Once in a house on fire

by Ashworth, Andrea, 1969-

  I told him I was dark-skinned because I had some Mediterranean blood in me, but that, actually, I was English just like him.

  'You're not fucking English!' The pale boy backed into his crowd of skin-headed friends, swigging the beer in his fist. I was only eight, skinny, and a girl; they smashed a few botdes and took off.

  When we stayed with Nana Clarke, our real father's mother, things were completely different. For one thing, Sarah was never allowed into the grubby council flat, because Nana Clarke had cockroaches and was what people called doolally. She didn't shout or smash things, but she did call our stepfather Hider and she did accuse him of killing her son, our father. At other times, she would jab her finger at the television and insist that our father was there, alive and moving in the broken, fizzing picture. Hearts pounding, Laurie and I couldn't help peering. Sometimes it was Elvis on the screen, sometimes only the man reporting the news; you could hardly tell the difference, since a tube had exploded in the back of the set, tingeing the picture dark green.

  During the day, Nana Clarke liked to wander, in spite of the pains shooting through the blue veins up the back of her legs. She was often chauffeured home in a police car after her

  aches made her stop and sit down on the pavement or right in the middle of the road. On weekday afternoons, she waddled about Lewis's, where she was in love with the moving stairs. A seventy-year-old in white knee socks, she exasperated the ladies on the perfume counters by demanding squirts of scent and film-star make-overs. She promised to buy eyeshadows of every colour, though her purse held only coppers and plastic trinkets got from penny machines along the pavement. Her English was broken, because (apart from being half Maltese and half Italian) she had grown up in a French convent in Egypt before she married Grandad Clarke, a British Air Force man. From Heliopolis, City of the Sun, he whisked her back to Manchester to feed four children on Social Security in a council flat surrounded by belching industrial chimneys.

  'No wonder she flipped her lid, poor bugger.' Our mother explained how Nana Clarke, on her thirtieth birthday, had laid down her knitting kneedles, shaved her head and stopped speaking. When she opened her mouth a year later, only children and animals responded to her mumblings: French, English, Arabic, smatterings of Italian and German, she blended them into a mish-mash of her own. Once in a blue moon, she broke into plain English to explain that Billy the Kid had told her to shave her head, to accuse our stepfather of being the Devil, or to announce that she was heading back to Egypt tomorrow, which was why she had wrapped a knife and fork inside a pair of knickers that she kept in her coat pocket.

  During the summer holidays. Nana Clarke liked to drag Laurie and me through the Indian streets of Rusholme that our stepfather avoided. His nostrils quivered every time Nana knocked on our door.

  'Hi, Hider,' we thought she said, before barging past him

  to grasp Laurie and me in her surprisingly strong arms: 'Go shopping!' We were all that was left of her sweet, sweet Tony, she reminded our mother, who packed us into our cardigans and let us go, winking to remind me to keep an eye out - I was under secret instructions to stop a policeman if necessary, to steer us all back safely before dark. Laurie and I trundled with Nana along the sticky streets of Rusholme, stopping at Indian sweet shops and jewellery stores and delicatessens where flies buzzed around splits in rotting fruit too strange to buy. In fabric shops Nana stroked lengths of blood-red silk threaded with gold, and asked the woman in the sari: 'What price this? What price?'

  Incense wafted out of the food shops that our stepfather reftised to step into, even when we had run out of milk and there was nowhere else open. Nana led us inside one, where the lights were dim and things crawled along the shelves at the back. My sister and I held our breath among the spices while she chattered in Arabic, gripping our chins to show off our faces to the ancient Indian man behind the cash register. Nana spoke, beaming, in a language that no one could understand, but her pride was clear. The man nodded in his turban, smiling back out of his wizened-prune face. Before we left, he folded a small gift into each of our fists. When we got outside into the sunlight, our faces fell: in my palm I held a ftirry green fruit; Laurie had a shrivelled fungus in hers.

  We went home fiill of the Indian streets, and the music that plinked out of tape recorders behind boxes stacked along the pavement, bursting ripe fruit from far away and mangy, withered vegetables. I twined my hands together above my head and did an Indian dance for my mother, rolling my eyes, twisting my neck from side to side while strange words dribbled from my lips.

