Anna X
*
‘Love, we’re here.’ The old lady who’d offered Anna some Mint Imperials from a crumpled white paper bag earlier in the journey was now nudging her shoulder, waking her as the other passengers alighted into the bustle of Victoria.
‘Thank you.’ Anna smiled meekly, a wave of fear replacing the excitement that had filled her earlier. It was dark and busy and the reality of her situation began to hit home. She had very little money and nowhere to go. With her suitcase by her side, Anna looked at the road sign and saw that Waterloo was only one and a half miles away. She could walk that easily.
What she hadn’t banked on was having to drag her suitcase along the crowded pavements, nor that being tired would make the job a lot harder. It was a whole hour later that she finally reached the arched entrance and ornate pillars that she recognised as being the front of Waterloo station. Anna remembered the many times she and her mum had run up those steps, rushing for a train or chattering excitedly about the day they’d had. She gripped the handle of her case once again and began the long trudge up to the concourse.
‘Goodness me, can I get that for you? It’s almost as big as you are!’ A curly haired man in a suit and a mackintosh and with a briefcase in his right hand smiled and grabbed her suitcase, lifting it with ease.
‘Thank you.’ She whispered her gratitude as the kindly man loped up the stairs, taking them two at a time. He placed the case on the top step and waited for her. ‘Where are you off to?’ he asked with a smile.
‘I’m... I’m meeting my dad here.’ She gave the response she had rehearsed on the coach and looked down at the tens of black cabs sitting in the traffic below, waiting to ferry their passengers all over the city and beyond.
‘Is that right?’ The man gave her a funny sideways look that made her think he knew she was lying, then glanced left and right as if checking the coast was clear. He took a step closer and let his head hang forward so that she could still hear him even though he’d dropped his voice. ‘I don’t believe you are meeting your dad, young lady. Am I right?’
She stared at him. Her mouth moved, but no words came. What should she say and how could he tell?
He laughed. ‘Thought not.’ He ran his tongue around his teeth and over his gums. ‘How about you come with me and I can get you something nice to eat and you can earn some cash and it’ll be real quick.’ He reached out and stroked his hand along her upper arm.
Anna shivered and jumped back. Grabbing her case, she moved as quickly as she could into the crowd. Her stomach churned with fear and her tears fell. She felt sick as she repeatedly looked back over her shoulder, but the man seemed to have disappeared.
Closing her eyes briefly, she wished that when she opened them her mum would be on the concourse, waiting with tickets in her hand, smiling at her... She felt the thump of disappointment when this didn’t happen. Her gut ached. She gazed at the throng of people around her, all of them staring up at the departure board, waiting to jump on trains to places like Epsom, Bournemouth or Strawberry Hill – places where they had someone waiting for them. And then up popped a train for London Bridge, where she knew she could make a connection to Honor Oak Park.
Home.
Only it wasn’t home. It was the shell of a memory, an echo of a former life, now gone. Her strength caved with a sick, hollow feeling.
The crowd began to thin and Anna made her way to the taxi rank. Her heart raced as she leant against the post with the ‘Taxis’ sign above it. For what seemed like hours she studied every driver who pulled into the layby, watching as they opened the passenger door or helped their fare into the back with their cases or shopping. A black man, an Indian man, a man with red hair, a bald man, a very young man, too young to be her dad, another one, Italian, laughing loudly, a happy man, gesticulating wildly. They came and went, but there was no one she felt drawn to, no one who seemed like her dad.
Occasionally one would smile at her and she smiled back, wondering... One man jumped from his cab and as he loaded a box into the boot he looked towards her. ‘You all right there, treacle?’
She nodded. ‘I’m waiting for my dad. He’s a cabbie.’
‘Oh right, wha’s’is name?’ The man paused, holding the door handle, clearly eager to get going but also wanting to chat.
‘His name’s Michael.’
‘Michael what?’ He laughed. ‘About every other bloke on this rank is Michael, Micky, Mike, Mick – take your pick!’
‘I’m not sure,’ she managed. ‘But he definitely drives a cab.’
