CHAPTER ONE
Dad had his belt ready, yet again.
“Billy boy, this going to stop, one way or the other”
Four strokes that time, me bent over the arm of the settee so he could get a decent swing in. At least he left my trousers on while he hit me.
“Room. Now. Or you get another one”
I could hear the conversation downstairs as I pressed my tears into my pillow. Always the same words, the same clearly expressed viewpoint. No room for doubt, ever, neither in how Dad acted or in what passed for his thought processes. Up until then it had been quite a good day.
Our station had been closed a year ago, but it wasn’t that far to Shotton, and, if I timed it right, I could usually manage to slip onto the train. Slam-door carriages back then, none of this centrally controlled doors business. Look for the guard and duck down to the front carriage and I was usually good for Chester, Get talking to some other kid with their parents, and walk out with them when we got to town, and I was free for a little while. It was odd how few of the adults felt the need to ask me where my own guardians were, but on the few times they did enquire, I lied that my Nan was meeting me outside the station, It worked almost every time; the two occasions they took it forward meant Dad and his leather belt.
The Rows were my place, after a walk along the city’s walls and a gawp at the cathedral. It was a bit of a walk, but it never felt excessive. In the Sixties, we seemed to walk far more, in both senses, than we do nowadays, and thought nothing of it. A walk along the walls to see the clock, then work my way back down to the Rows, sticking to the first floor as much as I could. It made me feel so far above the common herd on Eastgate, even though it is only a glorified set of verandas crossed with balconies, but it was one of my early life’s greatest pleasures, along with the windows I passed, or rather what they held, and what they did hold were my dreams.
So many assumptions will have been triggered by that remark, and, broadly speaking, they will be wrong. I wasn’t looking at dresses or shoes, but at their settings. Some of the shops held clothing for adults, some for children, but a select few (and I knew them all) catered for the whole family, and two shops in particular usually had displays of family groups, dummies depicting the ideal. Mam. Dad. Son. Daughter. There were posters in some shops, and the families in them were equally balanced. Everybody was smiling, and nobody was even slightly black apart from the golliwogs on the adverts for jam and marmalade.
Everybody was smiling, nobody was being lashed with a belt, and girls were girls.
Sunshine over the Scouse Riviera when I was little, and doesn’t the sun always shine in our memories? We would stay in Uncle Abie’s caravan at Prestatyn for a fortnight in Summer, the Tommy Cook place being outside my father’s budget, or so he always said. The dunes were my favourite place there, my parents taking the traditional wooden-poled wind break and a picnic of pretty bland food, if I am honest, but that was how the Sixties were. I suspect the spiciest things anyone ate would have been Coronation Chicken and Branston pickle. Even horseradish was a stranger to me in my childhood.
When I was tiny, there were no swimming costumes, and little people ran everywhere in their nakedness. Nobody had palpitations of terror about paedophiles, for back then such things didn’t exist. I say ‘things’, because that is what they were, rather than ‘people’. We had the occasional warning about strange men with sweeties, or puppies to show, but that was it. Always faceless, never a living presence. Nobody ever defined why the sweets and puppies might be dangerous; they just were to be avoided.
Life for most people was a lot simpler than it is now, except for my case. On those Summer days I would run through the dunes and down the beach as naked as all the other toddlers, and that showed me how wrong my life was. I only made the mistake of asking the obvious question once, but at least that time it was Dad’s right hand rather than his belt. I had to wait a couple of years before that delight was to make its own presence properly felt.
Why did all the other girls have smoothness where I had a lump? A simple question, full of implications so deep they have to be excavated, slowly and painfully, years later. The pain, however, was there from the beginning.
As I grew, Chester became my dreaming space. For a few hours, I could stand and stare, lose myself in little private worlds where everything was right, all was exactly as it should have been from the beginning. I would take a little time to enter the cathedral, find a quiet place in the pews, and kneel, hands together palm to palm as Mrs Shanklin had shown us in school. Prayers work best when all the boxes are ticked, but I never had anything to cover my head, and the prayers themselves remained unanswered. Eventually, I would make my way back to the station to sneak onto a train back to Shotton, if I hadn’t already been gathered up by a nice policeman.
I suppose they thought they were being nice, but don’t imagine I was driven back home to face my father, because it never turned out like that. Chester nick would ring the local one at home, and Dad or Mam would have to get the train to collect me. Either or both would make a few points in the endless debate, usually about the Great Expense of the train tickets, bur always involving Being Shown Up, and the belt was always waiting, right up until my ninth birthday, when I simply didn’t go home. I didn’t want to reach double figures as a boy, because I now realised it wasn’t a club I really belonged in, so I spent longer than usual hovering outside the station until I noticed the staff looking a bit too closely at me. No chance.
I made my way back to the walls, ending up down by the Dee, where there were boats. I remembered a film, or perhaps a comic, where someone stowed away on a ship by hiding under a tarpaulin on a lifeboat, and there were a few larger craft pulled up on the bank, tonneau covers in place. I realised I simply couldn’t face the belt again, not on my birthday night, so I waited till the light started to fade, watched the passing strollers and then ducked under the edge of the tarp on one of the boats. There was an old rug between the seats, and a small sail, and as the adrenalin left my body, so did my consciousness. I didn’t wake until the cover was pulled off in the morning.
The police were bastards that day. It was clear that at least some of them remembered me, and those memories were far from fond. There was no seat in a waiting area, no angry father, no belt. Instead, I found myself in a cell.
“Why am I being locked up, sir?”
The huge sergeant looked at me, mouth twisting.
“Because you are being a right little shit, sonny Jim. Such a persistent little shit that your Dad has said he doesn’t want you back, and I can’t say I bloody blame him”
That wasn’t how the dream went, nor how reality usually unfolded.
“Haven’t they got to take me back?”
“I don’t really know, boy. To be honest, I don’t actually care. I have had more than enough of you, and your family is on the other side of the border so I OFFICIALLY don’t give sweet Fanny Adams for what they can or can’t do. Council will deal with you now. You had a home, boy, and you threw it away, so now you get a new one, and this one you won’t be running off from”
He paused, just for a second.
“And if you think the hidings your Dad has no doubt given you were bad, let me find you back here again, and you will discover how bad things can really get. You understand, Billy Boy?”
He was wrong, though. I didn’t go somewhere secure, for the Council had foster carers, paid per child they accommodated, as I discovered that same evening. I think the first ones were called Keegan. The first time they hit me was about three days into my stay with them.
“What are you sitting like that for, you bleeding fairy?”
“Like what, Mrs Keegan?”
“Legs crossed like that, boy! Like an utter pansy! And don’t answer back, child! Let that be a lesson to you”
Her backhander nearly took my head off, and I went out of my bedroom window only two days later. The huge sergeant kept his promise, and I was more than a little bruised when I was returned to the Keegans.
CHAPTER 2
They weren’t the worst of the people I stayed with, but they were certainly far from the best. For a few months, I was moved from one set of carers to another, some of whom actually matching that description as people who cared. Several, however, were most definitely ‘other’ in their approach.
Once, and only once, I managed to get back to the family home, trusting in kinship and blood to take me in and away from the latest non-carers. It was an education in all senses when Mam answered the door.
“Yes?”
“Mam…”
“You have ten seconds to get away from this door or I call the Social”
“Mam?”
“You made your choice, Billy. You were the one who decided we weren’t good enough. Dad’s washed his hands of you, and I can’t say I blame him. You know your way back to Chester. Don’t come here again”
It was too many years later that I worked out what was really happening, but by then it was too late, and she was long gone from a lethal mixture of heart and lung problems brought on by her consumption of Player’s. It took me such a long time to realise how much wider my father’s habit of defining relationships through violence actually spread. It was the first hint I got that it wasn’t just me, that others also received what men like him were more than happy to give out. My mother may have come across as unfeeling, but in the end, she was almost as much a victim as myself.
Mrs Keegan had been, to be as fair to her as I can, only one of several women who added an equal-opportunity gloss to the world’s sum of brutality. I think it was number six or seven before the social services finally clicked into action. Perhaps it was the time they needed for the paperwork, or perhaps someone’s palm needed greasing a little more. Maybe it was the number of times I ran off, several of which involved a meeting with a certain police sergeant, and in the end, they had simply got fed up. I was moved on once more, and this time the blue-suited bastard’s prediction was on the money, and the windows had bars.
It was called ‘Mersey View’, in Runcorn, even further from what had been my family home in the days when my assumption that I actually had such a thing held at least a hint of reality. The building was old, a brooding lump of detached brickwork somewhere near the High Street, certainly well away from any notional view of the river. I suspect it had once been a hotel or similar, and it had that look about it. Red brick, white lintels over the windows, and a cramped entry hall with a little window where previous and rather more voluntary residents might once have checked in. I didn’t see it that day, for I entered at the rear.
“Wipe your feet, boy! What’s this one, then, George?”
My beloved sergeant had apparently decided I was to be delivered safely to my new home without the risk of any diversion on the way, and I was in the back of a Panda, some shitty little car or other painted in a depressing sort of grey colour scheme. He tightened his grip on my wrist, grunting at the woman who was standing at the door to a large kitchen. She was in a nylon overall, hair in curlers under a scarf wrapped turban-style.
“A little sod, Marie. Runaway little sheepshagger brat”
He actually laughed, just then, the first and only one I ever heard from him.
“Tell the truth, chuck, I don’t think he would, you know? Shag? Right little pansy, this one. Can I have a signature, then I can wash my hands”
“Cuppa first? I’ll get it locked away, then do you a brew, if that suits, like?”
“Aye! No hurry to get back to the station, am I?”
“Smashing! You: up those stairs. Now!”
The place had three floors, including the ground, and its previous life was clear in the layout. Well past its prime, the stairs she had indicated creaked loudly as we ascended, and I filed that one away as part of what was becoming a routine for me. Look for exits, girl. Look for traps.
Rooms lined the corridor, and ‘Marie’ opened one of them, the third on the left. Rather than a room, as I had expected, it gave onto a small triangular antechamber, a door in each face. As she reached for the handle on the left, the other door opened, revealing a boy of around my own age. My new carer turned quickly.
“Get back in that fucking room, you little shit! Move it, Benny Boy!”
“But I need… I’m still bleeding…”
“Get any on my fucking sheets, you cunt, and I will MAKE you fucking bleed like you’ve never fucking bled before!”
I found myself flying into what was clearly going to be my room, and before the door slammed, the woman turned her attention on me.
“You will not give me problems, Tinkerbell. Problems get dealt with. You don’t want to find out what that means. Any noise from you and I will show you exactly what that meaning is”
The door slammed, the plasterboard walls shaking at the impact, and as her heavy tread made each stair creak, I heard the quietest of sobs from the boy next door.
My tenth birthday was coming up fast, and I remembered my thoughts outside Chester station that afternoon so recent in time but long in experience. I didn’t want to be a boy when I reached double figures; I was now wondering if making it to ten years old was actually going to happen at all.
Best not think about that. I pressed my ear against the partition, and heard the sounds of stifled sobs. Why was the boy bleeding, or rather ‘still’ bleeding? That little word suggested a long-term condition, and I remembered something from school about each person having eight pints of blood, which made a gallon: how long would it take a gallon to leak out? How quickly was ‘Benny Boy’ leaking? I tapped on the partition, and his whisper came back, terse and urgent.
“Don’t! Mrs Parsons will hear you!”
“She won’t if we whisper”
There were a few moments of near silence, broken only by his breathing and the catches in it.
“OK. But don’t try at night. One of the others will hear”
“Other children?”
“No. Charlie or Don”
“Who are they?”
“They work here. They… They look after the place at night, and do the breakfasts. They…”
He stopped abruptly, as the stairs creaked. I managed to get to my bed just before Mrs Parsons opened the outer door, then the one to what now felt like a cell. Two things were thrown to, or rather at, me.
“Can you read, Tinkerbell?”
“Yes, Miss”
“That’s ‘Mrs Parsons’ to you, you little shit. Read that to me, then. Out loud, in case you didn’t understand what I said”
One of the two items was a piece of paper glued to a plywood board, the other a small alarm clock. I assumed she didn’t want me to read the clock, so started on the single handwritten page. The writing wasn’t too bad, and my reading level was quite advanced even for my age back then, so I puzzled it out. There were numbers that looked as if they were times, but some of them went a lot higher than twelve. I didn’t ask, because I was learning swiftly and surely that it wasn’t a course of behaviour that would result in any results I might appreciate. The paper was a sort of timetable, giving times for breakfast and tea, along with such things as ‘classroom’. When I had finished reading the whole thing out loud, she snatched it back. It seemed I was supposed to have memorised it as well as read it aloud.
“That clock is wound and set, so don’t let it run down and don’t you dare fucking overwind it. You come late for meals and you will go hungry. Come late for classes and you will get a hiding, and Mr Parsons doesn’t hold back. Spare the rod, spoil the child, and you can trust me, you will NOT be spoiled, Tinkerbell. There is a pot under your bed. It will be cleaned out every morning. Your bathroom slot is one. Can you count?”
I was already learning.
“Yes. Mrs Parsons”
“You get ten minutes in the bog in the morning. There are nine other boys in your section. right now. Your breakfast will be at seven thirty, so work out how early you have to be finished so the others can get their turn. You make any of them late, you both get a hiding”
Without a single question about how well I had understood her, if at all, she was gone, my inner and outer doors slamming one after the other, the partition between the cells shaking at their impacts. I worked through the arithmetic on my fingers, and came to one hundred minutes, which converted into one hour and forty minutes. I would have to be up early indeed.
The stairs creaked once more as the horrible woman descended them, and I looked out of my window for a while, trying to place my room into a mental map of the streets and the direction I was facing. There were bars, on the inside of the window, and they were clearly home-made, bolted onto some metal tabs that had been screwed into the wooden frame. The screws had then been drilled, so that the slots a blade might have fitted into had been obliterated. No prospects there. A real pity, as there was an outhouse or extension of some sort under the window, just a short drop away.
There was a soft tapping on the partition, and I gave up my search for exits, scuttling over to lean against the thin plywood, plasterboard, whatever it was.
“Benny?”
“You better be ready, lad”
“It’s Billy”
For some reason, my mouth ran away with me.
“For now. I’m really a girl”
“You can’t be! Only boys here! Anyway, five minutes before seventeen hundred”
“What?”
“Teatime. Oh… It’s like they do in the Army: seventeen is five, twelve added to five makes seventeen. Seventeen is five in the evening. We have to be there on time”
Creaking stairs once more, and I found myself a quick learner indeed, standing ready at the door when the woman opened it. Not a word from her, just a flick of the thumb and Benny and I fell in behind her, joining a double line of boys, all around my age or slightly older. Not a word was said by any of them until we were in what had obviously been the dining room when the building had been a hotel, and a meal of mince and onions, marrowfat peas and two scoops of slightly grey mashed potatoes was in front of each of us.
If the potatoes were slightly grey, that colour was certainly that of the mince. No knives. No forks. A spoon for each of us, collected, along with the meal, from a little hatch, behind which were a couple of men in stained aprons.
I counted twenty-three other children, all seeming to bear out Benny’s claim of a single-sex establishment, and as soon as the hatch slammed shut after the last plate had been collected, the room burst into noise and life as conversations started from all corners. One boy sat silently, though, his face a mass of bruises. Benny caught the way I was looking.
“That’s Harry, Billy. He bit Don a couple of days ago, so he got a hiding”
I stared. Everything about ‘Harry’, from the stiffness in his movements to the way he seemed to suck rather than chew his food, shouted that he hurt, that his ‘hiding’ had gone far beyond what my own father had inflicted on me even in his most savage of moods. What sort of place was this?
Benny was still talking, although I had missed the words.
“What?”
“What did you mean you were a girl?”
Why on Earth had I said that to someone I didn’t know at all? Whatever the reason, it was out. I caught a couple of the other kids staring at me, and realised it wasn’t something safe to let out.
“Didn’t say ‘girl’, Benny, I said ‘Cymro’. Welsh, see?”
He stared at me for six or seven seconds before making a clear decision to drop the matter, so we moved on to other matters, such as where we were from, why we were here and so forth. What was then South Lancashire in his case, North Wales in mine; we ended up in silly childish jokes about leeks and sheep, before our meal was finished, my new friend licking his plate clean. Once he was done, we all lined up to hand back plate and spoon, no room there for sneaking one away. Back to our seats, the door opened and Mrs Parsons there once more. Not a word from anyone from then on. We were marched back up to our rooms, locked away one by one and left to our own thoughts, right up until I heard the soft tapping on my partition just as Mrs Parsons’ footsteps left the stairs in silence.
“Yes, Benny?”
“What did you mean you are really a girl?”
I sat as silently as he had, but without the hushed sobs or catch of voice. I am not sure why, but I suddenly needed a friend. It must have been the shock of my encounters with Mrs Parsons, or maybe a remnant of that other shock of being completely disowned, but right there and then I needed someone sympathetic, and all I had was Benny. He wouldn’t let it drop.
“Do you mean you’re dressed up as a boy, Billy?”
I sighed, but managed to keep it down to a whisper.
“No, Benny. I AM a girl, but just inside, just how I feel. All boy on the outside”
It broke then, my dam, burst in a surge of words that couldn’t even begin describing how I had hurt my entire life, however short it had actually been.
“I call myself Debbie when I can”
“Why Debbie? And how can you be different inside? Haven’t you got a willy? Girls don’t have willies”
“Ah, Mam has…”
I nearly broke just then, memories of her turning me away from her cutting through my soul, but I strangled my sobs at birth with a vision of the awful woman downstairs.
“Mam has a record by another Debbie, Debbie Reynolds, and she is so pretty and smiles and I just thought it might make me as nice as her”
Creaks on the stairs. I shot back to my bed, conversation finished, as the awful woman in question made her rounds. I remembered the timetable: in bed by two thousand, and the alarm clock showed seven thirty. My door opened, and she threw a pair of pyjamas at me.
“Get in them, get into bed, and keep fucking quiet!”
Slam, slam once more, and I hurried to do as she ordered.
At eight o’clock sharp, with a clunk, the light went out.
At eleven o’clock, for the first but far from last time, I met Donald Renfrew Harrison.
The following night I would meet Charles Cooper.
LIFELINE LEAPFROG
As discussed following the first two parts, I am slicing away a chunk of the early part of the book to avoid distress. There is a huge story I want to write, but it has to start somewhere, and that place involves Charlie Cooper. This offering bypasses that with a summary, and then leads into the story at a later date.
I intend to include a fuller beginning when I publish commercially, but just not here, not now.
Anyone familiar with my work will know exactly what Cooper is, and how he likes to spend his quality personal time. I left Billy about to meet him and Don, and I need not spell out what happens over the next three years of care home life. A summary:
Much abuse. Much of what you read in ‘Job’ and ‘New Beat’. Two escape attempts by Billy, in both of which they meet a friendly police sergeant. I have described the bars on the windows. Billy marks his shirt cuff with the width of the bolt, and when he is awaiting return from the police station again, he finds he is left in a storeroom for once, rather than a cell: there is a prison visitor inspection in full flow, and Sgt Friendly does NOT want him seen or spoken to. There is a lost/stolen bicycle in the room awaiting disposal. It has a saddle bag, and a flat cycle spanner slips into his underpants after a quick check against his shirt cuff…
Now read on.
It was Don on duty rather than Charlie that night, and I heard his steps on the stairs as I always did. Please, god, not tonight. If it had been Charlie, my door would have been the most likely to open to a dark silhouette against the forty watts of the landing light, but not then, not that night.
I felt so, so guilty, wishing that piece of shit onto another child, but I simply couldn’t face another visit. I was leaving, one way or another. It had been a warm day, so the margarine I had managed to filch had melted nicely, One screw held the bottom of the sash window down, and it hadn’t been drilled, probably because the bars had been fitted first. The flat spanner came out from under the carpet, where the stain was, and I set to work on the nuts, praying that Don wouldn’t find his second wind.
Four off. I lowered the bars to the carpet below the window, leaving them in place as a ladder, and started on the final screw, using the straight bit stamped out on the bike spanner. Please, please don’t chew the head! There was a squeak of old wood, and the tool slipped just slightly, just once, before the screw started to emerge from the sill. Not now, Don.
The window made a slight rumble, and there was a tap on my partition. I rushed over.
“Not now, Benny. Got to be quiet”
“What was that noise?”
“Leaving, mate. Please shush!”
“They’ll catch you, Billy!”
I was absolutely clear in my own mind how I meant the next words.
“No. No they won’t. If I don’t get away this time, I am not coming back”
I heard a hint of a sob and a soft “Good luck!” and I was off. Out the window and onto the extension roof, my quilt ready for the barbed wire on the wall, the bars ‘ladder’ giving me just enough extra height to reach its top. Over; a long drop to the pavement, my knee giving a twinge, and then haul down the quilt so it wasn’t visible to some random passer-by or fucking copper.
I made my way as stealthily as I could, listening for any cars, especially shitty little ones in a shitty grey paint scheme. According to my little alarm clock, it was about three in the morning, and I didn’t expect any motor traffic, not even a milkman, till much later. Any engine noise was likely to be my sergeant or one of his friends.
I realised I didn’t have a clue where I would go. Mam had made it very clear I wasn’t welcome, and my old trick of fare-dodging on the trains wouldn’t work at that time of night, as there were no actual trains running. I had concentrated entirely on getting out of Mersey View, with no plan beyond making it to the street. I still headed towards the tracks, though, for want of any better ideas.
I sat on the rail side of the wall along the line trying to dig out an idea, anything coherent, and there was a rumble. Not a car, not a uniform, but a long line of flatbed goods wagons heading south. As the train was passing me, it stooped, probably for some signal or other, and my mind was made up. I knew the dangers of playing on the rails, I knew how easily those steel wheels could slice away limbs and life, but did I care? I had told Benny the absolute truth: if I didn’t get away, I was never going back.
I got up the side of one of the wagons, getting into the load bed just as the train jerked forward, finding some sort of gravel or sand under a tarpaulin. I had a flashback to a night in a boat as I burrowed under the covering canvas, wriggling my body to create a hollow to lie in. Comfy…
No. No sleep. Not now. The train picked up speed, and I stuck my head back out of the cover to let the breeze flush my lungs and drive away the other sand delivery. Mr Sandman, please fuck off to some other kid. I am not interested, not just now.
Stop and go, for what felt like hours, before we rolled into a vast expanse of parallel tracks that I eventually realised was Crewe. The train stopped, and I waited a long time before realising that we were going no further. Over the side, stumbling in the darkness, and there was the actual station and the end of my twelve-year-old body’s strength. Everything hurt, from the cuts I had managed to pick up from the barbed wire, despite the quilt, to the constant pain in my backside and the itching around my willy. I found a train sitting at what looked like a dead-end platform, a guards van butted up against the buffers. It wasn’t locked.
Slam-door trains, they were called, but no slamming, not that night. I eased the door shut as quietly as I could manage, and once again my luck was in. I suspect there was some sort of maintenance plan involved, and the parcel space in the drafty old rolling stock was filled with bits of carpet. I burrowed in, managing to get out of sight just as torchlight flashed into my temporary home.
“Fuck all here, Jim. Be rats again”
A second voice: “Probably some fucking tod fox. Piss everywhere, they do, the fuckers. Check the doors anyway, mate. Stink, they do, and the piss is worse”
Fumbling. Slamming. Receding footsteps.
And sunlight. Oh god, where was I? How long had I been asleep? I could hear a lot of footsteps outside, from the measured thump of man’s boots to the quicker tick-tock of women’s heels. I gave my makeshift nappy a quick check to make sure it wasn’t leaking before slipping out from my nest and easing the door open. Onto the platform among a crowd of people, platform signs read ‘Shrewsbury’, keep your eyes down, girl, smile a little; close up behind that couple, just another family tripping down the steps to the guard checking tickets. Wait for the man and woman to stop, fumble in their pockets, and run.
“Stop, you! He yours?”
“Never seen him before!”
The last I heard from the guard, as the sound of his feet faded behind me, was a declaration that he couldn’t be arsed. Glass and wood doors, hit them with a bang, and out onto stone pavement. Town centre obviously to the left—go right, away from crowds. Double round the corner, past a tunnel. Slow down. Walk. Just another kid late for school on a Friday morning, whatever the time actually was.
Breathe. Feel the sun.
The buildings opened out a little, then on my left disappeared entirely to reveal a deep and dirty-looking river. Nobody seemed to be paying me any attention, but it was a main road, and that invisibility couldn’t last. There was an opening on my left, as the road started to run slightly uphill towards a couple of pubs, and I ducked into it, finding some old steps that led down to a path through shrubbery and across open grassy spaces to a lane. Fencing on one side; lots of parked vans and horseboxes on the other. The agricultural showground. My stomach rumbled noisily as I crossed the lane in a smell of chips and other fast food, and I had one of the cleverest ideas I have ever managed to dredge out of the back of my mind.
The vans and horseboxes were all empty. There were neither tents nor caravans next to them, but I could see a large number through the fence, which was also where the cooking smells were emerging from.
One horsebox would do. The one I chose had a name painted on the side, which I assumed related to some spoilt kid’s pony, and the owner’s name and address were there as well, advertising a plumbing business. Blankets and other rubbish inside. A bucket and an old pair of kids’ wellies that were only slightly too big.
Pause, Debbie. Think this through. If you can talk your way through the gates, there will be food there to nick. If you don’t manage it, then Charlie will be waiting, and Don.
My stomach lurched.
I picked up the bucket and headed for the gates to the Showground.
CHAPTER 4
The man on the gate looked at me for less than a second, his eyes flicking away to the backside of some young horsewoman, judging from her clothes, which were rather tight across her rump.
Boots, tight trousers: some men seemed hard-wired in their reflexes.
I spotted some low buildings off to my right, and headed for them, looking for the name of the horse or owner’s name written on my shelter. I needed to know where it was so that I could stay clear of it, avoiding the risk of any collision with the owners in question. The animal was in the second row, a tall man and a teenaged girl at its gate. I memorised their appearance before moving away as quickly as I could without it being too obvious. I worked my way back past a large number of tents and cars to a dirt track at the bottom of a short bank, on the other side of which was a long line of food trailers, generators rattling away to drive their fridges and the smell of their products sending pain through my stomach. As I watched, a refuse sack was thrown into a container behind what smelled like a burger van. I looked down the road, and there were too many people about. Maybe later.
I went through a gap in the fence to a large grassy area, ringed by similar trailers and tents, some obviously professionally made retail affairs while others looked more home-made, with metal frames showing the marks of welding supporting plastic sheets or tarpaulins, tat of all kinds on hanger rails or folding tables. At least two places sold hand-made riding boots and shoes, while others offered subscriptions to magazines like ‘Farmer’s Weekly’ or ‘Horse and Hound’, or insurance, fertiliser, bull semen (that one REALLY caught my eye!); my senses were hyper, made even more so by all the food I could see and smell.
There was a show area across another dirt roadway, a tannoy announcement blaring out that a round of some animal beauty contest or other was about to start, and an utter cliché of a ‘country chap’, all tweed jacket and flat cap, chucked most of a burger into one of the black bins scattered around the field. I ambled almost past the bin, managing to trip and fall into it as I reached it. I knocked it completely over, which naturally meant kneeling down by it to shovel the spillage back in.
Half a beefburger went into my bucket, under the cloth I had laid over it.
That became the pattern of my life for the next few days. Once or twice, I was late to a bit of food waste, to find it covered with cigarette or pipe ash, but I still ate it. The alternative was hunger. I saved the bits and pieces through each day, taking them back to my little house on wheels each evening, where I forced down whatever I had been able to find. The tea and coffee stands were selling their wares in plastic cups, which found their way into the same bins. Rinsed out in a toilet sink, they served to carry water to ease my thirst, which always seemed worse after a mouthful of congealed fatty food.
The nights were shockingly cold, but I did my best with the old blankets in the horsebox, watching for the grey of the pre-dawn before sneaking out for a pee. I didn’t want to leave it till people were up and about, but I thought that the security guards who patrolled at night would be far more likely to pick me up if I did my business in full darkness.
Three nights only, and then it would be over. Bank holiday traffic would be made far worse by a parade of trailers and vans heading home, and I couldn’t be there when it happened. That Sunday evening, I was just settling down in the twilight, knowing I would have to be away from there before dawn. Pickings had been awful through the day, and all I had found for my bucket were two apple cores and a quarter of a cheese sandwich. That had actually made me smile, because I knew the stand it had come from. All the neatly0cut white bread sandwiches were labelled as ‘Cheddar’, ‘Red Leicester’ and so on, but this one was clearly processed plastic sludge. I didn’t care about its quality just then, being more concerned at the lack of quantity.
“Kid!”
My heart fell through the floor as the woman called out to me from the back of the horsebox. Could I get through the side door? How fast was she? What would Charlie want to do to me THIS time?
“Kid! You hungry? Got some hot food here. Better than from a bin”
I saw her in silhouette as she lowered a bag over the gate, a smell of hot fat coming from it.
“Going to step away from the back of the box. Be nice if you could tell me what’s up. Maybe I could help”
I grabbed the bag, scurrying back to the front of the box, as far as I could get from the risk of seizure, and it was chips, hot chips, with a steak pie, and a can of fizzy pop, and then it was gone, and so was I. My sobs started, and I curled up around my overfilled stomach, trying my best not to howl my grief and fear to the world. I heard the latch of the gate opening, and I knew it was too late to run, but something was ordering me to stay where I was. Two arms went round me, not to seize but to cradle and rock.
I don’t know how long we sat together, but my hysteria and tremors gradually wound down. My head lay on her breast, and I realised she had said absolutely nothing through me collapse, just holding me there, safe for a moment.
“Ken?”
A deeper, male, voice replied.
“Yes, duck? You OK?”
“This one isn’t. Can you go and get the water warm, and the kettle on? We’ll be over in a bit”
“Wilco”
She turned her attention back to me,
“I don’t know what it is, darling, but I will take a guess. No police—Ah! Right, then. No need to wriggle. That’s my hubby ken, and I am Lorraine, and we have a stall here at the show. Proper camper van as well. I think you need a feed and a decent night’s sleep, as well as, from the smell of you, a hot shower. Where are you hurt?”
I finally found my voice, cracked as it was.
“What do you mean?”
“Kid, I was a bloody nurse for years. I can smell something on you. Anyway, later. You want to be polite and give me your name in return?”
My heart spoke before my brain.
“Debbie”
“Oh. Like that, is it? Read about people like you… oh: seen you pee a couple of times, so I know what you are, officially, like. But you’re Debbie, then. You up to a short walk? And Ken and me, we don’t really do coppers, if you see what I mean. Shower and a cuppa. How old are you, Deb?”
“Twelve”
“Jesus bloody wept! Right, then. Which of us do you want to wash your back?”
She rose with a grunt before taking my hand to help me up, leading me out into the gathering darkness.
“Get this in your head, girl: we are not going to do anything you don’t want us to. We are not going to hand you over to whoever it is that has you shit-scared. If you want to leave now, run off again, we won’t try and stop you. But I think you need a bit of a rest before you do that, a bit of safety, breathing room. We can give you that”
“But you don’t know who I am…”
“Don’t care right now. You can tell us later, if you want to. Hang on…”
She got me to e hedge as I threw up the chips, pie and pop, before handing me a mint.
“Thought that might happen. Suck on that. You drink tea?”
“Yeah”
“Ken will have the kettle on. You a Gog or a Scouser, love?”
“Welsh”
“Well, me, me and him, we are Ken and Lorraine Petrie. I am from Cannock, he’s from a place called Shelthorpe…”
She kept on talking, calming me as she led the way back onto the showground, my wellies and bucket abandoned in the horsebox, along the dirt track past the food wagons and up to a cluster of small wooden single-storey buildings. Tucked up against them was a dark blue Commer van with a bellows roof conversion, a medium-sized frame tent and one of the tarpaulin-covered trade stands beside the vehicle.
“Home from home, love! Well, it’s home for us most of the year, but you take my meaning. Ken, love? You take sugar, Deb?”
“Just milk, Mrs Petrie”
“Loz, love. Mrs Petrie was his Mam. Ken? White without for the girl”
The van had a large sliding door on the left side, and it made a hell of a noise as it rolled back on its guides.
“Ken, love, this is Debbie. Deb, this is my darling hubby Ken. How’s the water doing, love?”
He was a stocky man, tattoos down both arms looking messy and smudged in the van’s lights, a dark beard almost touching his chest. That light showed my new friend Loz, who was of a similar build, with a very matronly chest and long, obviously dyed black hair tied back in a ponytail.
“Got enough if we use the pump, duck. What’s your size, Debbie?”
“She won’t know that, love. Just get me a small in a T-shirt and an XS in one of those print skirts. And could you pass me the first aid kit?”
“Wilco!”
A little generator was chugging away next to our (I caught myself at that thought, but let it go) camp, and as Ken rummaged under the tarp, Lorraine led me into the frame tent, carrying a much larger box than I had expected.
“Right, kid. Shower’s in here. Ken’s rigged up a recirculatory thing, so you can have a longer wash, but it means you re-use the same water. Just like being in a bath, really. Here’s the deal: You can do it in private, or one of us can help you. You can say who you would prefer, but I would like to give you a check-over. Got a good nose, I have, and I am a bit worried. Your call, girl”
My makeshift nappy was really uncomfortable just then, and I wanted to get clean, but that would mean having to find some way of replacing it, which would be almost impossible in the circumstances. Sod it. No man about.
“Could it be you, please? Yes, I am hurt”
She closed her gaze for a second, mumbling something under her breath, before looking me directly in my eyes. I noticed hers were a startlingly clear blue.
“Deb, love, I think I know what it is going to be, so I will say this: I was a queue rank. Ken was REME. How we met”
“You were a what?”
“Army nurse. He was a fitter, army mechanic. We met in a NAAFI when I was stationed in Rinteln. Germany. I was a nurse for years. Haven’t forgotten much. How many times?”
I started to cry again, and as she held me to her, she started slipping off my clothes, leaving me, in the end, with no choice. I managed to stammer “Don’t know…”
As I mumbled something about them having me for three years, I could feel her stiffen. Firmly, but not roughly, never roughly, she turned me so that she could see where I hurt.
“Jesus fucking Christ! Ken!”
His head came through the doorway.
“Yeah? Oh, fucking hell! I’ll need to add some cold to the shower. I’ll grab the other kit”
I realised Lorraine was stripping off her own clothes, just as the generator’s note changed and the shower came to life.
“I am getting in with you, love. I need to check you over properly, and I want us both as clean as possible. No shame, love. But we need to think about the law”
“That’s who put me there. That’s who keeps taking me back”
“Care home, Borstal or orphanage?”
“Care home. Three years”
She muttered again before we stepped into the curtained area under the shower, just as the man put something down beside the first big box.
“Right. Clean us both first, OK? Ta, Ken”
He left us alone, and Lorraine began the process of rinsing away the filth, before jumping back with a yelp.
“Ken!”
I am sure he was simply standing outside the tent, his response being so quick.
“Dirty fuckers have given her crabs!”
“Ain’t got any blue, duck. Think Phil will have some spare, though. Shave for now?”
“Yeah. No choice. Deb? You been feeling itchy down there?”
“Yes”
“The bastard who did this to you left you a present”
“That’s ‘bastards’, Loz”
“Fuck. Sorry. You know what nits are? These are like them, but you get them down there instead of in your hair. Lice. What we want to do… There is a cream you can get to kill them, but we haven’t got any. Friend of ours is… Someone we know isn’t too careful who he sleeps with, so he keeps a supply at home. Till then, we need to get rid of your hair, on top as well as down there”
She drew a long breath, looking over the top of my head, before continuing.
“Then there’s the other problem. When they did what I know they did, they weren’t too careful. You’re torn, and it needs fixing. How much pain can you stand? Only got a little bit of local left”
She shook her head, clearly annoyed with herself.
“How old is this kid, Petrie? Sorry, love. Local anaesthetic. I need to do some stitching, and I will tell no lies, it will hurt. I also need a good look at the site, just in case. And I am afraid you’re going to be on soup for a while”
Her eyebrows lifted.
“That’s if you stay with us. Do you want to?”
What choice did I have?
CHAPTER 5
We were still naked when Ken came back in, his figure shadowy through the shower curtain.
“Got you this, duck. Clean clothes are on the table. Pair of flip-flops in her size as well, as long as those were her shoes”
He handed a safety razor and a pair of scissors over the top of the curtain rail, then blurred again as he moved away, calling back, “I can change the filter tomorrow, so don’t worry unless it clogs”
Lorraine lifted my chin to smile into my eyes.
“You OK with this, kid? Not much down there yet, but I will have to do your head as well. Find you a scarf, we will. Personal question, now. Very personal, so understand why I ask. Do you know how to clean… that extra bit? I can turn my back”
I knew what she meant, so I did the necessary, and then she started on my hair, the dark curls piling up over the grid covering the shower’s drain. Once the scissors had done their job, she took the razor and efficiently cleaned my groin before the much longer job of shaving my head, which included my eyebrows. The Parsons had always followed a cheap barber routine, which involved the shortest cut possible left for as long as they could get away with, so apart from my brows I ended up looking little different to the way I had ended up on ‘barber days’.
“Get you dried off now, love. Then I am afraid it will be the nasty bit. Do you mind if Ken gives a hand?”
All the way through this, from our first meeting to showering with me, she had simply accepted my Debbie declaration. No argument, no questions, no hesitation. As we stepped out of the tray, as she wrapped me in an old but clean bath sheet, I saw the clothes set aside on a solid but obviously foldable bench or table. There was a dove grey T-shirt, with the slogan “When I Grow Up I’ll Be A Biker Like My Mum”, a pair of blue flip-flops and a long patchwork skirt. She gathered the clothes, placing them onto a camping chair, and laid out another bath sheet, folded lengthwise in half.
“Can you lie down up here, love? Ken? Got the lights?”
I will gloss over the details, but it involved Lorraine putting on some sort of headlight while Ken held a bigger torch, moving around at her direction. Things started with a gentle wipe of my rear with some sort of cold liquid, and then the sting of a needle as she gave me what she called the ‘local’.
It sent my pain away from me, but it slowly came back, along with the sting of another needle, gradually increasing in severity. Pain. Gentleness, and muttered swearing from Loz, while Ken talked endlessly about everything and nothing, motorbikes and their life, silly jokes and random anecdotes, only twice having to step round and pin my legs to the table.
Part way through the ordeal, I felt a soft patter on my back
“Ken, love? Could you wipe my eyes please?”
At last, it was done, and Lorraine was kneeling at the head of the table, both of my hands in hers.
“Best I can do, love. I have some penicillin. Taken it before?”
“Don’t think so”
“Well, some folks are allergic to it, so we’ll have to watch you. I need to calculate the dose, nut if it works for you, it’ll clear up the infection. Going to be off solid food for a while, though. Now, I have a dressing on it. Ready for another sort of dressing”
Ken coughed for attention.
“Think we can best leave that for tonight, duck. Time’s flown right off. Got a bigger shirt here, should do for a nighty for the kid”
They had a bed that filled most of the width of the van. Ken stripped down to some shorts, Lorraine pulling on another old T-shirt and lying on the bed so her back was to the side of the Commer. Ken turned to me, his voice as soft as if he was gentling a frightened puppy.
“There’s enough room, kid, but if you prefer, I can use a bag out in the tent”
Sometimes we are offered choices, and they come with risks. That risk is the choice: will it bite me? Can I put the fear behind me? Do I have the courage to step through that doorway?
Three of us lay spooned on the bed. I don’t know if the other two managed to sleep, but as I felt my body’s knots untying themselves, the weight of my life pulled me under. The next thing I knew was the sound of a whistling kettle.
Sunlight bright on the grass outside, seen through the half-open sliding door. Ken was bustling round outside, singing some silly song or other about an old man clad in leather, and Loz was laughing.
“You’re no Maddy, love, and never will be!”
“Fucking hope not, duck! She’s got that one covered herself. You awake yet, Deb?”
“Yeah. Sort of…”
Lorraine looked into the van.
“OK, love?”
I fought back some of the dreams that were still fighting the daylight. No. No need.
“Sorry. Just habits, yeah? I want to run…”
I don’t know how and when, nor why, but somehow she was holding me as I sobbed, clinging to a double handful of her dark hair. She was whispering in my ears. Soft words about safety, things I understood, but the fear, claustrophobic in its intensity, still lay beneath it all.
I wound down in the end, as crying children always do, and sought my voice and sanity once more. As seemed to be her habit, she held me a little way from her so I could see her eyes.
“I think you’re working out if you need to run just now. Am I right?”
I nodded, uncertain of my ability to speak sensibly, and she smiled.
“Here’s the proposal, then. I am guessing you are running from somewhere up towards Scouseland, from your accent, so I will tell you that we are heading down towards Bristol right now, then along to a place in Wales we know. All away, further and further away, from that place you got out of. So we’ll be running together, love”
Ken’s head appeared next to hers, his eyes, I could now see, just as blue.
“She’s right, littl’un. Just got to get the tent and stall sorted, and we’re off. Got a couple of pitches lined up, including a couple of midweek markets, then we’ve got a rally near Swansea”
I found my sense of humour at last, broken though it was.
“You mean Abertawe?”
“Oh, piss off, kid!”
That last came with a grin and a mock slap at my head that, strangely, didn’t trigger a leap away in my half-healed body. Running together. Not running away, but running alongside.
I helped as much as I could with the packing, the skirt whipping round my knees in a sharp breeze and a scarf wrapped round my baldness, Lorraine policing my boundaries carefully. No lifting of anything heavier than a bundle of T-shirts of cardboard box of sunglasses, and in a couple of hours the van was loaded, along with a solid four-wheeled trailer that looked like it had cost more than the van. I took the middle seat in the front of the van as we joined a queue of other vehicles making their way out of the showground, and after a long, slow parade of vehicles right through the middle of the city, we were finally out into the country on a straight road that ducked under an old bridge at one point, the name ‘Thos Telford’ inscribed on the arch. A short while later, we were navigating a different junction, onto what I saw was the M6 motorway south, Ken wrestling the wheel.
“Still easier than a bloody Scammell, Loz! Good caff over that way, Deb. Hollies. Proper feed when you need one, and not at daylight robbery prices. Bit past there is our gaff. Cannock”
I was finding it easier to talk to him with every mile that passed.
“We not going there?”
“Nope. Got the market to do by Kidderminster, then that one by Bristol. Got enough stock on board; the horse show was pretty shit for us. We’ll top up at a place in Gloucester. Two things we did get through were sunglasses and folding stools”
The next few days were a little frantic, as we pulled into a couple of different towns where the ‘stand’ was quickly erected and a variety of stuff laid out, mostly T-shirts of various lurid patterns, including an awful lot of tie-dyed stuff. There were folding knives, folding chairs, folding sunglasses, leather items that seemed to have no purpose I could work out, and an awful lot of boxes of extra-large cigarette papers. Business was brisk, especially for the wallets on a length of chain and the chunky rings shaped like skulls. Not at all what I wanted.
That came later, during the second market outside Bristol, after a night spent huddled up in the van with all the floor space piled high with the stock we had gathered from an industrial unit on the edge of Gloucester. There was barely room for the three of us on the bed, but I felt safer with each day. The lack of space pushed us together, and I was starting to relish the warmth beside me, the feeling of safety that would emerge from the fog of a bad dream as I heard Ken’s soft snore or felt Lorraine’s breath on the back of my neck.
The stall was up, my little bit of assistance dispensed with, and Lorraine took my hand.
“Off shopping, love”
“OK, duck! How long?”
“Couple of hours, I would think. Pick up some stuff for soup, and get this one dressed”
That was a surprise, and I had a flashback to those days in Chester, seeing the posters of the happy, smiling, always whiter than white families. Woolworths was the main shop, for knickers and vests, blouses, two skirts, a couple of pairs of jeans and some shorts. C and A did some shoes as well as a raincoat. All of them from the girls’ aisles, no argument or discussion needed nor held.
The end of that day saw us grinding over the Severn Bridge after paying a stupidly large toll, with me sitting on Loz’s lap for the best views as the old van rocked and swayed just a little in the side wind that I would come to know so well in later years. It was Thursday evening, and after the bridge the traffic stood still more often than it flowed. Ken drove most of the way, Lorraine taking over after a couple of hours as the old vehicle laboured along the mixture of motorway and A-road we were following, until we came to a pub called the Three Feathers, somewhere near Bridgend according to the road signs. Lorraine drove us around the building to the rear, where she brought the van and trailer to a halt parallel to a long concrete wall. The engine ticked and popped as it cooled, and she turned to me.
“Who is she, Ken?”
The question was addressed to her husband, but her eyes were on me. Ken sat silently for a few seconds.
“My sister Brenda’s. been in hospital. Getting better by having an adventure”
“You haven’t got a sister, love”
“They don’t know that. And she’s not well, which is why we have Deb. Deb’s getting better, mum’s fading”
“Her dad?”
“Fucked off years ago. Or never knew him. Lorry driver. Knee-trembler in a car park in Coalville”
He turned to me, grinning.
“Got that, Deb?”
I started giggling, which was getting easier in their company.
“Yes, Uncle Ken!”
His smile faded.
“Don’t embroider, duck. Keep it simple. Keep the details vague. You don’t know what’s wrong with your mum, OK? And you’re just out of hospital. No details there, either, except that you are sick a lot and your hair’s gone. Let them make up their own stories. Now, this is someone we trust a bit, so we will be parked up overnight. Tomorrow is going to be a much more relaxed place”
We stepped down from the cab, Lorraine leading me by the hand and making me feel much younger than my real years. The inside of the pub was full of cigarette smoke, ten or fifteen mostly male customers clustered at one end watching a darts match, a fat man behind the bar wiping down some glasses. He looked up at our arrival, his face breaking into what seemed a genuine smile of welcome.
“Hiya, you two! Who’s this, then?”
Ken hugged me one-armed.
“My niece Debbie. She’s not been very well, and, well…”
I caught his gesture out of the corner of my eye as he put finger to lips.
“Her Mam is a bit, um, big seas, mate. Giving her a break, and this one an adventure. If. You. Take. My. Point”
“Oh. Um. Right. You’ll be off to the Farmyard Fumble, then?”
“Indeed! Got a load of new stock loaded up, so we’ll be glad of Sooty and Sweep”
Ken looked down at me, once again treating me as far younger than I was.
“Uncle Nigel here has a spare room upstairs, so we will sleep there. Sooty and Sweep will look after the van”
“Who’re they, Uncle Ken?”
“Dobermann Pinschers, duck. We sleep in here, Uncle Nigel shuts the gate, and the dogs look after all those boxes you helped me load”
“Can I stroke the dogs?”
Nigel laughed.
“Not the best idea, my girl! You eaten, you three? I could do you pie and peas”
Ken squeezed me, just a little. Avoid details.
“Still delicate in the stomach, Nigel. Got any soup for her?”
“Not a problem, poor mite. Want to get your stuff in while I sort the dogs? Would you mind, Loz?”
Lorraine nodded and slipped behind the bar, clearly used to the work, while Ken gathered our sleeping kit as Nigel prepared the food. I would rather have eaten the pie, but I remembered the stitching, and that was enough to put me off such temptations. Scotch broth was my meal that night, and a proper bed the place I rested, safe between two loving people.
CHAPTER 6
There was a window in the bedroom Nigel had given us, and for once I managed to slide down the bed from between my two carers, leaning on the sill to gaze over the countryside to the South. I could just catch a glimpse of what had to be the sea, something I realised I hadn’t actually seen since my last visit to my old home.
The air was clear, the ground damp after rain had passed through in the night. A pair of high chain-link gates had been locked shut behind our van and trailer, and I could just see the head of a dog poking out from under the trailer. Sooty or Sweep? A milk float pulled into the pub car park, and the dog was out and trotting up to the wire mesh, another running to join it. Long heads, athletic bodies and total and utter focus; Nigel had been right. Not dogs for a pet and stroke.
‘Carers’. That was the word that had come to me when I rose, and it fitted. A memory of Ken holding my legs down, as gently as he could, talking softly to me as Lorraine stitched and wept. In my cynicism, I was asking so many questions about costs and pay-offs, and it simply didn’t feel appropriate. They were clearly getting something from me, but I couldn’t see what that might be. Right then, I was safe, what felt like a thousand miles away from John and Marie, Charlie and Don…
Waking nightmares can be far more severe than those that haunt our sleep, but I fought that one off in a way I had never been able to do with its source. I could feel the stitches pulling as I moved, and that helped, as a reminder not only of what they had done to me but of the simple fact that, to all intents and purposes, I seemed to be safe. It might be temporary, it might fall apart in a moment, but I would deal with that if and when it happened.
Ken came up behind me as I stared out of the window, an arm slipping companionably over my shoulders. I tensed, reflexes kicking in, and he dropped his arm immediately.
“No, Deb. Not like that, duck. Never like that”
I reached out for his arm, pulled it back up and leant into him.
“I know. Just how I am now. Sorry”
“Never apologise for what isn’t your fault, girl. Now, we need to grab some bits and pieces, especially a cuppa, and then we’re off. We have a full weekend ahead. Do you like music?”
“Yeah… but not heard any for ages”
There was another pause from him, and in later years I grew to realise that he was having to process each facet of what added up to my deprived childhood. No radio, no TV, no socialisation apart from the other inmates and (that word again) our ‘carers’.
“What sort do you like? I love things like Fairport, Steeleye and that, as well as Hawkwind. Heard any of them?”
“I haven’t heard OF any of those!”
“Ah! We are going to have to educate you then. What about Beatles, Stones, Kinks?”
I found myself blushing, because one of the names he had listed really did mean something to me, and Ken noticed.
“Let me guess, duck? L-O-L-A?”
We sang out “Lola!” together without any planning, and he started to laugh, a cough coming from the bed.
“When you two have finished playing alarm clocks, we need to get over to the far side of Clase before it gets too busy. Now, I think we can risk a bacon sandwich, just the one. You eat bacon?”
“Oh yeah!”
“Just the one. One slice of bread, crusts off. Not much roughage in Mother’s Pride, so should be safe. And if you like music, we have a cassette player buried in the van. Just need to dig out some batteries, and we’ll have bit of noise as we drive. Love?”
“Yeah, duck?”
“How far have you got in educating this one about where we’re going?”
“Just started. Want to finish off while I sort the kettle?”
“Will do. Deb? Teeth and get dressed first”
She handed me a package from her huge canvas bag, which proved to be a brand-new toothbrush, obviously picked up in the shopping frenzy what seemed like an aeon ago. I did the necessary, grateful I needed no more than a wee, and joined them both downstairs in the pub kitchen, a smell of stale beer, cigarette smoke and wet dog everywhere. The bacon was heavenly, and I was treated to a glass of real orange juice, poured from a glass bottle the same shape as those that held milk. There was no sign of Nigel, but the Petries seemed at ease. Lorraine called for my attention.
“Do you know what a bike club is, love?”
“People who ride motorbikes?”
“Basically, yes. Social club for bikers. They like to have parties, and this is one of them. There’s a farm, up a rough track, and they put up a big tent, with a bar, and bands, and a disco. We set up the stall, which is what all the stock is for, and we have three nights there before we move on. The bikers bring their own tents, and they have silly games, and some get very, very drunk. I’ll be honest: some rallies are less friendly than others. This one is one of the more laid-back ones, and the weather forecast is set fine, so it will be shorts, if you like. Just be careful where you sit down. If you want to dance, don’t go too wild. Morning, Nige!”
The landlord grunted out “There tea in that pot?” before accepting the mug Ken was already holding and taking a large mouthful, wincing at the heat,
“Getting too bloody old for late nights, I am”
Lorraine laughed.
“Early mornings, more like! What time did they all clear off?”
“Half two. Let me get the dogs sorted, then, if you don’t mind, I’m off back to bed. Don’t open this door, kid. The dogs don’t know you”
He shambled out in T-shirt and pyjama bottoms, and I heard deep and excited barking as he called his guardians. I had only eaten half of the promised sandwich, due to fear of anything emerging later, but I guzzled the tea and a little bowl of very milky cereal while my new friends gathered our night things. Out through a side door and round the back of the pub to the van, where I found the gates already folded back. Lorraine dropped a hand on my shoulder.
“Watch your step, Deb. Dogs have been here all night, and they usually leave an egg or six”
“Egg?”
“Brown and squidgy ones. I was going to say that I don’t know what he feeds those two, but unfortunately I know all too well!”
Ken was chuckling, which he seemed to do an awful lot.
“Deb, you ever trod in dog muck?”
“Yeah. Not nice. Takes ages to get off your shoes”
“Well, I was once staying at a house where they had a new pup. Kept it in the kitchen, newspaper down, yeah? I was sleeping on the settee, bog was back of kitchen…”
“Bare feet? UGH!”
“Yup! Not a memory I will ever lose. Now, Loz, duck: music. What are we starting with?”
“Who’s driving?”
“I’ll do second bit, if you want. That track’s a bit rubbish, and you need a bit of heft for the steering”
“OK, then. I’ll get the tape machine while you grab some batteries and the box of cassettes”
We rolled out of the car park, Lorraine at the wheel, while Ken fiddled about with a sort of small case with a handle. I’d heard about the things, but had never actually heard one playing, so it was a little exciting. There was a row of keys, like part of a piano, and a little hinged see-through top, underneath which he clicked a cassette. One of the big keys was pressed down with a loud clunk, and a hissing started to come from the player.
“This is new stuff, Deb. ‘Below the Salt’, it’s called”
“Never heard of them”
“Na! That’s the name of the album. Band is Steeleye Span. One of my favourites. Fiddle player is really good”
The two of them left me to listen, and it was catchy stuff. I could see why Ken liked it. I could almost see myself in a proper dance to some of it, like we did at school a couple of times. The machine suddenly made a click after one song, and Ken pressed some more buttons, slipped the cassette out and turned it over.
“Side two, kid”
Three songs in particular hit me right in the stomach, and I was almost angry with the machine and cassette that it wasn’t like a record, where one could just move the needle back and listen again and again. The first of the three was sung without instruments, and it was in what I realised was Latin, a number of voices in close harmony. The second was introduced by Ken as being one of his favourites, and as the first part of the singing died away, he told me to listen to the fiddle playing. I will admit that I found it extremely frightening, in a goose-bumps and giggles sense.
The third song that caught my sense of wonder was about a sailor, and the delight was heightened when both Ken and Lorraine started to shout-sing the last few lines.
“I am frolicsome, I am easy
Good-tempered and free!
And I don’t give a single pin my boys
What the world thinks of me!”
Lorraine reached across with her left hand to take Ken’s right, and I could feel how those words spoke to them, spoke to me. That seemed to be their life, ‘good-tempered and free’, and I thought back to those days window-staring in Chester’s Rows, the happy and conventional families in so many posters, advertising everything from breakfast cereals to holidays.
‘Good-tempered and free’ didn’t describe the traffic in Swansea, nor the drivers, but we made it through, the Petries swapping seats in a petrol station forecourt before the last bit out of the city, a number of little posters and cardboard arrows fastened to lampposts while the roads got smaller and narrower until we seemed to be brushing the hedges on both sides, the surface a mess of potholes and loose gravel. A last turn, a metal gate, a small frame tent beside it, and a grinning man with a lot of hair and a sleeveless denim jacket covered in little metal badges.
“Welcome to the Farmyard Fumble! Can you stick yourself along the hedge over there? Marquee will be up in a few. Who’s that with you, Badger?”
‘Badger’?
“One of my family, Gandalf. She’s housebroken”
The mass of hair parted, revealing a broad grin with a missing tooth.
