by Mary Hayward
He used to tell me that little Jack Frost had painted the picture on the window during the night. Of course it was nonsense because I knew the pretty patterns were caused by the condensation of moisture from our breath, freezing on the inside of the glass. I asked our science teacher. He told me that instead of the water molecules flowing from gas, to liquid, to solid, the molecules are converted from gas to solid, which are the ice crystals of hoarfrost.
From my bedroom window, patches were now clearing. The misty blur gave way to the sight of smoke, which billowed above the chimney pots; like firing cannons in the still morning air. I sat there in the silence until the 9.30 trail of cotton steam to Liverpool Street thundered by.
I wandered downstairs and sat alone on the bottom step, staring along the hallway passage at the pile of envelopes still lying on the hall floor. I was wondering why they were still there, left where they fell the day before. Dad must have walked over them to get in last night, yet he didn’t bother to pick them up.
I felt strange, I didn’t know why, but there was something different about me. It wasn’t because it was my birthday, it was more than that. There was something unsettling, a restlessness that I couldn’t explain.
Had Dad left them for me? Was there a birthday card for me? I didn’t think so. I don’t even think that Jane knew, and I never reminded her. She was only five years old, and somehow I didn’t want anyone to know because it would make me so sad inside, with so many thoughts washing around my mind as I walked over, and picked up the letters.
Each envelope was exactly the same, each neatly written, each carrying the same message, and each message beginning the same way: “This is a notice to quit...”
Quit notices. These were my birthday cards.
Mum had been in hospital almost two whole months, yet I still managed to keep the secret from all my friends. It was a testing time and I had learned much about myself, but there were still parts of me I just didn’t understand. Why did I believe my father?
I didn’t know. He always let me down. Every time I doubted my own instinct and trusted him, things went horribly wrong.
The hard lesson came to me quite unexpectedly, or was it my birthday present after all?
I went back upstairs, sat on my bed and slipped my coat around my shoulders, but I wasn’t left on my own for long. Jane had woken and wandered in.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“I’m cold,” she wailed.
“All right,” I said, “I’ll get you some socks to put on your feet. Would you like that?”
“No, I want something to eat—I’m hungry!” she shouted.
“Shoosh now, you’ll wake Dad.” I searched my coat pocket and found a fruit gum. It had fluff all over it, but I didn’t think she would be bothered. “Here you are, do you want this?”
She didn’t say anything, she just snatched it out of my hand and rammed it into her mouth as fast as she could.
I walked her back to her room. It was no wonder she was cold, the house was freezing. My heart went out to her, seeing her standing there in her pyjamas and her little feet bare. I got her to sit on her bed, tucked her up with blankets and slipped a pair of my thick woollen socks on her feet. For a moment we chuckled when they came up to her knees. Finally I draped her coat around her shoulders and propped her pillows behind her back.
Putting an old wooden tray on her lap, I gave her an old well-used colouring book, and some pencils from my schoolbag. With her mind elsewhere and the sweet I had given her from my coat pocket, she eventually settled down.
With Jane settled, I took the opportunity to sneak into Dad’s room and rummage through his pockets for any money I could get. It wasn’t as easy as I thought; he was still wearing his trousers. Like the Artful Dodger, I pulled each pocket inside out. I searched through his jacket, his wallet, and his outdoor coat. My efforts were in vain—he had nothing.
I sunk down on my knees and looked at him. I felt so helpless and I was so close to tears. I began to wonder what was the point. I had to get through the day and crying wouldn’t help.
I shoved my arms in my coat and wandered downstairs and made myself a drink. The living room was still warm from the fire the previous night, so I took my drink and an old copy of Judy magazine and huddled on the settee. I sat there reading amongst the smell of spent coal and of old newspapers that were piled in a heap in the corner of the room.
For a moment I was lost in a story of a little girl locked in the classroom by some naughty boys. As I read the words staring out at me from the page, I realised I needed help too. I couldn’t do it alone. Woe betide if I tried to come between my dad and his drink. He couldn’t help me and I couldn’t help him.
