunty Maggie bustled nearer. It’s oor little secret. You’re me special girlfriend. Here’s an extra fifty pence. Eyes down, cheeks red. I didn’t understand. Aunty Maggie spooned the jam into a delicate bone china dish. She didn’t speak. She didn’t speak to me. Eddie heaped the jam onto his scone. Dribbling in delight. Eyes glistening. He guzzled scone after scone. One two three four. Forgetting to swallow. Scoffing. Wolfing. Devouring. Moaning with pleasure. Staring at me and smiling. Not a nice smile.
His eyes were not smiling. A dollop of strawberry jam escaped. It tumbled down his brown shirt. Tumble tumble tumble. It stopped. Next to button number five which was desperately clinging to its nearest hole. When I left he gave me an extra fifty pence. One hundred and fifty pennies. Totalling five hundred pennies. Five pounds. I was richer than I had ever been.
On February 5 1981 I went to Aunty Maggie’s house. I thought about the two or even maybe three fifty-pence pieces that I was sure to get. Eddie asked me to go for a walk with him. It was getting dark. We would have to hurry. He wanted to see the Lymouth coast. The street that I lived on was a ten-minute walk from the beach. Surfers enjoyed the North Sea. Pirates explored the Lymouth caves. Eddie told me all about pirates. Eddie told me that there was buried treasure in the caves. He had a map in his pocket. But it was a secret. It was our secret. I held his hand and he took me into the cave. It was dark in the cave. It was salty. I could see him. Just about.
He took off his brown cardigan and laid it on the grey floor. I kneeled onto it. Waiting for the treasure map. I wanted him to hurry up. Before the pirates came. Eddie told me to lie down. I did. He unfastened his belt and pulled his trousers down to his knees. He put his hand up my skirt and pulled off my knickers. He threw them into the cave. I didn’t speak. I watched as he climbed onto me. I was winded by his weight. He hurt me. He burned into me. He ripped me. He filled me with damp sand. I opened my mouth to scream. No sound came. He placed his hand over my mouth and he ripped into me further. Rip rip rip. The pain. Such pain. It took away the sound. I tried to scream. No sound. No sound.
He stopped.
He told me to move off his cardigan. I could not move. The pain ran from my belly and down my legs. He pulled his cardigan from below me. It rolled me onto the damp sand. My knees were shaking. My body was shaking. Cold cold cold. He shouted at me. His cardigan was ruined with my blood. He threw it deeper into the cave. His cardigan. My knickers. Buried treasure. It’s oor little secret. No one would believe a strange bairn like yee. Tell anyone and I’ll get yee. He left me. I lay on the wet sand. Shaking shivering shaking. I could not move. I tried to think of my mother. She did not come to me.
Spain…
France…
Scotland…
America…
London…
Spain…
France…
Scotland…
America…
London…
I knew more countries. I used to know more countries. But. But they were gone. I wanted the sea to visit me. To sweep me away. I was riddled with sand. My teeth chattered. My knees were shaking. I needed help. I didn’t understand. Pirates. Treasure. Pain. Such pain. I was dying. This had to be the end. My mother had not saved me. Eddie had taken her memory from me. I had nothing left. Nothing nothing nothing.
I stood. Blood and wee slid down to my white ankle socks. He had lit a fire inside me. My hair was matted with sand. My blue school blouse was ripped. I was seven years two months and twelve days old.
I walked out onto the beach. It was quiet. It was dark. Too dark. The lighthouse was still. No eye. No yellow eye. No green and orange little men. No one was watching. I climbed the one hundred and twenty steps. I did not touch the green handrail that wove next to the steps. I had to keep stopping. Doubled in pain. Difficult to breathe. Difficult to carry on. I walked myself over and along the main Coast Road. The lollipop lady had gone home. I walked past the Dewstep Butchers that doubled as the New Lymouth Post Office and displayed a garnished pig’s head in the window. Past New Lymouth Primary School. Past New Lymouth Library. Past Brian’s Newsagents. Stretched across 127-135 Coast Road. Past the detached homes which housed the professional types. I walked to my mother’s house. Eyes never looking left or right. I hoped that a car would hit me. I walked slowly. I had ripped clothes but my brown parka covered them. I had a single line of blood trickling down my inside thigh. Inside my brown parka. I was covered in sand. Nobody stopped me. Nobody asked me what had happened. People looked away. Neighbours called their children in from play. Nobody. Nothing.
A greedy decision. A need for shiny fifty-pence pieces. A greedy need. I was saving to buy a globe. One that lit up with the flick of a switch. Paul Hodgson (Number 2) had gotten one last Christmas. I needed fifteen pounds. That was a lot of money. A greedy need. Misguided trust. My whole life stepped onto a path. I stepped onto a path. I sometimes imagine that my palms were smooth and blank. Right up until that week. That precise week. That my palms had promise. I still had a future. That I still had exciting challenges and a glossy journey ahead of me. With my decision. With my greedy need. The lines appeared. Abracadabra. Hey presto. The lines were engraved. Tattooed. Forever. Scraped in a web of complications. My palms told of the self-destruction that lay ahead.
I never bought the globe.
Sand
In my pants.
Itchy itchy sand monster.
Sand
In my tummy.
Sand
In my head.
Nasty nasty sand monster.
Sand
Make me vomit.
Sand
Make me die.
Naughty naughty sand monster.
Never to be gone.