“That’s more than I can say for most of the others coming this weekend, butt! You OK getting set up, or need a hand?”
“Should be fine, mate. Where’s the fire going? We need to be upwind”
“Far corner. No worries for you there. Bar should be running by six, food by seven. I’ve got you a pint in the wood ready, if you want. Loz? Same? And the kid?”
Lorraine had stepped down, and tugged me round with her to stand feeling a little lost as she hugged ‘Gandalf’.
“Mate, this is Debbie. Not that well, and as you can see just a little under-age for a pint”
My latest new friend grinned again.
“Then how does a hot chocolate sound, Debbie?”
CHAPTER 7
Gandalf put a couple of fingers into his mouth and gave a piercing two-not whistle, something I had seen on screens large and small but thus far never in real life. A couple of children of around my age came running up, grinning with excitement.
“Rosie, Sam: We want two pints for Badger and his missus, and a hot choc for Debbie here”
The boy laughed.
“Two pints of what, Dad?”
Ken interrupted before the hairy man could answer.
“Tea for now, Samwise, thinking about it. Get set up with a sensible head on. Mate, we’ll grab the real pints later, if you don’t mind”
Both children sprinted off, still laughing, and Loz and I followed the rolling and swaying Commer to the hedge that ran down the side of the open grass of the field. Ken stepped out, and under his directions I helped them haul the unhitched trailer to one side before he turned the van so that it lay parallel to the hedge, nearside to the field. He then clambered up a short ladder to reach the roof-rack, where he started passing down bags and bundles before unsnapping the hooks holding down the trailer’s tarp. Once again, I remembered a night in a boat by the Dee, then one half-buried in sand on a goods train.
Lorraine caught the shudder I felt.
“You OK, love? Cold?”
“No. sorry. Just memories… Can I ask a question?”
“Course!”
“Why are you two doing all this for me?”
Ken heard, and the two of them shared a look for a couple of seconds, before Lorraine turned back to me.
“Not just now, love. Just be clear that there’s nothing you need to worry about with us two. We can talk when it’s quiet, if you don’t mind, but just now, I think you need us, and we are happy to help. Long stories on both sides. Anyway, here’s the kids with the refreshments. Knowing those two, they’ll want to help with the stand, so hush, just for a while”
The chocolate was wonderful, something I hadn’t had since my last visit to my maternal grandparents’ home, but it helped in other ways, as it served as an excuse not to get involved in chatter with two excited and garrulous children. Lorraine had been right, and they dove into ‘assisting’ us with the stand and tent.
We ended up in a neat little encampment. The stand lay parallel with the van, the space between the two closed off at one end by the frame tent I had showered in, a number of canvas and nylon sheets forming a continuous roof over the three structures. A number of guy ropes secured the assembly, and ken grinned as he reminded me that we were in wildest and wettest West Wales, so weatherproofing was essential.
We three smaller people had the job of laying out the lighter merchandise, such as sunglasses, fingerless leather mitts and the wallets on chains. I saw some of the odd leather items we had picked up over the border, and when I asked ken what they were, Sam started roaring with high-pitched laughter.
“Rally virgin!”
Loz slapped playfully at his head.
“She’s not well, Sam, so don’t even THINK about it! Debbie: the leather strap things are can holders. Belt loop, hangs down by their side, they fit two cans of beer in, so their hands are free. Some people like them”
Ken laughed in his own, deeper way.
“Yeah, and one thing we learned a long time ago is that we don’t tell paying customers if they look stupid! Now, kids: want to check the small T-shirts for something nice? One each, OK?”
Sam looked unhappy at the news.
“Last time, you said…”
Ken’s eyebrows went up.
“Oh! Course I did! Hang on, son. It’s… ah, yes”
He passed the young boy a leather pouch holding a small folding knife.
“Sharp, son, so take care. Rosie?”
“Could I have the same, please, Badger?”
“Absolutely, duck. Now, had a thought… Can I have that back, please, Sam? Need to do some work on it, but if you come back in an hour, it’ll be ready”
There was no reluctance in the boy as he handed back the knife, which showed deep and obvious trust in Ken, and then he and his sister were off across the grass, screaming as they ran. Lorraine handed Ken a box about a foot on a side along with a small hammer, and my curiosity was satisfied when I saw him take a number of metal rods out and, letter by letter, stamp ‘Sam’ and ‘Rosie’ into the leather of the two pouches.
I got yet another grin from him, something I was starting to yearn for.
“Makes the presents more personal, duck. Helps stop them being nicked, as well. Let’s get the last of the front row stuff out, then I am having a nap. Chairs are ready for the tent, you two”
Lorraine was phonily indignant.
“What about my own bloody nap, you?”
“Ah, who drove the last bit? The hard bit?”
“Stop using facts!”
Still grinning, he closed the van door behind him as Loz took my hand and drew me into the tent, where we set up the table and a couple of chairs before she swiftly constructed a plate of ham sandwiches. I got a very small portion, of course.
“Talk now, Deb? My man there will give you his own take on things another time, so we have our own time together, just for a bit. I also want to check your dressings while we’re all still clean and sober”
Once our meal was over, she had me lie on the table so she could examine the state of things under my skirt, changing the bandages and adding a little antiseptic cream to the wound. She kept the conversation running as she worked.
“That is looking a bit better, love. Keep it clean for now. How do you feel?”
I thought the question over, then turned my head and grinned at her, trying my best to match Ken.
“I would murder for some real food!”
“Not all you would murder…”
Her face had fallen, but you shook herself and found a smile.
“Me and Badger, then? Not a huge story. Both of us are ex-services. Met up in Germany, clicked, and when our postings were up, we decided to get out together. Didn’t like being domesticated, and anyway, he’s Romany. I’m not that mad. Happy to travel in the warmer months, but I will be buggered if I am freezing my tits off in a caravan in winter. Both into music, bikes, all that stuff, so this way we get to follow the scene, he gets to feel free, and I keep all of my toes attached in February”
She paused, and there was something there, something she wanted to offer me. I had discovered what patience meant in Mersey View, how crucial its importance, so I simply lay and waited as she sought her words and her voice.
“When did you realise, Deb? That you were a girl?”
“Always, Loz. All my dreams… Dad…”
I had my own words somewhere, but they took some time to find.
“Dad liked the belt. I think it was the same for Mam as well. I wasn’t a boy, and he wanted a boy, and I am not one, and he tried to make me be one. I don’t know what he wants Mam to be”
The laugh that came from Lorraine wasn’t at all connected to amusement, not in any way.
“Usually, what men like that want is for the woman to be whatever she isn’t at the time. Simply, love, they just don’t let the woman ever be right, always in the wrong. Makes the men feel better about whatever it is they don’t like about themselves”
There was a long sigh.
“My brother was like you. Sister. Was. Shit, love. I’m done here”
I couldn’t give her anything back for what she was doing for me, so I simply held her as she wept.
Her voice was almost inaudible when she spoke again, when she could find those important words once more.
“So common, love. Queers, they call them. Doesn’t matter what you are, whichever way you are different. Sharks and blood in the water, they can smell a queer a mile off, and they are like your Dad, the queer is always wrong. Clive, she was baptised, but she was Christine, and then she was found in an alley in Stafford. No more for now, OK? It’s not nice. But I think I sort of understand you”
I felt her shaking as she drew a long breath, and the resolution returned to her.
“Face wash for both of us, love, then wake Sleeping Beauty. Paying customers are arriving, cause I can hear the bikes, and we have a business to run, and you have a life to get started. You also have some etiquette to get started on, and I would rather you got it from me and him rather than those two little tearaways. And there will be music!”
“I was going to ask about that!”
“Ask away”
“Mam likes some music, Debbie Reynolds and that. Dad was always Theresa Brewer. I couldn’t get what that stuff in the van was”
“The Steeleye? Something Ken got me into. I was always heavier stuff, rawer rock. Loved the Stones, proper old blues like the Wolf and that, and he was a folky. Thank fuck… sorry. Thankfully, he was never into the drippy stuff. His tastes sort of linked in with Jethro Tull and that, more than Pete Seeger or Joan Baez. Steeleye is what they call folk rock, like proper rock, but using traditional tunes and stuff”
She started laughing, in a far more relaxed way.
“At least Maddy Prior and the rest give credit to who wrote their stuff, even if nobody knows who it actually was. Not like those bastards taking Willy Dixon stuff and calling it their own!”
Abruptly, she snorted, with real and unfettered amusement.
“Hell, you won’t know any of this stuff at all! Promise me one thing, love: listen with an open heart and an open mind, OK? You might surprise yourself, like Ken did with me. Up and at ‘em, love!”
The field was now sprouting tents, motorcycles propped up next to them, men and women in leather jackets and jeans setting up more shelters, the odd sidecar delivering a number of other younger people. At Lorraine’s instruction, I slapped the sliding door of the van to rouse Ken, while she folded back the covers at the front of our stall. Ken emerged blinking, then looked at the gathering crowd.
“I smell money, girls! Want to go and find those pints Gandalf promised? Going to get busy in about two hours, so let’s turn a profit before we start the party”
Loz picked up a couple of pewter mugs and we started off towards the large marquee dominating the middle of the field, as Ken called out “Loz! I can see an MC!”
I looked up in query, and she indicated an odd arrangement of badges on the back of a big man setting up a tent against the far side of the field.
“First lesson, love. Anyone with a set of colours like that… Anyone with badges shaped like that on the back of their jacket, let them talk to you first. Don’t go up to them. Explain more later, love. Ratty! Come here!
That last was to a small man wearing a leather jacket, filthy jeans and a woollen hat, the jacket covered with what had obviously once been another one, in denim, sleeves ripped off and what was left covered in more little metal badges.
After a prolonged hug, Lorraine turned to me.
“Ratty, this is Deb, one of Badger’s lot. Deb, this is the president of the host club. This is his do, so be nice to him”
“Hello… They said there’ll be music here”
“You a Gog, girl? Yeah, got a disco tonight, then a decent band tomorrow night. You into R and B?”
“What’s that?”
“Rhythm and Blues, darling”
Loz chipped in, “She knows some of the Kinks’ stuff, ratty”
“Ah! You know ‘You Really Got me’ or ‘All Day and All of the Night’? That sort of thing?”
“Yeah! Will it be loud?”
“Oh yes!”
“Shall I tell you later, mister?”
“I insist, darling. Now, Gandalf says you have beers in the wood. I suppose that’s what you walked over for?”
Lorraine grinned.
“Bears and woods, love! Popes and big churches!”
“Then walk this way. Got tankards---yup. Bar’s all keg and cans, I’m afraid”
Two full tankards of beer and a can of orange fizz later, we were walking back to the van, and I could already see people at the stand. Lorraine handed one of the tankards to Ken, clinking hers together with his as well as my can, and grinning happily, clearly for the benefit of what looked to be potential ‘paying customers’.
“Beer, sunshine for the moment, and we are back in Wales. Could life be better? Oh, what size do you take, mate?”
CHAPTER 8
It got a little frantic for an hour or so, as people in leather, denim and woolly hats queued up to buy all sorts of things. I had never seen so many beards, even if some of them seemed to be grown more in hope than in substance, but there were smiles hiding behind most of them.
My role was to grab boxes to replenish any stock running short, such as the large cigarette papers, as well as to take bundles of banknotes into the van, where I put them into a lockable metal box.
It was years before I worked out why Ken had entrusted that task to me, and with hindsight it was obviously as a means of showing that the two of them not only wanted to make me feel included, but also as a very clear way of showing their trust. Whatever the reasons, there was more than a little cash to put away. Lorraine explained it after the weekend.
“It’s the excitement, love. The start of a party weekend, plus they still have the cash on the Friday, rather than counting their pennies for the petrol to get home. Some of them will still end up hitch-hiking and having to come back for their bikes, though”
The weather held fine as that Friday afternoon turned into evening, and Ken filled the time between customers by pointing out the various types of bike on site.
“That’s an old Squariel over there, duck. Don’t see many of them about these days. Nice idea, but they have overheating problems. That’s an A sixty-five… T one-ten trumpet… Commando… Bantam, poor sod! Ooh, that one’s a Venom, and that one there is a Guzzi. Hope it doesn’t rain, for their sake!”
There was a lot more, and it wasn’t just a list of names but explanations for his comments. For example, I discovered why the Commando shimmied on tick-over, why the Square Four overheated, why the Italian V-twins might simply stop running at any hint of rain. It was my first introduction to the basics of motor mechanics, and it served me well for the whole of my working life. Ken had a true engineer’s eye for a problem and its solution, something that can never be taught but must be innate.
All of his remarks were slipped in between chatty sales talk with customers whose ages ranged from what seemed to be not much more than mine up to men and women who looked as old as my Nana. Smiles and cheeky jokes, the odd pat to my head following some lie about my health, and then, just after Lorraine had gone exploring what she called ‘the competition’, the press seemed to evaporate. Ken squeezed my shoulder, and whispered “Let me talk first, duck”
It was one of those Lorraine had described as ‘MC’. He was about forty, to my young eyes, and as wide as the old van, a patch of white in the hair above his right ear.
“Badger. How you doing?”
“Hello, Horse. Not a bad start. Weather’s doing us a favour, at least so far”
“Aye. Need some new mitts. What size you got?”
He held out a hand the size of a dinner plate, and Ken laughed.
“Not that big, sorry! I can get some, if you want”
“Aye, be good. Need them ready for next month. Our party, aye?”
“Oh? Down your clubhouse… what date?”
“Prospect will give you the details later. You’ll have a slot by the parking area. Concrete, so no tent”
“Not a problem. Could I make a suggestion? I get this stuff made up, the special sizes, and it would be safest if I took a measure. Deb? Piece of paper, if you can, and a pencil. With the maps”
I nodded, trying to work out the relationship. There was a distinct air of menace coming from the square man, but it felt general rather than specific in its aim. He wasn’t looming at Ken, but at the world in general. ‘Looming’ was the word that came immediately to me, the feeling you get standing under a cliff, uncertain if it is going to collapse and bury you. I understood Lorraine’s warning, and then ‘Horse’ spent a few seconds staring at me.
“Yours, Badger?”
“Sort of. Not been well. She’s called Debbie”
I saw something in Horse’s eyes then, something as sharp and penetrating as Ken’s instinctive understanding of bikes and their failings. The eyes stayed locked on mine.
“Aye. I can see. Word of advice, Mister Petrie. Two, and both free to you, just this once. The first is that you start taking the News of the Screws. There will be a story in there in a week or three. Second bit is simpler”
He reached out one of those huge hands, resting it on the scarf that covered what was left of my hair, which was just showing as dark stubble. Once more, those eyes inspected my soul. Still looking at me, he spoke once more to Ken, voice low and incredibly dangerous in what it implied.
“Anyone gives this kid any grief at all, you tell me. You tell me immediately, whatever time of day or night. You find a prospect and you tell them what I told you”
His eyes flicked back to Ken.
“I think Deb can draw round my hand for you, Badger. I don’t hold men’s hands, do I?”
I did as he asked, Ken advising on how close I should make the line to the edge of the huge and scarred hand Horse set down on the sheet of paper. Ken seemed to be relaxing a little, his smile almost back.
“How many pairs, Horse?”
“Um… one for now. See how they fit, then we can talk number. See you in the bar later”
He turned to walk off, only making about four yards across the grass before turning back to us.
“One last thing, Badger. I would stay away from there for a while. The whole area. It is going to get shitty. Read the Screws”
Not another word as he turned and walked away, and I noticed how he walked in a completely straight line as others stepped out of his way. Ken was trembling slightly. I stepped closer, and he laid an arm around me for a hug.
“Shit, Deb. Shit. Something is…”
I looked up at him.
“You think he knows about me?”
“Yes, duck. I think he knows most of it. He wasn’t happy about it, either”
“Will I have to leave?”
He looked down at me, and I realised his eyes were damp.
“Leave? You? After what we have bloody seen? What Loz has done her best to fix? Fucking hell, no! Never, Deb! What do you think we are? No. Don’t answer that one. I’m thinking, duck. It’s…”
He looked up as Lorraine returned, two paper bags that held chips, from the smell, and a cardboard beaker which shouted ‘hot chocolate’ at my nose.
“What’s up, love?”
“Seems the word is out about Debbie”
“Ah. You had Horse over. I could see him from the marquee. Gearbox had a word as well, with me. She said it’s like someone knocked over a wasps’ nest up that way. Deb, not now, but later. We need a chat about bad times, just a few details, nothing big, but tonight, in bed. In private, love. Now, how are you moving? Stitches not pulling?”
“Fine, Loz. Hardly know they are there, sometimes”
“Right, then. We have a plan for later, then. Ken, love, can you spare the two of us for a bit? I think we need to get Debbie seen, and not that other name. Change of clothes as well. Deb?”
“Yes?”
“Will you feel OK in a shorter skirt? Something that says teenager and girly-girl rather than boy in disguise? We are going to do some dancing, not mad stuff. Just enough to leave the right impression. Bit of make-up as well, I think”
The skirt Loz found for me was in denim, and ended around three inches above my knee. I had one of the slogan T-shirts on, the one about my mother being a biker, and sandals, and as Loz kept me supplied with cold drinks, I learned not so much how to dance but more how to let go of my fears sufficiently to let me move to the music. I didn’t know much of it, but it was loud and rhythmic, making my feet move, my body weave and twist to its insistence. Lorraine was with me, along with little Rosie, and I watched them both as their eyes closed, their heads went back and their hair flew. There were men up as well, some of them shaking their heads back and forwards while others pretended to play invisible guitars, and far more simply stamped in small circles, a can or mug of beer held in one hand and a soppy grin fixed in place.
The music took me. I was dancing and flying, all at once, my stomach buzzing with the bass and drum lines, and at last I flew free.
Later that night, as I lay sandwiched between my two saviours, we talked. It was mostly their conversation, as it was clear they knew their way around the country and the events that were their livelihood, and we evolved a plan of sorts. There were events to the North, well away from Mersey View, and there were others in Lincolnshire, in the North and East Ridings of Yorkshire, County Durham, Scotland, that would allow us to bypass the risky areas, not to mention the whole of southern England. Lorraine was as gentle as she could manage in her interrogation.
“Deb, love? Sorry if it opens old wounds, but was there anyone else there who knew you were really a girl?”
The way she phrased her question was a wonderful thing. I ran through the memories…
Slapped for sitting like a fairy.
Don’s haste and the stench of his unwashed body.
The way Charlie would kiss the back of my neck as…
“It’s OK, love. Take your time”
“Loz?”
“Yes, love?”
“Boy in the next… Benny, the boy in the next cell, bedroom, whatever. I told him. Nobody else”
“Would he tell, do you think?”
“Don’t think so”
“Good. That means we can leave you as you are. You OK staying as a girl?”
Before I could answer, Ken started laughing, and it was warm and genuine.
“OK, Loz? It’s what she always has been, duck!”
We settled down in the darkness, and more than one kind of warmth.
CHAPTER 9
I didn’t sleep that well, as there was music until very late in the morning. I couldn’t call it ‘early’ as it had passed beyond that. We were still up and out by eight o’clock, though, and after Loz had inspected my injuries, I dressed, in the longer skirt this time. I went to fill the kettle, but she stopped me.
“Time for a little lesson in manners, love. Don’t worry, you’ve done nothing wrong! It is just that we have a few ways of doing things you need to learn. Grab three mugs for us”
Other traders had set up around the field, and she led the way to one of them, a food trader with some folding chairs and tables in front. A rather round man with a moon-like face and shaved head was stirring something in a large pot, and I could smell all sorts of tasty things, starting with bacon. Loz caught the way I perked up.
“Sorry, love, but not yet. Hiya, Fester!”
“Morning, Loz! Who’s this with you?”
“One of Badger’s lot. She’s not been well, so she can’t have any more than a small bacon roll and some toms on toast. That do you, Debbie?”
I caught the wink, before she turned back to the round man.
“Me and him, love, we’ll have the full Welsh, but no seaweed, OK? Oh, and can you do us three teas? Lazybones is on his way over”
The tea came from a huge enamelled pot, and we took the mugs over to one of the tables to await our food, just as Ken dropped into one of the chairs.
“Got it ordered, duck?”
“Yeah, love. Letting Deb have a little bit of roughage today. Sloppy stuff with it, so it should be fine. Things are healing really well. Should be settled down in three weeks or so, but I don’t want to rush it. Fester’s doing the usual. Deb?”
“Yeah?”
“I said manners, and it is, sort of. Etiquette, if you see what I mean. We are all in the same business, us, Fester, the rest of the traders here. Someone has a problem, we muck in together. Might be a broken trailer hitch, could be a broken table leg. We could cook our own brekky, but Fester needs trade, just like we do, and besides, if we are sitting here eating it brings other punters over. And it saves on the washing up”
Ken was nodding.
“Exactly, girl, but there’s more. Obs are the thing, obligations. Show somebody an open heart when they need it, and they will likely do the same to you, or to somebody else that needs it. Might not be yourself, but it changes things a little bit for the better, and this stuff travels in circles. Help a stranger one day, and you increase the chances of a stranger doing the same for you”
I looked at each of them in turn.
“Is that how it is with me?”
Ken reached across for his wife’s hand.
“Sort of, duck, but not exactly. Not any more. You grow on people. Besides, after what was said last night, well, you need us. Ah: that’s our food ready, I think”
Conversation closed down as we ate, and Ken slipped me half a sausage, as a treat. I was getting rather tired of a diet that seemed to consist almost entirely of liquid, but it was helping. I didn’t want to think what passing a firm stool would involve, but I didn’t have to, as I could remember in far too much detail. Benny’s complaint on my first night in hell, that he was still bleeding, would never leave my nightmares.
Plates handed back to Fester, we set out our stock once more, the kettle going on this time, as both of my new carers drank tea almost constantly. The heat of the mug in my hands was welcome in the slight chill of the morning, but it did mean frequent visits to the toilets, which were tents hiding a wooden plank with a hole cut in and what Loz called an Elsan bucket underneath. The paper was in boxes marked ‘Izal medicated’, and the stuff was another reason I was glad not to be passing solids.
Trade was brisk after about ten thirty, the emergence of a warm sun delivering a small surge in sales of sunglasses and slogan vests. Several of the men were walking around stripped to the waist, or wearing one of the sleeveless denim jackets covered in little badges, but there were a sizeable number still wrapped up in clothes that looked more than a little lived-in, even to the extent of keeping their knitted hats on. Tattoos were everywhere, some better than others, and small knots of people were gathering on the grass, chatting, drinking or working their way through a Fester breakfast.
As we moved into the afternoon, I was being kept busy, breaking open boxes and setting out the sunglasses that were selling so well, when there was a squeal from the other side of the stand.
“We forgot!”
Ken was chuckling as he handed over the two knives, each in a pouch stamped with the owner’s name, as Sam shouted about it being magic and Rosie laughed at her brother before turning to Ken.
“Can Debbie come and play with us? Then there’s dizzy sticks! We’re doing the umpiring!”
“You want to go and have some fun, duck?”
“What’s dizzy sticks?”
“You’ll like it, but don’t compete yourself. Back for tea, please. Either of you two got a watch?”
Samwise held up his arm to show something far too big for his arm, on a woven leather strap pulled as tight as possible, and Ken nodded.
“Back for four, please. It’ll get busy after that, and I need my best worker, so treat her gently”
That afternoon became a benchmark in my life, as we simply lived as children for a few hours. There was much running and screaming, dodging around big men, a few of whom seemed to be drunk, staring at all sorts of motorcycles, all of which Sam described in excessive detail, before we ended up at the far end of the field marked out by a small stream with a simple bridge over it to allow access to farm vehicles. We were each carrying a long stick, which served us as swords to cut down stands of nettles or sorrel. Sam found another that was more to his taste, then started snapping his old one into shorter lengths before flopping down on the ground and producing his new knife. Rosie squealed again.
“Pooh sticks!”
Both of them started whittling at the lengths of wood, leaving them pointed at each end, before they pulled off their shoes. Rosie was still excited, and pointed at my own sandals.
“Get them off, Debbie! Pooh sticks, but we got to get them back to do it again”
“What’s Pooh sticks?”
Sam’s mouth was hanging open in surprise, but Rosie slapped him to close it.
“Pick one of the new sticks, Deb, then come onto the bridge!”
The game was simple: we each dropped a stick into the water on the upstream side of the bridge, before dashing to the other edge to see which one emerged first. One of us would then run along the bank, step into the water, which was only about a foot deep, and recover the tokens, and repeat. No prizes, nothing except a score kept by Rosie, but something of my childhood was returned to me.
In the end, we started out back to the big tent with our shoes in our hands, muddy feet gradually wiped clean(ish) by the grass, arriving just in time for the promised dizzy sticks.
I loved it. Our job, as umpires, was to hold a string and judge which man had made it across the finish line before the others in his heat. We also had to watch a competitor each, counting how many times he had complied with the essential part of the race, the dizzy stick.
Three broom shanks had been set into the ground so that their tips were about three feet high. Each man had to run forward to one of them, grasp the end with one hand and bring his forehead down to touch it, before scuttling sideways around it five times. The ensuing race for the line was what brought the belly laughs, as the rapid spinning served to distort perceptions, balance and any sense of direction in ways that were quite wonderful to watch. Seeing a six-foot man who was running his hardest for the line and facing in exactly the right direction, while actually moving sideways, left me in another sort of stitches.
Racing over, Sam held up his arm.
“Time, Debbie!”
“Thanks, Sam!”
I gave him a hug, which brought an “Eeeewwww!” but no recoil, then offered the same to Rosie, who squeezed me back, whispering into my ear.
“No bad people here, Debbie. Safe place”
Releasing me, she grinned and raised her voice.
“Live band on tonight, Debs! You dancing?”
‘Safe place’, she had said. I was having fun, real fun, for the first time I could remember since those days in the dunes. What other answer could I give?
“Yeah!”
The stall was indeed busy, so much so that we ate our meal, a sort of Irish stew, in relay fashion so that there was always an adult available to deal with punters, although I realised I was being allowed more and more into the sales process. We kept at it until about nine in the evening, as the music pounded out across the field and the flow of custom slowed to a trickle. Eventually, Ken sighed and rose to his feet.
“Right, girls: time to get cleared away and then it’s party time. Was it a good afternoon, Debbie? Oh, Loz: look at that grin! Right, then. Soonest started, soonest boogying”
That brought a playful slap from Lorraine.
“Soonest you can get outside some ale, you mean! Come on, then”
Stock packed away, Loz threw me the skirt from the night before, along with a paper bag.
“Ken’s put something in there for you, love”
It turned out to be two items, the first being a denim vest, only a little two large. Sewn over the left breast was a strip of leather, which he had stamped with the name ‘Debbie’. There was also a wrist band, similarly marked ‘Deb Petrie’. I found tears welling up, but Lorraine took my chin in her hand, kissing my forehead.
“No tears tonight, love. Going to put some mascara on you. The name is there to make you real, and our bit so nobody can forget whose girl you are. If the papers are sniffing around, we need some misdirection. That OK with you?”
No need to answer. We finished getting ready, and stepped out of the tent to find a smiling Ken awaiting us. He looked at his two presents for a few seconds before smiling more broadly still and hugging me tightly.
“Time for some fun, girls!”
I could already hear the band, who were very loud, and once again the deeper-toned sounds were thumping away in my stomach. We went by way of the bar, pewter tankards filled with beer, then found some space at a table already occupied by Ratty and Gandalf. I didn’t recognise the songs blasting out, but I could feel that new urge to move to them. Gandalf waved to his children, who came racing from the crowd of dancers to grab my hands and pull me with them, as their father waved to the band.
They finished their song, looked at each other for a few seconds, and then the familiar riff kicked in, the singer snarling into his microphone.
“Girl! You really got me now! You got me so I can’t sleep at night!”
So many things were ‘wrong’ that night, from the volume of the music to the fact that those entrusted with my care were eventually more than a little drunk, but I didn’t care. I closed my eyes and put my head back, and I danced until I was exhausted, in that safe place.
CHAPTER 10
Sunday morning made its way through the curtains, and I wriggled out from the bed, leaving Ken asleep and snoring. I tried to make as little noise as I could opening the sliding door, but from his snores I needn’t have bothered.
“Morning, Debbie!”
“Morning, Loz”
“Cuppa, love? Kettle’s just boiling”
“Please! What are we doing today?”
“We see Fester once Sleeping Beauty joins us, then we see how many people still have some cash left. Stop here tonight, then hit the road on Monday. Got a couple of midweek markets in a place near Salisbury and another not far from Newbury. Weekend is a folkies thing between Thame and Aylesbury. Ken’s got some other T-shirts for that one. It’s just the one night, so we’ll be taking a break for a couple of days afterwards. There’s a farmer we know, just outside Dunstable, and he lets us park up for free. We need to go into Luton for some stock in the week, so it gives us somewhere to park the trailer”
“What are these places like?”
She raised an eyebrow, then grinned.
“Keep forgetting how little you’ve seen of the world, love. It’s been a bit frantic, hasn’t it?”
I couldn’t argue with that statement, but ‘frantic’ wouldn’t have been my choice of word.
“Loz?”
“Yes, love?”
“What’s going to happen with me? I mean, later? What happens when I’m well again?”
She cocked her head to one side, simply looking at me for a few long seconds of silence.
“What would you like to happen, love?”
I sat in my own silence for a little while, feeling as if I was being set a test, an examination that needed a correct answer. I needed to work things out in my own mind before I could explain them adequately, but the one thing I couldn’t face would be a return to Runcorn. Where could I go? My mother, in her fear, had made it plain there was no longer a home for me with my parents. If I called on Nana, I would be snatched up and sent back to hell as soon as the authorities discovered where I was.
Other memories, though, were speaking to me, whispering promises. I knew I wasn’t really a girl in a purely physical sense, but it seemed that I was accepted as one by everyone who met me. I felt right in my skin, I felt right with Rosie and Sam, I felt more than right dancing to the music that made my stomach jump and my eyes close.
I fingered my leather wrist band, tracing the letters stamped there, and remembered those days on The Rows looking through shop windows at posters of family groups, always smiling, always seeming so happy and loving. Could I have that? Dare I ask for it? I drew a deep breath.
“If I could stay with you and Ken…”
Her tears were immediate and shocking, but she shook them away and wiped her eyes quickly with a tea towel from the little rack that held our stove and crockery.
“Of course you bloody can, love! No way we are ever leaving you to the bloody Man, after what they did to you. Come here!”
She wrapped me up in a hug, and I could feel her tears start again as I did my best to squeeze her as tightly as she was holding me.
“Debbie, love. Ken and I can’t have kids. That hurts, for both of us. Just to let you know this is not all one way, that you are giving as much as we are. Some day we will talk, but not today. Too much to think about right now. We do have to sort one thing out, though, and that’s who you are. Oh. Morning, lazybones! Tea’s still warm in the pot”
I waited until he had filled a mug and joined us at the little table.
“What about who I am, Loz?”
“Who you are? I, we’ve got some ideas on that one. I mean, we’ve both seen all of you, so we know what the midwife said you were. She wasn’t right, though, was she?”
I shook my head, reluctant to speak and break the spell.
“Yeah, Ken and me, we thought you were another like Christine, right from the outset, so if that’s what you are, that’s who you are. Makes it easier, as they will be looking for a lad. Now, there are some things we can do to help that along. Ken, love?”
“Yeah?”
“Is our filthy friend going to be at the Beer Barrel?”
“Think so. Ah. Course. I’ll get a letter in the post tomorrow and ask him to bring some down. Deb, if you let your hair grow, it’ll look more like people expect to see. We make sure the little bastards are all gone, you can grow it out, if you like. Now, I think we need to go and see Fester. My guts need some grease”
Lorraine snorted out a laugh.
“They needed less beer last night, love!”
“Well, tough! This is always a good party, and I will be buggered if I am going to avoid a decent night’s boogie and liver damage!”
He sipped his tea, then stuck his head into the van, returning with a few sheets of paper.
“Get the letter written, duck, then make a list. We need to get those mitts made up for Horse, we need some new stock from that place in Luton, and I really think…”
He stared at me for a second or two, but it was with a genuine smile that reached his eyes.
“Not to take this the wrong way, Deb, but I think Loz will need to restock her first aid kit. There is also school”
My heart sank. Surely not? How on Earth could I ever enter a school, with all the record-keeping and intense scrutiny that would involve? He put his hand on mine, one finger tracing the leather band.
“No, duck, not like that. It’s a Romany thing. We school you at home, wherever that is. If we stop somewhere long enough, you spend a few days in a proper school, but not all booked in and stuff. There’s O-Levels and things to take there and… Loz? How far in the future are we bloody planning? Deb, whatever you decide will be the way we go with this. That do you?”
Lorraine hugged him.
“We have already agreed that one, Deb and me. I’ll get started on that list, and we’ll add the schoolbooks to it. Later, though. Fester’s open, now”
That was the end of the discussion, it seemed, and I was a little stunned at the implications of the casual remark about O-levels, as I would normally be sixteen when I took such examinations. I had only had around a week of freedom, and now we were almost casually looking four years into the future. Not only that, but the future in question was not Billy’s but Debbie’s. It was almost too much to contemplate, but I decided to do my best.
The rest of the day passed as I expected, the campers slowly packing and loading after a seriously long queue at Fester’s had been supplied with all of the usual necessities involving grease and hot liquids, and rather fewer people had visited our long table to pick up that last little thing to remind them of a couple of days they might not be able to recall in a lot of detail, if at all, with respect to any events that might have happened after their first visit to the bar.
Vans arrived from the company that had supplied the marquee, and it was packed away remarkably quickly as people left the field in pairs or small groups. We had finally decided to close down our stall, after a three-way discussion that warmed me in its inclusion of Debbie as a full member of our little family, when I spotted two smaller figures running over the grass toward us. Sam and Rosie, of course. Rosie’s voice was both the louder and the more coherent.
“DEB-BEE! We’re going soon and Dad said you were a rally virgin but not anymore and we missed our chance but it wouldn’t have been right and all because you are not well and he said you should have this so people know you’re not a rally virgin anymore!”
She pushed a small object into my hand, shouting “POOH STICKS!” as the two ran off again. I opened my hand to find one of the little metal badges all the other people were wearing. It showed a pig lying on its back, clutching a beer mug, and was labelled ‘Farmyard Fumble’. Ken took it from my hand, pinning it to the front of my denim vest, grinning broadly.
“Off you go, then, and don’t get too muddy!”
Monday dawned wet and miserable, but we had already packed away our frame tent and stand, so it was simply a matter of lurching out of the field, which wasn’t yet breaking up into mud. Back along the rough track I remembered, from what seemed like years ago, then slowly through the country lanes until we finally joined the road to the East and England, which we reached by way of that huge bridge.
I felt a sharp pang of hiraeth as I left my country again, but the alternatives were unthinkable. This was new life, new opportunities, and I wasn’t going to let any of that escape.
Midweek markets on a permanent table under a fixed plastic and metal roof, or in large car parks where we sett up the stand on its own. Nights spent parked up in a layby on some quiet country road, lulled to sleep by the sound of rain on the van’s roof, or woken on a bright morning as a skylark rose from the other side of a hedge. Odd place names, like Enham Alamein or Marsh Gibbon. Music, so much of it, from Ken’s own singing, which was actually rather good, as well as from his cassettes. More music at that ‘folkies thing’, where I was first shown how to dance in a set with a caller, and our stand was set up in a corridor between two halls, each holding a different musical group, so that as the doors opened, we were treated to snatches of their particular music.
I learned so much each day, whether it was about that other music from the larks and the yellowhammers, or about what I could safely eat for free from hedgerow or edge of field. Lorraine did as she had threatened, and the learning became more formal, in English and maths to start with, but underneath everything lay laughter and simple, deep affection.
Our stop near Dunstable was a highlight, as it was a sheep farm, and in the way of such things everywhere, the farmer had a pet lamb, or rather a young wether. Barry came when called, and liked attention to his ears and the back of his neck, and I ended up so much in love with him I would have smuggled him into the van if there had been any opportunity, or anywhere to fit him in. Once we had stocked up again in Luton, which was a real contrast in that it was exactly as promised in being a complete shithole, space was at a premium, and we were sleeping in the tent for our few days of rest. Finally, though, the weekend was once more upon us, and we set out for the Beer Barrel.
CHAPTER 11
I was officially no longer a Rally Virgin, with the badge to prove it, so I was feeling ten feet tall as we rolled into the site entrance, which was in a field next to a motorway. There was the usual collection of hairy people at the gate, all with the badges and patches now so familiar to me, many in the woolly hats that were almost a membership badge in their own right.
“Loz?”
“Yes, love?”
“Is this an MC thing?”
“No, love. Another MCC do, but they will probably have a visit or two over the weekend”
Ken was sliding the window open.
“Wotcher, Mushy! Where do you want us?”
Hat and -beard gave him an odd sort of handshake, then pointed behind him.
“About half-way along that hedge there, Badger, if that suits. Upwind of the bonfire”
“OK, mate. We’ll get set up. Any rain forecast? Just in case of mud”
“Ah, we’ve got straw just in case, but it’s supposed to stay dry”
“Ta. See you in a bit, then”
We rumbled away, and I asked the obvious question.
“Ken?”
“Yes, duck?”
“Do you know EVERYBODY?”
He laughed, as Lorraine gave me a gentle slap to the arm.
“No, duck, though I remember his face. He had a name tag on his cut-off, like you do”
Lorraine joined in with his laughter, then caught her breath.
“That’s a lesson to remember, love. Never let on how little you know. If they want to believe you, let them. Just remember one more thing”
“What’s that?”
“Never, ever, believe your own bullshit!”
The weekend followed much the same pattern as had the Fumble, but I felt a little out of sorts. We worked hard each day running through a reasonable quantity of stock, and I had the opportunity to dance myself close to exhaustion in the marquee, even though it was all to records as there was no live band, but I felt lonely. No Rosie, no Sam, nobody at all within four years of my age. I stayed close to my two saviours, worked hard on the stand, and tried to lose myself in the music each of the two nights.
At least I got another badge to go with my little piggy.
The Saturday night brought a downpour, and it was touch and go for a few minutes as several of the host club had to put a shoulder to the van to get it through the mud at the field entrance, but it was the performance with the trailer that really delighted me. The beast had a handbrake on top of the towing hitch, and I sat behind it as our friends used an old rope I had seen in the tug-of-war competition to pull everything through the mix of slime and broken-down straw bales. They took their footing on the tarmac of the road outside, and I fairly flew through the slime, picking up a wet splash up my back as one of the wheels hit a puddle, and only just managing to pull on the brake before we hit the opposite kerb.
Everybody was laughing hysterically at my plight, but it didn’t upset me, as it wasn’t meant as a put-down. I was simply another of ‘the crew’, getting a job done and picking up a cold bath in the process. Mushy was generous, as seemed to be his way.
“We live a couple of miles away; if you want, I could drive you round and you could use the shower”
Lorraine gave my shoulder a little squeeze.
“Thanks, mate, but you’ve got fabric seats in that car, and ours are hose-down vinyl. We’re going to stop at a motel tonight, so she can shower off there. Means she can settle down for a while, have an early night”
“See you next year, then?”
“If you’ll have us!”
There was no motel, but I changed in the van, and at some services further up the M1 I washed my face and hands in the ladies’ toilets, my hair drawing some stares from some other customers. It was also the first time I heard the muttered word ‘Gyppo’. Lorraine remained calm, smiling at the other woman without looking away until she left the facilities.
“Ok, love?”
“Yeah. What did she mean?”
“Gypsies. People don’t like us, and by that I mean they lump anyone who travels about into one big hate box. Says more about them than us, so fuck them. Anyway, we should be able to let this grow out soon. Got a couple more markets to do, then it’s off to Doncaster, for a stand by the racecourse. After that, we have a long drive up to County Durham and Chester le Street. Lots of motorway driving, so it will be a bit boring, so once we are done here, do you want to see if the shop has any cassettes you’d like to listen to?”
“Will we be going anywhere near Crewe or Chester?”
“Other side of the country, almost. You done, love?”
“Yeah”
“Ok, then. Oh: we’ll be pulling off at Leicester to meet Phil with the crab blue. That should let you start growing your hair out again. You like that idea?”
“Yeah! No more headscarf!”
Lorraine looked around the toilets for other women, then lost her grin.
“You are sure about who you are, aren’t you, love?”
“Fucking hell, yes!”
She winced.
“Probably not the best way to put it, Debbie, but OK. I need to do some reading, but I have a few ideas. Now, music, and some munchies for the trip up. Not too many, though. These places are always ‘two for the price of three’, so best avoided”
There was a rack of the little boxes in the shop, and I let myself be guided by Loz as I had very little idea of who to look for. I had heard certain songs, danced myself silly to several of them, but without a clue as to who the original artists had been.
“Here’s one, love. Bluesy, bit heavy in places. They’re called ‘Cream’. Oh! You like these, don’t you?”
It was a tape by the Kinks, and it went straight into the basket along with a big bag of mint imperials, the Cream, and two cassettes by people called ‘The Moody Blues’ and ‘Sandy Denny’. Lorraine paid for it all, and we made our way back to the Commer, where Ken was lying on a patch of grass with a fresh pot of tea beside him. Lorraine roared at that.
“We just get back from using the ladies’, and you are trying to make us pee again! All right for you, isn’t it? You can just dangle by the front wheel, while us girls need to sit down. Bloody men!”
She couldn’t stop laughing for a long time, little snorts coming to her as we supped up before edging back out into the northbound traffic. Once we were settled, she handed me the tape player and the new cassettes.
“You can be disc jockey, love. You pick what we hear, for the next stretch”
Ken drove, we munched or sucked sweets, and I discovered music I loved for the rest of my life.
I already knew the Kinks’ stuff, and I could hear exactly why Lorraine had thought the Cream would appeal to me, but the high points were on the other two tapes. It was like the singing they had burst into when Ken had first played Steeleye Span, bellowing about being frolicsome and easy, simple and free, as I had moved further and further away from the hell I had escaped.
Sandy Denny had the most wonderful of voices, soaring free from the clunky little machine I held on my lap, and I was in love with it from the first notes.
The other album was odder, with a lot of what I thought of as classical music, the other two nodding along, Lorraine occasionally doing an odd little head-weave, until one song arrived, and a man with a beautiful voice started singing about nights in white satin, and Lorraine and Ken joined in with every single word of the song. I sat silent for a while, listening to them, before joining in with the sort of chorus. It came to an end, and Ken looked across to Lorraine and me.
“Who chose those tapes?”
Lorraine let me answer.
“Both of us, sort of”
“Excellent choices, duck! Now, dig into the other tapes. You’ll find one called ‘Liege and Lief’. Think you’ll like it”
It turned out to be Sandy Denny again, this time with a louder band, and I could hear why Ken loved it. I was so lost in the sound I nearly missed the fact that we were pulling back off the motorway into somewhere called Leicester Forest East, where all the shops were on the bridge over the motorway. Which I thought rather odd. Ken parked up some way from the bridge, and after an hour of waiting a rather loud bike pulled up. I was in the back of the van, under the covers, on Lorraine’s instructions.
“The more people share a secret, love, the less time it stays one. We’ll take him up for a cuppa, then get back on the road. Got an earpiece here, so you can listen to the music while you wait”
The earpiece turned out to be a flat microphone, but it worked in a sort of reverse as I lay flat in the bed, my ear pressed to the device. The ‘Liege and Lief’ band were called Fairport Convention, and I found another tape by them, as well as two by Steeleye Span, and lost myself to music until I heard the front door open and Lorraine called me out.
“Got the blue, love. Phil, the cheeky bugger, wanted to know which of us had crabs, and who we’d got them off!”
“What did you say?”
“Ken said it was for a friend we’d be seeing in Donny. No lies there, then. Ready for the off? Need a wee?”
“Fine, thanks. Am I still the disc jockey?”
“If you like. Could we have some Stones for a bit?”
That rocked us all the way to Doncaster, where our stand and tent (and the shower) went up in a paddock as I discovered exactly what ‘crab blue’ was. More driving the next day, all the way past somewhere called Scotch Corner. Our next stop was at Chester, which stopped my breathing for an instant, but it was Chester le Street, our wares laid out in one of the permanently-covered marketplaces, an Immensely high railway viaduct overhead and a castle across the river. Lorraine disappeared for a couple of hours as we worked, but she was back in time to help us pack up. The night was spent locked into the yard of an industrial unit just to the North, where I saw once again how many people Ken and Lorraine could pull a favour from.
Slow driving the next day, partly along a motorway, took us to a claustrophobic tunnel under a river, and eventually another field, another bunch of hairy people, another little badge (the Hairy Stotty this time, Lorraine giggling over the name for some reason), and one more Sunday morning watching new friends pack up and ride away.
Lorraine had wandered off again after breakfast, but she was soon back, carrying a copy of the News of the World.
She tossed it to Ken.
“Looks like Horse was right, love. Page six onwards”
CHAPTER 12
I reached out for the paper, and Ken simply folded it, placing it into the locker behind his seat, where our money was kept.
That thought stopped me dead. ‘Our’ money? Ken was talking, and I had to make some sort of noise to let him know I hadn’t heard.
‘Our’.
“You hear what I said, Debbie?”
“Sorry. Got a bit lost”
“OK. What I said was that I don’t want to have this conversation here, among all these strangers. We will be taking a few days off travelling around, and we need a proper sit-down and talk. Don’t look so worried, duck. It’s important stuff, all right, but we need a proper, calm discussion”
“Where are we going?”
Change the subject, girl. He grinned.
“Somewhere I think you’ll like, Deb. I have some regular work there, so it’ll just be the two of you through the day. Let’s get rolling, OK?”
We were easily out of the field with no issues this time, and Lorraine was doing the driving for the first leg. I couldn’t work out where we were going, but she clearly knew the way. We passed a couple of reasonably-sized towns, the land then becoming more and more agricultural, with great sweeps of level fields as far as I could see, and just the hint of a blue horizon in front of us. The roads turned to lanes, and the hint to the reality of an endless stretch of ocean behind roughly grassed dunes. A few sheep, but many cattle, moving steadily over lush green fields as waves swept over the grass in a steady wind. Waves in the grass, white horses beyond the dunes, and a small farm up yet another rough lane. We pulled into a concreted yard with traces of liquid cowshit everywhere, and as Lorraine cut the engine, a raw-faced man in wellies and a worn check jacket came out of the door to what was clearly the main farmhouse. Ken stepped down, and the two of them shook hands with obvious warmth and familiarity.
Ken waved at Loz to start up again, then dropped back into the left-hand seat.
“Usual place, duck. Get set up, have a cuppa, then see what Graham has for us. And we will have that chat before we do anything else”
Lorraine was nodding.
“Well, after that cuppa, love!”
“Point well made as ever, Nurse P!”
‘The usual place’ was a piece of land nestled near the end of a farm building, sheltered by a small stand of trees, a tiny outdoors toilet on the other side of the grass. We set up the big tent, but the trailer and stand were left packed. After a little bit of a struggle, the bed was hauled out of the van and set up in the tent, an inflated air mattress beside it. The kettle boiled, we had mugs of tea sitting outside the tent on camp chairs, the golden sun warming my shoulders as I sipped.
“Deb?”
Her tone of voice was worrying me, and I could only guess at what was going on. Ken had the newspaper with him, so it clearly involved whatever story it held. I fought back the tears, but my fear was far harder to hide.
“Yes, Loz?”
“We need to sort a few things out, love. We are going to need a decision from you. I know you and I spoke about who you are, but this is something that could be even bigger. Ken?”
He opened the paper and began to read, mumbling every so often as he skipped a part he thought either irrelevant, too difficult or too painful.
“Usual bollocks about hard-hitting journalism, etc, but… The care home, Mersey View in Runcorn, came to the attention of the local council when a child went missing from the establishment. William Wells, who is said to be twelve years old, apparently climbed out of a window onto a flat roof before climbing over a wall topped with barbed wire. His whereabouts remain unknown.
“Local police spokesman Cyril Warburton confirmed that Master Wells has previously absconded a number of times, and therefore ruled out abduction”
He paused, staring at me in silence before he almost whispered his next words.
“We can reveal that there is far more to this story, as a result of our undercover investigation of Mersey View. Acting on information from a confidential source, our reporter befriended John Parsons, who ran the home with his wife Marie. Our man let it be known that he had an interest in a particularly vile activity, that of pederasty, and one evening, when Parsons was in his cups, he hinted in very clear terms that he would be able to provide what he called ‘chickens’ to our man. Arrangements were made to meet at the home for this purpose.
“Naturally, our reporter would have made his excuses and left if such a meeting had come to pass, but events overtook him. Marie Parsons was taken to hospital with a serious knife wound said to have been inflicted by one of the inmates, whose name was withheld for legal reasons but is believed to have been Arthur Henry Bowles. Our reporter then turned over his evidence to the police, who agreed that he accompany them to the premises”
Ken sat in silence once more, staring into space, before finding his focus again.
“Deb, love… the rest is nasty. Are you up to it?”
Lorraine was holding my hand, and I looked up at her in gratitude before nodding to Ken.
“I went in behind a number of police officers, not knowing what to expect. The reality was almost too shocking for a family newspaper to report. Mersey View is a former hotel, and each room has been converted into two spaces that can only be described as cells. What staff were employed there all appear to have left, and I can only assume that it was in disgust and anger at the hell that is Mersey View…. Deb?”
“Yeah?”
“I am going to skip a lot of this. It is all about injuries to boys”
He drew a deep breath, shuddering.
“Apparently, John Parsons was seriously injured in his arrest. He’s in hospital, now. Same one as his wife, both under guard. How long were you in that fucking place?”
“Three years”
“Jesus fucking Christ! Sorry, duck. Sorry. So bloody sorry…”
As I watched he collapsed in floods of tears, Lorraine taking him in her arms as she herself wept. I took a chance and went to them both, and the returning hug nearly broke my ribs.
It was a long time before we were under control again, and at Lorraine’s nod I set the kettle heating. Something to do with our hands, something to distract, deflect.
Lorraine’s voice was almost inaudible.
“We really need to talk, love. Really talk. About you”
Ken was still holding her hand, and his smile was far from comfortable.
“You could go home now, Deb. They are all gone”
I shook my head.
“Every time I got out, they took me straight back, and if I go back up there, it’ll just be another care home, another bunch of bastards. If you want, I can leave now, but there is no way I am going back there, ever. I’d rather be dead. Do you… Do you want me to go?”
Lorraine was weeping now, her tears slow but steady.
“What do you think we want, love?”
I wanted to scream at them to JUST TELL ME, but I didn’t. ‘Our’ money. ‘Our’ tent. I looked down at my wrist band, tracing the name Ken had stamped there, ‘Deb Petrie’.
“I’m not sure, but I think I do. Can I stay, please?”
We didn’t move from the tent for an hour, but eventually we were able to talk without weeping, and after a face wash, Ken promised me a treat. Once we were sorted, and equipped with sunglasses, he led the way down a lane towards the dunes I had seen.
“Not far, duck, but it’s one of the reasons we come up here”
“What’s the ob?”
“Ah! Listening properly! Well, Graham Milburn, he’s the farmer, he has some older machinery. Can’t afford to replace it, and so he needs it fettling every so often. Each time we pass this way, he gives us a safe place, and I get my hands dirty”
“So we rest while you work?”
Lorraine laughed, a lot more easily after our tears.
“Rest? Work? He bloody well enjoys that stuff, girl! Sort of a lesson for you, that. People can get things from each other, from situations, in ways you might not see straight away. We get a free place to stay, where nothing is going to get nicked. Ken gets to play with old machinery, like a pig in bloody shit, and I get some first-class foraging. And we all get this!”
As she had spoken, we had reached the dunes, emerging onto the most beautiful sweep of clean white sand I had ever seen. Nothing broke the horizon to sea, and I felt that the water went out to the very edge of the world. White horses reared in the wind as sand grains soughed through the long grass that held the dunes in place, and apart from a couple of dots far to the South, we had the whole beach to ourselves. Ken found some flat pebbles, and showed me how to skim them over the water, counting the hops to see who was best at the game, all three of us barefoot in the chilly water as their actions answered my question.
We sat barefoot in the dunes afterwards, until dry enough to brush most of the sand off, then made our way back along the lane to the farm, where Mr Milburn was waiting for us with a large pot and a paper parcel.
“Always the same with you two! Straight down the beach! Got some pernackity for you, and some home made stotty, still warm, like. And who might this little sweetheart be?”
Ken laid his arm over my shoulder.
“Graham Milburn, our host and all-round nice chap; Debbie Petrie, our adopted daughter”
CHAPTER 13
The ‘pernackity’ turned out to be a sort of hotpot, sliced potatoes in a rich gravy; the ‘stotty’ was a flat, round piece of bread. In later years, the closest equivalent I could find was ciabatta. It had the same dense texture and weight to it, and I was profoundly disappointed to discover that many ‘stotties’ sold in chain stores were actually just a flatter version of sliced white bread.
We ate our free meal in silence, and the food was very good indeed. The air of tension seemed to have been swept away with the wind along the beach and the bounce of flat stones as little waves broke in their hurry to meet the shore. That night, the tent rocked in the endless wind from the marram and the sand, and once more I lay between two people I finally understood loved me.
Lorraine cut my stitches the next morning, and we celebrated with a proper fry-up, Graham delivering a half-dozen fresh eggs to enrich it. The days at his farm were few in number, but the time stretched endlessly, delightfully, till the morning we struck our tent, all tractors fettled and our food stocks replenished with more stotty and an abundance of other food. I was rather embarrassed by the reaction Graham showed when we left, as he hugged me closely.
It was hours later, as we headed northwards on the A1, that I asked myself how much of my discomfort at his attention was caused by the memory of Charlie. Don had always been urgent in his attentions, in such a hurry to get it done, finished, while Charlie had lingered, stayed in me, kissed the back of my neck.
How on Earth could I tell simple affection from whatever it was that could describe those two utter bastards?
I tried to put those thoughts away as we drove, the trip broken by visits to a couple of castles, one romantically ruined and the other huge and imposing. Both adults were in a mood as breezy as the air outside the van, jokes flying back and forth along with smiles.
“Might have a treat for you in a bit, duck!”
Lorraine snorted, shaking her head.
“I checked the tide tables back at Graham’s, love. Not a chance just now”
I looked from one to the other before asking the obvious question.
“Not a chance for what, Loz?”
“Lindisfarne, love. It’s an island, just over there. There’s a causeway, but when the tide comes in it gets cut off. They have a market there every now and again, more of a bring-and-buy thing, to be honest. We drop in when we can. Magical place, is that”
Ken nodded
“As long as you don’t mention the bacon beast of the curly-tailed animal”
“Eh?”
So, so eloquent, Deborah.
“Pigs, Deb. They say it’s unlucky to say that word on the island, so they have all sorts of euphemisms for them”
“Oh! Like, um, oinkers?”
“Yup! Or it might be squealers. Anyway, round here they call pigs ‘gissies’. Old Norse word”
“Why Norse?”
That led to a sort of lecture, engaging and enlightening, but still a lecture, on the history we were driving through, and Ken talked seamlessly and with real passion as we crossed the Tweed and rumbled around west of Berwick, which stopped his recitation in mid-flow.
“Loz?”
“Ken?”
“Get it, duck? I mean, where we are right now?”
“Oh! Right! Deb, love, where we met, that showground. The name of the road past it is Berwick Road! We’ve come full bloody circle, sort of”
Something else hit me just then, and I found myself almost helpless with laughter for a minute, until I could get the words out.
“Not just that, is it? Ken says about pigs and that island, and that path I ducked down was called Pig Trough!”
