"Enough," said Dad.
Mum woke up. "What is it? What's going on?"
"The kids are arguing."
"Stop it."
"We weren't arguing," I told her. "We were just having a discussion." It's what Mum and Dad often said when they were arguing, and I'd remembered it so I could avoid getting told off next time Ben and me were arguing. It always seemed okay for them to have a row if they said they were just having a discussion, so I thought it would be a good "get-out-of-jail-free" card for me, too. I was wrong, though.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Dad asked. He sounded cross. "Are you trying to be funny?"
That confused me. He knew what it meant, as I'd heard him say it to me lots of times. I wasn't sure what to say. I looked to Ben for help, but he was smirking so I knew I'd get no help from him. I shrugged. "Nothing. Just saying."
I noticed that Mum was trying to laugh. I don't know why it was making Dad cross when Mum thought it was funny, and I don't know what was so bad about it anyway, but I decided that it was probably best not to say it again, unless I absolutely had to. Not when Dad was around anyway.
As we didn't have anything to pack up, we were on the move straightaway. We didn't even have to brush our teeth or anything, as our tooth brushes were in the suitcase Dad had lost. It worried me a little that our teeth might go black and fall out, but I decided that as long as we could buy toothbrushes in Canterbury then one night shouldn't make a difference. So Dad just picked up our carrier bags for us and off we went.
"Baby," Ben muttered under his breath, so Mum and Dad couldn't hear him, as we walked along.
"You like girls," I whispered back, and he went a bit red so I think I got the best insult in there.
And then the plane came back.
#
"Run," shouted Dad, even before the plane started shooting at us. I started to run along the road, but he grabbed my arm and pulled me away into a field. Ben came with us, and Mum did too this time.
There weren't many people on the road, not like the first time we were shot at. There were only maybe a dozen families or so. There didn't seem to be any reason for it to shoot at us, as we couldn't have done any harm to anyone. But the plane came down really low this time, so that it was only two trees up (if you put one tree on top of another), and the road exploded all over the place. It was only a short burst of bullets, lasting a second or two. And then the plane was roaring off into the distance. Gone.
It was all so quick. One minute we were walking along, whispering insults to each other, and the next we were standing in the field, watching the plane fly away. I heard someone shouting "bastards" (maybe I should say "B#####ds", but I'm not sure how bad that is as a swear-word) but I bet he wouldn't have said it if the pilot could hear him.
"Is he coming back?" Mum asked.
Dad shook his head. "I don't think so." He sounded a bit quiet, as if he didn't really want to say anything. I should have known then what he would be like later, if I was good at guessing that sort of thing.
"Why would he shoot at us?" (That's just what I had been thinking).
"I don't know. Target practice. Or maybe he thought it was funny."
"Funny!"
"I don't know, do I? You'd have to ask him!" (That was a weird thing to say, as he was already gone, and he wouldn't have been able to hear Mum talking over the sound of the plane anyway).
We walked back to the road. We had to walk at an angle, as the bit we had been standing on was all torn up and blackened. Even where the road was still flat, it was covered with lumps of broken concrete.
There was a dead man lying by the side of the road, like road-kill. I don't know if he had family or not; probably not, as I couldn't see anyone with him. He only had half a head left, with stuff spilling out of the half he had left. I looked away. I felt sick. I don't know why, but this was worse than before. We had seen dead bodies before, when the plane had shot at us the last time. There had been so many of them, but I had just been pleased that Mum was okay. But this time, there were hardly any of us there, and I kept thinking that it could have been one of us, lying there with half a head. I could see Dad like that in my mind, and then Mum, and then Ben. And then I could see me. It was horrible, so I looked at the ground so I wouldn't have to see it again.
But then I heard Dad shouting. I looked up, and I could see that a man was leaning over the dead man, the one with half a head, with his hand inside the pocket of his jeans.
