Selfish People

by Lucy English

  Upstairs, she pressed a packet of frozen peas to her head. The whole right side of her face was throbbing. I will not play tug of war with my children. Selfish bully, leave them out of it. Leave my children alone. They don’t need you to tell them Mummy’s not here for Christmas because she’s a whore. How dare you! She screamed into her pillow and the cold knobbly plastic until there was nothing left to scream.

  She got up on Sunday. She felt sick and empty. She had not eaten. She ran a bath. In Clive’s dingy bathroom she could see herself in the long mirror.

  I am white and shivering like I’m afraid but I’m not. I’m getting so thin my hips stick out. I can see my ribs. My face is puffy. In Bailey’s house there were hundreds of me, but here there is one. One skinny person getting thinner.

  She slipped into the warm water and it felt comforting. The only piece of comfort she had felt in days.

  There is no place for me here, where I can be bullied. I am getting too tired to be strong.

  Floating in the water, not a water nymph any more but tired and bruised, it came to her, like a soap bubble, a shining moment, what she needed to do.

  Early on Monday morning she went to Garden Hill. She tapped on Al’s front window. The children were watching television. Jo opened the door.

  ‘Dad’s in bed.’ He was in his pyjamas and had a piece of toast in his hand.

  ‘Yes, I know, shh, don’t wake him.’

  Ben and Tom were on the sofa half awake under their duvets. On the floor were a packet of Sugar Puffs and their cereal bowls.

  ‘Ben had four breakfasts,’ said Tom, taking out his thumb.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Leah. She sat between them and they snuggled up next to her.

  ‘Have you got our presents?’ said Ben.

  ‘Not yet. I’ll give them to you after Christmas.’

  ‘I want a remote-control tank,’ said Ben.

  ‘I want one too,’ said Tom.

  ‘Shh, be very quiet,’ said Leah.

  They watched the cartoon. A futuristic space epic with nasty ugly baddies and blond handsome goodies. Jo sat on the floor and played with his Lego.

  ‘Dad says you’re going to Grandma’s for Christmas,’ he said.

  ‘No. But I’m going on a little holiday.’

  ‘Can we come?’ said Ben.

  ‘Is it Cornwool?’ said Tom.

  ‘No it’s not. I’m going somewhere very quiet. By myself.’

  Do not cry. This is not the place to cry. She cuddled Ben and Tom closer. They felt warm and soft and smelt of Sugar Puffs and marmalade.

  ‘Come and sit with me,’ said Leah to Jo, and she moved Tom on to her lap so there would be a space. Jo sat on the sofa still making his model. Then he leaned his head against her shoulder. ‘It’ll be funny … when you go away at Christmas,’ he said and she wondered how much he understood.

  ‘But I will come back. You must remember that,’ and she rubbed her face in Tom’s curly hair. He and Ben were still lost in space.

  ‘Have you got a black eye?’ said Jo and Leah looked at him. He seemed older these days and his hair was going darker. In the winter he went pale and it made his eyes big and anxious.

  ‘You mustn’t worry about me.’ She hugged him into her.

  By the time Al woke up she had taken all her savings out of the bank and by the time he came downstairs she was already on a bus leaving Bristol.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  I went to Bridgwater and then I walked. I slept in a barn. I didn’t sleep much with the cold and the straw tickling my ear. I was afraid. Who are you sleeping in my barn? Behind a tractor there were scufflings and rustlings, I thought it might be rats. In the morning a dog sniffed me. I was dreaming of Bailey and Al shouting and tugging me. I was tearing in half. Then the dog licked my face. I got up and left. It was just dawn, grey and misty and the track was muddy. There was mud up my legs and I was cold.

  I walked along the ridge of a hill in the mist. I felt I was up a mountain but it wasn’t that high. I felt if the mist lifted there would be fields stretching to the sea below me. It wasn’t windy but damp. The air felt damp and I kept walking.

  I kept walking through that day and into another along a road in the night and the mist was thicker. I could see shapes in the dark growing and swirling. A few cars passed me but I was too scared to hitch. I walked down and down and was near the sea because I could smell it. Oily and salty and cold.

  That night was a tunnel of mist, like cobwebs and wet air on my face. I thought if I stop I will die. I kept walking. I don’t want to die now.

