Thrown Away Child

by Louise Allen

  ‘Hi, I’m Tim,’ he said to me.

  ‘Louise,’ I said back and smiled. I watched them all talking, and they were discussing their exams. I thought I should go, but continued to hang out at the table, watching Tim talk to the two girls. I thought the conversation sounded very intelligent and knowledgeable. I was aware that my education was limited and I felt awkward about it. But I also felt I was done with hanging out with the ‘townie’ boys from down the Rec. I didn’t want to be identified with the Cowley Road girls either, as the idea that I was going to end up on heroin and pregnant had outraged me. Was that all they thought of me? Was I not good for anything else?

  I knew in my heart I wanted to go to art school. It was all I had ever wanted to do, and I knew I would have to find a way to get there. I had been expelled and had no qualifications and, by tonight, I might not have anywhere to live either. Maybe I would be moved to another city? Or go to live with Julie? The very thought filled me with horror – the idea of starting again in another town, with new people. What if they were worse than Barbara? And, anyway, I still had Sean. I couldn’t leave him, as he was my real family. I knew I could always creep in and see Sean. I even slept over at his when I felt I’d had enough of everything, no questions asked. He was still my safe haven in the midst of it all. Eventually the group made moves to go. Tim turned to me, shyly.

  ‘We’re all going to the Lamb and Flag later, for a drink. See you there?’

  I had a curfew of 10 p.m. if I went out, and I had no money to spend, but my heart leapt. I had no idea what I was going to do from this day forward, either. However, I looked into Tim’s handsome face and twinkly auburn eyes and I said, as casually as I could, ‘Yeah, sure. See you later.’

  And with that, they were gone.

  20

  Finding My Hero

  When I saw Tim in the pub early that evening with his friends, including Jan and Alex, I felt shy and excited. I hadn’t gone home yet, as I didn’t dare, and I’d no money, but I’d hung out, trying to look like I went there every day. When Tim saw me, he made a beeline.

  ‘Hi, want a drink?’ I nodded, and we elbowed our way to the bar. Tim was about to go to university to do psychology. He already had his place organised and was finishing up his A Levels. Summer was here and he was getting ready to go.

  We stood sipping our beers outside in the balmy evening air, as starlings circled overhead, and we talked about music, art, politics. I was now just fifteen and he was coming up to eighteen. Every time I looked at him my stomach flipped over with a tense excitement. I loved his eyes, his look, and he was warm and easy to talk to.

  When Tim went to the loo, Jan leant towards me and said, ‘I think he fancies you.’ I felt my face turn ruby red and I tingled all over. He was very attractive and, in fact, all the girls in our group seemed to find him fanciable. Surely he didn’t fancy me? He was so out of my league. What were the signs? I didn’t know what to look for. However, I was the one he was talking to.

  I was dreading going home after getting expelled that day, but I couldn’t tell Tim. I didn’t want to make him think I was a ‘loser’ right from the start. I was trying to make a new me, away from the horror of my home. I really liked him, but couldn’t really tell if he liked me, despite what Jan had said. I really didn’t care either. I seemed to be beyond caring at the moment, beyond everything. I drank my warm bitter and watched the swallows diving over the rooftops, and just enjoyed the moment. I didn’t know what would happen next, but somewhere, deep down inside, I felt a sort of faint hope brewing.

  When Tim returned he made straight for me again and said ‘Hi’ warmly. At least he was speaking to me – just to me. I asked him the time, as I had no watch, and realised I was getting dangerously near my curfew of 10 p.m. I had no door key – I’d never had one of my own – and I knew the chain went across the door and it was bolted at ten exactly.

  ‘I have to go,’ I said to Tim. I didn’t want to explain, as I would seem too young and uncool. He looked a bit disappointed.

  ‘Oh, okay. Oh, er… see you around then?’

  We held each other’s eyes for a moment and both smiled. I felt my heart leap in my chest as something electric passed between us.

  ‘Yeah, bye then,’ I said, grinning at him, and left.

