The English Refugee: The Day It Happened Here

by Jonathan Pidduck

  I was still holding Dad's hand. Once, I saw that he was crying. Not crying like I would have cried - he wasn't making any noise at all - but I could see that he had tears on his face. I felt a bit guilty that I had been cross with him earlier, and hoped he hadn't noticed. I squeezed his hand to let him know that everything was okay. He didn't squeeze it back, but he stopped crying soon afterwards so I think that maybe he knew that I was being nice.

  Nan lived in a flat near the station. It's called sheltered housing, Dad told me. I don't know why, because all housing is sheltered (shelter means that it has got a roof on it). Nan said she's too young for sheltered housing, but Mum talked her into it when we lost Grandad, what with her bad hands and everything. It's nowhere near where we park, but Dad always parks there anyway as he says it avoids all the traffic on the ring-road. Mum says it's because Dad is tight and it's five pounds an hour cheaper there.

  We walked along a road which goes towards the ring-road. The shops in Canterbury are just on the other side of the ring road, but we weren't going there. We were going to see Nan. So when we got to the ring-road, we would be turning left and following the road around until we got to the station.

  Mum started walking more quickly, and Ben did, too. I found it hard to keep up with her, as my knees hurt so much, but I didn't want to be left behind with Dad (especially when he wasn't talking) so I walked as quickly as I could. I could hear she was breathing hard, as if she was tired, but Mum never got tired as far as I could remember. She was used to going on her long walks, even before the bombs came down.

  I looked ahead of me, and between the hotel on one corner and the big old office block on the other, I could see Canterbury. Or what was left of it.

  There had been shops all the way down to the other station on the other side of town. Shops, and cafes and restaurants. And a McDonalds and a KFC, of course. Everywhere's got those, I think. I bet you've got them where you live. But they were all gone. There were clumps of shops further down, just four or five here, and four or five there, but most of them were just heaps of rubble now. I thought the bombing had been bad in Ramsgate, where some of the houses had disappeared, but this was worse than I could ever have dreamt about.

  I looked at Mum. She was staring to her right. There was an old church tower or something, with the top blown off. There were a few shops still standing, so I couldn't see the tower very well, but between the gaps it looked like there wasn't much building attached to it.

  "Is that a church?"

  "That's the cathedral," Ben told me. "Canterbury Cathedral."

  "It's been there for a thousand years," Mum said, really quietly. "A thousand years. And it's gone, just like that."

  She looked really upset. I thought it was a shame, too, although it seemed a bit odd that Mum was more sad about the cathedral than she had been about the people who had been blown up by the plane the day before. I suppose she hadn't known them, so it wasn't so bad somehow, but she knew the Cathedral (when we had been there she told me that she had gone too when she had been a little girl) so that made it worse for her. I guess it would've been the same if they had blown up my school, although in a way I might have quite liked that.

  I wanted to take a closer look at the blown-up cathedral. I started walking towards the subway, but Mum stopped me.

  "You don't need the subway, you dork," Ben said. "We can use the road. There are no cars."

  "It might be dangerous down there," Mum told me. "It might fall down on us. There's nothing to look at, anyway. We need to go and see Nan."

  She was already looking to her left, over to where Nan's flat was. Most of the buildings on the other side of the road had gone. I tried to see past the ones which were left to see if I could see Nan's flat from here, but the few buildings that were left were in just the wrong place so I couldn't see. We would have to walk a bit further before we knew.

  I expected Mum to cut the corner, crossing through the blown-up shops, but she kept to the road. I don't know whether it was because it was safer there or whether she didn't want to get to Nan's too soon in case it wasn't there anymore. She seemed to be walking slower than before. I could keep up with her easily now.

  Most of the buildings on the left side of the road were still there. It was weird; it was if the road had somehow kept them safe. Some had gone, but most were still standing. Mum made us walk in the road as much as possible, just in case any of them fell down as we were passing by, but sometimes we had to walk on the pavement as the road was all busted up.

