The Lost Child

by Caryl Phillips

  I remember it was a Monday night when the two scouts from Pudsey Juniors turned up and knocked at the door. Mam was in her bedroom, and Tommy and me were watching telly, although I was also trying to do my homework at the same time. Tommy had a feeling some scouts might be around as he told me that two men had spoken to him after Sunday’s game and asked him where he lived. He’d scored twice and made the third goal, and according to him, he’d played a blinder. I called Mam and went back into the living room while she stood at the door and spoke to them both. Me and Tommy sat on the settee and looked at each other, and then we heard the door slam shut. Mam had a tube of lipstick in her hand as she came through into the living room. I told them no, you’re concentrating on your schoolwork, alright? Our Tommy nodded his head. And besides, we’ve already spoken about you playing for Uncle Derek’s team, haven’t we? She puckered up without waiting for an answer, and then lobbed the lipstick onto the sideboard. For heaven’s sake, be good. And don’t be up when I get back. She snatched up her coat and closed in the door behind her, and it was then that our Tommy began to cry. A single tear ran down the full length of his cheek, and eventually he pulled himself together enough to speak to me. She says Uncle Derek’s involved with Scott Hall Juniors, and he wants me to play for them. But they’re crap, I said. There was no need for me to say that, but I couldn’t help myself, and it just slipped out. What I really wanted to say was I could tell the beady-eyed bastard wasn’t treating Mam right, for she always made an effort to look nice for him, but he still had a wife. He was just using her to get at Tommy, for he liked nothing more than to impress kids, and football was his way of doing so. Without football he was nothing but a sad, desperate balding fucker who liked rambling on the moors with an anorak and compass, and he knew it. Our Tommy said nothing, and he just got up and went out. I heard the front door click shut, and I knew that he’d be off down the garages with his football until it got too dark to see.

  I began to think about what exactly Steve Pamphlet might have meant when, earlier in that week, he’d asked me, How many uncles have you got? I was going to smack him, but I didn’t want him to think that I was bothered because I knew he thought he was better than me. If United were at home on a Saturday, he usually went to watch the match, and he always bragged about this. So, on the following Saturday, I decided to spend some of my church money and take myself off to watch United for the first time. At halftime they played “Band of Gold” really loudly out of the speakers. I’d never heard music played that loud, and I loved it. Not just the loudness, but the fact that the song was telling a story. But now I had a dilemma. I had enough money so that I could actually buy the record if I wanted to, instead of nicking it from the open market. I was a bit torn as to what to do.

  “Ride a White Swan”—T. Rex

  We stood together outside of the Civic Hall with the other kids and their parents and waited for the coach to come and pick us up. Mam never asked Tommy and me if we wanted to go to the seaside; it was just announced. We were going, and that was that, and we’d be spending two weeks at Silverdale Holiday Camp near Morecambe. I could tell by the type of kids who were waiting for the bus that this was a trip for poor people. They were the type of lads and lasses who were plagued with boils and spots, and who queued for free dinners at school, and who knew all about dodging the rent man or going down to the post office to pick up the family allowance money. And we were no better. I was nearly fourteen, and the emotion I was most familiar with—besides anger, that is—was shame. Mam tried to act all upbeat while we waited for the coach, but there was no getting around the fact that she was letting us go again. However, at least this time it wasn’t to a foster home. It was obvious that her nerves were not getting any better, and we could tell that she needed a rest. These days, she seemed really thin, and she’d begun to act even more weird than normal. We knew that we weren’t allowed in her bedroom, but now she was always asking us straight out, Have you been going in that bedroom when I’m not here? Of course we hadn’t. Why would we? But it felt wrong that she should be shouting at us and accusing us of something we hadn’t done. And then there were the nights that we had to spend by ourselves in the flat. In the morning we’d be having our Weetabix in the kitchen, and in she’d come, wearing the same clothes that we’d last seen her in, and she’d rush by us, stinking of cigarette smoke, and we’d carry on spooning the Weetabix into our mouths as we listened to her clumping about in her bedroom. We both assumed she’d been out with Derek Evans, but it wasn’t for us to ask.