Dirty dirty sand monster.
I used my key. It was tied to a piece of string and fastened with a safety pin inside my brown parka. I fumbled with the pin. My hands were shaking. Sand and blood poked from the tips of my nails. I was dirty. Sand clung in between my fingers. Dirty dirty dirty. I needed to wash my hands. I needed to scrub and scrub and make my hands clean again.
I let myself in. Wiped my feet on the welcome mat and slowly climbed the ruby carpeted stairs. Each tiny footstep sent a flame up my inner thigh. Rita and my father were in the kitchen. My movements were slow. I wanted them to come out. I wanted them to see my pain. I had no voice. Eddie had stolen my voice. I could not speak. No energy. No power. Slowly. Slowly. Slowly. A tiny skulking mouse. Pain flicked with each step. My father shouted a hello and then turned his attention back to Rita. They did not come out to me. She was giggling again.
Alone in the bathroom. I took off my school uniform. Blood damp socks and ripped school shirt. I neatly folded my soiled clothes and placed them beneath the radiator. A perfect pile.
Undressed. Exposed. Naked in the centre of the small square room. Too late to cry. I did not cry. I had not cried. Big girls don’t cry. Do you hear me? Big girls don’t cry. My father and Rita had moved into the lounge. I could hear their laughter. The cackles and giggles and boom boom booming. They were drinking from their tin beer cans. Their laughter glided up the red stairs and squeezed under the locked bathroom door. Their joy rebounded between the ceiling and linoleum floor.
Bounce
bounce
bounce
bounce.
As I stood stark naked. In the centre of the bathroom.
I faced the bathroom cabinet. Focused on a perfect thumb print smeared on the bottom right hand corner of the mirror. I forced my eyes to fix on the girl who was hidden beneath that smudge. Through the smears. I stared into myself. I saw my blue eyes. My mother’s blue eyes. I stared at my matted brown hair. Dirty dirty hair. I needed the sand off me. Get off me. Get off me. Nasty nasty sand. It was everywhere. It was swallowing me up. I opened the bathroom cabinet. I took out a pair of scissors. They were sticky and blunt. I tugged at my hair.
Chop.
Chop.
Chop.
Clumps fell into the sink. A nest of hair. Grooming and nurturing collected and then plunged. Congealed feathers over onto the linoleum floor. I didn’t have my mother’s skill. Long strands clung to my gluey fingers, mingled with the knotted blood and sand. I needed to be rid of the sand. I wanted it off my skin. I wanted it out of my hair. It clung. Sticky sticky sand. I yanked. I tugged. It had climbed my hair and grafted onto my scalp. I wanted to scream. I wanted rid. Get off me. Off off off.
I turned the chrome taps. Hot and cold. I waited in the centre of the room. I climbed into the pea green bath. The water was cold. Rita had used all of the hot water. Rita liked a hot bath. The bath had not been cleaned. An orange ring clung to the slippery sides. I climbed in. I gasped. I was numbed. Pain pain go away. Pain pain go away. I lay stiff. I was rigid. Straight. Head bobbed. Ears submerged into the rising cold. Muffled reality. Frozen sounds. Arms stiff. Blue feet. I dared not move. Sand began to sink onto the bottom of the pea green bath. Floating in my sea. Sailing in my dirt. Away away for a year and a day. I drifted. I danced by the light of the moon.
The water needed to enter me. To wash away his dirt. I stung. The fire roared. I dared not move. I could not let the water in. The fire roared. And roared. And roared. Tiny white body. Flat and smooth. A swarm of bruises erupted from my veins. Gobbled up my skin. Decorated my secret places. Pain pain go away.
I heard my father calling. I sat to attention and listened. He was going to the pub with Rita. A swift half. Then they would be back. A swift half and then I would tell him all about Eddie. I had to tell him. I didn’t understand why, but I knew that it didn’t feel right. I needed my father to make everything better. He would know what to do. Too many secrets. Hush hush. My head was pounding. Whirling. Swirling. Round and round. Twirling secrets round and round. Hush hush.
Again. My father called. I wasn’t to open the door to any strangers and I could have some chocolate from the fridge. It was Rita’s chocolate, but I could have some. Just that once. Four squares. They were in a hurry to get to the pub. Meeting Mr Johnson from Number 19. Just a swift half. Don’t open the door to any strangers. Didyou hear me Jude? I didn’t know what a stranger was. Surrounded by neighbours. No strangers in Disraeli Avenue. No need to fear strangers. I was alone. All alone. I was naked in the bath. I was seven years, two months and twelve days old.
My father and Rita went out. I heard the door. Slam.
He left me all alone. I needed him and he had left me. I needed someone to make me better. I needed someone to explain the pain. I needed someone to make that pain go away. Pain pain go away. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Slam and alone. Fear attacked the veins in my toes. I stayed upright. Bolted within the bath. Shivering. Blue. Trembling. Shuddering. I was alone. The house suddenly seemed so big. So empty. So still. Cold. So cold. I was terrified that Eddie would come back. He would be watching them leave. He would know that I was alone. He would enter my mother’s house. I was naked in the bath. I would be trapped. He would kick down the door. He would hurt me. Aunty Maggie had a spare key. He could let himself in. I wouldn’t be able to stop him. Help me. Help me. Help me.
I was sick into my bath.
