“Lovely to meet you, Rebecca. I can always tell the first-timers— They have that wide-eyed excitement. Or maybe it’s a look of abject fear. I’ve got three here, myself, so it’s like second nature to me by now. Or, then again, maybe it’s the double gin I have before I do the pick-up.”
Rebecca stared blankly.
Susie smiled. “I’m joking, Rebecca, but I could do with a stiff drink before driving into that carpark. It’s a bloody nightmare. That doesn’t sound like a Liverpool accent, by the way. Are you new to the area?”
The sound of laughter in close proximity erupted, once more. “Stuck-up bitches, that lot,” announced Susie with no concern for the volume of her voice. “Only interested in you if you drive a car worth over sixty thousand or you’re married to a footballer. More plastic in that lot than the recycling centre.
“Ah, okay. Thanks. I’m from Manchester. We recently moved to Liverpool. That is, me and my son. We’re not far from school, which is fortunate. Just on Whitby Street,” she explained, pointing to a street that was a quarter of a mile away and impossible to see from where they stood.
“I’ll see you around, Rebecca. I need to go in and speak to the teacher. First week and I’m being called in to see the teacher already! Not sure which one of the kids is responsible for this invitation. Hey, you should join me, yeah?”
Rebecca shuffled her feet uneasily. “To see the teacher?” she asked, uncertainly.
“No!” shouted Susie, now virtually at the bottom of the stairs. “For that large gin! Remember what I said!” she told Rebecca, throwing a glance at the group of women.
Rebecca smiled, offering a conciliatory grin to the group of women, but that wasn’t returned, either. She looked to her feet, conscious that the toes were ever-so-slightly scuffed, and ruffled her hair in a manner that suggested she’d ran out the door without looking in a mirror. She folded her arms in an attempt to conceal her green jumper that’d faded in the wash, but her self-reflection was interrupted by the chiming of the bell. Doors were flung open with exuberant contempt and in milliseconds the gentle calm was demolished by the squeal of liberated children.
Fashion concerns were cast aside like the school doors when Rebecca caught a glimpse of Tyler skipping through the playgroup without a care in the world. He couldn’t whistle, but his pursed lips gave the impression that he was an old hand at it. “Mummy!” he yelled upon seeing her, bursting into a more energetic trot.
Rebecca knelt on one knee and scooped Tyler into her arms. As she spoke, she couldn’t help peppering his cheeks in between each word. “I’ve… *muah*… missed… *muah*… you. How… *muah*… was it? I… *muah*… want to… *muah*… hear… *muah*… all about it.”
“It was okay, Mummy.”
She tousled his mop of blond hair. “Just okay? Your first day at big school and it was okay. You’ll need to do better than that, young man, or this lollypop is going back into my bag.”
Tyler waved at another boy currently being subjected to a lip-based assault upon his person similar to that which his own mother had perpetrated.
“That’s my friend Harry!” he cried. “I’ve got a lollypop, Harry!” he shouted over the sound of igniting engines.
Harry’s mum appeared to have had a comparable idea, as he also now had a lollypop in hand, and the two boys waved them through the air at each other in solidarity like sparklers on Bonfire Night.
“Can we get a car, Mummy?”
Rebecca crouched down. “We don’t need a car, Tyler. Look at all these angry faces in the carpark. Besides, we get to walk home from school, so you can tell me all about your day!”
“Skip?”
“I can skip, Tyler… you just try and stop me. Come on,” she insisted, leaving an arm trailing as the skipping home commenced.
The absence of a car was fine when the weather was dry, but living in a flat, nowhere near the bus route, and pouring rain, wasn’t the ideal start to a day. Still, Tyler was the first to embrace the positive, seeing this as an ideal opportunity to wear his red wellies.
“This coat is too tight, Mummy,” he exclaimed, before locking another puddle into his sights. “Can I get a new coat, Mummy?” he asked. “This one doesn’t fit so good.”
“We’ll see, Tyler,” she replied, but it was clear she was distracted. A car had slowed when it neared them, so she instinctively reached for her son’s hand. “Come here, Tyler.”