More laughter from the two of them, before Lorraine turned a little more serious.
“You OK, love? I think chatterbox there was doing all the talking because you looked a bit out of sorts. What was up?”
I shook my head, wanting to bury it all once more.
“Just memories, Loz. Bad ones”
“Then let’s make some better ones, love. Ken?”
“Aye?”
“Getting towards dinner time. You thinking what I am?”
“Already looking for the road, duck! Hang on… Deb? This is the border coming up…welcome to Scotland, girl!”
Nothing like the films would have shown, and everything looked just the same on the Scottish side as it had in Northumberland, but it was a new country for me. We stayed on the A1 for several miles, before Ken turned off to the right. A little way further, we came to a small town set near some cliffs, Ken navigating from memory and skilfully manoeuvring the van and trailer through cramped streets. We parked on the street, which was a miracle in itself, and the three of us walked round the corner to a shop, whose sign confused me. Embarrassingly, I had to ask.
“What’s ‘oxleys’, Ken?”
“Beg pardon? Oh! That’s not ‘Fish, oxleys, chips’, Deb. It should be ‘Oxley’s fish and chips’. Duncan Oxley and his family own it. Do you like fish?”
“Not had it much”
“This place, it’s locally caught. Fresh as can be, duck. Loz?”
“Yeah?”
“You hungry enough to split Deb’s with me if she doesn’t like it?”
“From this place? Dead bloody right I am! Let’s see what they’ve got”
There was a short queue, but we were soon at the till, where a fat man in a long white overall and an odd net-topped trilby hat beamed in recognition.
“Hiya you two! Staying or passing through?”
Lorraine was chirpy, but I noticed her eyes were away from his face and looking at the display of cooked food.
“Passing through this time, Duncan, but we couldn’t not stop, could we? What’s fresh?”
“Oh, got some lovely haddock in, plus some really lovely skate. Who’s this with you?”
“This is Debbie, our daughter. First time in Scotland. Not really had proper fresh fish before, have you, love?”
I shook my head, the smell of the vinegar and fried food making my stomach rumble. Duncan grinned, his eyes almost disappearing.
“Then let me really recommend the skate. One wing should do. What would you two like?”
“Oh, skate for me as well, Duncan. Ken? Haddock? Yes? And a haddock for him, please”
“Chips with all three?”
“Is the Pope a Catholic? Small portion for Deb, but me and him will pig out”
That word set me laughing again, and Duncan’s eyes disappeared once again as he smiled.
“She’s a happy wee lassie, I see. I’ll do you a bottle of pop as well, for her smile, aye?”
It wasn’t that far to a little harbour, gulls yelling as small fishing boats unloaded, and there was a bench with enough room for three. Steaming vinegar-soaked parcels of food, and a large glass bottle of dandelion and burdock that we passed around, all of us drinking directly from it. The skate was a delight, tasty flesh wrapped around a collection of ribs that felt like plastic. It melted in my mouth, and I couldn’t decide whether to save some of the fish or a few chips for my very last mouthful.
Sod letting the two of them have it!
We sat silent for half an hour, but not in silence, as the screaming from the birds was incessant. Eventually, though, we made our way back to the van, three abreast and all of us hand-in-hand. Conversation flagged as we drove on, but that wasn’t a worry, as Lorraine had picked out some more cassettes that took my musical education on some new routes. Edinburgh was also bypassed, but only so that I could see something I had heard so much about, but never dreamt I would see in real life: the Forth Bridge.
We crossed the Forth on the much newer road bridge, the music off so that Ken could deliver a long and involved lecture on the engineering principles involved, but I was lost in the view. I couldn’t tell which bits were ‘cantilever’, which ‘box girder’, which ‘suspension’. I just knew they were all beautiful.
We stopped in a small town near Dunfermline, Ken explaining how the local naval base delivered a clientele of a particular kind.
“We don’t need the jumbo skins for this one, duck, but they buy blobs like they’re going out of fashion”
I found out what he meant the next day, in the semi-permanent marketplace we set up in, as a steady flow of young men with very neat haircuts topped up our cash box and left with boxes marked ‘Durex’. The only words that came to mind as I watched the trade were “Hello, sailor!”
The next morning was a Friday, and our destination was another MCC rally, in a field behind a pub near Dunblane. It went just as I now expected, being such a hard-core veteran of the rally scene. Having someone like Sam and Rosie there would have been better, but I was slowly learning to decode the local accent, but a pair of sunglasses were still a pair of sunglasses, and fingerless leather mitts remained fingerless leather mitts. There was a hog roast, involving a whole pig on a spit over an open fire, but Lorraine warned me not to try any.
“They are already pissed, love, and that is a really shit way to cook a curly-tail. You will either get it burnt or nearly raw, and THAT will get you scratching your bum”
“Why my bum?”
“Well, there’s lots of things you can pick up from eating raw pork, and several of them are worms. I had to deal with a couple of tapeworms when we were in Germany, and digging through someone else’s poo trying to find the thing’s head is not something I enjoyed. Anyway, they are doing haggis as well, and that’s from sheep. So think about something more important, love”
“Such as?”
“We dancing tonight?”
“Is the Pope a Catholic?”
That got me a hug, something I never tired of, and when the weather broke on the Saturday afternoon, which sold us out of packable rain capes, Ken declared that we could close early. One large sign was left on the empty stand: ‘You know where we are. Want/need anything, come and find us. Ken, Loz, Debbie’
We did dance, something I was getting to love more and more with each opportunity I was given. It was all-involving, all girl, all me. I put my head back and my arms up, and Lorraine and I rocked out to a disco as well as a half decent live rhythm and blues band. The rain stopped several times, but the patter on our roof lulled me to sleep in my safe space.
Sunday morning dawned brilliantly clear and sunny, which allowed me to see the mountains rising before us. Ken caught my gaze.
“Not this time, duck. Can’t really take the old bus through there with the trailer. South for us, this time, but we’ll be back. What do you think? Take a month off some day, go off into the mountains, just the three of us?”
That brought on the tears I had done my best to hide from Don and his friends, which brought Lorraine running, but I managed to explain how I felt, what it meant.
Safe space. Ours.
We packed up after I had washed my face, and then we were off on that road to the South and away from the hills I so longed to see in close-up. We only drove around a mile before Ken pulled up, outside a newsagent’s shop. Lorraine and I sat waiting for nearly twenty minutes before she said “Wait here, love” and disappeared into the shop.
Ten more minutes went by before they were both back in the Commer, Ken holding a copy of a very familiar newspaper. He looked hard at Lorraine, who simply nodded, at which he handed me the News of the World. The front page headline was stark:
‘HELL HOUSE PAIR DEAD’
I skimmed the article, then read it again, and once more, but there was nothing there to answer my question.
John and Marie Parsons had killed themselves, it seemed.
Where were Charlie and Don?
CHAPTER 14
I put those thoughts behind me as we moved on once more. It hadn’t been so very long since I had clambered out of that window and over the barbs topping the boundary wall, and my head was still spinning with the changes that had ensued.
For good or bad, but obviously the former in my view, Lorraine and Ken had both accepted me as what I felt I had always been, despite the physical reality. There was no way they could ever have been in doubt about that, considering how much of my body they had seen. Seen and healed, in Lorraine’s case.
Other people took me at face value, but I knew that couldn’t last. The sparse pubic hair Lorraine had removed was only a harbinger of what I knew must follow, as puberty couldn’t be that far in my future, and what would happen then?
My genitals gave me a twinge just then, the prickles of the slowly returning hair in question digging into the soft and delicate folds of those bits that felt more wrong with each day I woke. I had followed Lorraine’s instructions as it first showed, applying some of what she called ‘Blue’. I squirmed on my seat just then, shifting things just enough to ease the discomfort, and she gave me a sharp look.
“You OK, Deb? Nothing tearing?”
“Fine, Loz. Just thinking about things”
“Penny for them?”
“What?”
“Penny for your thoughts, love. What are you worrying about?”
I didn’t cry, by a major effort of will, but it was a near thing.
“What happens later? With me?”
“Oh! That bit about having to leave again? Thought we’d got that one sorted: you stay as long as you feel is right. End of”
“Yeah, but that’s the thing. I’m not stupid”
“We know that, love”
“What happens in a year or two when I start getting bigger? Hairy and that?”
She looked out of the window for a while, before turning back to me, looking a little worried.
“I’ve done some thinking of my own on that one, love. Done a bit of reading, as well. I have some ideas, but I don’t want to discuss them right now. You’re still escaping, aren’t you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Still wondering when they are going to catch up. Doesn’t matter who ‘They’ are, you’re worried. Am I right, love?”
She was, and we both knew it, so I left my reply to a nod, and she squirmed her arm across my shoulders for a hug.
“Not happening, love. Never. I have ideas, me, and I’ll tell you what they are when I think I’ve got everything sorted, but you don’t go back”
We both sat in silence for a while as Ken drove, his own silence heavy on all of us, until he spoke his first words for what felt like a week.
“You wondering where we’re off to today, duck?”
Subject changed. “Yeah! You’re driving south, so no more hills”
Lorraine laughed out loud, her own mood clearly broken.
“Not hardly, love! Some bloody big ones ahead! We are heading south, you’re right there, but there’s a climb ahead, be bloody wet and miserable, or at least it always has been every time we’ve gone that way, but there’s a pub we know that does food and has an open fire. Then it’s downhill again, and a place called Lockerbie. Bit of crap driving around the Big City coming up, and then trust me, you will see plenty of hills!”
Ken was right about the city driving, which I quickly grew to detest, as the old van wasn’t that lively even without the trailer, but eventually we broke out into more open country, and that was when Lorraine’s predictions came into their own. The horizon got lumpier, the green farmland and housing estates thinned out, and the road started to undulate.
After several hours on the road, Ken pulled into a petrol station to top up.
“Gets wild a bit further on. Safe, not sorry, duck”
“There’s no petrol? No towns?”
Lorraine laughed with real relish.
“It’s not that, Deb! It is just that every single time we have gone this way, it has pissed down, and standing beside the van in horizontal bloody rain while it drinks fuel is not my idea of fun. Put a coat on, a hat, whatever, your legs till end up soaked through, and then you don’t really dry out sitting on these seats. No; top up here, get over the hills, and then we don’t get frostbite”
I kept an eye on the horizon, and as the lumpy bits grew, I realised how many of them were blurred at the top, rising up into fog, or mist. Or rain. Not that much later, and the wipers were dancing over the windscreen as we ground uphill in a world suddenly grey, dark green and beige, the first word that came to my mind to describe the colour of the lank, flattened and very wet long grasses that seemed to fill each field and cover the lower slopes of whichever cloud-shrouded lump we were currently passing. The ground seemed remarkably flat for a while, as Ken indicated right, pulling off the road with a sigh.
“Red Moss, duck. Middle of sweet FA, it is, but it is here, and it is open, and they should have a fire and a cuppa. Hot chocolate?”
The walk to the Inn’s narrow door wasn’t long, but I learned through bitter experience how true Lorraine’s warning had been. When I say ‘bitter’, I mean it as ‘bitterly cold’. My legs felt as if they were turning blue, and I almost wished I was in trousers, just for once. Into the Inn, across to the bar to confirm our order, and yes, there was an open fire roaring away, almost drowning out the sound of the traffic outside swishing through the standing water.
Hot chocolate, and a couple of slices of cheese on toast, and a bag of crisps to follow. Ken finished his meal with a sigh, looked into the fire for a while, then nodded to Lorraine.
“Soonest over, soonest down, duck”
A twisting road led us upwards through heavy rain and skies so dark it felt like late evening, but at last, somewhere near a place called Beattock, we started to descend. The rain eased, and to my astonishment ceased entirely after a few miles. The land flattened out once more, as if it had forgotten how to be hilly, and the road signs were announcing ‘England’ and ‘Carlisle’ as well as ‘Lockerbie’.
There was nothing special there. We set up in yet another weekday market after stopping at an industrial unit where we picked up a load of T-shirts and woolly hats with Scottish flags on, which puzzled me.
“Ken?”
“Yes, midduck?”
“Why are we buying all the Scottish stuff? Aren’t we heading for England again?”
“Yup, but we’re doing another two pitches around here. Annan’s first, but then we’ll spend a day at Gretna. This stuff is for the tourists and the bolshies. The English all come up on trips to Gretna, and they want souvenirs of Bonny Scotland, and I really can’t be arsed with tartan shit. The bolshies are a bit different”
“What bolshies?”
“Ah, it’s borderlands shit, duck. Nobody shouts louder about being English, or ‘Scoatish’, or whatever, than some idiots who only just qualify. So you’ll see loads of tourists, plus some lads, and it is always men, buying this stuff”
He paused for a couple of seconds, then offered me a much gentler smile.
“You’ve cheered up a bit, then, Deb”
“What do you mean?”
“Ah, girl, I was a bit worried, up there in the clag and rain. Left it to Loz to talk you through it, cause she’s good at that, and I was busy with the weather, but think on what you’ve been saying. It’s all ‘us’ and ‘we’ now. Come here…”
How could it be that so many men, almost every single one I had met, could be so consumed with their status, their manliness, and yet this one, this real man, could offer such gentleness and love? Hold those tears, Debbie. Hug him back.
My thoughts were tangled in knots, but I knew, fully and clearly, that I never wanted to let these people go.
Ken was, of course, absolutely right, his commercial sensitivities honed by so many years of working his circuit. So much of the ‘Scoatish’ stuff went in Lockerbie that we (wonderful word) bought another load from the warehouse, before setting off to Annan, a much shorter drive, where we parked up overnight in a locked yard owned by yet another of our contacts. The market the next day went much as the Lockerbie one had, and I was struck by how low and flat it all felt around me. The buildings never seemed to rise to more than two storeys, and were either in a local dark-red stone or a depressing grey render. I was glad when we set out for Gretna, after a second night parked in the industrial estate yard.
Another very short drive, the sun shining now, and while the land was tabletop in its flatness, I could see a couple of very big hills in the distance, one behind us as we drove, the other to our right, across a very wide and muddy estuary. Lorraine was pointing out places and other sights as we drove.
“Big hill behind us is Criffel, love. Really nice town by it called Dumfries, but not really our sort of opportunities there. Hills over the Solway are the edge of the Lake District. We have some plots along the coast out that way, but we stay well away in Summer. Far too many tourists there. Anyway, we want to get back over East. Away from this side of the country be safer for you, love. Ken?”
“Yes?”
“Which road are we taking Sunday evening?”
“Sightseeing, Loz?”
“Aye, love. Park up in the usual place that night, I think”
“Wilco! Ah, Deb?”
“Yeah?”
“Other side of the water there is a place called Bowness. That’s where Hadrian’s Wall ends. Or begins, depending on your point of view”
“Where’s the other end?”
“You’ve already been there, duck. That big tunnel we went through near the Hairy Stotty”
Once again, that name brought a snigger from Lorraine, so I turned to her, eyebrows raised.
“What’s the joke”
“Ah, love, you’re a bit young for that one”
No I wasn’t.
“If it’s about sex, there’s not that much I don’t bloody know about it, is there?”
Her face fell, then her head, before she looked up again, with a smile as soft as Ken’s had been.
“Point well made, love. Look, it’s something men call a woman’s bits sometime, ‘hairy pie’. Some men like to, well, sort of eat it, and that’s why they call that do ‘Hairy Stotty’, if you see what I mean”
“Oh. Didn’t know that. I know men like putting their willies into other people’s mouths, but I didn’t know about that bit”
Once again, her face clenched, and she looked away out of the side window. Ken did his best to break the mood.
“That place at the end of the Wall has a really clever name, duck”
“Oh? What is it?”
“Er… Wallsend”
Follow his lead, girl.
“So that must mean that Bowness is the start of the Wall!”
“Perhaps, but that’s an English name, so we don’t know what the Romans thought, and…”
The conversation turned silly again, but Lorraine spent a long time staring away from me before finally brightening as we approached Gretna, which I will admit I found a little depressing.
We set up the stall in a parking area, with minimal tarpaulin cover in case, as Lorraine revealed, we were told to ‘Foxtrot Oscar’, and a succession of coach parties wafted through, all seeming to be nailed, glued or stapled to a rigid timetable. Years later, I saw a film about a package tour called something like “If this is Tuesday, we must be in Belgium”, but the scheduling here was more along the lines of “If it is eleven thirty-three, this must be Gretna”
There were other types of customer, though, including several skinny men with sunburnt faces and raw knuckles, who Lorraine explained were climbers heading for the Highlands. There were a few family groups as well, in private cars rather than coaches, and we sold out of children’s sizes just before the predicted visit of some sort of officialdom.
That was the first experience I had of something that was to become far too familiar. We did no harm, we left no litter, and from the way the stock had disappeared we clearly satisfied a demand, but we weren’t Approved. Neither Ken nor Lorraine made any sort of argument until the man with the badge and hat asked his final question.
“Why is this child not in school?”
Lorraine snapped, just then, rounding on him with a snarl.
“Why do you think she’s got no fucking hair? She’s in recovery, that’s why, and what is more is that it is none of your fucking business. Is it your business? Or are you going to start fucking minding what is?”
“Don’t you swear at me, diddycoy!”
“Oh, just go fuck yourself. I doubt anyone else will want to. We loaded, love?”
Ken nodded, and I was helped into the van, rather unnecessarily in my view, but I could see hoe the theatrics were helpful. The trailer was already hitched, so after checking the lashings, we pulled off onto the road for England.
Once we were underway, I took Lorraine’s hand in mine.
“He going to remember us for next time we come here?”
She grinned, surprisingly chirpy.
“Oh, it’s only temporary staff there, and he’s going to sit up all night remembering how he hurt the feelings of a poor little cancer girl”
Three seconds later:
“And checking the size of his cock!”
We crossed the River Esk laughing.
CHAPTER 15
“What’s a diddycoy, Loz?”
“Ah, love, it’s one of those words that has two meanings. Two uses, really. See, Ken’s Romany, mother and father. Me, it’s just my Dad, so that makes me a sort of mongrel, and the old Romany word means mixed blood. That’s one meaning, and one use of the word. If you were ours by blood, that is what you would be. The other meaning is also tied in with how it gets used, and it’s just another insult. They throw the same thing at the tinkers, and most of them have got big houses in Ireland as well as bloody big caravans.
Don’t get me wrong, love: they’re people, like us, but they have some really nasty shits among them.
“Anyway, it’s just one of the words they use for us, the straights, as the bikers call them. You’ll get ‘tinker’ as well, and ‘pikey’, and ‘gyppo’, and even ‘hippy’, though we’re not that”
Ken called out “Speak for yourself, woman!” and Lorraine laughed, far easier in her mood than she had been at Gretna.
“Yeah, I’ll give you that, but you never went all silly like bloody Gandalf. Must be years since you used the G- or W-words, as well”
I nudged her before it descended even further into a conversation I would be even more lost in than I already was.
“G-words? Gandalf?”
She turned back to me.
“Hippies, love, and books. Two books in particular. What sort of thing have you read?”
“Dad wasn’t, isn’t… My FATHER isn’t a fan of books. He thinks reading’s for fairies”
“Ah. Well, love, the hippies were into all sorts of shit”
“Are, duck!”
“Oh shut up! Anyway, Debbie, as I was saying, before I was so rudely interrupted…”
“Corrected!”
That last comment from Ken set us all laughing again, but Lorraine found her calm at length, and started another phase of my education.
“Books, love. Books are wonderful things, real books, that is. No pictures but what you see in your own mind’s eye, not like a film with whoever is in fashion when it’s made. And the hippies, one thing they did do was read, shut up, Ken, my turn. A lot of what they read was utter bollocks, but some of it was OK. Two books they got really stuck on were called ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’, and ‘The Lord of the Rings’. You heard of them?”
“No”
“Well, don’t laugh, but the first one’s about a Martian. It’s not about Mars, though, but about people on Earth. The writer was using an outsider to look at us in a new way, and the two words you were asking about are ‘grok’ and ‘water brother’. The first one means to understand absolutely everything about something, to really get it. The second one sort of means a really close friend, as close as it is possible to get. The book’s also about what they used to call ‘free love’, shagging whoever and whenever you fancy. You can see how the hippies loved it”
“What’s the other one, then? The ‘Rings’ thing?”
“Ah, that’s a fairy story, all wizards and goblins. Gandalf, in the book, not out by Swansea, he’s the main wizard. Samwise and Rosie are other people in the book”
“You got copies?”
“Ken’s got the Rings somewhere in the back of the van, I think. It’s very, very slow, love. And bloody silly. You can have a read, I suppose. See how you find it”
Ken reached across to pat my knee.
“I’ll have a look later, duck. Now, gets a bit complicated for a while round here. We have another rally for this weekend, which makes up for missing a run along the coast. This one’s called the Border Reiver, Moss Troopers MCC. Out past Brampton. You know the score now, duck!”
Another field, another marquee that Thursday evening, and this time we set up our full camping kit, including the shower, which I really appreciated. Spending so long in heavy waterproof and woolly jumper had left me feeling horribly grimy, and the warm water helped lift my spirits. My hair was slowly coming back, and when Lorraine joined me under the water, she shampooed my head and washed my back for me after an inspection of my wounds.
“You heal well, Deb. Any problems with Number Twos?”
“Was a little uncomfortable when I started again, but getting better, thanks”
“Lovely stuff! Now, can you do my hair for me? Swat anything that crawls out, and we’ll fry it up for our tea!”
Silly, lovely woman.
We spent that Thursday evening sitting out on our version of a patio, under the plastic sheets and tarpaulins that stretched from van to stand and frame tent, the book Lorraine had mentioned in my hand.
“Look in here, Deb. This was what fascinated me when I first got it for him. See the bits in the front? That’s two of Tolkien’s made-up alphabets, and… This bit, love. This explains how it works. I spent ages decoding it!”
I started the book, but it wasn’t working for me, so I did as she had advised, with a pencil and a sheet of paper on my lap, until our chef announced our meal was ready.
Ken had done a one-pot rice dish where a meat stock made from cubes was brought to a simmer before the rice was tipped in. It was fascinating to me back then, as up until that meal, rice for me had meant pudding, and milk. Some tins of beef stew went into a separate pot which he stacked on top of the one holding the rice, and we each devoured a bowl filled with the combination. No strong flavours, apart from the wild mushrooms Lorraine had found, but it was good and filling, and so welcome after ages spent drinking what I suspected had actually been the same thing Ken had cooked into the rice.
I slept happy, warm and content, and for once without the fear that someone else might enter our safe space. Through the night, I could hear the long hoots of what Lorraine told me were tawny owls, and I woke the next morning to a different sound, that of an empty tin can being hit twice. Ken answered that question for me.
“Cock pheasant, duck”
I was feeling so cheerful that morning, I was able to tease.
“What’s a pheasant duck? Is that like a pigeon wren? And are there hen pheasant ducks too?””
“No, but there are sparrow hawks, and turkey vultures in America. I can be far sillier than you can, girl”
“Can’t!”
“Can! Bacon sarnie?”
“Yes please!”
A hug, two hot cups of tea handed to me, and I went out to help Loz set out the stock as my breakfast cooked. The day was starting off brightly, overnight ground mist clearing as the sun burnt through the cold of the night. I looked around for somewhere that might have held owls, guessing it would have been the copse over the old stone wall at the end of the field. I couldn’t remember a better morning; all that was needed to make it perfect would have been a laughing pair of children shouting my name.
More dancing that night, and the next. More T-shirts, stamped-out name badges and leather mitts sold, this time along with what Ken called an experiment: checked scarves of the sort I associated with Arabs. When Sunday arrived, almost all of the bikers leaving the site seemed to be wearing the things in the style of outlaws in cowboy films. I caught Lorraine grinning at him.
“Who’s my clever lover, then? Come here!”
There was nothing half-hearted or token in the kiss she gave him, nor in the way he returned it. What else could I do but step over and hug them both?
Once the last few bikers were away, we went out as a real family, ambling along lanes and poking about in some of the copses, where Lorraine found three different types of mushrooms as well as quite a few chestnuts.
“Lesson, girl. These aren’t conkers, which aren’t very good for you. These are chestnuts. See how the spiny bit is different? We roast these, or we pound them into paste and cook them with other stuff, or all sorts of other tricks. Now… ah, found one!”
She was holding an odd thing that looked like a cross between a dried dog turd and a roll of fluff from under a bed, but her head was tilted back as she seemed to be searching the branches above her.
“Nice and quiet, Deb, but step over to me. Now, look up. Can you see that big branch sticking out to the right? There’s a hole above it, white lips around…”
“Got it”
“Well, look along the branch and… There! He blinked!”
My owl, or at least one of his friends, almost invisible against the foliage.
“How did you know he was there?”
“Ah, Debbie, this thing. It’s an owl pellet. They eat their prey whole, and what they don’t digest, they puke up. If we pulled this apart, it would be full of fur, teeth and mouse skulls. I’m going to put it back, though. Someone might be doing nature work here, and they’ll want to check the pellets”
That was so typical of Lorraine, in that she always seemed to be thinking at least three steps ahead of me, and so often it was of other people. I blessed the luck that had brought me to the two of them, something I knew I would always do.
We ended up with pockets and a small cotton bag full of mushrooms, chestnuts and other edibles, making our way back to the van to pack up and leave one more rally, whose little metal badge now sat with my others on my denim vest. No issues getting out of the field, we headed east as the day continued fine, and the land started to rise again in the distance. For some time, we followed an arrow-straight road until it curved to the right, at which point Ken turned off to the left, into a small town called Greenhead. The road out of the place was a steep one, and the Commer struggled a little, but we made it and emerged on another straight road, the scenery now much more rural, and starting to show similarities to that around the Red Moss, although rather drier. I was amused to see a sign for ‘Walltown’, before realising what it meant.
“Is this Hadrian’s Wall?”
“Yes, duck. We have a spot we can park up for the night, which means we can go for another walk. It’s lovely country along here”
The parking spot was by an old quarry, the digging filled with water, and as Ken turned the van I could see a really odd skyline, steady slopes up from our right before dropping down to our left in cliffs of vertical grey rock broken into parallel columns. Once the van was parked, he started to point things out to me.
“Did you see that sort of double ridge thing we just drove over?”
“On the way in here? Yes”
“Well, that was the old road that ran behind the wall. See the cliff? There’s an old milecastle behind it. The Wall itself runs along the edge of the cliff, and this bit here is also the Pennine Way… Oh. Not heard of that, either, I’ll bet. Right, then, midduck. We park up here, and go for a walk. By the time we get back, all the tourists will be gone, and we can settle down, but I am going to bet there’ll be some campers here with us. Proper shoes on for this, not welly boots, and we are off!”
It reminded me in so many ways of our time at Druridge Bay, which I only realised hours later was the other side of the same county. A steady wind set the grass dancing in waves, which the oddly tilted landscape rather resembled. There were ramblers on the path, all of whom wished us a cheery ‘Good afternoon!’, all of whom were bundled up in waterproofs and gaiters, with rucksacks on their backs. We reached he milecastle, which turned out to be a square of low wall butting up to a longer piece of masonry that I realised, with a surge of excitement was actually THE Wall itself. It was nothing spectacular, but it was rendered so by the situation. It seemed that there was nothing to the North that had any real connection with human beings, more tilted sheets of land marching into the distance, dotted with the white specks of sheep. I knew intellectually that there could be no difference in the sky overhead, that it was the same one that had covered me in Swansea and in Chester, but it felt vaster, clearer, wilder. We stood in line, hand in hand, as I drank in the space and wildness.
There was an odd noise in the distance, a sort of bubbling ‘coorrrr-WEE’, and I looked round to Lorraine, who smiled down at me.
“That one’s a curlew, love. Symbol of the park---er, this is a national park we’re in. One of the finest, in my opinion. Anyway, we’ll go out a bit further, then I am doing omelettes for tea. You OK with that?”
On our return, as predicted, there were three tiny tents on the grass, each containing a different version of what seemed the same man, even though one of them was actually a woman. As we approached the van, Ken walked towards the tiny tents.
“How do! Walking the Way?”
The three looked at each other, and one of them decided to answer us.
“I am, aye, and I assume other two are as well. Last stretch now, and wildest. You’re not planning on playing loud music all night, are you?”
Lorraine put an arm around my shoulders.
“With this one here? Not bloody likely! What we are doing is putting the kettle on, and then I am doing the three of us omelettes. If you would like a brew, maybe share our food round, mix and match, be welcome”
The evening was delightful. There may have been nothing obviously human off to the North, but that evening we found real humanity round a kettle and some frying pans. Later, with every light off, I saw more stars than I had ever seen before. I had found a life at last
CHAPTER 16
Morning was damper, with another low mist leaving the tents wet with dew. The campers were up before us, and already looking to be on their way when Lorraine shouted about the kettle, which brought both grins and nods. The three had apparently already breakfasted, but the lure of one last cup of Proper Tea seemed irresistible, before they set off along the path leading to the East.
We had our own meal, a bowl of porridge each, before rinsing the dishes and preparing to move on. Lorraine looked at the surroundings and sighed.
“Think this place will be lost to us soon, loves. Get all tidied up for tourists and that, locked gates and shit. Enjoy this sort of thing while you still can, Deb. It’s going fast”
We set off as the mist was burning away, but it still sat in hollows, which caused a little worry to me as the road dipped frequently, and each time we descended it was into a pool of whiteness. One of those was magical in its setting, for the mist only rose as high as the door handles, leaving us skimming through a pearly sea, oncoming vehicles looking as if they were late returning from Lindisfarne.
Ken patted my knee once more, which was something that would have set me screaming if it had come from anyone else. Something in his manner had calmed me on our first meeting, and as I grew to know him, it settled into understanding.
“Going to be stop-start along here, duck. Lots of interesting stuff to see, and it’s your first time, we’ll give you enough of that to enjoy it properly. There’s a car park ahead with great views…”
Half that day was spent in short bursts of driving interspersed with walks of various distances, as the sun burned brighter, and the waves flowed through the grass. One stop was a real surprise, after sweeping views of the Wall striding along clifftops over dark waters, or huge Roman camps sprawling up the reverse slope to our North. We walked out from a little car park, following a long bank, which revealed itself as another version of the huge camp I had seen up the hill.
After a couple of turns, there was a tiny little ruin, a rectangular pit with low posts standing like the ribs of an old shipwreck, which fitted so well with those rolling waves in the reeds and grass. Ken pulled us both to hon for a hug.
“This place has always spoken to me, Deb. It was a temple, for ordinary soldiers. Stuck up here, so far from home, so much colder, and I think this was their little but of comfort, little memory of their home. Somewhere like the van is for us, really. Get in, close the door, if this place had one, and lock the rest of the world away”
“Which god was it to, Ken?”
“Ah, Debbie, that’s the thing here. The soldiers probably weren’t Italians, and the god was Persian, called Mithras. Romans were nasty bastards, but they weren’t picky. If something worked, they adopted it. Mithras was a soldier’s god. Not going to try and explain it, but it worked for them”
I looked at the little hollow in the ground, the size of it, and it wasn’t that much bigger than our Commer, in truth. I could imagine the men packed in here, doors shut on the world, their own safe space, shared with those who kept it that way.
We spent what must have been half an hour standing there, as the wind sighed across the fields and the clouds scudded, a curlew calling in the distance, before walking silently to our own refuge.
All too soon, we were out of the National Park, and the first night was spent at a place covered in red dust from what Lorraine said was a steelworks. More markets, more cardboard boxes of stock gathered from warehouses or industrial units, and more miles to the South and East. It was a new life indeed, and a fine one. It settled into a pattern over the next few weeks, just as I settled into it. We worked our way down the length of England, day by day, week by week, occasionally adding to my little collection of metal badges, until we ended up in East Kent. A place called Swingfield had a village hall, where there were toilets and hot water, as well as an ‘arts and crafts fair’, a term I grew to understand meant stalls selling anything from well-crafted pieces of true artistic merit to items that could best be described as having been produced more in hope than in any real possibility of fitting the description ‘craft’, never mind ‘art’.
We stayed two nights in a pull-off in some woods near there, setting up on the first morning before returning to our hide at the end of the day, but on the afternoon of our arrival, Lorraine left us, catching a bus from a stop just up the road from our venue. She was back in a couple of hours, clutching a number of bags, which she left on the bed in our van.
It was an odd day, with a real mixture of punters, including three MCCs and a solitary MC, who turned up on three-wheeled machines that looked home-made, mingling with families and single people who seemed more interested in the burger van and bar than in whatever work of ‘art’ might be available. Trade was almost as brisk as it would have been at a real biker do, and as I had pulled on my little vest at the first sound of a bike engine, I was fussed over all day by hairy men and chunky women in leather. The cash box was stuffed, now, and our little clearing in a Kent wood saw us happily wrapped around a meal of barbecued lamb and chicken cooked with mixed vegetable skewers on a little charcoal grill Ken extracted from the base of our trailer.
That meal explained some of the bags Lorraine had brought back the first evening; the others held rather different items: books. To be precise, schoolbooks, covering maths, English and a number of other subjects that I realised I might normally have been expected to be studying, given my age.
‘Normally’? What on Earth was there about me that could ever be described as ‘normal’? What passed for education in Mersey View had been reading by rote and simple sums, the penalty for any lack of engagement a back-hander across the face by one or other of my ‘carers’. Before we settled down to eat, I looked at the pile of books, and the stationery that sat beside it, and raised my eyebrows mutely to the woman who was everything Marie Parsons would or could never be, except female. Lorraine’s smile was a little tentative.
“Debbie, love, please hear what I am saying, take it the right way, take it how I mean it? Ken? Can you come over here a sec?”
He stuck his head into the van, once more taking her hand, this time kissing her on the cheek; I wondered how much discussion had already taken place out of my hearing. Loz turned her attention back to me.
“Not been that long, has it? Us as a threesome?”
I shrugged, not trusting myself to speak, and she continued.
“How often we have lain here at night, wondering when the terrors would take you, when you’d panic and feel you had to run again. When we’d lose you. What is… What we… Shit, love, we don’t want that. State you were in, fuck, how could we not respond to that? How could any human being see what those bastards had done and not want, not NEED to make it better?”
I dug the words out, somehow.
“I don’t want to run anymore, Loz”
Ken put a finger to his wife’s lips, smiling gently at her before turning back to me.
“This is hard for us, duck. What we’ve been looking for is something else, that you would realise you don’t need to run anymore. That’s what this is all about, all this school stuff. Wouldn’t be safe… Start again, Petrie. Deb, darling, people like us, we live in the cracks in society. Some people fall through those cracks, and they end up in places like that place you were in, but that’s now the same. Shits like the Parsons use the cracks to do what they like, and that’s a bad thing, and I am making a mess of this, but bear with me. We live the way we do, and for now we can get away with doing so. Not as easy as it used to be, but we manage.
“What we would like is to give you a chance. You stay with us, we try and give you a decent start, bit of school stuff, and then we get you sorted for O-levels. There are systems, schemes, for traveller children. We get you through them, we get you to eighteen, then you are free, and there is sweet F.A. they can do to you then. But until that day, we keep you safe. Up to you, Deb. No compulsion”
I looked from one to the other, as tears rolled down Lorraine’s cheeks, realisation hitting me.
“How long have you been talking about this?”
Ken grinned guiltily.
“Since the first night, duck. Not true, Loz?”
Her reply came torn from depths of pain.
“What I said, love: how could anyone not need to? Fuck, sorry, shouldn’t weep like this, not now, so I am going to make an assumption, and it is one in hope, but I think I am bloody well right. You will work through those books an hour or so each night, see how you do, as well as what you’re good at, then we’ll look at it again, rejig the plan. Does that sound right to you?”
I had no answer for a few minutes, and not because I wasn’t sure; it was simply the tears that held the words away from my tongue. After all, there was no other answer I could possibly give than my agreement. I changed the subject.
“Could I ask a favour?”
They both nodded, clearly as tongue-tied as me.
“Where did Loz get the books?”
She whispered “Canterbury”
“Well, could I have a look at it as well? Before we go?”
A double nod, so I pressed on.
“They got any record shops?”
Ken looked at Lorraine, who managed a decent smile before she turned back to me.
“Loads, love. You want to have a look at them, see what you’d like?”
“I’d like to see what we might like…”
CHAPTER 17
We spent two more days in our little place in the woods, which sat on a very quiet road in a corner of Kent that somehow seemed to escape the hurry and bustle of the outside world despite sitting so close to three main roads. Years later, I would read of the man who lived secretly in his tent, hidden away in the bushes of the central reservation of the dual carriageway leading past Southampton’s railway station, his life passing in parallel with that of the commuters streaming past each day.
I think it was down to the way Ken slipped into the world rather than strode through it. He didn’t seize life and shake it, but moved it his way through persuasion and charm. I saw all too many sites where travellers had simply left everything they didn’t want, from broken furniture to used nappies, before moving on, which isn’t a tactic best suited to encouraging acceptance and generosity of spirit. Ken’s approach reminded me of the fears of those hikers on the Pennine Way, dreading late night noise and music, but receiving instead a cuppa and a communal breakfast.
The bus stop was just over the road from the village hall, a short walk down a lane from our little green hide. We were all packed up, ready to leave, and Ken would pick us up from the edge of the city after we had done the rounds. I was in a skirt again, the wind a little raw around my knees, and to my own great surprise I was missing the warmth of a pair of trousers. The bus was cosy inside, though, and we rumbled round some sharp bends before a long descent to a village, some more ups and downs, and then a fast road to a sweeping exit took us right into the city.
It was the colour that caught my eye. The bus station was right next to what looked like a section of the old city walls, and I could see part of the cathedral above crowded buildings. Chester is a dark red place, the old stone deep in its colour, seizing the warmth of the sun and holding it in the walls and he faces of the old city, while Canterbury seemed to be made of much paler blocks that gave the light back to the world around us. Lorraine tugged me into one of the nearer shops, a C&A or BHS, where we made straight for the jeans selection.
“How did you know, Loz?”
“I seen the colour of your knees, girl! Now then… yup. This place does ski stuff, so we can get you a coat, doesn’t matter what it looks like, and trust me, your cold bits won’t care what it looks like as long as it’s warm! And a woolly hat---ooh! There’s a good one!”
Not a huge shopping spree, but enough to warm me up. We set off down a long street of shops, looking in windows on my part until Lorraine told me to look up first, away from the cloned chain shops to the first and higher floors that still held the character of the city to them. There was a spectacular old building that seemed to be the library, and a narrow alleyway to a really solid gate covered in little badges, or heraldic shields, or something, I didn’t care, and then there was the cathedral itself.
In years to come, what we had that day would be lost, as great buildings succumbed to the need, or desire, to monetarise their existence by charging for entry, but things were still relaxed back then, and we spent a couple of hours wandering around the inside and walking around it’s cloistered heart. Eventually, though, we had to get moving, and after grazing on some bits and pieces from a small bakery, Lorraine and I found the record shop, and my musical education stepped up a gear.
“Saw this place on the trip for the books, love. Got some really rare stuff in as well as the commercial shit. Now, let’s see…”
“Loz?”
“Yeah?”
“What’s that stuff they’re playing? Sounds really weird”
“You don’t like it?2
“Didn’t say that. It’s sort of…”
I thought for a while, seeking the right words for the complicated sounds played over the shop’s loudspeakers.
“It’s dreamy, that’s what it is. There’s all sorts of feelings in it, and I know they’re there, cause I can feel them, but I can’t say what they are”
“Well, who they are, love, is the Pink Floyd. That’s psychedelic, that is. What they call it. We’ll see what else they have here, and then ask at the counter, OK? Now… Right. This is a man called Howling Wolf, though it’s not his real name”
“What is his real name?”
“Buggered if I know, love. These blues men always have odd names. Except this one, love, and I have been after a copy of this for ages! Right, that’s these two for me. What’s here for you?”
“Thought it was for us, Loz?”
“Oh! I’m sorry, but you’ll like these and---oh, you tease!”
“Gotcha! What’s that one you were after? Is that a melon on the cover?”
“Yes, love. Man called B.B. King. And---ooh!”
She was like a child in a sweet shop, attention leaping from tape to tape, shelf to shelf. The latest ‘Ooh!’ was a beige album with a quarter rainbow on the front, called, oddly, ‘Second Album’. I left her to it and headed for the folk section, where I found another album by Steeleye Span and one more by Fairport Convention. Time was pressing, so I pulled Lorraine away from the racks and towards the till.
“Excuse me, Mister?”
“Yes, love?”
“What was that you were playing when we came in? My Mam said it was the Pink something?”
“Oh, right. That’ll be this one. Pink Floyd, that was. Album’s called ‘Meddle’. Got it on LP and on cassette, if you’d like”
I looked over my shoulder at Lorraine, and she nodded.
“Cassette, please, mate. And we’ve got these as well”
“Sound is a lot better on the record, darling. Decent hi-fi, especially on the Curved Air, as long as you’ve got some solid woofers, and you can really hear the playing as the band meant it”
“Ah, we’ve got the hi-fi at home. Just visiting, and we’ve got a long drive. Can’t put a record on in a car, can you?”
“Fair point. That’s what’s great about these things: music anywhere you want, as long as there’s somewhere to plug your player in. The future, there in your hands. Nice mix of sounds there. Your choice, or your daughter’s?”
“Teamwork, this. What’s the damage?”
We paid, or rather Lorraine did, and we were out of the shop surprisingly quickly, Lorraine pulling me into an alley before taking me by the shoulders.
“Your Mam?”
Her voice was soft, close to a whisper. I shrugged, holding back the trembling that wanted to seize me.
“It sort of made sense…”
“Does it still make sense?”
“I think so”
Not another word from her, as she hugged the life out of me, and then we were off and away from the high street shops to the main road, where we stood on the verge until a familiar van pulled up in a chorus of horns and shouted abuse. We clambered into the cab, pulling away to more horn blasts, and in a little while we were back onto the A2 and heading West. There was no more conversation for a long while, Ken following Lorraine’s unspoken lead, until we were past Faversham, and she broke her silence.
“Looks like you’ve become a Dad, love”
“Oh? That bit about adopted stuck, then?”
“Yup. Debbie?”
I could feel the shakes once more as they fought my control.
“Yes?”
“You call us what you like, love, as long as it’s sort of polite, OK?”
“Yeah…”
“But”
“But what?”
“That was a nice thing to say about me, love. I won’t complain if it keeps making sense. Same for him in the driving seat”
I found some heart, easily done as it was in my mouth right then.
“Can’t do that, can I? Sound silly calling him ‘Mam’, wouldn’t it?”
Ken roared with laughter.
“Cheeky cow! Anyway, time to hear what you found for us. What’s first, Deb?”
“Let Mam pick, cause she did most of the choosing from the shop. Where are we going?”
“There’s a question! Well, we have a couple of weeks on the south coast, usual stuff, then two rallies, first one in Weymouth, second near Cowbridge, before we hit the same places we did on the way down. Getting near time for winter quarters, duck. And yes, they probably will”
That last comment puzzled me, which left him grinning happily. As we pulled off the main road towards Maidstone, the music cut in, with a man bellowing more like an angry bull than a human being.
‘Oh, smokestack LIGHTning!”
I turned round to see Lorraine mouthing the lyrics to what was clearly the Howling man, and had to ask.
“How big is that singer?”
“Dunno, love. Big. Twenty-plus stone, anyway. He says he’s three hundred pounds. You like it?”
“Think so. How does he sing like that without ripping his throat out?”
“Ah, these blues singers, the real old one, they pickle their voiceboxes in whisky. King’s different, though. Play him next, OK?”
That previous discussion had clearly been closed down, so we settled down to the new tapes and the hum of the tyres. More markets followed, more odd little places tucked away from the overnight wind and the eyes of strangers, and yet another weekend dancing under a marquee and another metal badge for my denim top. Bleak forests followed by bleaker shores, my headscarf abandoned in favour of the woolly hat Lorraine had chosen, my legs far warmer in the woolly tights I hadn’t noticed her add to the pairs of jeans when we were shopping together, my life starting to make sense, more so with each day I woke safe beside them.
That aspect had come as a shock. From the first day in their care, I had slept between them, their bodies a shield against the enemies and demons of the night, but now I was happier to let them snuggle together as I lay beside one or the other, no matter which, rather than between them, dividing their love, each for the other.
Knitted hats and Arab scarves, army surplus woolly jumpers and thick socks, one-shot solid-fuel stoves that Ken called ‘Hexies’, batteries for torches alongside the lights themselves. Smiles, odd handshakes and more folded notes to fit into the cashbox. Hot chocolate, hotter tea, bacon sandwiches and Irish stew with a little hint of curry powder ‘to add interest, ladies’, as Ken said without fail. A high bridge over the Severn, and another field in Wales, this time next to a great sweep of hard standing where the bikers didn’t have to worry about their side stands sinking into the ground, and where the frame tent was guyed to concrete blocks rather than pegs.
The first scarf sold for the day, and two figures sprinting across the grass towards me.
“DEB-BIE! YAY!”
CHAPTER 18
Sam and Rosie, naturally. That word sat in the front of my mind as I watched them run across the field, and it was another little barb in my soul. Up and down, my mood; the slightest little thing derailed me.
‘Naturally’. I wasn’t natural, of course, not what they thought I was, not a real girl in any legal sense, but that wasn’t the issue just then. It was how they were acting without a script, natural children behaving naturally. Such things had been beaten and raped out of me in Mersey View, and in other supposedly safe spaces before my entry into that particular circle of hell. I watched two other children of around my age, I saw them dance and laugh, and when I matched them, I had to think it through beforehand.
Fuck you all, Charlie, Don, all you bastards. But not now, Deb. Smile for friends.
“RO-SIE! SAM!”
The boy was the more excited, rattling off all sorts of news about the last few weeks’ events, until Rosie shushed him.
“You here all weekend, Debbie?”
“Yeah. Then we’ve got some markets on the way up north again”
“Where have you been?”
“All over! Went to Scotland for a bit”
“What was it like? Scotland?”
“Bits nice, but it rained a lot, and they talk funny. Why’s Sam got a bandage on his hand?”
“He’s a boy, and boys are stupid”
The boy in question was protesting, but Rosie simply shouted over him.
“Dad said always cut away, and you cut towards, and you sliced hour hand, and that’s because you didn’t listen because you are stupid! He was whittling Pooh sticks”
I made the appropriate tuts and frowns, but Rosie hadn’t finished.
“Dad says he isn’t working at this one, so he can have a drink and a boogie and do dizzy sticks. And your hair’s growing!”
“Getting better, I am. What do you think? Should I be all spikey hedgehog, or let it get long?”
“Long enough to sit on, yay!”
Sam was suddenly serious.
“If you get it long, got to keep it inside your leather if you ride. Mam says, or it ends up all knots and stuff. Rosie! Remember? That big ride?”
His sister’s eyebrows shot up.
“Oh yeah! Debbie, you ever been on a big wheel ride? Fairies wheel?”
“What’s that?”
“Like a big wheel but with seats on it, and they swivel, so you go up high, and back down, and round and round, and they have a bar thing they lock you into the chairs with, like baby swings we used to put Sam in”
“Yeah. Seen some of those when I was little”
“Well, we were at one, and there was this girl, and she was leaning out, and there’s a swivel thing, like on a bike wheel, an axle thing, and her hair gets on it, and she’s screaming cause it’s all winding round, and they had to atop the ride before it all got pulled in”
Sam was jumping up and down.
“Before her head got pulled off!”
The look his sister gave him was as predictable as could be expected, as was the sigh that accompanied it.
Boys.
“Don’t be silly, Sam! Anyway, Debbie, they had to stop everything, and we were sat at the top for hours and hours, and they got a fire engine with ladders, and a big pair of scissors, and cut it all off, so if you do grow it all long, you do what Mam says and keep it inside your leather when you ride”
She gave her brother a rather sourer look with that comment.
“And no, Sam, I don’t mean sitting on the back. Girls ride bikes too!”
“Do NOT!”
“Do”
“DON’T!”
“Mam does”
That appeared to be game, set, match and everything else in Rosie’s favour, so I tried to lighten the conversation.
“Never been on a bike, me”
Both of my friends stared at me for several seconds, Sam with his mouth hanging open. He seemed to need some effort to close it.
“Never? Ever?”
“Nope”
They looked at each other, and Sam shook his head.
“Not Dad. He’s had beer. But we can ask him who would be good”
“Yeah. And my lid might fit!”
“Or mine!”
“Yeah, Sam, but we still better ask Ken and Loz first”
“Um… I call them Mam and Dad now”
Rosie surprised me just then; as her brother simply said “Wow”, she stepped forward and hugged me, whispering into my ear.
“That’s really nice, Deb. Dad and me, we know, Mam says, something not right there, not how Loz says it is, but Dad says, he says if you need to hide, he can’t think of better people, so we can keep schtum, he says”
I kept my own voice low, as I hugged her back.
“Don’t need to hide, do I? Got a home! What more do I need?”
She raised her voice just a little.
“A ride on a bike, isn’t it? And then watch Dad get silly at dizzy sticks!”
She tugged me over to the van, waving at… waving at Dad. Call him Dad, girl.
“Hiya Ken!”
“Well hello, Rosie, Sam! Who could’ve expected you two here?”
“We want to ask a question!”
“Go ahead, duck”
“Debbie says she’s never been on a bike, and there’s lots of bikes here and she could borrow my lid!”
“Or mine!” added Sam.
“That’s a nice offer, kids, but whose bike? Your Dad’s already had a pint”
“We could ask…” came in chorus, and suddenly they were off and running, returning in the same way only five minutes later, each carrying two crash helmets. Rosie held out a key.
“Dad says some of these will fit and don’t bend it!”
Call her Mam… Mam laughed out loud at the scene before pushing Ken towards the van.
“Get your leather, then! Deb, got none for you, but that ski thing will keep you warm. Grab a pair of gloves off the stand. I can cope while you two play. What’s your Dad on today, kids?”
“The Triton!”
“Well, you go steady, love, and I’ll see you later”
One of the ‘lids’ fitted, the ski jacket felt warm, and the gloves were toasty, but I made sure to pull on some trousers before checking the other items. The bike turned out to be a silver one, with a petrol tank that looked too big and a streamlining thing around the headlight. Everything, from handlebars to footrests, made it look as if the machine was crouching in readiness to leap on its prey. Rosie fastened my helmet strap as Dad jumped into the air, one foot on the kick start lever.
Two jumps, and then everything was lost in noise. He settled down onto the saddle before Rosie helped me to fit my bum between Dad’s and the funny hump thing at the back of the seat. Dad did something with his foot that made the whole bike clunk, and then, with a slight jerk, we were rolling over the grass towards the entrance to the rally site.
What followed was an eye-opener. As Dad explained on our return, he had ridden the bike slowly at first, partly to get used to the handling but also, by gentle weaving, to shed any mud that may have been on the tyres. There was a dual carriageway not far from the site, and after we reached it, Dad decided that the best plan was simply to ride up it from one roundabout to another, then back, then repeat, each time seeming to get faster and faster. I now realise he was using the speed to warm up the tyres, and after the first couple of runs, he began taking the 180⁰ turn at each end at greater angles of lean, until I felt I could have reached out and touched the road surface as we banked. Wind rush and engine roar deafened me, a heavy vibration numbing me between the legs and in the small of my back, before Dad turned for the last time, flipping the bike smoothly from one side to the other as he pulled off onto the road for our rally site.
We parked up by Gandalf’s tent, Rosie and Sam helping me off as Dad cut the engine, the whole thing ticking and pinging as it cooled. Dad tossed the key to Gandalf, who caught it neatly.
“Thanks for that, mate. Nice ride!”
The beard cracked in a smile.
“You didn’t push it at all?”
“Nope. Nice and steady. First ride for Deb, wasn’t it?”
Gandalf roared with laughter.
“Nice and steady, is it? With no mud at all left on the edge of the tyres, and that scuff on the outside of your right boot? Bollocks, mate! Deb?”
“Yes?”
“How did you like it?”
All I could do was grin and laugh, as Rosie helped me off with the helmet before dragging me away to the dizzy sticks.
Who was hiding, just then? Certainly not me!
Fester was on site as well, so of course we ate his food for the weekend, rather than cooking our own, and it was such a delight to be able to tuck into ordinary things once more, as my body continued healing. We watched the dizzy sticks with a dripping and overfilled burger for each of us, and the night followed the usual plan, with a rock music disco that let me go as wild as one song they kept playing demanded we all do. Get your motor running, head out on the highway; we had done that, and after the rally our little family did just that in a rather slower way, heading north once more, through market towns and the occasional industrial estate, until we were sitting together in Hollies transport café just off the A5.
“Get the food, duck, I just need to point Percy!”
“Mixed grill?”
“Course! Might be a bit much for Deb, though”
“Yeah, love, and bears might head for the woods with a bogroll! Deb, he’s right. Best you go for something a bit smaller, like an omelette. What do you fancy?”
“That a roast they got, Loz? Mam?”
“Ah!”
She lowered her voice.
“Should’ve thought, love. Last time you had a proper dinner, meat and two veg thing? Not for ages, is it?”
I just nodded, and she left to place the order. Roast pork, mashed potato, carrots and peas duly arrived, together with two platters, each covered with what seemed to be every imaginable food product—the famous, or infamous, Hollies Mixed Grill. There was tea, by the gallon, and I had apple crumble and custard for afters. We sat in comfortable fullness for a while, before Dad stretched, rolling his neck as he did so, and I realised it was simply a cover for checking who was near us.
Lorraine caught his nod, and leant forward to speak to me, voice low.
“This is where everything changes, love. We have a lock-up and a house down the road from here, and its where we spend the worst part of the winter. We are going to take a couple of weeks off for now, but there are some more rallies when it’s really cold. There are four midweek markets we go to around now, so we’ll be busy, but apart from the rallies it will be proper beds and central heating. Do you mind? I have some more stuff I need to stock up on, so I will be in and out, but the house is ours, it is safe, and as far as anyone knows you are being home-schooled, as the Yanks say. Which reminds me…”
She grinned suddenly.
“Which means that you WILL be studying, love! Don’t think this is all holiday! Ken?”
“Yeah?”
“Grab the local paper from that table, love. She needs some culture, so have a look at what’s on at the pictures for me. I fancy a night out tomorrow, and we can’t exactly take this one down the pub, can we?”
“Fair point, Nurse P! I’ll have a dig”
There was obviously something else she wanted to talk about, but she didn’t raise it in the café. Back on the A5, we worked our way through Cannock to Longford Road, and a line of older buildings. Ken turned into the gate of a detached house with a large garage to one side of an arched porch, bay windows to the front, and with no ceremony at all opened the front door and walked in. I followed, finding a dark and slightly stale-smelling hallway, jumping a little when something went ‘whump’.
“That’s the heating on, girls! Stock into garage, then a cuppa. Want a proper bath, Deb? Take a while for the water to heat, so best left till bedtime. Loz?”
“Aye?”
“Can you let Carol and Pete know we’re back? Mail’s been sorted, so they were in this morning”
“Wilco!”
I entered the kitchen, where Dad was filling a kettle. On the kitchen table were piles of envelopes, all sorted by type.
“Carol and Pete Surtees, Deb. Neighbours on the side with the garage. They have a spare key, and while we’re away working, they make sure nothing goes wrong, deal with any shit that needs sorting right away. Good people. You are going back to being our niece for a bit, OK?”
“OK. What are we doing with the van and trailer?”
“They live on the drive, duck. Won’t need the trailer much, as we can fit enough into the van when we’re not sleeping in it, so the driving will be easier for now. So, films. We have a couple of choices, depending on how far we want to go, but I know what I want to go and see, and it is Dumbo. I know it’s an old film, but have you seen it? I think you’d like it”
I just nodded, and he finished making the tea just as Lorraine returned.