  Every morning I’d make sure that Tommy’s school uniform had been ironed, and that he’d had some breakfast, and then I’d check that he’d got his school bag and make sure that he set off on time. Clearly he was old enough that he should have been able to look out for himself, but I’d noticed that after Mam told the football scouts where to go, something in him changed, and it was like he’d kind of given up. He was still wetting the bed, but he’d learned to take the sheet off by himself and rinse it through in the bathtub. Then he’d hang it on the wooden clotheshorse so that it would be dry by the time he got back from school, which was always later than me because he had football practise every night of the week: twice for school and three times for Scott Hall Juniors, as Derek Evans had got him to agree to play for them. Mam told Tommy that it was nearer and more convenient, but we both knew that our Tommy was the best player on their team, and they were lucky to get him, and if it wasn’t for Mam, he’d be playing for Pudsey Juniors. But Tommy didn’t really want to talk about this, any more than he wanted to talk about Derek Evans, who, when he wasn’t hanging around in the kitchen waiting for Mam, had taken to chauffeuring our Tommy around like he was some kind of footballing god. Apparently so-called Uncle Derek was a bird-watcher, and he kept a huge pair of binoculars in his car, and if he spotted a bird that he liked, he’d pull over and spend ages just looking up in the trees. I could tell that the dickhead was trying to impress our Tommy, for my brother nearly always came back home with a small bottle of Lucozade, which Derek Evans claimed would give Tommy energy, but the biggest upshot of all this attention was our Tommy got a brand-new pair of Adidas boots with screw-in studs and a black Adidas holdall for his kit.

  As we waited for the coach, Mam lit a cigarette, then put on her helpless face. I know they’re no good for me, and I’m going to give them up, but I just need a bit of help right now. Neither me nor Tommy said anything. Anyhow, this will give you both a chance to see the sea for the first time, and it’ll give me a chance to get my strength back. As she spoke to us, her eyes jumped this way and that, as though she was afraid that somebody was looking at her. And then I realized what it was. She felt abashed standing up in the street with the pair of us. I could tell that she couldn’t wait for the coach to arrive, but I didn’t say anything. I just hoped that Tommy could keep it together until she’d gone. Don’t cry, our Tommy. I was the one who’d have to look after him for the next two weeks, and looking at these lads, I could tell that there might be some rowdy stuff. Some of them looked like they were fourth formers, fifteen-year-olds, so I’d be giving up over a year if it came to a fight. I tried not to think too much about this, as it was too worrying, and then I saw the coach coming around the corner, and Mam threw her fag down on the ground and started to mash the stub into the pavement. Come on, smarten yourselves up a bit. You two be good, she said as she hugged us both together. You’ll be fine as these are fully qualified people, but just make sure you write and let me know how it is, and don’t you be getting into any trouble. I’d arranged for somebody to take over the paper round, and Father Hanson had got his alternative altar boy lined up, so nobody would miss me. That’s what I was thinking as the coach pulled away and I looked out of the window and waved at Mam. Nobody will miss me.

  It took forever to get to Silverdale; that’s about all I remember of the journey. I kept nodding off, but every time I opened my eyes we were still driving and my bladder was full to bursting as I was dying to go to the toi
let. I was sitting on both of my hands, but eventually we stopped at a big garage that had a café attached to it, and we were told to form a single line and wait our turn to use their facilities. Our Tommy said he didn’t want to go, but it was obvious that they wanted everyone off the coach, and so he just got to his feet and didn’t say anything else. As we were climbing back on board, Derek Evans was at the front, handing everyone a crab apple and a cheese sandwich wrapped in greaseproof paper. Alright, Ben. Alright, Tommy. Your mam says I’m to keep an eye on you two, so don’t you be worrying yourselves; there’ll be no problems. You’ll have a nice time. As the coach pulled out and into the traffic, I asked our Tommy if he knew that Derek Evans would be coming along too in his own car. He shrugged his shoulders. What’s that supposed to mean? It means that Uncle Derek said he goes every year, and he says that you can bank on everybody having an ace time. An ace time? I think he might be having you on. Well, do you believe him? Our Tommy never answered me.