I reached up to the mantelpiece, taking the pencil I found lying there. I started to write my thoughts on the side of a page of the magazine. Tearing it out, I folded it and stuffed it in my coat pocket, stood up, put my cup on the mantelpiece and strode over to the french windows.
I stared out into the garden. The patch of unkempt grass and weeds was divided down its length by a crazy stone path that tee’d into the narrow path to Langhedge Lane. On the left-hand side, a wooden pallet rested against the rickety picket fence that separated our patch of weeds from the neighbours.
I said to myself, “Today I am twelve. Today I have a grown up plan. I have to fight this on my own. We will not go hungry. I will not give in.”
I took out and unfolded my checklist, and read it to myself. At the top I had written ‘One bar of soap’. Soap was the lifeboat of my survival. So strong was my feeling that I would have fought for it, and if I died, they would have had to prize it from my frozen grasp. Safety had to come before food. If I didn’t keep up the image to the outside world, then someone might notice. A teacher, a doctor, or other adult would notify the authorities, and one wrong step and Jane and I could be taken into Care: I couldn’t have that.
Second on my list was money. Without money we had no heat—the engine of my bones. Without heat we could not cook, or dry our clothes from the continuous damp of winter. Every day now it had rained without relief—depressingly so.
It came to me. I had to make a decision. I was like a shipwrecked sailor, on the rocks and sinking fast.
I wrote down my last comment. Choice.
I had to choose between staying and starving, or breaking out and getting help.
I was now so scared that the rent man would come at any moment and throw me out of the house. What if the he came whilst Mum was in hospital? Would she return to an abandoned house? Would I be lost in some Care Home with Jane for ever?
I was wasting away alarmingly, although somehow in my confusion, I didn’t realise how bad. I was now very weak—everything was an effort. Living on just one third of a pint of milk was simply not enough to keep me going, and now I didn’t even have enough for Jane. It was the weekend and I had nothing at all.
I could no longer shield Jane from the crisis; moreover, I was scared in case someone found out. I needed Mum now more than ever. I didn’t have the money for the basics, let alone laundry and the house was returning into filth once more. I made the decision to go and get help from Mum. It was my only hope and I was determined to confront Dad and get the fare money.
The next day Dad was home about five o’clock and I saw my chance. Sitting at the kitchen table, he was drinking a beer and reading the racing results in the late edition the Evening Standard.
“I’m going to see Mum,” I blurted.
“Ahmm.” He was engrossed in reading.
“I’ve got to tell her what’s happening to us,” I said. “We’re starving here. I can’t carry on!”
“Go on then.” He didn’t look up.
“Give me the bus fare.” I snatched his paper.
He got up, swung round and reached out for it, but the sound of tearing paper was lost in the noise of the scuffle. The racing results page was in shreds. I stood back facing him, holding the torn remnant behind my back.
&n
bsp; “I haven’t got any money.” He just stood there.
I dropped the paper behind me and pounded into him. I suspected he had gambled it all. Why else would he be looking at the racing page?
“You’ve lost it all on the horses, haven’t you?”
The corner of his mouth flickered up in a nervous twitch.
“I knew it! I flipping well knew it. You’ve lost all the money, haven’t you?” I wanted to shake him like a rag doll, and perhaps if I had been a boy like Les, I would have.
Was that why my brother Les had to be kicked out all those years earlier? Had he suddenly realised what my dad was really like, and rebelled against it with such anger that Dad was forced to get rid of him?
“I will have to walk all the way,” I said, “unless you give me the fare now!”
“I haven’t got it. Really.” He pulled out his pockets and I saw they were empty.
Picking up the torn page, which I had dropped on the floor a few moments earlier, I walked into the hallway. Dad followed me out. Jane started crying as Dad and I scuffled over the racing results. His elbow struck me a glancing blow on the side of my face.
