by Trisha Merry
‘Well, it has had all new paint and a few other bits and pieces,’ I pointed out with a laugh. ‘But yes, most of it looks just the same.’
He looked out of the window, down the garden. ‘You’ve still got the tyres! Do you remember that time when I got stuck inside one of them? I think that’s my earliest memory.’
‘Yes, we searched for you everywhere, until I saw that tyre moving about, as you struggled inside it.’ I laughed. ‘That was so funny!’
We sat down in the sitting room with our coffee mugs and biscuits.
‘Are any of the kids still here?’
‘No, they’ve all moved on now, apart from Mandy who has gone to live with her disabled father, but still comes to see us at weekends, and we often talk about the old days, when you and Daisy were part of the family. We laugh a lot about some of the escapades you got up to, Pauly!’
‘Yes, I was a bit of a daredevil in those days, wasn’t I?’ He paused and seemed to almost choke up, then controlled it. ‘Those were my happy, carefree years, those years I was with you and Mike. You were always kind and loving, no matter what. But you could be quite strict with me sometimes.’
‘Well, you needed it!’
‘Yes, but you were always fair with it. I can see that now.’ He paused. ‘And Mike was always the fun person – who took us on all those great outings and made sure we had all the sweets and things you wouldn’t let us have at home!’
‘Did he now?’ I asked with a quizzical grin.
‘You knew. I’m sure you knew all along,’ he said with a smile.
‘Well . . . maybe.’
Paul looked at some of the photos I had up on the notice board in our kitchen – photos of most of the foster children we’d had.
‘There’s Mandy,’ he said, pointing at her photo. ‘Do you remember when we lost her on holiday in Bournemouth, and Gilroy said she had fallen off the cliff?’
‘Yes, he tried to convince me she had drowned. I almost believed him!’ We laughed together. ‘Well, that little girl is fifteen now, doing her GCSEs and almost certainly staying on till the sixth form.’
‘She was always the clever one, wasn’t she?’
‘Yes, she wants to go to Cambridge University – I reckon she could do it too.’
‘Daisy was quite good at things at school when we were with you, wasn’t she?’
‘Yes. She was always the studious type, and worked hard at everything.’
‘It’s a shame she didn’t have the chance to continue.’
I was about to ask what he meant, but Paul swiftly changed the subject.
‘What happened to that funny family?’
‘Who do you mean?’
‘Lulu I remember – she was the youngest. Then, just before we left, you took in her brother and sister. What were their names?’
‘Duane and Sindy.’
‘Where are they now?’
‘Well, their parents were sent to prison for what they did to those children.’
Paul looked curious, but I didn’t stop to let him ask.
‘Their father is still in prison, but their mother came out last year, and she now has all her family back with her, in the house the council provided for the children to be looked after in. So she has a lot of support and supervision. It’s all going quite well.’
I made us some coffee and we went to sit outside on the patio, next to the hole in the hedge. ‘Edie and Frank are still next door,’ I said. ‘But Frank recently had a heart attack and Edie is becoming quite frail now.’
‘I remember them too.’ He paused. ‘I’ve been looking for you for a long time, but I’ve moved around so much I didn’t remember your address. I only knew the town and the park. So I thought, if I get here on the train and find the right park, maybe I’ll remember the way home.’
‘And did you?’
‘Yes, well, I described the park to a porter on the platform and he told me which way to go, so that was the easy bit. But I stood there, hoping it would all come back to me, and it didn’t. Well, not exactly. Then I just had a feeling that took me across the street and down a turning. I didn’t know if it was the right road or not. I could see it was a long road, and I thought it looked right, so then the only clue I had was this picture I’ve held in my head of your green front door, with the black lion knocker and the black studs.’
‘Oh Paul . . . it’s seven years since you left – did you ever think that we might have repainted the door in another colour, or maybe replaced it, or even moved away altogether?’ I laughed.
