The Girl in Between

by Sarah Carroll

  I’m outside. People could see me.

  I jump back real quick but the lights have changed. The kid’s head turns towards me as the car starts to move. But that’s okay, he’s too young to matter and I don’t think anyone else noticed me.

  CONCRETE CITY

  The next place we stayed after the beach was in this flat on the third floor of a big building. The building was the same dull colour as the concrete yard outside, where all the kids played. In the middle of the yard was a yellow slide and a yellow climbing frame. When you looked out the window of the flat, you could see another building that was the exact same, with grey washing hanging on every balcony. And off to one side, in the space between the next block of flats, was a huge electricity pylon.

  We were staying with a mate of Ma’s. She had two kids. One was a boy called Mark. He was my age but he was really weird. He kept shoving everything he found on the ground into his mouth. But he was nice. He let me share his half-chewed crayons and when we ran out of paper, we drew on the walls of his bedroom. His ma didn’t care.

  The other kid was a baby and she was real annoying cos she never stopped crying and she was always covered in snot and her nappy was always stinking. I remember one day Mark’s ma wheeled the baby into his room in this buggy that only had three good wheels and one that wobbled like mad when you tried to push it.

  ‘Here, Mark, go out and play. And take your sister with ye,’ she said, and she left the pram in the doorway. Her and Ma were in the sitting room drinking cans. So we grabbed a load of empties and took the baby and went out into the corridor between the flats. Mark lined up the cans and we used his football as a bowling ball to knock them over. But the baby kept crying and my ma stuck her head out the door and said the noise was stressing her out and told us to go downstairs.

  The lift didn’t work and it was real hard carrying the buggy down the stairs. Outside we played a game where you have to try and hit the ball off the corner of the kerb so it bounces into the air, and if you catch it, you get extra points. I’ve got a deadly throw and I was whipping Mark, but then some lads nicked Mark’s ball and started playing football with it, and Mark was scared of them and told me not to say anything. So I didn’t cos they were much bigger than us anyway.

  The baby was still crying, so we pushed her around for a while but she never stopped. Even when we carried her up the stairs and gave her back to her ma, she cried and cried. My ma and Mark’s ma went out that night and we had to stay in listening to the baby cry. That baby never stopped crying.

  And then she did.

  That’s when we left. The next morning, when the baby stopped crying and Ma’s friend started crying. Ma grabbed her rucksack and started packing it. Her hands were shaking that morning so it took her ages, even though she was just ramming everything in.

  It was real weird cos the baby had been so loud when she cried, but Mark’s ma’s tears didn’t make a sound. Mark was just sitting there chewing a wooden spoon and watching her. I thought that we should help her, but Ma said there was nothing we could do and that the Authorities were coming.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said to Mark’s ma. Then she grabbed me and we left the flat real quick and ran downstairs.

  But I kept thinking, if the Authorities were coming, they could give us a lift back to Gran’s, like they said they would when we were camping at the beach. So I stopped running.

  It had been raining and the ground was all wet, but it wasn’t raining just then. Ma was legging it across the concrete yard, past the slide, and she didn’t notice I was still at the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘Ma?’

  She stopped and turned. ‘What are ye at? Come on!’

  ‘But the Authorities are coming, Ma.’

  ‘Jaysus, I know. Come on, will ye? Now!’

  But I didn’t move cos I wanted to go back to Gran’s.

  Ma dropped the rucksack and she legged it back to me. She grabbed my arm but I still didn’t come. ‘What are ye doing?’ she asked.

  ‘I want to go home,’ I said.

  Ma gave me her egg-sucking face. ‘I’m serious, we have to go.’

  ‘But why, Ma?’

  That’s when we heard the sirens coming, like a seagull wailing from far away. Ma got all weird. Her eyes got panicky and she cursed. Then she started moving again, pulling me with her.

  ‘Stop it, Ma, you’re hurting me.’

  A few women had come out of their flats now and were standing on their balconies in their pyjamas. They had babies in one hand and cigarettes in the other.

  Ma yanked me again and I yanked back.