  They bullied Tommy at the camp, and I didn’t do anything about it. Neither, as far as I could see, did Derek Evans, who always managed to make himself scarce every time he saw me coming. Good job too because I was already dreaming about chinning him and knocking that cocky little smile off his face, even though I knew Mam would go spare if I started anything. But if Mr. Bleeding Bird-watcher cared so much, why didn’t he do something for our kid when he got called names? It didn’t matter how good Tommy was at football: they laid into him and gave him the treatment, which usually meant rubbing chewing gum into his hair, or spitting in his glass of water and making him drink it, or just smacking him around. On the other hand, I suddenly found myself being quite popular. I had a bit of money in my pocket, I knew about music, I wasn’t that bad at football, and I had a pair of Levi’s that I took off only at night, when I went to sleep on the top deck of a bunk bed from where I could look down and see everything that was going on. They put Tommy in a different dormitory, so it was hard for me to keep an eye on him, so I suppose I shouldn’t blame myself too much. However, even though I could sense that he was having a difficult time, Tommy chose to say nothing to me about the bullying, and it was only later that he let on to me what had been going on, but by then it was too late to do anything about it. Whenever I ran into him at the camp, he looked like some little lost boy you wanted to hug. There was nothing in his eyes. No light, no nothing, but what was I meant to do, give him a pat on the head and a cuddly toy? He should have said something. One day he did tell me that he’d like it if I could buy a postcard so we could send it to Mam, and I said I’d get one, but I never did. I just hoped that he wouldn’t mention it again, and sure enough, he didn’t.

  In the mornings they left us alone to run around in the boggy fields that were surrounded by crumbling stone walls. In the afternoons we were taken down to the beach, where some of the younger kids started digging to Australia, which was a really popular game, but I used to wander off and stare at the worn-out donkeys giving rides on the beach, or gawp at the big dipper at the funfair or the tubby ladies sitting in deck chairs in their baggy bathing costumes. My favourite thing of all was to listen to the military band that would strike up in the bandstand at exactly three-thirty every afternoon, although I could never work out why they always finished off with a sing-along of “O Come All Ye Faithful” given that there was still five months to go until Christmas. After that I’d go back to the beach and take off my plimsolls and socks and stand right where the water stopped rushing, so that the sea licked my toes and I could pretend that it was a dog that I owned who would never leave my side. And then it would be time to go back to Silverdale.

  There was an older boy and a girl in charge of our dormitory. Peter and Rachel. They said they were eighteen, and it was clear they fancied each other as they were always smiling when they were around one another. Peter liked T. Rex, and he used to whistle their songs. I could tell that he thought he looked like Marc Bolan, but his hair was too short, and he wore glasses. However, he did put glitter on his face, and I liked that. I can’t speak for the others, but I had a soft spot for Rachel, who had beautiful hair and a pink woollen bobble hat that set it off nicely. I used to like to be around her whenever she was in the dormitory talking to us, but if I looked too long at her, I could feel myself colouring up. She’d tell us to make our beds, but mine was always made. When it rained and we had to sit inside and play board games, I’d always try and sit near her, but it was no use. It was obvious that if it wasn’t Peter, it would be some other older lad that was going to come along and snatch her up before I had a chance, but I tried not to feel too cheesed off. Rachel looked at me a lot. Well, at everybody really, but she was the first person that I can remember who smiled at me and maybe meant it.