“That’s it,” I wailed, “I’ve flipping well had enough, I’m going up to see Mum and tell her.”
He couldn’t see my misery, or feel my pain. I realised I would have to go. I was making mistakes and falling over unexpectedly. It might have been my imagination, but I swear my teeth were getting lose, my hair was falling out, and I was convinced that if I didn’t do something I wouldn’t see another week.
I had to leave Jane behind. I didn’t want to, but I had no choice.
“You’ll have to look after Jane,” I shouted from the Hallway.
I slammed the front door behind me in a strop, and raced up Langhedge Lane as best I could. I really wish I hadn’t, because I tripped, striking my knee on the pavement. Nursing my knee I heard a noise and glanced over at the house nearby. It had a little picket fence by a low brick wall. An empty R.Whites lemonade bottle rested next to the old metal rubbish bin. I sneaked it out through the gap in the fence, hid it under my coat, and carried it to the corner shop, where I offered up the bottle. My nose was so close to the counter that I could taste the smell of fruit pastels, wine gums, liquorish and so many others that I couldn’t describe.
The shopkeeper examined the bottle. There was a brief moment when I thought he would reject it, or say it wasn’t his, and hand it back to me. He turned and dropped it into the crate behind the counter, went to the till, and tipped a thrupenny bit into my outstretched hand.
“What do you want with it then, Miss?” he said.
I didn’t say anything. I picked up a packet of Spangles I spotted on display at the front of the counter, handed back the thrupence and scampered out.
When I got to Fore Street I slowed down and started the long walk along Tottenham High Road to the hospital at St Ann’s Road. It wasn’t long before I crossed White Hart Lane, then Lordship Lane and past Bruce Grove. Following the route the bus had taken some weeks earlier, I was able to remember the junctions. It wasn’t the shortest route, but it was a simple way that I could follow without getting lost. I kept telling myself that all I had to do was get to Seven Sisters Station, and then look out for St Ann’s road on the right-hand side. At each passing bus, the smell of the warm exhaust fumes struck a contrast against the cold air. But It was no use longing—I didn’t have any money.
Such a long time passed before I reached the junction for Tottenham Hale, and that was despite walking as fast as I could. As I drifted in my mind, I found myself counting the paving stones, sometimes trying to distract myself from my pain, and at other times, so that I could get some idea of the distance I had travelled.
Reaching the Junction with Seven Sisters road I reckoned I had travelled about two miles: roughly about half way.
My heels hurt, my soles hurt, my legs hurt, but more than anything, my toes hurt. They rubbed, they scraped, and they blistered, until I had blisters on blisters.
Spotting the entrance to the Underground Station, I sat on the little wall by the railing to take a quick look at my feet. My toes protruded from the blisters, my toenails like gravestones, all alone between pockets of swollen flesh, but there was nothing I could do.
I unwrapped my new packet of Spangles and sucked one slowly. My mouth pumped with moisture as the flavour flooded my tired muscles. It was so powerful, as if I had never tasted anything throughout my life; and now, all that exotic tang of pleasure gripped my entire body.
Starving myself—I could cope with that. I felt a calmness—perhaps it was the Spangle, I didn’t know, but it was as if I didn’t matter any more. It wasn’t about me, or my pain—it was about my responsibility. I couldn’t let Jane down. It was my responsibility and Mum had told me to look after her, and I was determined we were going to survive.
For a moment I sat still in my numbness, and let myself hope that this nightmare would end. Strangers brushed past me, scrambling down the steps as they rushed for their train. I was left, discarded like the wrapper of my Spangle.
Every step I took was an effort, and when I reached traffic lights, I found it almost a blessing because it gave me relief, an excuse to lean on the railings so I could take the weight off my sore feet. I would stand there, rocking and briefly hauling myself up by my arms, freeing myself from the pain. My feet now felt like clumps of stinging meat hanging on the end of stick-like bones.