  When she turned this time, her eyes were so mad that they made me feel real small. Like a worm that Ma had just stepped on or something.

  ‘Do you want to get me arrested?’ she asked, but I didn’t know what she was talking about. ‘If they see us here, they’ll take you away from me. You want that?’

  ‘I want to go back to Gran’s.’

  That’s when Ma slapped me. I was so surprised I didn’t even cry. I just stared at her. She pointed her finger at me. She was shaking now. I remember noticing her nail polish was peeling off and her nails were all bitten down. Ma used to keep her nails real nice. ‘That’s enough out of you, ye hear me?’ she said, and she yanked my arm again.

  When we got to the front of the flats, an ambulance passed us. Ma had her head down and she kept on pulling me. She was still hurting me but I didn’t say anything.

  We walked. I had to run to keep up with her cos she was walking real fast and pumping her arms like she wanted to punch someone. It started raining but we kept walking. Even when it lashed rain, we didn’t stop. We just kept walking. All day. Till the shops started closing, with their shutters half pulled like droopy metal eyelids.

  By then Ma wasn’t pumping her arms any more. She was holding them close to stop them from shaking. She looked like a snail whose shell has got real heavy from all the rain that’s poured on top of it all day. And I didn’t have to run to keep up any more neither, which was good cos my feet were all blistered.

  We turned at a pub and walked past the backyard where, behind a wire fence, there was a mountain of empty beer bottles and crates. Ma stopped at the next gate. It was painted black, but had this picture of a smiley face spray-painted onto it. It wasn’t a happy smiley face, though. It was an evil smiley face with fangs and slanty eyebrows. And when Ma knocked, little bits of the black paint crumbled away. Then I heard the bolt grinding open and a gap appeared, and in the gap were three eyebrows and two massive shoulders.

  It was him. Monkey Man.

  I jumped behind Ma and pinched her so she knew that I didn’t want to be there.

  ‘All right?’ he said.

  ‘Hiya,’ Ma said.

  He was so big that he took up the whole space in the gate. He was leaning against the frame and he looked at Ma like he was counting how many pieces of clothes she was wearing.

  Ma flicked her hair back and it whipped me in the face. Then he leaned over and looked at me and said, ‘All right?’ He lifted his three eyebrows as if he’d just made a joke or something. I hid behind Ma again.

  ‘Listen, just wondering if we could crash here for the night?’ she said.

  I couldn’t believe it. There? With Monkey Man?

  ‘’Course,’ he said. ‘Not a bother, come on in. Mi casa es su casa and all that.’

  Ma grabbed me and pushed me in front of her. Monkey Man stood back and bowed like Ma was a queen coming home to her castle. But it wasn’t a castle. It was a poxy hole.

  We stepped into a backyard and there was this huge car that filled most of it. The car looked like it was a hundred years old. It couldn’t drive or anything cos it was sitting on blocks. And I don’t know how it could have got in there, cos I couldn’t see any other gate except the one we’d come through.

  Ma had been here before. I could tell by the way she walked straight through the back door and into the kitchen. She threw her bag down and put her sopping wet coat
over the back of one of the chairs in the kitchen.

  The kitchen had a sink and a fridge and shelves. But there was nothing on them except for a few cups. The bin was so full with wrappers and boxes, though, that there were boxes on the ground too.

  ‘You know where to go. Up the stairs, on the right, after the jacks,’ Monkey Man said.

  ‘You’re very good, thanks,’ Ma said.

  ‘Not a bother,’ he said again, and he watched as Ma picked up her rucksack again. He rubbed her arm with his fat paw as she passed. I thought she’d tell him to get off, but she said nothing.

  The wallpaper in the hallway was peeling in these long strips that made it look like it had been crying but then its tears dried up cos no one cared. And the steps on the stairs looked like they’d been made from leftover crates from the pub beside the house.

  The door to the jacks at the top of the stairs was open. The toilet bowl was yellow and there were empty toilet rolls on the ground beside a broken toilet seat. Then we got to our room.

  ‘Ma!’ I said.

  ‘It’s grand, isn’t it?’ she said.