“No issues, love, and they’ve asked us for dinner on Sunday. Another roast for you, Deb! What are we going to see, then?”
I shrugged.
“Something called Dumbo”
“Ooh! Never seen that. Is it a new print, then?”
Ken nodded.
“Think it must be”
“Right, then. Get off to the flicks after a cuppa, catch the early showing, then back here for cheese on toast, a hot bath and a chat that we really need to have with Debbie here”
My face must have changed, because she reached across for my hand.
“Don’t worry, love. Just some long-term planning. And best leave the cut-off at home for now. Time to blend in with the straights for a bit. Pour the tea, then!”
CHAPTER 19
The film was a surprise, in so many ways. Very American, so I missed a lot of the references when I first saw it, as well as extremely dated. I watch it now, and the assumptions it contains about race and class are shockingly clear, but that first viewing spoke directly to me. Dumbo was utterly alone, save for one friend who came from an utterly different world.
The people he consorted with and held to as friends were outcasts, which meant ‘black’ for the purposes of the film, something I spotted without needing to know the term ‘Jim Crow’.
In so many ways, I was Dumbo. The scenes with his mother cut me to the core, and it was probably the first time I really understood that my mother might have been as much of a victim of my wonderful father as I had been.
I will gloss over my reaction to the ‘Elephants on Parade’ dream scene. Simply, it scared me, which was a surprise, bit I suspect it was a mixture of the idea of being out of control mixed with the obvious concept of unwanted visitors in the night. I really need to say no more on that subject.
We travelled there and back by bus, and on our return, Ken started the cheese on toast, which was rather more elaborate than I had expected, involving sliced tomatoes and mushrooms, as well as the option of adding Tabasco sauce to it all, which I declined. The water heater had left enough in the tank for a proper bath, and I was simply allowed to soak until I was wrinkled and utterly relaxed. I returned to the kitchen in a borrowed dressing gown, while Lorraine busied herself making hot chocolate for the three of us.
“Debbie…”
“Yes?”
“I said we needed a talk, and we do. Nothing to worry about, love. I think we already sorted out that stuff about you having to leave, am I right?”
“Is this about the neighbours?”
“No. Well, yes. Partly. We need to get a story straight for them, but there’s more to talk about, and it will be important stuff, love. Ken and I have been sorting out who you are, so it will be back to his niece, for now. What’s your sister’s name, love?”
Ken slipped into a chair next to me, which was a nice touch, as it made me feel more like someone involved in a discussion rather than facing interrogation across a table.
“Brenda, Loz. Ben for short. Been thinking, and got an idea. We’ve already got Deb’s hair explained, so I thought we’d do some character assassination on Bren”
I looked at him in surprise.
“Won’t she be upset?”
He took my hand, smiling.
“Ain’t no such person, duck. Just thought we’d already made her ill, so if we drop hints she’s actually an alcy, then we have the perfect reason for you being with us. We just need to make sure we have a simple story, and that it’s straight between us. Can you do that bit? Stick to the story, not add anything to it? Too nasty to talk about?”
I nodded, and Lorraine brought out a couple of heavy-looking books.
“Managed to get these in Canterbury, love. Expensive shit, but there was a good bookshop there for the students. This is more important, I think. I just need a few answers to some questions. Who are you, Debbie?”
“Debbie Petrie. Bren’s daughter”
Lorraine sighed, shaking her head.
“No, love. We know what you were christened, and that was William Wells. We know you call yourself Debbie. Which bit’s the truth? This isn’t a test, nor a quiz. No right or wrong answers. We just need to know before we move on”
I looked at each of them in turn, seeing no clues in their expressions. Start from scratch, then.
“They said I was a boy when I was born, and they called me William. Billy. I always knew they were wrong. I told Mam… I told my mother once, and she told my father, and he used his belt on me, and then did it every time he said I was acting like a pansy. That’s why I used to go off to Chester so much. How I ended up… How I ended up in that place in Runcorn”
Ken’s voice was without tone.
“So are you Billy or Debbie?”
“Debbie. Always was, always will be”
He nodded to Lorraine, who gave a tight smile.
“Persistent, consistent, clearly expressed. That’s all those boxes ticked, according to the books. Ken, love, want to tell Debbie how we met? The facts, this time?”
“Ah. Debbie, we told you bits, and that was mostly true, but I was a patient for a while, not just a squaddy in Krautland. I am not going into details, ever, but I joined the army very young, and I ended up in Egypt, and then in Brunei, and then in Aden. People got killed. I got sick. Loz was a nurse on the loony ward”
She reached for his hand, joining us all together.
“Not a loony, love. Just a decent man who had seen too much of the wrong shit. Debbie, I started out as a ward nurse, then went into theatre, but I finished up on what they call the psychiatric ward. That was enough for me, but it taught me a few things. Got some more books in the living room, left over from my nursing days, but these are the important ones. I needed to know what you are, not just what you say. ‘First do no harm’, they say, so I wanted to find out as much as I could, and there will be sod-all in the local library”
“Easier with some biccies, duck?”
“Thanks, love. Debbie, these books talk about a lot of weird shit, but there is one thing called ‘gender identity disorder’. It’s where a man really feels he should be a woman, or the other way round. They’ve tried all sorts of ways to treat it, from ECT to psychosurgery, but there’s a newer way, which is sort of helping it along”
“What’s ECT and psychowhatsit?”
Lorraine winced.
“Not nice things, love. Not nice at all. I don’t really want to talk about them, OK? Perhaps when you’re older?”
That last remark warmed me, with its assumptions. Lorraine continued.
“So what I have been doing is looking up the newer way, and what it adds up to is letting people live the life they feel is right, as well as making what changes are possible to their bodies”
“You mean cutting willies off?”
“Um, sort of, but that is not what I mean. Thing called puberty will hit you around now, if it hasn’t already started, and unless you are physically odd, you will start to become a man. Voice breaking, beard growing, body hair, all that stuff. I could stop it with an operation, but that is not something I am prepared to do to you. I spoke to Phil when we got the crab blue, and he is doing us a favour, and this is where we need your decision. On two things, love”
My heart was in my mouth, as I had guessed which operation she meant, and that was castration.
“What two things?”
“Ah, I have been busy in the market towns, Debbie. There are two processes we could start here. I have looked up what they call anti-androgens, which is what Phil is getting for us. Please don’t ask how. That is one side of things, and the other is something I have been squirreling away”
She paused to crunch a biscuit, before resuming.
“It’s two things, love. First one is to stop your body changing, and that is something that the books say can be a temporary thing. Like the pause button on the cassette player, yeah?”
“Yeah. What’s the second bit do?”
“Ah, that’s tip you over the divide onto my side. Give you the chemicals that women make in their own bodies. Women who don’t have your problem, that is”
“How do you get those chemicals? Phil again?”
She laughed out loud, seeming to relax just a little.
“Nope! Much easier, especially for a gyppo. Family planning clinics! Same pills, in many ways. Not perfect, but if we get the right ones, they do the same job, near as damn it, and I have Phil looking for some stuff from vet suppliers. Anyway, I have been dropping into a clinic in each town and picking up a three-month supply of the Pill in each one. This is where you have to choose, and where Ken and me will do a little bit of nannying”
“So my choices are whether to stop myself growing into a boy, and then whether to make myself start growing up as a woman?”
“Exactly! But, well, I want to see how it goes with the ‘stopping’ bit first, love. Lots of dangers in the second part. Neither of us here want you diving into something you might regret later, no matter how good it seems to you right now”
She paused, looking down at her mug.
“There was a parcel waiting when we got in, a fat envelope, really. From Phil”
She gave me the first injection just before bedtime.
I awoke in some confusion to light rain on the windows and utter disorientation, before realising where I was. It was the first night in a very long time when I had slept so far away from my new parents (Aunt and uncle, Deb: remember!) but I actually felt safe, despite their absence. There was a sore spot on my buttock from the injection, but I didn’t care about that, as it reminded me of the path we had started out on the night before.
Who was I? Debbie Petrie, pure and simple. Debbie Petrie got out of her bed, pulled on some of the clothes we had already put away in the drawers, and went downstairs to fill the kettle ready for breakfast. Looking out of the kitchen window, I could see a medium-sized garden with a large tree at the far end, a green bird with red and black head markings pecking at the grass while a robin perched on the fence seemed to stare at it. An arm went round my waist just as Lorraine’s scent hit my nostrils, and she reached across to take the kettle from me.
“Works better plugged in, love. That one’s a yaffle. Green woodpecker. They like to eat ants, so you find them on your lawn a lot. Reminds me. Not too cold yet”
“What for?”
“Just say tonight. Love, ‘not too cold yet’, and I will show you. Now, porridge, I think. Then toast. Then, my girl, study time!”
“But it’s a Sunday!”
“And?”
I found myself laughing, as I did more and more with the two of them. Life was good, and it was moving, at last, in the direction I needed it to. I applied myself to English and Maths after breakfast, in as honest a way as I could manage, and to my surprise lost track of the time. Ken and Loz, not Mam and Dad just now, girl, rattled round the house doing odd jobs of maintenance or menu planning, while I worked through Euclid and simple algebra, and I was in another world when Ken threw my coat onto my open textbook.
“Sunday dinner, duck. Remember: Brenda, Bren, and ‘no, we don’t talk about her and the gin bottle’. Got that?”
“Got it. What are they like, Carol and Tim?”
“Um, good people. He’s a session musician, plays guitar and bass. She works at the Chase”
“The what?”
“The Chase hospital. Why we get on, I suppose, or at least why she gets on with Loz. Anyway, time for munchies, so imshi!”
I imshied, as Lorraine had explained to me what seemed like an age ago, and we made the short journey from one driveway to another. Ken rang the bell, and the door opened on a tall man with hair to his shoulders.
“Hiya, you two. And who’s this?”
“Lorraine took my hand.
“Ken’s sister’s kid. Been ill for a while, hence the hair just growing back”
“Ah. You doing OK now, darling?”
“Debbie, mister. Think so. Getting better. I can eat properly now!”
That was certainly true, but not in the way he thought. He grinned at my reply, and I liked the look of it.
“I hope you can indeed eat properly! Carol’s done us one hell of a dinner, and I have been working as well. Made a crumble for pud: apple and blackberry”
Lorraine raised her eyebrows to me.
“Why on Earth did we decide to have porridge this morning, love? Never mind; if you can’t finish it, I will selflessly offer to help you out!”
The meal was a delight, as were Carol and Tim, and we finished the afternoon off singing Beatles and Kinks songs to Tim’s guitar playing. My identity seemed to be taken as fact, and it was eight o’clock before we returned to our own house, evening meal limited to sandwiches Carol had prepared from the remains of the roast.
Lorraine went to the pantry, collecting a tin of dog food, which surprised me, as there was no sign of an animal in the house. She caught my confusion, grinning.
“Two pet bowls under the sink, love. Fill one with cold water for me, then get our coats”
She filled the other with the dog food, then opened the back door after we both pulled on our warmer clothing. She turned off the kitchen lights, leaving the room illuminated only from the hallway, and set the two bowls down on the back step.
“Take a seat, love, sit quietly and wait. They won’t be long”
They didn’t. Snuffling, and pushing each other, the hedgehogs cleared away the dog food in a very short while before disappearing again into the darkness.
“That was magic, Loz!”
“It was that, love. Time to clear up, and then it’s kip time. Oh, and watch what you say with Carol. She told me she knows Ken hasn’t got a sister”
CHAPTER 20
As I slipped out of the back door, Ken coughed for attention, and I dropped both carrier bags in shock.
“Where were you going, Deb?”
For a long while, I was without words, and then his own struck me. Not ‘Where are you going?’, but ‘Where were you?’
He was sitting in a cane chair just to the right of the door, and I realised that if he had moved in any way at all, I would have heard the thing squeak. He indicated another chair beside him, and as I sat down, he opened out the blanket laid over his knees so that it covered both of us. It was still warm from his body, and as I sat in silence he said, musingly,
“I like to sit out here and watch the hedge pigs, duck. Helps when I can’t sleep, hearing something natural about me. Can’t see the buggers in the dark, but I can hear them, and that’s a blessing. Like the owls and foxes and that, when we’re out of the towns, out in the green. Remember when Loz showed you that owl?”
“Yes”
My voice cracked, just a little, and he reached across for my hand.
“It’s about Carol, isn’t it? Scared she’ll tell someone that you’re not who we said?”
I nodded, forgetting the darkness, then sniffled out a ‘Yes’. He squeezed my hand, before lacing his fingers into mine.
“You do know that Lorraine would kill anyone who tried to take you back to that place, don’t you? Not something I could…”
His voice trailed off, then came back a little stronger.
“Neither of us would let them take you, girl, not unless it was what you wanted. You thought Carol would tell, so you decided to run while you could. Am I right? Course I am. Not going to ask where you were going, duck, so let’s have a sit and a share, and see if it’s back to your bed, at least for tonight”
I could hear the snuffling of the hedgehogs, the bowls scraping on the concrete slabs by the back door. Ken continued, voice soft, still musing in tone.
“What we told you the other night, duck, about my nerves and that. That’s why I sit out here, some nights. Why I don’t settle in towns. I saw things happen, I saw other things after they had happened. Not going to talk about them, but I was in a military lock-up for a while for going absent without leave. Found some luck, in the end: I had a decent Officer defending me, got it switched to a psychiatric thing instead of Colchester and a military prison. I really think he understood. Been to see the elephant, as they say. Other lads weren’t so fortunate”
“They went to prison?”
“No, little darling, they stayed on as soldiers. I managed to get away from all that, and I met Loz through it, and here we are, so I am going to have to be blunt, Debbie. What happened to you, well, it isn’t going to go away. We just need to find ways of muting things, of telling them to piss off and die. Best way I know is living a decent life. Thumbing your nose at them”
He chuckled, which surprised me.
“What’s funny?”
“Oh, girl, I was just having ruder thoughts, aye? Thumb your nose, wave two figures, flash your arse at them. Then I thought, bollocks, bit too cold for that tonight!”
I couldn’t help my laughter, and Ken squeezed my hand once again.
“Carol will be fine, my love. Shall we go in and warm up? Hot choccie?”
He stood, drawing the blanket with him before wrapping us both in it, which made our entry in the kitchen a stumble and a stagger, my own laughter coming back with each misstep. I filled the kettle as he sorted mugs, and as we settled down on the living-room settee, Lorraine joined us, with a pointed look at our drinks, so in the end, we shared the two between the whole family.
She didn’t ask why I was up, nor did she complain, and in the end, the three of us fell asleep together under the blanket.
I felt like crap at breakfast, and not just physically, stiff from a night spent slumped in an oversized chair. I felt ashamed, but once again, my misdeeds were passed over as simply as our unorthodox bedding. We ate porridge, drank tea, and discussed which markets were planned for the week’s trade.
Lorraine made only one comment, which was short and simple, leaving no room for reply.
“This place was Mam and Dad’s, Deb, and it’s the same for Carol. We went to school together, we did our training together. She’s not stupid. No need to run”
That was her last comment, apart from a pointed reminder that two carrier bags of clothes were still sitting outside the back door. I took the hint, and the bags back to my room.
The weeks began to gather pace for Christmas, and our stock took a turn for the worse, in my opinion. I had managed to ignore some of the sillier T-shirts we sold at the rallies, as well as the utter tripe we had secured for that stand by Gretna, but the Santa hats and ‘novelty presents’ really made me wince, particularly the ‘male contraceptive’. It was simply a pebble in a box, with a leaflet explaining how said stone should be placed in the man’s shoe, where it would, ahem, make him limp. I was aware that there were awful jokes in Christmas crackers, but seeing an entire market stall loaded with their physical equivalent was almost too much to bear.
There were worse jokes than the pebble, but I have tried very hard to forget them. Despite the pain they inflicted on my sense of humour, they sold, in the same way as our tartan tat had walked off the stall in Gretna, and it was one more example of how astute my new parents were art their business. New parents, but for now ‘Aunty Loz and Uncle Ken’.
Midweek markets, and evening study, maths and English in the main, but to the sound of music from the HiFi Lorraine had described to the nice man in that Canterbury record shop. As I worked through basic algebra, Euclid and something called Venn, Lorraine would set a record or a cassette playing, and I learned about Pentangle and Muddy Waters, Led Zep and Jethro Tull, Cream and Jefferson Airplane, Neil Young and Country Joe. I got an education in more than one subject at once, but each new artist was a revelation.
I never did come to enjoy Bob Dylan, however, but Ken insisted I study his song lyrics along with my set books. Reading ‘The Little Prince’ while listening to ‘Masters of War’ can only be described as utterly surreal, but given Ken’s confession to me in the darkness, I could see why he thought so much of the song. In the end, I couldn’t listen to it while studying, as the lines about standing on someone’s grave till you were sure they were dead simply brought images to me of Charlie and Don, as well as the germ of an idea regarding John and Marie Parsons.
Courage, girl. Live that decent life.
Christmas itself arrived, and I couldn’t remember ever having a more conventional one, as Ken insisted on acquiring a real tree, which we set up in the living room over an old blanket, so that the needles that were already dropping from it could be cleared away more easily. Baubles came down from the attic, and Ken rewired a set of flashing lights with his own little box of tricks. Carol and Tim were invited for dinner, the five of us swapping little gifts between us, as Ken insisted presents were for Boxing Day. Tim started playing Beatles songs, the rest of us joining in as best we could, and before I knew it, we were seeing the mantlepiece clock telling us it was twenty-two hundred hours, as Ken called it.
“Deb’s eyes are shut half the time, folks, so I think that is it for tonight. Who’s doing New Year? Oh! That’ll be us as well!”
After a round of hugs, I made my way up the stairs to bed, where I found Lorraine had laid out a new nighty for me. Light off, I settled under my blankets and heavy quilt, the week’s events playing once again in the darkness as I waited for sleep. That last only arrived after I had spent ages weeping, as silently as I could manage.
Such a lovely, loving family Christmas. Why had I been forced to wait so many years for it?
CHAPTER 21
It was raining the next morning, the sky low and lifelessly grey. Looking out of my bedroom window, I could see a couple of pigeons sitting miserably in the tree at the end of the garden. Laid over the end of my bed was a stocking holding some fruit, nuts and a small bar of chocolate.
I pulled on some shorter socks along with the dressing gown that had lain beneath the sock, making my way as silently as I could down the winding stairs to the kitchen, where I filled the kettle and set it to heat. Boiling water into the pot, and I looked up as the door opened, Lorraine smiling down at me.
“Morning, love. There’s some bacon left, if you’d like”
“Ken up?”
“Not yet, love. He had a bad night, bit restless. Let him sleep in a bit, OK?”
She pulled down the frying pan, dropping in some slices of back bacon as it heated, then some sliced mushrooms I hadn’t known were in the fridge, and finally a couple of eggs. I buttered four slices of bread at her instruction, and our breakfast was a yolk-dripping sandwich each. Lorraine was grinning happily as she wiped egg from her chin.
“Not a traditional Chrimbo meal, but do we care?”
“Nope!”
I finished my own messiness, using the last scrap of bread to wipe the yellow drops from the plate.
“What’s today, Loz? What are we doing?”
“Working, love, in the afternoon. Got a stack of scarves and jumpers to punt out, plus some more tat for New Year. Hats, mostly. We’ll pole the awning out from the van and stick with the small table. Morning’s ours, though. Ah! Morning, love. Pot’s still warm, if you want. Can do you an egg and bacon banjo, if you want”
Ken yawned.
“Ta, love. Tea and toast for me, I think, then we can get started on loading the van. First things first, though”
He took us each by a hand and drew us into the living room, where there were a few parcels of various sizes. He passed one to me.
“Lot of problems sorting stuff for you, duck, and biggest one was your size. Didn’t want to get you anything you’d grow out of in two months, so I thought this one would be safe”
I opened the package with a little bit of shame gnawing at me, for I had nothing for either of them. How could I? It turned out to be a small cassette player, and in another package were headphones together with an adapter cable to link the two, something Ken had clearly produced himself.
“Headphones? You two don’t trust the music I like?”
Lorraine shared a look with Ken, before turning back to me.
“Not that, love. Sometimes sleep doesn’t come when we want it to, and then you can settle down and listen to something better than your fears. That’s why. Nothing bad”
I was lost for anything close to a sensible answer, for she was absolutely right. I dodged the conversation we didn’t need by working through other parcels, some of them with my name on. One of the Arab scarves, a woolly hat with my name embroidered on it, a little bundle of patches to sew onto my little denim waistcoat; nothing world-shaking, but all welcome. The last package held bras. I looked up to catch Lorraine’s nervous grin.
“A… A girl who arrived the way other girls do would be looking at wearing one about now, love, so I just thought, you know…”
I crawled over to hug her, whispering in her ear.
“You said we’d have to talk about things, but no need. This is who I am, so we do whatever we need to”
The tears were there, no more words needed, until Ken broke the mood, quite deliberately.
“Time to get loaded, girls, so teeth and clothes and then the van!”
I needed the woolly hat, and the scarf, and the ski jacket, and I was most definitely in trousers that day. Our stand was in a car park by the town centre, a mix of vans and more elaborate stalls, but we made do with the small table under an awning, enough variety laid out to advertise what we had without it all getting soaked in the steady drizzle.
“You’s a bit young to be out here, ain’t you, girl?”
“No school today, Mister! Helping my Uncle out. Like an adventure, yeah?”
The middle-aged man in the flat cap and grey mac turned away, tugging the gaunt woman in the clear plastic rain hood with him, and as they moved on, I clearly heard his mutter of ‘Bloody gyppo’. Up yours, you sad straight, was my thought, and then I really started thinking.
I hadn’t been with my new family that long, but I could feel the loyalty in me, the anger at the attitudes we encountered almost everywhere, and my little attempted break for ‘freedom’ two nights before looked more and more stupid. I belonged here, as I had never done anywhere before, as I belonged in the world that held Rosie and Sam, roosting owls and snuffling hedgehogs.
I called out a quiet “Fuck you!” to the man’s back, and somehow it must have carried, for his wife turned her gaze towards me. I gave her my sweetest smile and a little wave, before I suddenly started laughing.
Ken’s hand came down on my shoulder, and he muttered out of the side of his mouth, “I heard what you said, duck. Why the giggles?”
I brought myself under control, but I lost it as I tried to explain.
“Was another thought, yeah? I said that, then I thought something Rosie says, and she says ‘And the horse you rode in on’, and then that woman turned round, and I just saw her face, and thought ‘Horse!’, and…”
Lorraine snorted.
“Debbie is most definitely one of us, lover! Anyway, give it another hour here, I think, then home. Carol’s cooking tonight. You like apricot chicken, Deb?”
It wasn’t bad, in the end, and it allowed me to do two things, the first of each was to dress as girly as I could manage. The second was to reassess our neighbours. Carol didn’t ask a single question that could have been considered ‘probing’, which was odd in itself, as simple polite conversation would have required some questions about hopes, desires, family. We ate the meal, I had some of the wine that was being shared, and the conversation bypassed me, until Ken held up a hand.
“You’ll like this one, Pete! We had a right berk at the stall today, and he makes some snide comment about gyppos, so this one, here, she only murmurs ‘Fuck you and the horse you rode in on’, and then the wife turns round, and, well, I saw who I’ll be backing in the Grand National!”
Carol laughed out loud, as Pete did something to his guitar that made it neigh like the animal in question, and then his wife took my hand.
“I see your soul, love. It’s a bright one. Keep it that way, don’t let evil men put out your light. I can tell they have tried, but I feel you are a fighter. Karma has brought you here, and dharma will take you forward”
She smiled down at me.
“Don’t worry, love. Not going to hit you with the heavy stuff today. Just saying that you deserve a decent break in life, and I think you have the spirit to fight your corner. I mean, horses…”
We were all laughing at that, so Peter started playing a song about a horse with no name, and it had a sort of chorus, so I joined in when and where I could, and that was our Boxing Day.
The drizzle continued all week, so our midweek slots were pretty dreary, but work is work, and income is just that. We made the best of each day’s trading, taking our camping stove with us for hot drinks, before the drizzle turned into sleet and then snow on December 29th. More schoolwork seemed to be Lorraine’s answer to the freeze outside, so I spent the rest of the year with my headphones on and music in my ears, including a tape of his own playing recorded by Peter, and a range of subjects staring at me from the textbooks.
English, maths, general science, geography, history: I would work through them, and Ken would give me an insight into some aspect of physics, while Lorraine would show me how the last two subjects tied so closely together. I look back now, and see how clearly one subject never made an appearance: religion. It wasn’t avoided, as Lorraine explained Carol’s Buddhism to me, along with Peter’s odd mixture of humanism and animism. That was as far as it went, with no attempts to tell me how some particular route to perfection was more perfect than all the other perfect systems. All Lorraine would say on that issue was “Have a look and see what you think”
We were sitting talking through maps early on New Year’s Eve, looking at the maps in ‘Lord of the Rings’ and ‘The Hobbit’ while discussing rain shadows and how rivers found their courses, when there was a banging at the front door. I was halfway out of my seat at the racket, Lorraine seizing my arm to pull me back into my seat.
“No, love. Not ever, OK? Wait here while I get the door”
I sat shaking at the table as she went into the hall, and then the door opened again, and I was hit by two little missiles.
“DEB-BEE!”
Sam was the more excited, as Rosie tried to explain past his prattle.
“We’re here for a party, Dad says! We came in the chair! Didn’t tell us where we were going! Then we see Loz! Yay!”
They were only the first arrivals, and as I packed my schoolwork away, ken explained.
“We need willing bodies, kids! Frame tent is going up in the back garden for those who want to be silly, and I hope you have brought some booze and that with you!”
Gandalf was just behind his children, laughing.
“And us on the Pussy, badger? Where would we put it?”
“In our van, mate! Dump your lid, and we’ll do a run to the cash and carry. Be a few people here tonight, so we’ll load up with crisps and stuff as well. Deb?”
“Yeah?”
“Want to take those two upstairs, show them your room? That’s where they’ll be sleeping, so dig out two of the sleeping bags from the box room”
It turned into an amazing night, and if we had been in a field, it would have been a rally. Three tents went up in the back garden in the end, as motorbikes and cars filled our drive and spilled out along the road outside. There were bikers and hippies, nurses from the hospital, friends and fellow travellers, kindred spirits. Several of Peter’s friends had their own guitars or other instruments, so when a record finished on our stereo, they would play something wonderful before the next LP was set going. Pork pies, sausage rolls, cocktail sausages on sticks with cheese and pineapple, nuts, crisps, bowls of gloopy stuff made by Carol, along with drier things full of onion or peas, I found myself rocking out in our living room fuelled by all sorts of nice food.
The three of us were allowed some wine, beer for Sam, though I suspect there was some water added, and as the clock chimed, we held hands and sang the old song about old times as one year left space for a newer one.
I slept on the floor, leaving my bed for Sam and Rosie, and even though the party went on all night, I slept soundly. I needed to; I was on kettle duty in the morning.
CHAPTER 22
There is something I have always liked about a sleeping bag, and in later years I discovered the same feelings for small tents. It feels nest-like, a small space entirely one’s own, where everything feels close and warm. I luxuriated in my bag for a little while after I woke, but I needed a wee, and there was only so long I could put it off. In nighty, dressing gown and socks, I did the necessary before creeping down the stairs and past the living room door. From behind it came the sound of more than one snorer. I filled the kettle, and then decided to set a pan of water boiling so that there would be plenty for the tea that I knew would vanish almost as soon as it was poured.
The kitchen door opened to admit Gandalf, in a set of long johns, his extravagant quantity of hair sticking out at all angles. I gave him a welcome smile, repaid by a quick hug.
“Kettle’s on!”
“There’s lovely, girl. Those two still spark out?”
“Yes. Away with the fairies, as Mam… Loz says”
“Got your feet under the table right tidy, haven’t you? Sorry. That sounds rude, and wasn’t meant to be. You’ve settled with those two, haven’t you?”
“Yes…”
“Not a worry, girl, not a problem. They’re good people, those two”
“I know that”
“Aye, you do. Kettle’s boiling, love”
I busied myself filling the pot, and he waited until I had put everything hot down before adding the next comment.
“Don’t need to know where you came from, girl. Not how things work in our world. You make two people I care for happy, aye? And my kids like you, and I trust Rosie’s feelings. She’s a sharp one. I think she got all of Sam’s share as well, to be honest”
That bit rang true, and I had to snort a little bit as Gandalf just grinned and collected a mug from the draining board.
“Milk in the fridge, love?”
“Yup. Sugar?”
“Three for me. I’ll go and start a bit of arse kicking while it brews, then we can get the place cleared up before the run out”
“Run out? Where to?”
“Don’t know, love, not yet. Your Dad will. Badger”
“He’s not my Dad”
There was a flash of teeth through his beard.
“Oh yes he is, love! Right: backsides to boot before tea drinking. Mind if I get the kids up?”
“They’re your kids!”
“And it’s your bedroom, love. Not going in without permission. Not the done thing, aye?”
That threw me just a little, as I remembered my thoughts in the sleeping bag. Respect of personal space had never exactly been a priority in Runcorn, and even though there had been worries of far greater importance, the simple act of knocking and waiting for permission had never been observed. The door had opened, someone had come in, and…
I forced a smile, but something in my face had caught his eye, and I understood where Rosie’s sharpness had come from.
“Yeah, go up. First door on the right after the bathroom. They want tea?”
“They will do, love. Off to do the booting”
Half an hour later, we were all spread out around the living room, mugs in hand. Carol and Pete had taken some of our guests back to their place next door, but we were still pretty full.
“Uncle Ken?”
“Yup?”
“Gandalf says we are having a run out. What are we doing?”
“Ah, duck, it’s simple. There is no way on Earth me and her are going to feed this lot breakfast, so we are going to have a little drive. Remember Holloes? That transport café?”
“Are they open today?”
“Lorry drivers will still be on the roads, Debbie, still need petrol and bacon rolls”
I laughed, and then asked the obvious question.
“We taking the van?”
“No, duck. Carol and Pete will squeeze three of us onto the back seat of their car. Easier to park that up the Chase, but you still need some warm clothes. And take your wellies as well as ordinary shoes”
I dressed as instructed, and at ten thirty we rolled out of Cannock in a convoy of cars and motorbikes, Rosie and Sam riding tandem style in a sidecar attached to an odd bike that just had one cylinder, which pointed forward and upward. The badge on the tank was a big cat’s head. Gandalf had spotted me as I inspected it, and smiled as he showed me the machine’s finer points.
“Six hundred cc single with twin exhausts, overhead valves, engine used as a stressed member instead of a frame downtube…”
It would be years before I understood all he said, but when he kicked it into life, it sounded loud and rather rhythmic. What I was now thinking of as the Petrie family did indeed squeeze into the back of Carol and Pete’s car, and we were off up the road and out of town, the rain having ceased and a pallid sun lifting dew from the roads. We didn’t drive that far before parking in a straggling line along the grass verge of a minor road. I was instructed to ‘welly up’, and a motley line of people in a wide mix of clothing followed Pete through a hole in the hedge and onto an unsurfaced track that led across rolling heathland that dipped ahead of us to the shore of a small lake. Several flasks were produced, some of tea and others of hot chocolate, as Pete rather oddly removed his shoes and socks, rolling his flared trousers to his knees. The flask he then produced was ‘hip’ rather than ‘Thermos’, and holding it before him he stepped into the water.
“Friends, thank you for joining me in this moment of thanks and respect for the spirits of this place. I am not asking you to pray, nothing like that in any way. Just stand for a minute or two, and reflect on what has been good for you in the old year, what will be better in the new one. Look at the people around you, look at those who care for you, and smile, while I give the fish a drink”
Muttering something under his breath, he made a bow to each quarter of the compass, pouring a drop of what I assumed to be spirits into the water at each dip of his chin. I stood and pondered, as he had asked, and I ran out of time. So much to be thankful for.
I realised he was watching people for signs they had finished, and after the last wry grin or head shake had passed, he stepped back out of the lake.
“Bugger me, folks, but that water is cold! Got the towel, love?”
Carol produced a folding camping stool and a large bath sheet, which she used to dry his feet and legs before sorting his shoes and socks. Pete grinned round the circle once more.
“Now you see why I let her do the driving at New Year! I can hardly feel my feet now. I feel the need for a fry-up! Who’s with me? Apart from these three, of course. Bloody long walk home otherwise!”
Breakfast time had come and gone for most people, but not at Hollies, where we annexed what looked like a quarter of the seating, working our way through bacon, egg, tomatoes, mushrooms, chips, kidneys---if it could be fried or otherwise heated up, it was somewhere on the plate. More tea, more silliness, more discussion of motorbike engines, but this time between people who actually understood the things. I stuck with Sam and Rosie. Sam was in fine form.
“Rosie’s got a boyfriend, Debbie!”
“No I haven’t, you stupid boy!”
“It’s Gwyn Edwards, and he’s got spots”
“It isn’t Gwyn Edwards and he hasn’t got spots, they are freckles”
I saw my chance.
“So if it isn’t Gwyn Edwards, who is it that’s your boyfriend?”
“AAARGH! I HAVEN’T GOT A BOYFRIEND!”
Sam shrugged.
“Richard Perkins said he saw you holding hands with him. And he walked almost all the way home with you, did Gwyn. And he lives the other side of the school. So there”
He turned his face to me, along with his curiosity.
“You got a boyfriend, Debbie?”
So much of my good mood crashed right then, and I wanted to say “No, Sam, not right now, but I’ve had a few, all a little older than me”
Keep it together, girl.
“No, Sam. Not really old enough, am I? And we travel a lot, so don’t meet many boys”
“Dad says you need to hit them with a stick”
Rosie interrupted his explanation.
“No, stupid BOY, Dad said she’ll be beating them off with a stick when get older. Dad said that cause he thinks she’s pretty, not because he thinks she should hit people”
I was lost for a few seconds. Kisses on the back of my neck as Charlie--- No. I worked back through my memories of Gandalf’s behaviour towards me, and it simply wasn’t there. No hint of anything felt towards me apart from simple affection, pleasure in the company of a friend, the child of other friends. Not the same as Charlie or Don. I suppose that was the first time I began to comprehend the damage those people had done to me, damage that not only went deeper than the physical injuries but would take far longer to heal, if it ever would.
CHAPTER 23
The next month or so passed slowly, and I never seemed to be left on my own. We were either working the markets, collecting stock from wholesalers or sitting in the warm, usually as I ploughed through my schoolbooks. The more I studied, the more I wanted to do more. Carol turned out to have a deep knowledge of geography, which was a surprise, while Peter added his little insights to my history lessons.
Lorraine spent a lot of time mirroring me, as she worked through a series of medical texts, a notebook beside her. I brought her a cuppa one day, and started to read over her shoulder, which left me lost in double-quick time.
“Reading up on what to do with you, love. Or perhaps better said as do FOR you. So much to get my head around, if we start the magic drugs. We need to be sure it’s right for you, but there’s a lot to do, and some of it is bloody impossible”
Something must have shown in my face, because se reached out and pulled me to her, one arm around my waist.
“I know, Debbie. I know what you’ve said, and I can see how it works for you. Never been a boy, have you?”
I shook my head, not trusting my mouth for the right words, and she squeezed me once more.
“I watch you, love, not just around here, but with Gandalf’s two. They can both see the girl. So can… So can Carol. She asked about you last week”
“And?”
“She was straight to the point, love”
Lorraine turned in her chair, so that she could part her legs and draw me to her with both arms.
“She asked when you had stopped pretending at being a boy, Debbie”
Once again, my face must have betrayed me, for she shook her head, continuing to fill the space my loss of words left empty.
“I was open with her, love. Not about times and places, OK? But she wanted to know what she could do to help”
Something in her tone opened my mouth.
“She can get the drugs I need?”
“No, love. I have them. Been doing that for a while now, and Phil has got the others. He has, um, contacts. It’s other stuff, stuff you need to understand. There’s more than one side to this, and it’s done my head in studying it. So this is how it works, and please just listen. You make hormones in your body, and at your age that steps up several notches. If you’re a boy, they make you more like a man, and for girls, well, you know what happens there”
She paused for a few seconds, then resumed in a much softer tone.
“I think you’ve found out far more than most kids know about things like that, love, but not a conversation for right now. What we have to do is give you some stuff that stops you becoming any more of a man, and then some other stuff that lets the girl grow. Sounds easy, doesn’t it? There’s just one problem, and that’s checking it works properly, which would usually mean blood tests. This can wreck your liver, among other risks, love”
Once again, she paused, then smiled.
“Carol read you like a book, girl. She said some stuff about your soul, and karma, all that stuff she believes, but that doesn’t matter. What does matter is that she has a friend in the haematology lab, the bloods place, in the hospital, and Peter’s little business is going to help there”
Once again, she read my face rather than my words, and grinned, far more naturally.
“Agriculture, love. Peter has an indoor garden somewhere we don’t talk about, and his crop is rather popular. That is all you need to know. Anyway, this is going to mean needles every so often, but I know how brave you are. Haven’t met anyone with more courage. I just need you to think very carefully about this, be absolutely sure it’s what you want”
“I am sure!”
“No, love. Not right now. You go away, and you think about it for at least three days, and then we talk. Okay?”
I just nodded, and she handed me a couple of sheets of paper covered in her handwriting.
“Summary of stuff is on here, love. You read this, then you make up your mind properly, informed consent, yeah? I want to be sure this is for you, and not just to please us. Once you’ve given the answer, I’ll bring Carol over, and we’ll see what she thinks. Now, what are we doing for tea tonight?”
The three days passed too slowly, but they ended, and I found myself sitting in the kitchen as Carol measured various parts of me before producing a syringe and a sealable bag, together with a small bottle and some cotton wool.
“Lorraine and I have talked, Debbie. You know that. I have also looked at you, especially your aura, and there is no boy there at all. Do you wish us to help you grow in body as well as in spirit? It can be nobody’s choice but your own, but remember that dharma, right action, right thought, brings rewards through karma, and so the cycle continues. Sore you ready for this?”
Once more, the words weren’t there, so I simply offered her my arm. The pain was minimal, the quantity taken was surprisingly small, but Lorraine’s smile was anxious.
“We need to establish what they call a base line, love. Find out what your natural levels are like before we start to alter them. That will stop bleeding in a few minutes, and then you can help get tea ready. Carol’s brought curried stuff over”
No real drama, no fuss, but my real life was suddenly a lot closer to me than it had ever been before. The curried stuff was nice, if a little hot in some dishes, Ken’s smile when he returned from the wholesaler’s was warm, and after two days, the only evidence on my arm was a small bruise. Such a tiny sign of so huge a thing.
It was at the end of January that we started the real process, with a couple of injections, which did hurt, and a fortnight later, Carol took more blood. When I look back at those events, I find myself giggling. Two qualified nurses bypassed all official medical channels, treated a minor in a way that would be considered profoundly unethical, bribed a technician with rather illegal homegrown, ahem, herbal substances, and based their actions on the word of a very young child and a rather odd version of Buddhism.
Things were rather different in the days before the internet and computerisation—there were gaps in the world where people could live. I was able to move across from one path to another without needing a ticket, nor for it to be checked by some nebulous authority, and my life was at last heading where I needed it to go.
February was on us at last, and that meant the travelling year wasn’t far ahead. Ken spent long hours doing things to the van and trailer, which involved running the engine and checking what it sounded like at various speeds, or ‘revs’, as he called it.
“Hop in, duck. Need your help with this bit!”
He helped me into the driver’s seat, leaving the door open as I settled myself.
“Seat slides forward and back, duck. Always set it so you can reach the pedals easily. You don’t need to see over the bonnet for this. Now… Three pedals, and while I always call that one the throttle, it helps if you say ‘accelerator’, because that one’s the brake, and this is the clutch. ABC, duck. Easy to remember it that way. Now, this is the gear lever. Used to drive a Scammell in the army, and that was double-declutch and… Ignore me. Rambling on, I am!”
“Led Zep song, isn’t it? All Lord of the Rings stuff?”
“Ramble On, yeah, it is. ‘It was in the darkest depths of Mordor… Gollum and the Evil One…”
He was almost singing for a minute, than shook his head, with another sunburst of a grin.
“Getting you properly clued up, duck! One of these days we’ll see if there’s a gig on, proper big name one. Bit less mud than a rally. Now, this is how you start her up…”
We (I helped) had the van in fine form in short order, which is when I discovered what an MOT is, conducted in a garage on an industrial estate out by a place called Four Ashes. We may have been living to one side of convention, but as Ken explained, it is a lot easier to slide past the straight world if you have ticked a few of their little boxes. The van passed easily, and we ate dinner at a local drivers’ café. I found myself looking around, trying to match faces with the various commercial vehicles outside.
“Debbie!”
“Uh? Sorry. Dreaming a bit”
“What do you think about this as a job? We aren’t going to be able to get you through a lot of exams, duck, unless we arrange sitting them as an itinerant, and that means you need to look at something you can do”
“I’ll be travelling, though!”
Suddenly, Ken looked much older than he had seemed to me thus far.
“Ah, duck, it’s not the way it used to be, and it’s getting worse. More and more rules, more and more fences. There’s places we could always pull off, even up in Scotland, where there’s now fences. They say they’re for deer, but that’s bollocks. They’re for people like us. By the time you get old enough, they will have taken away all the edges we live on. It’s the way straights are, duck, wanting everything packaged, pasteurised, bloody beige, like their lives.
“That’s why I’m looking around here. Last of the gypsies, truckers. Not the same thing, duck, not even close, but it’s how they see themselves. It might give you a bit of space in your life as well, when you’re older, when you need to be alone…”
He trailed off, eyes fixed somewhere a long way away, before snapping back into focus.
“Anyway, soon be Spring. Time to think of better stuff. We’ll get you sorted on the van, and then I’ll have some help when I need it. Be better than riding the trailer through a pool of mud!”
CHAPTER 24
“Up you get, Duck! Time to get rolling!”
The beginning of March, and my bag was already packed, along with my bedroll, stowed in the van. I found the bathroom empty, to no great surprise, so I pulled my nighty off for a quick wash of the various bits Ken referred to as “Face, fork and pits”, as well as doing my teeth.
I could see one more hair on my chest, next to my left nipple, but it was small and downy rather than coarse and ugly. Ugly it was, but it wasn’t too big, and there wouldn’t be anyone about to see it, so I swallowed my magic pills and set to work with flannel, soap and brush, ready to bid ‘so long’ to the house.
A Monday morning, windy and wet, our route to the East, for a market in Loughborough, our stock this time jumpers, hats, scarves and plastic flowers. Ken was sanguine.
“Easter coming up, duck, and we can’t carry fresh daffs and that, so we take this stuff, and now you see how we don’t even have to go as far as Gretna to get folk to buy utter shite!”
Lorraine was driving just then, and after the three of us had laughed together, she got straight to the point.
“Music, serf! Now!”
I remembered Ken’s half-singing the month before, so we crossed the Midlands to the beat of Led Zep Two, rambling on. Grins all round as we left what I now felt was the claustrophobic embrace of the house. It had been wonderful for a while, warm and safe, but I felt I was better suited to Ken’s world of living in the gaps left by the straights, so we did indeed ramble on, trailer loaded as high as was safe and the Commer’s engine running sweetly.
My hair was far longer now, long enough to tie back, and the training bras I was now wearing daily gave just enough of a hint to declare my sex to strangers. I felt released, not just from that hellhole in Runcorn but from all the odd little patterns of the straight world.
Ramble on.
I kept the tapes going, switching from Zep to Steeleye, through some Floyd and Cream, Kinks and Curved Air, Moodies and Small Faces. Once more, it was just the three of us, the world set aside all the warmth we needed coming from within.
I remembered that thought early on the Saturday morning, as we shared the big bed in the frame tent at a rally in Essex called ‘The Frozen Flitch’ and the Spring showed itself more than a little reluctant to introduce itself to an expectant public. It wasn’t the best of rallies, because the main event was based on a pub rather than a marquee, which meant that kiddies had to stay outside.
My parents, as I thought of them more and more, stayed with me, so our rally became even more of a family affair, sharing some cans of beer and a couple of bottles of wine over the weekend, which was nice, but nowhere near as welcome as the tea and hot chocolate we kept brewing for ourselves as we punted out piles of West German national service army surplus boots and our own army’s ponchos-cum-shelter-quarters.
“They fasten together in pairs, duck. You use a couple of sticks for tent poles, and two ponchos make a two-man tent”
I looked at a passing rallygoer, water running off what Ken described as half a tent.
“Really?”
“Really”
“And it works?”
“Um, no. Not really. To be honest, it’s rubbish, but they work as raincoats, as long as you’re not riding a bike in them. They turn into a sail, then”
“So why do people buy them?”
“Two reasons, duck. First one is that too many people head for rallies thinking it won’t rain. Second is camouflage”
“From what?”
“No, duck. Anything that looks a bit military, it gets buyers. It’s a boy thing. So you wouldn’t understand”
He paused, head cocked, his smile turning to puzzlement.
“Why the tears, Deb?”
No words could explain, so I just hugged him until my eyes were back under control, asking myself yet again why I couldn’t have been given the two of them from the beginning of my life.
The band on the Saturday night was loud enough for us to enjoy it from outside the pub, sharing the warmth of a brazier with a couple of the host club who had drawn gate duty, one side of my body toasty warm while the other chilled. The music was good, the act apparently one of the up-and-coming groups from the Southend pub rock scene, but they could have been dreadful for all I cared, because I was home.
Our route continued along through Kent and Sussex over the next few weeks, topping up our stock in Ashford and Crawley before another rally outside Bognor Regis, this one with a marquee. I got to dance at that one, and all the time I was smiling inside, not just from the music and the movement but in anticipation of where our route was headed. Westward bound, the land beyond the Severn calling, until finally we were over the bridge, past Swansea, and Sam was shouting my name.
Four years of circling the country, four winters in Cannock with Carol and Peter, four summers with Rosie and Sam. Four years of pills and blood samples, muttered conversations between Carol and Loz, and the sting of the needle.
My breasts first showed themselves a little after my thirteenth birthday, which we spent at the Trot in the Bog near Weston Super Mare, Fester surprising me by producing a cake, with candles, god knows how. It wasn’t actually my birthday, but it was the closest weekend, and I was able to share slices with my parents, my best friends, their father, and a fat man with a twinkle in his eyes and grease down his apron. That became a ritual each year, as I grew into my body while it fitted itself to my soul.
I was watching myself obsessively from then on, and I assume other girls do the same, comparing their figures to those of girls their age, sometimes coming away disappointed, other times feeling smug.
Always, though, it was back to the Farmyard Fumble, with a stop at Nigel’s on the way, his reaction mirroring that of Fester.
“Bugger me, Debbie, and aren’t you growing up in all the right ways!”
In any other community, I would have felt another meaning behind his words, the weight of Charlie’s lust almost matching that of his body on me, but all I felt from Nigel, Gandalf, Fester, all the others, was appreciation and shared joy in the fact that my body was finally doing its job. There is a fine line between recognising that a child will grow up blessed in form and face, and desiring the child because of that good luck. I never felt the latter from anyone on the scene, and given my background I am sure I would have spotted it. One afternoon, as we rolled up the west coast of Cumberland towards Carlisle, I asked Ken about that, directly. To my surprise, it was Lorraine who snorted.
“Little story, love. Not saying what happened was right, but it’s how things are. Was a lad, years ago, kiddy fiddler. When someone had a go at him, he claimed to be the sergeant at arms of an MC. Frightened people off, he did”
“What happened, Mam?”
Ken took over.
“The patches in question found out, and had a word with him”
“And?”
“Coppers found him in a shallow grave near Colchester”
Lorraine added, “And Luton, and Ipswich. Lesson, love: don’t piss off an MC”
I shuddered at that one, wondering whether I could ever accept that sort of summary ‘justice’ while at the same time visualising something like that being applied to Charlie and Don, and I had a burst of inspiration.
“Dad?”
“Yes, duck?”
“Could we see if we can find out where the Parsons are buried?”
“The Parsons? They the ones who ran that place in Runcorn?”
“Yes. I think I’d like to visit them”
Lorraine laughed so hard she snorted up some of the tea she was drinking, which meant that it was a good job Ken was driving at the time.
“Listen to our little girl, love! Deb: do you want to leave them some flowers, or water whatever’s there?”
My grin was all the answer she needed, so I set Steeleye’s ‘Now We Are Six’ playing and settled back in the warmth of our rambling home. A circuit through Scotland awaited us, and then a windswept beach in Northumberland. It was at the Border Reiver, as we ran back south, that the word came. A patch from the local MC wandered past the stall, smiled at Ken and murmured, “Horse sends his best. They are in the place off Ivy Street, the eastern end. How much for that lighter?”
CHAPTER 25
It didn’t happen that year, though, and not for several more. I was still too terrified of the place, too worried that someone might shout “Boy in a dress! Billy Wells in a dress!”, so we left it and left it until I thought Mam and Dad had forgotten.
I never did. How on Earth could I?
We lived as gypsies for most of the year, anchored to the rest of the world by a few fixed points, at Druridge Bay for one, where I spent my time doing schoolwork in a dip among the dunes as the marram moved in waves and little drifts of fine sand broke across the pages. That boy in a dress seemed a lifetime away, even though parts of my body continually reminded me of where he had gone. I was sixteen now, and more than settled into the life I should always have had, but Lorraine was pushing me hard.
Maths and geography; history and general science; English, language and literature. She had called in some favours in Cannock, and we had a syllabus of sorts, or at least the set texts for the last of those subjects, and there was a school in Ashington that allowed for ‘itinerants’ to sit in on the Ordinary-level General Certificate of Education exams, which were to take place just before we were due to leave the Milburn farm. I lay on a towel, in a one-piece costume, the sun warm on my back in the stillness of my little hollow, the long grass sighing over the hiss of the sand grains, and I understood.
Ken, Dad, had been so clear that first Winter in his advice about life on the road, and I would need formal qualifications for that, but Mam had played the trump cards.
“This is about the rest of your life, love. It’s like the music. Ken and me, well, we’ve shown you what we could, music-wise, but there’ll be stuff you’ll find for yourself, new stuff we’ve never heard of. Something of your own, not something we gave you”
I started to argue, and she just smiled, holding a finger to my lips.
“And when you find the new stuff, love, you bring it back and share it with us. Agreed?”
“Agreed”
“Anyway, this is all about your future, as I said. These bits of paper can make a lot of difference, trust me on that one. We both know, me and him, that you will do your best, so no worries there. Graham’s lending us a car. Be a bit easier in the town than the van, so no worries, no push, just do us proud”
The school was a huge place, far bigger than the one little Billy had attended, and I was conscious of the stares as I walked in. School uniform met jeans, leather jacket and my latest denim cut-off, as I had outgrown the first. I still kept it in a drawer in Cannock, but Ken’s original name tag had been transferred across, along with my collection of metal badges. I was at the school three days running, and each day, after Loz had dropped me off, I had to walk in the gates past groups of uniformed locals, many of whom muttered “Tinker!” or “Fucking gyppo bitch”. There was always at least one call of “How much for a quickie?”, but Mam and Dad had warned me in great length and detail.
Three days, and it would be done. Three days, and I could abandon all the embryonic straights to their sad little lives. Three days in which my evening would be spent on a beach more beautiful than their crippled imaginations would ever realise. Three days.
So I sat on a plastic chair behind a little table, and I answered questions on quadratic equations and Queensland, King Lear and kinetic energy, and I kept my head down as I worked and walked to and from the car, and none of the bastards ended up sliced open because my own blade was left at the farm.
Three days, and done. They had our address in Cannock, they had my name as Deborah Petrie, and I was finally free of organised education. I settled into the passenger seat of Graham’s car just as the first egg hit the back window. Lorraine drove us away smartly, parking a couple of streets away before turning to me with a smile.
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“How did it go?”
I couldn’t help it, and started to laugh.
“Really? What with Dad on the science and maths, and you on the geography, and Mister Milburn on the history, how could I fail?”
“And the English?”
“Um, don’t know. Didn’t like the Shakespeare, did I?”
“Well, what’s done is done. Celebration tonight, love. We have a right mix of stuff, and Graham has a proper wood-fired range, so we will be doing roast lamb followed by rhubarb crumble, and then cheese and biscuits to go with the wine”
“Wine?”
“Thank god you didn’t sit oral English, love! Yes. Wine. You’ve done all we asked, and it’s time for a proper celebration”
“Mam?”
“Yes, love?”
“You know this wasn’t about asking and stuff? That I wanted to do this?”
She sighed.
“I know that’s what you’re thinking, love, that you were doing it for me and him, and we both know that, but I want you to realise this is for you. You will have a bloody good life, if you keep going at it the way you have done so far. This is your future”
“Not without you, though!”
“No, love. Not as long as we can help it. Now, call in at this garage and rinse that egg off, then we’ll hit the supermarket. Oh, and Carol has a key, so I asked her to keep an eye on the post and let us know what you get, unless you want to open it yourself”
I left that one for consideration, as we duly rinsed and scraped, then stocked the car with nice things, including parsnips, something I remembered my original mother roasting once or twice, and Bird’s custard, in tins. Lorraine grinned as she picked it off the shelves.
“Don’t care if it’s tinned, I like it, and so does Ken. Let’s get on the road, love!”
Back to the farm, where I was sent straight off to the beach for some thinking time, or, as Dad put it, to rinse the taste of the straights from my mind.
‘How much for a quickie?’ indeed. Let the little shit try asking me that face to face. Where was Rosie when I needed the edge of her tongue instead of that of my own knife?
Sunlight through the sides of the tent, and a really dry mouth. My first, if slight, hangover. The evening had gone well, especially after the other guest had turned up, a plump woman called Grace that Graham had introduced as “The lass who has that café out by Cresswell”
Grace had brought the rhubarb crumble, as well as a pot of home-made mint sauce, with two bottles of fizzy wine, and she was funny, and cheeky, and in the end I had got more than a little drunk, feeling that she was as safe as someone I had known all my life, or at least all Debbie’s life.
Roast lamb done to perfection, spiked with fresh rosemary, served with six or seven different vegetables including my roast parsnips, and eaten with laughter and teasing from all sides. My hangover wasn’t too bad, even for my first experience, and I was up before the other two, kettle on before I went to answer the needs of my bladder.
“Morning, love! How’s the head?”
“Fine, Mam. Bit dry in the mouth, though. Thanks: that was a good night”
“One of the best, Debbie. He’s a good lad, is Graham”
“How did you meet him?”
“Ah, years ago, it was. We were parked up not far away, and there he is in one of his fields, with an old Fergie that’s knackered, so Ken wanders over and says ‘Need a hand?’, and the rest is one of those exams you just did!”
“What, geography?”
“Oh, bugger off, love! Kettle’s nearly there, so warm the pot while I break out some brekky”
I rinsed out the teapot with a little bit from the kettle before setting it back on the gas, then poured the water over the leaves as it finally boiled.
“I liked his girlfriend too, Mam. Grace”
“Oh, dear, Debbie! That’s not his girlfriend. Our Graham is… Well, I think Gracie’s the same. She’s not into blokes, that one, but Graham is. Not to go chatting about that, if you don’t mind”
She caught my change in expression, and turned to me, eggs forgotten for the moment.
“No, Deb. Not like that. I know what you’re thinking, and you’re wrong. Not kids. Just not women, either. You’d think that of Graham Milburn?”
My first real lesson in human diversity, I realised later, rather different to the other lessons I had been given by Charlie and Don. They were more about perversity than anything else. I stood in front of Lorraine, a flush of shame on my cheeks, so of course she held me as the tears came and went.
