by Ruth Thomas
‘Perhaps there’s another empty house,’ said Nathan, hopefully.
‘Let’s look,’ said Julia.
Outside the station it was beginning to get dark. There were no houses, empty or otherwise, only high brick walls and, on the other side of the road, the green paling surrounding a huge building site. The cranes inside the building site towered over the top of the paling.
‘Shall we see if we can get in there?’ said Julia.
They crossed the road and walked around the building site, trying to find a way in. Through little cracks they could see that part, at least, of the area inside was roofed over. The floor looked dirty and hard, but at least there was shelter. ‘There must be some way in,’ said Julia, reasonably. ‘The builders got to get in, haven’t they!’
Suddenly they came to a little space. Not very wide, just big enough for them to slip through one at a time. There was a woman walking her dog, but no one else in sight. Julia and Nathan walked on slowly past the opening until the woman had passed. Then they doubled back quickly, and dived through. ‘We made it,’ said Nathan, grinning for the first time that evening.
They chose a pillar to lie behind, and cleared a space of rubble. They couldn’t clear away quite all the lumps, and the hard floor was dismayingly cold. Julia’s sharp eyes spotted a pile of old sacks in a far corner. She went across and fetched two, to make some sort of bed.
‘What about me?’ said Nathan.
‘You can get your own,’ said Julia. ‘I’m not your slave.’
The sacks were very dirty, but it was better than freezing. The children wriggled in them, trying to get comfortable.
‘I don’t like it here,’ said Julia, after a while. ‘It’s spooky. I can’t go to sleep.’
‘Shut up,’ said Nathan, sourly.
‘No, I shan’t shut up,’ said Julia. ‘I don’t like Euston. And I don’t like running away. I thought I did but I don’t now. It’s all horrible and scary. . . . What was that?’
There was a noise that could have been footsteps over towards the opening into the building site. Terrified, Julia clutched at Nathan.
‘Keep still,’ whispered Nathan, but he was scared too.
‘Somebody’s coming! Oh Nathan, I don’t like it. Let’s run, let’s run!’
‘Sh-sh-sh.’
‘It might be a robber, come to steal my money.’
‘Sh-sh-sh, they gone now. I think they gone.’ How could he be sure though? Nathan swallowed the lump of fear in his throat.
‘I want to go home,’ said Julia in a small voice.
‘We can’t, said Nathan, suddenly wishing very much that they could.
‘Yes we can. Why can’t we? I don’t care if my mum beats me. Anything’s better than this.’
‘But we done it now. We run away, didn’t we. We made it worse. Whatever they was going to do to us before, they going to do worse now.’
‘What, though? What can they do?’
‘I dunno. Something bad though. Very bad.’
‘Oh Nathan, don’t say that!’
‘They going to be so angry though. I can’t think about how angry they going to be, it makes me feel all funny in my belly.’
Julia began to cry.
‘No use crying. Come on, Rat-bag, stop crying, that ain’t going to help. Listen, we’ll go somewhere else tomorrow. Somewhere good.’
‘Where is there good to go?’
Nathan considered. His fertile imagination had begun to build a lovely, fantastic dream – but he wasn’t ready to share that yet, and anyway it was only a dream. ‘Let’s go to the seaside,’ he said. The seaside was part of his dream, but it had its own merits too.
‘Oh yes,’ said Julia, forgetting some of her fright. ‘Let’s do that, Nathan.’
The thought of going to the seaside was quite soothing. It distracted her mind from the eerie sounds, both real and imaginary, all around them. Distracted it too from the hardness of the ground and the dank odour of the sacks, and the smarting of her grazed knees. She slept a bit, and so did Nathan. The hours of darkness passed.
After a restless night they finally woke – stiff, cold, and hungry again. And scared. They were really on their own now, weren’t they? It was them against the world.
‘What seaside shall we go to?’ said Julia, bravely.
‘I dunno. Any seaside.’
‘I went to Brighton once. On a coach. Shall we go to Brighton?’