She quickened her step whilst taking a discreet glance over her shoulder, but the rain in her eyes obscured her vision.
“Can I get a new—?”
“Tyler, not now!” she snapped, now pulling at his arm.
“Mummy, why are you yelling?” asked a confused Tyler.
“I’m sorry,” Rebecca told him. “Look, honey, I’ll see what I can do, okay? It’s just, right now we need to…”
Rebecca gripped Tyler’s hand and guided him quickly towards the hedgerow behind them as the car came to halt alongside them. She stood in front of her son and reached for the phone in her pocket. She wiped the raindrops from her eyes, preparing to dial, at the same time as the car’s driver-side door window lowered.
“Get in,” coaxed a gentle voice.
Rebecca didn’t answer. She was trying to call 9-9-9, but her phone’s surface was slippery in the heavy rain and she was having a difficult time of it.
“Get in!” the voice repeated, more forcefully this time. “Rebecca, it’s Susie! From school! It’s tipping down, let me give you two a lift!”
Rebecca looked up, seeing that it was, in fact, only Susie. “Oh. Right. Oh hello, yes,” she said, still breathing hard and trying to calm herself down. “We’re fine, I think? But thank you. You’ve got all your children in the car, I see. We’ll walk. We’re… we’re fine,” Rebecca told her, and thanked her again.
“Nonsense! It’s a seven-seater, loads of room! Now jump in, it’s pouring down!”
Rebecca hesitated. She appreciated the offer, but on the other hand she didn’t want to impose.
“It’s not a problem, Rebecca! Honestly!” Susie assured her. “Is it, guys?” Susie asked of her children.
“Nooo!” came the unified response of high-pitched children’s voices. Susie then offered a series of gentle commands to the car’s occupants, and, before Rebecca had time to protest further, Susie’s children had smartly rearranged themselves and dressed up with military precision.
Rebecca had no choice but to accept the invitation of a ride at this point, lest she appear ungrateful — and she was grateful — and so acquiesced, herself taking a newly-cleared seat up front and Tyler a spot in back with the other kids.
“You must be mad walking when it’s like this?” asked Susie turning the heating on. “Do you not drive?”
“It wasn’t so bad when we started out,” Rebecca answered. “But then the sky just opened up on us.”
“Mummy sold our car!” Tyler, possessing no filter, shouted from the back seat. “For money!”
“I’m, ehm, between cars… at the present time,” explained a somewhat embarrassed Rebecca.
Susie was gracious enough not to press the point. “I come past this way most mornings,” she advised Rebecca. “When we get to school, I’ll give you my number and you can call me if ever you need a lift, yeah?”
“We’re fine,” Rebecca replied. “But thank you.”
“Nonsense,” Susie said again, though not in an unkind manner. “You can walk when it’s nice, and you call me when it’s raining sideways. There. It’s settled.”
“You’re very kind. Thank you.”
“Mummy, can I unzip my coat now we’re in the car?” Tyler spoke up from the backseat. “It’s too tight and I can’t breathe!”
“Of course, honey,” Rebecca told him, ashamed by what Susie might think, that she couldn’t dress her son in a coat that fit. “How did you get on with the teacher the other day?” she asked Susie, trying to change the subject.
Susie looked concerned, but, after a pause, came bac
k cheerfully. “Fine,” she said. “But this one here…” she indicated, with a thumb pointing behind her in the direction of the back seat… “is Michael. And Michael, apparently, thought it would be a wonderful idea to type the word boobs into the school computer.”
The word ‘boobs’ — quite understandably — brought a collective round of giggles from the rest of the car, including Tyler.
“Oh,” replied Rebecca, looking towards Michael — who made every effort to disappear into his seat.
“I told the teacher that he wouldn’t do it again, didn’t I, Michael?”
“Yes, Mum,” came the dutiful reply, from someone who likely had every intention of doing it again, actually.
“There we go, guys. Everybody out!” instructed Susie, once they’d reached the school. “And Michael, remember, computers are for learning, right?”
