Street Kid (27 page)

I’m walking up the platform and making my way to the clock. Before I reach it, I see Dora, blonde hair gleaming and looking so happy, smiling and waving at me. ‘Judy, Judy! It really is you!’

Daydreaming had never before felt so delicious. After all, it was the first time in my life something really
was going to come good. Something I’d planned. Worked hard for.

I reached the clock and realized I’d made pretty good time. I’d been hoping that Dora wouldn’t have had to wait more than a quarter of an hour at most, and it was almost a relief to find she hadn’t yet arrived when I got there. I was a bit disappointed not to live out my daydream with a lot of waving and calling but, then again, at least Dora hadn’t been put to any trouble. I laid down my bag and stood for a while, feeling excited and a little self-conscious.

Three hours later, sitting on my duffle bag, I had almost run out of possible scenarios to explain Dora’s non-appearance.
Maybe her train’s been delayed? Maybe she felt ill and couldn’t make the journey? Maybe she heard my mum wrong and thinks it’s tomorrow? Maybe she’s just walking into the station now? Maybe that’s her in the pale blue coat? Yes! That could be Dora!

By late afternoon, I realized that I couldn’t just sit there forever, watching and waiting. I knew that Dora and I were meant to be crossing London to Liverpool Street station and to catch a train to Manchester, so I decided that I’d better make the journey on my own.

Before I left Euston, I went up to a policeman and asked him if he’d be on duty the rest of the evening.

‘You see, I’m waiting for my sister, who’s meant to be meeting me here under the clock. But I’ve decided to catch the train to Manchester on my own as it’s getting late.’

‘Don’t worry, pet. I’ll look out for her for you. If I see a girl waiting here, I’ll let her know where you’ve gone.’

I thanked the man and made my way to the taxi rank. Just over an hour later, I was sitting safely aboard a train bound for Manchester. The earlier setback hadn’t dampened
my excitement one bit and I wanted to shout at the other passengers:
Guess where I’m going? I’m away! I’m free!

I hadn’t realized how late it would be when the train finally pulled into Manchester’s Piccadilly Station. I had no idea how far it was from London. I kept peering through the carriage window to check the station names every time the train came to a halt and couldn’t believe how many there were, or how far we’d come. It was almost midnight by the time we got there.

I must have looked as uncertain as I felt, standing alone on the platform, not knowing where to go. Luckily, the train driver spotted me and came over to see if I needed any help.

‘Where are you going, love?’

‘I need to get to a place called Sale. Is it far from here?’

‘Well, it’s a bit of a way but I think you’re probably in time for the last bus.’ He looked at me kindly. ‘Come on, I’ll show you where to go. We’ll get you there, don’t you worry.’

The man carried my bag and led me to the bus station. We only just made it. The driver had already started the engine, ready to go, and I climbed quickly aboard. While I sat down in a seat at the front, the man had a word with the bus driver and then turned to me.

‘Which road in Sale did you say you needed to get to?’

I told him and the bus driver said he’d let me know when I needed to get off.

The journey seemed interminable as the bus wound its way through suburb after suburb of near-empty streets, but finally the driver called out, ‘Norris Road. Here you are, love.’

I was dropped at the bottom of Norris Road. My mother and sisters lived at 419, so I found myself with quite
a walk. Along both sides there were council houses, set back from the road with long, ribbon-like, front gardens. I couldn’t see the numbers above the doors from the pavement, so each time I wanted to check which house number I’d reached I had to walk all the way up the path to the front door. By the time I reached my mother’s house I felt like I couldn’t walk another step.

It was dark inside number 419. I knocked, quite tentatively at first, then louder. Then, when no one came to the door, the thought occurred to me:
Of course, they’re probably all in bed.
So I looked through the letterbox and then walked round the side passage, rapped on the back door and looked up at the upstairs windows. All dark. The thought came to me then that maybe they were out. I stood there a moment longer, wondering what to do next; then I spotted the coal shed and opened the door to see if I could camp out in there. There was a large heap of coal inside.
There’s no way I can sleep on that. What on earth am I going to do?

I went round to the front again. As I did so, I heard a noise. It was the clink of milk bottles. Next door, I saw a woman in her dressing gown putting her empty bottles out on the step.