  But it wasn’t. There was nothing in it. No wardrobe or cushions or duvets. There wasn’t even a bed. Just a manky mattress on the floor. There were curtains but they were hung with nails and were only half open. Above the mattress was a mirror with half of the reflective part worn away.

  I heard Monkey Man on the stairs. ‘Everything all right?’ he asked when he got to us.

  ‘Yeah, grand, thanks,’ Ma said.

  ‘Good stuff. I’ll be downstairs if you want to join me for a drink?’

  ‘Lovely,’ Ma said. ‘I’ll be down in a minute.’

  Monkey Man went away again and I just stood there.

  ‘This’ll do fine. Just for the night,’ Ma said.

  ‘Ma, I don’t want to stay here.’

  ‘Don’t start,’ she said.

  ‘Ma—’

  ‘Would you rather be outside in the rain?’ she asked. Then she turned round and looked out the door, down the stairs, and she held her hands together to stop them from shaking. And I knew she didn’t care. Not really. What she really wanted was a drink.

  ‘Come on, get those wet things off, you,’ she said. And before I could say anything, she was yanking my jacket off and pulling my jumper over my head and then rummaging around in the bottom of the rucksack for my pyjamas. She threw them on the mattress and started unclipping the sleeping bag from the front of the rucksack. By the time she’d laid it out on the mattress, I had my pyjamas on.

  ‘Now . . .’ she said. She looked at the door and then back at me. I was just standing there with my hair sopping wet and my feet stinging from the blisters on my toes. And Ma didn’t care. She just wanted a can.

  And I had to stay on my own in a room with nothing but a manky mattress.

  It wasn’t fair. I didn’t want to be there. Now my hands were shaking too. My whole body was shaking. I was wet and cold and sore, and she didn’t care. She was just going to leave me.

  I started crying. I couldn’t stop. It wasn’t just my eyes, neither. My whole body was crying. My throat and my chest and my stomach, and it got louder and louder.

  Ma closed her eyes and leaned against the door frame. But that just made me cry harder, till I was all snotty and hiccuping and coughing and I couldn’t hardly breathe.

  But then she came over. She pulled me onto the mattress and she grabbed a hairbrush from the rucksack and she brushed my hair, and whispered, ‘It’s all right, love, it’s all right.’ Then she said, ‘I’m sorry, love,’ and I think she meant for slapping me when we were outside the flats earlier cos she started wiping my face where she’d hit me. She kept saying it over and over, and kept stroking my face with her shaking hand, till finally I stopped hiccuping and I could breathe normal again. Then she leaned forwards till her forehead was touching mine.

  ‘I’m sorry about today. I just got scared.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Cos of that ambulance.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Cos first the ambulance comes. Then the coppers follow. And I didn’t want to be there when they came.’

  But I didn’t understand. Cos last time we saw the coppers they said they’d take us to Gran’s.

  Ma sat up straight and had a long think. Then she said, ‘If the coppers saw us, they’d take you away from me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘That ambulance? That was coming to take the baby away. But the coppers? They were right behind that ambulance and they would’ve taken Mark away.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Into Care,’ Ma said.

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘It means they take you away from your ma and give you to strangers. Mark’s ma will never see him again. He’ll be locked up and she won’t be allowed to visit.’

  ‘Will they look after him?’

  ‘Not as good as his ma did,’ she said.

  But I thought of his ma drinking all day and him sitting there chewing a pencil. She wasn’t very good at looking after him anyway. I didn’t want to think about what strangers would be like. ‘What’ll they do to him?’

  ‘Depends how wicked the people are that take him,’ she said.

  And then I felt real bad that we didn’t bring him with us cos at least he could have stayed with me, and Ma could have protected him. I hoped he wasn’t locked in a room all on his own. And I hoped he knew that he shouldn’t draw on the walls in other people’s houses.

  ‘We should have taken him with us,’ I said.

  ‘Then the coppers would have chased us and they’d have taken him anyway. But they’d have taken you as well, and they’d have locked you up and I’d never see you again. And you’re the most important thing in the world to me, you know that?’

