by Maggie Joan
Her cryptic message confused me, and I couldn’t help but frown as I tried to work it out. She led me into a huge living room where a giant flatscreen TV blared out music videos to several girls who were watching it and copying the dance moves of the pop star on the screen.
At the far end, a long dark wooden dining table gleamed under the spotlights in the ceiling. The umpteen chairs were empty except for one.
An older lady with greying blonde hair looked up from a pile of paperwork, her blue eyes dulled over, and her cheeks flushed pink.
“Hey there, cutie,” she said, smiling a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “And who might you be?”
“Blue,” I said, tugging at my blanket with my free hand.
“That’s a lovely name you have there. Nice to meet you, Blue. I’m Sandy.”
My eyes widened and fear flooded me in an instant. My survival instinct kicked in and I screamed, “Emma!”
I woke up, covered in sweat, heaving for breath. I quickly surveyed my surroundings and breathed a sigh of relief when I found myself in my usual bed, in Marsha’s house. Throwing the bed covers back, I kicked my legs over the side of the bed and took a few minutes to return to reality.
My alarm clock told me it was eleven-thirty p.m. That meant in less than twelve hours, I’d be in school. My stomach churned with dread and humiliation at the thought of facing everyone and being laughed at all over again. When I had no idea why people were laughing at me, it was ok, but the fact I now knew why changed everything. I was nothing but the sad outsider, the poor foster kid who was nothing but a real-life toy for other people’s amusement.
Thoughts of Tim tried to force themselves to the front of my mind, but I pushed them away. Then it struck me. Marsha’s jovial light-hearted reaction to my plight was no different to how Sandy had been.
“Oh my god,” I whispered, as the penny dropped.
I scrambled to my feet, self-preservation kicking in once more. I had to get out of here. Marsha wasn’t going to take me any more seriously than what Sandy had done all those years ago. I knew this whole thing was too good to be true; finally having the perfect life with the perfect foster parents—it didn’t exist, it was all a dream, a stupid ridiculous dream.
“How could I have been so stupid?” I muttered to myself as I quietly picked my way around my room. “If something is too good to be true then it is, stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.”
I needed to carry light. I’d learned that over the years. Big backpacks drew attention from well trained eyes to know when someone wasn’t staying at home. Carrying bare essentials in a regular shoulder bag made you look like you were going about your day to day life—providing you looked clean and presentable.
Over my time as a runaway, I’d developed an emergency escape kit. I didn’t keep it all together stashed in a neat little bag because that would rouse suspicion for any nosey foster parents or social workers who decided to investigate my personal space whilst I wasn’t there. However, the items spread around the room at various points seemed like nothing out of the ordinary. I reached for the regular items—chewing gum, hairbrush, purse with money in it, mini torch, lip balm, baby wipes, soap, and tampons.
Tampons used to be a tricky area. Being feminine hygiene, they normally belong in the bathroom. However, Archie had been useful for one thing and that was allowing me to have them in my room. Not long after I came to live with Marsha and Roger, I had a period. I went to my tampon box and opened it to find the entire box filled with tampons that had been dipped in red paint.
Roger found it amusing and Marsha put it down to him being a playful little boy who didn’t understand about things like that.
“He’s coloured them red, Marsha,” I yelled. “He damn well knows.”
“He’s just a child. Don’t worry, I’ll get you some more.”
And that was it—Archie’s telling off over. However, I had been allowed to keep them in my room, well hidden from his grubby little hands ever since. It meant I had one less room to go to before I left which also meant less chance of waking someone up.
I had a small silver box which I kept padlocked and underneath my bed, right back against the far wall in the corner. Marsha had demanded to know its contents when I first arrived but I told her it was personal and sentimental at which point she left it alone.
Archie, however, viewed it as a challenge. I found him one day, about three weeks after I’d moved in, trying to prise it open with a screwdriver. Marsha had gone food shopping and Roger had been outside in the garden which meant the little shit was at my mercy.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I yelled, running into my room and snatching the box away from him.