Dad charged over, and we all followed him, not wanting to be left on our own in case the plane came back. "Get off him! Show some respect for eff's sake!" Dad was really cross - crosser than I'd ever seen him before - and his face was all purple.
"Waste not want," the man replied. "It's not like he's gonna miss it."
He took a wallet from the dead man's pocket and put it in his jeans. He had to take his mobile phone out first to make room. He tried to get the phone back in his pocket again but it wouldn't fit, so he threw it away. "It's not much use now anyway."
"That's despicable," Dad told him. He could hardly talk, he was so angry.
"I've got a family over there, mate. My wife's going through his bags to see if there's anything worth having, while I'm getting his wallet. We need to live. You're just p###ed off because I got there first. Now eff off, and take your scummy little family with you."
Dad hit him. I was really shocked. I know that he had got in a fight when we were queueing up for food, but he was just defending himself then; the other men had hit him first, and there had been two of them against one when it started. But this time, Dad had hit out first. I don't think he hit him very hard - the man looked more surprised than hurt - but even so. He would have gone mental if Ben or me had done that. You could go to prison for hitting someone, unless it's self-defence or you're having a boxing match.
The man hit Dad back. He must have hit him much harder than Dad had hit him, because Dad fell over backwards and landed on the ground. Mum started screaming at the man, and the man's wife ran over and started screaming at her back. The woman pushed her. Mum grabbed her coat and tugged it really hard so that she took a few steps forwards. And then all of a sudden the lady was on the floor, and Mum was on top of her, punching her. Not slapping her, like girls do when they have fights at school. But actually punching her with her fists, like tough men do when they have fights on TV.
I was expecting Dad and the man to start fighting like that, too, but Dad pulled Mum off the lady, and the man pulled his wife away when she tried to attack Mum to get her own back for Mum hitting her. And all the while the lady was swearing at Mum, and the man was swearing at Dad. Mum was swearing at them both as well, but Dad didn't say anything. He just looked really tired and really old and really frightened.
Dad held out his hands for me and Ben to take. I took one. Ben stood by his side, but wouldn't take his hand, because he's too old for that sort of thing. Dad started walking away. Mum swapped a few more swear words with the man and the lady and then she came, too, turning back to shout at them when they kept swearing at us.
"Are you all right?" she asked Dad. She used a really bad swear-word about the man who had hit him. "They call us scum after what they were doing to that poor man's body!"
"They're the scum, all right," Dad agreed, but he was speaking very quietly again. It was hard to hear him unless you listened really carefully.
"You shouldn't have pulled me off. I would've taught that bitch some manners."
"That's not us."
Mum snorted. "It might have to be from now on. The world's gone mad. Maybe we should, too."
"It's just for a few days. The Police will be back soon. Or the army. It can't carry on like this. You see if I'm not right."
Mum looked at him. She smiled. "That's what I love about you. You're so effing optimistic all the time."
"Can we stop swearing now? We're upsetting the kids."
But we'd just seen Mum and Dad fighting in the road over a man with half a face. A few
swear words weren't going to make much of a difference to us at all.
#
I was tired, and my knees hurt a lot. I tried to keep walking, but it was hard. The only thing which stopped me asking for a rest was that I knew that the man and the lady were somewhere behind us, and if we stopped walking they might catch us up and starting fighting with Mum and Dad again.
I was holding Mum's hand now. I had stopped holding my parents' hands before the bombing, as I was worried my school friends would see me and call me a baby, or that Ben would see me and call me a baby, or that people I didn't know would see me and think I was a baby, even if they didn't actually say it out loud.
Dad wasn't saying much, which was a bit worrying. Mum kept trying to talk to him, but he just answered with a "yes" or a "no", which made it hard for her to keep the conversation (that's when two people are talking to each other) going. After a while, she gave up, and we walked on without saying anything at all.
I was really hungry, but I was even thirstier. We had ran out of food and drink the day before (Dad said he had expected us to be at Nan's by now, but he was wrong and he should have known that I wouldn't be able to walk very fast) and what with all the walking my throat was really dry. We could probably have shared Noah's food and drink again if he hadn't left us during the night.
