Disappearing Home

by Deborah Morgan

  ‘What can you see? Tell me.’

  He stands. ‘Remember, Jack was a welterweight, but quick, quick, like this.’ He sniffs. Fists tucked under his chin. Weaves his head from side to side, up and down, like a window cleaner’s rag.

  The kitchen door opens. Nan brings us a plate of chips and two slices of buttered bread each.

  Chris tears off the end of his cigarette, throws it in the fire; hides the other half behind his ear. Nan shakes her head at Chris, puts the plate on his knee, gives me a smile. ‘Make yourselves a chip butty before they get cold.’

  Nellie brings out the same for her and Nan to share.

  Once we’ve finished Chris stands up, swaying, taps one side of his nose at me.

  Nellie takes the empty plates into the kitchen. ‘You still want me to help you, May?’

  ‘Robyn can help me now she’s awake. Chris looks tired; you two get yourselves off home.’

  After they’ve gone Nan calls me into her room. I can see two cardboard boxes: one is already full. ‘You can give me a hand for a few minutes if you want.’

  ‘Did you get the keys?’

  ‘I’m getting them tomorrow. So I believe. If it happens, you can come down as soon as I’m settled.’

  Nan believes whatever life throws at you, you just have to deal with it the best way you can. She believes that television is a curse, and, once a week, lemon curd sandwiches can be eaten for tea. She hands me a white paper bag then snatches it back before I grab hold. I know her game, played it a hundred times over, but I don’t feel like playing. Not tonight. ‘Go on, guess.’ Something in her voice changes my mind. She hides the bag behind her back.

  ‘Pear drops?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Bull’s eyes?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Chocolate éclairs?’

  ‘No. Think nappies.’

  ‘Jelly babies?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Which hand?’

  I choose left.

  She hands me the bag.

  ‘You’ll get a room of your own, when I’m gone.’

  While we chew, she shows me how to start wrapping with the cup in the corner of the newspaper then roll. Tuck what’s left over inside. When she’s sure I know what I’m doing, we take a pair of matching cups and saucers. She tells me this is all that’s left from a full tea set, a wedding gift from her mother. ‘In Belfast my mam and her mam would solve the world’s problems over a cup of tea.’

  She shows me a white shirt she’s kept that belonged to Jack. ‘This was the last one I remember him wearing, before he went back to war. Look, nearly every button cracked when I rolled it through the mangle, me worrying about replacing them before he came home.’

  ‘What war?’

  ‘The last war.’

  She lifts it up to her nose and smells. ‘Not so far away.’

  I find a bunch of letters, tied with an elastic band. Flick through them. They haven’t been opened. She takes them from me, holds them up in both hands, looks at them, name and address upside-down. It makes me think.

  ‘Do you want me to read them for you?’

  ‘I don’t need to hear them, the words. I just like to hold them.’

  ‘Where did you meet Jack?’

  ‘I’d just finished work, when I met him, waiting in a tram stop outside the Adelphi. I checked the time: I wanted to wash my hair before bed and the tram was late. When I looked up, there he was grinning like a lunatic in front of me.’

  ‘“Got time for a walk?” he said.

  ‘I couldn’t help smiling. “You’re a fast worker.”

  ‘“That’s me. I’m a fast one all right.”

  ‘Held out his arm to me and that was that.

  ‘On the way home, we walked through Stanley Park. It was a warm June night. I let myself do things with Jack that I hadn’t done in years, sat down next to him on the grass, rolled my stockings off. Let grass tickle my bare legs.

  ‘Let him push me, one hand behind his back on a swing. His warm hand against my corset.

  ‘I can remember everything about that night, an entire lifetime down to those few hours, like a slice of perfectly cut cake. I had found something that mattered, something real.’

  She looks around the room. ‘Is there anything you’d like?’

  There is a photograph, of her as a young woman. She sits side-on, a crucifix hanging from a thin chain. Her fringe creased into a wave. I pick it up.

  ‘That was taken in Jerome’s on London Road. I was working at the Adelphi, silver service, my day off. Vanity, I thought afterwards, when I heard about Jack in the war.’

  And she tells me what Jack had told her, and how he got used to the screams, and the sound of guns.

