by Sonia Paige
On the top floor of the bus, travelling from Hackney towards the Angel, Freddie was singing ‘Halfway to Paradise.’ He was sitting in the front seat with his legs turned into the gangway so there was room to play along on his guitar. He struck up as the bus pulled away from the traffic lights and sang louder as the bus gained speed.
A large elderly white man sitting in the seat behind him let out a deep raucous cough and mumbled ‘Didn’t pay my fare for that caterwauling.’ He stubbed his cigarette out on the floor.
As they passed the Duke of Wellington, Freddie lifted his head, tossed his locks off his face and looked up the bus to see if others agreed.
‘Let him play, man,’ came from the middle of the bus, a young black man wearing a red, green and yellow Rasta hat.
Freddie carried on singing and put a foot down to steady himself as the bus braked at a bus stop. A man in a butcher’s apron crossed the road carrying two white plastic bags full to bulging. On top of the bus shelter, there was a small pink-skinned plastic doll with no head and red paint over the stump of the neck so that it looked like an atrocity. In one of the back seats a middle-aged woman pointed it out to her neighbour and tutted.
Freddie carried on singing as the bus pulled away. The woman turned to her neighbour: ‘Billy Fury, isn’t it? My husband used to sing that to me before we were married. Sweet voice.’
‘Tickets please,’ the bus conductress came up the stairs at the back of the bus, her long earrings swinging. When she saw Freddie playing she added, ‘Cut it out, love. This is a bus, no busking allowed.’
Freddie stopped his song as the bus lurched left on a green light into the Essex Road. ‘I’m not busking,’ he said, ‘Music should be free. It feeds the soul.’
‘It’s half past nine,’ said the conductress, ‘I’ve had my breakfast already,’ and she went back downstairs.
Freddie picked up where he had left off: ‘So near, yet so far away…’
A young man with grey hair listening to a walkman looked up from his book, checked if he was missing anything, and went back to his page.
A light drizzle started to fall and on the Ballspond Road the man came out of his shop to wheel the sofa back inside again.
Thursday 20th December 10 am
The snow has melted into puddles in the exercise yard, and the air is wet as if it’s full of rain that can’t get out.
‘So what happened to you?’ I ask Mandy as we walk around.
‘What’ya mean, what happened?’
‘Your brother. That poem.’
‘So what?’
‘I’ve been droning on about my dramas. You’ve been through a lot worse.’
‘It ain’t entertainment, what happened to me.’
‘I didn’t say it was. But like you say, it sometimes helps. If you tell the story.’
Mandy stops and faces me. ‘Don’t tell me you didn’t ask for it. You better not be squeamish.’
She sits down on a low brick wall around an empty flowerbed. A few drops of rain are starting to fall. ‘Now I’m clucking, it’s going round and round in my head. Stuff from years ago. My parents used to row a lot, right? I only have to go to that flat, my Mum still lives there, and it all comes back. Them screaming at each other. Dad was a fanatic with motor bikes. He’d be down by the garages with his bike, little bits spread out all over the ground, fixing it. He’d stay there ’till it was dark, then he’d go down the pub. When he got in, it’d be her going, “It’s about bloody time, I’ve been stuck here with the kids, all you care about is that bike,” and the rest. Then his voice would get louder. I used to get scared. We’d be asleep and we’d get woken up. It’d be, “What kind of time do you call this?” Then him: “Shut ya face,” and then “Shut ya face or I’ll shut it for ya.” Me and my brother, we shared a bedroom. We was only little. Sometimes in the evening we could hear yelling and whacking, right, then my mother screaming, and I used to climb into my brother’s bed to get a cuddle. He used to stroke my head and put his arms round me and I felt safe. It was a comfort thing. Sometimes he used to stroke my back.’
‘How old were you?’ I ask. I put my hand up to my head, I can feel my hair getting wet and sticking to my scalp. The drizzle has started to fall steadily on both of us as we sit on the low wall. Some of the other women have started to go back inside.