  I started walking as fast as I could. I had no money, so couldn’t get a bus. It was dark now, and I walked fast, head down, hands in my pockets, thinking about Tim’s gorgeous smile. I was walking down Longwall Street when I became aware of footsteps behind me – lots of them. I speeded up and didn’t look round. However, the footsteps sounded closer and closer, so I crossed the road. The footsteps crossed the road. My heart really started pounding, as I was in a dark narrow street now and there were no residential houses around.

  I was half-running when I suddenly heard, ‘Filth’, and ‘We’re gonna fuckin’ kill you, bitch.’ I glanced over my shoulder and there were four huge white skinhead-type boys. They didn’t like punks. They had obviously come out of a pub and seen me looking very ‘alternative’ and decided to have a go. I was terrified.

  Luckily, at the end of the street there was a red phone box with a payphone in it. I darted in and closed the door and held it. The boys surrounded the phone box and started shouting through the glass at me, like rabid dogs: ‘Bitch!’ ‘Whore!’ and ‘Slut!’ I should have been used to these names by now but I was feeling very tired and vulnerable. I felt in my pockets and found one ten pence piece. I dialled the house. When it picked up Ian answered. I was desperate and said, ‘I’m in St Clements and some boys are trying to get me.’

  Ian just said, ‘I’ll pass you over to your mother.’ They were clearly already in bed. A second later I could hear Barbara sniping down the phone: ‘Well, serves you right. You should be home, you shouldn’t be out.’ And she slammed down the phone. Just like that.

  I held onto the phone, trying to think.

  ‘We’re gonna fucking rape you, cunt,’ came at me from a huge, spotty bloke with a beer gut, tattoos and bald head. Then they started trying to rock the phone box, and one tried to climb up the front of it. I had no idea how I was going to get out of this situation. I didn’t think of calling 999, as my experience of the police had not been a good one. They’d probably take one look at me in my punk gear and join in with the thugs.

  ‘Oi, leave her alone,’ I then heard, in a dramatically loud male voice. One of the four thugs turned shouted at him, ‘Make us.’

  The one on top jumped down. Then there was a huddle on the pavement outside the phone box and I suddenly saw, to my amazement, Tim, on his bicycle.

  ‘I’m getting the police,’ he shouted loudly. In a flash the thugs just loped off drunkenly, shouting, ‘Fuck you,’ as they went. Then Tim came and opened the door, and I was shaking.

  ‘Wow, thanks,’ I said, feeling I’d met my knight in shining armour at last.

  ‘What on earth were you doing?’ Tim asked.

  I explained what happened. Apparently Tim left the pub just after me, and was coincidentally whizzing home on his bike through his usual short cut, when he found me pinioned by the thugs. He then insisted he walk me home and we strolled, with him wheeling his bike, all the way back across town to my home. I didn’t want him to come in, or even see the house, so I hovered on the pavement outside. Tim seemed concerned about me, checking I was okay and not too scared the whole time we walked. I wasn’t used to someone being concerned about me at all, so I didn’t know what to say. We hung around on the pavement for ages, and it was way past eleven now. I had no idea how I would get in the house. I didn’t think I would. But I didn’t tell Tim, as it was too complicated to explain.

  Tim didn’t want to go, and I didn’t want him to go. We just kept talking and talking. He said he’d never met anyone quite like me before. There was still a force field between us and I felt like I wanted to hold him close. There was a kind of magic in the air.

  ‘Can I take your number?’ he asked in the end, and I gave it t
o him. No one had ever called me before, so I was worried about what would happen if he did. Would Barbara even let me speak to him?

  ‘I’ll call you tomorrow, to see how you are, if that’s all right?’

  ‘If that’s all right?’ All right? Here was my hero, my life-saver, walking me home, showing he cared, taking my number. I was in seventh heaven. We stood closely and said bye and I felt we might kiss, but we didn’t. I felt entirely smitten by the time he left, like my life had changed completely – for the better.

  Once he was gone I tiptoed carefully over the gravel to get in but the door was bolted, predictably. I went around to the back of the house, where the gate was still open. My only option was to sleep in the shed – the horrible shed where William used to be imprisoned and where we would eat the birdseed. I bedded down on some sacking, and although it was damp and musty it was fine for the night. Neither Barbara nor Ian came to check I was home safely – I guessed they thought I’d creep in like a feral cat, at some time, and I should be ignored completely, to teach me a lesson. I could have been in hospital, or even dead, but they clearly didn’t care. Unlike Tim.