Sand and sick mingled. Dirty dirty bath. I dried myself. Delicate touches made me gasp in pain. Numbness faded and my secrets flared. I dressed ready for bed. Purple pyjamas covered with cream teddy bears in purple boots. Father Christmas had left them for me on Christmas Eve. I had been on the good list. I would not go to bed. I wanted to wait for my father. I needed to wait and ask him about Eddie. Slowly, I moved down the stairs. Tiny steps caused cascades of pain to rumble in my tummy and tumble down my inner thighs. I sat on the bottom red stair.
Through the frosted glass panel on the green front door, I watched the darkness stumble down to the ground. I saw the streetlamp flame. I waited for shadows. Then. I hid in those shadows. I watched the twinkling star. In sight of the frosted panel of glass. I was a guard. A quivering sentry. I waited.
I heard my father. He was singing as he walked and Rita’s pixie boots click clacked a rhythmic beat. I heard them coming. He had had his swift half. He was happy. I had not turned the light on. I was rooted on the bottom red stair. Alone in the dark. My nails dug into my palms, but my knuckles were fixed. I concentrated through the pain. So much pain.
Spain…France…Scotland…
America…London…
Libya…
Malta…
Tibet…
Victoria…
Boston…
Greenland…
Spain…
France…
Scotland…
America…
London…
Libya…
Malta…
Tibet…
Victoria…
Boston…Greenland…Spain…France…Scotland
…America…London…Libya…
Malta…
Tibet…
Victoria…
Boston…
Greenland…
Spain…
France…
Scotland…
America…London…
Libya…Malta…
Tibet…
Victoria…
Boston…
Greenland…
What are ye doin in the dark ye silly bairn?
My father broke my journey. I didn’t say that I wanted Eddie to think that I was out. I didn’t say what Eddie had done to me in the cave. My voice had not returned. I had been waiting to tell my father about Eddie. I needed my father to explain my throbbing. I was crying. Big girls don’t cry. Only whinnying bairns cry.
My father saw my hair. He was staring at my hair. I had forgotten. I had forgotten about the nest of hair. On the linoleum floor. Rita laughed at me. Rita said it was sweet. My wanting to be a hairdresser like my dead mother. My father got angry. He said that my mother was an evil whore. He said that I was a whore’s brat and then he slapped my ear. Buzz fuzz. I was sitting on the bottom red stair. I turned and dashed up those stairs. As fast as I could caper. He caught my ankle and pulled me down. My chin counted each step. One two three four five six. He pulled down my pyjama pants and he slapped me five times. Rita was cackling. As she exhaled the room was filled with stale fumes. Invading. I could smell their swift halves. He pulled me up and twisted me over. He slapped my face. An erupting sting peaked and lingered. He yelled. Loud. In my face. In my ear. No brat o’ mine could be s’ fuckin strange. I looked down to the floor. I could still feel his palm on my cheek. Pain. More pain. I focused on a tiny swirl woven into the carpet. I had never noticed it before. Not until that moment. That precise moment. Snot and tears twirled together at the tip of my chin and gently dripped onto the ruby fitted carpet, just missing the peak of that perfect swirl. I counted six drips. Drip
drip
drip
drip
drip
drip.
The carpet absorbed them. My father went into the kitchen and Rita staggered after him.
I stayed. Feet rooted to the hallway carpet. Alone. Rita wobbled back struggling with a glass basin. Rita would fix my hair. She put the empty fruit bowl on my head. She cut around it. Her fingers never touched my hair. The scissors scratched and slashed. When she had finished, she removed the bowl. She chuckled. She said that I looked like a boy. She wasn’t my mother. She had a funny smell. She pinched my arm. It hurt. More decoration. She whispered just loud enough for me to hear. Evil brat just like ye killer of a mam. I hated Rita. She was fat and ugly. She was not like my mother. She was a nasty nasty beast. I didn’t like the way she looked at me. Her eyes were angry. Little piggy stare, with lines and lines exploding from them. Lines buried in her skin. Lines that made her look angry and sad and mean and ugly. She was never happy. She was not my mother.
My hair looked silly. I looked silly. My pain bubbled inside. I ached and I ached. I went to my room. I lay on my blue bed. Reached under my pillow. I took my mother’s blouse. I held it to my face. Her scent was gone. I held it to my chest. I slept.
Hoping.
Eddie went away. He had been a guest. How nice of him to visit. He came for a week. He ripped me. It’s oor little secret. You’re me special girlfriend. Here’s an extra fifty pence. Nobody noticed. On Monday. Three days later. I went to Aunty Maggie’s house. She was mad. She was all shouty. Eddie said I had run away on the beach. I was a rude little girl. She did not give me a fifty-pence piece. I was angry. I needed that fifty-pence piece. Saving to buy a globe that lit up with the flick of a switch. Eddie was such a nice man. A real gent and the perfect house guest. He would visit again soon. I was a naughty girl. It’s oor little secret. No one would believe a bairn like yee. Tell anyone and I’ll get yee. I didn’t say anything. Eddie had stolen my voice.
I never bought the globe.
Timothy Roberts (Number 21) was in my mother’s house. Rita was on the phone. Talking to Mrs Clark (Number 14). Rita was talking about Mrs Roberts (Number 21). Mrs Roberts had to go to the hospital. Had a woman thing wrong with her. She asked Rita to babysit Timothy. Just for a couple of hours. Timothy Roberts was two and a bit of a bugger at times. Timothy Roberts was emptying the kitchen cupboards. Banging pans onto the floor. I went to see him. Stood at the kitchen door. I listened while I watched him.
