‘Come and sit down.’ Mandy led him to the sofa and sat holding both his hands. There was no trace of disgust on her face, only deep compassion. ‘But who brought you up? Were you adopted or—?’
‘I was meant to be, but it all fell through – and twice, would you believe? – despite the fact I was said to be the ideal candidate. You see, there’s a huge demand for babies, rather than older children, especially babies who are white and not disabled. Sad as it may sound, people tend to shun kids with any sort of handicap, or those from ethnic minorities.’
‘So why did it go wrong?’
‘Well, it didn’t until the very end of the process. All the checks were done – both times – and home visits and what-have-you, which take an age, in any case. But then my first adoptive mother fell pregnant with her own child, which apparently was quite a shock, since she’d been trying to conceive for years and had given up all hope. Eventually, she decided she didn’t want two babies, so they had to start again from scratch, with another local couple. This time, it was the guy who lost his nerve, right at the last minute, and talked his wife out of it. I was in foster-care already, of course. Abandoned babies are always fostered for at least the first few months, to give the birth-mother a chance to change her mind and show up. Sadly, that didn’t happen for me. So they moved me into long-term foster-care – except it wasn’t very long-term. My foster-parents’ marriage broke up, so I was sent on somewhere else, to—’
‘But, Eric, this is absolutely outrageous! Three moves already and you were still a tiny scrap.’
‘No, I was nearly a year old by then – although there were a lot more moves to come, I’m afraid.’ He wouldn’t tell her that, in the end, he’d stopped bothering to unpack his things; simply left them in black bin-liners, ready for the next upheaval. ‘I suppose it was just unfortunate. It shouldn’t really happen like that – and doesn’t in most cases.’
‘But how did you survive? I mean, you seem so normal, not screwed up or bitter or—’
He forced a laugh; had no intention of revealing all his insecurities – not yet, in any case. One thing at a time.
Mandy released his hands and sat back on the sofa, gazing at him wonderingly. ‘I so admire you, Eric! Most people who’d endured all that would see themselves as victims and never stop going on about how unfair it was. Well, it is unfair – it’s appalling. But I still think you’re quite fantastic just to shrug it off.’
She didn’t understand. It was impossible to shrug it off: the endless round of different ‘mums’ and ‘dads’; different houses, different beds; followed by the children’s home; then a second institution because the first was forced to close. It was proving quite a strain, in fact, reliving all this trauma, when his normal way of coping was to dam things up; pretend they’d never happened; escape through books and fantasies to a better, brighter world. He could feel the dreaded darkness choking through his mind; not helped by the fact that the room itself was dim; the curtains still undrawn; the black night pressing in; only one small lamp on, too weak to dispel the gloom. But it was imperative to adopt a cheery manner; otherwise he’d lose Mandy’s admiration, and such admiration was precious beyond words. She had spoken almost disparagingly of ‘victims’, so no way would he become one.
‘In some ways, I was lucky, you know,’ he said, with determined optimism.
‘Lucky?’ Mandy looked aghast.
‘Yes, some of the boys had such appalling parents, they’d have been better off as foundlings. I remember one kid, Jordan, who shared a room with me. His mum was an alcoholic and always threatening to kill herself – when she wasn’t collapsing in a drunken stupor. She neglected him so badly, he’d been hospitalized a dozen times before the age of three. And she suffocated his baby brother when he was only four months old. She had seven kids in total – all illegitimate, all by different fathers, and all of whom landed up in care. Jordan was allowed home now and then, and he said it was a total nightmare, and he much preferred being in Grove End.’
‘It makes my blood boil, Eric, that some poor innocent kid should be stuck with a mother like that.’
‘Can you really blame her, though? She’d been abused and beaten up herself. The whole cycle just perpetuates itself.’
‘But what about your mother? Did they ever trace her?’
He gave another casual laugh. ‘Sadly, no. And they even went and lost my Precious Box, which was all that I had left of her.’
‘Your what?’
‘My first foster-parents made it for me, so I would have a record of everything that happened. They put in all the press-cuttings about my being found, and the old cardigan my mother wrapped me in. And there was a photo of the nurses at the hospital, and one of the guy who rescued me – Eric, he was called. He gave me his own name and the surname Parkhill, because that was where I was found: Park Hill recreation ground. And one of the ambulance crew gave me my second name – Victor, because they saw it as a victory that they’d rescued me in time. So that’s me in all my borrowed glory – Eric Victor Parkhill.’ He’d often wondered if his mother had already chosen a name for him – maybe something with a regal air, like George or Harold or Edward – but perhaps that, too had been swept away.
Mandy was still staring at him. ‘It sounds like … like a fairytale.’
‘Not many fairies, unfortunately! I have to say I’m still pretty gutted about losing all that early stuff.’ The old cardi most of all. His mother might have worn it right against her skin; it would have borne her touch, her smell, maybe even a stray auburn hair. Inestimable treasure. ‘And there were other important things in the box. A later set of foster-parents put in my first baby-tooth and a curl from my first haircut and, later still, someone else added all my childish drawings and poems.’