“Getting tall now, love. What was it Gandalf said about sticks?”
Laughter after those first tears as I remembered how Samwise had mangled his father’s comment, and then I lost the mirth as well. Rosie had argued with him about some boy or other, and over the last couple of years, in visits to the Fumble as well as at other rallies, I had seen her smiling and dancing with boys, now edging towards young men, and that was the moment my own sexuality shouted its name to me.
I wasn’t jealous, for I could never begrudge anything that girl found. I was envious. It hit me with a rush of shame and despair, for I was neither something nor nothing. Not something for the boys to desire, for I wasn’t what they would ever want, and not nothing, for I was real, and I could feel pain, and it hurt me deeply.
What future could I ever have?
CHAPTER 26
Life went on. It sounds trite, but I came to realise that my decision to choose continuing to breathe had been made when I went out of a window in Runcorn; what followed was simply fine detail. It didn’t make the process of living any easier, but the days or hours I managed to get things into some sort of perspective kept me on some sort of even keel. In the end, I simply had to look at the two people who had rescued me for validation.
They had seen me at my worst, found me in the deepest of dark places, and simply lifted me up. All they had ever asked had been my company, and that had never been an explicit demand. We were simply a family. What more could I ever have asked? More importantly, what more could I find to give back? There are so many clichés people use, whether from laziness or simply from inability to find the right words for their feelings, and one of those sayings was there in front of me.
‘Could be worse’.
How well I knew that simple fact. Cling to the good bits, girl. ‘Count your blessings’, oh yes.
I still hurt, though, and so much of it was tied into my nature. I would never be, could never be, a natural woman, but a woman I was, that word seeming to fit better than ‘girl’ with each sunrise. Billy had been a construct of all sorts of things, including my parents, and simple bad luck in my genetics. Even though Debbie could never be ‘real’ in all things, she held far more reality in her than a small Welsh boy ever had.
It just hurt whenever I watched other girls. Rosie, in particular. We saw each other at rallies, of course, and over the years she had managed to surprise me more than once by turning up with father and brother at events I would have believed were well out of her area. I don’t think it was anything like Lorraine’s description of Grace, just someone who held her friends to her as something important. There were others, though, other faces that appeared more often than not, rallygoers rather than tradespeople like Fester, and I began to suspect that while Rosie was following me as a friend, there were young men following her for rather different reasons.
We visited home in Cannock just long enough to pick up my O-level results, which meant an evening sat around some of Carol’s tastiest finger food (and bottles of wine) as I put the moment off as long as I could before muttering something rude and tearing open the envelope.
English Language: Grade 1
English Literature: Grade 2
Maths: Grade 3
History: Grade 3
Geography: Grade 2
Science: Grade 2
I was officially qualified. The paper sat in my hand as I stared at the results, stunned that I had done so well. The grading system changed a year or so later, but just then, as long as you turned up, you would get one of eight numbered grades, one to six being regarded as passes. To put it into perspective, the grades I would have been awarded the next year would have been four As and two Bs. Not bad for a gyppo slut. Not at all bad for dead-loss Billy from Connah’s Quay.
We left the booze until Carol had taken some of my blood, of course, and by the time we were back on the road, I had another confirmation of my health and the direction my body was moving in. Mam and I celebrated by shopping for some bigger bras.
That Winter and Spring felt a little strange, as I had no textbooks to digest, no curriculum to follow. Mam and Dad kept the pressure on, though, insisting that I wasn’t to let the results be wasted. Alice’s words from ‘White Rabbit’ were always there at the front of my thinking, ‘Feed your head’, keep the learning process ticking over, and read for the love of it.
We hit the Fumble once again, just before my seventeenth birthday, and all was right with the world, as Billy hazed over in the distance of old memory.
“Badger!”
Dad looked up from another tray of fingerless mitts he was trying to squeeze in between the chained wallets and wrap-around shades.
“Hiya, son! Er, sorry, Carl. Just a bit hard to stay classy when you’ve known someone since they were in nappies”
The newcomer laughed, a deep, rich and happy sound.
“You and I will fall out, you old bastard! You down all weekend?”
“What do you think I am, son? Some lightweight of a bus-stop straight?”
Dad stepped out from behind the stand to hug the man, who looked to be in his early twenties. Their actions surprised me, because ‘Carl’ was wearing an MC’s full patch, and in my experience, patches—especially the newer or younger ones—tended to be rather prickly in their dignity and very, very observant of their personal space. As the young man grinned at Dad, I recognised him as a boy who had been at several other events, over most of the years I had been going to the same ones. My memory supplied another, simpler detail, which involved him occasionally sharing saliva with Rosie. He looked over Dad’s shoulder and grinned at me, which is when my stomach dropped several floors, taking my power of speech with it.
“Hiya, Debbie! Looking good, girl. How’d the exams go?”
I couldn’t answer him, teeth shining through his beard as his eyes twinkled, so Dad did his best.
“Got six good O-levels, mate! Done us proud!”
I finally found some words along with a smile, but I was blushing as I answered, the heat uncomfortable in my face.
“Was a bit shitty, taking them. School full of straights and arseholes”
Another booming laugh.
“Same thing, isn’t it? They get gobby?”
“Aye, but Mam and Dad said if I killed any of them, I’d have to bury them myself”
I was watching for the grin now, and it was doing things to my knees.
“Badger, I should have known any one of yours would have class! Anyway, got to do the usual politics stuff today. Catch you in the beer tent later for the band?”
Dad laughed.
“Some of us will still be working late, Carl, so we’ll see. You dancing, Debbie?”
“Don’t I always, Dad?”
The two of them shared a grin, and so I did as expected, and watched as he spent the evening with Rosie rather than me. Sod it. Sam was there, but the more I was with him, the more I was coming to realise the simplicity of his soul, and while I could be hard, I was never cruel. I danced with Sam, a few times with Rosie and Carl, but mostly by myself, swallowed by the music.
We spent a bit more time in West Wales that Summer, as it was shaping up to be a spectacular one. Before the weather broke in a spectacular series of thunderstorms and floods, we went through what was amazing for a Summer in my country. Our last event before heading east again was a Summer Rally with an MCC from near Swansea, and if I hadn’t already been in love with the lifestyle, that weekend would have snared me forever.
The site was next to a pub called the Cross Inn, just over the Black Mountain from Brynamman, and it was the first time I ever saw a red kite. While there was a pub by the rally site, it remained a ‘field’ event, with a marquee for the band and bar, and some of the finest views I have ever woken up to, almost as good as the ones I loved near the Roman Wall. The mountains to our South fell in red-striped walls, while softer agricultural lands swept away to the North. The mood was incredibly laid back, and Dad was smiling after a quick visit to the pub, which I assumed was related to beer.
He caught my grin.
“No, duck! Not started yet. Just wanted to get a feel of the landlord, as he’s a new face to me. I was also curious as to how he likes having competition for the booze sales”
“Oh! Hadn’t thought of that. What’s he say?”
“Always check your footing before you do anything, Debbie. Unsteady feet, unsteady work. No; he gets sparse trade out here, so this is the time he gets a shitload of boozers for a weekend, and the money is more than enough to go round. Lots of folk like a pint in a glass rather than one in a can”
We ambled back to the van, as his eyes took in the people and events around us.
“Nice do, this one. I’m going to see how it goes this evening, but we might just take a weekend off, here. Get a bit of R and R in. Gandalf’s due with his pair some time today, so you’ll have friends around you, but, to be honest, I get the feeling this is one of those really shit-free events. And the ground’s dried out firm enough for you to wear those boots you bought, the ones with the heels”
We’d got back to Mam by then, and she caught the last exchange.
“Yes, love, but I would suggest you do a little walking in them before you try dancing! Tea’s brewed, unless Happy Larry there’s already full of beer”
“Not a drop, Loz! Just seeing who we need to keep sweet. Let’s get the stock out, but leave the woolly hats and put out the bandannas for now”
Trade was slow till about seven o’clock, when we seemed to have a wave of arrivals, including several who needed one of Mam’s bright ideas: packs of tent pegs. She was ever one to spot an opportunity, and knowing how often people’ departures were made in a hurry, with more thought of ale and music than of camping necessities, she was spot on target. Rosie and her men arrived at about seven thirty, and training in behind them was a very tall young man on a Kawasaki 500 triple, which sounded utterly horrible to me and left a trail of blue smoke behind it. Dad was scathing.
“Bloody wasp-in-a-jam-jar stinkwheel…”
“DEBBIE!”
“Rosie! Hiya, Sam!”
“Debbie, this is my boyfriend, Nutty. Nutty, my best friend ever, Debbie. Hiya, Badger! Dad says is the kettle on? Oh, hiya Carl! You know Nutty?”
Where and when had he sneaked up?
“Hiya, Nutty. Did I hear the word ‘kettle’, Badger?”
Dad sighed.
“I hear and obey…”
Rosie was as hyper as ever.
“Dad says he’s going to get the tent up, but we’ve brought some disposable barbies, and LOADS of chops and sausages and stuff. You all eating with us tonight? Carl?”
“Why not? Got some work to do now, but There’s a shop down on the main road where I can pick some stuff up”
Mam was shaking her head.
“We’ve got loads, son, but if you are going anyway, can you pick up four or five pints of milk for us? I think we’ll need it, knowing this lot and tea”
That smile again.
“I hear and obey, Loz!”
In the end, he did better than that, finding some red and white wines as well, and my aim of parading my new heels fell by the wayside, into a camping chair rather than onto my arse, as we simply sat through the evening as a group of eight friends, enjoying the rock disco from the tent and relaxing in our own company, until about eleven o’clock, when Rosie disappeared with Nutty, and Carl took that as his signal to head for his own people.
He made the rounds, hugging Dad, kissing Mam’s cheek, then doing the same to me, with a whispered “See you tomorrow, girl”
I looked up at him, unsure of what I should do, and all I could find to say was “Promise?”
His beard tickled, but as he kissed me once more, his lips were soft on mine as his eyes caught just a hint of the glow from the marquee.
“Promise”
CHAPTER 27
I slept well that night, even though my dreams were a little confused, and the dawn’s light had been replaced by a Summer morning when I eventually emerged from the tent. Mam and Dad had slept in the van, which felt a little strange at first, but it was simply another stage of my healing and growth.
From the day of our meeting, I had slept between or by them, except in our winter house, and now I was being given my own space, possibly as a recognition of greater maturity but maybe as a hint that my life was now a safe one.
Our camp kitchen remained in the tent, so I set the kettle going before breaking out a pack of bacon and some sausages, as this was one rally without Fester’s presence. Once the water was heating, I used our little Elsan for a wee and then began breakfast. Eggs, beans, bacon and sausages were ready to plate when I tapped on the van’s door with two mugs of tea.
The expression on Mam’s face told me the other reason for my solitary sleeping. I raised an eyebrow at her, and she grinned happily.
“I am far, WE are both far from being too old, love! That brekky going?”
“Yup! Ready to serve when you are ready to rise. I think a shower later, though!2
“Cheeky mare!”
“Dirty old woman!”
“Less of the old, girl! Anyway, up and out and get the stock on display”
Dad wasn’t far behind, and after we had eaten, he set his little miracle of engineering going, and I found myself drifting back to the first time I had used it, so many years ago: a whole life ago. In fact.
For very obvious reasons, I didn’t need the shower as much as they did, and when they shared it ‘to save water’, I smiled and gave up on them, setting up the stand and beginning the day’s trade. A red kite was circling overhead, looking for any scraps to steal, and early mist was burning away from the mountains as the temperature rose with the sun. I confirmed my earlier thoughts, that this was indeed the best of all possible lifestyles. Early customers loaded up on sunglasses and bandannas for bald patches, a hum of conversation building up as singletons and groups headed either for the host club’s kitchen or the pub, open for an enthusiastic breakfast trade.
The morning drifted past in comfort and occasional conversation until about ten o’clock, when Carl stopped by for a cup of tea. He settled into one of the spare seats next to Dad, eyes half-closed as he basked in the strengthening sun, until he jerked awake.
“Fuck, Badger! Every bloody year, the same joke!”
“What’s that, mate?”
“Over there. Rally virgins. By the food tent. Enough to put people off their breakfast! At least it’s not cold”
I was a little puzzled at that, thinking he meant cold breakfast, then caught where he was looking, to see two naked figures staked out on the grass.
“Mam?”
“Yes, love?”
“Want to bet that’s some of your tent pegs over there?”
“Most probably, love. Tell you what: next time we come, I bring a few pairs of handcuffs for them”
It was that sort of morning. At noon, another patch club pulled in, Carl’s relaxation disappearing as he went over to discuss what he called ‘business’. Once it was clear that there were no issues, Dad sighed.
“Know something, mi ducks? I don’t think I can be arsed with working this one. Haven’t been somewhere so laid back for ages, and it’s just reminding me why I love this life”
I laughed out loud, and as he gave me a quizzical look, I did my best to explain.
“I was having the same thought when I got up, like. Then you two had the shower going, and I was remembering, you know, that first time I used it”
Mam’s face hardened.
“You OK, love?”
“Oh, abso bloody lutely! Counting blessings and stuff, that’s me. What Dad said, it was exactly what I was thinking. What’s he thinking, though?”
Dad looked up, grinning.
“Oh, I think that I will take my beloved wife here for a decent meal, over in that pub. I will have a beer or two, then come back here to meet their friends, and if my little girl here wants some time by herself, I suspect that there is a young man who might be persuaded to look after her. What do you want to do about food, duck? Eat with us, or grab something on site with Goat?”
“Who?”
“Carl’s other name. Oh, look. They’ve let the virgins go. That’s him over there; why don’t you wander over and say good morning?”
I didn’t need a second invitation, so I just grinned and set off towards my friend, who was talking to a huge man with a drooping blonde moustache. He must have been at least six foot six, and none of his bulk was fat. I hung back a little until I saw that both were smiling as they spoke, then made my way to join them, Carl grinning happily as I approached.
“Morning, Deb! Steve, this is Debbie, a friend’s daughter. Deb, Steve. He’s English, but never mind that. Where’s your mate the copper, Steve?”
“He’s not a copper, Goat, and you know it. Working this weekend, he is, so no chance. I was bloody lucky to get the weekend off myself, so I will be making the most of it! Hiya, Debs! Got any single friends?”
Something about the big man rang so clear and true that I couldn’t help liking him.
“I thought I had, but she’s brought some lad with her on what Dad calls a stinkwheel, but I think her brother’s single”
I felt the ground move when he laughed.
“Fuck me, mate, are you two well-suited! Right: I am off to stretch my legs and see what the pub has in bar meals, then I will be exploring and extending the envelope of sobriety. The liver is evil, and must be punished!”
He then did something that impressed me, holding his arms just wide enough to initiate a hug, but not simply stepping forward and taking one. Here I am; if you want one, the hug is there, but no presumption.
That hug was firm, and polite, and it confirmed my assessment of his fat levels. He stepped back, grinned once more and then shook Carl’s hand before striding off towards the pub. Carl turned to me.
“Good man, that one. Sound as a pound. Now, shall we see if Rosie has finished screwing that beanpole’s brains out yet?”
She had indeed, and I was only slightly jealous that she had a small tent of her own to share with Nutty, who was sitting outside it brewing tea on a little camping stove. Carl was straight into conversation, no introduction, and certainly no request for my consent to his plans.
“That smelly piece of shit OK for a passenger, Nutty? We are taking a run up onto the hill tops. You and Rosie want to tag along?”
The younger lad nodded.
“I’ll need to fill up on the way, but yeah, be nice. You want, Rose?”
She looked past us, and her expression was almost unreadable for a second, before she shook herself and grinned.
“That be the four of us? Yeah! That sounds ace! If we stop for him to fill up the Kwak, we can sort a picnic. What are your parents up to, Debbie?”
“Having a pub lunch, then shutting up shop, girl. Dad says this is too chilled a do for us to waste it working”
Her answering grin was more like her usual self, and I started to relax a little more. Carl knew someone, who knew someone else who had a spare helmet, and we made good time on his Triumph as Nutty seemed to struggle a little on the bends. I sat comfortably behind him, hands on his hips, and it all felt to abso bloody lutely right, little Billy disappearing into the back of my memories as the bike surged and banked, and a good-looking man took me higher in more ways than one.
It seemed to be a popular spot at the edge of the escarpment, an old quarry standing sentinel as we sat on close=cropped grass, trying to spot the rally site, and then our individual tents. Rosie spent some time lying on her back with her head in Nutty’s lap, watching another kite as it surfed the updraught along the escarpment, as her lad fed her nibbles and bites of our picnic.
The return was manic, hairpins on the road seeming to inspire Carl to push the bike’s handling, which left the other two a considerable distance behind, until we arrived at the turn-off for the side road leading to our rally. The bikes were parked up, the afternoon continued, and at no time did Carl leave my side apart from twenty minutes of ‘business’ with the English MC.
As the evening settled in, we left Mm and Dad to their ‘proper meal’ as Carl treated me to more traditional rally fare, and by this time I had indeed changed into Those Boots, which went well with a shorter denim skirt in my opinion. Apparently, that opinion was shared by Nutty, who received a slap on the back of his head from Rosie after spending a little too much time staring.
There was beer, which I drank, along with some wine, and then the band cut loose, and I was away. The heels were awkward to walk in at first, but that became easier, and with the alcohol, the dancing became easier too, and then natural, and finally sensuous, and everything was as right and natural as it could be, for Carl was a dancer too, and as Rosie and Sam let themselves go, while Nutty did his best, I was joined by Mam and Dad, who were as utterly gone and into the groove of that evening as I was.
It was Carl who was in my eyes, though, and often in my arms as we danced, and I in his, and we ended up in the darkness outside, because I needed a pee, and so did Carl, so of course we walked out together into the warmth of the night, and his arms were strong as he held me by our van, and then his lips were soft on the tip of my nose.
I raised my head, just a little, so his lips would be on mine, and then I moved closer, and my lips had to pen, and his tongue was there, and, oh. I could feel him, and I knew exactly what it was that felt so hard through his jeans, but his hand was on my breast, under my shirt, and, once again, oh…
He led me to his tent, drawing me inside, and my T-shirt was off, and my bra, as we lay on his sleeping bag, and his mouth was on my nipple, and oh god, and then he kissed the back of my neck, just the once, and Charlie was there, his weight on me, his cock pushing hard, and I could feel myself freezing and beginning to tremble, and so could Carl.
“Debbie? You OK?”
“No…”
“Come here; lift up, just a bit”
He half-turned, pulling the bag out from underneath before pulling it over us both, pulling me into his arms. His voice was quiet, as if he was soothing a frightened puppy.
“Horse told me, girl. I couldn’t really believe it. Don’t care, though. Not now. How badly did they…”
The trembling almost went out of my control, but he was still there, not running, not spitting on me or hitting me, and all he did was hold me.
“That badly. Someone needs a lesson, I think. Now, I don’t do anything without permission, I don’t take without an invitation, and I do not think you are in a fit state for either, so this is my offer, girl. And girl you are, aye? I can see that, Rosie can, your Mam and Dad, aye? So you just settle down here. Sleep with me here, or I walk you back to your tent, but either way, you are safe. Nobody comes at you through me”
I found my voice after a little while.
“Sorry…”
“Don’t be so fucking dense, girl. Being raped isn’t a crime, not a stain. You comfortable?”
“Yes…”
I don’t know how, but I slept until dawn, wrapped in his arms.
I never slept with him again.
CHAPTER 28
The pattern of my life started so often with light through the fabric of a tent. This was a little different, because the tent was Carl’s and the light was that of the first hints of dawn. I was lying on my left side, Carl’s left arm under my head, his right arm across my waist as his hand cupped my right breast. It could have felt sordid, as if he was sneakily groping me, but it wasn’t like that.
I felt protected, that was all. Just, please, Carl: don’t kiss my neck when you wake.
He stirred, perhaps in response to my shudder of memory, and simply pulled the open sleeping bag we were using as a quilt up around our necks.
“You OK, kid?”
“Sorry…”
“Told you, girl. Stop that. Are you able to talk? Would it help?”
I thought it through, and it did feel easier, in the light, with his arms around me.
“Children’s home, Carl. Couple of men worked there, and they liked… They saw us as fringe benefits. I used to…”
I forced back the tears, and tried to keep at least some distance from my memories as I found the words.
“Old hotel, I think, and each room was split into two with partitions, plasterboard, drylining I heard it called once. Had a boy called Benny in what had been the other half of my room. He was the only one I really spoke to. Nobody else seemed… I don’t think anyone else had any strength. The stairs creaked…”
Make the memories clinical, girl. Use the detail for distance.
“There were two men, Charlie and Don, and Don was, Don had hygiene issues”
“You mean he was dirty”
“Fucking stank, Carl. I think it was….”
Deep breaths.
“Don gave me crabs. Charlie wasn’t as dirty, but he was sweaty, fatter. You could hear the difference when they came up the stairs, and sometimes, when it was Don, and he had been… When he had gone to a different room, you could smell him as he went past on his way downstairs. He was always quicker at it than Charlie…”
I stalled there, but when Carl pulled me closer, I somehow felt better about the things that still haunted my sleep. I felt safe, and while he had clearly picked up what a kiss to my neck now meant, Carl’s tears were still hot there. We lay in silence for a long while, his arms around me, their muscles rigid with tension. At last, he whispered into my ear.
“Where are the cunts now, Deb?”
“No idea, Carl. I know that the people who ran the place are dead, suicide I think, but Don, Charlie, fuck knows. Why?”
“No reason, love. None at all. Now, I think we should get moving. Breakfast, then get packing. I need to get up to the North; got some business there, and it’s a twisty road, so won’t be a quick ride”
I remembered him throwing his bike around on the bends on the way back to the campsite.
“A twisty road, but someone’s got to ride it, aye?”
I could feel him laugh.
“Aye, girl. I will just have to suffer all those bends and mountain roads on my own”
One more squeeze, and then I was looking for my bra, and when he kissed a nipple, I nearly lay down again, but the moment was gone, soiled by the memories of Charlie fucking Cooper. Two hours later, and Carl was also gone.
Mam and Dad didn’t ask, but I could see the understanding flash between them, and after Rosie and I watched what was so clearly ‘our’ man ride off, her eyes were hard on mine.
“You didn’t, did you, Debbie? You and Carl?”
I dropped my head, shame filling me, and murmured the confirmation of her guess. Once again, I felt arms around me.
“Too many memories, girl?”
All I could do was nod, and she pulled me closer.
“I think somebody needs to die”
She left it at that, but the memory lingered. It was the first time I really saw how hard a case Rosie actually was, but I recognised a lot of Carl in her voice.
We were packed at last, Dad insisting I hitch up and drive the Commer and trailer to the edge of the site as part of what he called my advanced lessons, and then we were away from one “chilled weekend” and back onto the road. I didn’t want to talk, so I simply found Pink Floyd’s ‘Meddle’ and lost myself in ‘Echoes’ for a while.
Damn you all the way to hell, Cooper.
Our lives went back to normal after that, or at least what passed for normal in our nomadic ways, and Scotland was visited once more, Beattock struggled past, the tourists of Gretna fleeced, various bits of Northumberland inhaled as deep draughts of fresh and cleansing air. My world was one of self-sufficiency, or at least sufficiency within and for my family. By the time we looped back around to the Farmyard Fumble, I had my own harder edges coming through, those I had already found in that straights’ school had been honed to a cutting edge that sometimes brought raised eyebrows from Dad and a fond smile from Mam. The day I hit a gobby youth in the face with the remains of the apple I had been eating was the day Dad suggested I left my blade in the van when I was working.
I could see his point, and he was right. Until I was legally adult, I was at risk. So clamp down on the rage, find less lethal ways to cut the bastards down to size, and cling to the family and friends that were always there for me. I despised straight society; what on Earth did they have that could ever match our own joys? Fuck them.
The Fumble was on us, though, my first ever proper do, my first friends as Debbie, and it never faded on me. The same stops on the way, even though there were new dogs at Nigel’s, but just as untouchable. I was driving a lot of the time now, especially on the back roads, and it was me who drove the Commer past Gandalf and over to our pitch, me who reversed the trailer into position. It hadn’t been me who had driven it into Runcorn, though, nor me who had parked it in an unlit side street half a mile from the cemetery, but it had been me who had stood by the headstone of Marie Fucking Parsons and managed to pull out the tiny nubbin of my shrunken cock and piss on her grave while Mam kept watch.
There was something odd about the writing, and I risked a flick of the little torch I was carrying to have a closer look. Someone had taken a power tool of some kind, and added words to the stone, reading ‘kiddy fiddler and evil bitch’. It wasn’t a sentiment I could fault.
Our final touch had been Mam’s idea, with some input from Dad, and the bouquet we left was made of nettles and garnished with a liberal dressing of dogshit. We got back to the van without incident, and I resolved never to visit that town ever again. Job done.
I parked the van weeks later at the Fumble, feeling more and more like my old self, which thought actually made me chuckle. Dad looked up at that point, as he sat beside me in the cab with a watching eye on my driving.
“That the sound of our girl coming back, duck?”
I laughed again, a little more loudly.
“How do you do that, Dad? Bloody mind-reader!”
“Eh?”
“I was just thinking about feeling more like my old self, being back here, and then thought that my old self didn’t really exist until we first came here, to this rally. Sort of a birthplace for me, this field”
He hugged me.
“Don’t care either way, darling girl. Just happy seeing you smile again. That Rosie over there? And Carl? Get this set up, and you can get a brew going for them. Have a catch-up and shit”
“Why do I need to get the brew going?”
“Because Loz and me need to give you some room to sort out your friendship, duck. Those two are sort of holding hands. You might want to clear the air a little”
Another little bit of me died with his words, but I sat down hard on my jealousy. What had either of them ever done to hurt me? If I couldn’t deal with men, then why should I begrudge Rosie, et cetera, et cetera. As Mam and Dad hauled the trailer into its final position, I climbed out of the driving seat and slid the side door open, setting up our little stove. Kettle filled and set on the grass, I stepped back round the van, waving at my two friends.
“Hiya! I’ve done all the hard work getting us here, so those two can set up the stand. Cuppa?”
The pair walked slowly over to me, Rosie’s eyes flat and challenging up to the moment I gave them a smile and said “You two can’t be a couple! You’re two well-suited! Come here!”
The hugs were hard and fierce, in contrast to Rosie’s stammered apology, her hardness evaporated in our reunion.
“We weren’t sure, Deb. Me and Carl. How you would take it, aye?”
I hugged her even more tightly.
“Two of my best friends ever getting on with each other, with life, yeah? Being happy? How else would I take it?”
Carl hugged me, with a soft whisper, just for my ears, of “Thanks, love”, and we were into gossip and catch-up, Mam and Dad joining us as the tea was brewed, the stand almost complete. The mood was warm, as warm as it ever was, up until the moment when Carl’s smile drained away.
“I have to remember sometimes. You don’t watch telly, do you?”
Mam laughed out loud.
“My darling man here may be a whiz with our plumbing, but no, we don’t have one. Not that easy with a van, love”
There was something in Carl’s expression, just at that moment, that frightened me deeply.
“You got that paper, Rose?”
“Now, Goat?”
“Now. Get it out of the way and let the weekend be a good one”
Rosie handed me a copy of the ‘Sun’, and I could just see the words at the top of the page, ‘Exclusive to the Sun and News of the World’. She unfolded it, and I screamed, I couldn’t help it, because there were photos on the front page, and while I didn’t recognise them all, two of them were of Don Hamilton and Charlie Cooper.
CHAPTER 29
They featured on the front page, as well as in what seemed like half the rest of the paper. It was a style of reporting I had already come to recognise and despise: a story too shocking for their readers, see pages 2-26 plus special colour supplement.
It wasn’t quite as bad as that, but there was a lot to read. Mam set out a couple of camping chairs, Rosie sitting beside me as I read. Dear god, and I had thought my time with the bastards had been a taste of hell. It seemed I had been given an easy time, compared with what I read.
It had been another children’s home, another secure establishment for ‘little problems’, and the pattern had been a familiar one. The people who ran it were cut from similar cloth to Mr and Mrs Parsons, but had somehow managed to take things to an entirely new and higher level, one so unutterably evil that the tabloid hacks were unable to reveal, etc, but see pages…
All I can say is that Charlie and Don had worked there, and there had been a locked room in the cellar where one inmate had been found after at least three days without light, food or water. Police were now digging up the grounds looking for other children, or what was left of them. Somehow, I managed to read the whole collection of articles, with the artist’s impressions and mug shots, and it was quite a while before I realised Carl was squatting in front of me. I was staring at the front page, at Don, and Charlie.
“Your Mam’s sent over some hot chocolate. That tea’s gone cold. I… saw the names, girl. Recognised two of them. What do you want to do?”
My voice wasn’t my own, just then, but it said something about not knowing, just before Rosie’s arm was around my shoulder.
“Never alone, Debbie. Never again, OK? Not going to ask, just say. I think that place was like the one you were in, so we don’t need no explanations. We just need you to think about where you want to go, but not today, not today. This is our rally. Deal with those cunts another day, right?”
I nodded, and she was off into a non-stop flow of gossip, covering everything from the weather forecast to how Sam was doing in his new home. That one brought me up to a state close to awake.
“Eh?”
“Ah, Deb, he was never that sharp a tool, was he?”
“Had a sharp knife, though!”
“Was that a joke? Bugger me! Hope for my best friend, then. No, Sam’s never been a high-flier, so he’s gone to a sort of special college. Back living with Mam for now, but he’s here this weekend”
“How could he not be? Where is he?”
“Helping set up the bar. Carling here…”
I looked up at that, with a smile, trying to feel good for my own best friend, and a young man I realised had a brighter soul than he ever let the ordinary world see, and she blushed.
“Carl thought it would be best not to have Sam around until you had had a chance to get your head straight. Once you’ve cleaned your face up, we’ll do the rounds together. Your Mam brought any handcuffs?”
“What?”
Rosie’s grin was almost normal.
“Rally virgins, Deb! Weather’s set fine, so I think there’ll be a naked body or two to ogle. Or laugh at, either way. And we’ve got a damn good band on Saturday night! Brought those boots?”
She carried on with her prattle, and bit by bit, we settled into the weekend. I tried to stay at the van on the Friday night, but Sam appeared at the stall at seven, bringing me a hug, a kiss to the cheek, and the determination to drag me over to the marquee, where I found myself dragged up to dance with Gandalf, Dad, Sam himself, and a very hopeful Nutty, who spent the evening staring wistfully at Rosie.
I thought that’s two of us, lad, but I think my reasons may be just a little less comfortable.
Good weather, good sales, and Mam did indeed have some handcuffs available for the Saturday morning, which caused even more laughter when the main instigator of the strip show lost the key. Dad laughed happily when they appeared at the stand asking if we had a spare.
“Deb? Grab me one of the clothes pegs, and you, son, can grab us each a bacon sandwich”
“Huh?”
“Price of admission, or rather release, duck!”
One slow, quiet moment of appreciation, and the bacon rolls were gone. Dad led me over to the victim, a young man of around twenty, who looked a little apprehensive, as Dad was snapping the peg open and closed, giving the lad a really evil grin. Considering how many sensitive and vulnerable body parts were on display, I could understand the lad’s nerves. Dad played it up for about twenty seconds, before quickly pulling the peg apart, stowing the wooden bits in his pocket.
“Springs, Deb. They need elasticity balanced with some stiffness, so they do well as lock picks. See the right-angle bend? Now watch”
One end of the spring went into the keyhole, and Dad wriggled it for a second or two, and then the cuff opened, one naked young man showing great relief as he sat up, rubbing the marks on his wrist.
“Thanks, mate! Right bunch of bastards, that lot. Said they’d only leave me here for ten minutes, but it’s like three bloody hours! Got ants in my arse crack, I have!”
I looked up as a shadow passed overhead, to see a red kite inspecting proceedings, and I couldn’t leave well alone.
“Be careful, I would. Seen one of them take a burger out of someone’s hand, and you’ve got your sausage out…”
I am sure he left scorch marks on the grass as he ran to his tent, and Dad and I sat for a while until our laughter was back under control. He looked at me, eyes twinkling.
“I was right, then? Got our girl back?”
I grinned back.
“Yeah, suppose so! What’s this band like, tonight?”
“Ah. Heard of them, I have. Do a lot of stuff like the Stones, Small Faces, some Sabbath, that sort of thing. Very metal, duck, very rocky”
“Would you mind if I had a few drinks, tonight, while I dance?”
He stared at me, face neutral.
“You know you don’t have to ask, love”
“I know. Just, well, feeling a bit wobbly”
“Self-confidence? Hard not to, really. Just have a think, about how many people here know you, duck. How many folk have your back. You get as pissed as you like, and you’ll be safe. Just try not to start relying on the booze, OK? There are better things to depend on, and you live with two of us”
“There’s nobody here that would…”
“What’s left of them would have to get through me and Loz first”
“What do you mean ‘what’s left’, Dad?”
“Getting older and slower, Duck. I think Goat, Rosie and Sam would be on them before either of us two got there”
Something in my face gave me away, so, not for the first time, he took me in his arms.
“You are stuck on him, aren’t you, my sweet?”
I nodded, but I had to speak, had to make things clear.
“Yeah, all girl me, even if, you know. It’s just that every time… Every time, I see those faces, smell them, feel them on me, and it all turns too shit. Yes. I love him. Fuck all I can do about it, though, so time to move on. We cooking tonight, or using the pub?”
He shook his head.
“We need a family chat, duck. Just the three of us. Sort out what we are going to do about those two pieces of shit in the paper”
The day crept past in a stream of happy faces, folding money and happy laughter, until we three were finally sitting in the frame tent at our folding table, a beef stew with shop-bought bread shared between us and tea steaming in our mugs. Mam started the conversation.
“Choices, love. You still have them. Carl picked up today’s paper for us, and there’s a little more in it, but you can read that tomorrow, if you really have to. They have at least two bodies out of the back garden. There’s also evidence that they were supplying the kids to nonces. That is all I am telling you tonight, apart from the fact that there were coppers involved”
“There were coppers involved in Runcorn, Mam”
“I know, love. Anyway, story so far is that it was all down to one lad, who was lucky enough to be recognised by a friend who had enough money to get the place staged”
“Eh?”
“Surveillance. Think long-lens cameras. The amount of stuff they’ve already made public, they have a bomb-proof case. Which is where you come in”
“Why me?”
“Why you, love? Because you are someone who could add a whole new pile of shit onto those two bastards. Get them done for your old place as well as that hellhole in Carlisle. See them shit themselves, see them in the flesh”
I couldn’t read her face, but there was something worrying her.
“You don’t like the idea, do you?”
Dad reached out for my hand.
“We don’t, duck. Neither of us. You’re not eighteen yet, which means we’d lose you straight off. You’d probably end up in another home”
Mam added the icing to the shitcake he was showing me.
“Coppers involved in this one, love. Coppers in that place you were in. You trust coppers?”
I didn’t need more than a second or two to work that one out. Turn up to give evidence, and then risk being handed back to more of the same filthy crew.
“Fuck that one for a game of soldiers”
I drew a few slow breaths.
“What time’s this band on? I need to get changed. Men to tease, straights to outrage, beer to drink”
Dad snorted.
“What straights?”
I gave him my best little-innocent-me expression.
“Who’s talking about just the weekend? There’s always straights to outrage!”
Once more, Dad murmured something about getting his girl back, and once I had finished my meal, I changed into my shortest skirt, tightest top, and those boots. The band were indeed good, and I rocked out the night. They did ‘Brown Sugar’ and ‘Tin Soldier’. ‘You Really Got Me’, ‘Woman from Tokyo’, ‘Sabbath Bloody Sabbath’, even some David Bowie, with ‘Jean Genie’ and ‘Rebel Rebel’, finishing off with ‘Born to be Wild’, which had everyone in the tent bellowing along to the verses as well as the chorus. All of my family and friends were around me, hair flying, Sam strutting a mean air guitar, and yes, I drank far too much, but the simple fact remained that I was safe.
It wasn’t just those around me that meant that. I felt that anyone who tried to come at me would meet the whole of the rally, and they would end up badly hurt. No; there was enough evidence to sink Charlie, Don and their friends, without me needing to throw away my shield, which was rocking out around me on a warm Welsh night.
The hangover took a whole day to clear, but it didn’t stop me from picking up the newspapers each day, which was how I found out about Don.
I don’t know who was responsible for the first bit, which was Don’s temporary release on bail for some spurious personal issue, but I have strong suspicions as to who may have left him floating face-down in the River Eden.
One down.
CHAPTER 30
We hit the road again once we were packed up, Dad insisting I drive the van along the back lanes until we hit the A4069, where he took the wheel and, to my surprise, turned north.
“Trying a bit of a different circuit, duck. Seeing as you have paid your respects to the Parsons, and those two men are in it up to their eyeballs, I thought we’d see a bit more of your own country than we normally do. You up for it?”
“Not if you mean going to where I used to live”
He picked up on my wording immediately, as Loz took my hand. Mam. Not that woman I used to give that name too, oh no, but my real one, the one who had loved me from the moment we had met in a Shrewsbury horsebox. Dad nodded, mouth tightening for an instant.
“Wasn’t what I meant, duck. Don’t think those people have any connection with your life any more, not if I know you. Am I right?”
“Dead right, Dad. So why the north?”
“Well, weather’s set fair. Set bloody hot, to be honest. Papers are talking of a drought, so it’s a chance to see some real mountains without it pissing down”
“We’ve seen real mountains, in Scotland!”
Mam laughed until she coughed at that, and when she had her breath back, she gave her opinion in typically caustic terms.
“You haven’t seen them, love, just a million gallons of pissing rain running off their bottoms! Remember that first time at the Red Moss?”
“Oh hell! I get what you mean. What are we doing, then?”
She held up some handwritten sheets.
“Gandalf got these for us, love. Market dates up the coast to Pwllheli and then we cut down to Caernarfon, then along to Bangor. Cut back through the mountains and take the back road from Betws to the coast and Conwy, then it’s the Scousers’ Riviera”
“Why those places?”
“Well, there’s towns like Aberystwyth and Bangor, full of students. They’ll buy any old crap. Out by Pwllheli there’s a Butlin’s, so more people with no taste, and it’s surfers round there too. Win-win. Same shit from Llandudno to Prestatyn. Then we can work our way up the Lakes coast, and…”
She tailed off, but Dad picked up her flow, almost seamlessly, which told me how long they had been discussing and plotting our travels.
“Thought we’d have a look at a river for you, duck. Got the Stotty to do, and there’s the Midgesummer near Ennerdale, so we’ve got a couple of weekends for a bit of a boogie. I think we also need some time away from towns and tourists”
“You thinking of Graham’s, aren’t you?”
He just nodded, Mam cutting back in with the words.
“Those graves, Deb. I know you needed to do it, but with all the rest of it, with that Carlisle thing, I think you need time, sea, sky. Take this the right way, but we will lose money for a while, or rather not be earning it, but I think we need the family time. You OK with that?”
She drew some deeper breaths, then almost rushed into speech again.
“Not too long before you are eighteen, Deb. We need to work out how to deal with that when it comes”
“Why?”
Dad tag-teamed her again.
“Citizen of this country is what you are, duck. We might live on the edges, but if you get sick, or something worse, you have rights. Not having you lose them because you hid in the cracks. You need a licence to drive, for starters”
Mam, once more.
“We need to speak to the legal people, local government pen-pushers. We need to make your name legal. We need to make you space in the straight world. Your choice whether you want to stay there, but you need the option”
Dad laughed out loud at that.
“I am actually looking forward to it, duck! Walking up to the straights, ‘Found this girl, your worshipfulness, no idea where she’s been all these years, so sort her files out sharpish!’ Need a cine camera, I will. Can’t watch something like that just the once, can we?”
Mum raised a hand.
“Nearly forgot! Sam left this for you, though I think his Dad did the actual shopping. Sam himself, love, he said he didn’t know when your birthday is, and he never sees you at Christmas, so he thought you needed a present”
It turned out to be a little Kodak Instamatic camera, with a pack of spare films, so I looked over at Dad again.
“This is mine, Dad1 Not swapping this for a cine camera, am I?”
The laughter set the mood for the day’s drive, and even though each day brought another edition of that newspaper, and further astonishment at how lucky I had been, we were back into our routine life in those cracks Dad had spoken of.
That story, though…
The boy was called Steven Elliott, and he was about the same age as I was, which brought further wobbles to my thinking. The friend who had spotted him was the wife of a famous footballer, which meant money, and money meant so many other things, including access to the justice I had never encountered. The police were in a digging frenzy at several properties connected to Mr and Mrs Cunningham, the couple who had run the care home, Castle Keep, and what the paper called ‘human remains’ had been found, those of far more than one person.
‘Remains’. I hadn’t ‘remained’, but Benny had, and that Bowles kid, and several others. Where were they now? Passed on to yet another hell disguised as a shelter for the vulnerable?
“Deb!”
I came back to the there and then of Fairbourne, rather than the what-if or could-have-been.
“Yes, Mam?”
“Can you pass us some more of those bandannas, love? Going like things that go quickly, they are”
“What are we doing for stock?”
“Ah, Goat found us found somewhere just outside Bangor. We can make do through Pwllheli and Caernarfon, then stock up there”
Goat had found us something? Really? I remembered him talking of business he had in North Wales, and it fitted. I had no idea of how he had managed to pass word back down to Dad, but it was just one more reminder of how those of us on the edges found ways to look after each other, and I realised how much Carl actually cared for me.
Burn in hell, Cooper. Burn long and hot.
So, in the end, it was winding roads out to the holiday camp, the trailer set up in a layby for Mam to fleece the Butlin’s idiots while Dad and me took the van into the town itself to target the surfers, an altogether different market. We found a dirt track near a village called Bryncir that night, where we parked up, sleeping together in the van like our first days together, which brought a problem about three in the morning, when Charlie came into my room at Runcorn, but my parents were there, with me and for me, and after a little while I was able to settle down between them, with Dad’s mutter that we might just ‘stop reading that fucking paper’.
Caernarfon was amazing, the castle huge and imposing, but I had preferred Harlech’s on its rock platform. Caernarfon’s was right by the sea, so its walls seemed higher, its towers more formidable, but I was an old hand now as far as castles went. I still took a load of photos, though. As each reel was used up, Mam posted it off in an envelope to be developed, then sent back to the Cannock House. Sam had been right, in the end, for while he wouldn’t see me at Christmas, the pictures would be there for us.
The only problem, of course, is that without seeing them, I would have no idea of how well I worked as a photographer. The strategy was obvious: take loads of pictures, and let chance sort me some good ones by accident.
Bangor was busy for sales, especially to the students, but we went in by way of the wholesaler Carl had identified, and when we left the town, we visited them again, our cashbox almost bursting when Dad took it into a bank to pay half of it into our account. That was one benefit of maintaining a ‘fixed’ address, even though we were hardly ever there. Our reserves would be safe, even if we were robbed on the road. Once again, I was shown how shrewd and utterly practical the Petries were.
We set off at last for a few days of relaxation, Mam giving directions from a road atlas that seemed as old as the van.
“Lad said there were a couple of campsites up here, Deb. See how we get on, OK?”
The mountains were there before us, and once we hit a village called Bethesda, they were over us. The road ground up a hell of a long way, with warning signs for falling rocks as well as for a youth hostel, and when we arrived at the summit, I was astonished.
A blue sky sat over an equally blue lake, an immense slope of stones and shattered rock to our left. In front of us was a mountain that looked like a cross between one of those dinosaurs with the plates up its back and a buzz saw, other mountains to both sides. People were everywhere, cars parked on the verges and footpaths, and as I spotted what looked like a café, Dad just kept the van rolling as Mam held her finger to the map.
“First place is behind that big bugger in front of us, love. To the right. About a mile, looks like from this”
We crept along the road, which would its way between the foot of the dinosaur and the lake, and I could see the valley opening out before us. I could also see lots of people on that foot, seemingly halfway up vertical cliffs, the idiots. The ground looked sere and burnt, either side of a long straight in the road, cars parked both sides, and then I spotted the little sign with a picture of a tent.
“To the right, Dad! After that red car!”
Ince the oncoming traffic left us a gap, we turned into what looked like a farm, with a sign by the gate and cattle grid that made it very clear in English, Welsh and a picture that dogs were extremely unwelcome.
“Dad?”
“Yes, duck?”
“Why aren’t we just pitching somewhere quiet?”
“National Park, duck. Lot busier here than in Northumberland, so we have to play by their rules”
We rattled over the grid and Dad pulled us up on the side of the stone track leading to the farmhouse.
“Think that’s the farmer coming, duck”
He was in dark trousers, an ordinary jacket, a flat cap and wellies, and couldn’t have been more than five foot six inches tall. Dad climbed down from the cab as he approached.
“Afternoon! Do you have room for us for a couple of nights?”
“You gypsies, ah?”
“Traders. Work the markets round the UK”
“How many men in there?”
“Just me, my wife and our daughter”
Dad gestured at us to step out, and we walked round the bonnet of the van to join him. The farmer hadn’t finished, though.
“Any dogs, ah?”
We all shook our heads, and I smiled at him.
“I like dogs, mister, but we spend so much time on the road it wouldn’t be fair on one”
“Aye? What about sheep?”
I smiled. Do your best, Debbie Petrie.
“We’ve got a friend, in Northumberland. He has sheep. He lets me feed the lambs, sometimes. Ones he calls kebbed, where they’ve lost their mams. I like doing that!”
His face cracked into a real smile.
“Polite girl you have there, mister!”
Dad held out his hand.
“Ken. This is Lorraine, and you’ve met Debbie”
The farmer held out his own hand, walnut-coloured, and they shook.
“Emlyn Williams I am, and this is my land. No fires, not in this weather, and we have no hot water for you, but there are toilets in that shed there, and a sink. People who stay here, they are climbers, walkers, ah? Like their sleep. Debbie, is it?”
“Yes, Mr Williams?”
“Would you like to meet my Dylan?”
I don’t know what expression hit my face, but Mr Williams burst into laughter.
“No, girl! Pet wether lamb, he is! Come and say hello”
I looked across to Dad and grinned, just in time to see him uncross the fingers of the hand he was holding behind his back. The farmer waved at the expanse of rough grassland edged with reeds that made up the campsite.
“Park up near the edge over there. Not boggy, not to worry there, ah? What are you pitching?”
Mam took over.
“Frame tent. Van’s set up for sleeping, but it’s nice to be able to breathe”
“Well, pitch it with the door facing west. Views are wonderful in the morning”
The lamb was a delight, and the farmer’s advice was perfect. We sorted the tent, made our evening meal, and watched the colours change around us, before settling into our beds.
What a beautiful sunrise.
CHAPTER 31
The other side of the ‘dinosaur' was lit up in the orange of the sunrise, and so were several other hills showing to the right of its northern slope. The hill we had passed on the way in, a chaotic pile of loose rock from the road, showed a grander flank, holding what looked like a hollow above steady slopes of green dotted with white sheep. People were already moving on the campsite, with several cooking bacon of porridge on little stoves.
“Morning, love!”
I started at the greeting, which came from a slender woman in her sixties or so.
“Morning, missus!”
“Pat, love! No silliness in a place like this. Lovely morning! Your first time here?”
“Yes. I’m Debbie. This is lovely!”
“What are you doing today?”
“Huh?”
“Sorry, Debbie. Most people here have a plan for the day, some route or other. I’m off to Glyder Fach, for example”
I must have looked particularly blank, so she smiled and sat down next to our tent.
“That kettle about to go on, hint hint?”
I laughed out loud, for she had such an impish way with her that it was impossible to take offence.
“Could do! Mam and Dad will want their cuppa”
“White, no sugar, then! Now, can you see the lake over there? That’s where Arthur threw his sword…”
She was off, and I busied myself with the kettle while she did all the talking. It didn’t feel like a lecture but more like someone offering their love of the whole place, sharing as opposed to declaiming.
“The big mountain there is Tryfan. Two pillars on the top, and to get the freedom of the valley you have to jump from Adam to Eve, or other way round. Not sure”
“You done it, Pat?”
“Me? Do I look stupid? Don’t answer that!”
Another happy laugh.
“Some people are here for the climbing, some for walking. I sometimes come up with a friend or two, and we do the climbing, but I’m on my own this weekend, so it’s just the walking for me. Weather like this makes it a lot easier, but I still carry the kit. It can get wild on the tops, even when the day looks set fair. That’s what I meant by asking what you are doing”
“I’d love to do something like that. Got no kit, though”
“You got boots?”
“Old army boots, surplus, like. They OK?”
A grunt behind me. “Morning, Dad! Kettle’s on!”
“You making friends again, duck?”
“Sort of. This is Pat. She’s telling me what the hills are called”
“Morning, Pat! I’m Ken. That’s Loz in there, snoring away”
There was a half-muffled shout of ‘Cheeky bastard!’ from inside the tent, and Dad grinned happily.
“Hope Debbie here isn’t giving you grief, Pat”
“She’s giving me a cuppa, I hope. Got my own mug. Her first time up here, Ken?”
“Aye. We’re taking a couple of days off, so I thought this would be good for her. Never really seen mountains, or at least not seen them outside a raincloud. What do you think, Deb? Want to see them from the top?”
He looked over towards our new friend.
“Heard what you were saying, duck, about kit and that. I was a squaddie, and we did a lot of our training around here. That old hut still there out to the North?”
A happy grin split Pat’s face.
“Foel Grach? Oh yes! I could tell you some stories about that place, but I think calling it a ‘hut’ is being polite!”
I was pouring the tea, so I missed some of the chat, but somehow I ended up being pushed into a day with Pat. Once she went to sort out her ‘kit’, I turned to Dad.
“You trust her? You trust me, on these hills?”
Mam was looking over Dad’s shoulder by this point, a mug in her hand, and she was nodding between mouthfuls.
“Deb, a lesson for you, love. Listen to how people say things, and not to what they say. Pat’s on the straight. Not asking for anything, is she?”
“She asked for a cup of tea!”
“Sensible woman, then! No. Ken is right. This weather is amazing, and if we ever see it like this again, well, I will be a bloody sight more than surprised. Your boots will do, and those cords we got in Swansea. T-shirt, army jumper, one of those foul-weather tops. I can run up some sandwiches. PAT?”
The older woman called “Yes?” back from her tent.
“Not vegetarian, are you?”
“Not as long as I don’t have to kill it first!”
Mam turned back to smile at me.
“See what I mean? Taking your camera?”
It turned out to be a very, very full day. We left my parents at the campsite, passing over a couple of ladder stiles before heading for a rough track behind a small peak.
“Beginners’ climbing place on the other side, but not for me, not on my own…”
There was a fleeting expression in her eyes just then, but she smiled, almost back to the woman I had met over a cup of tea that morning.
“Levels out in a little bit, then it’s just a walk uphill to a little lake, turn right, steeper bit, and then the top. Loads to see up there!”
The walk uphill she had described was enchanting, especially when we passed through a large flock of goats, who seemed to be entirely unruffled by our presence, unlike the animal looping away from us at speed, which Pat said was a stoat.
“Do you know how to tell the difference between a weasel and a stoat, Debbie?”
“No”
“Well, one is weasily recognisable, while the other is stotally different”
“You sod!”
So the day went, as we edged along a narrow path across a steep slope that brought us up to a tiny lake Pat called ‘the speckled mare’, then up that ‘steeper bit’, which was a field of large boulders and seemed to go on forever. She did this for fun? It levelled out eventually, and she pointed to an odd rock that looked a bit like a cockscomb.
“See that, love? See how the rocks behind look a little bit like a wall rising out of the ground?”
“I see that, yes”
“Top of Bristly Ridge, that is. Not an easy way down, but it shows you the way we came up. Remember to look for it on the way back. Now, something special for you”
That turned out to be spectacular, a rock finger sticking out like half a bridge from a heap of rock splinters. It took me a while to work out how to climb up to it, but in the end, we were both sitting on its tip, legs dangling, after Pat had used my camera for a shot of me standing there.
“What are the sandwiches, Deb?”
“Ham and cheese, I think”
“Share them out, then, and I’ll share the tea, biccies and chocolate”
How could I not like someone with such an open attitude? As usual, Dad was spot on in his judgement. As we ate and drank, she showed me the view, describing each ripple and lump with affection.
“See that plume of smoke? Snowdon railway, running one of their steam locos today. Summit will be bloody crowded. This is far nicer. What do you think, girl?”
It was lovely, and I said so.
“Well, got a choice, now. We can either go back the way we came, or go right over and down through Idwal, but that leaves a long walk by the road. There is another way, though, if you think you are up to it”
“What way’s that?”
“Down the Gribin to Bochlwyd, over the South Col and then back down Cwm Tryfan”
“You’ve lost me!”
“Not to worry. Walk along here to the Castle of the Winds, and I will show you the choices”
The hilltop we were walking across was surprisingly flat, dipping a little in front of us, with what looked like an exploding stone haystack on the edge of a huge drop to our right.
“Castle of the Winds, Debbie. Easy to get onto, and then I can show you the choices”
One more amazing place, with incredible views that went all the way out to sea, and according to Pat would have reached Ireland if there hadn’t been some huge lump called Y Garn in the way, “But that’s another day out!”
A sip of water from the bottle Mam had insisted I carry, and then Pat showed me her suggestion.
“Not as steep as it looks, and an awful lot easier than people claim. Takes us down by that lake, then over that saddle and back to the tents”
It took us a while, but eventually I found myself walking once more walking around the back of the farmhouse, feet feeling bruised, as I promised myself that I would start treating words like ‘easier’ with more scepticism. It hadn’t actually been hard, but it had been narrow and high up, finally opening out onto an amazingly broad and level grassy field before the next steeper bit. Pat had been there to talk me through the hardest parts, but I had still danced around the edge of panic. None of that had stopped me using up almost all of my film.
Dad was under the bonnet doing something mechanical, while Mam looked utterly relaxed, stretched out on a towel on the grass, wearing a bikini I hadn’t known she had.
“Deb behaved herself, Pat? Cuppa?”
“Oh god, please! Dry as a bone, me. Deb did amazingly well, but I don’t think she’s quite taken with the climbing game. We did a sort of scramble back down, but I don’t think it was her best bit of the day”
I shook my head.
“Magic day, Mam, but not doing that bit again. Got loads of pictures!”
“We’ll get them sent off when we can, then. Must be a post office or box nearby”
Mam poured the tea, which was nectar after such a hot day on the mountain, and Pat raised a hand after making the usual appreciative sounds.
“Post office in Capel, Loz. Pubs as well”
Dad’s head appeared around the side of the van.
“Not really the sort of vehicle to take down the pub, Pat”
“Not what I was suggesting, Ken. Got my own car, and I don’t really drink, so I was actually offering rather than asking. Got friends at the pub, locals, and after such good company on the hill, it would be nice to repay the favour”
I couldn’t help but laugh.
“After the way I complained all the way down that ridge?”
“Complained and still did it, Debbie. What it is, in simple terms, is an easy thing to sum up. It’s great to be out on your own, if you’re competent, but every now and again it’s nice to be able to turn and say to someone ‘Look at that! Lovely, isn’t it?’. That’s what I miss”
Mam sat up straight.
“Want to talk about it, love?”
Pat shrugged, just a hint of moisture in her eyes.
“Nothing special, Loz. Hubby was a serious climber. Got avalanched on An Teallach in Scotland. That’s all. Left me a little lacking in this sort of company”
She drew in a long, slow breath.
“We doing the pub tonight, or what?”