‘Excuse me, please!’ I had to stop her before she went inside again and my voice came out in a yelp.

‘Goodness me!’ she said. ‘You startled me there. Who are you?’

‘I’m looking for Mrs Doyle,’ I told her. ‘I’m her daughter.’ I quickly crossed the patch of lawn to her front door.

The woman immediately looked concerned. ‘Oh love, they’ve gone away on holiday. There’s no one there.’

I didn’t know what to say.

‘Look, you’d better come inside. You can stay the night at mine.’

‘They said they’d be here. I don’t understand.’ The thoughts were all confused in my head.
They’d gone away?

‘Look, love, we’ll track down your sister, Dora, in the morning. I know where she lives, and I don’t think your mum said she was going with them.’ She didn’t say it, but I could tell the woman was feeling cross with Mum.

Mum’s neighbour, Mrs Fazakerley, led me through a passageway to her kitchen, where she gave me a glass of water. I sat down, feeling dizzy with exhaustion and confusion, and drank it while she went upstairs. She came down again after a few minutes, carrying a sleeping child, which she tucked up under a blanket on the settee in the front room.

‘Peggy won’t mind,’ she said. ‘They sleep like a log at her age. I think you look like you need a bed tonight.’

I didn’t deny it.

I slept deeply that night and woke in the morning feeling much better. When I opened my eyes, I didn’t know where I was at first. It was strange finding myself in a room filled with cuddly toys and little girl things. I lay there, not wanting to move, my limbs sluggish with sleep.

Mrs Fazakerley opened my door a few minutes later and brought me a cup of tea, which she placed on the bedside table. ‘Don’t hurry,’ she said. ‘I’ve left the cornflakes out so you can help yourself as soon as you’re ready. The good news is that I’ve managed to get Dora on the telephone and she’s coming round as soon as she can. She said she’ll take you down to your mum’s.’

‘Did she say where they’d gone?’ I asked her.

‘They’re at their holiday chalet in Wales. I don’t think it’s too far.’ She paused and gave an indignant little huff. ‘I must say, although I know it’s none of my business, the
whole thing seems very thoughtless, especially as how you’ve had such a long journey.’

Mum had told me in one of her letters that she had a share in Dad’s brother’s holiday place in Prestatyn.
But why was she there now?
It didn’t make any sense to me. Without any explanation from my family, I couldn’t feel disappointment or anger, or even agree with Mrs Fazakerley that my mum was thoughtless. I just felt bemused.
There’s bound to be some explanation. She couldn’t have forgotten about me. Not after her letters.

Dora arrived an hour later, looking extremely fed up. She was very different to how I’d imagined her – an enlarged version of how she was at thirteen – and I was utterly unprepared for the efficient-looking, sophisticated nineteen-year-old who turned up. She swished irritably into Mrs Fazakerley’s house, wearing a short red cloak and high heels, her blonde hair held up in a French pleat. I thought she wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Hollywood film.

I felt suddenly extremely shy and at a loss for words. Mrs Fazakerley made up for it though – she didn’t seem in awe of Dora, not one bit. In fact, I rather think she would have liked to have called her a stuck-up little madam. No love lost there.

Dora barely looked at me. Instead, she turned her annoyance on Mrs Fazakerley. ‘I had no idea at all that she was coming, so it’s no good looking at me like that.’

‘Well, I honestly don’t know what Judy would have done last night all on her own if I hadn’t been around.’

‘She wasn’t expected as far as I know. Mum said nothing about it.’ Dora, still frowning, gave a tight smile. ‘Anyway, thanks for doing your bit.’

My sister then turned to me. It was the first time she’d done so. ‘Come on, Judy, you’d better get your stuff.’

I felt more stiff and awkward by the minute, as if my bones were all put together at funny angles. I didn’t know what to say or how to behave with this cool stranger. The chatty, exuberant welcome – the kisses and hugs I’d been dreaming of getting – had not materialized. In place of the bubbly, tender sister of my dreams I now found myself in the charge of an extremely annoyed person who looked at me as if I were something unpleasant that had to be sorted out.
A visitor you weren’t expecting, didn’t want to see, but had to do something about. A headache.