It was getting harder and harder to keep walking. It's hard to explain how I felt, but it was like everything was just too much and I just wanted to sit down on the pavement and cry my eyes out.
Mum told Dad that I was looking really pale, and that we had to find something to eat and drink soon. Dad said that we were just coming in to Wingham, and maybe they'd have a cash-point for him to draw out some money and buy provisions at the shop. His voice was tiny now. It was the most he'd said since he'd had his fight after the bombing, and it turned out that it would be the last thing he ever said, so it was a shame that none of us believed him. I was only eight, but I knew that if there was a cash-point machine it would be empty and if there was a shop it would be closed.
We made it into Wingham not long afterwards. It was just a little village; one road with houses and a few shops on either side. By then, Dad was looking over his shoulder every so often, as Ben had spotted the rude man and the lady were walking our way and were catching us up. They had a little girl about my age with them (I don't know where she had been when they were fighting us), but they were still walking quicker than we were. Maybe it was because they had stolen the dead man's breakfast and were feeling better than we were.
They overtook us on the other side of the road. They kept looking over at us when they passed us by, and the lady said a few nasty things under her breath which were just loud enough for us to hear, but Dad kept his eyes firmly to the front, and Mum kept quiet even though I could see that she was dying to say a few things back. I was glad that she didn't, as I didn't want everyone to start fighting again. I didn't think that Dad would have been very good at fighting, when he was like that.
Ben was the first one to see the tables up ahead, two of them, side by side. There was a lady standing behind one of them, with her hands behind her back, and another lady sitting next to her on one of those garden chairs that you can fold up when you've finished with them. They both had grey hair, so they must have been old (older than Mum and Dad, and maybe even as old as Nan).
The lady in the chair stood up as the family we had been fighting walked towards them. "Cup of tea?" she asked them.
Mum hurried after them, not wanting to miss out. We followed her, although Dad lagged behind.
"Tea?" the man was saying. He sounded as if they were trying to trick him. "How much?"
"We're not selling it, love. One cup each. I'm afraid we don't have any milk left, but there's plenty of sugar if you want it."
"I want milk," said their little girl.
"You'll drink what you're given," her Mum told her. "Three cups."
"She didn't say "please"," I whispered to Mum. We were always told to say "please". It was rude not to.
"She's very rude," Mum agreed. She said it quite loud. The man and the woman both glared at her, but said nothing. I think she was a better fighter than them, and they probably didn't want to get her angry again.
They were handed three cups of tea - even though they had not asked nicely - and then they shifted over to the far table to make room for us. Dad arrived.
"Four cups of tea?" asked the lady, giving us a friendly smile.
"Thank you," Mum replied, smiling back. I didn't dare look at the other family, because I was sure they would think that Mum was saying it on purpose to teach them some manners.
She poured out two plastic-cups of tea from a flask on the table. The flask was empty before the second cup was full, and I was worried that they had run out, but they took another flask from a box on the ground behind them, and there was enough to fill all four cups.
More people were arriving, and she waved them over with a smile. "Come on over, folks. Plenty for everyone."
"That one there's been round twice already," her friend told her. "We're going to have to say something."
"How can you make tea?" Mum asked.
"The W.I can always make tea," the woman with the flask laughed. "It takes more than a few bombs to stop us. There you are; four cups. Sorry about the cups. Plastic rubbish. Anyone for sugar?"
I had three sugar-cubes to hide the taste of tea without milk. I could hear the other family tutting that I was taking so much, but I think they were only doing it because Mum had told them off for not saying please earlier. I was sure to say thank you every time I picked up a cube, just in case.
They started pouring tea for the other people who were arriving. One of the ladies gave a stern look over the top of her glasses to the man she said had been round twice already, but she still served him anyway.
The family we had had a fight with moved on.