  I don’t remember much. Can you walk and sleep at the same time? The black became grey and it was another morning …

  There was a town by a small harbour. The boats were red and blue, and the houses were pink and blue, and fishermen in yellow and orange. The colours hurt my eyes. But the water was grey. I sat by the harbour and watched the sea crawl up the shingle, scrape down the shingle. I like that sound. At night on a boat you are rocked to sleep …

  She woke up. She was in a wooden bus shelter by a harbour. Her feet were sore and wet and her fingers were numb. She felt inside her coat for the envelope of money. It was still there. And now she was hungry. She felt hollow and her mouth was dry and furry. She stood up. Her rucksack wasn’t heavy but it made her topple. She limped into the town centre.

  It was a small town with one main street and across it were Christmas lights. The place was busy. Christmas music seeped out of the shops, metallic and irritating. On a corner was a café with large windows and blue tables and chairs. She ordered breakfast. The waitress looked at her oddly. Leah had mud up her legs and up her coat. She sat in a corner so she wouldn’t be noticed.

  Bailey works in the Red Café, so does Kerry. I used to sit there and look at vegetables.

  She looked across the street at a newsagent’s with a rack of magazines out the front and a board that said, CHRISTMAS EVE SPECIAL.

  The waitress brought her food.

  ‘Is it Christmas Eve?’ said Leah.

  The waitress was young and pasty with skinny arms. ‘Well … yes …’ she said as if Leah were daft.

  ‘My friend works in a red café,’ said Leah, but that wasn’t what she meant.

  ‘Was it coffee as well?’ said the waitress.

  I must think straight … my head is full of jumble … Bailey had a T-shirt with ‘Love House’ on it … fag break …

  ‘I need somewhere to stay,’ said Leah, going red.

  ‘On Christmas Eve? Here?’ said the girl. She went back to the kitchens.

  Leah stared at her food. I must eat. I must think. I mustn’t cry. She shovelled in a mouthful of bacon and eggs. Dead meat … Dead bird … unborn bird. Eat it … She bit a piece of toast to push it down. The girl came back with the coffee, like puddle water with a skin on top.

  ‘Me mum says, there’ll be nowhere here, she says there’s a few farms up the coast road, she says you’ve left it a bit late.’ And the mum came out of the kitchen to look at the vagrant.

  Silent and disapproving they watched Leah eat her breakfast.

  ‘Which way is the coast road?’ she asked, paying her bill, leaving great clods of mud on the floor. Everybody in the café was now looking.

  The mother pointed up past the harbour. ‘You’ve left it a bit late,’ she said.

  She walked slowly out of the town and up the hill. She was tired and stumbling, holding her stomach so she wouldn’t be sick. She was thinking of a warm bed and a hot bath. A smiling apple-cheeked farmer’s wife boiling the Christmas pudding. She passed the entrance to one farm. A sign said B & B. SORRY NO VACANCIES. She kept walking. There was a new garage, shining and gaudy in the grey mist and next to it a run-down bungalow. In the garden were broken cars. Behind a hedge was a field and painted on the gatepost it said CARAVANS. She looked. Up one end by a heap of scrap metal, timber and a smouldering bonfire were some old caravans. The front door of the bungalow was nailed shut so she went round the
back. A mongrel on a chair growled at her. She knocked on the door. It was opened by a scrawny woman with untidy black hair and a dirty apron.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Have you got any caravans?’

  ‘Yes, so what about it?’ She was holding a frying pan. From inside her kitchen came a smell of chips and car oil. The dog yelped and whimpered.

  ‘I need somewhere to stay.’

  ‘Oh do you. This isn’t a charity. I know your sort. Pay tomorrow and you never do … Shut it!’ she yelled at the dog.

  ‘I’ve got money,’ said Leah.

  ‘Oh?’ The woman became more interested. She put down her frying pan. ‘It’s a winter let and a summer let. The small one is ₤200 until April, then it’s ₤80 a month until October. The others are ₤300, then ₤100 a month.’

  ‘But I only want something for a few weeks,’ said Leah.

  ‘Oh do you … Shut it!’ she yelled. The dog was now pulling on its chain. She hurled a bone at it. ‘It’s not worth it at this time of year … Until April or nothing.’