  It only took a minute or two to get to a part of the road where we could see Nan's flat. I let go of Dad's hand and held Mum's hand instead. I thought she needed it more.

  #

  There was nothing standing where Nan's flat had been. The station had gone, too. Maybe that was what the bombers were aiming at, as it seemed unlikely that they would be bombing my Nan on purpose.

  There was just rubble, like there was with the shops. In a couple of heaps, like sand dunes in the desert. Mum let go of my hand and started running over there, and Ben went with her. I walked after them. I didn't have it in me to run any more, and I could see where she was going so there was no hurry anyway.

  I knew that Nan was gone. I didn't know whether she was under the rubble, or whether she had maybe been out shopping at the time and escaped the bombs, but I just felt it in my bones that she was gone and that I wouldn't see her anymore.

  I was sad. I was really sad. But I didn't cry. I thought I would, and I was surprised I didn't. But it was just too much. I guess I was too tired, even for tears.

  Mum started wandering around on the rubble, as if she was looking for something. Ben waited for her on the pavement. I was going to climb up the rubble to help her, but Ben told me to leave her alone, so I stayed with him and Dad, and we all watched her as she walked around on top of what was left of Nan's flat. I wasn't sure what she wanted to find.

  A couple of times, she held out her hands on either side of her, like you do when someone asks you a question and you don't know the answer. Two or three times, she squatted down and looked at something in the rubble, but it couldn't have been what she was looking for as she stood back up again and carried on walking. After what seemed like ages, she finally sat down, and she put her head in her hands. She looked like she wanted to cry, but she couldn't cry either.

  I went over to her, telling Ben to look after Dad. He tried to stop me, but I shook him off. I sat next to her. I touched her arm. She looked at me. Her face was really, really sad. Sadder than I'd seen her since we lost Grandad. I gave her a little smile to try and cheer her up.

  I tried to think what she would have said if it was me who was that sad.

  "It's going to be alright," I told her.

  Her lip went all trembly. She shook her head. "No, it isn't."

  "It is. It seems bad now. But it'll be better in the morning, you just see if I'm not right."

  She almost smiled. She gave me a big hug. Ben came over, and she hugged him, too. Dad stayed on the pavement, so he missed out.

  "I'm hungry," I said.

  "Me, too," she said, but that didn't help me very much.

  "What are we going to do?" Ben asked.

  Mum shrugged. "I don't know, Angel. I really don't know."

  "I think we should go back home," I said. It would be better there. It was where I knew.

  Ben gave me a look, but Mum was nodding so I must have been right.

  "Let's. At least we've got a roof over our heads there (shelter, she meant). But we need to get some food and drink first. We can't make it back home when we're this hungry, can we?"

  "Maybe Dad will get better if we go home," I suggested. I was happy that we were going back to Ramsgate, even if it meant that we had to walk some more. It had been scary when those men had tried to get in, but it was worse still out here, and I wanted to be back in my own bedroom again. I thought that maybe Dad would be thinking the same thing.

  "Where do we eat?" Ben asked.
<
br />   "McDonalds?" I suggested, but then I remembered that McDonalds was gone so I felt a bit stupid for saying it.

  "Two quarter pounders with cheese, and a happy meal each for the kids," Mum said, as if she was talking to one of the people who work there. She pretended to pay him. "Thank you very much."

  "Don't forget the milkshakes," I laughed. I felt a bit bad about laughing, what with Nan being missing and everything, but it made me feel a little bit better, and it was good to see Mum and Ben smiling, too. It would be the last time we all had fun together. It's how I like to remember her now.

  "Strawberry?"

  "What else?"

  She pretended to pay for those, too, and handed them over to us. I wished they were real, but I pretended to drink mine all the same. "KFC next?" But they had got bored of the game, so no-one answered me.

  I was still hungry and thirsty. "So where are we going?"

  Mum thought for a bit. She looked at the nearby houses. I looked, too. There were no places to eat there; they were just houses. I decided to keep asking until she gave me a proper answer. "Where are we going, Mum?"