Mandy pauses. ‘I can remember a pair of new red shoes. My mum bought them for me when I started school. So I must have been five or so. Shiny, with a strap across. I remember one evening I left them in the living room and then when I heard crashing and yells I thought they might get squashed. Daft, or what? I crept out of the bedroom and dashed in to get my shoes. I saw my mum on the floor. Lucky my dad never saw me, he was standing over her. When I shut my eyes I can still see it. I ran and jumped back into my brother’s bed. He was three years older than me, but he was scared as well. I could tell. He liked cuddling up too.
‘Another time we were hiding in our room to keep out the way because my dad had come in wrecked, and he’d smashed a teapot. It was my mum’s favourite, it had a cottage painted on the side and trees round, the kind of place I think she wanted to live someday. Some chance. And gilt round the lid. She’d been going at him. “You like that bloody bike more than what you like me!” and he’s going, “No fucking wonder, it doesn’t talk back. You just switch her on and she goes,” and my mum’s “If you could ever get it going! You’re bloody useless at that, like everything.”
‘I needed to go toilet so after a while I crept out, but on the way back my dad heard me. He came out to the passage and pulled me into the living room. “What you doing, you little bitch? Spying on us? You’re as bad as her!” I was so scared I was like frozen. Just staring at him. The telly was on behind him. That woman with a posh voice who used to do cookery, she was pouring some gunge onto some chicken, with red fingernails. Made me feel sick – put me off chicken for life. She still does that programme. Her hair never moves, have you noticed?’
I’m shivering.
Yes, I have noticed. Nothing moves. Nothing ever moved. I’m not saying a word.
Mandy carries on, ‘She was pouring this stuff and going “This is truly divine!” and that, like she was on another planet. My dad was staring at me and panting.
‘“Take that look off off your face” he’s going, then my mum said, “Leave her out of it,” and he turned and I broke away and raced back to our room. Slammed the door behind me, jumped into my brother’s bed. My heart was going like a drum. He put his arms round and smoothed my hair. He stroked my back. I was still crying. Then he started stroking my fanny. That stopped me crying. I must have been around seven, but even then it felt nice – like warm, then hot, it took my mind off things so I wasn’t scared any more. We fell asleep all cuddled up like that.
‘Next time my dad went mental and I was crying, we did it again. It wasn’t like nothing I’d done before. It wasn’t like showing my fanny to the boy next door for sixpence. It was my brother, right, so I knew it was OK. He was the only one who cared about me. I remember the bedspread, Winnie the Pooh, all them Disney characters. The lights were out but there was that orange glow you get in the city at night, even on the fifth floor. You could see things in the room with a weird colour on them and I used to look at Piglet while he stroked me.
‘He must have been about ten by then, right, and he had the hormones kicking in. I can’t remember it all exactly. But I remember once after he’d had his bath he came in the bedroom and took his towel off with a big flourish, like “Look what I’ve got!” and he had a hard-on. I’d never seen one before, and he wanted me to touch it.
‘Soon after that, the next time I was cuddled in with him, he asked me to touch it again. Then he told me to take my pyjamas off and he rubbed it against me. I thought we didn’t ought to be doing what we were doing but it felt nice and it made him happy. Not hard to guess what came next. One night down the line he starts pushing at me with it, knocking on every door but the right one, I knew he di
dn’t mean to hurt me. In the end we was doing the real thing. I remember him saying “This is what grown-ups do.”
‘Afterwards there was blood on the sheets and my Mum saw it and asked what it was. I was too young for the curse so she couldn’t understand it and somehow my Dad got in on it and I remember him shaking me, “Are you up to something? Are you a little whore?” Then he turned and whacked my brother round the head, “If you don’t tell me I’m going to beat it out of you!” He whacked him again, and my brother fell over and cut his head open on the hi-fi. Fucking blood everywhere. He was only a shrimp of a thing, not much bigger than me. But he never said a word.