“For learning about boobs,” Michael whispered as they got out, loud enough only so the other kids could hear, resulting in another round of giggles.
“It’s not funny!” Susie scolded her son, calling after him. But, then, whispering so only Rebecca, still in the car, could hear her, “It is pretty funny, actually. Though of course I can’t tell him that.”
Rebecca wasn’t sure how to react, so called out to Tyler, instead, “Tyler, what do you say for the lift?”
“Thaaank yooou!” Tyler shouted back, but he was already all but gone, running off alongside Susie’s kids, as well as scouring the tarmac for additional puddles to waylay.
Susie turned to Rebecca in the front seat. “Rebecca, would you like a lift back?” she asked. “I don’t have to be to work for a bit. Maybe we could go for a coffee?”
“Thank you, Susie, that’s so very kind of you. But I’ve got some things that need doing, and it looks like the rain is dying out, so I’ll just walk myself back. But I really do appreciate it. And thanks for the ride.”
Susie pulled away, and Rebecca looked towards the school. For the first few days of school, Tyler had stuck to her arm like glue in the morning. It was good to have seen him playing with the other kids. Now, with the school bell ringing and all the students safely inside, Rebecca made her way along.
“Lovely day for it!” exclaimed the lollypop man, offering her, and several others, safe passage across the road.
“Good for the ducks,” Rebecca replied automatically. She smiled, and was about to say something else, but the vibrating phone in her hand took her attention away.
“Yes, hello,” she answered, whilst mouthing a ‘thank you’ to the jovial lollypop man. “Yes, this is Rebecca,” she continued, adopting the tone of consummate professional. “Yes, okay,” she offered in response to the person on the other end.
She stepped into an empty bus shelter a little further on to escape what remained of the rain, with a finger pressed into her other ear to drown out the traffic noise. She lowered her head, listening intently.
“I understand, and thank you for letting me know so soon,” she said into the phone after a pause. “I know I don’t have that much experience,” she agreed, trying her best, despite what she was being told, to sound cheery and optimistic. “Though I’d more than make up for that in enthusiasm, and… and… hello? Hello?”
But there was no longer anyone there at the other end.
She held the phone a moment longer, staring at the screen. “It’s not going to be like this forever, Tyler,” she whispered. “I promise.”
She delayed the departure from her temporary refuge, looking to the furious grey sky, the rainstorm evidently deciding it wasn’t quite finished after all. She was already soaked, so a little more rain wouldn’t hurt her, she reasoned. And, so, the thought of Tyler jumping in puddles without a care in the world inspired her to do the same. She jumped out on the spot, into a generous patch of rainwater collected on the pavement, and, satisfied as to the results, she jumped onto another, and then another. For those passing in their cars, she may very well have appeared mad as a box of frogs.
But embracing this child-like whim was liberating.
“I’m singing in the rain,” she sang. “Just singing in the rain.” She ran her hand along a metal railing, using the ring on her finger to tap out a beat. This bursting into song offered her a momentary distraction from the current saturation she was receiving, a drenching which nevertheless caused her to quicken her pace.
She came to an abrupt halt at the end of the lane adjacent to her house and deliberately wiped her face once more, spreading a mixture of both raindrops and makeup across it focussing, all the while, on her drab, concrete front yard. A man wearing a dark hooded top was there, leaning forward, peering through the letterbox opening of her front door.
Her breathing became ragged, her heart rate increasing, as she saw the strange man shift position furtively to her front window, peering in. He then eased backwards, away from her front door, focussing his attention on the floor above, perhaps looking for handholds or footholds to clamber up there. Then he looked back, up and down the street, presumably checking to see if the coast was clear. Apparently satisfied that it was, be busied himself again with the front door.
And then inexplicably he gave up, just like that, walking off.
Rebecca kept him in view from her position of cover, ensuring he wasn’t coming straight for her, when she was startled by a voice beside her. “Are you okay, luv?” asked the postman, mail satchel in hand.
Rebecca had forgotten to breathe, and had to exhale before she was able to reply. “You startled me!” she said. “There’s a man!” she explained. “A man was at my door, at number twenty-three, and it looked like he was trying to break in!”