  The next few weeks and months went by predictably badly at home. There were constant threats and rows. Barbara was threatening to put me in care, send me to strange foster parents, or hand me over to the hopeless Julie. I had spent a weekend in her house, with her new man, and it had been disastrous. She showed no interest in me and her children resented me. She was just as awful as Barbara as a mother, but in a completely different way. Julie was like a child, constantly preening herself in front of the mirror and having hysterics about everything. She spent money like water and didn’t look after the children properly, either. The two children just spent time together and left me out of things.

  By then it had become clear, too, that John’s kidney was fine. He’d actually had a problem with his foreskin and had to have an embarrassing operation, which caused referred pain in his waterworks. No one ever said sorry to me for making me feel as if I was killing him. Barbara had either misunderstood the situation or was using his illness as another stick to beat me with. Whatever, I was never really accepted by them and we didn’t get on. So it wasn’t really an alternative and certainly not the cosy home I was so craving at this time.

  Back home, Barbara went on and on at me endlessly. I was ungrateful; I had shamed her; I was a waste of space. I cried a lot, but also felt defiant and angry. I was still doing all my usual household chores, and more, and I was ignoring the family as much as I could and just trying to keep out of harm’s way. I would retreat to Sean’s caravan as often as possible to get a breather; to help him with his garden or sit and talk with him. He was still my kind ally. He even tried to calm Barbara down when she was ranting at me.

  Sean always trod carefully with her, as he didn’t want anyone complaining to the council about his caravan or the traveller site, but he was also polite to her at the same time as trying to protect me. He was clever doing that. Despite all the drama at home, Tim had phoned the next day, to my delight, and we became pretty inseparable. Every waking moment I wanted to be with him; we would talk and talk, and we kissed soon after we met, and I knew I was falling in love with him. I also knew that he was going away in the autumn, so I wanted to be with him as much as possible. He was teaching me I meant more than all that but I missed him terribly all the time when we were apart.

  Luckily I spent most of that summer, post-school, hanging around the posh houses of Tim’s family and his other friends. I had wonderful meals around big pine tables smelling of beeswax, with white scatter rugs on the floor and lots of lovely William Morris-designed furniture and vintage crockery. Tim’s mum, Lucy, had things like an ice cream maker and a yoghurt maker, which I’d never heard of. She ground coffee beans and we had wonderful hot steaming mugs of fresh coffee with frothy milk. They made their own bread. I drank wine and talked politics with nice parents around the table loaded with gorgeous food – and I could eat as much as I wanted.

  Once Tim and I became a couple, his mother invited me to stay over at the weekend. I never told his family anything about my home, but I guess there was something about me that spelled out that I was very unhappy without my saying so. I think they picked up how restrictive things were. Lucy would phone Barbara and explain politely that I would be staying ‘in the spare room’. In fact, although Tim and I did cuddle up together in his bedroom, we didn’t have full sex. I had almost a phobia about it, not least because of all the horrible things that had been done to me by Kevin and Mark (which I never told Tim about), but also because of Julie getting pregnant with me at fifteen (which I also didn’t mention) – the very age I was. I was terrified of history repeating itself; I didn’t want to be like her.

  Barbara had drummed it into me endlessly that I was a whore like my mother, so I felt very wary of getting into trouble. I didn’t want to rush anything, and Tim was a loving, gentle, sweet young man. He was content for us to cuddle and kiss and explore but not to rush me into anything. I was happy with him, and happy spending time with these lovely, educated, kind people who showed me there was a different way of living without violence, cruelty, rudeness and threats. It made it even more difficult for me to go back to Barbara and Ian’s house, where I was attacked, threatened, hit and called rude names before I even got across the threshold.