“I want to know what’s in there,” he said, narrowing his eyes at me.
“Nothing that concerns you.”
“I don’t care. I want to know.”
“I want never gets.”
He stuck his tongue out at me. “Well I do so ner.”
I grabbed the screwdriver from his hand, picked him up by his hair and tilted his head back. Pointing the tip of the screwdriver millimetres from his eye, I gave him the most sadistic grin I could and said, “Is it worth your eyeball?”
He started shaking and crying. “No.”
“Good,” I said, taking the screwdriver away. “Because if I catch you anywhere near that ever again, I’ll dig your eyes out with this screwdriver. Got it?”
He squealed and nodded.
When the overwhelming stench of urine hit my nose, I looked down to see he’d peed himself. I rolled my eyes and let him go. “And if you piss yourself in my room again, I’ll cut your willy off with this as well.”
He turned and ran into his bedroom, crying his eyes out. I knew boys like him; they were two a penny. Mortified by the fact he’d weed himself, he wouldn’t say a single word about our chat.
To this day, he hadn’t. And he also hadn’t gone near my box again. I knew that for sure because I’d placed things around it in a specific way that would tell me otherwise.
There was nothing sentimental in the box but it was personal. After years of fighting for food or going hungry in various foster homes, as soon as I’d been able to earn money, I’d saved it up to buy myself a secret stash of food so I’d never go hungry again.
But, this wasn’t your regular run of the mill crisps and crackers. This was proper hardcore stuff survivalists and preppers bought. Dry biscuits and protein bars packed with calories, emergency ration food, freeze dried fruit. I even had a box of storm matches in there that I’d gotten as a free gift and a bottle of iodine for purifying water. I was all set.
Except of course, my crème de la crème—my Scrubba bag. Being on the run meant looking half decent and you couldn’t do that with dirty clothes you’d been wearing for three weeks. This little beauty however meant I could wash my clothes wherever there was water.
I threw it all into my corduroy shoulder bag, grabbed my blanket, the one I still treasured from Emma, and headed down the stairs. Time to survive yet again.
Chapter 7
I crept outside, closing the door behind me. Being June, the night air warmed my skin instead of chilling it. My habit of running away had seemed to always take place in the winter months before now. Running away seemed like a coward’s way out to most people but it’s far from that. It boils down to the basic fight or flight instinct.
Facing humiliation by three hundred hormone ridden teenagers would do more damage to me mentally than any shrink could ever undo. Marsha didn’t understand it, but that was ok because not many people could understand the things that teenagers have to live through, especially with a history like mine. With Marsha unable to guide me or help me, I had to resort to what I knew best—fleeing the danger before it struck.
I headed for the coast, intending to walk the coastal path north. I knew there was a youth hostel in Tintagel. If I could make the four hour during the small hours then I’d be there already by the time Marsha and
Roger woke up and realised I’d gone. I had nearly five hundred pounds in cash on me which I’d earned from various menial jobs and maybe the odd cigarette carton selling here and there.
A full moon and a clear sky highlighted my path perfectly. As I hurried down towards the beach, I took a minute to appreciate the beautiful village in all its glory. It really was the epitome of a sleepy coastal village with scenic views and locals who had lived here all their lives for several generations. The only shame was the younger generation growing up, void of manners and respect, and poisoning it for the future. Without the tourism every summer, small places with local run businesses wouldn’t survive.
I picked up the coastal path and scanned the ground ahead of me for potential potholes, dips, dead animals, or anything else I could trip up over. Injuries were easily sustained when not being careful and just blind running to get away from something. The survival instinct was a powerful force, an in-built natural danger detector. To consciously override it and think rationally took a lot of practice.
As I picked my way over the uneven, well-worn, dusty path, I found myself musing over my life. Nearly ten years had gone by since my life unravelled around me like a tragic Shakespearean play. My mother, Nancy, hadn’t been much of a mum, to what I recall.
