The Second Life of Amy Archer

by R. S. Pateman

Really she just liked spitting . . .

  Dad’s mum was different apparently, but she croaked it before I was born, probably ’cos she wanted to avoid meeting me. The story goes she was standing on a chair putting up clean net curtains in the kitchen, then wallop, out of the blue, a brain haemorrhage. The people in the flat below heard the thump as she fell but they thought she was just moving furniture. Grandad found her when he came back from work.

  ‘She was all tangled up in manky netting,’ he always said. ‘Icy cold. It was just like me wedding day all over again, only better.’

  They’d only got married because he’d knocked her up. She lost the baby a month after the wedding but it was too late to turn back so they just got on with it, like my family always did, like I always do . . .

  Grandad hid down the pub, where he was top dog of the darts team, or down the bookies’, who were always pleased to see him . . . their number one customer. Nan escaped to Streatham Palais for Babycham and Teddy boys.

  Grandad reckoned he weren’t meant to marry . . . I don’t mean not marry Nan, I mean not marry full stop. He said that’s why he’d lost ’alf his wedding ring finger doing National Service. He only had a stub left and he made out it was a sign warning him not to marry, an omen of only ’alf a marriage if he did.

  His disability, he called it . . . I think he meant the marriage, not the finger. Didn’t stop him handling money as a conductor on the number 3 bus, though, or getting one hundred and eighty for the darts team.

  Me dad reckoned it was a miracle they ever had kids, as he says they were never in the same room long enough. They still found time for rows to kick off, mind.

  ‘Thank God for you and your brother,’ Grandad would say to me dad. ‘If it weren’t for yous two, we’d never have got a three-bedroom flat off the council.’

  Me uncle legged it as soon as he could and signed up with the army. Mum and Dad tied the knot a year later. They were skint . . . always would be, had no chance of stumping up the dosh for their own place . . . never even thought of it neither. A council flat was the best they could hope for, all they dreamt of really, and true to form, even that dream got buggered up, as there were too many people and not enough flats. Dad blamed the wogs, Mum blamed the Pakis. We all blamed life.

  Grandad was pretty chuffed about it, though . . . he liked the rent Mum and Dad paid him. So did the pubs and the bookies. And he liked having someone to cook and clean and do everything for him too, and made silly jokes about having a slave. Mum never laughed and neither did I . . .

  They phased conductors out on Grandad’s route, so he had to get another job. He couldn’t become a bus driver, as he was too thick for driving lessons . . . too thick for any qualifications, come to that . . . so he ended up at my school as the caretaker. The other kids sneered at me ’cos of him.

  ‘You stink ’cos you wash in the sick he mops up.’

  ‘No one wants to come to your house for tea. All you have is leftovers from the school canteen.’

  But Amy liked me. God knows why, I wasn’t the sort of playmate for a double-A celebrity like her. She was rich, clever, popular, but she liked me . . . Sometimes I thought she only let me play with her ’cos she felt sorry for me and being with a no-mark like me made her look good and got her house points from the teachers for being nice. And she was.

  She let me copy from her in class . . . told the others to leave me alone . . . wouldn’t play with them if they didn’t ask me too. She even turned down the role of Gabriel in the nativity play just to be a sheep like me. My mum thought it was sweet but Amy’s mum weren’t happy about it one little bit.

  She didn’t like me playing with Amy any more than she liked me sitting next to her. She told Amy she shouldn’t let me crib her answers and we’d both do better if we sat apart, but Amy took no notice.

  My name was top of the list for her parties and no one but me was ever asked for a sleepover. We swapped Skittles and Space Dust in our midnight feasts and got dressed up as the Spice Girls, dancing in front of the mirror. Course, she always got to be Baby Spice, ’cos she was prettier, blonder and the white feather boa belonged to her.

  She had more clothes than me full stop . . . and they came from shops that had names on their plastic bags. Gap. Diesel. Dolce & Gabbana, that sort of thing. Mine came in the plain bags they used on the market stalls . . . you know, the right flimsy ones. Either that or there weren’t no bag at all, which meant them clothes were knock-off.