‘All right. I don’t mind.’ Nathan had never seen the sea, only read about it. Any seaside would do for him.
The children were silent, thinking about Brighton. It was lovely, at the seaside. Even Nathan, who had never been there, knew that. Once they go to the seaside, everything would be all right.
‘Let’s get up now,’ said Nathan.
They stood up, and brushed themselves down with their hands. They felt dreadfully scruffy, having slept in their clothes all night. They made their way towards the opening in the green paling almost falling as they did so over a pile of rags that had not been there the night before.
The pile of rags stirred, sat up, and leered at them through a matted growth of filthy beard. It was a disgusting old tramp. Horrified, the children ran – though the tramp was clearly harmless.
‘He smelled,’ said Julia, with a shudder.
‘That’s ‘cause he don’t never wash.’
‘I didn’t wash last night. I shall smell like that soon.’
‘You don’t smell, Julia.’
‘No, but I shall.’ The thought was clearlly troubling her. She found the Ladies’ toilet in the station and stood hesitantly in front of the wash-basin. Even at that early hour, there were people coming in and out, so she couldn’t wash properly. She splashed her face and hands, and that made her feel a bit better. She had forgotten to pack a comb in the plastic bag, so had to make do with smoothing her tangled hair with her fingers. She undid her plaits and did them up again more neatly. Looking in the mirror at her bleary face, she thought she looked awful. ‘I’m really ugly,’ she thought, not for the first time. ‘No wonder my mum doesn’t like me.’
Julia and Nathan breakfasted off Danish pastries and more Coca-Cola. There were crowds of people in the station by now. ‘Shall we get our tickets for Brighton?’ said Julia. ‘You get them this time, Nathan – it’s your turn.’
Encouraged by Julia’s easy success the day before, Nathan approached the ticket office window without concern. ‘Two half tickets to Brighton,’ he said, confidently.
‘To where?’ the ticket man said, thinking he hadn’t heard properly.
‘Brighton. Two halves please,’ said Nathan.
‘Wrong station mate,’ said the ticket man. ‘You want to go to Victoria to get a train for Brighton.’
‘How do I get to Victoria?’
The ticket man looked at Nathan sharply. ‘Two halves, you said? To Brighton? Two kids on your own, is it?’
‘Yes. I mean no, no. Me and my mum. My mum’s over there.’
‘Your mum travels on a half ticket, does she?’
‘No. I don’t want two halves. I want a whole ticket and a half ticket. I made a mistake before.’
‘And your mum doesn’t know the trains to Brighton go from Victoria? Just a minute, sonny.’
The ticket man turned and said something to another official in the ticket office behind him. The other man got up and moved forward. And Nathan ran.
Head forward, legs going like engine pistons, Nathan charged into the crowd moving towards the stairs which led to the Underground. Seeing him go, and terrified of losing him, Julia charged after him. The crowd carried both children along with it. There was a confusion of escalators and passages. At one point there was a ticket barrier – but there were so many people surging through that the woman who was supposed to be examining the tickets had given up trying to check everyone.
They were on a tube train, and the train was gliding out of the station. There were no free seats, so they had to stand. Julia was separate
d from Nathan by a fat businessman and a crowd of chattering typists going to work. She held on to one of the hanging straps as the train lurched and swayed. Nathan was too small to reach a strap, but he was held upright anyway by the pressure of bodies all around him. A few stations later, when the train stopped, Nathan thrust his way through the bodies and on to the platform. With trembling legs, and in a near panic, Julia followed him.
‘Come on,’ Nathan urged her.
Julia stood, bewildered. Nathan punched her in the back to get her going again, and they surged with the crowd through more passages, up and down more escalators, riding on more trains. It was a nightmare.
At last they were on a train that was comfortably half empty, and they found seats next to each other. ‘Where we going, Nathan?’ said Julia, piteously. Her heart was thumping painfully, and she felt all the strength had drained out of her, from fright and exertion.