We went to the pub, dropping off the packages of films using stamps Pat had in her purse, and settled into a corner of a large room with an aeroplane propeller standing next to the bar, Pat immediately into conversation with a couple of local men, with the ease of long familiarity. We were introduced, the two making appreciative comments about my climbing skills on the Gribin, and four of us shared a meal that Pat insisted be split three ways, as I didn’t really count on the basis of lack of earnings. She was funny, and chatty, and very good company, but every so often I caught her eyes looking towards a notice board covered with photos of ‘regulars’, and wondered which of the smiling faces had belonged to her husband.
That evening continued the process that had started at my first meeting with Benny, as I recognised that more people than me could and did suffer.
CHAPTER 32
We ended up staying nearly a week, as the weather was so hot and clear. I went out with Pat on a couple of days, trying to copy her walking style, which was something I had noticed as we had walked up Glyder Fach. She didn’t take huge strides, simply placing her feet carefully in a steady rhythm, but it took her steadily uphill and towed me along in her wake. Our next trip was up the thing she had called Y Garn, by what she called ‘the nicer way, which involved a ridge, an awful lot easier than the Gribin, a really broad hillside for a descent, and then something that scared me at first sight.
“Devil’s Kitchen, Deb. Looks like empty space, but the path turns sharp left, and it’s easy. Then down to the road past the lake, and a cuppa from Dennis before we drive back”
It wasn’t bad at all, after I had conquered the feeling that I was walking off the edge of the cliff. The little cove with the lake in we walked through was enchanting, and the cup of tea was more than welcome.
The second day was much longer, as Pat led me up the softer side of that great heap of shattered stone we had passed on the way in, something called Pen yr Ole Wen, and, after a mercifully short bit of scrambling, along a broad ridge she named as the Black Ladders, over a huge rounded top and out into the middle of nowhere.
“Your Dad’s hut is this way, love. Not exactly in the best state of repair at the moment”
Someone had actually used it as a toilet, so we sat outside, drinking the last of her tea as she once more pointed out what was where.
“Go that way, and you come to Aber. Huge waterfall, bit of a tricky ascent. We walked from there a couple of times, kipped in the refuge…”
Once more, her eyes teared up, and I understood that sleeping might not have been all she had done with her husband in that little rough space fitted into a cleft in the rocks. I didn’t have the words, so simply took her hand until she was herself again. We sat in silence, as a big black bird flew overhead, calling out a deep-noted “Kronk!”
“What happened to you, Deb?”
“Sorry?”
“Those two aren’t your real parents, are they? Look nothing like you, and you’ve got a Gog accent. They’re both from the Midlands, in England”
She stared at me for a minute or so, before dropping her gaze to her knees.
“Sorry, Deb, if I’m being rude. Whatever your story is, you’re safe”
I wasn’t sure what to say. Dad’s words came to me, about listening to how people say things rather than what words they used, and I stepped off the edge, trusting in Pat, as I had trusted her at that physical edge over Idwal.
“I was in a home, Pat. I managed to get away. Never went back”
Her head jerked up, eyes widening.
“Not that place in Carlisle, Deb?”
“No. A couple of the same men, though”
Her mouth worked, opening and closing a few times as she sought her own words.
“How old were you?”
“Eight. I was there three years. I’ll be eighteen soon, so I will be safe, Dad says. Mam used to be a nurse. If I say she had some repairs to do, will you understand? Don’t really want to go into more detail”
She sat silently for at least four minutes, before holding out her hand to mine. A squeeze, and then she was rummaging in her rucksack.
“Got that bag from the sandwiches, Deb? Can’t let a place as lovely as this be spoiled just because someone doesn’t know how to love it”
She didn’t mention my history again, and with my help, she used toilet paper from a roll in her backpack to scoop out the turds from the shelter, burying them under some rocks well away from both path and refuge. The toilet paper she used went into the sandwich bag, to be carried out with us and disposed of properly once we got back to the campsite. Once more, we set off towards the huge rounded top.
“Not going to let a few pieces of shit ruin my day, or my life, Deb. You got me?”
I stepped over to her, slipping an arm around her waist as she returned the favour. Over the top, down the other side via a very short bit of easy rock work, a zig-zag path and then a knee-punishing walk down a long and very straight road., and back to the tents.
We ate on the site that night, Dad having driven the van down to the nearby village and loading up with all sorts of food as well as some wine and beer. The four of us pooled our supplies, eating as a foursome as the stars came out, swapping stories about all sorts of things as Pat and I danced clear of the meaty subjects that had come into a day of beauty like a turd on a lover’s grave.
We set off two days later, all addresses and assurances exchanged, and we made our way up through Lancashire market by market, until we were skirting the Lakes, traffic heavy as we headed for the Midgesummer. I will be honest in that it didn’t really work for me, as a rally. The mood was edgy, with too many little men trying to show how big they were, so as soon as we had packed up on the Sunday morning, we were off to the Wall country again, and a night in that car park by the little pool, this time with the grassy area crowded with far more tents than we usually saw. Blame the weather.
We continued on to Druridge Bay, with the obligatory stop at Graham’s, but I was feeling more and more out of sorts, until Mam came up to me as I lay in my own bikini, tucked into a hollow in the marram grass as the sand soughed over the beach.
“Penny for them, love?”
“Huh?”
“You’ve been very quiet since those days in the mountains. Ken and me, we’re a bit worried. I’m worried”
“What about, Mam?”
Her face twisted slightly.
“That’s one thing, love. Natural for me to wonder, to ask myself, Loz Petrie, have you done right by this child?”
“What way haven’t you?”
“Oh, all sorts of ways, love. Take how you are now. Is that because I wanted a daughter? Is it what you really wanted? All sorts of stuff… Got your birthday coming up in a little while, your eighteenth, and I don’t know what you are going to do, once you’re safe. What… I don’t…”
Suddenly, she was in tears, so I turned quickly to pull her down beside me, where she sobbed into my shoulder, our roles reversed for the very first time. I held her until I could start to make sense of her fears, before doing my best to put them to bed. Don’t let a lovely place be spoiled, girl.
“Not sure what to say, Mam, but that first bit, well, I always was a girl. You just helped me, helped me more than I could ever have hoped. You didn’t make me change over, cause I was always there. You just made it a lot easier. So stop fretting on that one. Anyway, if you needed a daughter, then this girl really needed some parents, so we come out as winners there, don’t we?”
She hugged me tightly as I continued.
“I know I haven’t been in the best mood, but that’s not you. Never you, OK? It was Pat, and thinking about one of the boys in Runcorn. Realising how bad other people can have it, how easy it’s really been for me”
“Easy? For you, Deb? Fuck off!”
“It has, though, hasn’t it? I got out, you found me; it’s been so good since then. Those kids in Carlisle, the ones buried in the grounds… And Pat. Look at what she has to do, every day, without her husband being there. We went out to that hut, the one Dad remembers, and I think we all know the memories she has from it with her man, yeah? And someone had taken a shit, right where we all know they used to make love, and, well, it’s realising how many people have it really shit, and needing to do something to make it better, and I can’t, and I wouldn’t know how, but I NEED to do something, and, well, shit like that. I really need to give something back, and I can’t see how!”
Mam pulled back so as to be able to look me in the eye again.
“Bloody Carol, isn’t it? Karma and dharma? You talk like that, and it starts to make sense. Look, love, we can’t all do that. We don’t always get the opportunity. So we do what we can, what I know you will, and we do our best to be righteous, to be good people. Dad’s spoken to you about work, hasn’t he?”
“HGV driver? Yeah. But that would mean leaving you!”
“No, it wouldn’t. It would mean staying in the house, joining us at weekends if we are working a rally. Build up some savings of your own, and to be honest, a little bit more coming into the family coffers never hurts. So, what about your birthday?”
“What about it?”
“Well, we will be going into a council office with attitude, love. One good thing…”
She paused, turning away from me as she sat up, looking out to sea.
“That place in Runcorn, you were just a runaway. That second shithole, in Carlisle, that was a reason to stay running. If we had gone up to them when you were a minor, you’d have been stuffed. Going up as an adult, telling them to sort out your records, there’ll be fuck-all they can do, unless they decide to have a go at me and Ken”
“And wouldn’t they need some sort of ‘victim’ to push anything like that?”
She turned back to me, her old grin back in place.
“Yes, and that would be you, love, and I don’t think you’re doing ‘victim’ anymore!”
A broader grin.
“Got a flask and some biccies in my bag. Want a cuppa, while we work out how to stick it right up The Man?”
CHAPTER 33
That was going to take some planning, but we had time, and the Hairy Stotty was calling, a rally far more to my taste than the Midgesummer had been. We made our way down there with the van’s windows wide open so as to catch a cooling breeze, which didn’t work too well, and on arrival found that the ground was baked absolutely solid. That lasted right up to the Saturday evening, when the weather broke.
Typically for the UK, the government had only just appointed a minister for drought when a new version of Noah’s weather arrived. Thankfully, the site was well-drained as well as sloping, with the gate on the uphill side, but it still took a little bit of local help to muscle van and trailer out onto the tarmac on the Sunday.
It didn’t stop raining for what felt like a year, and Mam and Dad did their best to find slots at the semi-permanent markets where there was shelter in place. At least four rallies we had planned for were cancelled due to flooding, but we stuck it out until mid-October before giving up and scuttling back to Cannock. It was a very, very odd year. I didn’t really care, to be honest, because my birthday was fast approaching, and I was terrified. I buried the fear as best I could, working local markets and events from the house rather than the tent, but that worry was still sitting at the foot of my bed each night. I knew, in that tiny bit of my mind that could play at being rational, that I would be safe, that Mam and Dad would be too, but I kept hearing the words of the famous board game: do not pass Go, do not collect £200, go directly to Charlie Cooper…
The news helped a little in settling those fears, as more and more details emerged about the Carlisle Hellhole, and what was left of the guilty were sent down for life. Steven Elliott, the main survivor, even got a book deal out of it, which left me slack-jawed at what was either extreme courage or incredible insensitivity. Either way, it was one book I left well alone.
Christmas came and went in happy style, Carol excelling once more in delivering an ‘alternative’ set of meals, Peter getting cold feet again in a winter-dead lake, and eventually the rain left us in peace to settle our stomachs and turn off the rubbish on the TV. My birthday was due in three months, and I didn’t really want to spend my worrying time watching some old James Bond film, never mind ‘Quo bloody Vadis’ or that utterly silly film ‘The Greatest Story Ever Told’.
I am absolutely certain Dad insisted we watch that one so that he could make us all wince at his dreadful John Wayne impression at the end. Fine, great, but why not just watch the last five minutes? Never mind, it was finally over, and then Spring began knocking for attention. I understood why we used the Cannock house, but it always felt like a forced interruption to our real lives, and once the weather perked up, we would be released.
The only real advantage the house gave, in my eyes, was the stereo, where Mam and I would spend hours working through the family collection, as well as playing new stuff we discovered by chance or word of mouth. New Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, a very odd man called Alex Harvey, all joined our stack of twelve-inch LPs, and we spent hours, Mam and myself, sitting together on the settee in darkness, just bathing in the sounds they made.
It reminded me in so many ways of those times spent lying in the marram dunes at Druridge Bay, listening to the sand grains overtaking each other in the constant breeze.
Happy times indeed.
Finally, we were free again, van and trailer loaded and hitched, and with a wave to Peter and Carol we were back on the road. Mid-week markets, that new version called a ‘car boot fair’, a couple of early folk events (strange people!), and steadily south-eastwards before turning back along the coast, all of it now so, so familiar.
My birthday arrived as we worked near Dorchester, and over breakfast, Dad handed me a brown foolscap envelope.
“We asked Carol to get this printed off for us all, Deb, but there’s two options. No pressure, duck, but you choose the one you want. Mam and me, well, we have our thoughts on it, but there’s reasons and implications and shit for what we think makes sense. Have a look”
The envelope wasn’t sealed, and it held two copies of an official-looking document called a Statutory Declaration, in which I swore and attested that I was dumping one name and forever using a new one. The old name was obviously William Wells, but it was the new one that left me trembling.
Two versions, two options, those were Dad’s words, and they were choices for my new and official name.
Deborah Petrie versus Deborah Petrie Wells. I held the sheets side by side for a couple of minutes, until I realised how badly my hands were shaking. Mam took them from me before they each took one of my hands.
“Dad and me think it makes sense to keep your old surname, love. It will make sorting your records out a little bit easier, and we think that’s going to be needed. The Man can be a real tosspot with things he doesn’t and can’t ever grok, so it’s one less problem for his prejudices to try and cope with”
“How do we do this? What’s it cost?”
“Fiver, that’s all. We see a solicitor, they witness it, and it’s a set fee. One other thing, love”
“Yeah?”
“We do it in Wales. We think it might be easier tying up your local records that way”
I sat for a while, stroking my little leather patch, the one that had declared my name to the world for the last few years, while I worked through their logic, finding no fault. It had to be Wells, which hurt, even though I understood the need. In the end, I couldn’t find any words, just tears, so I pointed at the one we needed, felling as if I was betraying the two of them.
The solicitor was someone whose office we spotted near the market we worked in Newport, their confusion withering under Mam’s glare, eased in the end by a five pound note. Two days later, we set up in Cardiff, which brought the real struggle.
“Can I help you? Gaf I eich helpio chi?”
Dad’s smile was brighter than real.
“I hope so. We have this young lady whose records need updating. They got messed up about seven years ago, and she seems to have been listed as a missing person all that time”
The receptionist looked confused, asking us to take a seat while she made a number of calls. First, though, she asked for my details, and after handing over a certified copy of the ‘Stat Dec’, I told her my birthday as well as my old address up north. We sat for over an hour, until I spotted three people approaching, two of them uniformed coppers. Dad was straight to his feet.
“Why police? Tell us now, or we leave”
One of the coppers, a man, bristled at Dad’s challenge, but the other, a woman sergeant, held up a hand to shush him.
“Child absconder from a children’s home, Mister…?”
“Petrie. Not a child, though, is she, duck? Eighteen, and an adult, so you tell me why you are here, or we leave”
“Sergeant Harris, Mr Petrie, and this is PC Wynsor. This gentleman is Mr Bennett from the General Registry Office. Could we at least talk this through, no arrests, no silliness? We have a private room available”
Mam sniffed.
“Down your nick?”
“No, Mrs Petrie. Just over here. You can sit by the door, if that would feel better, less cop-shop sort of thing?”
Mam nodded, turning to Dad.
“Need to get this sorted, love. What we came in for, yeah?”
The sergeant smiled, calling to her PC.
“Any chance of grabbing some brews for us all, Tim? Tea do everyone?”
Two minutes later, we were all seated on plastic chairs around a scratched Formica table, Bennett shuffling papers until Wynsor returned with a tray of tea, obviously from a canteen. Sergeant Harris smiled at us all before opening proceedings,
“William Wells, then, from Flintshire. Absconded from Mersey View children’s home in Runcorn after being their three years, and never seen since. Are we talking about the same person, because he appears to have changed rather a lot?”
I nodded.
“I was Billy Wells. I am now Debbie Wells. All legal-like, as you can see from that declaration. Is that a problem? And I am now eighteen. No crimes against me, not in either name, so nothing to detain me for, and most certainly not in some fucking kiddy-fiddlers’ place”
Mam put her hand to my arm.
“Softly, love. They know all that. You do know all that, don’t you, Sergeant? What went on there? Just like that place in Carlisle?”
The PC shuddered, eyes looking at the table for a few seconds, while Mam continued.
“Debbie didn’t ‘abscond’, love, Sergeant, she bloody well escaped, and she had to deal with what had been done to her in your ‘care home’. She is safe, now, has been safe for years, and she does NOT want to dig into old wounds. So can we get on with straightening out her records, social security, National Insurance, all of that shit, so that she can get on with her life?”
Dad spoke softly, but there was venom in his words.
“You and yours did sod-all to protect her when she was a little kid, so how about we all try and do something to make up for that, right here and now?”
Bennett spoke for the first time.
“John and Marie Parsons, am I right? Hired paedophiles as care assistants and used their inmates as pieceworkers? Slavery? Miss Wells, I do believe there are a number of things I can sort out for you. Some will take time, but I promise to do my best. Anita?”
The Sergeant nodded at him.
“No, Mr Petrie, there is nothing we could possibly do to make up for that. I will ask a favour, though, from Debbie, if I may?”
I nodded.
“Go ahead”
“The men, Debbie. The men who abused you. Any idea where they went?”
“Yes, but no, I am not getting involved, before you ask. One of them is dead and the other is banged away for life”
The policeman winced once more.
“Please tell me they didn’t end up in Carlisle”
I just nodded, and he swore under his breath.
“We done here, Sarge?”
“We are, Tim. Thank you all for your help. You were one brave child, Debbie. We’ll leave you with Mr Bennett here”
They left immediately, and Bennett smiled once more.
“Could I possibly take a correspondence address?”
CHAPTER 34
There was a lot more discussion, but in the end, it was quite a simple process, if long-winded. Bennett agreed to send everything necessary to the Cannock house, where Dad would arrange for Carol or Pete to pick up the mail and forward it to one of our safe places on the road.
“Will she be able to apply for a provisional licence now? Start driving and that?”
“I can’t see why not, Mr Petrie. She’s old enough, and you have a permanent residence, even if you don’t actually seem to reside there very permanently. Forms are in any Post Office. You will just need to put her on your insurance, of course"
Mam held up a hand.
“She sat her O-levels, and she did well in them. What about the name on them?2
“Send us some details, and we will contact the examination board. Should be no problem. Are you looking at going on to further education, Debbie?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Grants come from local authorities. You may have some issue in showing which one should pay for your studies”
I looked at Dad, and he smiled. I knew the answer already.
“Mr Bennett, I don’t think I am really university material. Not got the best background for long-term study, have I? Dad and me, and Mam, we have a sort of plan for a career, so don’t worry about it. If I change my mind, what do I do?”
“I would suggest applying from Cannock, as that’s where you have a sort of paper trail. You don’t need to make any decisions right now, and you would need A-levels or something similar, so a lot to consider”
“We all done, then?”
“I do believe we are, Miss Wells. May I make a personal comment?”
“Depends. What do you want to say?”
“Just that I think your choice of gender is obviously the right one. That, and the fact that I have rarely met anyone with so much courage”
“Bollocks! That lad in Carlisle is the one you should look to!”
He shuddered.
“I take your point. You should know that some of my colleagues at our Southport office are working to… Are helping to update records regarding the identities of those found buried. I don’t envy them their task. Thank you for your assistance, and may I wish you all the best for your future life”
We all shook hands, and then my family walked out into the light rain of Cardiff. Mam found a little café near the Cathedral, and we settled down to some cheese on toast and big mugs of tea. Dad was pensive, so I took his hand.
“Penny for them?”
“Ah, duck, I don’t think they’re done. That copper, the woman, she wanted a result from you”
“I thought it was the PC that was the pushy one”
“No, Debbie, not so. He wanted something about your men, but he didn’t know what. He just knew he should be outraged, disgusted, all that sort of stuff, even if he didn’t know the details. Probably reads the shit newspapers, Express or Mail. He’s got the highlights calling to him. That woman, though: she wanted blood. Not yours, duck. There were coppers involved in that place in Carlisle”
“It was coppers who kept putting me back into that place in Runcorn, some of the cunts even stopping for tea”
Mam laughed out loud at that word.
“Oh, Debbie, love, say what you really think, why don’t you?”
I couldn’t help laughing myself, the mood broken at last. Dad squeezed my hand.
“Got a market in Bridgend, girls, then another right out at Carmarthen. There’s a wholesaler nearby we can stock up at. Then we shall be off to the Farmyard. That suit you both?”
The weather continued in a more typically Welsh way for the next two weeks, wet and windy in that nasty way in which the dampness gets inside your clothing, leaving your fingers white and wrinkled. We all shared the big bed in the van for a few days, the rattle of the rain on the roof driving away sleep, but when the weekend of the Farmyard finally arrived, the weather miraculously cleared, the pavements steaming in the brightness of the sun.
I wondered what sacrifices Gandalf had made to the gods. Two rally virgins staked out for the badgers? Never mind; we had sunshine and a little warmth, and as long as we parked the van carefully, the ground should hold up for our exit. I did some of the driving this time, especially the last part that took us through the little lanes that rarely saw a copper.
“Debbie!”
“Hiya Gandalf! Usual spot?”
“Na, best to park up over that side. Got a little boggy where you usually set up. I’ve left some coconut matting there for you to put under the wheels, in case it turns shitty again. Sam’s in the marquee. Rosie will be along in a couple of hours”
There was something slightly off in the way he said the latter, but never mind. I parked the van where he had indicated, and Mam took over the wheel as Dad and I laid the matting out for her to reverse onto. Up went our stand, as well as the big tent, and we spent some time ensuring that our tarps and waterproof sheets were Just So and guyed out tightly.
“Debbie!”
“Hiya, Samwise!”
“What have you got with you this time?”
“Usual stuff, mate. What do you need?”
“Something waterproof. Stop the rain going down my neck”
“Cowboy hat do you?”
“Why would I want a cowboy hat?”
I pulled one out from under the stand, guessing his size.
“Leather, mate. Use some dubbin, or some of that stuff for leather saddles, and it’s waterproof. The brim stops the rain getting down your collar, and shades your eyes from the sun, if we get any”
“Oh! Cool! If you tell me how much, I’ll ask Dad!”
I made a quick decision.
“No, Sam. Take this one as a present”
“It’s not my birthday!”
“Yes, but you’re still one of my best two friends ever”
“Who’s the other one?”
“Rosie, of course. Where is she?”
“She’ll be down soon. Living with her boyfriend now. I like the hat! Cool!”
He was off, trying different angles for the hat, and my suspicions about his sister were confirmed thirty minutes later, when Rosie arrived on her own bike, a little Honda 250. My eyes went straight to the man she had followed onto the site, and of course it was Carl. My guts twisted for a few seconds, fitting Sam’s words about where she lived into the despair I still felt over that weekend at the other rally, but at the same time, I understood where we sat in life. She was my best friend, as I had explained to her brother, and she had a right to be happy, and Carl was…
Fuck you, Charlie Cooper, fuck you and all of your kind, and how you destroy children. I pulled my dignity around me, with some effort, but they were who they were, and if life wouldn’t let me in, surely I could feel joy for the two of them, two people I loved? I walked over to them, after a quick nod to Mam.
“Rosie! Carl! Got news for me, Sam says!”
Rosie’s eyes were downcast at first, then she looked hard at me, a challenge in her flat stare as she held out her left hand to show me a ring.
“Makes putting my gloves on a faff, Debbie”
I took the extra steps forward, pulling her into a hug, and waving Carl forward, as Rosie’s composure broke into tears.
“I’m sorry, Debbie!”
“Don’t be, love. Good woman, good man, suited to each other: what’s to be sorry about?”
She murmured something else, as Carl squeezed us both, and I found my own words.
“You both know about me. You know what those bastards did to me, and it isn’t something I can move on from, so just let me be happy that you two are. We got a deal?”
Carl’s hug got tighter, and he whispered, “You have class, Debbie Petrie”
I disengaged, smiling at them both through my own tears.
“Debbie Wells, now, Debbie Petrie Wells. We got it all sorted out, official like. I’m legally an adult now, so there’s nothing they can do to me. Time to move on, love”
He winced slightly at that, so I changed the subject.
“Sam’s got a new hat, so expect him to want to talk about it. Now, I can smell the food tent’s open, so who wants to treat me to a bacon sarnie and a cuppa?”
I stayed with them as long as I could for politeness, but not too long, and found myself sitting at the gate with Gandalf for a while.
“You’ve sorted stuff out with my daughter, then? She was really worried you’d take it wrongly, what with your history, you and him”
“All sorted. She’s been my friend since I first met her, best friend, yeah? Things are what they are. My… I can’t let go, Gandalf. Too much history. Let them who can have their happy times. I manage”
He nodded, sitting quietly for a few minutes.
“I named them both from the book, Debbie. Got it a bit wrong, I did”
“Eh?”
“Lord of the Rings, girl. You read it?”
“Yeah. Mam got me it, showed me all the language stuff in it”
“OK. Who’s the hero of the book?”
“Er, Frodo”
“Nope. It’s Sam Gamgee. Nothing Frodo did would have worked without Sam. He even carried Frodo up Mount Doom, right at the end. Goes back and marries Rosie, last words in the book are him coming home to her. That’s why I picked the kids’ names. As I said, I got it wrong. Sam’s a good lad, but he never got all the way there, did he?”
“Nothing wrong with him, apart from… He’s a little slow at times”
“Yup. Then whatever magic I wanted from his name ended up in his sister. Should have called her Samantha, that one. She’s the loyal one, the fighter. I watched her with Carl, Debbie, and it was always there, how she fancied him, but she could see how you felt, so she stayed out of the way. Loyal, aye? Remember that, love. She will always have your back. Sam’s the same, though he’d need a push to see what’s what. Now. You and your Mam dancing tonight? We have the usual disco for Friday, and a really good band for Saturday”
“I think we’ll be up for them both, Gandalf”
“Good. Now, that your Mam waving to you? Time you were back to work, girl. And remember”
“Remember what?”
“You will find your own way in life. Can’t be pushed, but it helps if you keep your eyes open”
I made the most of the weekend, rocking out as predicted on both evenings, but all through it I was wondering what life could possibly offer something like me.
CHAPTER 35
We left the Farmyard in light rain, heading north again through the maze of roads and lanes towards Aberystwyth. I wondered where we would end up on this circuit, knowing only that it would probably involve some time with Graham.
“Dad?”
“Aye, duck?”
“We going back to that do in Cumbria?”
He looked across me to Mam, who grinned, shaking her head as she said the single word “Chaps!”. I was a little puzzled, so Dad, after a snort, explained.
“Mam’s shorthand, duck. Says it all, really. You know what chaps are? Not men, the other sense?”
“Bloody stupid arseless leather trousers!”
“Yup, that’s them. No protection to your soft bits if you slide down the road, and you end up with a wet bum if it rains. That’s not how they started out, though. They were for cowboys and that, to save their legs when they had to ride through thorn bush, stuff like that. Chaparral, they call it. Then it got all fashionised. You gave Sam a present, didn’t you?”
“What? Oh! The hat. Yeah. I can pay for that, if you want”
“Don’t be daft, duck. It’s all family money, anyway”
That word would always warm me, but Dad hadn’t finished.
“I was listening, duck. Remember how and why you sold the idea to him? Not how cool it would look, how all the boys on big bikes had them, but shade, rain down his neck. Reality, that what was what you gave him. Like chaps. Right, Mam?”
“Yeah, love! Deb, that other meaning?”
“Men?”
“Indeed! Now, there are chaps who wear chaps because of what they do, and there are chaps who wear chaps because they think it makes their little chaps bigger”
It was my turn to laugh, and she waited patiently till I had finished.
“Posers, Deb love. Willy wavers. Not the sort of people we want to know. Chaps, yeah? No, we will not be going back to that one, and I don’t expect it will be going for that many seasons. Some chap will piss off another chap, and that will be the end of it. What we might do is set up by the seaside. Get the straights in, as well as the lads who want a ride out. Grab their cash, love, without having to sleep near them. Sound like a plan?”
It did, and in the end, it worked out well, as the weather stayed drier by the sea than it did inland, where it hammered down for days.
My new but provisional driving licence was waiting in a post office in Whitehaven, and after a quick stop at a garage, we had L-plates. Dad fastened them to both van and trailer, grinned and handed me the van key.
“Maryport marketplace please, driver!”
The next few months were a real bright spot in my life. We worked our way up through Scotland and yes, it rained horrendously as we crossed Beattock Summit, but the Red Moss Inn still held an open fire, and after we had covered the usual spots between the two big cities, Dad decided we needed to go further, “Just this once”, and we ended up in a field near Port Appin. God knows how we managed to get there; there was more than one climb, including the one from Bridge of Orchy, that left the van struggling, and some of the traffic was just stupid in its volume, especially in Glen Coe, but we got there in the end. To no great surprise on my part, Dad had a name from Carol, a Buddhist from Wolverhampton who was doing his best to live in sympathy with the land, or some such set of beliefs, and he had a field with a view of the sea, and some hard standing where Dad could tweak the clutch from the Commer in between doing several maintenance jobs for Carol’s friend, who may have wished to live in sympathy with et cetera, but seemed to see nothing wrong in using a few pieces of more modern machinery.
More modern than a sickle or a horse-drawn plough, but that wasn’t saying much. Dad was in his element, leaving Mam and me to explore the country around us. Carol’s friend, who called himself Lobsang, but had apparently begun (this) life as Derek, had a couple of bicycles in a shed. After Dad had fettled them, Mam and I set out on what felt like epic voyages around Appin. I loved it. A narrow strip of green fields lay between the brown of the higher ground that hemmed it on either side, and together with the gentle waves of the sea loch and the purple of the surrounding hills, it was as close to paradise as anyone could wish.
Apart from the evening midges, that is.
All things have to come to an end, though, and we were back on the road, the van sounding a little better even when it was me doing the driving. Day by day we worked across the outskirts of Edinburgh, before ticking all my favourite boxes for that stretch, including fish and chips from Eyemouth. This time, Duncan wasn’t at the counter, his place taken by a younger man.
“You’ve been here before, aye? I recognise your van. Traders or on some expedition thing?”
Mam was the one at the counter, and simply nodded.
“Traders”
I recognised the unspoken signals: would this turn into a rant about ‘tinkers’, or stay polite?
“Aye, well, you’ll be wanting to stop in by Berwick, then. At Highfields. Got a country fair thing on, using the land before the new development starts. Get some good trade there, you will”
He paused, staring at me.
“Got you now. You’re Duncan’s mates, aren’t you?”
Mam relaxed her grip on my hand.
“That we are, love. How is he?”
“Not so well, Missus. Had a heart attack a month ago, and they have him in the Infirmary. Doing OK, but they say he needs to go up to Embra for a bypass thing. Operation. He’d be glad of a visit, I’m sure. I recognise you two now, or at least this one. You were only a wee thing when I first saw you, lassie. You’re looking well now. Skate, wasn’t it?”
Once again, I saw the network that binds people together. It turned out that Iain was one of Duncan’s cousins, running his own shop up in St Abbs, and had stepped in for Duncan when he had been taken ill. Family, humanity, working together; dharma, as Carol would say. We took our food, and with it Iain handed over a note for Duncan, so that he would remember he was never alone.
Rosie, Gandalf, Nigel, Graham, Carol, my own family. I was so much luckier than I had ever realised, and I found myself thinking back to poor Benny, or that odd kid Bowles, as well as all those buried in a garden in Carlisle, and I knew my plans for my later life were absolutely right.
We dropped in at the infirmary, just Mam and I, while Dad kept the stall earning at Highfields. Iain’s note made Duncan smile, as did my appearance, and after a number of bad jokes about the effects on his heart of being visited by two such attractive young ladies, we took our leave with smiles and gentle hugs. Duncan looked so grey, shrunken to nothing in his hospital bed, but there was a smile for us as we left.
I never saw him again.
We capped off the season with five days at Graham’s, where I alternated lying in the dunes with instruction from him and Dad on driving the larger vehicles on site. It was hard work, but I seemed to have a knack for it, and as usual their patience was amazing. Graham made most of the bad jokes, for once.
“Aye, Ken, and if she strips this gearbox, at least you are there to fettle it! I ought to charge you hiring fees. By the hour, the day, or the clutch plate?”
Happy days indeed.
Two more years went by like that, the last two years of what I thought of as my gypsy days. Two more years of freedom and warmth, three to a bed in the Commer or comfy in my own little tent as Mam and Dad took the chance to make love together, which I never felt as exclusion. Family life and love together, just as Iain had stepped in for Duncan, as Sam would always be there for his sister even if he might sometimes need a hint.
Iain had shown me that essential fact: that those ties and bonds remained, whatever the distances involved. Wherever Mam and Dad travelled, they would be mine and I theirs, forever.
I held onto that thought as I stood at the counter in the Cannock offices of Warwick and Mayhew. The receptionist was immaculate, her hair back-combed to a staggering volume, her lippy far too bright.
“Can I help you?”
“I have an appointment. Deb Wells”
“Is it for the office girl job? Cause that’s been filled”
“No. It’s for lessons”
“Sorry, but we don’t do driving lessons for cars. We just do heavy goods vehicles. You could try Jackson’s, down on Newhall Street. They use Minis, so it would be easier for you”
Fuck you, love. Fuck you sideways, you and that fluff on your head. I dug into the wallet I kept chained to my belt.
“There’s my licence, love. I passed it years ago. I have an appointment for starting HGV training, so if you wouldn’t mind…”
CHAPTER 36
So many changes to my life began that day. It wasn’t just the stress and challenge of learning to handle multiple tons of recalcitrant wagon, but the solitude I was left with in the Cannock house.
Mam and Dad were back on the road a week after dropping me off, for the simple reason that we needed the income, and that was how we got it. I had Carol and Peter next door, of course, which meant a regular meal in their company, as well as the steady supply of my drugs and hormones. That actually brought another major change in everything, as Carol insisted I had to go straight, which threw me for a second. She caught my expression, grinning happily.
“No, woman! Not wearing a twinset and listening to Cliff Richard! Have you registered with a GP yet?”
“No”
“Well, you need to. Get your medication above board, which would save me and him fussing about, for one thing. Also gets it on record, so it’s transferrable”
“What do you mean transferrable?”
“Oh, come on! You really intend to live your current life in bloody Cannock? Your next one might be worse, so make the best of this one, love. Dharma and karma!”
I took her point, and two weeks after my first meeting with Little Miss Fluff, I was standing before her counterpart in a surgery just off Church Street. This time, the receptionist was much older, in a bobbly wool suit, pointy-framed glasses attached to a neck chain.
“Can I help you?”
“Um, yes. I’d like to register as a patient here”
“Are you local?”
I gave her the address of our winter house, and she nodded.
“Aye, that’s ours. Name?”
“Deborah Petrie Wells”
The usual details followed, and then came the crunchy one. The Parsons had never, to my knowledge, involved a doctor in the gentle and loving care regime at their happy home in Runcorn, probably because five minutes of his time would have resulted in several years of prison for them, so I had to think fast, stretching my memory back well over a decade.
“Previous doctor? Oh… hang on… that would be, um… Doctor Howard, up at Connah’s Quay, Flintshire. Don’t know if he’s still there. To be honest, the surgery might not be either. Not been there for over ten years”
She took off her glasses, holding them in one hand as her eyes narrowed.
“What reason would you have for not seeing your doctor in a decade? Amazingly fortunate in our health, are we? If I write to them for details, for your medical records to be transferred, what EXACTLY are they going to tell me?”
I tried to stop them, but I could feel my hands starting to shake, and she clearly noticed.
“Doris? Take over here for a bit, will you? Just be a few minutes, ta!”
Still without her glasses, she turned her gaze back onto me.
“That door there. Go in, take a seat. Wait. Or clear off now and we forget all of this. Your choice. Not mine”
It had to be done, so I did as she said, feeling horribly alone. No Mam or Dad, Carol not with me to spare her any possible fall-out from being associated with me; it hurt, and I couldn’t stop the shaking in my hands.
Five minutes after I had sat down, Mrs Bobbly entered, shut the door behind her and took a seat on the other side of the little table.
“Right, young lady: what is going on here? I will tell you right now that none of our doctors will write out a scrip for a junky, so if that is what you are here for, you can forget it and sod off right now, pardon my French”
I couldn’t speak.
“So that’s it? What were you after? Valium? Heroin?”
I muttered something, and she demanded I speak up.
“I’m not a junky, Miss”
“Well tell me what you are, then!”
“Um… the records you want from Flintshire will be in the name William Wells”
There was a clear moment of disconnection between her mind and her mouth, which hung open for around three seconds.
“Oh. OH! I see. Like that April Ashley person…. Oh. I think I should start over again, and I am sorry. Just, well, the way you’re dressed and that. We get a lot of chancers in here, and it’s always ‘My medical records will catch up’ and that. Have you had, you know, it all chopped about and that?”
My confidence was returning steadily as I came onto what would become extremely familiar ground, being the fascination of straights for other people’s knicker contents. I confirmed that no, I hadn’t been chopped about, and she seemed to recover her professional composure a little.
“Why such a gap between doctors. Miss Wells?”
“I was… I was in a home”
Her eyes widened.
“Not that place in Carlisle? Or the other one in Runcorn?”
“Runcorn”
“Oh shit! Sorry. Shouldn’t use language, but. Shit. I see, now. I am so sorry, love. Are you OK? Now?”
“I suppose I am, as best as I can. Just want to make sure it stays that way, which is why I want to register with a doctor”
“Your records will be in a lad’s name, though…”
Before I could reply, she shook herself, almost a shudder, then gave me a smile for the first time.
“Would you mind waiting a few minutes, love? I need to talk this through with one of the doctors, and I think I know which one would be best. Would you like a cuppa while you wait?”
What I really wanted to do was run away, but it needed to be sorted, so I found a smile and nodded my thanks for the tea, which was in front of me five minutes later, along with two digestive biscuits.
I think it was the biscuits that put me at ease, as I couldn’t really envisage being handcuffed with crumbs on my chin. Ten minutes after the tea arrived, Mrs Bobbly was back, bringing another smile.
“Doctor Nugent will see you. Out this way; second door on the left. See it?”
As I slipped past her, she whispered “And sorry, love. Really sorry”
I knocked at the door in question, and received a “Come in!” in a woman’s voice. I entered, seeing a thirtyish brunette in a paisley blouse with plain slacks.
“Miss Wells?”
“Yes, Doctor”
“Please take a seat. You have caused all sorts of upset to poor Maureen. She normally eats patients and spits out the bones, so it takes a lot to fluster her”
“I’m sorry for that”
“Not at all. Now, she indicates that you are what we call a transsexual. Would that be accurate?”
“I suppose so. I just think of myself as a woman”
“Well, we shall see. Maureen tells me you haven’t had the surgery to complete things, so if you wouldn’t mind, I would really like to examine you. Are those real?”
“Are what? Oh, my breasts? Yes”
“So you have been on some form of hormone replacement regime, then. I will not ask how that has been managed, as I rather suspect you wouldn’t tell me. Am I right?”
I found myself smiling again as she prattled on, for I felt nothing coming from her but sympathy, and nodded.
“OK, then. We shall deal with what we have here rather than what is past. Now…”
She did the usual stuff with blood pressure and heart, height and weight, before writing out a slip of paper for a nurse to take some blood.
“Now, Miss Wells, I will really need to examine you fully. If you wish, I can ask for a chaperone during the process, which would be your choice, but I will be honest with you in that I am going to do my best to ensure that the number of people who know about your circumstances remains as small as possible. If that is acceptable, please undress, just down to your underwear”
She made sure all the curtains were drawn, before locking the door, and I slipped out of my clothes, standing before her in bra and knickers as she made notes.
“Has anyone told you about breast examinations, Miss Wells? For pre-cancerous lumps? You do it like so…”
She worked through a few other checks, then frowned.
“I will need to see your genitals, please. I am sorry. I won’t touch you, but I may ask you to manipulate—move—them for me. Is that acceptable?”
I nodded, turned my back on her and started to roll down my knickers. As I bent my left leg to slip them over that foot, I heard her hiss.
“WHO. DID. THAT?”
I slumped.
“Already spoken to the police, Doctor, but I don’t want to get into a court thing because, well, you know”
Her voice softened.
“Would you mind if I examined that area properly, Deborah?”
“It’s Debbie”
“Debbie. Thank you. May I?”
“Go ahead”
She was quick, and after her inspection of my penis and testicles, she asked me to dress again.
“Debbie, I can guess how those injuries arose, but you were clearly treated by a very talented doctor or nurse. The… the repair work is excellent. The culprits?”
“One’s dead; the other’s banged away for life. They both moved from Runcorn to Carlisle”
I noticed her knuckles whitening as she gripped her pen.
“I rather think that answers my question. The seamstress? Someone you would prefer remained unknown?”
I nodded, and she gave me a real smile, as soft as anything I had seen that day.
“But someone you love deeply, yes?”
“Oh yes”
“Good. All I need to know, but please pass them a message. Tell them that they have graced the medical profession. Now, I need you to see the nurse for those bloods, and then I shall call you back for a chat. We need to discuss anti-androgens, as well as a properly controlled hormone regime. This route is clearly the right one for you; I am just sorry that you had such a dreadful journey to it”
I rose to go, and she shook my hand with real warmth. Just as I opened the door, she called after me.
“Oh, Debbie? Just curiosity, but was there a boy called Bowles in that place in Runcorn?”
“Yes, I believe so. Why?”
Her eyes flickered, just a little, then the smile came back, rather more tightly.
“Can I suggest you pick up a copy of one of the national papers? You will want to read what they have to say about him”
I slipped back out, past a smile and wave from Bobbly Maureen, and looked for a newsagent. I found one next to the bus station, and for once surrendered to what my parents had always damned as papers unfit even to line a cat’s litter tray, and it was there, in far too much detail.
Arthur Henry Bowles. I remembered him, absolutely, and if I had it right, he had had something to do with the closure of Mersey View, stabbing somebody. This time, his place in the paper was assured by his abduction, rape and murder of three young men. They didn’t call it rape, of course, not back then. It was only ‘indecent assault’, but to me it was rape, and in my soul I knew exactly where it had come from, what had turned a silent little boy into a monster, and it involved the sound of footsteps on the stairs in the middle of a Runcorn night.
CHAPTER 37
The pattern of my life was set for the next year and a half, and to be honest, it wasn’t that bad. I worked hard in the week, putting in the hours at both the training centre and the local haulier, Mossman’s, that Dad had passed my care onto. There is more to driving a freight lorry than sitting behind the wheel, and Mossman’s gave me a decent apprenticeship in those extras. Their fitters talked me through the basics of maintenance, so that I could make a half-decent guess at the cause of a problem, and perhaps solve it without needing to call out a fitter or tow truck, but that wasn’t all of it.
Etiquette, in essence, was the main part of my education. I took my lessons as ‘driver’s mate’ in the left-hand seat of wagons travelling throughout the West Midlands and Merseyside, learning where the best greasy spoons were, and not just Hollies, with particular emphasis on those cafes that offered their tea in pint mugs rather than in smaller measures. A cold day tugging at the side curtains of an articulated lorry, or running a pallet truck around an unheated loading bay, left me with the need to wrap both hands fully around a sizeable and warm object, and a pint mug was ideal.
I started my own little list of those who also offered hot chocolate in similar measure, as well as one for those places whose reaction to a woman trucker was less than progressive. I only had to punch two warehouse hands before word got around that grabbing my arse was bad for the health of those around me, especially the owners of the hands in question.
And I read, particularly a book by a young man who had survived that place in Carlisle. I really had been so very, very lucky. Don was dead, and I would never, ever have to hear, see, feel or taste Charlie Cooper, ever again.
Weekends varied, because Mam and Dad were on the road, and that meant almost anywhere in Great Britain. If their weekend plans were near enough, Carol or Pete would run me over in their car. If possible, I would hop a train, to be met either by one of my parents or, on several occasions, by a biker with a spare lid and a space on his pillion. The words were almost always the same, either “You Debbie?” or “You Badger’s girl?”, but always followed by a grin and a “Hang on, love! Bar’s open and time’s wasting!” and an enthusiastic blast to the rally site, cobwebs blown out of my mind along with the memories of the straights I had to work beside.
It was at times like that when the questions rose up about my choice of lifestyle. Why couldn’t I simply stay with my parents, live my, our life the way I loved it? I would rock out in the marquee, Mam beside me with any other friends we were sharing the weekend with, and the music would take me in its embrace and give me life for a few hours.
I was sitting in the sun one Saturday morning, recharging before the evenings emotion and release, when I caught Mam grinning at me.
“What?”
“Nothing much, love. Just, well, remembering when we first met. How you’ve come on. Carol says there’s been a few black eyes around loading docks in The Potteries”
“Well, Stoke’s a shithole, and it’s full of tossers who can’t keep their hands to themselves!”
She laughed out loud, a sound I would never tire of hearing, and reached across for my hand.
“Only partly my point, love. Remember telling my why you picked your name? Can’t really see Debbie Reynolds bopping away like you do, can I?”
All I could do was grin back, conceding her point, and she squeezed my hand.
“Not trying to be anymore, Deb, love. That’s you now. You are fully and clearly your own person. Warms our hearts, it does. Now, there’s a reason I ask this, but bear with me. How is your doctor treating you?”
“She’s a diamond, Mam. Right from the start she’s treated me properly”
“How did she react to… What did she say about your history?”
I squeezed back, smiling.
“I think she wanted to be less than medically professional with those bastards from Runcorn. And she said something like she didn’t need to know who or where, but the person who treated me graced the medical profession. Those were her words. Graced”
“Thank you, love. Dad and me, well, we took a big chance on you back then—no! Listen to me. Not having a go at you, am I? Would I do such a thing, love?”
“Sorry”
“Well, OK. What I meant was that all we saw was a dirty kid. Wasn’t till I saw… It wasn’t until we both realised who you really were that it made sense, and this is important, so shush till I finish. We gave you a hell of a lot in those early days, Debbie, but you needed it. Not calling for repayment, nothing daft like that. Just saying the truth. I know you, we both do, him and me, and you will have been thinking how it’s all been one-way traffic, us doing the giving, you just taking. Well, making things clear, I am now. You’ll have been sitting in our house wondering how to repay us, all that sort of crap, thinking you’re a sponger, and I think some of that is behind the black eyes you’ve given out. Thinking of yourself as worth less than other people”
I stared at her, and she continued, her smile far softer.
“Deb, I remember that time we had the gob from that arsehole outside Gretna. I remember those girls where you sat your O-levels. I know how alone you must feel, sitting in Cannock. Just remember, love, that it’s a two-way street, two-way traffic. You see us at places like this, and it brings you back to yourself, yeah?”
“Yeah”
“Well, same for us. We are a family again, just for the weekend, love, and me, your Dad, well, it completes us as much as it does you, and when you’re gone again, we know it’s no great deal, because you’ll be back in a week or two, and we’ll be a family once more. Now, there’s a reason for it all getting maudlin, but not an urgent one, and what I really wanted to say is that Dad and me have sent a letter to a solicitor in Cannock. Last will and testament thing. You are the beneficiary, love. We’ll get it all sorted formal-like when we’re next at the house, but it means that if anything happens to us, you are still family. Is that OK?”
I started to argue, as I knew they had distant blood kin somewhere, but she stretched across and put her finger to my lips.
“Relatives aren’t family, love. Family is what you find for yourself. Family is what you do for each other”
All I could do was kiss her fingertip, then move across to hold her tightly.
“Getting tall, love. Now, why don’t you go and give your Dad a break from the stand for a little while? I have some plans for his body, and it might scare people’s dogs if I carry them out in the open…”
That Winter, we went together to the solicitor, Mam and Dad preparing and signing similar Wills, each naming me as second beneficiary, just in case either of them went before the other. Christmas and New Year came and went. Peter got frozen feet again, and everything was as it should be. Nobody got arrested, no pubs were trashed, but the debris on the morning of January 1st took two days to clear up. Another New Year, with even more changes in my life. Those days of standing in The Rows and dreaming of Debbie Reynolds while staring at holiday posters seemed like someone else’s memories, another person’s life, and I could see exactly how misjudged my attempt to get back together with my biological parents had been.
They had never been family, just relatives. I took another crate of empty bottles out to the back yard, doing my best not to rattle them as I passed the sofa, where my real family lay asleep.
CHAPTER 38
The letter was waiting for me one Wednesday evening in early May, sitting on the doormat when I returned from a job running a groupage to three addresses in Stafford. The envelope was handwritten, and I didn’t recognise the style, but there was a real stamp on rather than an imprint from an office franking machine, which had been the case with the first letter, the one I had found on the same mat on Tuesday.
That first letter had left me shaken, and that morning my driver had walked me off into the yard after I had snarled at too many of the first site’s warehouse hands and was about to start on the Customs man who had stopped by to check the seals were intact.
“What the fuck is up with you, girl? You about to go on the rag or what?”
“Sorry, Mick”
“Do not piss off the Cussers, Deb. Never. Ever. They have ways to ruin your day if you do. So what is it?”
“Personal news, Mick”
I thought for a few seconds, but in the end, I had to share the news with someone, and I had no way of contacting my Mam or Dad, who were somewhere in Cornwall, and Carol and Pete were on an early holiday in Spain, or I would probably have been sobbing into their embrace.
“Mick?”
“Yes, kid?”
“Could we have a break somewhere, after we drop the loads? I need to talk something through”
“With me?”
I found myself grinning, not in a happy way.
“Who else can I talk this through with?”
“Suppose so. Not up the duff, are you?”
That actually made me laugh, only partly at his assumptions.
“I think I’d actually need to do some shagging for that!”
He coughed out a smoker’s laugh.
“Probably help if you spent less time punching the lads in the gob! Aye, go on, then. There’s a half decent caff on the A34 we can stop at. Warm enough to sit outside for a bit, if you’d like”
I reined in my aggression for the rest of the day, as far as I could, and true to Mick’s promise, the end of our drops saw us on wooden benches at an elderly picnic table. He made himself a roll-up as I read the letter through once more.
“Mick?”
“Aye?”
“You know I’m adopted, don’t you?”
“Aye. You’re still Ken’s girl, far as I’m concerned”
“Goes the same for me. He’s my Dad, she’s my Mam. Always will be. Thing is, I had other parents, birth parents. Over the border”
“What? Paddies?”
“No. Nearer border, you teasing fucker. You know damned well I’m Welsh!”
He grinned back, having achieved his aim of lightening the mood, if only a little.
“Thing is, Mick, I got a letter on Monday”
“From your birth parents?”
“Thank you for that”
“For what?”
“Not calling them my ‘real’ ones”
Not for the first time, I was given a little insight into the depths hidden away in the most unlikely of people.
“Said it yourself, kid. Real parents, aye? Anyway, what they got to say for themselves?”
I sighed, not sure quite how to begin. Both feet together and jump in, Deb.
“Not actually a letter from them, Mick. It’s from some law firm. It’s about probate or whatever it’s called. Seems my father went a few years ago, and my mother’s just followed him”
“Ah, shit, Deb! They sending bailiffs for funeral costs or something?”
“No, not that. My parents were with the Co-Op. Dad, my father, he might have been a nasty bastard, but he was tight with money. Squirreled it away in life policies and stuff like that, and they had a funeral plan all paid up, so no. No bailiffs”
“What, then?”
“Dad and Mam, my real ones, they stirred up some shit when I turned eighteen. Got the Council to sort out my records properly. I think someone over in Flint has a good memory, and it looks like I am the only relative. They put two and two together, and got me”
He perked up a little, roll-up still unlit.
“That mean they’ve left you something?”
I nodded, and he shook his head, looking a little embarrassed.
“Sorry, kid. Should have asked, shown respect, aye? How did they go?”
“According to the letter, my father had an aneurysm. Doesn’t surprise me, really. He was always a nasty bastard, with a nasty temper. He was probably slapping my mother around, not having me there to hit instead, so I hope it fucking hurt. They say my mother went from some complications to do with diabetes”
I shook my head, surprised at how emotional I was getting.
“Never had any respect for either of them, Mick. Dumped me into Care when I was nine, left me to rot. Still feels crap, though, all my history and shit gone up a chimney. What do I do?”
He lit his cigarette, taking a long drag before holding it a little behind him to save me from the smoke.
“Take the fucking money, kid. That’s what you do. What have they got? Apart from a life policy, that is”
“Er, a house”
“Fuck me! That’s going to be a tidy sum, kid! Any plans?”
“No, not really. Put it into the family pot, I suppose. Family’s family”
He shook his head.
“No, kid. That’s just waste. What you do is talk to a money man, independent sort. Get that cash into some sort of high interest account. Let it work for you while you think on what you’d like to do with it. Don’t leave it sitting, OK?”
I nodded, and he reached out to pat my arm.
“Rumours about you are that you spent time in one of those shitholes that were in the papers a few years ago. Not going to ask, but if even half of that’s true, you deserve some good in your life. Speak to Ken and Loz, see what they think. But go and get that money and put it somewhere productive. Now, go and put the boards up on the wagon. You’re driving it back to the yard”.
He was as sound about my windfall as I had expected, saying nothing to anybody at work, and I could see his logic. When I got home that evening, too late to call the law firm, I wrote them a short letter agreeing to meet in order to discuss the legacy.
Those thoughts were blown right out of my head when I had returned home to find the second envelope. It had a Cardiff postmark, and for a second I wondered if it was that copper again, but the address wasn’t typed, and there was a real stamp attached, so it could be…
I sat down hard on the stairs, suddenly terrified that the contents would be a repeat of the earlier one, expressing regret…
Not Mam or Dad. No…
Handwriting. Stamp. Thin and stiff. I tore it open, to find a cream card with a familiar MC’s colours printed on it, together with a single sheet of paper.
The card read “Debbie Petrie is cordially invited by Y Culhwch MC to celebrate the wedding of our brother Goat to Wildcat. Civil formalities will be followed by more traditional event at the Clubhouse. RSVP”
Wildcat? I unfolded the sheet of paper.
Dearest Debbie
I wasn’t sure how to break this to you, because I know how you feel about my Carling, but I knew I had to offer. You have been my best friend for so long, so how could I leave you out of this? I will understand if you say you can’t come, but I really, really hope you can be there for our day. We will do the official bit down at the Registry Office, but then it’s back to the Clubhouse for a proper do. Got two bands in, and there will be no straights at all. Addresses are on the card.
Please come, love. I know it will be hard for you, but it wouldn’t be the same without you. I just wish things could be different for you, but I know what those cunts did to you, and I know how it has fucked you up. Just for a weekend, just like the old days, come and rock out with those who love you.
Rosie and Carl
I sat on the second step from the bottom, dropped my face to my knees, and wept.
An hour or so later, I was sobbed out, and shakily rose from my squat to put the kettle on, scooping hot chocolate into a mug after stuffing some savoury pancakes into the oven, mentally thumbing my nose at concepts of a healthy diet. The date of the wedding was four weeks away. I had time to get across to Connah’s Quay before then, which was the one decision I could commit to, thanks to Mick’s advice.
I could take the money, and already had an idea about one use for it. I wasn’t sure if I could take the wedding.
CHAPTER 39
Mick Worsley had put a word in for me with the boss, and they had been as helpful as I could have hoped. There was a drop due in Chester, another a day later. I could ride there on the first drop, and if I could find somewhere to spend the night, I was guaranteed a lift most of the way there and back. I had started to laugh when Mr Mossman mentioned ‘finding somewhere to stay’, and he had given me a sharp look.
“Nothing really, Boss. It’s just that the last time I found somewhere to pass the night in Chester, it was under a tarpaulin in a pleasure boat by the river. I might just go a bit upmarket this time”
That had actually brought a smile with some real warmth, and I had wondered, not the first time, how much Dad had told him about my background. He was as good as his word, though, and three days later, after a call to the solicitor in Connah’s Quay, I was in the right-hand seat of a Leyland wagon on the road to Chester. My driver dropped me right next to the station, which stirred an awful lot of mixed memories, and I had to remind myself that this time I would be buying a ticket and travelling in accordance with the rules.
I still couldn’t help looking over my shoulder for the bulky shape of a certain large policeman. Old ghosts are hard to kill.
The train left thirty minutes after my arrival, working its way alongside the Dee and past the airport, until it arrived at Shotton, where more memories struck me. I walked up Chester Road, feeling oddly superior at how scruffy the place felt, and found the law firm I wanted, on the first floor almost opposite the Post Office.