Dad was just standing there with his plastic cup in his hand, without drinking his tea.
"Drink up," Mum said.
He lifted the cup to his lips, and took a little sip.
"And again."
He did as he was told. Mum looked at him. She looked worried.
I was worried, too. He didn't seem all there to me.
#
We were ready to move on.
"Thank you," Mum said to the ladies behind the table, as if they had done something really, really important.
"That's alright, Love," one of the women replied. "If you'd have got here a bit sooner, we were dishing out biscuits, too. Custard creams and bourbons."
"I'm still hungry," I told her. "Have you got any biscuits left?"
"Just a tin full of crumbs."
"I like crumbs." (I don't really, but I was so hungry that I decided that crumbs would be fine if it meant that I could eat something).
She took out a tin of Quality Street chocolates from under the table. I prefer Roses, but there were no chocolates in it so it didn't really matter. There were crumbs in the bottom. I tipped up the tin so the crumbs rolled into my hand. Just as I was putting them in my mouth, Mum told me to share them with Ben, but it was too late. I'd eaten them.
"I'm sorry," I told him, although to be honest I was quite glad that Mum had asked me to share when it was too late, as there wasn't enough to go round.
He wasn't happy. "You're so selfish!"
"I'm hungry."
"Don't you think I'm hungry, too? Why didn't you share?"
I started crying. He was right. I felt really guilty for eating all the crumbs myself (although there weren't actually many of them) but it was too late to give him any now. They were all gone.
I could tell how cross he was. He pushed me.
"Ben," Mum said, in her warning voice. "There's no point crying over spilt milk." (It wasn't milk, they were crumbs, and I was careful not to spill any of them).
"But I'm hungry, too, and he ate all the biscuits."
"They were just crumbs," I said, feeling
really sorry for myself now. "If Mum told me to share a bit sooner, I would've shared them. But I didn't know. It wasn't my fault."
Mum guided us away from the table by our shoulders, and started walking down the road which ran through Wingham. Dad followed on behind us like a shy bodyguard, saying nothing at all.
There were shops and pubs in Wingham, but all of them were closed. One of the older houses had wooden boards nailed across the windows. Another had the glass broken in the porch door, which made me think of the two men who had woken us up in the night, kicking our front door to get in to our house. I decided to hold Mum's hand, in case they were here.
On the other side of town, I recognized the signs to the play area we had visited a few times in the car when we were younger. There were two slides, a swing, some animal or other on a spring so you can rock backwards and forwards on it, and a couple of rabbits who run away if you got too close. We hadn't been here for a long time, as Ben said he was too old for play areas when he started big school. I used to really like it, though.
"Can we go in the play area, Mum?" I didn't ask Dad, as he was still looking funny, and I was a little bit afraid of him as he wasn't himself.
"Seriously?" she asked. "We're trying to get to Canterbury here!"
"Just for five minutes."
"I thought your knees were hurting?"
"They are. But they'll be alright if I'm sitting on the swings and slides. It could be our rest."
Mum was just about to say "no". I wasn't expecting her to agree to the play area, as I knew she wanted us to keep going, but I thought that there was no harm in asking, just in case. But then she seemed to change her mind. She smiled. "Why the Hell not? You two deserve some fun, after everything that's happened."
We went into the play area. There's a fence around it, with a heavy door, but I'm big enough to open the door on my own now. I ran from swings to slide, hoping Mum wouldn't notice that I wasn't sitting down, like I promised I would be. Ben sat on a bench with Mum at first, but I saw her nudging him and after a few minutes he came to play with me. Dad watched us from the other side of the fence, without saying anything.
My knees were hurting really bad, but I didn't care as I was having fun for the first time in ages. Ben didn't look too bothered at first, but after a while he started enjoying himself, too. He even pushed me on the swings for a while, which was very good of him after I'd eaten his share of the biscuit crumbs.
The English Refugee: The Day It Happened Here Page 9