Most of my early childhood memories involved playing on my own in a dark room with broken toys—one legged dolls, or teddies with no stuffing, or crayons that couldn’t be sharpened anymore or they’d disintegrate into nothing. My clothes had always been either too big or too small and I’d always worn them for at least two days. Kids at school had teased me, pulling on my unbrushed hair, or holding their noses and telling me I smelled, or even spoiling single bread and butter sandwich I had every day for lunch just for the hell of it.
I loved my mum though. Her big brown eyes and pink rosy cheeks were always accompanied by a warm smile at the end of every day—a smile that took the chill right out of my soul. We would sit and eat together, sometimes Mum not even eating because she couldn’t afford to feed both of us, but I’d insist on sharing my food with her which always filled her Bambi eyes with tears.
Her boyfriend, my dad, liked to pretend I didn’t even exist. I’d learned very quickly to get out of his way and stay out of his way because he would literally walk right through me. I’d suffered a broken wrist at age four because I didn’t get out of his way quick enough and he knocked me flying into a wall.
I still remember the searing pain that made me howl like anything. Mum had tried her best to soothe me, telling me she would fix it, it would all be ok, but we couldn’t go to the doctor because then he’d take me away from her. That made me cry even harder. I loved my mummy.
Two weeks off school spent with a heavily bandaged wrist and what I now know to have been a splint, I was thrown back into normal everyday life with a wrist support to help me through the remainder of my healing. Mum had told the teachers I’d fallen off a pony in my first riding lesson. They seemed more than ok with this explanation and did little to comfort me or help me otherwise.
As I came up to Pentire Point, I took a moment to stop and gaze out over the sea. The lunar rays bounced off the still waters, making something so deadly look so so beautiful. Did I do everyone a favour and just end it all here? My life was nothing but a shitty mess of dot to dot being placed in one foster home to another. I was a drain on the system and beyond psychological help. Would it be easier to just not exist anymore? To find my mum in the afterlife and live my happily ever after there.
A single tear rolled down my cheek, surprising me. I’d not cried about my mum for years but being back in the position of fight or flight again, it was only natural her death would spring to mind.
I came home from school one day to find my mum and dad shouting at one another in the kitchen. The block of flats we lived in was small and dingy and I could hear their argument as soon as I opened the door to the building.
Dad didn’t work, as such. His work involved finding men for Mum…to earn money with. At that age, I didn’t understand it all. Mum had told me that her job involved making people happy and they paid her money for doing that. Of course, the stark reality of it only became clear as I got older. By the time I was twelve, I knew the full seedy ins and outs of prostitution and pimps and it only served to fill me with more hate and bitterness aimed towards my so-called dad.
Their argument that day escalated into physical violence. That was nothing new—he’d hit Mum before. I’d spent several nights helping her hold bags of frozen peas or sweetcorn to her face. But this was different. I heard the crack of her skull from inside my bedroom. I wanted to run out and see if she was ok, but I knew from experience to just stay hidden when they were arguing.
Mum hadn’t made a sound. She normally kicked and screamed and yelled at him but this time there was nothing. I knew it was bad. I hid under my bed and waited for what felt like hours. Not a single noise could be heard except that of my own ragged breathing.
Convinced my dad had left, I dared to open my door just a little bit to see if I could help Mum tend to her injuries. When I saw her face down on the kitchen floor, a puddle of blood and little bits of something around her head, I cried and ran to her, yelling her name. I ran straight through the thick, sticky blood and shook her as hard as I could to wake her up, but it didn’t work. I climbed up onto her side and pulled her hair back from her face to see a sight that still haunted me now.
One of her eyes dangled down her cheek like a bit of string cheese with a lump on the end. A massive indent caved in the side of her head, bits of broken skull, tissue, and what I now knew to be brain matter, all congealed into a disgusting mess.