‘No.’ He laughed with me. ‘I know it sounds daft, but I never thought about that. I suppose I so much wanted you to be still here, and everything the same, that I just assumed it would be. I kept looking at both sides as I walked along, just looking at the front doors . . . until I came to yours, and I knew.’
‘I’m so glad you did, Pauly. It’s great to see you, all grown up, tall, handsome and in uniform. I bet you have all the girls after you!’
‘Well, not all of them.’ He grinned. ‘But I guess the uniform helps. I had to wear it today because I have to catch the train back to barracks in Wiltshire, to be posted abroad for a couple of years.’
‘Oh no, where are you going?’
‘Germany. I’ll have to catch the one o’clock train. I’ll be in a lot of trouble if I don’t!’
‘That soon? And you’ve only just found us, after all these years!’
‘Is Mike here?’
‘No, I’m afraid not. He’ll be very disappointed to have missed you.’
‘Tell him I miss our Sunday morning outings and the ice creams he was always buying us. Perhaps next time I come home, we can get together for a pint . . . and maybe an ice cream too?’
‘Yes. I’m sure he’d love that. He often talks about the old days, when you and Daisy were here. How is Daisy? Is she still living with your mother? I bet she grew her hair as soon as she could!’
His face clouded over. ‘I’ve heard she’s OK, living in Reading I think. But I’m not really in contact with Daisy these days. We were separated you know, just a couple of weeks after we left you. And things went badly wrong for both of us.’
‘No!’ I was appalled. It sounded like my worst fears . . . ‘What happened?’
‘Well, it’s a long story, moving about so much, but I’ll tell you the main points and hopefully we can meet up again when I come home on leave and talk some more.’
‘Yes, of course. So what happened after you left us?’
‘Oh Mum, it was awful. Pamela – I’m not going to call her our mother. She could never be that to me . . .’ He paused. ‘Pamela and her husband drove us quite a long way to their house. I don’t even remember where it was now. We had to be quiet all the way in the car and then we had to take our shoes off to go in. She told her husband to leave everything in the back of the car, so that’s where it all stayed. She told us to leave our memory boxes and backpacks in the car too, and locked it so that we couldn’t get at them.’
‘What was it like in the house?’
‘Awful. Oh, it was a nice enough house. But we couldn’t do anything right. Everything was neat and tidy, and as clean as new. She told us not to touch anything and to sit still. Well, as you can probably remember, I never was any good at sitting still! So I was in trouble from the start.’
‘Oh dear.’
‘She gave us a little lecture about it being her house and we had to obey her rules. I can’t remember any of them now, apart from silence unless she spoke to us.’
‘Really?’ I almost burst with the effort of containing my indignation.
‘It wasn’t so bad for Daisy, because she asked if she could just get a book out of the car to read, and Pamela agreed. Daisy brought in a colouring book and some crayons for me too, so I did that for a bit. But you know what I’m like . . .’
‘Yes, I certainly do!’ I laughed.
‘Well, I was in deep trouble from about half an hour after we arrived. In trouble for fidget
ing, for making noises, for creasing the cushion, for leaving a fingerprint on the coffee table, for eating my tiny sandwich too greedily, although we’d had nothing to eat for hours. You name it and I was in trouble for it.’
‘I remember you were a real stoic, putting up with things and not complaining. But that must have been very hard for you.’
‘Too hard,’ he said, sadly. ‘Much too hard . . . What time is it?’ he asked suddenly.
‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘It’s half past ten, and it only takes about twelve minutes to walk to the station from here. Or I could even drive you down there.’
‘Oh good. Well, that night, Pamela refused to get any of our things out of the car except our suitcases. So we could put on our clean pyjamas that you had ironed in the kitchen. I remember picking mine up and sniffing them. They smelt of home.’
‘So you couldn’t even have your Ted?’
‘No. He had to stay in the car overnight, along with everything else. I don’t know about Daisy, because we were in separate bedrooms, but it took me ages to get to sleep.