I was in casual clothing, some old jeans and my leather jacket over a Led Zeppelin T-shirt, hair loose over my shoulders.
“Can I help you?”
Another overly-dressed young woman at reception, nails bright scarlet and filed to points. I hoped she wasn’t responsible for any typing.
Down, Deb, you bitch. Be Nice.
“Hi. I am here about the affairs of Mr and Mrs Wells. I have an appointment with a Mister Knight”
“Can I take a name?”
“Deborah Petrie Wells”
“Oh. Any relation?”
“They were my mother and father”
“Oh…”
She looked hard at the file she had found, stared even harder at me, then pressed a button on a desk intercom.
“Mr Knight? I have a… I have a Deborah Wells to see you. They say they have an appointment”
I couldn’t hear anything other than some squawking, but thirty seconds later a door opened and a florid-faced man in a suit called over to me.
“Deborah Wells?”
“That’s me”
“Would you care to come in?”
I took a seat opposite him as he settled behind a desk covered in manila files, one of them open in front of him. His gaze went everywhere, before settling unsettlingly on my chest for far too long.
“This is all very unusual…”
I was ready to bite, but I remembered my resolution to Be Nice. I was after a settlement, not a fight, and I could surely manage not to punch him for the short time I had to be there.
“Well, unusual or not, here are my details. Driver’s licence in my name, pay slips with my name and address on and a copy of the paperwork when I changed my name. Is that a problem?”
I wanted to add ‘Do you like what you see?’, but I was concentrating on Being Nice. Sod it.
“Mr Knight, as you can see, William Wells has changed his life fundamentally. The documents I have provided should be sufficient to show that I am the person in question”
“Yes…”
Fuck Nice.
“Mr Knight. If you want, I can call for the care records showing when I was placed into Mersey View children’s home, and we can talk abuse and abandonment, but I don’t think we need to go that far. Do you have issues with my identity? If not, can we proceed? I have things to do, places to go, and as I have had no breakfast, I am not in the most tolerant of moods”
He sat and stared at me for a few seconds, face pink, then murmured, “Mersey View? In Runcorn?”
I raised both eyebrows.
“Didn’t you know? That is where my dear mother and father dumped me”
A few more moments of silence, then an attempt at a smile.
“I am sorry, Miss Wells. I was unaware of that part of your history, and I feel I may have begun this meeting in an insensitive way. I now understand the depth of your estrangement from your parents”
“They were not my parents. They were my mother and father. I have parents now, and they are fine people, and we love each other, as a real family should”
No, girl. Nice. Play Nice.
“Mr Knight, thank you for your apology. Please be aware that this is not something I was pushed into. My situation now, my life, my being Debbie, are the things that made my father push me out of the family. This is who I am. It is reasonable, you would agree, that I get a bit prickly when people pick on me”
He shook his head, muttering “Corbett and Corbett. Oh dear”, before looking up at me again, with rather more sympathy in his eyes.
“Miss Wells, you do realise that the law does not actually allow you to be recognised as a woman? I assume that is how you regard yourself?”
“Mr Knight, I came here to sort out a legacy, not discuss my life”
“Ah. I understand. You have my profound sympathy in that aspect. I wish to offer a suggestion, rather than intrude, and it is a well-meant one. I will assume that your status, legally, is not an open matter for those you work with or encounter in your daily life? That you live entirely as a woman?”
“I am a woman!”
“Please do not take offence, but the law states that you are not and never will be”
I started to stand up, fuck his attitude, fuck his opinion, and he held up both hands to calm me.
“No. No offence intended. I merely wish to make you an offer”
I settled down again.
“What are you proposing?”
“It is a simple thing. There will be a number of occasions in which someone in your position will need legal services, and at the moment, the position… Um, your status, it is currently known to me. To involve another legal firm would widen the circle of those aware, in my view unnecessarily”
I gave him the eyebrows again.
“You mean you smell the chance of more money from me?”
For the first time, I saw him smile in a natural way.
“Guilty, Miss Wells, but I feel we have mutual interests here from which both of us can benefit. You may find the law on your status altering. May I ask a very personal question, for a valid reason?”
“You can ask, but I might well tell you to fuck off”
His laugh was also a genuine one now.
“I see you have recovered your poise after your… unfortunate childhood. No, the question is being asked for a reason. Are you familiar with the Wolfenden report and subsequent legislation?”
“Never heard of it”
“It is the reason for my intrusive question, Miss Wells. Am I correct in assuming you see yourself entirely as female? As a young woman?”
“I am a woman!”
“Are you conventional in your affections, Miss Wells?”
What? Oh… I thought of the wedding invitation, and nodded, looking down at my knees.
“Then be aware that acting on such affections is currently illegal for you. The law considers you to be a man, and as you are under twenty-one years of age, any sexual activity you may engage in would be a criminal offence for both of you”
I looked up sharply, and he winced.
“I see. Then you have both been lucky. That, Miss Wells, is only one example of your potential difficulties. Keeping your situation confidential, within these walls, would be a sensible precaution. I will leave you to consider that, and move on. Your father was a very odd man, Miss Wells”
“He was a complete bastard!”
“As it may be, indeed. He had two life assurance policies on both himself and your mother, plus a third, on you”
“What the fu--- what the hell?”
“The two on your mother and father have obviously matured, if that can be said to be the right description, and your mother’s assured sum, plus what is left of your father’s legacy, will be available to you. Your own policy can be left to run, or collected. If left to run, you will need to make arrangements to deal with the premiums, both current and outstanding. I believe, given your circumstances, that we have a case to contest cancellation and loss of monies invested. Would you be happy for us to proceed on that basis?”
“Er, yes. Please”
He made a few notes, then pulled over a smaller file folder.
“That leaves us with the property on Castrian Street. What are your intentions there? Can I assume that you do not intend to take up your former life in this town?
“Absolutely!”
“Then your choice is either to arrange to let the premises, which I would not recommend in the prevailing economic situation, or to sell. We can fulfil the necessary task for either. I would personally favour a sale as the better option”
By the time I left his office, I was almost in shock. The total sum we were looking at, given the local property prices, was going to be well into five figures, a sum I would never have dreamt of in the most delirious of my happy-family fantasies, and it would go a very long way to repay some of my debt to my real parents. It felt apt, in truth, that two people, one in particular, who had done so much to hurt me would end up giving such benefit to two who loved me.
Back to Shotton and the slow train to the city, and I decided to splash out on a B&B in the centre rather than some dosshouse near the industrial estates or station. Mick was due to collect me from the station at two or three the next afternoon, so I had time for some memories. I left my bag in the guesthouse, and made my way along Foregate past the clock to The Rows, where I spent an hour staring into shops I remembered far too well, plus others that had replaced what I now felt had been old friends, now lost. A travel agent window held a poster showing a generic family at the beach, all four people grinning inanely, and I found myself weeping as I stood and stared.
“Are you OK, Miss?”
I returned to reality to find a policeman standing behind me, and had a moment of panic before realising there were no longer risks in being where I was standing.
“Sorry?”
“You are crying, love. You all right?”
“Sorry. Didn’t realise. Just been dealing with solicitors and shit. My mother died”
“I am so sorry to hear that, love. Can I make a suggestion? There’s a not-bad café just round the corner. Do decent cake, and not too touristy. Do you good to use their ladies’ to clean your eyes, then have a cuppa. Too nice a day to be crying. Remember her in better times, would be my advice”
“Thank you, constable. Um… Can I ask a question? About another copper?”
“You can. Might not know the answer, though, if he’s gone. I moved over from Nantwich, so might be before my time”
“Sergeant Addams. Big man”
The policeman’s face hardened.
“We don’t talk about that bastard, pardon my French. Banged away, he is, and good riddance to bad rubbish, the bent bastard. You might have heard about that bad place up in Runcorn. Children’s home. Really, really bad place. He was on the take from them. If he was a mate or something, sorry, but not sorry, if you see what I mean. What they did to kids there, you really don’t want to know. Forget him. Go and wash your face, have a cuppa and a slice of cake, then just enjoy the day. Nice weather. Not to be spoiled by that sort of thing. Now, you sure you’re OK?”
I shook his hand, smiling up at him. One more like Anita or Tim than that fat bastard of a sergeant. Be Nice, Debbie.
“Thanks. I’m fine. Got to be: I have a friend’s wedding coming up in a fortnight. Can’t take a frown as a wedding present, can I?”
He smiled, and set off on his beat once more, and I went for the suggested cuppa and cake, which was excellent. Decision made; people were being there for me, people always had been, apart from those years of hell. Even Knight had come through, after his initial creepiness.
Rosie and Carl deserved it, and I resolved to give them the best Debbie I could for their wedding. Before then, I had a lot of research to do.
CHAPTER 40
Cardiff wasn’t on any of Mossman’s schedules, so I had to take the train. Carol dropped me off at Cannock station early in the morning, which saved me some faff as well as giving her time to speak rather a few words of calm and comfort. I had a rucksack with the basics, plus a sleeping bag wrapped round a single air mattress, as the wedding and sort-of-reception would be at an MC clubhouse, and I had no idea what their sleeping arrangements were.
Mam and Dad had written to me as well by then, simply stating that they would wait for me at the Central Station. All they wanted was an idea of which train, and that was to be posted to Nigel’s place. I ended up standing by the train at Cannock, never mind Cardiff, trying to decide whether to board it or not. In the end, my love of Rosie won out over my sense of loss, and as the door slammed, the guard’s whistle blew, and my choice was made for me.
It wasn’t that long a run down into Birmingham, but the station there was a complete shithole. I was glad to leave the place, buried as it was underground, but the second train was stupidly slow, taking an age to get to Bristol, where I had to change again for reasons that were never explained. Finally, I was on the last run, through the Severn Tunnel and Newport before the last and slowest stretch into the station at Cardiff. I could see the Arms Park to the North, as well as the Brains brewery chimney to the South-West. Mam and Dad should be just outside…
Mam grabbed me first, in a hug that nearly stopped my breath, as Dad simply took my bedroll and wrapped us both up. Mam was in tears.
“We have missed you so much, love! So bloody much!”
Her tears brought mine on, and Dad wasn’t far off, so I squeezed them both and forced a smile.
“Cuppa before we go? Must be somewhere near the station”
We found a place on St Mary Street, which let me cover my mouth for a while as I wound my emotions back down. Dad was over-explaining.
“Van’s parked round the corner, duck. Nigel’s got the trailer and stock for us, so we can pick it up after. Makes getting around the city a lot easier. How are you finding the driving? The big stuff?”
“How? Just like driving the van, Dad. Just a lot bigger, longer, wider, heavier, more expensive”
“Aye, duck, but it’s now a case of I’m bigger than you, and it’s not mine, and I’m not the one that’ll get hurt”
Mam laughed at his joke, but I shook my head.
“Mr Mossman warned me about that idea. Said it’s not a good way to look at things. At least not usually”
He looked at me, eyes narrowed slightly.
“So I was tight, then? The life suits you? Wagons?”
I nodded, grateful to be on a safe subject.
“I think so. I’ll be starting on the actual tests in a month, getting the Cat 2 licence after my birthday, the boss says. A year more, and he’ll see if I’m suitable for the Cat 1. Then it’s open roads”
They both nodded, and as tea was drunk, I started one of the other conversations.
“Solicitor for my mother and father called me into their office, over in Connah’s Quay”
Mam put her tea down as carefully as she could, given the trembling in her hands.
“What the fuck for, Deb?”
“Money”
“They can fuck right off and fucking die!”
A couple of other customers looked around sharply, and she lowered her voice.
“What exactly do they want, girl?”
I twisted my mouth.
“Nothing, actually. They’re both dead and gone. But they’ve left some life insurance pots and a house”
Dad reached out for Mam’s hand, his expression neutral.
“What have you done so far, duck?”
“I popped over and spoke to them. The lawyers. We’ve got something in the high end of five figures, they say”
Mam shook her head.
“Your money, my love. Not ours”
I couldn’t make my answer polite, even though I tried.
“Oh sod off, you silly woman! Are we not a family? What’s yours is mine, always has been, and you’ve always made that clear, so how is it different if it’s me that’s getting a bit of money?”
Dad started to speak, so I reached across to put a finger to his lips.
“No, not like that. Been talking to some people, especially the solicitor, and what we can do is stick it in the right place and let it grow. Most of it, anyway”
Mam’s eyebrows went up.
“Ah. I see. Ken, love?”
“Yes?”
“I think our little girl here isn’t little anymore. Deb, am I right? You thinking of finding a surgeon? Like that travel writer woman, man?”
I nodded.
“Don’t know where to start, do I? Only idea I have is to speak to my GP, see what she says. I think she’s a sound one, so I’ll have a word when I get a chance, but it’s not like there’s books and that in the library. Or entries in bloody Yellow Pages, are there? Anyway, that’s one thing. The other’s up to you two, really”
Dad was the one with the raised eyebrows this time, so I just shrugged, arms out.
“How old exactly is our van?”
“She’s not that bad!”
“Dad, I sat and looked through a road atlas the other day, and when I see some of the places we have been, I wonder how on Earth we ever got back. Look: there are some reasonable Ford Transits about, and Bedfords. Have a think about it, OK? Anyway, I fancy another cuppa”
Mam put her hand on mine, her smile a little sad.
“Can’t keep delaying it, love. You know what we’re all here for. I’m just, we’re both glad you decided to come. Rosie will be, as well. Sorry, but welcome to adulthood. The world isn’t always how we’d like it, so, well, we make the best of it. Things happen. We like them, or we don’t. We deal with them and move on. I think we should get out of here, love, and get over to our pitch”
“Pitch?”
“Yup. Dad’s got the tent, the big one, as well as yours, set up by the clubhouse. Shower’s set up, the lot”
“Both tents?”
She looked across at Dad, who nodded.
“We understand how this hurts, love, so we thought you might want a little space set aside, just in case you need it”
“I don’t think I’ll be out on the pull!”
“Not what we meant, Debbie. We just thought you might need some time on your own. Anyway, time’s moving on. Who’s paying for this lot?”
I did, which felt weird, and followed them around a couple of corners to the old van. Out of the city, almost like old times, with a meandering drive through some green spaces, and finally a collection of low buildings in a walled compound: the clubhouse. Dad drove through a gateway manned by some very big men, around a large number of motorbikes and onto a grassy area at the rear, where our two tents stood beside a few others, Gandalf sitting outside one. His face lit up on seeing me, and he turned to call into what was clearly his tent.
“Sam! Got company!”
Another radiant smile from his son on seeing me, and when he stood, I was astonished at his height. He may not have been as sharp as many of those around him, but he was certainly gifted physically. Two more bonebreaking hugs, from both men, Gandalf lingering over his before stepping back a little, his smile now wistful.
“She’s helping set up the bar in the clubhouse, girl. Why don’t you go in and say hello?”
He could clearly feel my shakes starting, so he hugged me once more.
“Got to be done, love. Your Mam and Dad will have said this to you already. Am I right?”
I nodded, and he squeezed me one last time.
“Go to, then. She’ll be glad of a hand”
I turned from him, the tears already fighting for release, and walked in the door he indicated. Rosie was stacking plastic glasses at the other end of the room, a couple of other women helping, one of whom turned as I walked in, giving my oldest friend a tug on the elbow.
I have no idea how many emotions went across her face, but I am sure I was exactly the same. She handed her burden to the woman next to her, then walked slowly down the length of the room until she was standing almost nose to nose with me. Her arms rose slowly, hesitantly, so I took over, pulling her to me as she lost her self-control, the tears starting quickly as her hands dug into my shoulder blades.
The right words didn’t seem to be coming easily to her, so I just shushed her.
“How could I not come, love? Now, is there a kettle boiling yet? No?”
“Could do…”
“Standards are slipping, woman. Let’s grab a seat and have a catch-up with a cuppa!”
She called over her shoulder to a taller woman with a cluster of tattoos on each forearm.
“Becks? Could you do us a couple of teas? Got some major catch-up stuff to do. Personal shit. Old friend, aye?”
Becks nodded, reaching across to flick the switch on a kettle to one side of what was a professional-looking bar as Rosie towed me to a corner of the large room where she pulled a couple of chairs up to a small table.
Her eyes stayed downcast, and she said nothing more until we had our mugs before us.
“How are you, Debbie?”
“At a crossroads, Rosie. No jokes about driving, OK?”
A ghost of a smile.
“Agreed. What are you planning? I know that look”
“Ah, Rosie. I could never keep anything from you, could I?”
The smile settled a little, her shoulders easing.
“True, Deb. What’s up?”
I wanted to ask ‘Apart from all this shit?’, but kept that thought to myself.
“Found out my mother and father have both snuffed it. Gone”
“You missing them?”
“Fuck, no! Who was it dumped me in that hellhole in Runcorn? Not that, Rosie; that’s not what set me thinking. They’ve left me some money”
“How much? Sorry, rude question”
“Enough. Been talking to Mam and Dad, and I want to spend some of it on… I’d like to look for a doctor who can sort me out. There”
I watched her face, waiting for a reaction, but there was nothing visible.
“You not surprised?”
“Why should I be? Woman has a medical problem, one which can be sorted, where’s the surprise when she sets out to do just that? You found anyone who can do it yet?”
“Not yet. Going to speak to my GP. She seems sound, so might know the right person, or at least the right people to ask. Keeps it at arms’ length, too”
I drew a slow breath before changing the subject.
“Now, what’s the plan for the weekend?”
The smile was now a genuine one.
“Ah, in the morning we go down to the Registry Office and terrorise the straights. That gets the official legal shit out of the way. Handfasting is back here. Then we party”
“Handfasting?”
“Aye. Old style of marriage. We’ll need you, love, if you’re willing. Witness at the Registry place, and then maid of honour for me. You up to that?”
Was I? There was no other choice open to me.
“What do I have to do?”
“Stand by me. Dad walks me in, you wait at the front. You… You actually hand me over to him. The man I am marrying. Carl”
The tears were back, so I held her as she sobbed out how sorry she was, and as she settled, I felt a hand on my shoulder. Carl was standing behind me, a smile of his own softening his face. I rose, and rather than hug me, he simply took my head in his hands, kissing me on the forehead.
“You have class, Debbie Petrie. Real class”
CHAPTER 41
I had a hangover the next morning, but we had the shower, as Mam had promised, and I spent more than a few minutes soaking, which gave me time to settle my mood and my behaviour. Not my day, much as I might have wished things had followed a different course, but in a way the day actually was mine. Two people I loved would be happy, so suck it up, woman, and be happy for them. After all, didn’t I have Class?
Someone had found a bike for my parents, and Squint, the club’s Sergeant at Arms, had a pillion place for me, so it was leather, jeans, cut-off and para boots for me rather than frock and stupid hat. We thundered out of the club compound in a long line of stomach-tingling noise to the Registry Office, where they held a surprisingly quick ticking of legal boxes, including me signing as a witness. Once again, I was carried back to the clubhouse, and as for stupid hats, helmets were only remarkable for the complete lack of them, even though I had spotted two marked police cars sitting at the side of the road. I wore my shades to save my eyes from the wind, but like everyone else’s, my hair flew free in the speed of our passage, and I had to attack it with a brush after stepping off Squint’s Bonneville. Smoke was rising from behind the main building, as a couple of prospects tended to a whole pig on a spit over a wood fire.
Into the clubhouse, where the seating had been rearranged into rows. I was shown to a seat at the front, almost central, and left for a while to my thoughts as the other places filled up with wild-looking men and hard-faced women, almost all in leather and jeans. Club colours included at least two other MC’s, as well as a sprinkling of MCC front patches.
Mam dropped into the seat to my right, Dad into the one beside her, and she took my hand, smiling gently.
“Just follow the others, love. You’ll be fine. How are you feeling?”
“Their day, Mam. Theirs, not mine. It’s what Carl said”
“Which was?”
“Class. Got to show class, for their sakes. Their day, like you just said”
She looked over her shoulder to her own man for a second, then turned back to me.
“Carl is right, love. You’ve always had class. I saw that when we first met”
“I was in shit state back then, though”
“No, love. No you weren’t. You had got out, on your own. Nobody helped you there. You were alive, and you were free”
I found myself laughing, much to my own surprise.
“Yeah, and then I threw up the first meal you ever gave me!”
“Hardly bloody surprising, was it? Anyway, this session now, OK? You wait with Carl. He has done us another honour, and asked Ken to stand by him, so just follow what he does, even if you don’t understand the man doing the service. You will be fine, love/ Ah! Here’s the man himself”
‘The man himself’ turned out to be someone with even more facial hair than Gandalf, dressed in a long robe of what looked like unbleached linen, trimmed with leather. It was inscribed with what I recognised as runes, and he wore a small hammer on a simple leather thong around his neck.
“You will be Debbie, then. Badger. Good to see you again. May the Sky Father and weather smile on you, always”
“And on you, Brother. My daughter Deb is nervous”
The obvious priest smiled warmly at me, taking both of my hands in his.
“Simply place the ribbon below their hand, then take your end diagonally over the backs, under their wrists, and leave your father to tie the ends. Then stand and be there for your sister and her man. I will ask you some questions, to which the answers will be obvious. That is all”
He looked up again, and past me.
“The warrior is here. Now we await his shield maiden”
Dad rose, and moved over to stand on the other side of Carl, who had plaited his beard, and held a nasty-looking axe, clearly not of the type for splitting logs or lopping branches. I rose, leaving a gap between myself and Carl, as the priest moved into place before us.
“WHO COMES TO THIS PLACE AS AN ARMED MAN?”
Carl raised his weapon over his head.
“I DO!”
The priest’s voice remained loud, but he no longer shouted, looking past us to what could only be called a congregation.
“Is this a time of battle?”
There was a general bellow of response.
“NO!”
“Then do we have a shield bearer to hold this weapon until the time Tyr will ordain as a battle day?”
I heard Rosie’s shout of “Yes!” from behind me, and forced myself to keep my eyes fixed before me. Gandalf led her into place between me and Carl, squeezing my shoulder before stepping back. Our priest locked eyes with Rosie.
“Do you bear this warrior’s shield?”
“No! I bear my own”
He nodded.
“Do you offer its shelter to this warrior?”
“All I have is his. My shield is his shield”
The priest’s gaze flashed across to Carl.
“Are your weapons borne for this shield maiden?”
“Aye! And all else I own”
Carl handed the axe to Rosie, who held it over her own head for a few seconds, to acclamation from the crowd. The priest looked past us all, another smile.
“This is a warrior! This is his shield maiden! If one falls, the other must be steadfast to the end! Does this warrior have brothers?”
“YES!”
“If he falls, will his brothers stand over him?”
“YES!”
The smile this time was broader, and he turned his attention back to the four of us, as we stood before him.
“This maid and man have a brother and sister here. When their shield splinters, when they can no longer wield their weapons, will you be their shelter, their strong right arm?”
As he had advised, the answer was an obvious one, and along with Dad I answered “Yes”, and the robed man nodded before holding up a ribbon in Welsh flag colours.
“My warrior and shield maiden: will you bind yourselves to each other?”
They both agreed, and I followed Dad’s lead as the ribbon went under, over and around their joined hands, Dad finishing the process off with a knot. Another nod from the priest, as he laid a hand on top of the binding.
“Is there anyone here who would deny that this is a right and fitting thing?”
“NO!”
There was a twinkle in the man’s eye, and in a superb prison whisper, lips held still, he murmured, “Nobody with a death wish, then”, before raising his voice one last time.
“Your brother and sister are now wed! May the All-Father, Thor, Tyr and Freyja smile on and shelter you both. ARE WE DONE HERE?”
Another bellow from the crowd, this time of “YES!”, and he stepped back, this time with a grin that threatened to split his head in two.
“Where is my pint, then?”
Laughter greeted him, as Gandalf appeared with a real cow horn filled to the brim with brown liquid.
“I pay the tithe of the maiden’s father. Felinfoel do you, mate?”
I could see the man behind the priest now, as he took a long draught from the horn.
“It’ll do for starters, Gandalf. Where’s the boy?”
“Bar duty for now, Rolf. I’m keeping an eye on him till later, then he can get as pissed as he likes. Let him off the leash now and he’d be wrecked by seven o’clock”
“Don’t trust him?”
“Not him I don’t trust, but his judgement. You OK, Deb? The hog roast is ready if you want to line your stomach before hitting the bar”
“Sounds good to me. What’s the plan?”
“Stage out the back past the fire pit, and two bloody good bands. Hard standing, so no worries about heels and soggy grass. Rosie’s off getting changed, so she will expect the same from you. Only one downside to things tonight”
“That is?”
He roared with laughter, clearly happy with how the day had gone.
“No straights here to outrage!”
A firm hug, and then he was off to his own tent, as I fought myself into as composed a mood as I could manage. After all, if that sort of happiness could never be there for me, who was I to begrudge it for two people I loved so deeply? I made my way back to the old van, then into the big tent, where I changed into short skirt and high boots, band T-shirt and cut-off. Mam saw me as I sorted my little handbag, and took it from me.
“No charge for us tonight, love. Wedding present from the club is free booze all night, so you won’t need your purse. You won’t lose it, as well, when you get too pissed to see”
I tried to out-stare her, and she just laughed.
“Nice try, love, but no coconut. Now go and bake the best of this evening. Me and Dad will be around”
What choice did I have? I did as I was told, stuffing my face with spit-roasted pork and other unhealthy food, drinking far too much than was good for me, and rocking out with Mam and the other women as two bands in succession pumped out the rhythms that had done so much to shape my life. I found myself dancing with a series of men, and it was only after a couple of hours that I realised that if they weren’t Sam, Gandalf or Dad, they were all from the host club. Eventually, I took Sam to one side for a breather and an interrogation, and he just smiled at me.
“Dad told me, Debbie. I know I’m not that sharp, but my eyes work. I can see, you and Carl, aye? His brothers and me, Dad said we should keep you safe. Keep the twats off your back. Like the priest said, isn’t it? I got two sisters. You are my sister, just like Rosie. Both of you, you’ve always looked after me, so fair’s fair”
I hugged him, and he mumbled into my shoulder.
“Am I doing it right, Debbie?”
“Absolutely right, Sam. Absolutely”
There are more ways to be alone than mine.
CHAPTER 42
Another morning, and another monster hangover. I spent a long while drinking tea and eating simple buttered toast to tray and settle my stomach, and then, after a long round of hugs that seemed to include the entire club, I was off down to the station on the pillion of one of the prospects, who had served his club the hard way the night before by staying sober. I tried to wind him up about that, perhaps seeking to lift my miserable mood by lowering someone else’s, but he just grinned.
“Given what I stand to gain as a full patch, I can bear a few sacrifices. Always another night, isn’t it? Always a party to come”
I could see his point, so left the snarkiness to fester inside me and simply tucked down for the ride into the city. I grabbed a newspaper and a few soft drinks from the station shop, and gathered another cup of tea to drink on board, after spending a little while in the ladies’ to get rid of the gallon or so I had already drunk, as well as the toast. I found another use for the paper, just then, as something to kneel on while I threw up.
A miserable and slow ride to the English Midlands followed, the fizz of the cold drinks serving to refresh my mouth, and many hours later I was soaking in our bath before a really early night.
Shit happens, girl. Learn to handle it. Show some class.
Two days later and I was back at Mossman’s, the shit in question pushed to the back of my mind as I alternated two days of riding shotgun with single days of sitting on the other side of the cab. Carol and Pete had dropped around with some ready meals for me, but they didn’t quiz me after their first question brought a glare in response. I really needed to get a grip on myself; it simply wasn’t fair to keep lashing out at the best of my friends. It couldn’t go on.
Two weeks after the wedding, a letter arrived from Mam and Dad, setting out their plans and giving me a chance to get my balance levelled once more. They would meet me in Hexham, at the station, and we would head up for some days at Graham’s place on Druridge Bay before relaxing more typically at the Hairy Stottie. Mam’s farewell was so typical of her:
‘We’ll be at the station mid-afternoon on the Thursday. If you can make it, we’ll pick you up there. If not, we’ll catch you in a few months’
I had a month and a half, then, to settle my life, find that balance, and offer them a smile. I resolved that I would only join them if I felt I could offer them a fair chance of a welcome and not a moping and miserable kid. I picked up the phone and rang my local surgery for an appointment.
“Deborah Wells to room three!”
Doctor Nugent’s smile was as genuine as I had come to expect, but it faded as little as she inspected me.
“Tears, Debbie? Or some other inflammation? Your eyes are rimmed in red”
I shrugged, trying to pass it off as something minor, but she was steadily getting to know me, and that time it didn’t work. Bit by bit, she teased the story out.
“Not really being professional in saying this, Debbie, but given what you have survived, I am always amazed at your resilience. It’s OK, you know, to let go every now and again. Anyway, I have a suggestion. You are still hoping to complete things. At least I assume you are, but if this stuff has changed your mind, I will understand. Honestly”
I had fallen into yet another teary session before she spoke, so I blew my nose before answering, which gave me a little space to find the words.
“Not giving up, Doctor. Not on this. What are you offering?”
“You need to see a mental health specialist before you can see a surgeon, Debbie. I think it would help things if you talked to him about all of your issues, not just the gender identity disorder. He may be able to see you onto a sounder footing”
“I haven’t got any disorder, and the only issue I have is my plumbing. That can be sorted”
Her mouth twisted.
“Really? Well, then, let me be even more unprofessional than I already have: your state of mind is dreadful. Being raped is bad enough, but your case was bloody well industrial! Your self-esteem is rock-bottom, and I am bloody well worried about you. You are not coping the way you think you are, my girl. Anyway, I can’t make you go, but I have a name, someone you could talk to. Say the word, and I’ll speak to him. Not only that; he knows a surgeon or three”
She paused to gather her breath, before giving me a gentle smile.
“I’d like to see you smiling again, Debbie. What would I say to Maureen if you were lost to us?”
I had to smile at that quip, but it fractured quickly, and I fell into tears once more. To my astonishment, Doctor Nugent came over to hug me until I was done. Her voice in my ear was soft.
“Please go and see my colleague, Debbie. Please”
I left the surgery with a small piece of paper bearing the address and phone number, along with Dr Nugent’s promise to book me an appointment. I don’t know what strings she pulled, but only ten days later I found myself walking up Lichfield Street into central Wolverhampton, looking for ‘A green door opposite the Post Office’. I had actually made an effort that day, pulling on a newish dress and wearing tights for the first time in what seemed like years, although I had stayed with flat shoes to avoid painful feet. I had even applied some makeup, which wasn’t normally my thing. As I spotted the Post Office, I found myself grinning. I was a rocker, a biker chick, and I was wearing a straight’s clothes, which summed up the rest of my life rather neatly. I just hoped that getting rid of what remained of my boysuit would be as simple.
The place was one of those multi-occupant buildings, with a column of name plates and door buzzers. Doctor Bernard Quayle lotsofletters was third from the top. I took a few deep breaths, then pressed the button. The reply from the little speaker was tinny but clear.
“Can Oi help yow?”
“Deborah Wells, to see Doctor Quayle”
“Do yow have an appointment?”
What an accent… “Yes. For eleven o’clock”
A few seconds later, “Come up to the second floor, please”
I blessed my foresight in wearing flats as I clambered up the stairs to the second floor landing, where another locked door needed a push on a button before I was at the reception desk. Half an hour later, as I was dozing in an uncomfortable chair, I was called into the consulting room, where I was greeted by an implausibly tall man with a halo of grey curls around the shining dome of his baldness.
“Hello, hello! You will be the young person referred by my Cannock colleague?”
“Yes. Debbie Wells, Doctor”
“Fine. Fine. Please take a seat. You have rather a full history for such a young person, so I will dive straight in and start swimming. How many times were you raped?”
I couldn’t answer at all for a few seconds, my mouth opening and closing in random ways, but my tears had been on permanent standby for weeks, and didn’t disappoint. I found some words, though not too coherently.
“It was years and years. Lost count…”
He smiled, in a gentler way.
“I am sorry, my dear. I have my ways, and one of them is to take you off balance. It avoids wasting my time with thespians. There are tissues on the desk, there in the box. Now, shall we recommence?”
In half an hour, he had my early life stripped bare, and I was working out some of his lines of questioning. Eventually, we arrived at the evening Carl had kissed me.
“You are sexually attracted to men, then”
“I am straight, yes”
He looked at me over his glasses, eyebrows raised, for a moment.
“We shall see, Deborah. Now, as you remain essentially male in your anatomy, did you have any particular idea as to where such an assignation might lead?”
I stared at him, trying to work out which sort of answer he wanted. Fuck him.
“Not a clue, Doctor. All I wanted was to be bloody well loved, just once”
“Fine. And you say it was the kiss to your neck that broke the romantic spell?”
I stared at my knees, wanting to punch him while recognising that he was holding the keys to a new and more fitting life. Breathe, girl.
“Whenever Don raped me, it was rushed, which was a fucking good thing, because he never washed. I think it was him I got crabs off. Charlie was different, after the first few times. He spent a lot longer, and after he came, he would always kiss the back of my neck. He even started to fall asleep on top of me once. Tried to do it face-to-face a couple of times, but I bit him. Does that answer your questions? Need anything else for your wank bank?”
I looked up at him as I said that, and caught just a hint of moisture in his eyes. What the hell? H took off his glasses, wiping his eyes with the back of his right hand, before replacing them and drawing his own deep breaths.
“Miss Wells, you have my sympathy here. I have been particularly harsh towards you only because I find it achieves results more quickly than a softer approach, but I have covered what I need to cover. Doctor Nugent was perfectly correct in referring you to me, and I would rather, if we could go back in time, I wish it had been possible to have seen you much earlier. You have been in hiding for some considerable time”
“Yeah! What would have happened to me if I had been found? Another place like Mersey View, or even that hellhole in Carlisle?”
He nodded, his face weary.
“Yes. And there have been others, and there will no doubt be more. I have a number of opinions concerning your medical state. The first is a simple one, and that is what we call your gender identity. I was concerned that you may have adopted a female role as a response to your abuse, but that is clearly incorrect. In my professional opinion, you are a male to female transsexual, and if sex change surgery is your desire, it would most definitely be the most appropriate course of action”
Suddenly, he was smiling.
“I also offer, in my professional capacity, that you have more than passed what is called the ‘real life test’ of living in your affirmed gender! Now, I know a surgeon, who may have a space for you, but that will be on a private basis, and not via the National Health Service”
I nodded.
“I have money, Doctor. I have an inheritance from my biological parents”
“Fine, fine. ‘Biological’. Hmmm. Anyway, returning to your own case, I also diagnose a broken heart. Sloppy terminology, which I try to avoid, but never mind. Severe depression, initiated by incredibly traumatic early life experiences, exacerbated by the barriers erected as a consequence. Miss Wells, in short, you have recovered remarkably, and found yourself a better life, but you are being hamstrung by something called posttraumatic stress disorder, which is a new diagnosis emanating from over the Atlantic. It is not that you cannot release your past, but that it is riding on your back like Sinbad’s Old Man of the Sea, hands clamped on your throat to stop you breathing freely.
“In summary, your transsexualism can be treated, and we can discuss a plan along with Mister Hemmings. His practice is in London, I am afraid. As for your depression, I would wish to spend more time with you. I cannot guarantee surcease, but there is benefit in bringing sunlight to many illnesses. All I need from you is your agreement to proceed with this examination, seeking a viewpoint from which things may look better than they appear now”
I gave my assent, and he started the ball rolling towards my real life. It might never be a happy one, but at least it would involve continuing to breathe.
CHAPTER 43
The sun was warm on my face as I dozed on a south-facing bench, its heat reflecting back from the honey-coloured stone wall behind me, my backpack heavy against my side. It had been a rather complicated train ride to Hexham, but I was there, and the weather seemed set fine. All I had to do was wait for Mam and Dad, grazing occasionally from the food I had grabbed in Carlisle station as I waited for the little railbus that served the smaller stations. Mick had dropped me at Crewe, where I had caught the Intercity to the place Charlie had taken as his new home. I knew he was now locked up, but I had still felt the back of my neck prickling as I had waited on the platform.
We had always followed the Military Road when in that area, while the train followed the river valley after we had passed Gilsland. I had no idea when exactly Mam and Dad would appear, just a date and the word ‘afternoon’, and I arrived at 1230. I had a personal stereo now, playing cassette tapes, so I simply slipped in Floyd’s ‘Meddle’, set the machine to auto-reverse and pulled the headphones over my ears, losing myself in ‘Echoes’ as I soaked up the warmth.
A few repeats later, and the bench creaked as someone sat next to me, and of course it was Dad, managing to cry and smile as brightly as the sun all at the same time. Mam was standing in front of me, her reaction matching Dad’s as closely as mine did.
I was home again, and the stress of the previous week was melting already. Mam grinned happily as she took both of my hands in hers and drew me to my feet for her own hug.
“Got your stuff ready, love? If not, it’s too late! Get on the road as soon as you’re in, and we are off. You eaten?”
“Picked up some rubbish at Carlisle. Could do with something decent, to be honest”
We settled into the two front seats of the van as Dad started the engine, pulling out of the station car park as we chatted away. Typically, Dad was soon onto the backroads, bypassing the bustle and traffic of the big city to the East and steering us through a series of minor roads, the Northumberland skies huge above us. A short while after we had turned off from a main road, he turned into some cramped parking by the side of a plain stone building whose sign declared it to be the Ox Inn, where we found seats at picnic tables in a tiny space in front of the pub. Dad went to the bar to order us some ‘stottie classics;, which turned out to be sandwiches made from the local round bread things filled with ham and a paste made from boiled lentils Mam said was pease pudding.
The food took ten minutes to come, but a big pot of tea arrived just as Mam started her interrogation in earnest.
“What’s to tell? I got referred to some man called Quayle, down in Wolverhampton, and he put me in touch with a man called Hemmings, down in London”
“What did this Quayle say?”
“What we already knew. I’m a woman, end of”
“Yeah, right, and if there isn’t more, I’m a Bee Gees fan. What else was there?”
I found my tea fascinating just then, but she was my mother, and we had always shared everything.
“He was odd, Mam. Really nasty in the way he asked questions”
Dad muttered “Arsehole”, but I shook my head.
“You know, I don’t think he is. Just seemed to be his way, you know: He was wiping his eyes when he thought I wasn’t looking”
Mam wouldn’t be side-tracked, however.
“What else did he say?”
“That I am clinically depressed”
I sipped my tea for the delay, before saying the rest.
“His words were that I had a broken heart”
Mam barked out a laugh, which held no humour in it, and Dad nodded.
“Not that stupid, then, nor blind, miduck. What about this chap in that London?”
“Ah. Mr Hemmings…”
I had been given an appointment (‘Consultation opportunity’) for the previous Tuesday, and once more, Mick had dropped me early that morning at Crewe, which seemed to be playing a huge role in my life, for the faster train to London’s Euston Station. I found their branch of W.H. Smith and bought an A to Z of the city centre before trying to work out how to use the underground system. Sod that for a game of soldiers, I thought, and set out to walk, as it didn’t look far to Harley Street. I was unsurprised, given the way my life was going, that I ended up at the wrong end of that road, and had to walk what felt like miles to Hemmings’ surgery, office, consulting rooms, whatever.
Harley Street was arrow-straight, almost all of the buildings of the same height, four storeys with black-railed basement wells accessed by steps, even though the buildings were clearly separate constructions. Some in brick, some in limestone, some with dormer windows in what should have been attics, but all shoehorned into a consistent wall of masonry. Mister Hemmings had one of the brick buildings. I paused outside, gathering my courage, then made my entrance.
“Hello. How may I help you?”
“I have an appointment with Doctor Hemmings. Deborah Wells”
The receptionist smiled, and with that looked a lot more welcoming than Maureen had initially been at my local surgery.
“It’s MISTER Hemmings, Madam. Surgeons prefer that title, and it saves confusion with his brother, who actually is Doctor Hemmings. What time is your appointment?”
“Um, half two. I’m a bit early; didn’t trust the trains”
“Have you come far?”
“From the other side of Birmingham, but I’m actually from North Wales…”
I was babbling, and she clearly noticed.
“We have a more discreet waiting area, if you would prefer. Would you care for some tea while you wait?”
If this was the way private medicine operated, I was certainly taken with it. I had my little tape machine with me, something which was quickly becoming habitual, so I slipped in ‘Below the Salt’ for the memories as well as for a lifeline to my family. Sitting in the van, those early days, Mam telling Dad he was never going to compare with Maddy, then the three of us trying our best to prove her wrong.
‘And I don’t give a single pin me boys
What the world thinks of me’
I was away, eyes closed and in my own world, a world I should always have had, if this were a just one, when I felt a touch to my shoulder.
“Miss Wells?”
The receptionist. She smiled again, pointing to my headphones.
“A word to the wise, Miss, but while you can’t hear your own voice when listening on one of those, everyone else can”
“Oh shit! Sorry!”
“Don’t be. You sounded happy just then, if you don’t mind me being a little personal. We get a range of moods in our clients, and it was nice to hear a positive one. Mr Hemmings will be ready for you in ten minutes, so will you please provide us with the usual sample? I will show you where the ladies’ is, and then, if you don’t mind, return to our general waiting area”
I did as requested, noting her ignorance of my status, or perhaps simple tact, in providing me with a female sample bottle. A few minutes later, I was sitting before a neat desk and facing a man who looked to be in his sixties or seventies, as neat as his desk in a blazer and three-coloured striped tie.
“Good afternoon, Miss Wells. How would you prefer me to address you?”
“Friends call me Debbie…”
“Then, if you wish, Debbie it shall be. I have a referral from a Doctor Quayle, but I must emphasise that I am in private practice and that is unlike the NHS in that I charge a reasonable fee for my services. Will that cause any difficulties?”
“I don’t think so, Doct--- er, Mister Hemmings. Got a bit of what you might call an inheritance”
“Fine, fine. What I will propose, then, is that I examine you, we discuss what you desire in the nature of my work, I then tell you what is actually possible, and only then do we discuss the sordid financial aspect. Does that pass muster?”
I nodded, then had a quick flash of memory, of Doctor Nugent’s shock and rage.
“I have a sort of… Things have already been done in that area, Mister Hemmings”
“Fine, fine. We shall address them as we need. Now, Dr Quayle’s referral states that you are a male to female transsexual person who wishes to have their genital aspect rearranged to their personal preference. What can you tell me about…?”
He was gentle, leading me through my sense of self along with my hormone regime, nodding every so often and making little notes on a small pad, before pressing a button on an intercom.
“Imogen, my dear? Would you please join us as a chaperone?”
He smiled across his desk at me.
“I need to examine the area in question, Debbie. Imogen, Nurse Marwood that is, will carry out the usual checks, and then I will ask you to disrobe for the examination. She will operate as an assurance that we observe the necessary proprieties. Ah; here she is”
Blood pressure, pulse, height, weight, a small ample of blood taken, and then I was naked apart from my bra and socks, a sheet draped over me as I lay back on a medical couch with my feet in stirrups. The nurse made a soft grunt as she caught a glimpse of my arse, making a quick gesture towards it with her eyes that Hemmings clearly caught.
“Oh my word. You poor girl. I was given a little warning, naturally, but oh dear. If you are willing, I would wish to examine that area as well. There may be something I can do to assist”
I shook my head.
“Might take me over my limits in funds, Mister Hemmings”
“Not so, Debbie. Please be aware that I have witnessed worse crimes, although I will not minimise your own suffering. The late unpleasantness in Germany…”
He tailed off, and I noticed a vein throbbing in his neck, before he smiled once more.
“We shall examine that area as well, and see what may or may not be necessary. I will not charge for such repair work, although---”
He grinned, suddenly looking twenty years younger.
“Although I will most certainly charge appropriately for the primary work. I will say, however, that whoever treated you for that damage was most skilful”
Thank you”
“No need, Debbie. Merely a professional observation and a tip of my hat in recognition of excellent work. Now, would you please relax; I need to manipulate your penis and testicles…”
I eventually left armed with a letter of recommendation for what he called a colonoscopy, which apparently meant a look up my backside with a camera, which would be recorded on video so he could decide what might be needed.
I ran through all of that for the benefit of my parents, and caught Mam preening, which made Dad laugh.
“No false modesty with you, is there, Duck? Sounds good, Deb. I think Carol will be happy to see you go OK with the local hospital. Be a bloody sight easier than having to go all the way back down to That London. Anyway, back on the road for us, and I think Graham’s got dinner planned for tonight”
And so he had, a whole salmon one of his mates had caught up the coast a bit. Everything was once more as it should be, our van and tent in their usual places as Dad and our host nattered about ‘fettling’, Mam still preening with pride over Hemmings’ compliments, and Graham and a man called Malcolm slumped on the settee, holding hands.
CHAPTER 44
We shared the big bed again, Mam, Dad and me, as I felt I needed the comfort it always brought, and in the morning, after a solid breakfast, I headed off to the beach with my music player, some spare batteries, a carrier bag of cassettes and a book of crosswords. Once in the dunes, I laid out my reed mat amid the marram and pulled off my shift dress.
“Nice bikini, love”
The voice was right behind me, and I jerked in automatic shock just as my conscious mind told me it was Mam. I turned to apologise for the “Shit!” that had erupted from me. She was in her own costume, a towel over her shoulders, a grin on her face.
“Take those headphones off and you’ll know what’s going on behind you, love. Dad’s off playing with engines, so I thought we could have a bit of a relax together, just us. Missed you, girl…”
A hug was as automatic as my jerk had been, but far more pleasant. We stretched out on our backs, side by side, as the wind shivered the grass and I stared up into the vast and cloudless skies.
“What have all those doctors been saying, love?”
“Which ones? Seen a few, now”
“Start with that shrink, then. In Wolverhampton, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah. Funny bloke. Not ha-ha funny, right?”
“In what way funny?”
“Oh, when he started, I thought he was a right heartless twat. Laid right into me, he did. Felt like smacking him”
“Too much time spent with lorry drivers, girl! What changed your mind?”
“Like I said, when he started talking about… About other stuff”
“Carl and Rosie, you mean?”
I looked across at her, my vision a little out of focus after staring into the sky, but once I could see her properly again, all I could detect in her expression was concern. I reached across to take her hand, looking up into the brightness once more.
“Not so much that, Mam, but that was part of it. It was more when I mentioned that place in Carlisle. He’d said about me being in hiding, and I said yeah, and what would have happened if I’d not done that, where would I have ended up. He was actually wincing”
I thought a little while before speaking again, still clinging to her hand.
“He was right about one thing, or at least I hope he was”
“And?”
“He said something about a viewpoint, viewpoints in general, not some tourist site. Said we needed to find me a different place to look at things from, that stuff looked different depending on where you were seeing them from”
“He’s not wrong there, love. Tell me: what would you do if you met one of them from Mersey View again?”
I think I nearly broke her hand.
“Fucking kill them, that’s what!”
As my grip slackened, she squeezed back.
“Exactly. You’re looking at them from outside, now, from freedom. Makes a hell of a difference. We just need to get the rest of your shit looked at differently”
“Not going to be easy, is it?”
“No, love. But that’s the thing about hard jobs: they look impossible right up to when you start them, and then you realise they’re not”
She paused, before adding, with a chuckle,
“Just bloody hard and take a long time to get sorted. Now, I’ve brought out some sun cream. Want me to do your back?”
So much love in one person, I thought, and then the tears started, as I realised it wasn’t just her, but Dad, and poor Sam, Graham, Rosie… Even Carl. What, after all, had he done except treat me with respect and affection? I was lucky, in truth, far luckier than that Bowles kid, despite what he had done. Luckier than poor Benny, who I had left behind in his cell, and certainly far, far luckier than any of the boys found buried under lawns and patios in Carlisle.
Mam didn’t say a word about my crying I lay face down and wept, just rubbed the cream into my skin while prattling on with gossip about Nigel, and that chip shop, and the weather as they passed Beattock (not raining, just the once), and some of the bike rallies planned for the next few months. Filler; not actually meaningless, and not skirting my distress but setting it into perspective. There was a world outside my head, and it carried on turning irrespective of my circumstances. I had no intention of stepping off it, so I needed to start swimming with the current once more. Post traumatic stress disorder, the shrink had said, and that first word was the key: ‘post’ meant ‘past’, and so it was. The Parsons were long gone, and I had watered their grave myself, just as someone had adjusted their gravestones in an equally appropriate manner. Even that bastard of a copper was dead, along with Don, and if things went right, Cooper would never walk free again, so what did I have to fear?
I just mumbled, “Thanks, Mam” and let myself doze off, stripped of energy by my crying fit and safe in the arms of people who loved me.
It had always been a wrench leaving the farm, and it was no different this time, both Graham and his man giving us bone-cracking hugs of farewell and standing at the gate to wave until we were out of sight. I was in my usual place in the middle of the van’s front seats, with Mam driving, so I turned to Dad.
“Didn’t see much of Malcolm after the first day, Dad. Did he think I’d be a shit about them being puffs?”
I heard Mam snort as Dad gently corrected my language before answering me.
“Not at all, duck. He knows we don’t give a toss, so why would our kid? It was tact, duck, Tact. He’s got an idea of what you’ve been through, so he didn’t want to play all lovey-dovey and rub your nose in it. Shush!”
I had started to speak, until he laid a finger on my lips.
“No, duck. Let me say a few things, OK? I don’t spend all the time there fettling engines and farm machinery. Graham’s a bloke, and he doesn’t usually get many others to have a natter with”
He grinned, and after a snort of his own, he continued.
“Yeah, me too! Locked up all day with two bloody women, that’s my life! Anyway, so we natter a lot, and he’s always liked you, so I give him bits of news. What was it the shrink said about you? Broken heart, aye? Well, he sees that, so he doesn’t rub it in that he’s got somebody now. It’s because he cares about you, duck”
I opened my mouth, and yet again was shushed.
“No, duck. Just because it’s another bloke doesn’t mean it’s all about shagging. They’re just like me and your Mam, comfortable with each other being nearby”
“OY!”
“Yes, Loz?”
“You saying I’m not getting any nooky this weekend? I can always turn round and drop you two back off at the farm, you know. Bound to be plenty of eligible young men at the rally!”
Dad sighed theatrically.
“Typical bloody woman. Sex mad. Deb, there you see what I mean about wanting to have a proper chat, bloke to bloke, none of this sexual harassment stuff women hit me with all the time”
Mam was trying too hard to be serious, and when she tried to get out a comment about that all being in his dreams, she lost it and started laughing so hard she had to pull onto the verge and stop, whereupon I was treated to the two of them each leaning across me to demonstrate a very clear token of affection. They broke the kiss, each then hugging me, and after a careful check to make sure the trailer hadn’t bounced too badly when running off road, we were back on our way.
Turning onto the rally site was another part of coming home, as greetings were exchanged, our pitch was indicated, and we started the business of setting up stand and tents. My smaller one went up with a wink from Dad, and I was certain that the ‘nooky’ promise would be kept, so I didn’t feel excluded. Sunglasses and bandannas were our first and steadiest sales that sunny afternoon and evening, but Dad had set out several boxes of that other perennial, the fingerless leather mitt. Mam surprised me by producing a couple of boxes of children’s T-shirts, all with slogans like ‘My Mum’s/Dad’s a biker’. My favourite version read ‘Bikers don’t do Naughty Step’, and she spotted my smile.
“Always look for new markets, love. Plenty of kids at these dos. Got one place looking at supplying me with mini denim cut-offs. Not really cut-offs, but you know what I mean, don’t you? See how the shirts do, and then expand”
Impeccable business logic from her, as always. Trade built up steadily through the afternoon, the three of us working hard as the moneybox filled nicely, and we each took a few minutes to feed, separately, on burgers and chips from the food tent. Dad was the last eat, sitting a little way back to spare the merchandise from grease, and as the sun went down, he sighed happily.
“I do like the Fridays, duck! Get them while they still have money to spend, before it’s all drunk down or thrown up. Mind if we stay open till late, girls? Get some cash in the box while we can?”
I couldn’t argue with that one, Mam making a rude comment about him not wasting his energy dancing because she had plans for his body later, so when it got to about nine o’clock, and the tide of customers was still in flood, I packed both of them off while I ran the business. I didn’t hear much over the sound of the metal coming from the disco, but some ninety minutes later, we closed up and wandered across to the marquee for a drink and simple relaxation, sitting on a couple of straw bales ranged along the side walls of the tent.
Saturday saw another fine and sunny morning, trade picking up steadily as people threw off their hangovers with solid breakfasts and, in our case, several gallons of tea, our hats on against the weight of the sun’s increasing heat. T-shirts were selling rapidly, especially the bike-branded ones, but the children’s kit seemed almost to evaporate. I caught Mam looking across at Dad to chalk an imaginary score for her with her forefinger, and I realised that the whole line of goods had been her idea rather than his.
We girls, as ever, left Dad to run the stall for another hour or so, or at least until he got thirsty, and changed into our partying kit, in both cases of short skirts and heeled boots. I found myself wondering whose taste it reflected, and which of us was copying the other, but in the end, I didn’t give a toss. We looked good, I felt good, and Mam looked as if she did, and so we strutted off over the firm (thankfully) ground to the tent in time for the band’s opening riffs.
I was out in the middle of the crowd, my hair flying as I got into the heat and the beat, until the first song ended and I looked round for Mam, who was standing by the straw bales, looking confused. I fought my back to her, having to shout in her ear to be heard.
“What’s up?”
She shook her head, eyes screwed up in confusion, before putting her mouth next to my ear.
“I can’t feel the bloody music, love!”
CHAPTER 45
I tugged her out of the marquee and around behind the burger van, where the blast from the band was partially blocked, replaced by the chugging of a small electrical generator.
“What do you mean, Mam?”
“I can’t feel it, love. I mean, I can hear it, feel the sound in my gut. I just can’t FEEL it, can’t move to it!”
She paused, shaking her head and staring down at the generator, before looking back up at me.
“Deb, when you drive, it’s automatic, isn’t it? You don’t think all the time, ‘hey, turn the wheel a bit to follow the road’, do you? Your body just does it for you. It feels like that. I went to rock out…”
I could see her distress even in the half-light spilling through the gaps in the canvas behind us.
“Could it be that you’re not pissed enough?”
She shook her head.
“When have I ever needed to be out of it, love? What the fuck is up with me?”
I thought hard.
“Mam, how many times have we chatted about my problems recently?”
“Fuck knows, love”
“Well, I don’t know how many, but what I do know is that it’s a lot, and it’s all been in one massive hit. I’ve been dealing with it as it happens, and you’ve just had it dumped on you every day since you picked me up at Hexham. That’s a lot to take in, all in one lump. I think… Look. You talk about my driving, yeah? I’ve had a lot of shit at work, with arseholes who think a women driver is, well, all the stupid jokes, aye? Or the ones who think you’re there for their fun and fancy a grope”
That actually brought a laugh.
“How many have you decked, girl?”
“Um, dunno, your honour. Sweet, innocent me? How could you ever think that?”
She wrapped herself around me, and I spoke gently into her ear.
“Look, let’s just go back in, find somewhere to sit, and get shitfaced. We can rock out another night, when you’re yourself again”
“Yeah, but that’s not fair on you, is it?”
“You think I would ever leave you on your own? Ever?”
“Yeah, but it’s not fair on you!”
I pulled away from her, just far enough to see her eyes.
“For fuck’s sake, did you think I would leave you on your own just because I fancy a bit of a bop? What did I just say? I will never, EVER, leave you! Are we not family, aye? Do I not love you? I wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for you…”
I pulled the words back, doing my best to find control.