Before we left, I found my voice and quietly thanked Mrs Fazakerley for being so kind to me. She looked at me rather pityingly and laid her hand for a moment on my back, as if to say,
‘Poor duck. You didn’t deserve this. I only hope you find the Doyle family was worth coming over for.’
I could read her thoughts, but was very glad she didn’t voice them. I wasn’t ready to hear that from anyone.

I was still hoping Mum would be pleased to see me, and that thought was worth holding onto. But, with Dora’s cold welcome, I couldn’t help but feel some of my excitement leak out of me, as though someone had handed me a party balloon which turned out to have a slow puncture.

Later that morning, as Dora and I sat together on the train in silence, I remembered how it was on the bus when she used to take me to Mum’s. She clearly didn’t feel the slightest need to be polite, make small talk, or show any curiosity whatsoever in the sister she hadn’t seen for years, and who’d gone missing at the age of two. She’d been too young to remember anything much, and had probably
blanked out those traumatic months anyway. Now I sensed she had other fish to fry, wanted to look forward, not back. It was understandable, if things hadn’t been easy growing up in the Doyle household.

When I asked about Mary, Dora gave a little snort.

‘She’s gone to Australia. She’s lucky to have got out of this dump.’

My heart sank. I’d really been hoping to see her.

We lapsed into silence again and Dora chewed the skin around her thumbnail, careful not to damage the polish. Then she burst out in irritation.

‘I mean, for God’s sake, why can’t the woman take responsibility for anything?’

‘Who?’

‘Mum, of course. It’s just so bloody typical of her. She never once mentioned you were coming, and yet I’m the one that gets landed in it.’

‘But she said you’d be meeting me at Euston under the clock. She wrote a letter specially to tell me.’

‘She lives in cloud-cuckoo-land. And she’s always burying her head in the sand when something turns up she can’t deal with.’

That hurt.
She can’t deal with me?
I didn’t want to believe it, but my gut told me that what Dora had said was probably true.

‘Just don’t expect her to come rescuing you on a silver cloud or anything. Most of the time it’s been shit for her, and for the rest of us.’

I felt like telling Dora that it hadn’t exactly been a bed of roses with Dad, but I kept my mouth shut. We didn’t need a double load of whinging in this conversation. Anyway, I wanted to find out more from her if I could.

‘In what way?’ I asked.

‘Oh God, you don’t want to know!’ She gave the dry snort again. It made her sound like a much older woman, one who’d had a lifetime of shit to deal with.

‘Look, you can find out for yourself. But let’s just say that Paddy hasn’t exactly been easy.’

I remembered my mother’s nervousness around him when I’d visited her before.

‘Where is he now? Will he be in Wales when we get there?’

‘No. He’s got a job out in Ghana. Mum gets the odd bit of cash in the post, but it’s not enough. Still, it’s probably better than him pouring it down his throat here.’

After that, we were silent again until the end of the journey. We sat there, the two of us, sisters and strangers, one chewing her finger, the other her lip.

I hadn’t been prepared for how very fat my mother had grown in the years since I’d last seen her. She looked like Humpty Dumpty, almost as wide as she was tall. She was wearing a blue overall and I was reminded for a moment of Mrs Craddock, our neighbour in Patricroft. Huge, snugly bosoms covered in nylon. But that’s where the comparison ended. Mum held out her arms when she saw me, saying, ‘Ah, come here.’ But she was as stiff as a board and clearly felt awkward hugging me.

You’re putting on an act, I can tell. You didn’t want to believe I was really coming. Dora was right. You just put your head under the bedclothes and wished it would all go away.

Dora had the grace not to have a row with Mum in front of me, but she was obviously steaming. She looked at me and shrugged, as if to say, ‘What’s the point?’

‘Look, I’d better be going. I’ve missed a shoot today because of this mess and I’ll need to get back so I can
work tomorrow.’ Dora didn’t even bother to take off her cloak.

‘Dora’s a photographer’s model,’ Mum said to me. ‘She’s inherited the looks in this family.’

I could tell my mother was thinking of herself, how she’d been when she first met Dad – a girl with the talent to be a concert-hall singer; a looker.

‘Right, the girls are already in bed. You’d better be off, Dora. Thanks for bringing Judy down.’

Dora shot my mother a dark look and gave a resigned shrug.