  ‘Can I write on the back of the photo in case I forget?’

  I go into the living room and get a pen. I write: My nan. Jerome’s London Road. Nan finds a frame for it and I stand it on the mantelpiece in the living room. She turns off the light.

  ‘Why did everything have to get dark?’

  ‘You mean the power cuts? That’s a good dark, love. Nothing to be scared of; it’s the poor people teaching the rich people a lesson. Sometimes you have to fight for things to be fair.’

  ‘Like you pestering the housing?’

  ‘That’s right. Lie down and say nothing, people will forget all about you. There are good fights and bad fights. Come on now, into bed before they get home.’

  I say goodnight and try to get some sleep. But Nan turns on the radio in her room too loud. I can hear it through the wall. A bomb has exploded on a coach. Twelve people have died, two of them are children. God forgive them, Nan says, killing innocent children.

  I’ll miss the way Nan barges into her own living room, late at night, refusing to be a visitor; tells both of them, who are resting their feet on her lino, to turn that contraption down. They look at her like she’s something they don’t need to see; unflushed pee in a pan. She looks right back at them like they are itchy sores. I try to find that look in my own eyes, so I can throw it at Angela.

  My dreams are of Jack surrounded by the deafening sound of gunfire, men either side of him wounded, or worse. Writing letters home that would never be read. I see the words:

  My Darling May,

  There is a possibility I’ll be home next month. We’ll go to Southport on the train …

  Possibility. The b stands to attention like Jack, when he first joined the army.

  6

  Stephen Foley has been chosen to take me to the headmaster’s office. In the corridor he grips my wrist with both hands. I snatch it away. ‘Get off me. I know where the office is.’

  Stephen looks hurt, like he’s just trying to make the best of the job he’s been given. I don’t care. I won’t let him touch me.

  Blackbeard comes out of the office with the dinner register. ‘What’ve you been up to?’ she asks.

  ‘Nothing,’ I say.

  When she walks away Stephen says, ‘I reckon you’ll get six of the best for nicking Angela’s vanity case. Sean Holmes got six of the worst for nicking fags out of Mrs Heraty’s bag. She’s a teacher, though.’

  When I tell him I don’t know what he’s talking about, he explains that six of the best means palms and lower fingers, while six of the worst means fingertips.

  He knocks at the office door. Mr Merryville is sitting with both shoes up on the desk, ankles crossed, swinging backwards on the legs of his chair. There are no windows in the room, just walls lined with important-looking books and files. In the corner by the door he has a tall filing cabinet. Right in the middle of each drawer there’s a card with three letters of the alphabet on it. Except for the bottom one, that has Y and Z. There are no kids in my class (or the whole school) that I can think of, whose second names begin with Y or Z. It’s probably empty.

  Mr Merryville’s eyes rest on Stephen.

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Foley, sir. Stephen Foley. Mr Thorpe sent me down with Robyn, sir.’ Stephen tur
ns to me. ‘Please, sir, here she is, sir, can I go back to class, sir?’

  I glance at quick-lipped Stephen and suck away a smile. Mr Merryville catches me and makes his eyes small. ‘Close the door properly, Foley, on your way out.’

  Once Stephen has gone, Mr Merryville turns to me. ‘So, you think stealing another’s property is funny, do you, Robyn?’

  I do not speak.

  He opens the drawer of his desk and takes out a thin wooden cane. I have read about it and him on the toilet walls.

  MERRYVILLE’S CANE TICKLES

  MERRYVILLE’S CANE IS MADE OF LIQUORICE

  MERRYVILLE IS A SAD SLAG

  MERRYVILLE GROWS SNOT IN HIS GOB

  Mr Merryville stands up, drapes his jacket across the back of a wooden chair. He wears a white shirt and a blue tie, printed with tiny, darker blue triangles. When he opens his mouth to speak, both corners of his lips are thick with spit. Green spit. He does not lick it away.

  ‘Hands.’

  I hold out my left hand.

  ‘Both of them.’

  ‘I’ve had stitches in the other one, sir.’

  ‘Still in?’

  ‘No, sir. Taken out last week.’