  “All the Young Dudes”—Mott the Hoople

  The thing I remember most about the summer after we went to Silverdale was Mam descending into a kind of madness. I’m not sure if I can explain it any better than that. “All the Young Dudes,” was always playing on the radio. It was a pop song that sounded like something you’d play at a funeral. I liked it a lot and became a bit obsessed with it. The song was always snaking through my head, rolling around from one ear to the other, and it made me think of a woman dancing and slowly turning her hips. I suppose that’s the sort of thing that fourteen-year-old boys think about, or at least this fourteen-year-old used to think like that. Our Tommy never cared much for pop music, and so he probably never even heard the song. The Munich Olympics would come later, but the summer started out the same way that every summer started out, with Tommy spending every waking hour kicking a ball up against the garages. There were only six of them to serve all the flats, but then again the council was not stupid. They knew that most people on the estate wouldn’t have a car, and those that did would be happy to just park it on the road. The names of the cars back then sounded so glamorous. They still do. Cortinas, Capris, Avengers, Zodiacs, Zephyrs. However, the cars on our estate were never new, but if you had a car, it meant that you were doing alright. That said, most people who had a car had more sense than to pay the council fifty pence a week to rent a poxy garage, especially when the rent for a two-bedroom flat was just under four pounds. I knew this because it was my job to take the rent book and an envelope of money down to the council office every Saturday morning. No bloke in his right mind was going to pay an extra ten bob a week for a garage when he could take that cash and get blathered down The Squinting Cat and still have change.

  After the two weeks we spent at Silverdale, Tommy came back, and after he’d eventually told me some of what went on there, he just clammed up, and he wouldn’t talk anymore. For the whole year he always looked like he was about to bawl, and I could tell that he wasn’t his true self. Twelve months later, and not much had changed with our Tommy, who would get up in the morning and take his football and go and boot it up against the garage doors until it got too dark, or until one of the neighbours got riled and shouted at him and told him to fucking stop it or he’d have him. Oi, cut it out. The noise is fucking killing me. Which is pretty much what Mam would say to me as she got ready to go out. Except she wouldn’t swear, of course. Ben, can you turn off that radio now? It’s doing my head in. We have got a telly, you know. That summer I remember she started to wear a kind of garish pink lipstick, but I don’t remember her ever doing her fingernails. Go on, turn it off, for heaven’s sake. I’d usually just turn it down, and that would put an end to her complaining. We were good at making truces and not letting things get out of control, but there were times when she’d just get on my tits. However, more often than not, I’d say nothing and just pick up the transistor and go and sit with it in the kitchen and wait for my song to come on again. Derek Evans had broken Mam’s heart when he gave her back the key to the flat. These days I didn’t have any idea who she was going out with. I did, however, know that our Tommy would be down the road kicking his football up against the doors of the empty garages and keeping his own counsel.

  �
�School’s Out”—Alice Cooper

  Our Tommy disappeared the same summer that they had the Olympics in Munich, West Germany. I used to watch every day, mainly the athletics and the swimming, and I remember all the excitement over Mark Spitz and Dave Wottle and Lasse Virén, and then the sudden confusion when the athletes were killed. I was confused too. Towards the end of the summer our Tommy eventually stopped kicking his ball up against the garages, and he started up training again at Scott Hall Juniors. Then one stormy night he was away at football practise, and he never came back. I didn’t know what to do, as Mam was out, so I lay in bed listening to the wind and rain and tried to get my head around who our Tommy might have gone to stay with. He had his football mates, and I thought maybe he’d gone off with one of them, but I didn’t know them, and I didn’t much care to either. Brian, Luke, Graham: I just knew their names, but we didn’t have a phone in the flat, so he couldn’t call us up to let us know where he was, and anyhow, I doubt if his football mates had phones in their houses. Derek Evans usually ran him back home from training in his car, but I had no idea how to get in touch with that prat, so I just lay on top of the blanket and stared at the wall.