As if in a trance, my mind rambled as I stood alone waiting for the lights to change. I ate a Spangle in the hope it would boost my energy once more. I should have been thinking about the way to the hospital; instead, I was daydreaming about Mum coming home; of jam, the taste of thick cut bread covered with butter; the smell of it, so vivid I could taste it, there in the street.
The lights changed. I dashed across to the island in the middle of the junction. The pain, from my blisters, was now excruciating. I stopped, crippled.
The acrid smell of screeching blue smoke coming from the tyres should have given me a clue, but such was my dulled and fuddled brain, I didn’t see the lorry now bearing down on me. I glanced up at the driver and looked right into his face. It was screwed up, his eyes narrowed as if to shut out the impact that was yet about to come.
I tried a quick sprint. My foot gave way. I plunged sprawling into the kerb. I reached up for the traffic post and tried to haul myself clear of the road, but I slithered down, trapped between the lorry and the kerb. Its enormous back wheels bore down upon me, crushing the skirt of my coat. I couldn’t get up.
The driver leaned out of his cab. “What do yer think yer doing?”
I looked up at him, silently nursing my knee.
“Look where you’re bloody going—bloody stupid girl! You’ll get yourself killed, you will—mark my words!”
The lorry rushed past; uncaring, roaring and belching smoke in my face, like some fire eating dragon.
Clambering up the traffic post, I stood there once more, shivering, waiting for the lights to change.
I hobbled, exhausted, across to a large tree growing out of the pavement. I was tired beyond belief; my legs ached, my feet were sore and painful, and my knee was now grazed and weeping. I didn’t know how much farther I could walk. I felt my head swim with the pain of it all.
I fell down beside the tree, my whole body shaking uncontrollably. I felt so tired that I could have just lain there and gone to sleep, despite the noise of the traffic and people passing by.
Was this my end?
Agonising over my decision to walk, my mind exploded with worry. Should I give up or carry on? I wasn’t sure if I could make it any further. It might have been okay if I were fit and well, but now, without solid food for over two weeks—yes, the hunger pains had gone, but I didn’t have the energy to continue; all I had was my stubborn pride and determination.
I was sure Mum would be able to help me, and I hoped she had some money to give. This time I had to tell her what was going on at home. I ha
d nagged and begged and still Dad didn’t provide for us. What could I do?
I got myself up and gave myself a good talking to. “Now pull yourself together, Mary,” I told myself. “I hadn’t come this far to quit now.” I soldiered on, my mind resolute, my body; I wasn’t so sure. I was thirsty, but I didn’t even have enough money to buy a bottle of drink. I kept asking myself if I had made a mistake in walking all the way. Was there anything else I could have done?
Cold, dark and now with a biting wind, my very bones ached beyond belief. My shoes had rubbed and rubbed and the pain was now so bad I just had to rest. I sat down on the nearby wall, undid the laces of my shoes, and let the cold air dampen the pain.
My shoes came from a catalogue, they didn’t fit properly, but I did not dare complain for otherwise I would have had nothing. For a moment I sat there still shaking and ate one of my precious Spangles. I lost track of time and rested. I tried to get my shoes done up again, but they wouldn’t fit. Instead, they scraped the skin off my left heel making it bleed. I tucked my sock down with my finger in the hope of stopping it rubbing, and carried on walking, but as I reached the junction with St Ann’s Road, the pain became unbearable. I stumbled for a moment, stopped and put my finger down my shoe to see if there was anything else I could do to relieve the pain. There wasn’t.
I told myself I wasn’t a quitter and I had to be a good little soldier, like I had read in the books at school. As I reached a ‘fish and chip’ shop, I found the smell of chips almost overwhelming, yet I had to get to the hospital.
A group of boys tumbled out. They had Brylcreemed hair swept back with a quiff at the front. They wore black leather jackets, denim jeans, black leather boots with white socks, which were rolled over the tops of the boots. One had a white scarf dangling over his jacket. I thought they were rockers, although I didn’t see their motorbikes. They were larking about, when the one with the white scarf strolled over to me.