Apparently. Mrs Roberts (Number 21) had had a bit of Mr Johnson (Number 19). They lived next door to each other. Their garages joined onto each other. During the day, lazy arse Mr Johnson would nip round for a bit of how’s ya father. I didn’t understand. Apparently. Mrs Johnson was blind as a fuckin bat to what was going on right under her nose. I didn’t understand. Apparently. Mr Johnson and Mrs Roberts were taking the piss. Rita said that she’d been staring at the brat for the last twenty minutes and couldn’t figure out who the bugger was like. She reckoned that he was either Mr Dewstep the butcher’s, Mr Johnson’s or possibly Mr Scott’s (Number 25). I didn’t understand. Rita was laughing. Cackling. She thought it funny that Mr Johnson was pulling a fast one expecting to get away with fiddling on his own doorstep. She was telling Mrs Clark (Number 14) that Mr Johnson would be caught with his pants doon. I didn’t understand.
I stood in the kitchen doorway. Watching Timothy Roberts bang bang banging. I was staring and staring at him. Waiting for Mr Dewstep. Waiting for Mr Johnson. Waiting for Mr Scott. Waiting for the three men to step out of Timothy Roberts. I really didn’t understand.
Rita had changed her yackety yack yack yarning. She was talking about Karen Johnson now. A reet pretty bairn. She was telling Mrs Clark (Number 14) all about Karen’s accident. I’d seen it happen. I knew what had happened. I’d watched it from my bedroom window. Karen Johnson had been roller skating. Up and down. Up and down. Up and down the street. She had new skates. They were red and had huge rubber stoppers at the toe. I liked them. I really liked them. Anyway. Karen Johnson had fallen over. Apparently she had slipped on some crap or other that the lazy arse bin man had dropped. I didn’t know. I had seen her fall. I had watched her land on her hand.
Snappety.
Snap.
Snap.
Apparently. You could have heard her screams in Wallsend. I heard them through my bedroom window. I saw them escape from her mouth. All the neighbours came rushing and pushing to help. Emergency. Emergency. Help. Help. Help. I saw Mr Johnson. He came flying over the other neighbours. He was faster than a speeding bullet. He was faster than an aeroplane. He was faster than the wibble wobblers. Rita was telling Mrs Clark (Number 14) the story. Apparently. Mr Johnson flew in the air like fucking Superman. Mr Johnson was Superman. He had scooped Karen in his arms and ran all the way back to his house. From just outside Number 4 to Number 19. Rita was laughing again. Cackle cackle cackle. I wouldn’t mind suckin on his super power. Cackle cackle cackle. I didn’t understand.
Karen Johnson was taken to hospital. Mrs Roberts (Number 21) had given Mr Johnson and Karen a lift. Dirty buggers. Cackle cackle cackle. Apparently. Karen Johnson had been a reet bravebairn. Her wrist had snapped in two places. Snappety snap snap. Poor bairn. She had a white plaster cast on her arm. I saw her from my bedroom window. I had seen her every day for the last four. She sat on her front wall. Clutching her white plaster. Clutching it as it changed colour. One two three four days. All the neighbours stopped to talk to her. All the neighbours wrote their names. Some drew pictures. I saw the colours. I saw the squiggles. But. But I never wrote my name. Mrs Roberts (Number 21) took her sweets. Mrs Shephard (Number 15) bought her a little teddy bear. Karen Johnson kept them all with her. All her new things. Along her front dwarf wall. A reet pretty bairn. A reet brave bairn.
Timothy Roberts started screaming. Piercing. Shrilling to the ceiling. He had hurt his eye. Hit it with a wooden spoon. Rita was angry. Rita had had to end her natter. Her yackety yacking cut short. She stormed past me. Slapped my head. Sharp. Sting sting sting. Fucking useless ye are. Can’t be fucking trusted te look after a little bairn. Timothy Roberts stopped crying. He stared at me. He was sad. He was angry. I had let him be hurt.
Inside me
Thousands of your waste
Swim.
Penetrating, burrowing,
Tails wiggling,
Worming into my essence.
You forced them into me
And now I exist with part of you.
I long to turn my insides out,
To scrub,
Till blood-filled scabs replace the dirt.
I have become you.
We remain one,
Till death us do part,
Till your dirty thousands die with me.
I hurt inside. I felt sick. I had a strange feeling that was with me all the time. It made me breathe faster. It made me feel as if something bad was about to happen. In the days and then weeks following my walk with Eddie, I began to hear noises. I heard voices. I jumped with fear. I shook. I was cold. Everything was inside of me and it needed to come out. It needed to escape from me.
The neighbours weren’t always there after school. Eleven months and one day since my mother’s death and I was known to be a reet strange bairn. They said it was alright for me to be alone. They liked me to be on my own. They found me odd. She’s strange, that Jude. It was a Tuesday evening and I didn’t go to Mr Johnson’s (Number 19). I used my key instead.
Rita came to my mother’s house before my father got home from work. She cooked his tea and ironed his shirts. She wanted to marry him. She wanted to live in my mother’s house. She always came at the same time. Number 28 bus from Wallsend to Marsden. Arrived at 4.45pm or 5.15pm depending on which one she caught. I had sixty minutes. She had a key.