  'Stop that flamin' warbling!' My stepfather reached out to whack the back of my knees: 'You're not a bloody Paki!

  'Any more of it and you'll get a clip round the ear'ole!' he warned.

  But the wavering music was stuck inside my head. More of it leaked out under my breath until I got a clip round the ear'ole and then it dried up.

  My ears were still stinging from my stepfather's clout when he gave me another one for out-and-out cheek.

  'Mithering litde shit!' he fumed, when I brought home a form requesting five pounds along with my parents' permission to go on the overnight school trip to Derbyshire.

  'Why should we fork out for it?' He had a row with my mother, but ended up signing the form and stumping up cash, so that my teachers wouldn't think we were poor.

  In my red vanity case my mother folded a small towel, on top of which she laid a toothbrush, a pair of knickers and a clean T-shirt. The T-shirt was my favourite, spattered with tiny Union Jacks and other, curious-looking flags that I took to represent the world, though their colours were only red, white and blue.

  'Anything else?' my mother asked me.

  We made room for Enid Blyton before we fastened the case. Leaving me at the school gate, my mother kissed the top of my head and pulled a packet of paper tissues from her pocket.

  'Put them in your case for the trip,' she said.

  'Oh, Mum!' I dashed to the bus clutching the plastic packet in my hand; I wanted people to see that I had a fiill, unopened set of Handy Andies all to myself

  The coach snaked through the grey terraced streets around our school and pulled on to the motorway. Factories gave way to whizzing trees; our faces pressed against the windows to drink in the greenery. Two Handy Andies and a packet of

  wine gums later, we reached Derbyshire. There were red-nosed walks the first day, panting across hills where we gasped at sheep and cows and birds that weren't pigeons or sparrows. After dark, we gathered in the common room to scribble poems about the Glory of the English Countryside before rushing to play ping-pong and bingo.

  Next day, we visited the Bluejohn Mines. A guide led us down into the caves to show us the crystals in the hushed green damp.

  'Stalactites.' She pointed a neon stick at the frozen jewels trickling from the roof. Then she asked, 'See his face?' Across the roof of the cave, she swept her eerie stick, tracing features in the shadows. Her whispery voice echoed: 'A nasty ogre.' Blood rushed to my head as I strained to see the ogre's face. I looked and looked until my legs began to sway and I had to straighten my neck. Soon we were back outside in the spitting rain, yanking our coats over our heads, buzzing about the ogre in the rock.

  'Did ya see them eyebrows? Even fangs!'

  I nodded and chatted with the others, although I had seen nothing but a slimy green rock with a few cracks here and there.

  When my mother met me off the coach, I fitted my hand inside hers and told her about the cave and the ogre that I hadn't been able to see.

  'Well, who wants to see an ogre?' My mother squeezed my hand: 'No point getting all het up over something that isn't there.'

  Soon after my school trip, my parents began to speak to one another in code, spelling things backwards so that I wouldn't understand. A-D-A-N-A-C. I said nothing while I worked out

  that my mother was planning to visit her sister-in-law in Canada. After a treat of egg custard tarts, it came out of her mouth the right way round.

 
'I'm going to visit your Auntie Carla in Vancouver,' she said. 'Your dad'U look after you for a couple of weeks.'

  Our mother promised suitcases of souvenirs to make up for the looks on our faces: a fortnight with our stepfather, alone! But when the black cab finally came and took away our mother and her small vinyl case, our stepfather was nicer than we had expected. Chocolate crept into our daily menu to keep us quiet, and everything was fried, fried, fried. Eggs, bacon, sausages: men's food. On the fourth day without our mother, he made a few phone calls, then handed Laurie and me a new canvas bag each. Sensing something exciting, Laurie and I rushed to pack with our stepfather, filling an extra bag with Sarah's nappies and favourite toys. I was beginning to see snow-peaked mountains and towering evergreens like the ones that arrived bashed on the back of postcards from Auntie Carla in Vancouver.