  ‘But you could come get me, Ma?’ I said.

  ‘I couldn’t. They’d hide you away, out of the city, where I couldn’t find you. And you’d be locked up with people who’d hit you and hurt you and wouldn’t feed you.’

  ‘Out by the mountains?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  But that didn’t make sense either. ‘What about the time when the coppers found us on the beach?’

  ‘That time they gave us one chance. That was our only chance. They said if they ever catch you again, though, they’ll take you away. And it’s not just the coppers, neither. The ambulance people and the social workers, they’re all as bad.’

  ‘The Authorities,’ I said.

  ‘’Zactly,’ Ma said.

  ‘I don’t want to be taken away, Ma.’

  ‘Then you stick by me and do what I say. And when you see the Authorities, you run, okay?’

  But I didn’t know what she meant. Did we have to keep running? Couldn’t we ever go back to Gran’s?

  ‘What about the fishes?’ I said, cos it had been months since we’d left Gran’s house and summer was over.

  ‘What fish?’

  ‘Everyone’s back at school. Who’s going to feed the fishes?’

  But Ma didn’t reply. She just shook her head and looked out the window. After ages she said, ‘Go on, go to sleep now, you’re tired,’ and she stood up like she was going to leave and I knew she was off to get drunk.

  ‘No, Ma! Don’t leave.’

  ‘I’ll just be downstairs.’

  And I knew I shouldn’t say it. I told myself not to. But I did anyway.

  ‘I don’t want to be here, Ma. Please? I want to go back to Gran’s. The Authorities won’t get me there. Gran will save me from them. And I can go back to school and feed the fishes, cos Claire won’t give them enough, she doesn’t even eat her own Easter eggs, so she’ll never feed them. They’ll starve!’

  I saw Ma’s eyes start to sink but I still didn’t stop.

  ‘Why can’t we just go back to Gran’s, Ma? Why can’t we go back to normal? I promise I’ll hide from the Authorities. I won’t even go outside except for school, and Gran walks me there anyway, so she can help me run away from the
Authorities, and you wouldn’t have to be stressed out.’ Then I stopped.

  Ma was crying. She was shaking all over. I’d never seen Ma cry before.

  I wanted to eat my words back up. I wanted her to stop shaking and stop crying. I wanted to stroke her hair like she stroked mine. But I didn’t.

  ‘Ma?’ I said.

  She was whispering something like, ‘What am I doing?’

  ‘Sorry, Ma,’ I said.

  Ma kept muttering to herself and squeezing her hands together. But then she shook her head like she was shaking the tears away.

  She sat and stared at nothing. I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. Cos I was looking at her eyes. They’d gone all deep. And I didn’t know how to stop them from drowning.

  She wiped her face and looked at the door. She made her hands into fists and then shook them out. She sighed. She stood up. ‘I’m not going anywhere. I’ll just be downstairs, I promise,’ she said. And I didn’t know what to say to make her stay.

  She got me to climb into the sleeping bag and when she kissed me she left salt on my cheek. Then she closed the door.

  And even though I didn’t want to be there in that room all alone, I fell asleep cos I was dead tired. It was light when I opened my eyes and Ma wasn’t beside me.

  I crept up to the door. I stuck my head out. It was quiet. I didn’t want to go out there. But I had to find Ma.

  I went down the stairs real soft. At the bottom, I took a deep breath and peeked around the door into Monkey Man’s sitting room. She was there on the couch. Alone.

  She was sprawled over it with her arm hanging off the side. Her eyes were open but she wasn’t looking at anything.

  ‘Ma?’

  She didn’t answer. She didn’t move.

  I ran up to her and knelt beside her. ‘Ma?’

  I shook her shoulder. I took her hand and I squeezed it. She was cold. But then her eyes swam to mine and she said, ‘Never leave me, promise?’

  I crawled onto the couch and lifted up her arm and draped it over me. And I don’t know if she was asleep or awake cos she kept saying, ‘Never leave me.’ She said it over and over, but her voice was swimming, just like her eyes.