I went into my father’s garage. It was attached to the house, through a wooden door from the kitchen. The stone floor was cold. I felt the cold through my white ankle socks. I looked around. The walls of the garage were my father’s. Shelves of goodies and racks of tools. Half empty cans of paint. Brushes. Turpentine. Buckets. Jars of screws. Tins of nuts and bolts. Rakes. Brooms. Hammers. Screwdrivers. Saws. Spades. Never just one of a sort. I saw a tin. A pretty tin. A navy blue cylinder. It had a gold trim and E
R in gold lettering. It was dusty. It was neglected. It was too special to be on a shelf. In my father’s cold garage. My father liked his garage. His special things were kept there.
The bricks of the garage were damp. It stank of the oil which had leaked from the bottom of my father’s yellow Mini. A pool of oil was in the centre of the stone floor. A rusting lawn mower slumped against the wall waiting to be cleaned. I was looking for something to help me. I was standing in the doorway, scanning the room for something. Something to help me.
A paintbrush. Too soft.
A spade. Too heavy.
A hammer. Just right.
I took down a hammer from my father’s tool rack. It looked very old. A thick dull metal head, with a wooden handle covered in scratches and dents. It spoke of experience. It was heavy and cold. I went back into the kitchen.
The kitchen. A rectangle that was divided into two separate areas. One where you ate. One where you cooked. When the house was empty I sat in that area where we used to eat. Special occasions. Christmas Day. Ripped-open Selection boxes. Chocolate for breakfast. A Curly Wurly poking out, waiting to be sneaked before lunch. Turkey dinner. Snapping crackers. Paper hats and funny jokes. Toon Moor night. Fish and Chips from the chippie on the seafront. Eaten straight from the newspaper parcel. Placed onto a plate. A bag of candy floss saved from the fair. Fluffy, pink and promising to be delicious. Easter Sunday. A leg of lamb, roast potatoes and lashings of mint sauce. Easter eggs lined up on the kitchen worktop. In sight and waiting.
Timber panels were nailed to two of the three walls giving a Scandinavian woodland feel while we ate. It was a simple setting. A matching stained wooden picnic table, resting against the panelled wall. A themed location. Hardly used anymore.
I sat at the table clutching the hammer. Hovering its cold head over my wrist. Plucking the courage. Finding the courage. Deep within me. Somewhere. Just a little tap at first.
Tap
tap
tap.
It felt nice. It wriggled and jiggled and tickled. I liked it. I tapped a little harder.
Tap
tap
tap.
Pain. Physical pain. Actual pain. Throbbing, pounding, thumping pain. I could breathe again.
I hit a little harder.
Hit hit hit.
Pain. Again. Again. Again. The pain released me. The pain cleaned inside my head.
My wrist was red. The white bone was shining through the stretched skin. I saw my bone. It shone. Tears gushed from my eyes. My legs were shaking. Shock. Cold feet. Pain. Again. Again.
Enough. The hammer was too heavy to continue.
My wrist was swelling. I stood. Shaking. Colour jumped from my cheeks and plummeted to my toes. I wobbled. I went back into the garage, clutching the heavy hammer. The stone floor was cold. I wiped the handle of the hammer. I don’t know why. I replaced the hammer, back on my father’s tool rack. It swayed. I went back into the house. Slowly slowly.
A plan. A simple plan.
Fourteen minutes later. Rita came. I was sitting at the bottom of the stairs. I was crying and clutching my wrist. I could cry. My red swollen wrist made it alright to cry. I told her that I had fallen down the stairs. Fallen onto my wrist. It was a simple plan. She was worried. My father would be in trouble. No one was looking after me. She told me she would buy me sweets. She told me that I was not to tell anyone that I had been left alone in the house. It’s our little secret, bairn. Whirling. Swirling. Round and round. Hush hush.
She would say that she saw me fall. I didn’t have to lie. She would help me. She phoned my father at work. He came home and he hugged me. He hadn’t hugged me before. He smelled of cigarettes and his breath puffed out stale beer. I didn’t want him to let go of me. I wanted to stay. At the bottom of the stairs. Standing on the red carpet with my father’s arms wrapped around me. He said that it would be alright. My father promised to make everything alright. Rita would look after me too.
We all went to hospital. They told my story. I had an X-ray. My scaphoid bone was cracked. A clear crack in the small boat-shaped bone in Jude’s right wrist. This type of crack is consistent with a fall downstairs. The doctor didn’t know about my father’s hammer. He didn’t know about my tap tap tapping. I would have to have a plaster cast on for up to six weeks.
A nurse was waiting for me. She had blonde spiralling ringlets, coiling to just above her shoulders. Her silver eyes twinkled and sparkled. They had been speckled with enchanted fairy dust. She wrapped the soft white cotton wool around and around and around. My wrist felt safe. Snug. Warm. Then the bandages wrapped around and around and around the cotton wool. Securing. Cuddling. Then. Water was dripped onto the bandages. Magic. A white plaster oozed between the nurse’s fingers. I watched the enchanted nurse manipulate the white lumpy mess into a perfectly smooth shell. She created a faultless capsule. It shrouded my tiny wrist. I admired how she could manipulate the gluey substance between her slender fingers. I watched as the plaster began to dry and white patches decorated her bitten finger nails. I thought she was magical. So magical. When she finished, she gave me a real smile and then offered me a shiny sticker. It was a brown teddy bear with a golden star on his round tummy. I had won a prize.