  "Well, I never thought I would ever say this, but -"

  She stopped. She looked at Dad, as if he was going to tell her off for something. He didn't even seem to notice she was talking.

  "-But we're going to burgle some houses."

  "Mum, no! We can't!" That was Ben who said that. I think he was trying to say what Dad would have said if he could, just like I was trying to think what Mum would have said earlier. "It's wrong."

  But she had made up her mind. "You're right. It is wrong. And I wouldn't normally do it. But we'll never get home unless we find something to eat and drink. I promised I'd look after you, didn't I? You two can wait outside."

  "Mum!"

  "This isn't open for discussion. I'm doing it, okay? I have to. For you guys. And your Dad, too. Just one house, and then we'll go home. Everything will be fine. Trust me. Deal?"

  I nodded. "Deal." I was hungry, and my throat was starting to hurt as I was so thirsty. It's bad to steal things from people's houses, I know that, but they were all living in tents near the army barracks and if there was any food left behind then maybe they didn't really want it anyway.

  Ben shook his head. "It's wrong."

  "Well that's just too bad," Mum told him. She sounded like she was starting to get angry. I think she was upset about Nan, and Ben wasn't helping her at all. I glared at him to show him that he was making things worse, but he didn't even notice that I was doing it. I tapped him on the arm and pointed at my face, so he would see the look I was giving him, but I could see that he still thought it was a bad idea.

  I wish now that I would have said "no", too. If we had both said "no", we might not have burgled that house. And if we hadn't burgled the house, I might never have lost them.

  #

  The explosions started at exactly the same time as we reached the house Mum had decided that we should burgle. Mum said they were still quite a way away, although they sounded very loud to me. And there was the sound of guns firing, too. There was a battle, and it was coming our way. It was almost as if Someone-Up-There had done it on purpose, to hurry us along and stop us breaking the law. Mum looked worried, but she didn't change her mind. "You need food," she told me, as if it was all my fault we were doing this.

  She found out that breaking into someone's house isn't all that easy. She tried to break the porch door with a brick from the rubble of a house, but she couldn't hit it hard enough and it hardly scratched it. She tried kicking it, like the men had done to our front door, but that didn't work either. She swore a lot, first at the door, and then at Dad for not helping her. She asked Ben to help, but he wouldn't, which was naughty.

  We went round the back of the house. She tried using the brick on the patio door, but that didn't work either. She didn't bother kicking it this time.

  She rattled on the door handle. "I wish I had my credit-cards on me," she said, as if she would be able to get the door open using one of them, but I didn't think she would be able to. People on the telly can open doors with credit cards, but if everyone could really do that there would be no point anyone locking their doors at all. They can also start cars without car-keys, which is kind of cool, but I didn't think she would be able to do that either, even if there was any flat roads to drive on.

  "Effing double-glazing."

  We went in search of a house without effing double-glazing. The firing stopped while we were walking, and the explosions stopped straight afterwards as well. I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Mum didn't seem to notice. She was too wrapped up in getting us some lunch.

  We followed the ring road away from where the explosions had come from, back the way we'd come from. We found a house with an old-fashioned front door. The top half was glass and the bottom half was made of wood. This time, Mum knocked first (I don't know why, because she hadn't knocked at the first house). No-one answered. She still had her brick with her. She hit the glass. It shattered but didn't break. She hit it again. Her hand went right through the glass, and she cut herself badly. Ben started fussing, but she shushed him. She used the brick to knock out the glass, she put her hand through the opening, and opened the door. She smiled. She looked pretty pleased with herself.

  "Wait outside," she told us.

  "There's shooting outside," Ben pointed out. "We should come in with you."

  A day or two ago, she would have told him to do as he was told and wait outside, but since Dad had gone all quiet she seemed to pay more attention to what he was saying. She nodded. She went in first, and left the door open so we could follow her in. "Mind the broken glass," she said. Ben followed her inside, and I came, too, leading Dad behind me.