‘The next morning it was Christmas Day, but nobody wished us Happy Christmas. We had to have one piece of toast each for breakfast with a glass of milk. No cereals and no seconds. After breakfast . . .’ He stopped and seemed to gasp for breath. ‘Oh, Mum, it was terrible.’
‘Why? What happened?’
‘She told her husband to put all our things from the car out in the yard at the side of their house. Then she made us go out and watch, while she put a metal dustbin in the middle, then started throwing all our belongings into it, one at a time. First went our new backpacks. Do you remember the one I made you buy for me?’
‘Yes, I do,’ I made a face. ‘It was baby-blue plastic – the cheapest-looking one on the stall, and you insisted on having that one.’
‘Yes,’ He smiled ruefully. ‘I remember you pointing out all these other, much better ones. But I was feeling obstinate that day. I don’t know why I stuck to that one. I wouldn’t have chosen it if I’d been staying on with you. But for some reason . . . it was like a voice inside me, telling me to choose a horrid, cheap backpack to take to Pamela’s.’ He paused again. ‘Do you think there’s something psychological in that?’
‘Yes, it probably was. I always wondered about that!’
‘Well, Pamela picked up my backpack by one corner, as if she was holding a dead rat’s tail, then held it over the dustbin and let it drop to the bottom with a thump. Then she did the same to Daisy’s backpack, which she loved. I remember poor Daisy’s face. I knew what she was thinking, because I was thinking the same.’
‘Didn’t Pamela empty all your lovely things out first?’
‘No, they all went into the bin. Then the sack with our Christmas presents in it, from you and Dad and Gramps – I think that was your father, wasn’t it? All unopened.’
‘Oh no!’
‘Then she took our memory boxes that had all our photos and special things in them, and tossed them, one after the other, onto the top of the pile in the bin.’
‘Couldn’t you go back later and get out your most precious things?’
‘No, because of what happened next.’
‘What?’ I dreaded what he was going to say, and I was right.
‘She put a couple of firelighters in among our belongings and lit them with a match.’
‘No!’
‘That’s what I shouted, again and again. “No! No!” I even tried to go and pull out my memory box, but it was too late. It was already on fire and the fierce blaze made it too hot for me to reach. So all we could do was to watch all our memories going up in flames. All our past happiness burnt to ashes.’
‘And what was Pamela doing?’
‘Smiling!’ He spat out the word. ‘She was enjoying our misery. It was like she wanted to get rid of our past, and everything that was important to us.’
There was a look of utter desperation on Paul’s face as he sat silently remembering. I didn’t want to interrupt, so I just reached across and put my hand on his.
‘We were in floods of tears, Daisy and me,’ he said. ‘I lost everything that day. My Ted, my times-table book, my special pen, all my school reports, my photos of all of you, my everything. And it was the same for Daisy. I think one of the things she was most upset about was that French knitting snake that had taken her so long to do; just gone in a few seconds, eaten by the fire. We lost all our happiness that day, and we never got it back again . . . until maybe now. Now that I’ve found you. We can keep in touch now, can’t we? Now that I’m grown up?’
‘Of course. You won’t stop me now! I’m thrilled that you found your way back here in the end. I can’t wait to tell Mike. He’ll be just as excited as I am that you came, and just as appalled about Pamela burning all your things.’
‘I’ll never forget that, as long as I live.’
I had an idea. ‘Tell you what. Next time you come, when you’re on leave, why don’t we put together a new memory box for you?’
‘Really? Can we? But how? Everything was burnt.’
‘Well, it won’t have all your treasures in it of course, but I can get copies made of the photos of outings we went on and all that. And I’ll have a look around and see what else I can find to put in.’
‘That would be brilliant,’ he said, his face lighting up at the thought.
I looked at my watch. ‘You’ve got half an hour before you need to go to the station. Would you like me to rustle you up a sandwich?’
‘Yes please. Have you got any—’
‘Bacon?’ I interrupted.
He laughed. ‘Yes please. A Trisha Merry bacon sandwich – Yum!’