As we left the hospital Rita and my father promised to look after me. I cried through the pain. I cried out my pain. It was fine to cry.
Crying made the pain real. I rested my heavy arm within a powder-smelling sling. I liked the pain.
I could have some time off school. I could eat sweets and watch the television. A ten-pence mix up. Pink Shrimps. Gum rings. Foam teeth. Black Jack. Fruit Salad. Candy watch. Strawberry lace. Flying Saucers. All neatly placed in a crisp white paper bag. Aunty Maggie brought me a magazine. The Beano. Edition 2015, February 28 1981. Sellotaped to the front was a shiny fifty-pence piece. I liked the pain. The pain made them notice me.
I was here again. I was visible.
The pain was lovely. The cold hammer was miraculous. The smell of the damp plaster made me happy. My father tucked me in bed. I was a clever girl for not telling the doctor. Some secrets were good. Hush hush. Pain was nice. My father was proud of me. I was not alone. That night I slept and wanted to wake up.
Exhibit number two—sticker from nice nurse.
My plaster cast had magical powers. Really really magical. I was magical when I wore it. My plaster cast made my father notice me more. It even made Rita nicer. Sometimes. The magic lasted for the whole six weeks. Forty-two happy days.
Rita and my father bought me sweets. Every day. They talked to me. Asked me how I was. Sometimes I was allowed to watch television with them. Coronation Street. I had to go to bed when it finished and I didn’t understand it. But. But I tried to be interested. Annie. The Rovers. Mike. Deirdre. Ken. Emily. I liked sitting in my mother’s front room. With them. Watching Coronation Street. The theme tune started and Rita waddled in with a plastic tray overcrowded with goodies. Always. A bottle of Cola. Three glasses. Four tin cans of beer. A large packet of Cheese and Onion crisps. Salted peanuts. A big bar of Cadbury’s Whole Nut chocolate. Rita kept it in the fridge. It was solid and stiff. I would sit on the floor, Rita and my father on the sofa. Rita would give me three chunks. Thick chocolate. Her special chocolate. I sucked. I savoured. I tried to work out what was going on between Mike, Deirdre and Ken. Rita said that she loved Mike Baldwin. She wanted him to do things to her. I didn’t understand. I stared into the screen. Tried to use my magic. Tried to magic Mike into whisking Rita away to Manchester. That was far far away. Practically the other side of the world. I liked watching television with my father and Rita. I liked the tray of goodies. I liked that the tray was not removed until everything was guzz guzz guzzled.
Forty-two happy days. But. But then my plaster was cut off.
A revolving blunt blade split my pod into two. The hairs on my arm were thick and dark. My hand smelled. Dead skin rolled and clung around my thumb. Dead pain clung in between my fingers.
My wrist was stiff and ached. My wrist missed its plaster. My plaster cast came off and my father was happy. Rita was happy too. They were not in trouble. They had tricked the doctors. Nobody knew that I had been home alone. We had a secret. Hush hush. I had more secrets. Whirling. Swirling. Round and round. Twirling secrets round and round. I wanted to tell them my secrets. They had been nice to me. I wanted to tell them about Eddie.
When my plaster cast came off. My magic was taken away. Stolen from me. And. Rita and my father just stopped being nice. They just stopped. They didn’t have to prevent my talking with doctors. They didn’t have to be nice anymore. No more shared secret. They said thank fuck for that. They could breathe again. They stopped buying me sweets. No more ten-pence mix ups. No more chunks of solid chocolate. I was alone again. No more hugs from my father. When I went near to him, he told me to move. I blocked his television. I was a big girl. I never cried. Big girls don’t cry. I was sent to my bedroom. They preferred me out of the way. Fuckin’ pain in the arse watching is all the time. Do you see sheh looks a’ the tray, to see wha sheh can ’ave? Fuckin’ greedy brat. Rita didn’t like me. I didn’t like her. I wasn’t allowed to watch Coronation Street. Things had changed again. My plaster cast was taken from me. I had nothing again. I didn’t understand. The hammer would understand.
Over the next two years, the hammer was used four times. Every six months. Every six months to the precise date. Always on the 27th of the month. Always. Nobody ever asked the question. I was such an accident prone bairn.
In the six months following Eddie’s visit, my hobbies began to slip away. No ballet. No Brownies. No friends for tea. Nothing excited me. Nothing interested me. I didn’t understand why I was different. I didn’t understand. My father stopped smiling at me. He stared. He glared. No brat o’ mine could be s’ fuckin strange. Rita told me that I was evil. Like your killer of a mam. My father had Rita. They had each other. He wanted to drink from tin cans. Every night he drank and played his records. Lionel Ritchie. Kenny Rogers. Dr Hook. He liked to make Rita squeak. He liked to make Rita moan and groan and screech and yell. He liked her. I didn’t. I chose to stop the violin. I didn’t want to play the recorder. I didn’t want to be in the end of year play. I hated music. I wanted my life to be silent. I was waiting.
Waiting.
Always waiting.