  By evening, my dreams of aeroplanes had crashed back down to earth: our stepfather dumped us at Auntie Vera's house before driving oflF to the airport. The minute she closed the door. Auntie Vera was on the phone to Auntie Pauline.

  'Can you believe it? Just like that - rushing off after her as if she can't breathe by herself! After wiping all them old biddies' bums for this one holiday of her own; she'll be furious!'

  If our mother was fiirious, it didn't bring her home any sooner. The fortnight dragged itself out while Laurie and I played in the back fields all morning, loving the way the long grass whipped our arms and legs, but missing our school, which was miles away. Later, after we had watched Andy Pandy and Looby Loo, the Clangers and Bagpuss, Laurie was happy to stay in with colouring books all afternoon. I was fascinated to see what Mr Ben would be: he could turn into

  anything he Hked - a spaceman, a cowboy, a clown - just by putting on the right clothes. But as soon as the cartoon was over, I went and hovered around the back door, itching for a wander. Auntie Vera made me give her my solemn promise that I would go nowhere near the main roadt Then she let me put on my cardigan and disappear into the street on my own. A ten-pence piece rolled around in my pocket, swinging back and forth like a pendulum, until the church bell clanged three and I ran down the hill to the sweet shop for two ounces of lemon sherbet and a stick of liquorice - the hard kind, for sucking not chewing.

  Dipping my liquorice stick in the sherbet, I trudged back up the hill and lingered around the red telephone box at the top. When the street was clear of grown-ups, I heaved the door open and slipped into the box, clogged with stale cigarette smoke. Because I had no number for my mother in Canada, I dialled strange numbers until the ringing tone began to purr in my ear. If anyone answered, I slammed down the phone while the pips were going off. After that, I scurried back to Auntie Vera's house for tea, secretly full of the sherbet and liquorice and the choking, smoky calls.

  Our parents came home from Canada, breathless and full of plans they no longer bothered to spell backwards. We would be emigrating to Canada.

  'As soon as we find a buyer for the house,' our mother told Auntie Livia. Clutching her cup of tea, my aunt asked enthusiastic questions about this part of green, sun-soaked Canada that my parents swore was chock fiill of amazing opportunities.

  'The standard of living's fantastic, Liv.' Our mother's eyes lit up. 'Any Tom, Dick and Harry can afford steak for tea, Pete says, and you don't have to be loaded if you want to build your own house. Right from scratch!'

  Auntie Livia's eyes were glistening with sadness, afraid that

  cups of tea at our house were about to run out. She patted her frizzy hair and laughed nervously. 'Who'll do my perm when you're gone?'

  The playground was chattering because, although I was only just nine, I had been pushed up a year, right into the top fourth-year form, after winning the school's annual competition to wresde as many words as possible out of the name 'Manchester'. Nibbling the rubber end of my pencil all weekend, I turned up at school on Monday with a flapping list, the longest they had ever seen:

  cheat

  mean

  stern

  stench

  man

  rat

  ranch

  ran

  rant

  chant

  charms...

  'Nearly one hundred words Andrea Hawkins got out of "Manchester"!' Older kids nudged elbows, seeing me through new eyes when I dashed past.

  I won a green leathery book, stamped with gold letters. The Secret Garden. It felt heavy and exciting between my hands, but I couldn't imagine actually opening it to read the pages, because it wasn't by Enid Blyton. My teachers were always telling me that I would have to give up her tales - they talked about 'Enid Blyton' as if it were an illness. Luckily, our mother had nothing against the adventure stories, knowing how quiet they kept my sister and me. She allowed us to pack them into

  the metal trunk that was to carry our most precious books, toys and ornaments across the sea to Canada. They took up no room at all, considering what was inside them: secret islands, magical circus stuff, whole mountains and rivers, not to mention the Famous Five, the Secref Seven and the adventurous four - the nearest thing to all the real friends we would have to leave behind, Laurie and I persuaded our mother.

  'Go on then, shove them in!' She took out her own favourite ornaments to make room when we clustered around the trunk, our arms aching full of books.