  I wore some of Amy’s clothes, up in her bedroom anyway. I had to take them off when I went home as Mrs Archer would stand by the front door on guard, looking for designer labels under my market-stall tat.

  Some people reckoned me and Amy were twins . . . pissed Mrs Archer off big-time, that. She’d pull a face every time, say no, of course we weren’t, what an idea. We did look alike, mind, but I was just a cheap copy, the dodgy fake.

  Me and Amy scratched our initials on Mrs Archer’s door-step once . . . we got a right old slap for that. Real leg-stingers, but I reckon I copped for more of a slagging-off than Amy. It was her doorstep, I suppose. It was as if my initials were worse than the mark of the devil, a bad omen. As it turned out, they were . . .

  I don’t think Mrs Archer liked me much before Amy went missing, but afterwards, when I was safe and Amy weren’t . . . If I hadn’t been Amy’s friend, she would never have been in the playground in the first place. But I was Amy’s friend, she was there and I weren’t.

  ‘Where were you?’ Mrs Archer kept saying. ‘You’re supposed to be her friend.’

  Dad told her to go easy on me. Grandad told her she should know better.

  ‘Dana’s in bits,’ he said. ‘Kept awake by nightmares. She feels guilty enough without you laying into her.’

  Grandad was right . . . but Mrs Archer was too. It was my fault. No way could I make it up to her, though I tried. I pretended to be Amy in the reconstruction for Crimewatch. I was a dead ringer for her, the coppers said. I bet Mrs Archer hated that. I bet she hated me being the one who could help find her daughter too . . . And I bet she thought it was the least I could do.

  I wanted to do it, but I was scared. I thought the same thing that happened to Amy would happen to me . . . I reckoned that if I could play meself, I could rewrite the script and make everything all right, you know. I wouldn’t argue with Amy or let her walk off. I’d stay by her side . . . standing guard . . . make sure we walked back to my house together with Grandad, like we was meant to . . .

  But the coppers said they didn’t need me. Amy was playing on her own when she disappeared, and that was the memory they wanted to jog. That was the truth. I’d just be in the way. Amy was better off without me . . . in the reconstruction and in real life.

  In the end, I was dressed up in exact copies of Amy’s clothes . . . pink tracksuit bottoms, Spice Girls platform trainers, headband and tiger-print fleece. I was like a doll . . . an Amy doll.

  I spun on the roundabout and sat on the see-saw, Amy’s end scraping the ground, my end light and empty . . . like I’d been catapulted into space, out of harm’s way.

  When the coppers gave me the nod, I walked out of the playground, like Amy’s ghost. I wondered if the video would just show white noise, and it might as well have done for all the good it did . . .

  A is for Amy Archer. Who deserved a better friend than me.

  B is for . . . baby.

  You’d think the kids at school would be nice to me when Amy vanished, like they were when George Miller’s dog got run over. He got given loads of sweets by his mates and the teachers let him off homework and made him milk monitor two terms running.

  But all I got was questions.

  ‘What happened? Where is she? Why don’t you know where she is?’

  I wouldn’t answer them ’cos I couldn’t answer them . . . It didn’t take long for them to get nasty.

  ‘It’s no surprise you weren’t taken! Not even the perverts want you.’

  They did a survey. ‘Who do you wis
h had disappeared? Amy or Dana?’ For once, I got more marks than Amy.

  The empty desk next to mine was like a slap in me face. Every day . . . slap, she’s not here any more. Slap . . . all ’cos of you. No one wants to sit next to you, you’re a minger, a curse, evil. Slap. Slap. Slap . . .

  I missed the touch of Amy’s left arm against my right one, the smell of her coconut shampoo, the pop of the press stud on her packet of felt-tip pens. I hid at playtime. Teachers told the other girls to ask me to join in with their games. Course, they didn’t want me to play but they had to ask just to keep the teachers happy, but I wouldn’t join in anyway. The teachers said I had to try.

  ‘We know it’s hard, but you’ve got to carry on as best you can. When Amy’s back, you don’t want her being better at skipping than you are, do you?’