Nathan peered around him stealthily, squinting through the cracked lens. ‘It’s all right,’ he pronounced at last. ‘There’s nobody following. It was a near thing though,’ he added, grimly. ‘We nearly got caught.’
In fact, nobody had bothered to give any sort of chase from Euston, but it was exciting to think they might have.
‘Is this the train for Brighton?’ Julia asked.
‘Nah. We got to get to Victoria first.’
‘Is this train going to Victoria then?’
‘Nah. I dunno. I dunno where it’s going.’
They got out at the next stop. The name of the station was Bank. ‘Is this Victoria?’ said Julia.
‘Nah. I told you. We have to find out how to get to Victoria. We have to look at the Underground map and work out how to get there. It’s not hard – I done it before.’
Nathan worked out the route, and they started their journey again on the trains that rumbled through the tunnels beneath the streets of London.
Now that they had attention to spare, Nathan noticed a sign on the side of the carriage which said that anyone found travelling without a ticket was in dead trouble, or words to that effect.
‘I dunno how we going to get out,’ he admitted to Julia. ‘We haven’t got no tickets, and they’ll ask to see them at the barrier.’
‘Can’t we get out the same way we got in?’ said Julia. ‘I mean – can’t we push through with a lot of other people?’
At Victoria they hung back until there was a crowd going through the barrier. Then they pushed in behind some grown-ups who looked as though they might be their parents, and as before the ticket collector didn’t bother to count. They were through.
Julia was in no hurry to get the tickets for Brighton. Instinct warned her that there was danger in just walking up to the booth and asking for them. It was her turn, but Nathan had run into trouble and so might she. For some reason, grown-ups didn’t expect children to be travelling to Brighton on their own. Perhaps because it was a long way. ‘I want to think,’ said Julia. ‘I want to think of a good story.’
The children wandered round the shops and stalls inside Victoria main line station. They drank Coke, and Julia bought a little roll of sticky tape with which to mend her torn dress, because she thought it would look odd to be travelling all the way to Brighton in ragged clothes. Then she went to the chemist’s to get a comb. She thought her hair must be looking very untidy, and people would notice.
And in the chemist’s, Julia had her inspiration.
There it all was on display – lipstick, eye shadow, rouge, the lot! Julia knew what all the things were for, she had seen her mother using them often enough. She felt a bit silly doing it, but she made herself pick up some of each – any old colours, the first to hand – and take them to the counter. ‘They’re for my sister,’ she explained, but the sales assistant was not really interested.
Feeling quite excited, Julia took her purchases into the Ladies’ toilet, leaving Nathan sulking on the platform because she wouldn’t tell him what she was going to do. There were a number of women in the outer part of the toilet, so Julia was glad she had remembered to buy a small hand mirror. She locked herself in one of the compartments, propped the little mirror on the seat, against the pipes, and knelt on the floor. With unpractised fingers, she made up her face as best she could. As nearly as she could tell, peering this way and that into the tiny mirror, the result didn’t look bad. She undid her plaits and combed out the thin, sand-coloured hair. It fell over her shoulders in little crimped waves. She had nothing to tie it back with, so it was over her face rather – but older girls often did wear their hair like that. She mended her dress with the sticky tape, and went self-consciously to find Nathan.
On her way out, Julia glanced at her face in the big mirrors over the washbasins, and her heart beat with excitement. She really looked nice.
Nathan was still waiting on the platform, and for a moment, he didn’t recognize her.
‘It’s me,’ said Julia, shyly.
‘What you done that for? Put that stuff on your face for?’ She couldn’t tell from his expression what he thought about it – but at least he wasn’t actually laughing at her.
‘Don’t you like it?’
‘It’s all right. . . . It’s good, you look older.’
‘I know,’ said Julia. ‘It’s to buy the tickets.’
Nathan frowned. ‘The dress looks wrong,’ he said.
‘I know,’ said Julia. ‘It’ll do for the ticket man though, won’t it? He’ll only see my face.’
Nathan considered. ‘They’ll see you on the train – and when we get the other end. Why don’t you buy some different clothes?’