  "Where's the kitchen?" she asked, but I think she was talking to herself and no-one said anything back.

  We waited in the hallway while she searched the house. We closed the door behind us, as if that would keep out the Russians if they marched by. They would have seen us through the broken glass, of course, but somehow I felt a tiny bit safer with the door closed.

  She had found the kitchen. She came back with a three-quarters empty tin of "assorted crackers" (the ones you put cheese on, not the ones you pull at Christmas), and a packet of gravy (which I didn't think would be much use to us). She tried the taps but there was no water running for some reason. Ben told her that we could get water from the tank above the toilet, but she told him that we weren't that desperate, and she went upstairs.

  She was only up there a minute or two. All she had when she came down was a glass of water which she had found next to the owner's bed. Someone had already taken a big sip out of it. She told Ben and I to drink half each. I didn't want to drink from it, when someone else had been drinking from it. Maybe the owner had put their false teeth in it or something. But Ben drank, so I drank too. I think he drank more than half, but I decided not to tell Mum as she was busy having a look in the back garden, and it was only fair when I had eaten all the biscuit crumbs anyway.

  "There's a rain butt out there," she told us when she came back in.

  I tried to look interested, but wasn't sure what that was, let alone why she was telling us.

  "Do you think we can drink from it? It's rain water, right? You can drink rain."

  Ben didn't look too sure. "It'll be all dirty in there."

  "What do you know? You're eleven. You wanted us to drink from the toilet a few minutes ago! We're drinking it."

  She had another look round the kitchen, and came back with two empty plastic milk containers. Neither of them had been washed properly, so they still smelt of milk (I know that because I gave them both a sniff). She went into the garden and filled them both to the top. She came back in, and told us to follow her into the kitchen. There was an old wooden table against the wall, near the sink. She sat us down, put three glasses on the table, and filled up all of them from one of the milk containers. Mine was so full that water spilt o
n the table. I think she had forgotten Dad, as he hadn't followed us in, and she hadn't set a glass for him. We had left him in the hallway.

  Ben went to drink his.

  "No, wait," she said. "Is it safe?"

  "What do I know? I'm eleven."

  "Don't be smart with me."

  I was quite pleased that she was treating him like a child again. I didn't want to be the only one that everyone treated like a baby.

  She held her glass up to the window. "Is that clear?"

  Ben and I held our glasses up, too. My glass wasn't washed up very well, so it was hard to tell.

  Ben pulled a face. "Mine looks a bit murky."

  She peered into his glass, as if it would be different from hers somehow. "I can't see anything."

  "I'm not drinking it."

  "Ben, I'm trying to keep us alive here. If we don't drink, we'll all die."

  "If we drink this, we'll die sooner."

  "You don't know that."

  "You don't know that we won't."

  "You're so like your Dad!"

  He smiled.

  She shook her head. "That wasn't supposed to be a compliment!"

  I was getting confused. "Should I drink it, Mum?"

  "I don't know. Ben? No, why am I asking you? I'm the grown-up here. Your Dad would know. He knows about this practical stuff. It's just rain-water though. It must be safe, mustn't it?"

  There was another explosion outside. It made us all jump. It sounded really close.

  Mum suddenly looked worried. "Where is your Dad anyway? Didn't you bring him in?"

  "Not unless he's invisible," Ben replied. He was sulking because she wasn't listening to him about the water.

  I thought he'd get told off for that, but Mum jumped up and ran out of the room. Ben followed her. I took a really big swig of water before I followed after them. I was so thirsty, and I didn't think that Dad could have gone very far. He would probably be standing in the hallway, exactly where we had left him.

  I was wrong.

  When I got outside, the first thing I saw was the tank. Well, maybe it wasn't quite a tank, because it didn't have a big gun sticking out the front, but it did have tracks like a tank does. And there was a man looking out of the top of it, a man with a machine gun which was attached to the tank (or whatever it was).