  ‘₤200 is nearly all I’ve got.’

  The woman began to shut the door. ‘Don’t waste my time.’

  ‘Please, there’s nothing in the town and the farms are booked. Please, I’m desperate.’

  The woman looked her up and down. Leah had mud up her coat, her face was white, she had a black eye and her hair was tangled.

  ‘You lot, you’re all desperate.’

  The dog gnawed the bone. ‘₤150,’ said Leah. ‘That’s all I can give you. Look, I’ve got money, it’s here,’ and she took it out of her coat, ‘₤150 in cash for the small one. Nobody else will want it, I’m sure. Here, here’s the money.’ And she held it out to the woman, who screwed up her face. Her eyes made greedy calculations.

  ‘It’ll be handy for Christmas,’ she said at last. ‘But in April I want the summer rate and if you don’t pay up we chuck you out, and don’t think we wouldn’t.’

  ‘I won’t,’ said Leah. She was shaking as she handed over the money. It was exactly half her savings. She signed a book and the woman gave her a key.

  ‘The gas bottle’s full. When it runs out you fill it at the garage. You haven’t got a car so how you’re going to do that I don’t know, but don’t bother us. It’s got a stove for wood, there’s plenty of that around. The shower and the loo are down there –’ She pointed to a concrete building behind the bungalow. ‘On the first of April I’ll want the summer rate. Don’t bother us and we won’t bother you.’

  ‘I won’t,’ said Leah.

  The caravan was at the far end of the field next to a truck and a pile of wood. Inside it was dirty and smelt of mould. The stove was choked up with ashes. Leah turned the gas ring on to warm herself. There were a few greasy saucepans. She tipped out the contents of her rucksack on to the bed. Among her clothes were tea bags and some packet soups. She turned off the gas ring. In a cupboard were three old blankets. She wrapped herself in one and sat on the bed. She was shivering, and not just from cold. Above the bed somebody had stuck a photograph on the wall. A dog with three puppies.

  Three babies. Where are they now?

  Christmas Day. The mist has lifted and I can see where I am. On a cliff. There’s a hedge between the field and the road. I think the other caravans are empty. It’s not a high cliff, it’s made of earth and crumbles on to a beach that has no sand. The beach is strips of flat rock and seaweed. There’s a path to it but I didn’t go down. A wind is coming up from the sea and it’s getting colder. I went to the garage shop and bought bread and baked beans and a cake because it’s Christmas. And more matches and firelighters because I’m so cold.

  I cleaned out the stove and now I’m filthy. The shower room is freezing and I can’t bear to use it, but I got the stove going. The bonfire is still smouldering. Who built it? There’s nobody here. I walked round the other caravans and looked inside. I could see through the windows. A red curtain. An Indian bedspread, a jug, a teapot. Leftover things. In my caravan I found a biscuit tin with flowers on it. I put it on the table.

  The stove is quite hot now. I boiled some water and tried to clean up. I made a cup of tea. These are tiny things but they feel like Christmas presents. I put my clothes away. I boiled some more water and washed myself. I have to be careful with water, it’s in a jerry can out the back. I have to fill it up from the tap by the toilet.

  Christmas lunch is baked beans on toast and then the cake. I eat the cake slowly. It’s powdery and has chocolate like plastic on top. This is a strange Christmas. I sit on the bed and look at the hedge. It’s full of rubbish. Plastic bags, bottles, paper. I want to go out and clean it up … I’m so silly. I’m always cleaning. I cleaned up Clive’s house and made my little room sweet and private. I keep thinking I could make this place mine. Get some plants, a few cushions. A mirror over the sink. Make it my own little place.

  I’m so silly.

  I have left that all behind.

  I think about my room at Clive’s and I’m crying because nobody knows how serious it is, except me, that I have left it all behind.

  In the night someone was chopping wood and chucking it on the pile.

  Thump. Your fists on the floor. I’m outside by your dustbin and I can’t get in. I want to be with you. I’m banging on your door. I’m banging on your window. I can see you through the windows, you are crouching on the floor and I want to be with you so much.

  I’m cold by the dustbins and crying. I don’t know where to go. Where can I go now I have no home?