“I see him,” said the postman. “Sketchy-looking fellow. Wearing a woolly hooded jumper. He’s getting into his car… and now driving off. Is he causing you problems? You want I should phone the police?”
“No, but thank you,” she said, though not sounding very certain of her answer.
“I don’t mean to be rude,” the postman offered. “Especially with the fright you’ve just had and all. But… you’ve got a bit of makeup smeared across your face. Just there. And, erm… there. And… there as well. Sorry. Just, you know, in case you didn’t know?”
“Do I?” she replied, nerves a-jangle. She steadied herself. “I’m going for the Alice Cooper look,” she told him, thinking on her feet.
“Ah! The Alice Cooper look!” said the postman reassuringly. “Well then you’ve done a smashing job!”
They both had a laugh.
“Would you like me to escort you to your house?” the postman asked, his chest expanding proudly. “It’s no trouble at all.”
“You’re very kind, but I’ll be fine,” she answered him. She had a habit of saying things like this, it seemed.
“I expect so,” came his reply, returning a warm smile. “Nobody’s going to mess with you, after all, looking like, em…”
Rebecca looked at her knight in shining armour, head cocked, uncertain.
“Well. That,” the postman finished, unable, unfortunately, to prevent the words from issuing forth.
With the spell well and truly broken, Rebecca merely patted his arm, taking a further cautionary glance about the street as she did so before continuing.
The postman looked uncomfortable with himself.
“Thank you. You’ve been kind. Rude, mind you, there at the end. But kind,” Rebecca teased him.
With that sorted, she eased open the partially rusted gate to her front garden. It squeaked in protest. The moment she saw the notice glued to the glass pane on her front door, she knew who the mysterious caller had been and breathed a little easier — at least it wasn’t him, she thought. She peeled the notice from the cold glass running her fingers through her hair with her spare hand, digging her nails into her scalp.
She prised the letter open, separating the flap with her fingers.
“This isn’t happening!” she shouted, but there was no longer anyone there to hear her, and the words in bold
type before her confirmed otherwise, regardless:
Rebecca sat there, on the front steps, in the rain, wrapping her arms around her knees, pulling them into her chest and sobbing. She crumpled the letter up into a ball, and tossed it down at her feet. “I don’t know what to do!” she screamed.
She picked the letter, now dotted with rain, back up, and she unfolded it carefully.
She stared down at it.
“I don’t know what to do.”
“Tyler, you’ve got five more minutes to read your comicbooks before your tea is ready, okay?”
That was a statement, as any parent would be well familiar, greeted by a resounding round of silence.
Rebecca unfolded the receipt, removed a fairy-shaped magnet from the front of the fridge, and used it to affix the receipt there. It served as a reminder to herself, with the bolded letters, Receipt for one (1) 18K Yellow Gold Ring, staring directly back at her, though she adjusted the magnet to cover over the receipt’s distinctive and immediately-recognisable three-sphere pawnbroker’s symbol.
“It won’t be for long, Mum,” she thought aloud, looking down on the faint tan line where once a ring sat, and, then, “Two minutes, Tyler!” she called, before interrupted by a knock on the door.
She stood in the narrow hall, struggling to make out a figure through the frosted glass.
“Hello, who’s there?”
“Oh, hi!” returned a female voice. “Is that Rebecca’s house? The Rebecca? My name is Susie! You may know me as… Susie,” the voice relayed, in a light-hearted and jovial manner.
Puzzled, Rebecca unlocked and opened the door, just a crack, while placing a firm foot on her side.
“Ah, Rebecca! I’ve been to your neighbours, who I think might be smoking something illegal, if I’m being honest. Still, at least they told me where you were.”
Rebecca opened the door fully, smiling politely, but with an expression that must have indicated otherwise, something to the effect of, What the hell are you doing here? because…
“I was going to bring that gin!” said Susie by way of explanation.
Frank 'n' Stan's Bucket List #3 Isle 'Le Mans' TT: Featuring Guy Martin Page 6