  ‘Hands.’

  I hold out both hands.

  Pacing up and down in front of me, he taps the cane into his palm. I can taste his breath in the musty air. He wears a gold signet ring on his little finger.

  Mr Dolly had a gold signet ring on his left middle finger. I noticed it during our drive to the hospital. He used the ring to tap out a rhythm on the wheel; it had four quick beats and one more, slightly further away. I was carrying an empty lemonade bottle around to Dolly’s shop. Mum had asked me to buy her a loosie and a match, with the money I got back. On the pavement outside the shop, I fell and dropped the bottle. My right palm slammed down into a chunk of glass.

  Behind the counter, Dolly was weighing cola cubes for a boy I’d seen around. The contents of the silver scale shushed into a white paper bag. Both corners of the bag were twisted out like ears. When she handed him the sweets she saw the blood all over her floor. On her tiptoes, she nosed over the counter.

  ‘Sorry. I fell over, there’s loads of glass outside as well.’

  She felt for the little bell under the counter and shook it wildly. Her husband came lolloping down the stairs, his dark beard curly, like the king of clubs. ‘Whoa there, Dolly, where’s the fire?’ he said.

  When he saw my hand he ran back upstairs to get a towel. He wrapped it around my hand while Dolly fetched his car keys. Dolly wrote down my address and sent the boy with the cola cubes to tell my mum.

  It was brilliant, sitting up front, totally different from riding on a bus. You could see everything. Stretched across the back seat was a long bag, with sticks poking out of the top.

  Inside the car it was warm. Mr Dolly’s glasses slipped further and further down his nose. At the lights, he pushed them back up again with his first finger. He looked in my direction now and then, asked me about my teacher, my friends. By accident, he turned on the windscreen wipers when we were taking a left turn, then explained the car was new, he’d only taken it out once before. I didn’t speak again, just in case he crashed.

  When we got to the hospital, my hand was throbbing and spots of blood had seeped through the towel. I didn’t want to get out of the car. I felt like Lady Penelope out of Thunderbirds, Mr Dolly my Parker.

  A doctor and a nurse looked at my hand. ‘You’re a brave girl,’ the nurse said. ‘I’ve seen kids with smaller scrapes than this take off the roof with their screams. Let’s get that glass out, then a few stitches; we’ll have you out of here quick as a flash.’

  Mr Merryville is quick as a flash. He beats the cane down again and again on my hands. Six of the best, my head lighter than it should be. Under my skin, I can feel the heat of a blazing fire. I can hear the cane whoop through the air as he speaks.

  ‘You are a perfect example of the evils of greed. A calculated act, without as much as a second thought for the person you were stealing from. There are places for people like you.’

  As he talks, the spit spreads, as if it’s trying to fasten itself across his mouth, both ends meeting in the middle, so all sound stops. ‘When you get back to class write out one hundred times, I shall not steal. Bring it to me at the end of the day. Tell your mother I want to see her.’

  One tear zigzags down my face, as if it’s unsure where it’s meant to be. I reach for the round brass door handle with a ringing in my ears, my fingers a spray of hammering wispy bulges. I can taste the fear of others who never got out. I try again, my fingers still won’t curl. I imagine him behind me smiling to himself. Close the door properly, Foley.

  I can’t think. How did the others get out? Perhaps some lay flat on the floor and used the soles of their shoes to twist the handle. They could have waited a whole morning for the feeling in their hands to return, Merryville grinning behind them. Did they use their dry lips to twist the brass handle? The accidental tap of teeth on metal unbearable, they could still be here, behind the shelves, inside walls, whispering their desperate stories of how they tried to escape.

  My eyes are drawn back to the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet, Y and Z. Young Zombies: the names of all of the kids that did something bad. All the kids still trapped somewhere in this room, names scribbled on bits of yellow card. If I don’t think of something fast, my name, Robyn Mason, will join them.

  Just as I run out of ideas, Stephen Foley opens the office door. ‘It’s Mr Thorpe, sir. He’s waiting to start the test, sir, maths, says he needs Robyn if you’re done, sir.’

  Once we are outside I kiss Stephen Foley on the cheek.