I screamed, frightened by the sight and also realising that Mum was never coming back. I’d never see her Bambi eyes full of love and warmth again and her smile would never take the ice out of my soul again.
“I wondered where you were, you little shit,” Dad said, stumbling through from their bedroom with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a bloodied bat in the other. “Come here.”
I scrambled off Mum’s body, falling backwards into her blood. “You killed Mummy!” I shouted at him, somehow getting to my feet. “You’re a bad man.”
He took a swig of his whiskey and glared at me with a malicious grin. “You have no idea, little doll. Now come here. I can make some use out of you.”
I ran for the front door, which he’d stupidly left unlocked. I bolted down the corridor towards the stairs, screaming and crying for someone, anyone, to open their door and save me. When I heard his footsteps stumbling behind me, I panicked and rushed down the stairs, my legs not cooperating quick enough. I ended up falling down two flights of stairs and breaking my left leg.
Dad scooped me up, put a hand over my mouth, and said, “Shut your noise unless you want to end up like your pathetic mother.”
On instinct, I bit him. I bit his fingers that hard his blood sprayed into my mouth and a chunk of his flesh fell onto my tongue. He hollered a string of profanities, but it worked—he let me go. By this point, the commotion had made some of the occupants finally open their doors. Two men grabbed hold of Dad and wrestled him to the ground, cable tying his hands behind his back before calling the police and an ambulance.
A kind old lady brought me a blanket and a sugary drink and sat with me until the paramedics arrived. When I heard a blood curdling scream from above me, I knew someone had found Mum. I thought my nightmare was over. It had only just begun.
Chapter 8
I pushed all of those thoughts to the back of my mind, wiped my tears, and carried on walking. Mum had been dealt a rough hand in life and she’d kept on going no matter what. I could at least honour her memory by staying alive and battling whatever came my way.
Just concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other, I surprised myself with how quickly I came across Port Isaac. As I thought about Tintagel and my plan to end up there in a few short hours, I realised I didn’t want to be around people.
Throughout my life, people had done nothing but hurt me, lie to me, use me for their own gain, and broken me into pieces. Even my own father had wanted nothing to do with me until he thought I could make him a few quid. Teachers had ignored my obvious state of neglect, police officers just wanted me off their shift and passed on to the relevant authorities, and the relevant authorities were just as corrupt and dark as the people they were supposed to save me from.
My foster families had been a slideshow of abuse and neglect, and the one friend I thought I’d made in this whole twisted world turned out to want nothing more than to laugh at me and enjoy my utter humiliation. I literally had no one to turn to. No one.
As it dawned on me that I’d been fighting a losing battle all along, desperately clinging onto any ray of hope of finding happiness, I let my tears free and changed direction. I didn’t need to be running towards a different town full of yet more let downs and disappointments. I needed to be heading towards something positive and liberating, somewhere I could truly be happy.
The only person I could rely on was me and if my world didn’t extend beyond me then so be it. At least I couldn’t hurt myself or let myself down. There was only one place that would give me the solace I needed—Bodmin Moor. Pretty much in a straight line from Port Isaac, I turned my back on civilisation and marched towards my beautiful new future in the great outdoors.
***
I reached the edge of the moor just as the sun broke through on the horizon, signalling the start of another glorious summer’s day. My legs ached and my feet were sore. Walking across fields in the middle of the night wasn’t my brightest idea. I’d stood in cow pat, tripped over molehills, and fallen over hidden holes in the ground, but I’d made it. I could rest at last.
A small copse of trees provided the perfect shelter for a few hours kip. I picked my way through to the densest part and cleared the ground of twigs. I could see no human rubbish which was excellent news—it meant no one came through here, at least not on a regular basis. The noise of a cockerel singing its early morning song sounded around the empty countryside, giving me an overwhelming sense of peace of and tranquillity. This out here, was soul food, the exact thing I needed to stitch myself back together.