The man shook his head as if she was having a laugh, then jumped into his taxi and switched off his yellow ‘For hire’ light.
Anna continued to watch the procession of cabs, but she began to realise that spotting a man she’d never met and who didn’t know she was looking for him was a lot harder than she’d anticipated. Her stomach rolled with hunger, and tiredness made her body sag. She slid down the post and sat on her suitcase, trying to think of what to do next, where to go. Another hour passed and she knew that Aunt Lizzie and Uncle Alan would by now know she was missing. She hoped Jordan wasn’t too mad about the money.
A cold draught circled her ankles and snaked up inside her clothes. Bit by bit her legs and then her bottom and then her arms began to freeze. Her teeth started to chatter. The roar from a group of drunks in suits caused a plug of fear to rise in her throat. She watched them teeter left and right along the pavement, arm in arm, singing and shouting as they went. What if the man with the briefcase or someone like him returned? She knew she couldn’t stay there much longer, but where could she go? A new wave of panic engulfed her.
‘Anna!’
Anna registered her name being called but knew it had nothing to do with her. No one here knew her or her name. She ignored the shout and continued staring at the taxi rank, rubbing her arms and stamping her feet to try and get warm.
‘Anna?’ The voice was nearer now, and this time it was a question.
She swivelled her gaze and there in front of her on the tarmac, wearing a ratty fur coat, black patent over-the-knee boots and with her hair dyed white blonde, was none other than Ruby Red Shoes.
‘Ruby!’ Anna leapt off her case with a rush of energy and threw her arms around the woman. Joe’s friend! Relief flooded through her.
‘Hey, little Anna!’ Ruby stroked her hair and held her close. ‘What are you doing here, baby?’
Ruby smelt how Joe used to smell. It was familiar, troubling and comforting all at the same time. Anna looked up into the face of the woman with the large teeth who had added a splash of colour on that unbearably grey day. She noted the way her eyelids drooped, were almost closed, and recognised the fixed smile and vacant air of someone who was usually high.
‘Ruby...’ she whispered.
‘It’s good... to see you, Anna,’ Ruby stuttered. ‘I think about Joe a lot.’
To hear his name was wonderful and painful in equal measure. ‘Me too.’ Anna screwed her face up, trying to hold her tears in check.
‘What are you doing here?’ Ruby asked. ‘Who are you with?’ She glanced repeatedly over Anna’s shoulder, like she was waiting for someone.
‘I’m not with anyone. I kind of ran away.’ She paused. ‘And now I’m not sure what to do next. I’m just figuring out what to do.’
‘You’re on your own?’ Ruby bent low and looked her in the eye. She sounded concerned.
‘Yes, but I’ll be okay.’ Anna dug deep for a reassuring smile.
Ruby shook her head. ‘No, you won’t. This is no place to be by yourself, trust me. You have to go home, Anna!’ Ruby nodded slowly. ‘You have to go home, tell a policeman, tell someone. But please go home. You shouldn’t be here all alone. Take it from me.’
‘No!’ Anna hadn’t meant to shout, but there was no way she was going back to that cul-de-sac. ‘I can’t.’
‘S’not safe for you, baby. S’not safe for any of us, you know?’
Anna pictured the
man in the mackintosh from earlier and her heart thudded. ‘I don’t know what to do, Ruby. Can I come home with you?’
‘This is home, baby! This is it!’ Ruby threw her arms wide and laughed with her head back.
Anna cursed the tears that gathered. Ruby reached for her packet of cigarettes and lit one, then took a step closer. Anna could see the grime on her skin, the small matted knots that peppered her hair. This was not how she remembered Ruby Red Shoes, not at all.
‘Jesus, Anna, if I had any more to offer you – a place to stay, a cup of tea, a chair – then I would take you there. But things are...’ She placed her fingernail between her teeth and ripped it from the nail bed, still glancing over Anna’s shoulder every few seconds, as if she was being watched. ‘Things are complicated. Plus I’m working.’ She sighed, shrugged her shoulders and gave a sad, sweet smile.