  I couldn’t get the hang of skipping at the best of times, always jumping at the wrong moment and getting caught up in the rope. I was even crappier now because I could hardly get off the floor, and if I did, I felt like I was landing on Amy’s grave.

  ‘Don’t forget to sing!’ the girls shouted.

  I like coffee, I like tea,

  I like Amy to jump with me.

  I never skipped again . . . gave hopscotch, kiss chase and tag a swerve. Even the other kids could see why I wouldn’t want to play hide and seek . . . That’s why they never stopped asking me to.

  I played on me own instead, juggling mainly, just like Amy had taught me. I only got up to two balls, though Amy – of course – could do three. When we juggled the balls against the school walls it sounded like a steam train, but when I did it on me tod it was just like rain . . . Slow rain.

  Me and Amy had this song we liked to sing when we juggled, but when I tried it without her it just made me cry.

  Over the garden wall, I let my baby sister fall.

  My mother came out, she gave me a clout,

  I asked her what all the fuss was about.

  She gave me another to match the other,

  Over the garden wall.

  One time, I heard the rhythm of another set of balls against the wall. I turned to look for Amy but . . . she weren’t there and the balls just fell to the ground . . . like tears, except balls stop rolling eventually and tears don’t.

  I tried again but chose another song. ‘Pokarekare ana’. We’d been taught it by one or our teachers who was a Maori and got us to sing this song when we used these balls on a string . . . pois, they was called.

  Oh girl return to me,

  I could die of love for you.

  I got good at pois. Did it in me bedroom. I kidded meself that each swing would bring Amy back, winding her in like a fish. All I got was empty air . . .

  Mum and Dad thought a new home and a new school would help. A fresh start, they said, for all of us, where no one knew us and we could get on with our lives. We ended up in Birmingham, of all places. I guess it made sense, as it was a big city in the middle of the country . . . plenty of room to get lost in.

  Amy came too . . .

  I vanished at secondary school. I didn’t bunk off or anything – in fact I went every day, even when I weren’t feeling well – but I just sat in the middle of the class, on me own, doing as I was told. I never answered questions, never got really bad marks, never got really good ones. I was just average, in the middle . . . safe.

  I was too fat for sports, too flat for the choir. I didn’t give or get any Christmas cards . . . weren’t asked to no parties. Even the bloody teachers didn’t know me name. I was famous at the tuck shop and the canteen, mind. Forget sugar and spice, I’m built of sugar and fat, E numbers, additives and salt.

  Mum always banged on about eating breakfast, but I didn’t have much . . . I just wanted to get away from the table and out the house. I was late for school, was meeting me mates, had an essay to hand in . . . least that’s what I told her.

  Mum gave me money for fruit, can you believe? Fruit! Me? What a joke! She got wise in the end and told me to get them wholegrain snack bars, you know the ones, hard as cardboard and sprinkled with shit, but instead I stopped at the Spar near the bus stop for pasties, crisps, chocolate and Coke.

  Best part of school for me was lunchtime. I’d go to the canteen late every day, not ’cos I weren’t hungry – I was always hungry – but ’cos going late meant more food, as the dinner ladies didn’t like waste and dolloped up bigger portions of chips, chicken nuggets, crumble and custard. And I’d get seconds too . . . even thirds on a really good day. Food did me good, just not in the way Mum said.

  Exams were a bit of a no-brainer for me . . . I don’t know why the teachers even bothered entering me. Had to, I suppose. Somehow I scraped passes in child care and food technology, got tipped out of school and ended up waitressing at the Little Chef.

  At least I got a uniform . . . red and white it was, so I didn’t stick out, but I never wore me name badge, even though the manager was always on me case about it. He reckoned the badges made it more welcoming for the customers, but I didn’t see how. The only thing they needed to know the name of was the food. They weren’t ordering me . . . I weren’t on the menu.

  Just as well really, seeing as I hid behind my notepad. I was invisible, even though I got bigger by the day on free staff meals and leftover chips. I got to the stage where I couldn’t see me feet, and me hips sent plates flying from tables. Thank God I didn’t have to pay for breakages . . . or uniforms. I went through three of them, each one larger than the last.