‘They’d been on the housing list for years for a three bedroom flat. They couldn’t get one. They put my brother to sleep on the sofa. But one night not long after, my Dad pranged his precious bike and he came in and started doing his nut, and my brother crept out without them noticing and we cuddled up and it happened again. That was the first time it felt dirty, after what my Dad said. But I wanted to make it up to my brother for the beating he got. After that we used to do it every so often, when we got the chance. When they was busy arguing or sometimes they went out to the pub together and left us in the flat. We both liked it. It was the only time at home we felt safe.
‘Sometimes he wanted to do it other places, like when we were out in the park. In the bushes. I was scared we’d get caught. ’
I look at Mandy. Her hair is wet like rats tails and she’s shivering too. ‘How old were you?’ I ask.
‘I dunno. Eight or nine I suppose. Yeah, ’cos then, he must’ve been about twelve when he started going round with a gang of boys on the estate and he changed. Started acting tough. On the way home from school one day, I came across some of them beating up a boy. My brother was kicking the shit out of him, with a look on his face I’d never seen. One night after his bath when Mum and Dad were out, he flashed his hard-on again and asked me to kiss it and then guess what? Blow me if it wasn’t my first blow-job, oh for Chrissake I don’t wanna fucking joke about it. I thought I was going to throw up, but he didn’t seem to notice.
‘His attitude was different, right. I think it was his friends. We had the Old Bill come round a few times because there’d been trouble. He was throwing his weight about on the estate. Showing off. He started asking me to do stuff when I didn’t want to. If I wasn’t keen he’d have a go at me, “You never minded before, come on Mand” (he’s the only person ever called me Mand), “Don’t put on airs, you know you like it.” I did, too. But by now I knew what we was doing weren’t normal. That it was big time bad, right? All the same, I couldn’t stop it. Thought it was all my fault.
‘One night I said, “What if Mum knew what you do to me?” He said, “Are you going to tell her? You little scrubber. She’d throw you out on the street.” Then he did it angry and it hurt. Afterwards he said he was sorry. “Don’t cry, Mand. We’re friends, right. It’s our special secret. We stick together, right.” He cuddled me tight. I think he cried too.
‘But he carried on sneaking into my bed whenever he got the chance and asking me to do stuff. If I tried to stop him he’d be, “You know you’re the only person in the world for me, the rest of them are shit,” or he’d go, “Come on, you’re a big girl now, your titties are starting to come,” or he’d go, “You like it as much as I do, you dirty tart.” Sometimes he didn’t even bother to cuddle me or talk to me, he just told me to give him a blow job. If I tried to say no he threatened me. Other times he cuddled me tight like when we was little.
‘As he got older him and his mates started chasing girls. They went out to clubs up West. Sometimes he stayed out all night. A few times he brought a girlfriend to the flat to watch TV or have a beer. When that happened he ignored me like I wasn’t there. Just the little sister. But then if things went wrong with the girlfriends, or even if they didn’t, he’d get up off the sofa in the night and he’d be groping his way into my room, finding his way under my nightie.
‘I was older by now, my friends didn’t know why I wasn’t interested in boyfriends. But I felt all used up. And I didn’t think anybody would want me if they knew. I used to listen to my mates going on about boys, heavy petting and that, their daft talk. I knew all about it, but I couldn’t say nothing. I couldn’t talk to no-one.
‘As he got older he wanted more. He was horny as hell. He didn’t have much style, it was wham bam, I thought that was how it was done. Then he’d do it again. Over quick every time. Then just when I was falling asleep he’d wake me up to do it again. Slapped me round the face sometimes, playful. “Come on, Mand, what’s up?” I couldn’t tell him. That I didn’t bloody want to do it any more. “You and me, we’re special together,” he’d say, “We’re family. There’ll never be anyone like you for me. I’ll always look after you.”’
‘Did he?’ I ask.
‘Did he fuck. He was only 17 when he got nicked. Armed robbery and GBH. Next thing you know he’s in Borstal. One day he was here and the next he was gone. You know, I cried when he left. Like the only person who cared for me was gone. He abandoned me. I thought my life was over. How crap is that?’
I say, ‘It could have been a lucky break for you.’