‘Where are you working?’ Anna asked. ‘Couldn’t I come with you? I promise I won’t make a noise, and then I could go with you after work?’ She blinked.
‘Oh, Anna.’ Ruby smiled her big toothy grin. ‘I would love to spend a day, just one day, inside your head.’ She reached out and ran her fingers through Anna’s lank fringe. ‘I need you to take care of you and I need you to go back to wherever it is you’ve come from because, trust me, anywhere is better than here. Anywhere.’
‘You don’t know what it’s like—’ Anna began.
‘And you don’t know what this is like.’ Ruby spoke firmly, interrupting her. ‘And I hope to God that you never, ever find out. Joe would not want you out here. Joe would want you safe. That much I do know.’
What do you know? Joe met Aunt Lizzie and Uncle Alan at Mum’s funeral and he thought they were arseholes. He would understand.
She watched Ruby walk back through the station, feeling the last of her optimism evaporate. She looked around and decided to find a place to spend the night – a bench, a corner, there had to be somewhere she could curl up with her suitcase. It was as she was dragging her case away from the taxi rank that two policemen approached her, one talking into his walkie-talkie and the other speeding up a little, as if sensing that she might run.
Fat chance with this suitcase.
Looking past them, she saw Ruby skulking in the shadows. Ruby had told on her!
Ruby lifted her hand and gave a small wave. Anna turned her back, ignoring the gesture and swallowing the bitter tang of disappointment. She’d thought Ruby was her friend. Some friend.
6
‘Everyone!’
Anna looked up from the table where she sat tapping the biro against her teeth, trying to remember how to work out the long-division problem in front of her. It was an issue. When she was in the classroom she understood everything that her patient maths teacher, Mrs Brownlee, explained, but once she was back at Mead House and trying to do her homework, her mind went blank. The constant background chatter of the care-home recreation room made it hard to concentrate. And her thoughts often wandered, filling her head with images of her mum trying to teach her her times tables all those years ago. ‘Concentrate, Anna Bee! Come on! Repeat after me: one times seven is seven, two times seven is...’ As a consequence, something that had seemed pretty simple only hours earlier, under the beady eye of Mrs Brownlee, now left her feeling completely flummoxed. The mustering call from Junior, one of the care-home workers, was therefore a welcome distraction.
Anna glanced up and stared at the girl standing next to Junior. She was new, and she looked angry. She had rage in her eyes and a restlessness to her stance. Her fingers danced on wide thighs wrapped in faded spray-on jeans. She kept looking towards the exit, as if trying to work out how to escape.
Anna remembered being in the same position a year and a half ago, newly arrived at Mead House and very frightened. But Anna hadn’t been angry like this girl – she’d been quietly resigned, almost indifferent by that point, scarred by her aunt’s rejection of her and embarrassed, if not wholly surprised, that she hadn’t managed a single night as a runaway. When she was eventually brought to Mead House she’d understood that her fate was sealed and that this was where she would stay until she turned eighteen – in care, in Leytonstone, east London.
Some of the detail around that time was a little sketchy, but she remembered being driven to a police station, remembered feeling furious with Aunt Lizzie for having reported her missing and furious with Ruby for having scuppered her plans to break free. But now that she was older and more streetwise she could see that Ruby had acted with love. She’d been right, Waterloo station was no place for her. Ruby had saved her, really, and Anna wanted to thank her and tell her that she was sorry she hadn’t waved back. She kept an eye out for Ruby whenever she was up town, lovely Ruby Red Shoes, but she hadn’t found her yet.
Social services had picked her up from the police station and the next day Aunt Lizzie and Uncle Alan came down to London and they all sat in a meeting somewhere in Marylebone. Her aunt could barely look at her and her mouth was pursed so tight it was no more than a dot. Anna remembered how horrible it had felt that these people, however well-meaning, were the people making decisions about her life. Her life! People who didn’t know her, didn’t know her mum or Joe, didn’t know the first thing about her. She’d felt like a passenger, with no say over what happened next. I was carried along like sticks on a river. And it felt horrible.