  Don’t get me wrong, I weren’t ashamed of meself . . . well, not of me reflection, anyway. I liked the way I looked. But I was glad I couldn’t see how I looked . . . you know . . . inside . . .

  I lived in a dingy bedsit in the red-light area. All night I’d get the sound of heels clack-clack-clacking up and down outside me window and cars revving their engines. I felt sorry for the women putting themselves in danger like that, but I hated ’em too . . . for being available . . . not saying no. I hated their punters even more.

  One of them had the nerve to ask me how much for a suck and fuck.

  ‘Big girls are better value for money,’ he said.

  I wanted to spit in his face and punch him, but instead I ran away . . . from the bedsit and from Birmingham. I ran away from Dana too.

  That’s when I found me new name, from that book left on the Little Chef counter.

  ‘A Law Dictionary. By Henry Campbell Black, MA.’

  I tell you, I was gobsmacked how easy it was to change my name, even for me. There weren’t no legal forms or having to ask permission from no one or anything like that. All you have to do is just write a letter claiming your new name and get someone to sign it as a witness and that’s it, sorted, job done.

  There was this other waitress at the Little Chef . . . Cindy, her name was, stank of BO and liked flirting with the lorry drivers, but she was all right I suppose . . . well, Cindy didn’t get why I wanted to change me name from something ‘lovely’ like Dana to something ‘odd’ like Henry. She reckoned if I was gonna change my name I should go for a pretty one . . . Tiffany or Fifi, for fuck’s sake. As if a pretty name would suit me. And anyway, lots of women have men’s names. Terri. Lesley. Jamie. Why not Henry?

  Cindy signed the name-change letter for twenty quid and all the day’s tips . . . I don’t think I even said thank you or goodbye but I know I didn’t look back as we pulled out of the coach station. Dana Bishop had gone, wiped off the face of the earth, and there weren’t no one who would miss her or feel bad about her going, like they had with Amy.

  You know that bit in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy and the rest of them see Emerald City for the first time and start legging it down the Yellow Brick Road, instead of just doing that skippy dance down it? They’re all excited and out of breath and thinking all their dreams are about to come true . . . Well that’s how it was for me when I got to Manchester.

  I found a bed at a hostel in Ancoats where I used me new name for the very first time when I signed the r
egister. The duty manager didn’t even blink.

  It was a right shithole, one of those big old Victorian places made out of red brick, although you wouldn’t know it what with all the soot and everything. It weren’t much cleaner inside neither. The corridors were all flaky paint and smelt of food and damp. There was signs on the walls telling us we couldn’t have no visitors or smoke . . . couldn’t have pets or drugs . . . play loud music . . .

  My room was narrow and just about long enough for a single bed. There was a little window which didn’t let much light in and a scuzzy sink that glugged whenever anybody in the building was running a tap, which meant it glugged pretty much all the time. It weren’t no worse than me bedsit in Birmingham – at least there weren’t no prostitutes or punters – but it felt different . . .

  I hit the Job Centre soon as I’d unpacked, even though they’d always been pretty useless in the past. This time my ‘adviser’ got me an interview . . . at a nursery of all places. Bottom of the pile, needless to say, just a nursery assistant, but more than I’d ever dared hope for seeing as I’d only just squeaked through my child care exam after all.

  I tried not to think of Amy and me own childhood . . . pushed it to the back of me mind. When I showed up for the interview, the playground was noisy and busy with toddlers running around all over the place, wriggling through a red plastic tunnel. These kids looked happy, bundles of fun and energy, like all kids should be . . . how I wished I’d been.

  I saw me chance to make peace with childhood and put things right over letting Amy down by making sure no other kid came to harm. I belonged there . . . I could help them and they could heal me.

  I got the job, but at a price. The nursery manager, Maggie, had to do a criminal record check.

  ‘It’s the law,’ she said. ‘We have to be sure there’s nothing in your past to make you unsuitable to work with kids. Don’t worry. It’s just a formality. I’m sure you’ve got nothing to hide.’

  Shows how much she knew.

  Course, I didn’t wanna give her my real name, but as there’d be no trace of Henry Campbell Black anywhere and she’d only get suspicious, it was better to tell her the truth.