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?