  Over that summer I had to get some work to earn money, as I never had any pocket money. I found a job in a greengrocer, and loved handling all the colourful fruit and veg. I wasn’t great at the adding up, which I had to do in my head, and even on my fingers, but I gradually got better at it with practice. I enjoyed working with people, and discovered I could chat to them quite well and make them laugh. I was good at the job. This made me feel better about myself. I also picked up some cleaning work. I heard, on one of our pub visits, someone saying they needed help around the home.

  ‘I can help you,’ I piped up. I had no money, and I began to pick up cleaning jobs for posh Oxford people who lived in gorgeous houses with stripped wooden floors and lovely interiors. I had cleaned all my life, so it was easy to get the work done. And I got paid cash in hand.

  During this summer, a friend of Tim’s family, an American author, was going away for a month and asked for someone to house-sit. Barbara protested and shouted, slapped me and threatened care, but I ignored her. Tim offered, and we both moved in with several of our friends. We looked after the place and had a little commune for a few weeks. The freedom at last was wonderful, and they were all amazed that I could clean up so well. They didn’t realise I’d spent my life scrubbing and making hospital corners. I could also cook to some extent, and I could look after the garden, do pet care, and they were actually in awe.

  We played David Bowie at full blast, drank wine and had a lovely time in this house. When the author returned he said he was amazed that the house was in such good condition. He’d been away before and left it with students and it’d been wrecked. With us, he’d had a great deal. All this time Tim and I were sleeping in the same bed, but I still knew I wasn’t ready to ‘do the deed’ and he was still kind and patient. I really loved him for being such a genuinely kind and thoughtful person. He was writing me sonnets every morning, and telling me he loved me every day. He taught me to make posh food, like ratatouille, and to know my Chianti from my Pinot Grigio.

  All this time Barbara said she had ‘washed her hands of me’. There had been some correspondence with the school, who said they wanted me to think about coming back for my last year, until I was sixteen. They would only consider me coming back, of course, without the punk hair and make-up. In fact, some girls at school had got up a petition to get me back – they all thought it was unfair I’d been expelled for my looks and setting off the sprinklers. The school was dealing with the issue of the men on the Cowley Road preying on its girls, so my problems seemed small in comparison, at least to the girls (who also wanted to wear crazy-colour hair). They wanted me back!

  I couldn�
��t see the point, and this was the cause of a lot of rows with Barbara, which quickly descended into violence. I would then go back to the commune and spend a lovely evening laughing and drinking wine with my good friends and Tim.

  On Barbara’s birthday, which was in August, I baked her a vegan Victoria sponge cake in the author’s house, borrowed Tim’s bicycle, dressed up nicely and went over to see her. All I wanted to do was say ‘Happy Birthday’ and give her a card I’d made, with some flowers and the cake. I’m not sure exactly why I wanted to do this but, oddly, now I had some space away from Barbara, I felt some shards of affection for her. It’s difficult to explain why. She was always horrible and cruel to me but still, I suppose, she had been a mum of sorts over the whole of my lifetime and I felt I wanted to show her I was all right and I appreciated her for something, at least. I was happy, I suppose, and felt I could spread a bit of the love. I think I knew, intuitively, that Barbara had never experienced love in her life.

  When I got there, she didn’t smile when she opened the door. She grabbed the flowers out of my hand, saying sulkily, ‘You’d better come in.’ It was a summer’s day and I was hot from cycling.

  ‘Why are you so red?’ she asked me, snappily. I explained I’d been cycling. She moved towards me with a venomous look in her eye, like an eagle attacking a small rodent, and sniffed at me: ‘You’ve done it, haven’t you? You’ve been having sex.’

  She was spitting as she said this. I looked at her pointy, grey face, her grey clothes and mean features, and thought, Is that it? I didn’t answer. I just got back on my bike and left. That is all she was obsessed about: sex. I had no idea why. That night I said to Tim: ‘Okay, it’s time.’

  We carefully set the scene and had the most romantic, loving, wonderful time together, as I thought I was ready, finally. We were very careful, as I didn’t want to get pregnant, like Julie. If Barbara never believed me for a moment, what was the point of continuing not to do it? I might as well do it and enjoy it. I was probably reacting, but I also thought, what the hell. Enjoy! And enjoy it, thankfully, I did, with the right person at the right time and in the right way.