  I felt woozy when I finally opened my green prize-book and found the gate that led to the garden where everything was so much more bright and shiny than in the world outside. I read those bits over and over, never tiring of creeping through the hidden entrance to discover all the flowers, trees and birds, as if it was the first time I had stepped inside. I could imagine lying on the grass, which would be thick and velvety, like the posh cushions on Auntie Livia's settee. Even the sky would look different, once you had gone through the secret gate. It might not be so bad being a cripple like the boy in the story, I thought, if only you could get into a place so heavenly, that grown-ups didn't know about. I read the book twice in a row, then once more, before I was ready to hand it over so it could be packed with everything else.

  'Too late.' My stepfather stood in front of the locked trunk, which he had just finished binding in brown tape and rope. 'Rule was, anything you wanted to keep, you had to give me yesterday for packing up.'

  'Not to worry.' My mother took the book from me, promising to make space for it in one of the suitcases.

  'Oh no you don't!' He snatched it out of her hands - 'Rules

  is rules!' - and put it on the pile of things to be sold or given away.

  Because our mother was superstitious, baptisms were arranged, along with haircuts, to prepare us for our new life in Canada. Our mother took Laurie and me to the Greek barber shop where tough men swung in and out, dangling cigarettes between their lips, while the barley-striped sign spiralled red and white, red and white, red and white. We came out naked at the neck, our dark hair cropped close to the skull. On the way home a blonde girl passed us, swinging a ponytail like the ones we had just left, lopped off, on the barber's floor. Behind our mother's back she stuck out a long, wet tongue as if Laurie and I were Pakistani boys. Strangers in the street no longer stopped to coo over our faces; they saw litde skinhead lads when they looked at us.

  By the time we stood at the altar to be baptized, wispy curls had begun to creep back around our ears. Bright orange dresses, obese poppies lolling up the sleeves, confirmed that we were girls. Stained-glass light dribbled over the vicar's face. He dipped his cuff at the font to leave holy wet fingerprints on our foreheads, and that was that: Church of England. We went home blessed, to nibble sausage rolls and pineapple chunks speared on toothpicks. Our mother had spent all morning chopping hot dogs and cheese for the relatives we were about to fly from.

  'Lovely spread you've done, Lorraine.' Fat aunts complimented her buffet through mouths full of egg mayonnaise, watercress straying at their lips.

  'Well, you have to go the whole caboodle - don't yer? -when you're leaving so many people behind.' Where others n
ibbled sandwich triangles, my mother clutched a burning

  cigarette, the smoke swirling about her cheekbones. Suddenly, she stumped it out and grabbed my hand.

  'Tell you what,' she bent so that her hair fell silky in my face, 'why don't we put on a bit of Motown and have a quick dance?' "

  The records started spinning and people relaxed, smiling, tapping their feet. My mother loved to dance, swirling her skirt in circles, sashaying over the carpet: shy hip swings and clever, hopping toes. She led me by the tips of her fingers, whirling me under the arch of her arm like a tree, a weeping willow whose branches sway down to meet you.

  'Lorraine!' My stepfather called my mother away to refill people's glasses.

  By now, I was hot behind the ears and down my back, twisting my hips into small, smooth circles like my mother's.

  'That's enough dancing, Andrea,' my stepfather told me.

  'Oh, let her twist, Pete.' Auntie Doris laughed, tipsy. 'She's doing no harm.'

  The music was still playing; people's feet were tapping in time; my sandals twisted and shuffled against the carpet's dull green until hot breath whispered into my ear: 'Upstairs!'

  My stepfather's anger was hidden from the party under the music, the flushed chatter and clinking glasses.

  On the stairs, he pressed a large, cold hand against my back, shoving me up into the bathroom. Inside, he locked the door and twisted the taps until the water gushed into the sink and was sucked, belching, down the plughole. The cascade drowned out the sound when his hand came down to slap my face.

  'Don't you dare defy me!' My stepfather's lips moved while my ears rang fiiU of the slap and the water and the party downstairs. Behind his head, I saw my own face in the bathroom mirror, red and blotted where steam was rising from

  the taps to mist over the reflection. I went to say, 'I won't, Dad,' but the words were muffled under his hand, pressing down to stifle my tears. Faint petroleum seeped from his palm, choking me.