“No. That sounds wrong. It sounds like some sort of bloody trade agreement. That’s not us. We both know what you and Dad did for me, and I will never forget that, but it isn’t what I mean. I know you two, and I have loved you since I met you, and love, shit, love doesn’t count score. It’s not a fucking profit and loss thing, is it? You say you can still hear the music, yeah?”
“Yes, love. Band’s a good’un”
“Then we do what I said. We find a seat, get some booze down our necks, and we enjoy what we can”
She pulled me to her.
“How did you get so bloody wise?”
“Watching and being with you and Dad”
I towed her back into the marquee and settled her onto one of the straw bales that always lined the sides of the big tent, and headed for the bar, where they were selling cans of stronger ale that they had offered the previous evening. I bought four packs, and wove my way back, the beer stacked stupidly high in front of me.
“How, pet! Want a hand with drinking all that?”
I looked round the top layer at a laughing biker, and gave back my own best grin.
“Na, got my Mam over there, ta!”
“Well, sod that, I’ll gie ye a hand. Howay…”
He eased the two top layers off the stack and smiled down at me.
“The lass in the boots, dark hair?”
“Yup”
“Right… there you are. You OK, hinny?”
He looked genuinely concerned, but Mam was almost back with me, almost herself.
“I’m fine, love. Just been a busy day”
“Ah! Recognise you now. Ye’ve got the bits and pieces stall, haven’t you?”
Another grin.
“Ne wonder ye’re knackered. Had a busy day, aye? Settle yersels down, and if you want owt, burger, whatever, just wave. I’m the treasurer here, so at least I’ll have some money! Canny band tonight. Your tents by the stand?”
I nodded, and he grinned again, pointing at the pile of cans.
“Me and the lads’ll make sure you get home, so ne worries there. Have a good night, girls!”
In the end, we didn’t need him; just. Dad drove the next morning, as we worked our way down towards Hartlepool, and while he sat as silently as he could, it couldn’t last.
“You OK, Loz?”
“I don’t know, love. I really don’t. It all went really odd last night, and I don’t mean from the drink”
Dad simply nodded, eyes on the road, and I understood immediately. They each knew the other so well, and he was letting her tell him only what she felt he needed to know. Each held their trust and their lover so deeply embedded in their soul there was no room for doubt. It hurt me, as it always did, for I understood how rare and priceless a thing that was, and how it would never be a part of my own life.
I knew I was in there with them, that space of love and intimacy, but while a parent loves, they are no lover, not in the way I needed. Mam must have picked up on my mood, for she took my hand.
“Deb was with me last night, love, so I was safe, but I’m not feeling right. It was the music”
“Can’t have been the band, duck. They sounded OK from where I was “
“Aye, love. Deb and me, in the end, we sat on the bales with some cans. They were good, the band. It was me. When I went up for a bop…”
Her voice trailed off, as she shook her head in confusion.
“Ken… I don’t have a fucking clue what happened. I could hear the music, and me and Deb, sitting listening, the band was good, and I could feel the urge to rock out. I just couldn’t. I…”
I caught the catch in her voice, and put a hand to Dad’s arm.
“Pull over, Dad. I’ll drive for now. Think Mam needs you”
There was a lay-by just ahead, and we quickly shuffled Mam into the middle seat as I took the wheel, trying not to look at her tears as Dad and I crossed in front of the van. Once we were safely back on the road, I said my own piece, eyes locked ahead.
“Mam said it best last night, Dad. She said it’s like driving. You just do it, conditioned reflexes, whatever they call it. Mam said she couldn’t feel the music, couldn’t let herself dance. I watched her, shut up for now, Mam. I watched her while we were sitting, and she was into the band, eyes closed, nodding along, and it wasn’t just the drink. It was just the dancing. Mam?”
“Yes, love?”
Her voice was cracking again.
“Thought of another way of describing it, so if I’ve got it wrong, tell me”
“OK, love”
“I can still remember learning to write, printing stuff before I got handwriting sorted”
Some of that while Marie Parsons stood over me with a strap, but leave that bit for now. Deep breath and think of those you love, girl.
“Printing stuff means thinking about each letter. I see people who write signs and stuff at work, and they’re always missing out a letter or two. Doing things in detail, yeah? Handwriting’s different. I think Mam is saying she could print the dancing, but not write it. That how it felt, Mam?”
She found a laugh somewhere.
“Ken, you won’t understand it, cause you’re a bloke, and blokes can’t dance. Too worried someone’s looking at them, unless they’re rat-arsed… Deb, that’s it, yeah? Like I couldn’t let go, like everyone was watching”
Dad made a bad joke about trying again when she was pissed, but I could still remember how we had tried exactly that. It hadn’t worked.
In the end, it was Mam who closed the conversation down, and we did our best as a family to recover our normal routine, as Dad loaded up stock from a wholesaler on the edge of Hartlepool before we spent three days working the markets in Darlington, Northallerton and Tadcaster before Dad drove me into York to catch the first of the trains that would take me back to Cannock. They both spent what felt like hours hugging me, while all I wanted to do, needed to do, was chuck my job and stay with them to make sure that the woman I loved above almost anything was safe and well.
“No, love. I’ll be fine. Got this farting great lump with me, haven’t I? We’ll give you a shout when we’re back over in South Wales, and you can hop a train again. I’ll be back to normal, I’m sure of it”
I would have been alone with my thoughts for far too long, but they were derailed by some tosser, on the train from Derby down to Birmingham, who decided to sit next to me and then put his hand on my thigh. I turned to face him, with as angelic a smile as I could manage.
“Hi! Taking your hand away and fucking off means I won’t use the knife I have next to your bollocks. Leave with them, or without, I don’t give a fuck”
He shuffled sideways, as quickly as he could manage while not actually catching his stiffy on the point of my blade. I didn’t see him again, but he had certainly altered my mood. I kept a weather eye out as I hunted for my last connection in Birmingham, but he seemed long gone. I hoped I had helped educate him a little, but I was sure he would simply write me off as a headcase, and some other young woman would find his hands somewhere she’d prefer they weren’t.
I had a sudden mental image of him trying it on with Rosie, but that simply led to memories I didn’t want to wake, so I bought a copy of Bike. Flipping to the letter page for the Shobba cartoon before settling down to enjoy Ogri on the last page. Get the good stuff out of the way, before settling down to the other bits. It kept me from thinking while I rode the local train to Cannock, and then I had Carol and Peter to hug after a taxi from the station.
What on Earth had I done to deserve such luck in my life?
CHAPTER 46
Carol, naturally, had prepared a solid and spicy meal for us all, and I settled down at the table with a sigh of anticipation. One drawback of bike rallies is the food, as it is almost always of the kind best suited for drunks: greasy, salty and usually in a bun. What Carol offered was heavily influenced by Indian cuisine, but there was always a surprising twist courtesy of Peter’s expert foraging. Nettle soup was a regular starter, and I experienced all sorts of seasonal surprises from them, such as different sorts of mushroom, or what he called the ‘cheese’ from thistle heads mixed into salads made up of leaves from a huge variety of plants.
It certainly made a change from an endless diet of cheeseburgers, and inspired my own experiments in the achingly empty house next door. After the meal, we settled down with a mug of tea each as Carol demanded all the gossip I could deliver.
“Any word from that doctor, love? The one in London?”
“Don’t know, do I? I’ll check the post later. There’s a pile of it on the mat. Mostly bills, I expect”
“They can wait, then. You’ve caught the sun, you know”
I laughed, remembering the dunes.
“Place we stay, Mam and Dad and me, a friend’s farm, up in Northumberland. Right next to the sea, it is, beautiful, beautiful beach, with some little dunes behind it. I lie there, out of the wind. Take a book and my personal stereo thingy. It’s really peaceful”
The memory savaged me, Mam rubbing cream into my back to stop the sun burning me, and Peter clearly noticed.
“What’s up, love? Your face clenched”
“Oh, it was just a memory, aye? Mam rubbing cream on my back, there in the dunes”
An eyebrow lifted, and he flashed a look at his wife. He was ever the sharper of the two, the quicker to pick up on hints, no matter how small.
“What’s up with them, love?”
I forced back the tears, as he took my free hand, the one that wasn’t clutching my mug.
“I don’t know, Peter. Could be nothing. Could be…”
Carol’s own expression was matching my own, I suspected.
“Ken or Lorraine?”
I shook my head, almost as if it would drive away the worry if I denied it was ever there.
“It’s Mam. Can’t really explain it”
I talked them through the night with the band, her loss of her dancing, the confusion, and watched Carol’s face change.
“She been getting headaches at all, love? Balance issues? Dizziness?”
“Don’t know, do I? Ever since I went on the wagons, it’s been a long while between contact. Keeping up, that sort of thing, it isn’t easy like this. Sometimes…”
I looked directly at the two of them, doing my best to shrug, smile, look happier with my lot than I would ever feel.
“I know why Dad sorted out the training for me, the job and that. He’s always got his eye on the future. I just wish things could go back to the way they were. Now, Mam’s unhappy, and I don’t know why”
Carol was looking more than a little stressed, and I realised she was aching to say her piece.
“You have an idea, Carol? About Mam?”
She nodded.
“I’m not a doctor, love, but I’ve been nursing long enough. It could be nothing. Could be some sort of mental thing; over-tiredness would fit. But…”
She drew in a long breath.
“It could be physical, and there are two things that could match what she’s saying. The first is a stroke, just a little one. Blood vessels in the brain go a bit wonky. There’s things that can be done for that”
I had to ask.
“And the other thing?”
Yet again, a grimace.
“A tumour, love. It’s one way they sometimes show themselves. A mini stroke might cut away one thing, depending on where it hits. Tumours, well, they can do all sorts of odd stuff. Not saying that’s what it is, not at all, but she needs a look at”
“Surely Mam would know that? I mean, she’s a nurse, was one, anyway!”
“Ah, too close to it, always the case when it’s yourself. You either imagine all sorts of nasties or you never realise you’re as ill as the people you treat. Hazard of being a medic. When are you next seeing them?”
“I’ll be off down to Wales for the Fumble in a few weeks. Wasn’t sure if I could, but sometimes life doesn’t give you choices”
“You really are growing up, love. Carl and Rosie be there?”
I just nodded, and she took my hand.
“For your Mum, love. Get her to see a doctor. Get herself checked out. It doesn’t have to be as nasty as you think. Not all growths are malignant; things can be done to work round stroke damage. And it might just be hormone balance, fatigue, The Change, all sorts”
“The Change?”
“Menopause, love. Tell me: how did you feel when your doctor moved you off the stuff Loz was giving you? Before the prescription kicked in?”
“Oh, hell: like shit! Hot flushes, night sweats, all sorts of crap, till it settled down again”
“That, love, is what menopause can be like. If that’s all it is, doc can give her some replacement stuff, and she gets back to normal. But she needs to get it sorted as soon as possible”
I made the promise she asked, and sent a letter off to them at Nigel’s place. I almost forgot to write it, in my selfishness, because only three days after our chat, I had another letter, this time from London. They had a slot for me in November, which left me giggling at the idea of a slot to get a slot, and that led to tears and far too much wine. It was a good job the next day was a Sunday, because I was fit for nothing that day, and certainly unsafe to drive. I prepared another letter, this time to Mr Knight, just to check that I really had enough money to cover Mr Simmonds’ services in Harley Street. I posted that one as I walked to the bus stop for a ride into the town centre, where I wasted a couple of hours clearing my head as I walked around a couple of van dealer’s forecourts pricing vans.
The Commer held so many wonderful associations, but it was really showing its age now, and despite arguments from Dad, I owed them, and what was mine was and always would be ours. I found a little café offering Sunday dinner, so I had a pretty ordinary plate of roast pork and trimmings before heading home, feeling so out of sorts, so alone.
I had a reply from Knight six days later, and immediately wrote to Harley Street to confirm my place. That added to my sense of isolation, for I was now running to someone else’s timetable. I saw Doctor Nugent for the check-up required by Mr Simmonds, being punctured and drained yet again, and she grimaced as she read the letter again.
“Going to be a rough ride for a while, Debbie. You need to go cold turkey on the oestrogen until after he operates, and I know you found that unpleasant the last time. No option on this one, as I am told it is a thrombosis risk. Blood clots”
She caught my expression, smiling at me once more.
“No, woman! A risk of clotting WITH the little pills. Once the surgery’s done, you’ll be back on them, as you will need them for your future health. Rest of your life, in fact. Now, I am done, and Maureen is insisting you sit and chat for a few minutes so she can catch up on stuff. She’s got the kettle on ready. You made a big impression on her, you know”
That brought my own smile at last.
“I thought she was going to have me arrested!”
“She does have a reputation, and she does her best to maintain it. Anyway, I have someone else to see, as always, so you keep looking after yourself, Miss Debbie Wells. Call us when you are back from surgery, and we’ll cover the scrip you’ll need”
Someone else’s timetable indeed. So much to squeeze into so few weeks, including a driving test for the next stage of my HGV licence, but at least Christmas would be at home--- I could hardly be off driving wagons and loading pallets after surgery; in fact, simply getting in and out of a lorry’s cab would be impossible. Mr Mossman had already promised to keep me on, and my spirits lifted a little more as that web of friendships and mutual obligations grew ever more evident.
So, once again, a train down to Cardiff, this time carrying my own, brand-new helmet. Gandalf himself awaiting me, on his Triton, which took us through the city traffic in short time and left me crouching away from fence posts on left-handers, as my old friend threw the bike about even more enthusiastically than Dad had.
Rosie awaiting me, Carl beside her, my emotions churning. Sam, wearing a prospect’s colours for the Culhwch.
And Mam and Dad, and an end to being alone, just for a while.
CHAPTER 47
Sunday morning’s light told me I had got outside far too much alcohol the previous evening, and with that thought I realised that the evening had actually become morning before I had managed to deliver a very unsteady Mam to our corner of the site.
Hangovers are funny things, because they mirror the preceding state of drunkenness. When plastered, your mind comes up with all sorts of insights and mystical revelations, which will change the course of your life and deliver immeasurable benefits, if you could only recall them the following morning. Instead, the hangover arrives, which allows a detailed examination of the damage you are doing to your health.
Hangover revelations at bike rallies usually arrive first thing Saturday morning, and evaporate by early evening the same day. This time, my enlightenment was entirely related to Mam. I couldn’t help remembering Carol’s words. Stroke? Tumour? Either way, simply getting pissed wasn’t helping. I dressed quickly, crawling out of my tent and heading for the little kitchen area we always set up. There was more than enough water for two kettles, so I settled them both on the gas rings and set out a couple of pans for our breakfast. Whatever state Mam was in, the smell of bacon would always get her up and moving. That Sunday was no exception.
We sat in the tent for our breakfast, as it was a little damp outside, a low mist clinging to the area around the little stream where I had played Pooh Sticks for the first time, an age ago. Mam was in a pensive mood, as Dad handled a last few sales from the departing rallygoers.
“You happy with this surgeon bloke, love? He come across as straight up? Those posh bastards, they’re sometimes the worst of the Straights”
“I don’t think they are, really. I think it’s the ones who’d like to be posh, like that bitch with the horse face I told to fuck off that time”
She turned to look at me, a genuine grin creasing her face, bringing the lines out around her eyes.
“Whatever happened to that little wild thing I found in a horse box?”
“She grew up, Mam, and all thanks to you two. Anyway, that surgeon? I think he’s fine. There’s a bit of history about him, I think. Said something about things he had seen in the War. Meant to say about that. He looked me over, and he says he can do some work on my arse, clear up some of the problems there. I said I don’t have that much money, and he goes away for a while, not out of the room, just in his head, yeah? Says something about things he saw back then, and tells me ‘no charge’ for that bit”
“How was he dressed?”
“Blazer and tie with stripes on”
“Diagonal stripes?”
“Yeah. Three colours”
“He’ll be ex-RAMC, then. Royal Army Medical Corps. I think I can guess what he meant. We weren’t far from Hanover, me and Ken, when we were out there. Big military hospital. There was a famous place not far from us, where they had the Pied Piper, if you’ve heard that story. Hamelin. Took all the children away from the town, never brought them back. Other side of Hanover, though, was a place that was no fucking fairy story, and it took loads of people away, thousands and thousands. We went there, me and Ken. Just the once. That was once too much. I am wondering if that was where he was”
She sat in silence for a few seconds.
“Deb?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you remember asking me, all those years ago, why we were looking after you?”
“Every second of it”
“Well, it wasn’t just because of my Christine. I didn’t need to have known any of those folk who were in Belsen, I just needed to know that I needed to do my best to make things better, any way I could. I think your surgeon’s like that”
Another, longer pause.
“She never had a chance at getting fixed, love. Not like you have. But whoever it was that did for her, they showed her that they were real men before they smacked her head into the pavement and left her to die. I was still in Krautland when it happened, and the local coppers, they didn’t give a shit. One more bender out of the way. So… So let’s just make sure we get it right with you. Chris never had a chance. That work for you?”
All I could do was move over so I could hold her.
“I did some research while I was in Cannock, Mam. I’d like you to make me a promise, and see your own doctor, any doctor. You’re still not feeling the music, are you?”
“No…”
“Any headaches?”
“Volume of ale we had, of course!”
“Don’t fuck me about, Mam. This is me, not Dad”
Her eyes told me all I needed to know. I took both of her hands.
“Mini stroke, Mam. Or maybe a growth. Or maybe nothing at all, but I want you to see a doctor and get looked at properly. If I am your Christine, I am making you mine. OK?”
“Yeah, but we’ve got a living to earn”
“And I’ve come into money, yeah? WE’VE come into money. I want that promise, Mam!”
She was in my arms, and her tears were hot.
“I’m scared, love! Scared!”
My turn to love, my turn to care, but then I would never stop doing either. How could I?
“Mam?”
“Yes, love?”
“Fester is still open. I can get him to do us a hot chocolate each, if you’d like”
“I’d like that, love”
“Then we sit down and do some planning, aye? Find somewhere to do some checks, X-rays, scans, whatever the system is. And Mam?”
The decision came to me fully-formed and absolutely clear in its logic.
“If they need to do something, if they can’t do it on the NHS, then I speak to that man in Harley Street and see what he says. I’ve got the money, if we need it, and what’s mine is always ours. I can wait. I don’t know if you can”
I shot out of the door before she could answer, taking Dad’s order of a cuppa as I passed, his eyes missing neither the tear stains on my top, nor those on my face. That was the end of our discussion for then, but it didn’t bring a halt to events. Two weeks later, on a Friday evening, Carol was waiting by the door as I arrived home from Mossman’s. She was holding a letter.
“You talked to Loz, then? She’s asked me to set up an appointment for her, given a long list of symptoms, and they are terrifying me. Could you please stop over at ours tonight? Pete’s away for a couple of days for a gig, and I don’t want to be alone with this stuff. Please? I’ll cook, if you like”
The bottom was dropping out of my guts as I changed from my overalls and safety boots, and when I knocked on the door, Carol was so clearly unable to settle down, bustling around me with drinks and plates of food that I stood up and pushed her into her chair. Whatever Mam had told her was clearly far more detailed information than I had been given.
“Carol. Speak. Just tell me, instead of scaring me shitless. Please”
She picked up the letter, tried to read it a couple of times, then dropped it into her lap. A few deep, slow breaths.
“Did Loz tell you she isn’t driving anymore, Deb?”
“What? No!”
“Headaches, as well, and they are postural, positional. Depend on where she’s holding her head, whether she’s leaning over, that sort of thing. She’s losing words as well, in her reading. Looks at a page, and there’s odd words that just sit there, that she can’t get a focus on. And she was on the psych ward; she bloody well knows what all that means!”
I don’t know what my expression told her, but Carol was as sharp as ever, leaping from her chair to embrace me.
“No, love. She didn’t tell you all that because she didn’t want you scared, that’s all. This is for the doctors, and they need the lot. Ken’s bringing her home in ten days, and they’ve got one of those new scanner things down in Brum. I’ve sorted an appointment through my bosses. That’s why she’s given me the details”
Fucking tears again, just when I needed strength, tears from someone supposed to be a hard case, biker bitch, whatever.
“What do we do, Carol?”
“What we can, love. We pray, or whatever works for you. We make messy stuff in the kitchen, and we get stoned, or pissed, or both, and then we pick ourselves up and start doing our best for a woman we both love. Dharma and karma, Debbie. She’s done the right thing all her life, made the hard choices between the easy way out and being excellent to others, so how can we fail? Eat up, and then I’ll skin up while you pour. Both of us off tomorrow, yeah?”
“Yeah”
“Wasted it is, then”
Wasted we both were, and once again it was only one bed needed for the pair of us. Safety and warmth, love and deep concern for Mam, and a small bowl of whisky left outside the back door as an offering to whichever of the other types of spirit that might be open to persuasion. Just under a fortnight later, five of us were in Birmingham.
CHAPTER 48
The seats were uncomfortable, as always, but in differing ways. Most of them were hard plastic chairs, that gradually sent your arse to sleep, with the occasional comfy-looking armchair bearing a beguilingly padded seat that was actually worse. You sat on the thick cushion, and the air trapped under the vinyl cover slowly farted out through the holes in the plywood base. With a sigh, you gradually descended to a perch on the base board, the frame digging into the backs of your thighs as the trapped sweat began to soak them.
It did help, though, as the discomfort drew my thoughts away from what was happening with Mam. This was new technology, apparently, a way of looking at the whole of a body part rather than trying to put together a picture from a side view X-ray and another taken at right angles. I will admit that I understood very little of what was involved, but I was still anxious for the results. Peter and Carol were muttering something rhythmic and almost hypnotically repetitive under their breath, and I assumed it was some equivalent of prayer.
I had no god; I left that to our friends, while, perhaps hypocritically, hoping that it could somehow do the trick.
“Mr Petrie?”
Dad looked up, seeming a little shocked as he was pulled out of his own world of contemplation and, perhaps, prayer.
“Yeah? I mean, that’s me”
The nurse nodded, smiling in a way that seemed rather forced.
“Doctor will see you now”
“Could our daughter come in as well? Think my missus would like that””
A quick measuring glance from her seemed to be an assessment of my age and adulthood, and she nodded.
“Not a problem. If your friends want to wait it would probably be better in the Friends’ Café rather than here. More comfortable seats, for a start, and Doctor might take a while”
Oh shit. Carol just nodded to her own husband, and after a round of hugs, they were off down the long, green-painted corridor. Dad took my hand as we stepped through the door the nurse was holding open, then followed her along a shorter corridor to an office with a large screen on one wall. Mam was sitting in one of the ‘visitor’ chairs, an obvious doctor with one of those Pancho Villa moustaches behind the desk. He smiled at the nurse.
“Thank you, Betty. This is…?”
“Mrs Petrie’s daughter, Doctor”
“Ah! Thank you. Could you please find another couple of chairs? Mr Lloyd should be along shortly”
“Right away, Doctor. Um, pardon my cheek, but if this is going to be a long meeting, would you like me to get one of my girls to sort some teas?”
“You are an angel, Betty! How do you two take it? Betty knows me too well”
We gave our orders, but mine was from the side of my mouth, as I was staring at my mother, whose face was drawn, eyes rimmed with red. The Doctor was making small talk, but I wasn’t listening; Mam was hurting, and that would never be something I could allow. Ten minutes of that, and a tray of teas arrived just as a much taller man swept in, wearing a suit rather than a white coat, and carrying a large envelope. ‘Our’ doctor looked up.
“Ah! Ladies, Mr Petrie, this is Mister Lloyd, our surgical consultant. Just in time for tea, Harvey. You must be able to smell it”
“Finely honed sensitivities, Eammon. Now, who is who in our little group?”
Dad held his hand up.
“Ken Petrie, my wife Lorraine, and our daughter Debbie”
“Fine, fine. I am Harvey Lloyd, and for my sins I am the surgical consultant in our little section of the NHS. Dr Fry here has asked me to give my expert opinion on the images we have obtained from our new toy…”
He trailed off, suddenly looking a little tired, then raised his eyes to us once more.
“No. Not the time, nor the place for levity. Mrs Petrie, Mr Petrie, Debbie… this is not an easy matter to discuss, so please forgive my earlier breeziness. We all have our ways of coping. I will not dress up the situation with said levity, nor obfuscate with too many technical details. Mrs Petrie, as I am sure you will have guessed, all is not right inside your head. The new toy I mentioned allows us to see these things a lot more clearly than was previously possible, which not only saves you from the pernicious side-effects of too much exposure to X-rays, but facilitates a much, much quicker diagnosis”
He paused. Just for a second, then resumed speaking, his eyes this time fixed firmly on his hands, which were holding the envelop across his lap.
“I will not try to make this anything other than accurate, but I will be as open as I can. This is not good news. In fact… in fact, Mrs Petrie, it would probably be best if you were to begin setting your affairs in order”
He looked back up just then, his eyes moist.
2I have been doing this for many years, and it would be unnatural if it failed to affect me, so I can only apologise. Mrs Petrie, you have a tumour, and it is not an agreeable little bastard. I suspect it has spread its influence beyond what I have already seen, and it would normally be a sensible course of action to carry out further scans, just to be sure. In my view, that would be needlessly distressing for you”
Mam spoke, for the first time since we had entered the little office.
“I’m a nurse, Mister Lloyd, or at least I was. You are saying it’s a tumour, it’s malignant, and that it’s inoperable. Am I right?”
He made a sort of half wave with the envelope, before simply nodding. Mam started to weep, as did Dad, and I just sat there watching them, a hollow place where my heart had been as the teas cooled, untouched by any of us.
Fuck it.
“Doctor Lloyd?”
“Mister”
“Whatever. You say it can’t be cut out, aye?”
“Not without causing so much damage to surrounding tissue that Mrs Petrie would be as good as… The process of removing the beast would almost certainly result in such damage that, even if your mother were to survive, it would not be in any meaningful way. I am sure you will agree that there is more to being alive than maintaining a heartbeat. I would be unwilling to take on such a procedure, as it is well beyond the capabilities of any surgeon I am familiar with”
I glanced at Dad, willing him to speak up, but he simply looked lost. In the end, the idea was an obvious one/
“Mister Lloyd, I know a surgeon. In that London, on Harley Street”
“Oh? Who might that be?”
“Charles Hemmings”
Mr Lloyd’s eyebrows went up, as he looked at me far more intently than he had so far done.
“Ah! I see… not to worry, Ms Petrie. He is an eminent surgeon, but not someone the NHS could ever call on”
“I have money. I can pay. All I ask is if you can let him see those scan things if he says OK after I ask him”
Mam looked round sharply.
“That’s your money, love, for, well, it’s for YOU!”
“Oh fuck off! What’s important here? Who saved my life, who gave it back to me in one piece? What are we if not family?”
Dad reached out for my hand, as Lloyd smiled, sadly.
“I would be more than willing to let Mr Hemmings see the results, Debbie. More than willing. The only caveat I would add is my advice not to build up hopes that may be dashed. I am aware of his reputation, as I am of one of the areas he specialises in. Please, please await his response before you assume success. I am sorry if I come across as an Eeyore, but this is a time for realism. That said, I will be more than willing to work with all of you to explore any avenue that may promise a happier outcome. Doctor Fry here can make arrangements for transferring the results, if Mr Hemmings is amenable. I am afraid I must myself apologise, as I have another family I am due to speak to, as of ten minutes ago. I will merely wish you the best of luck, paltry sentiment though that may be”
After a round of handshakes, he was off, leaving me to steer a silent mother and a stumbling, weeping father back to where our friends were waiting. Not a word was said by any of us on the drive back home, but we stopped at a supermarket to buy more than a little booze. I could read Mam’s mind as we loaded the boot of the car:
“Doesn’t matter anymore how much I drink”
CHAPTER 49
“Good morning, Mr Hemming’s office, Julia speaking. How may I help you?”
“Um, my name is Debbie Wells. I was down for an assessment with Mr Hemmings about some surgery”
“Thank you. May I take your date of birth and postcode?”
I rattled them off.
“One moment… Here we are. I have your details now, Ms Wells. How may we help?”
“It’s, well, it’s not me. I’m down to have some work done by Mr Hemmings, and… And I don’t know if he can help, but Mam’s got a tumour, and the NHS say they can’t do anything, and if I cancel my op I’ll have money, and if Mr Hemmings can do Mam, I don’t care about me, and…”
I ran out of steam but not out of tears, as ‘Julia’ waited in silence. When all I had were occasional strangled sobs, she spoke again.
“Ms Wells, please give me your telephone number. I have it on file, but I want to be sure it is the number you are on now. If you have a friend nearby, call them to sit with you, then hang up. Make some tea, or whatever you prefer. I am going to speak to Mr Hemmings and then one of us will call you back. We will be no longer than ten minutes. Can you do that for me?”
“Not the friends bit, but yeah. Can he do anything?”
“Ms Wells, Debbie, I am a receptionist, as well as a nurse. It will be up to Mr Hemmings to say whether or not he can help, but I know him rather well. If he can, he will. Now, cup of tea, whatever, and wait for us to call you back. Will you be OK doing that?”
“Don’t have much choice, do I?”
“Keep that spirit, Debbie. In ten minutes, OK?”
“OK”
The phone clicked as she hung up, and I looked at the crate of beer I could see through the kitchen door. No. Clear head.
Those words started me off again, and I almost missed the phone as it rang only six minutes later.
“Is that Debbie?”
“Yes”
“Charles Hemmings here. How are you, my dear”
“fucking… sorry, Mr Hemmings. I am devastated. No bloody idea what to do”
“Take your time, take it as slowly as you need, and talk me through things. Please. My partner is handling my appointments for now”
I drew in a slow breath, trying to control the shuddering.
“It’s Mam. My adoptive mother, yeah? Been having a few issues, body memory stuff, and so I made her go to the hospital. They’ve got one of those new scanner things. Doctor says it saves her from getting too many X-rays and stuff, and is a lot quicker than the old way, so they get a diagnosis a lot quicker and that”
“I know all about those devices, Debbie. Please. Take your time, but I need some detail beyond the machinery used.”
I lost it again for a few seconds, but he was patient.
“The NHS man said it was a ‘disagreeable little bastard’. It’s a tumour, it’s in too deep to cut out, and he thinks it’s spread. Mam used some word that sounded like ‘metastudies’ or something”
“Metastasised. What is your mother’s background, Debbie?”
“She was a nurse, Mr Hemmings. Psych ward”
“Ah. She will therefore be very aware of the implications. Now, could she travel to my rooms here? In London?”
I stammered something out, and heard him sigh.
“Debbie, I am not a mercenary. I chose my profession… I followed my conscience in my choice of profession because I wish to heal. This is not a time to discuss money. I have an agreement with Bart’s for radiography, and I would like to have them examine your mother using similar devices to those already in play. The reason for this is that I would like them to check for any metastasis, as feared. I need to know all potential problems before I can decide on the viability of surgery or of any other therapies such as radio or chemo. Do not give up hope, my dear”
Slow and deep, girl; breathe slowly and deeply.
“Can you give me any idea of costs, Mr Hemmings?”
“Travel and subsistence, Debbie”
“Pardon?”
“Rail fare and any hotel costs. I will not be charging a fee. The NHS will be offering their services, but I will be carrying out the work. See it as a charitable contribution, see it as part of that sense of vocation I mentioned. See it however you wish, or that makes sense to you”
He sighed, before continuing.
“Debbie, I have indicated previously that I have witnessed events and seen things that encourage me in my wish to improve the world I inhabit. My work is infrequent enough in terms of actual surgeries that I have windows in my schedule. I can arrange my paying work around any necessary work for your mother, and that is the end of that discussion. Speak to your mother, and speak to Julia here. I need two appointments from you”
“Two?”
“Yes. One for your mother to spend a few days in London while we assess—while I and my colleagues at Bart’s assess the problem. The second is to confirm a date for your own adjustments”
“But I thought…”
“You assumed you would need to cancel such work as the money would be needed for your mother? That thought does you credit, Debbie, but such is not necessary. I will see you here for your own work whatever happens. Do we have an agreement?”
“Yes…”
“Good. I will hand you back to Julia now. Please give my best wishes to your mother, and explain what we shall need. I will need to add a caveat, though: I can make no promise other than that I will do my utmost”
“Thank you, Mr Hemmings”
“Not at all. It is merely the performance of a doctor’s duty. I shall transfer you back to my young lady”
I ended up with an appointment for my own surgery in four months’ time, which was something that left me so confused I was almost unable to function. Could I go through with something so trivial when Mam was under a death sentence? I talked it over with them next time they rang. Dad seemed slightly unsure.
“I don’t get why he doesn’t want a load of money, duck. What’s he not saying?”
In a moment of insight, I saw the depth of Dad’s inbuilt suspicion of ‘straights’. The answer was obvious.
“Dad. You and Mam, when you took me in, yeah? You did it because it was the right thing to do, didn’t you?”
“Well, yeah! Wouldn’t have been right to leave you like that, would it?”
“Course not. What it is, I think Mr Hemmings is like that. He sees the right thing to do, and he tries to do it”
Another rush of understanding hit me.
“Dad?”
“Aye, duck?”
“I don’t know if I’m right, but, well, I wonder if he’s trying to make up for something. What is it they call that? Atonement?”
“Aye… Could be right. Especially if he was in that place your Mam and me told you about”
“Why, Dad? That was the bloody Nazis’ fault, not his, if he went in when it was captured!”
There was a long pause from him, and when he spoke again, he was a lot softer in his tone.
“Carol will have told you where Mam worked, when me and her met, duck. I know Loz has said a few words about it, so I’m not going into any details, none at all. It’s just, well, sometimes something happens, and you can be there when it does, or a bit after, and you see the shit that’s left, and al the damage, and you know it’s not your fault, and some folk, they see no more than that. Not me, I wasn’t there, all down to that lot on the other side, or whatever.
“Some people, though, they look at the crap, and they say, that was a bad thing, and they decide they’ll do their best to try and stop it ever happening again. Can’t fault that, duck, not like the first lot of handwashers, all turned away, all ‘long way away and people I didn’t know’. But there’s more…
“Sometimes, when the bad shit happens, if you’re there at the time, or a little bit later, and you see the results, and you say ‘never fucking again’, and you make all those promises to yourself and your mates, sometimes there’s more. Sometimes there’s guilt”
“Dad, why guilt? I mean, sticking to that Belsen place, that was all the Nazis, not Mr Hemmings and his mates. Why feel guilty?”
Another long, deep sigh.
“That’s the thing, duck. Nazis aren’t some odd orc or Nazgul thing. People who did the things I saw were just that: people. Nazis were, are people. All that shit, all that evil, it was carried out by people. If you care about others, if you see them as being like you, then you can’t turn round and say some of those others aren’t, you know, just as much kin as the ones you like. Tempting though it is, it would be like those Tory bastards who want lads locked up forever, key thrown away and all that, instead of looking at why they broke whatever law it is they broke. No. Sometimes, you look at shit, like I said, and you say to yourself ‘People did that’, and that’s when you get the guilt”
“What was it for you, Dad?”
“No, Debbie, Just no. Now, what are we going to do about a hotel and stuff in that London?”
CHAPTER 50
We changed onto the faster train at New Street, the old Commer left behind on our drive in Cannock as Dad refused outright to even think of trying to drive it through London, much less park it. The train wasn’t that fast in the end, but we finally stepped out onto a platform in Euston, people surging around us in a clear hurry, and equally as clear in their idea of the right way to go. I had asked around at work, and so we headed down Euston Road towards King’s Cross, where I had been told there were a number of cheaper guest houses.
We found a half-reasonable one in a side road, Crestfield Street, and my room turned out to be an obvious attic or outhouse conversion with a sloping ceiling, a single bed, a kettle and a tiny portable television. We ate that night in a café on Grays Inn Road, and almost by telepathy agreed we would head straight to bed. None of us were looking forward to the next day’s appointment.
There was a thunderstorm in the night, and it woke me just in time to see the bulge forming in my ceiling, immediately over the telly, which I managed to unplug and haul out of the way just before the lining paper burst to release a steady flow of rainwater onto the little table.
It was almost a mirror to my life: forever skirting the edge of disaster, but so far avoiding the very worst. Mam had pulled me back from that edge; could we manage the same trick again? The thunder spoke once more, but only the once, and by the time I woke again, the little flood had ended. I shambled down to breakfast, which wasn’t great, and passed a sly comment to the receptionist about the cost of a new television versus the price of the room for a night, but it sailed right over her head. It summed up so much of London, in my minimal experience.
There was a bus directly from the railway station to Bart’s, which was handy, and the hospital staff were so delightful I found that opinion of Londoners shifting upwards several notches. Mam was into the special scanner device slightly ahead of time, as there had been a cancellation, and in a surprisingly short time we were handed a number of large envelopes, with an assurance that detailed reports and interpretations had been sent to Mr Hemmings’ office by fax.
We found a little place in the hospital itself for a midday meal, and then walked down towards St Paul’s for the Underground to Oxford Circus, passing so many famous sights that I felt more like a tourist than someone on more important business. Mam, however, said almost nothing in all that time, her gaze fixed a little ahead of her feet as her hand stayed clamped to Dad’s.
I had learned a little from my previous visit, so we walked north from the tube station rather than measuring the whole length of Harley Street, and as we approached the surgeon’s office, I finally saw Mam start responding to her surroundings.
“This is a bit bloody posh, Debbie!”
“Yeah. I got to see all of it last time; walked down from the other end. Bloody good job I was in my comfy boots. It’s a long street”
Nonsense conversation, nothing but filler, but at least she was talking. I led the two of them to the surgery door and walked in ahead of them, realising as I did so that I was acting as if there were some danger I needed to scout out for Mam.
“Ah! Hello again, Ms Wells! You are early, but not by too much. Mr Hemmings is in consultation. He has received the fax from Bart’s, however, and I would imagine that he will wish to spend some time in preparation. Would you like some refreshments? Tea? Coffee? Water?”
Mam looked at me and Dad in turn, then turned back to the receptionist.
“Don’t know about these two, Miss…”
“Julia”
“Ta, love. I could murder a decent cup of tea. Deb? Ken?”
We both nodded, and after giving Julia our order, she disappeared for a couple of minutes, returning with a tray bearing cups, pot and the rest of the necessaries for the traditional go-to for the stressed. We were most of the way through the pot when the buzzer went on Julia’s intercom thing.
“Certainly, Mr Hemmings. I will send them right in”
As we all looked over, she smiled and indicated a door I remembered well, and we rose and headed for it as a family. The surgeon was waiting by the door, rather than sitting behind his desk, and his smile of welcome held real warmth.
“Hello again, Debbie. These must be your parents. Lorraine, and?”
Dad held out his hand, which Hemmings shook firmly.
“Ken Petrie, Doctor. Debbie’s dad”
“Right. Fine. Julia provided you all with refreshments? Do you need anything further?”
We all shook our heads.
“Fine, fine. Now, if it is acceptable, I would like to speak to Lorraine alone. It is for my protection, given the times we live in. I wish to be absolutely certain that what I share with the rest of your family is entirely in accordance with your wishes”
Dad bristled slightly at Hemmings’ words, but Mam simply nodded slowly.
“I see where he’s coming from, love. It’ll only be a few minutes, I’m sure. I’ll be fine. Grab another cuppa while you wait, if that’s OK, Doctor?”
“Not a problem at all, Lorraine. Simply ask Julia”
He opened the door once again, and I led Dad back to the armchairs we had been occupying only a minute before, Julia looking up as we passed.
“More tea, then?”
I gave her my best smile.
“Please”
It turned out be well over twenty minutes before Julia’s intercom buzzed again, and at her signal, Dad and I rose and went to the opening door, where Mr Hemmings waved us in and across to a couple of chairs. Mam was sitting, and I saw immediately that she had been crying. My heart was in my mouth, but it was Dad who concerned me just then, as he collapsed into his chair next to Mam, rather than sitting down carefully. His voice was faint, with a quaver to it.
“That’s what this was, then, Doctor? It’s bad news, isn’t it?”
Mam nodded once to the doctor, the movement a lot sharper than her earlier agreement, and he picked up a bundle of papers from his blotter.
“Ken, Debbie; I have talked through the situation with Lorraine in some detail, so I will spare you unnecessary technicalities. The new scanning techniques are rather wonderful in terms of what they can tell us, but I am afraid that the actual message is not glad tidings. The team at Bart’s has been most efficient in their analysis, which explains the thickness of the bundle I am holding”
He looked down at his desk, removing his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose.
“I am not going to give an absolute comment here, as I try and avoid such things, in such circumstances. I have agreed with Lorraine that I will share these results with a fellow surgeon, and seek a second opinion. I… I do not believe that opinion is likely to differ from mine”
He put his glasses back on, and when he spoke again, it was in a far faster delivery, almost as if he didn’t want his own words.
“Lorraine has indeed got a tumour in her brain. I will not go into the technicalities; I promised that. There are two major issues. The first is that the object in question is in a particularly difficult place in which to operate. It is very likely that any attempt to do so will kill her. The second issue is actually several things, which are what I feared, what you were worried about, Debbie, when you contacted me”
I was having difficulty swallowing as he spoke, but I got the words out at last.
“Metawhatsits?”
He nodded, clearly trying to keep his expression neutral but failing badly at doing so.
“Yes. Secondaries, people call them. Bart’s scanner man has identified at least three more small growths in the brain, as well as another two definitely on the spine, and there were a couple of other anomalous areas in the thorax. I plan to refer the results, as I have already said, to a friend of mine who specialises in neurosurgery to a far greater depth than I do, as well as to an oncologist of my acquaintance. An oncologist is a cancer specialist”
Dad was weeping gently, Mam slumped like a sack of coal, face blank and eyes looking far beyond the walls of Hemmings’ little office. I had dad’s left hand, his right gripping Mam’s left as if it were a lifeline to a drowning woman. I seemed to be the only one able to talk, so I asked the obvious question.
“What can we do, Doctor?”
His shoulders slumped.
“What can you do? Debbie, I will start making calls as soon as you have left me. I can make no promises beyond saying that I will do my utmost for you all. What can you do? Prepare. That is the only advice I can give, I am afraid. Prepare for the worst, and hope for something better. Pray, if that is your way. I estimate that… Given the timescale you have already described, from the initial effects on kinetic memory--- the dancing and driving--- given that rate of change, I would estimate that it will reach, things will develop, the…”
Once more, he removed his glasses, and his own gaze went somewhere with Mam’s.
“Six months, my friends. Probably rather less”
CHAPTER 51
Recovery from surgery was slow, but nowhere near as bad as I had feared. When I left Hemmings’ place, Carol was with me, having taken the train down so that I wouldn’t have to ride all the way home again alone, but for my little rubber ring under the new anatomy. We hardly spoke at all; what should have been the celebration of my body finally being compete was lost in the rattle of train wheels and Tannoy announcements from the guard. It all felt so utterly meaningless, and the question locked in my mind was whether I should really have bothered going through with the surgery. What, after all, was the point?
Mr Hemmings had been as good as his word, and three weeks after that last meeting we were back in Bart’s for another scan, this time with specific directions from Hemmings’ colleagues as to which areas should be scanned, and from which orientation, direction, whatever. That was a day-trip for Mam and me, but another week later, all three of us were back in front of Mr Hemmings, a pot of tea delivered, as ever, by Julia.
Hemmings was playing with his glasses once more, on and off, and I realised that it was what Pete called a ‘tell’, a clue to his mind’s inner working.
“Ken, Lorraine, Debbie. Thank you for coming in person. I much prefer to see the people I am treating, to talk face to face. Unfortunately, it is in the nature of my calling that such conversations may occasionally be less than cheerful. I have shared the results of your scans, as I discussed with you, and my colleagues have given their professional opinions”
Mam was crushing my hand with hers, and I am sure doing the same with Dad.
“It’s bad news, then, Doctor”
Once more, his glasses came off, to be folded and placed on his blotter.
“Yes. I am afraid that it is. My neurosurgeon friend, and the oncologist, both concur. The risk of an adverse outcome from surgery on the primary tumour is unsupportable, and when all the secondaries are taken into account... I am so very sorry. I truly wish I could have delivered better news, but I am, alas, unable to do so. All I can do, in such circumstances, is waive my usual fees. Small comfort, faint solace, but I am unable to offer the answer I would most dearly have preferred”
Dad’s voice was almost inaudible.
“Game over, then?”
“I am afraid so, Ken. Do you have someone to speak with, perhaps someone of a faith you follow?”
Mam nodded sharply.
“Aye, Doctor. We do. More than that: we have our life. Ken, fuck this---sorry, Doctor. We have five, six months, then. Stuff the weekly market shit, stuff the stock and the trailer for those. It’s scene from now on, lifestyle, rallies. Deb gets through her HGV stuff soon, so she’ll be free to join us when she can, and I know Mossman won’t mind. Sorry again, Doctor, but fuck this shit. What’s the calendar, Ken, apart from the Fumble?”
She released my hand, and reached out for the Doctor’s, holding rather than shaking it.
“Thank you, Doctor. Thank you for everything you have done for this family. Sorry we couldn’t bring you an easy one”
He just nodded, moving some papers around with his free hand, but not letting go of hers until he found what he sought.
“This is a scrip from my oncologist colleague. When necessary, and you will know when, I am sorry to say, tender this to your GP and it will allow him to sign a prescription for analgesia, as well as other items that may be necessary. Lorraine, your own professional experience will be of more use than any explanation I can give”
More apologies, more sympathy, and in the end we bailed out of the surgery for the first train we were allowed to board. New Street came, and the slower train to Cannock, and then Carol at the station to meet us with the car. None of us had said more than a very few words for the whole of our journey home, and I was expecting that we would simply go to the house, open the front door, enter, and close it on the whole of the world. To my surprise, Dad insisted Carol drive us around to the Cash and Carry, where we filled the car boot with booze and party food. As we loaded everything, Mam was writing a list on a piece of paper, and once all of us were seated again, she handed it to Carol.
“Your half of the list, love. What you working tomorrow?”
“Day off”
“I remembered right, then. When we’re in, start ringing round. I’ll do the other half or them. Fuck this world; tonight we rock out, we get pissed, we be who we fucking well are, yes?”
“What do I tell them all, Loz?”
“The truth, woman. No more playing, no hiding. We keep our class, OK?”
It ended up almost like an indoor rally, as people piled into the house, many of them with guitars or other instruments, or just a pile of LPs or a bag of cassettes. For two nights, we partied, as people came and went according to their needs and obligations, until finally the booze was gone, and it was just the three of us, alone to face the future Mam didn’t have.
She made a bad joke about getting her wake in while she was still able to enjoy it, and then sat down with Dad to confirm the calendar for what time she had left, and start making phone calls.
I travelled out as often as I could for the events they hit, including the Fumble, of course, and the Beer Barrel and Hairy Stotty, and while Mam didn’t dance, she seemed happy to sit with a drink and watch me do so. One thing I noticed was the way the regulars treated her, and it was very different to what they offered me.
Gandalf, Rosie and Sam, as well as Carl, were effusive in their sympathy, even Carl sharing some tears, as long as that only involved me. With Mam, they were almost painfully cheerful, and seemed to be making no allowances whatever for her problems. I looked to Dad for an explanation, and he was clear, as always.
“Class, Deb. Her class. If she needs help, she’ll let them know, but as long as she is still fighting, they’ll respect that class. Her class, her choices. They’re not ignoring stuff, just following her lead. Respect, aye?”
I got the message, and from then on did my best to follow the lead in public, so that her class could be seen, approved of, and respected. I couldn’t get to every event they did, but I joined them whenever I could, until the Hairy Stotty was over, and I had time to ride with them to Graham’s, where the dynamics were a little different.
Graham was just like the rallyists in his apparent disregard of Mam’s problems, but I caught him warning off his man friend a couple of times, as he became what might have been just a little over-solicitous. Dad fettled the machinery, as well as replacing a section of floor in the old Commer that was starting to rust through, while I lay in the dunes with tape player, shades and Mam. Her energy was really starting to fail her just then, tiredness and headaches rarely far away, and that same class could be relaxed as we lay by each other behind the wonderful beach, marram stalks waving in the steady breeze and the coconut smell of gorse flowers heavy in the air. She didn’t have to affect confidence then, nor pretend nothing was wrong with her, just lie with me in the sun and listen to the calls of terns and gulls and the rustle of the wind over the sand, as the waves shushed them all.
Time ran out, as ever, and they dropped me off in Morpeth for the bus into Newcastle and the trains home.
“What are you doing, you two?”
Dad smiled at Mam, a little sadly.
“Across the tourist way again, duck. Stop in a couple of places by the Wall, then bugger the tourists and have a look at the Lakes again. Maybe head on up to the Highlands if the weather holds out. Make the most… Things to do, places to see. You get your tests passed, duck, and we’ll let you know next meeting place”
Hugs, love in abundance, and they were off. It was only three days later that the knock came on the front door in Cannock.
“Hello. What do you want?”
I was rarely at ease with coppers, for some odd reason, and there were two of them a man and a woman.
“Is this the home of Kenneth and Lorraine Petrie?”
I knew, then. I knew, immediately, what they were there for, and my bloody legs failed me, but the woman caught me before I could hit the ground, the man muttering “Get her indoors, Trace. Bit of privacy be good”
They bundled me into the house, and onto an armchair, and I wanted to say they couldn’t, they had no right to enter, but all I could come out with was a request to try next door, where Pete was in, and then the kettle was on, and I knew, how I knew.
I ended up in Pete’s arms on the settee, as introductions were made, and a mug of tea was put into my hands, as the two coppers, PCs Jeffers and Peart, tried to give me the news they were so clearly reluctant to deliver. I cut them short.
“Where were they found?”
The woman, Trace, Jeffers, seemed even younger than me.
“Um, a place in Northumberland. There’s a quarry, on Hadrian’s Wall”
“Cawfield?”
“That’s the place. You know it?”
“It’s one of our favourite spots. Little lake with a car park”
She tried a smile, but it was rather beyond her.
“Never been there. Is it nice?”
“Gorgeous. What happened?”
The second part of her news was becoming clear already, because it wasn’t one of my parents delivering the news, but two coppers. I was starting to shake again, and Peter noticed, taking the cup from me and turning back to the police.
“Not being funny, not meaning to be nasty, but could you please get to the point?”
The man, Peart, looked down for a second.
“I’m afraid we have some bad news, Ms Wells”
Enough was finally enough, and I lashed out.
“I fucking know that, don’t I? It’s fucking obvious! Is it both of them? Just fucking TELL me!”
Peter squeezed my shoulders, and I mumbled an apology as Jeffers sighed and said “Yes, I am afraid so”
The words were logjammed in my throat, but I managed “How?”
She sighed once more.
“Was your Dad a mechanic or engineer, Ms Wells?”
I nodded.
“Ex-army. REME, vehicle mechanic. He was really good with machinery”
She was nodding in turn.
“We suspected as much. He appears to have modified the vehicle they were in, an old van.
“A Commer”
A quick check of her notes.
“Yes. The quarry is on the Pennine Way, and it is used as a camp site for walkers”
“Yeah. We’ve shared breakfasts with them in the past”
“Right. Anyway, one of the campers got up in the small hours to ask him to turn his engine off. He says it wasn’t loud, just irritating. He said he tried the doors, but there were curtains drawn over the windows, and there was no reply from inside, so he shone a torch, and he could see fumes coming out of the roof ventilator and the air intake below the windscreen. He was a fireman, as it turned out, so he smashed one of the side windows, in the passenger door, and the van was full of engine exhaust fumes. He got the doors open, then the side door, and found your parents… he found your parents in bed. There was nothing he could do for them”
Peter held me tighter as he asked his own question.
“What went wrong?”
Peart looked at Jeffers, and she shrugged, then completed the story.
“That’s possibly the wrong question, Peter. It appears that the exhaust system had been modified so that it could be redirected through a pipe into the inside of the van. I am afraid there is only one conclusion that can be drawn from that. Tell me, is there any reason you can think of why, you know…”
I managed to speak again, but only just.
“Mam had terminal cancer. Only a few months to go”
“Ah. Do you think it was her choice? If not, we would be looking at a possible murder-suicide rather than two suicides”
Peter’s hug was becoming painful.
“I think it was time the two of you fucked right off, don’t you?”
“Well, we need to---”
“Fuck. Off. Now. Got me?”
They did indeed fuck right off, and with them went any sympathy I might have held for their position. ACAB. Fucking ACAB. It wiped out my memories of that chat in Cardiff, with Sergeant Harris, where they were looking to do Charlie Cooper. Here, my parents were both gone, and all they wanted was someone to blame.
I am afraid I slammed the door, which saved me from letting them see me break down completely, but Peter was there, and Carol joined us later, the two of them as calm and soothing as ever. Carol was almost smiling, which seemed odd.
“Never did anything apart, those two. Deb, you know how they met?”
“Yeah. In a military hospital, wasn’t it?”
“And I already know that you know that Ken was a patient there, on the psych ward. Loz looked after him, while he showed her that not all squaddies are arseholes. What you need to know, though, is simpler. The only thing that kept Ken with us, back then, was Loz. I know what you think… thought of Ken, but without Loz, he would have folded years ago. I know what you’re thinking, love”
“What am I thinking?”
“You’re screaming ‘Why leave me on my own?’. Am I right?”
I nodded, not trusting my mouth to be sensible.
“Well, I think, if Loz had still been on song, he would have found another way to move on, been able to stay with you. I think Loz had lost that ability”
“Not true, not at all. I mean, she did the class thing with everyone else, but we talked, she was honest with me… wasn’t she?”
Peter broke the mood, deliberately.
“I’ll organise a service, if you want, love. I can see why Loz organised that wake thing now. You got details for the Welsh lot? Anyone else?”
I realised I needed to speak to Graham, because it was now obvious what Dad had been doing during our last stay there, and so I pushed them both out of the house so that I could scream for a while, before starting on the telephone calls. A heads-up first, to be followed by a later call once the bodies were released. Graham first.
I nearly missed the front doorbell the next morning, because my head was thick with the hangover I had worked so hard to deliver the night before, and I opened the door to find Mick on the step with a card and a hug. I brought him into the living room, while I went back upstairs for a puke, finding tea steaming ready for me on my return.
That set the pattern of my life for the next few weeks. Mr Mossman provided a flatbed wagon to recover the Commer once the police had finished with it, and they finally left me alone after plumping for a double suicide rather than trying to shit all over Dad’s memory. Just for the sake of their paperwork, or crime ratio, or whatever they felt they needed. Pete arranged an ostensibly ‘humanist’ cremation up in Stafford, and I am sure the mourners terrified those attending the preceding and following services. I was passed around so many people for hugs and attempts at comfort that I lost track, but there were two things that touched my soul, both from one of Carl’s brothers.
I had said my last goodbye in the chapel of rest that held Mam and Dad before their final journey, and the two gifts were left with them for that trip. They were beautiful wooden carvings, a caduceus for Mam, and a Triton badge for Dad. I ensured they went with my parents, inside the coffins rather than left on top, and we sang songs that meant things to us, about nights in white satin and being frolicsome and easy, good tempered and free, and I really didn’t give a single pin, my boys, what the world thought of me.
The curtains closed, and the coffins went through the hatch, and a little while later I received two simple urns holding all that was left of my parents. Another week later, peter, carol and I were once more in Northumberland. I had thought long and hard about meaningful places, and Brocolitia was the obvious one. Three of us walked slowly around the grassy ridges that marked the old fort’s walls, as a curlew trilled somewhere under the vast and empty sky.
A tiny temple, a comfort for soldiers so far from home and family. Pete poured a libation to the spirits of the place, and as the wind moved under that immense bowl of blue, we offered it Ken and Lorraine Petrie.
It was over, but my life went on.
I wasn’t sure if that was what I really wanted.