‘It didn’t feel that way. When Mum and Dad started having a row, I hid in my room on my own. I had no-one to talk to. I missed him. Either way I was fucked.’
‘Between Scylla and Charybdis,’ I say.
‘What you talking about?’
‘That’s a monster and a whirlpool. Between the devil and the deep blue sea. A choice that’s no choice.’
‘You could say that. After he left it wasn’t long before I was doing it with someone else. Then someone else. I got a reputation for it. They said I was a good fuck. No-one knew how many years I’d spent learning.’
Back in the cell, Mandy throws up in the toilet and then disappears into bed in her wet clothes. I go to sit by the wall. There’s hardly an inch on it that isn’t covered with the maze of pale blue lines tracing out big and small spiders’ webs.
A web of confusion. We’re all lost.
Beverley’s giving Debs a neck massage with big, capable hands. Nobody speaks.
9
Letters of Liberty
Thursday 20th December 1990 3.30 pm
‘I brought you one of the bones,’ Anthea said, as she sank into the wicker chair.
She unwrapped the small cream-coloured object from a piece of paper towel and put it on the table.
Ren raised her smooth brows and looked at it.
‘You can touch it if you like,’ said Anthea.
Ren stretched out her fingers and let them rest on the bone. ‘I can see what you mean,’ she said. ‘It’s hard as a stone.’
‘Do you want to hold it?’
Ren took the fragment in her hand, closed her fingers and shut her eyes. She said nothing.
‘I know it’s stupid,’ said Anthea, ‘but when I hold it, it’s as if there’s a person speaking to me. And I get pictures, like the sea and mountains. And I get a feeling, as if someone is trying to warn me. It’s nonsense, I know… Morton says I’m imagining it.’
Ren said nothing.
‘Can you feel anything?’ asked Anthea.
Ren placed the bone back on the table and opened her eyes.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I can feel something. But we’re here to talk about your experience. What this bone means to you.’
‘I feel the bones are my friends,’ said Anthea. ‘Especially this one. I’ve had a sense it’s telling me… that something bad will happen if I go back to Greece. I keep getting fears about this field trip we’re doing in February. That something will go wrong. I get such a strong feeling about it.’
‘Just because you have a feeling about something, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true.’
‘Do you think I’m crazy to be listening to bones?’
‘I can’t know that,’ said Ren. ‘All our experience has meaning, on some level, even if it isn’t literal. We
need to pay attention to all of it. Make choices and decisions on the basis of all the information we have.’
‘I didn’t tell you about the nightmare I had yesterday,’ said Anthea, putting the bone back into one of her bags.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’ asked Ren.
‘Not really. It’s still too close,’ Anthea pushed her hair back from her face as if to wipe the dream away. ‘What we’ve been doing here seems to help. Unpeeling the memories like layers of clothes to get back to the flesh. Back to the beginning to see how I got to this place.’
‘OK. This is your time.’
‘I’ve put off talking about our night at Knossos. It was really the weirdest experience I’ve had. That was when I first got this sense of being unprotected, that things could get at me. That was when I began to believe that I’d be killed.’
‘Go ahead.’
Anthea took a tissue from the table and blew her nose. Then she began:
‘Morton and I first went to Knossos together nearly a year ago. What happened there tipped me over the edge.
‘The place we stayed in there used to be a taverna in the 19th century. Arthur Evans bought it, and now it’s a hostel for archaeologists.
‘It was February. Bert was in the UK with my mother. There was a group of archaeologists there doing a survey on a Roman site nearby. The hostel building is in the middle of several archaeological sites. The Knossos Palace is down the hill over the road. The Little Palace is further along. There are remains of house walls and dancing circles up the path. There are thousands of years of history under that hostel. Pots, foundations, rubbish pits, sealstones, tools, figurines, bones… The ground is saturated with past lives. Knossos is one of the oldest sites in Greece. The palace dates from the second millennium BC; but underneath it, settlement debris goes back centuries more to the Neolithic period. The whole area is a magnet for archaeologists and tourists alike. Am I boring you?’