On the last day of term. July 16 1981. I walked home from school. Followed the crocodile of children that moved up the slope of the Coast Road and towards the estate. Head down. Anchored at the tip of the crocodile’s tail. Mrs Andrews (Number 18) and MrsHodgson (Number 2) walked in front of me. Big squishy bottoms in flowery skirts. Blocked the path. Wibble wobble. I tried to move past them. Tried to slide in between the round squishy wall. But. Their squishiness squashed me. Bounced me back behind them. I squeaked politely. They didn’t hear me. They didn’t want to hear me. Their children, Gillian Andrews and Paul Hodgson, were seven like me. They had raced ahead. Chatting. Laughing. Tig tagging. I tried to zig-zag my way through, but the huge flowery bottoms had swallowed my pathway. Mrs Andrews was talking about Mr Johnson (Number 19). Loud chatter. Tittle-tattle. Chitter-chatter. Snail trail. Wibble wobble. They blocked the pavement. I couldn’t get past. Instead I walked near to them. Almost brushing their backs. I listened. I liked to listen.
Apparently. Mr Johnson had been sacked from his job. I didn’t understand. Over a year ago. It must have been before my mother went away. He’d been full of booze once too often. I didn’t understand. Apparently. He’d gone to the library every day for two weeks. Apparently. He’d sat all day. Reading a newspaper or staring at the books. Never spoke a word. Apparently. He hadn’t had the balls to tell his wife that he’d been sacked and then one day Mrs Johnson bumped into Mrs Hughes the librarian in the Dewstep Butchers. Apparently. Holy hell had broken out that night. I didn’t understand.
I liked Mr Johnson. He was a nice man. He always picked Karen and Lucy up from school. He waited at the school gate with the mums. He held his girls’ hands and he talked to them. All the way home. I watched him. Chitter chatter. He smiled a lot. Yellowed mouth with a little gap in between his front two teeth. He often came around to my mother’s house, smoked cigarettes and drank out of tin cans with my father. He laughed a lot. Sounded like a horse hiccupping.
Hic-cc-cup-up-up-innnnnnng.
It made me smile. It made me giggle giggle giggle. Mr Johnson was a nice man. He wore jeans and bright white sports shoes. He wore a blue, soft leather jacket which had huge pockets. Squishy. Squashy. He jingled as he walked. He called Mrs Johnson wor lass and talked to my father about Challenge Anneka’s canny backside.
Mr Johnson had two girls. Karen was in my class at school. A reet pretty bairn. Her sister Lucy was two years younger than us. A bonny bairn and reet clever too. I didn’t play with them. I didn’t play with anyone. They liked Sindy dolls, make-up and Girl’s World. I didn’t see the point. I just didn’t see the point in piling luminous blue eye shadow onto a plastic blonde head.
The squishy bottoms slowed at the peak of the Coast Road slope. Wibble wobble. Huff puff. Mrs Andrews talked. Yackety yack. Apparently. Mr Johnson had been given his cards and it was putting a canny strain on his marriage. I didn’t understand. Poor Mrs Johnson was working every hour to put bread on the table. I didn’t understand. Apparently. Mr Johnson drank like a fish and thought money grew on trees. I didn’t understand. Mr Johnson was funny. He had a laugh like a hiccupping horse. He made me smile. Mrs Andrews spoke her words with a nasty twang. I knew that she was being mean to Mr Johnson and I didn’t like her doing it. Mrs Andrews told Mrs Hodgson that she shouldn’t tell anyone. Hush hush. I wouldn’t tell anyone either. Whirling. Swirling. Round and round. Twirling secrets round and round.
As we walked past Brian’s Newsagents, Mr Johnson was coming out. Lucy and Karen had ten-pence mix ups. They were exploring their little white paper bags. Mrs Hodgson said a strange hello to Mr Johnson. She giggled and touched his arm. Then she just stopped. In the middle of the pavement. I carried on walking. Too busy watching. Walked into her back. She turned and shouted at me. Watch where ye gannin. I put my head down and carried on walking. Such a rude bairn tha Jude Williams. Past the window of Brian’s Newsagents. Past the library. Through the cut. Past Gladstone Street. Into Disraeli Avenue. Number 9. I used my key.
On Wednesday July 29 1981 Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer were getting married. Disraeli Avenue was having a street party. My father and all the other men who worked were given the day off. A national holiday. A day to celebrate.
My father was assistant manager of Rumbelows in Newcastle. Mr Johnson’s (Number 19) brother was the manager. Pulled a fewstrings. My father didn’t have to have an interview. He said that he was the luckiest bloke in the world. And. That if he fell from a plane, he wouldn’t land on his arse. It was an easy job. He just had to turn up and help people spend money. My father liked his job.
My father was the first person in Disraeli Avenue to have a Philips Betamax video recorder 2020. Could line up five programmes for up to 16 days in advance. He never did. That was too complicated. My father sold electrical items, but he could never work them. He liked to have the latest things. It cost a small fortune. £519.99. My father didn’t pay that. It was ex-display. He had an employee discount and it had a big scratch on the bottom. He made the big scratch on it. He was careful to make it on the bottom. Just enough damage. Mr Johnson’s brother had shown him how. Reet clever bloke. It cost my father three hundred pounds. The neighbours were amazed by it. Everyone must have thought that we were rich. That we were the richest people in Disraeli Avenue. Three hundred pounds. We were the richest people on Disraeli Avenue.