  There are steps leading down under the house and I’ve never seen them before. I go down in the dark. It smells cold and mouldy.

  I’m in a cave. The walls are shining. Purple and pink stone with veins of quartz. I touch the walls. They are warm like marble in the sun. There is no sun here. The light comes from the walls. Stone light. Pulsing like breathing. I run my hands around the walls and I feel so … so … comfortable.

  And I see it, in the middle of the cave. A spring bubbling up like a fountain. There is a wall around like a well.

  The water is black. Thick like oil but it’s black water. Now I’m scared. The surface is blue black, purple black, green black, it’s changing. I’m drawn to it. I put my hands in up to my elbows. I cup my hands and taste it. It tastes salty and sweet at the same time and I want more.

  I want more.

  I lean over the wall and put my face in the dark water, under the water, drinking it, gulping it with my eyes open. I can see that under there is somebody … I pull back. I’m leaning on the wall gasping air with one hand in the water.

  And a hand comes up and grabs me and holds me tight. I pull away but they hold on. They are still under the water. We tug. They are pulling me. I tug with both hands. Pulling with both hands.

  I think it’s Bailey.

  It was colder. Leah went into the town. She bought cheese, bread, fruit, vegetables, rice. She wanted to eat healthy food now. She packed it into her rucksack. As she walked back along the cliff flurries of snow blew in from the sea. The sky had hit the ground and she was walking through the sky.

  By her caravan the bonfire raged, sending up sparks and white flakes. She could feel the heat of it several feet away. Sitting close to it, too close, she thought, was a person. He was a young man, hunched up in a sheepskin coat. She went up to him. I was always bold. I went into the coffee bar with Al and the anarchists and said, ‘Hello, I’m Leah.’

  ‘Hello,’ she said.

  He turned round. His face was lost and blank with empty eyes.

  ‘I’m in that one,’ she said and pointed to her little caravan, painted green with a wonky chimney.

  ‘So what?’ he said and looked away.

  There was a light fall of snow. The world was white. The camp site looked almost attractive, its debris covered by forgiving frosting. Two chimneys puffed out smoke. The toilet had frozen over. The young man was in the caravan nearest to Leah’s. He got up in the afternoon, coughed and retched l
oudly, then started chopping wood. He built up the bonfire. He kept stoking it right through the night, chopping more wood, sometimes pausing to play his guitar. Leah could hear him from her bed. She pulled the blankets over her.

  It was New Year’s Eve and it was getting dark. Leah had stayed inside all day because of the cold. Outside the man had hauled two great branches on to the bonfire and they were just beginning to burn. He was by the fire now, drinking cider from a plastic bottle. The fire looked wonderful and huge and exciting. She went outside.

  She sat down on a log. The flames leaped and seared into the sky. ‘Oh!’ she said as a piece of wood exploded and shot out sparks.

  The man looked at her. ‘So? So? What’s occurring? What’s occurring? Is this the party?’

  ‘Is it?’ said Leah.

  ‘It’s got to be. Have some of this,’ and he gave her the cider bottle. It was cloudy like urine.

  ‘No thanks,’ said Leah.

  ‘It’s shite, isn’t it,’ said the man. He started rolling a joint. He did it quickly as if he did it all the time. ‘So? So? What’s occurring?’

  ‘I’m Leah,’ said Leah.

  ‘And I’m the apeman, I’m the wolfman, I’m the axeman.’ He lit his spliff.

  He was a light man, unshaven and with messy hair, but he had high cheekbones and a wide mouth. It was a sensitive face. He was not still: it was as if everything around him pricked him like a needle and he was reacting to it. He jumped up suddenly and breathed a lungful of dope. ‘Yes, this is it. This is it!’

  ‘This is the party then,’ said Leah and picked up the cider bottle.

  They smoked and drank. The fire roared and cackled.

  ‘… Axe, Axe, I’m called Axe,’ and he furiously chopped up more wood and threw it on to the furnace, ‘… and everything’s shite, they’re all chasing something. They all took to playing catch-as-catch-can …’

  ‘Till the gunpowder ran out at the heels of their boots,’ said Leah, prodding the fire with a long stick.

  ‘You know that? You know that? ‘‘She went into the garden to cut cabbage-leaf to make an apple-pie’’?’