It was agreed that allowing her to stay in London, her home city, was in her best interests. That was at least something, Anna had to admit. The simple truth was that her aunt didn’t want her because she didn’t like her and that was that. The only one who cared was Jordan. He’d phoned his mum and had insisted on talking to Anna, sobbing snottily and theatrically down the line. ‘Anna!’ he’d sniffed. ‘No, Anna! Please come home!’
‘I can’t, Jord. I just can’t, but I will miss you.’
‘I will miss you too. You have to write to me, okay?’
‘Okay.’
She said a stilted goodbye to her aunt, holding herself stiffly inside the insipid hug she offered. Uncle Alan avoided eye contact and patted his ruddy cheeks with his white cotton handkerchief, looking flustered. For Anna this was worse than if he’d remained impassive – did he really have nothing to say? At least Jordan had tried.
‘Try and look at this as an opportunity, Anna,’ her aunt said as they stood beside the shiny blue car in the car park. ‘I think it’s best for everyone that we set you on the right path now. It would be harder for you to come home with us and get really attached. I tried, Lord knows I did, but to have you run away was really the last straw. I was beside myself.’
There was a quiver to her aunt’s chin, but Anna had noted the lightness to her step and wasn’t about to credit her with any genuine change of heart. She stared at her, speechless, counting the seconds till she would be out of her life for ever.
‘Everyone!’ Junior shouted his call to attention this time, snapping Anna’s attention back to the present. His deep, booming, South African baritone had the desired effect. The younger kids stopped chasing each other around the sofas and one of the older boys even looked up from the TV screen. ‘Can I grab your attention for a moment?’ he asked, letting his gaze sweep the room until all eyes were on the girl.
‘This is Shania.’
‘Sha-neye-aar!’ One of the younger boys repeated her name with a feminine lilt, which made his mates laugh, as he’d intended.
Anna saw the flare of Shania’s nostrils and watched her fingers form tightly balled fists. Her fury, she could see, was ready to surface at the slightest provocation.
‘I want you to all please make Shania welcome and show her what a lovely bunch you are.’ Junior smiled. ‘Anna, Shania will be sharing with you. Her stuff’s being taken up now.’
‘I don’t want to share with her!’ Shania growled. ‘I need my own room!’
Anna cocked her head in confusion. She’d assumed that the girl, who looked to be a couple of years younger than her, about fourteen, would be grateful
to have her as a roommate. She kept her space tidy and was known for being quiet and without too many unattractive habits. She had assumed – wrongly, as it turned out – that it would be her prerogative to feel put out at having to share her room with this feisty newcomer.
‘I’ve already told you that’s not possible, Shania, but you will have your own space and Anna will, I’m sure, be the very best roomie. Anna?’
‘Yes?’ She was aware she’d been staring.
‘Would you please take Shania upstairs, show her where she’ll be sleeping and sort out some drawer space?’
She noted Junior’s subtle wink, an attempt to get her on side, she suspected, and show her that he considered her ready to take this responsibility. He needn’t have worried. She was happy to show the girl upstairs, and she felt for her. Being the centre of attention and being talked about had probably made Shania feel even more uncomfortable. She closed her maths book and gathered her things under her arm.
Shania followed her up the stairs, stomping her feet angrily. She didn’t respond to the smile Anna cast over her shoulder at the bend in the stairs. This didn’t bode well.
Anna pushed open the door to her room – their room. ‘This is your bed.’ She let her hand trail in the direction of the second bed, only six feet away from hers. It had been freshly made and the books and clothes that she usually stored on the mattress had been cleared away.
‘Just so you know, I’m not staying here.’ Shania sat down hard on the bed with her arms folded across her chest. ‘So don’t bother!’
‘Okay.’ Anna sat on her own bed. She instinctively understood that it wasn’t worth challenging Shania.
‘My mum’s coming to get me. Or my dad,’ Shania added, with little conviction. ‘In fact, if my dad finds out I’m here, he’ll go mental! He’ll come and get me, and it will all kick off, and my mum better fucking hide then.’ Shania ground her teeth, her breath coming in quick bursts.
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