Wednesday July 29 1981. The Royal Wedding. We had been learning all about it at school. We even sent a card to the Prince and Princess. Mine had a drawing of a yellow-haired princess in a Union Jack-coloured wedding dress. It wasn’t very good. I only had forty minutes to think of the idea and to draw it. It was rushed. Inside I wrote. Dear Prince Charles and Lady Diana. Love Jude Williams. I couldn’t think of anything else to write. I was rush rush rushed. My teacher sent it thirty-seven days before the wedding. But. We didn’t get a letter back. I asked my teacher every day. I wanted to know if Lady Diana liked my card. My teacher said that the princess would be too busy to write to our school. I didn’t believe her. I didn’t want to believe her.
The Royal celebration. Red, white and blue bunting joined the opposite houses. Unified. Celebrating together. It swung in the gentle breeze. Ladders rested against houses. Front doors were open. Music blasted out of windows. The sun was shining. A day off work. A day to party. Posters of Prince Charles and Lady Diana were taped inside windows. They were free with the Daily Mail. A souvenir. I bought one from Brian’s Newsagents. Used one of the fifty-pence pieces that Aunty Maggie had given me. I didn’t stick it on my window. I kept it. Neat. Perfect. Flat. In an Oor Wullie album. 1978. In between pages 29 and 30. Like the date of the wedding. There were no page numbers though. I had to count from the beginning of the book. I placed the Oor Wullie album containing the special poster into my wardrobe. Carefully carefully.
I watched from my mother’s front room window. I watched the sea of red, white and blue. Flapping. Waving. Noisy. The party was in full swing. It was nine o’clock in the morning. Tin cans were already lying empty. Cluttering Disraeli Avenue. I stayed in my mother’s front room. I peeped through the window every now and then. I didn’t want to go outside. I wanted to soak up every moment that the BBC was supplying. I was excited. Really excited. A princess. I was going to see a real princess.
Every one of the neighbours joined in. It had been arranged. Mrs Hodgson (Number 2) had gone around with a list of food. Rita and my father had to bring sausages on sticks. It was all planned. The men had put up bunting. The women were fussing around the still folded tables. Waiting for someone to put them out. Needing someone to put them out. The children. Some children were playing hide and seek. Noisy. Rush rush. Run and hide. I could see Paul Hodgson (Number 2). He was crouched in my mother’s garden. It wasn’t a good hiding place. The street was noisy. Alive. Screaming. Squealing. Over the radios. Over music. Screeching. Over the blaring television screens. Everything was on full volume. Everyone switched on. Open front doors. In and out of each others’ houses. Rita had cleaned my mother’s house. It was polished and vacuumed and spick and span. She was happy to leave my mother’s front door open. In and out. In and out. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the neighbours being in my mother’s house. They were too noisy. I needed to listen. I needed to see. I needed silence. I needed to concentrate.
My father helped Mr Johnson (Number 19) and Mr Douglas (Number 8) set out the tables. They were wallpapering tables. Different sizes. They didn’t quite join together properly. Paper table cloths were put onto them. Red, white and blue. The tables stretched from Number 5 to Number 19 Disraeli Avenue. No chairs at the table, but there were some deckchairs. Placed along the pavement. The two entrances to the avenue were blocked off. Two chairs and a plank across. Mr Smith (Number 23) was a builder. He made the two blocks. Mrs Scott (Number 25) said that Mr Smith had done a good job. First time he ever did something on time. Bloody waste of space lazy arse. Everything was arranged. Tin cans of beer bobbed around in buckets of cold water. Scattered along the street. The food was foiled. Placed out along the centre of the table. Neatly. Aunty Maggie made rice. Mrs Roberts (Number 21), Mrs Johnson (Number 19) and Mrs Andrews (Number 18) brought plates of sandwiches. Spam, jam, ham and egg. There were other foods. They appeared in between my peeping. Cakes. Crisps. Scones. I wanted to know who brought them. I needed to know how they got there. I wanted to know. But. I was distracted. I was waiting. Watching. Waiting to see the princess.
Sausage rolls.
Crispy cakes.
Jelly.
Fairy cakes.
Scones.
Biscuits.
Crisps.
Hard-boiled eggs.
Crackers.
Spam sandwiches.
Ham sandwiches.
Jam sandwiches.
Egg sandwiches.
Rice.
A reet royal spread.
At the table, outside my mother’s house, Rita poked sausages onto cocktail sticks. She wore a commemorative apron over a short red skirt and a white shirt. Her white stilettos finished off the look. She looked quite normal from the front, but not from behind. As she bent over the table her fat dimply thighs squelched under the hem of the skirt. No tights because it was the summer. It was hot. The sun was shining. Rita was orange from her sunbed sessions. Like a wrinkled Satsuma. Mrs Lancaster (Number 7) told Rita that the tan made her legs look thinner. I didn’t understand. She had fat thighs. Big fat orange pork sausages. Juicer than the flimsy ones that she was poking onto sticks. I watched them all from my mother’s front room window. I heard everything through the open windows. But I would look only when there was a break or a boring discussion on TV.
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Caroline Smailes
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Ужасы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 26.07.2024
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О книге: A taut and beautifully written debut novel by an exciting and accomplished new author.Motherless, rootless and unprotected, Jude Williams′ childhood is fractured by the horror and experience of sexual abuse, forcing her to exist somewhere and nowhere in-between childhood and adulthood. Caught within the limitations of her own language and trapped within a family secret, Jude becomes the consequence of her mother′s tragedy. As she moves through the 1980s, Jude′s life is buffeted by choice and destiny and she collects experiences that layer her personal tragedy and plunge her into the darkest of worlds.