‘Shall I?’ said Julia, not sure that she would have the nerve.
‘Yeah, go on, go on!’
Julia ran back to the toilet to get more notes out of the plastic bag around her waist. She didn’t know how much the new clothes were going to cost, but she took three notes out to be on the safe side.
The children found a small boutique near the station. It looked a very grown-up sort of shop, and when it came to actually going inside, Julia’s courage failed her.
‘Go on,’ said Nathan, ‘what you waiting for?’
‘I don’t like to.’
‘Go on, I’ll help you.’
Julia still hesitated, so Nathan gave her a push. She stumbled into the shop, and now there was no going back. Julia took a deep breath. ‘We was looking for some things for my friend’s sister,’ she told the salesgirl, but the salesgirl was bored and not really paying attention, her mind on other things.
Between them, the children chose a loose pink blouse, with great big sleeves, and a dark blue skirt with a slit up the side. In another shop they bought sandals with little heels, and a cheap shoulder bag to match the skirt. Then back to the Ladies’ in Victoria Station, and Julia could not wait to get into her new finery.
This time, her glance in the mirror showed a complete transformation. With her height, and the make-up, and the new clothes, she looked sixteen at least. Wonderingly, she lingered by the mirror, turning from side to side, delighted by what she was seeing. She gave herself a small smile, and that made her look even better. Julia tottered out, on her little heels, to show Nathan.
‘Looks good,’ he said. He was grinning now, Julia could tell he was pleased. ‘Why don’t you get one of them bands, to put on your hair?’ he suggested, so they went to the chemist to find one.
In the shop window, Julia’s reflection showed her how badly she was stooping. The stoop was spoiling the effect of the new outfit. Julia pulled her shoulders back and held up her head. For the first time in her life, she was proud of her appearance.
The ticket man sold her one and a half tickets to Brighton, without a second glance.
6
Beside the seaside
They didn’t talk much on the journey. For one thing, there were other people in the carriage to overhear, and anyway there was so much to look at. All that green – it was another world from dusty, grey old London.
Thinking
about home was uncomfortable, so they tried not to do it, but every now and then the nasty sharp qualms shivered through them anyway. What awful, unforgiveable thing had they done? As the train carried them further, however, they remembered less and less often to be worried. And of course, they were going to the seaside, where everything was going to be all right.
It was early afternoon when the train arrived at Brighton. They were hungry, so they bought beefburgers and Cokes and ate them walking down the road to the sea. They were so anxious to get there, they couldn’t wait to have a proper meal. Julia, teetering on her little heels, soon found the pain too excruciating to bear. She could only take little mincing steps, and that was too slow. To keep up with Nathan, she had almost to run, and she was afraid of toppling over. So she took the sandals off, and put them in the plastic bag with her spare clothes. It was the seaside, wasn’t it! You were allowed to have bare feet at the seaside.
They could smell it before they could see it. The air was sharp, clean, different. A cool breeze met their faces as they hurried, cutting through the bright sunshine. And suddenly there was the sea in front of them, sparkling and endless, a million diamonds and emeralds under the clear blue sky. The children plunged over the pebbles towards the water’s edge.
‘Wait for me,’ Julia called. The hard pebbles were hurting her feet. By the time she reached him, Nathan had removed his own shoes and was paddling in the mild surf. ‘It’s cold,’ he squealed. He was staggered by his first sight of the sea. He had never quite grasped, in his imagination, that it was going to be so vast.
‘It’s lovely,’ said Julia, joining him in the water. They splashed about for a bit and then Julia said, ‘I wish we could swim. I wish I brought my costume.’
‘Why don’t you buy one?’ said Nathan.
‘Oh yeah, so I could. Where, do you think?’
‘There’s shops back there.’
Julia limped back over the pebbles and found a little shop that sold seaside things. To be in keeping with her sixteen-year-old image, Julia bought a brief striped bikini. She was a little shy about the idea of wearing it, but anxious to try it all the same.