  His face goes red. He nods at my hands. ‘Let’s see?’

  I hold out my palms and he screws up his face.

  ‘He wants to see my mum.’

  ‘I wouldn’t tell my mum, she would kill me. And your dad?’

  I would never tell my dad. He’s bad enough even if you make too much noise moving around the flat. I’m scared to flush the toilet too loud. He gets a cob on for nothing, especially when he’s skint. I’d rather get the cane all over again than tell him I’ve been in trouble.

  ‘My mum would wrap the cane around his neck,’ I say.

  Stephen’s eyes grow big and he flashes me a smile.

  When Mum finally arrived at the hospital she went mad. ‘He didn’t lay a hand on you, did he? Dirty bastard.’ Her words pinched me. I shook my head. She said I should never get into a car with a stranger. With a shove in my back, she marched me towards the exit barging past Mr Dolly. She threw him a cool glance.

  I couldn’t help but look back and give him a smile. Palms up, he sent me a wriggly finger wave. When we reached the end of the corridor I looked again, and saw him flop down on a bench, sitting on his hands.

  A couple of weeks later, the scar looked like those waves we make between the lines, before our real handwriting practice starts. It edged my fingers like a frill.

  Carol sits down next to me on the stone steps of our block. Carol’s got a bike so when she plays out she usually rides off with the other kids who have bikes. I’ve played skipping with her once before, ages ago. She’s nice.

  I’m just home from school, but there’s nobody in. She’s been to the first landing to give Mrs Frost an envelope from her mum.

  ‘Locked out?’ she says. ‘Come over to ours to play.’

  We want six pence to buy two balls. Carol’s mum sits in a dark wooden chair on her landing. She wears Baby Bonnet pink on her toenails. Her bare feet grip the concrete. She has beautiful toes that slant downwards, like the edge of a roof. She eyes Carol twirling her red plaits round and round her first fingers. Carol looks defeated before she opens her mouth. ‘Can I –?’

  ‘If it’s money, there is none.’

  Carol turns on her heels and I follow her down the steps.

  ‘I hate her,’ she says. ‘If our Colette was asking though it’d be different; she ge
ts anything she wants, spoilt cow. She has got money: I shook her purse this morning and it rattled.’

  Carol says she needs to think. Singing helps her think. I laugh at the way she’s not afraid to sing out loud.

  I asked my love, to take a walk.

  To take a walk, just a little walk.

  Down beside, where the waters flow.

  Down by the banks, of the Ohio.

  ‘Do you have any secrets?’ she asks.

  I think about the shopping bag with the frayed handles and the vanity case. My face feels hot. ‘No.’

  ‘Giz your hand,’ she says.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ll read your fortune, giz it.’

  I give her my left palm, curl my fingers around the scar on my right hand. I look at the pink line of scalp that parts her hair. We are the same age, but when she looks up, her forehead only reaches my neck.

  ‘This is your lifeline.’ She strokes a long curvy line that ends at my wrist. ‘You’re going to live a long life. But there’s a break here. That means a big change will happen. Look, I’ve got one, but mine’s broken well after yours. Now, squeeze your thumb up towards your first finger. See those lines, you have four. That means you’re going to have four kids, two girls and two boys.’

  I am amazed. ‘How do you know that?’

  She laughs. ‘My nanna Rose showed me. There’s your travel line. It’s deep. You’ll go on a plane, no, lots and lots of planes.’

  ‘Did she show you any more lines?’

  ‘No. Nanna Rose says if you know too much about what life has in store, you’ll never get up in the morning.’ Carol looks up to the second landing. A lady is pegging out her washing. ‘I’ve got it.’ Carol claps.

  Mrs Cliff is a tall lady with tiny silver hoops in her ears that match her tiny silver curls. She answers the door with a fistful of pegs that she stuffs into the pocket of a flowery pinny. ‘Do you want anything from the shop, Mrs Cliff?’ Carol asks.

  ‘You must have been reading my mind. I could use a five packet of Woodbines, and a box of matches from Dolly’s.’ She walks down the lobby to fetch the money. Carol whispers in my ear. ‘Last time I got her a fish from the chippy she gave me five pence.’