‘Yes, I remember. They were always your favourite.’
I made the sandwiches and a mug each of tea. ‘Shall we go and sit in the garden to eat these?’ I suggested.
He nodded, already taking a bite out of his first half. ‘I used to love this garden,’ he said, with a wistful smile. Then suddenly he thought of something. ‘Have you still got my bike? The one she made me leave behind?’
‘Yes, I think we might have, tucked away at the back of the garage. We kept if for you, just in case you ever came back for it.’
‘Well, I’m here now! But it will probably be too small for me . . .’
‘Definitely!’ We laughed. ‘I’ll keep it till next time you come.’
‘Thanks.’
‘So, what happened after your things were burnt?’ I asked as we sipped our tea.
‘Well, Christmas came and went, without our presents from you of course. No tree, no party lunch, no carols or charades – no fun.’
‘Didn’t Pamela give you a present?’
‘Just one book each. Daisy’s was too young for her, and she had read it about two years before. Mine was a picture book for five-year-olds.’ He shrugged. ‘And nothing from Father Christmas.
‘Oh no! I gave him your letters when he came.’
‘Thanks. Maybe she wouldn’t let him in!’ We laughed again.
‘So what happened after Christmas?’
‘It was very boring, and I got told off every time I moved or made a noise. I remember we started at a new school, but she must have been talking with Social Services, because there was a social worker at the house when we got home on the first day.’
‘To meet you?’
‘No, to take me away. I didn’t even have time to say goodbye to Daisy or take anything with me. He just whisked me into his car and took me straight to a children’s home. He said my mother couldn’t handle me any longer, so I would stay there.’ He paused, his whole body caved in on himself. ‘It was awful,’ he said in a low voice. ‘How could she do that to me? She didn’t even get to know me – just rejected and abandoned me again on the first day she could.’
‘Did you tell the social worker about having lived with us for ten years?’
‘Yes, but he said it was a different area and he couldn’t transfer me back to you. Anyway, he said, if I was
too difficult for my own mother to handle, at eleven years old, a home was the only place that would take me.’ Paul tried to choke back the tears. ‘He didn’t even try to understand.’
‘Come on, Pauly,’ I said. ‘Time for a big hug before you go and catch your train.’ We stood there, in the garden of his childhood, making up for lost years with a long, loving hug.
‘Sorry I have to go,’ said Paul, drawing away at last. ‘But I don’t want to be court-martialled!’ He smiled. ‘No, don’t worry. That wouldn’t really happen, but I don’t want to get in any trouble.’
We quickly exchanged contact details and went out through the hall, where I looked at the clock and realised there wasn’t much time left.
‘Let me drive you,’ I urged him.
‘No thanks. It’ll be all right. Remember, I’m a fast runner.’
‘Yes, I do remember. But you’ve only got six minutes.’
‘I’ll make it easily. I’ve got my ticket. Byeee.’ And he was gone, sprinting up the length of our road.
As I watched him disappear from sight, I went back inside and pushed the front door shut behind me. Mulling over the awful revelations of what happened after he was taken from us, I realised there must have been so much more that he didn’t tell me. And it was all caused by a meddling, ‘do-gooding’ rookie social worker.
32
A New Memory Box
Over the next couple of years, while he was in Germany, Paul and I wrote to each other fairly regularly – one flimsy page of airmail letter at a time. And we rang each other when we could. Mostly, we couldn’t talk for long, but once, when he was home on leave, he rang me from a private phone.
‘Hello, Mum!’ He always started the conversation that way, since he’d arrived on my doorstep that day. It was a running joke with us now. ‘How’s things?’
‘Not bad,’ I said. ‘We’re all fine. What about you? What have you been doing? And where are you phoning from?’
‘Chester’ he said. ‘I’ve got a new girlfriend. She’s gorgeous.’
‘Oh yes?’ I laughed.
‘Yes, and she’s funny, kind, everything that’s good. I know you would love her, Mum.’