‘But how on earth was it lost? The very fact it’s called a Precious Box surely means it’s precious, so it should have been guarded with great care.’
‘Oh, everything went missing. With so many moves from place to place, it’s more or less inevitable. They even lost my original records – the ones made by the child-care officer who registered my birth. Some of the information was written out again – which is why I know about the recreation ground and how I got my names. But a lot of the detail was left out, so I’ve no idea exactly where I was found. I mean, it could have been in the bushes, or on a bench, or’ – he shrugged – ‘who knows? And I haven’t a clue which hospital I went to, let alone what I looked like as a baby. I suppose they only had time to jot down a rough outline, or perhaps they couldn’t remember much beyond the basic facts.’
‘But couldn’t you have asked your various foster-parents – later on, I mean, when you were old enough to understand? They’d have remembered, surely?’
‘No, I lost all contact with them. The first set moved away and my second foster-mother had a sort of breakdown, so I wasn’t allowed to see her any more. I also had a lot of different social workers, so there wasn’t just one person to ensure my records were properly looked after.’
‘It sounds as if you were messed around in a quite atrocious way.’
‘No, it was more a chapter of accidents, with no one person specifically to blame. OK, I admit it was rather a shambles and there were several major cock-ups along the way, but that’s just the fault of the system. People always seem to have it in for social workers, but sometimes they’re too young to cope, or have such a massive caseload, they get swamped in paperwork and tend to lose the plot. And their lives aren’t exactly easy. I mean, people slam the door in their face, or threaten them at knifepoint, or even send them parcels of poo through the post.’
‘Maybe so, but I still reckon you’re exceptionally forgiving. God, if it was me, I’d be beside myself with rage!’
As a child, he had been angry, but mainly because his social workers never seemed to listen; discussed him at review meetings as if he wasn’t there; made him feel he was just a ‘case’, a number. They’d fired questions at him when he didn’t have
the answers, and always sided with the staff at the home, so that even if he had reason to complain – a slap, a punch, or having to stand and face the wall in silence for two hours at a stretch – they’d say, ‘Now, come on, Eric, you’re probably just exaggerating.’ And half the time, they were strangers, anyway, because, just as he had got to know one, he or she would disappear and he would be assigned to someone new. And he’d often had the feeling they resented him for adding to their work. In fact, he hated the word ‘caseload’, which turned him into a burden; a sort of heavy rucksack strapped to their long-suffering backs.
He gave a sudden grin. ‘You won’t believe this, Mandy, but once, I even had another boy’s records in my file – instead of mine, I mean. He was called Eric Parks, so I can understand the confusion. His circumstances were entirely different from mine, but it took a while for anyone to twig, so it caused no end of problems.’
‘Eric, you amaze me! I mean, you’ve clearly been through hell and back, and had to suffer all this monstrous inefficiency, yet you make out it’s just nothing.’
Hardly nothing. She didn’t know the half of it – perhaps no one ever would. There were limits to what you could actually admit. ‘I told you, I was lucky. Not just because I was spared a mum who was violent or unbalanced or high on crack-cocaine, but because I had someone in my early life who saved me from the scrapheap – a woman called Miss Mays, who worked at the public library. She took me under her wing, supervised my reading and gave me a set of values I’ve upheld to this day. I suppose she saw I had a bit of talent but no one to encourage it, so she took a personal interest in me, stopped me acting up or playing truant. She even invited me back to her home and helped me with school projects and stuff. And she was determined to correct my accent, on the grounds that, if I “spoke proper”, it would help me get a better job. I have to confess I was a common little brat before she came on the scene. No one had taught me manners, you see, and I’d got into the habit of swearing like a trooper, because everyone around me swore. By the time she’d polished me up, though, I was becoming quite a toff!’
Mandy was looking puzzled. ‘But how could just one person effect such a transformation?’
‘It only needs one, Mandy, so long as that person’s really dedicated. And Miss Mays was single, with no children or dependents, which meant she could devote a lot of time to me. She was a principled woman, with a social conscience and very high ideals, so maybe she wanted a sort of … mission in life. The library was her passion, of course, but she had energy to spare and I suspect she was looking for some cause with more personal involvement. And she did genuinely believe in me and thought I had a future, which is extremely rare for any kid in care, so naturally I responded. It wasn’t easy, mind you. Often, I felt caught between two worlds – her genteel, middle-class one and the rough, tough one I knew. But every time I went through a delinquent phase, she intervened in a really forceful way, and made me—’
‘I’m sorry, Eric,’ Mandy interrupted, ‘but I just can’t believe you’ve ever been delinquent.’
‘You’d be surprised! I got in with the wrong crowd and started sniffing glue and taking gas and poppers and—’
‘But you seem so … so squeaky-clean.’
‘Far from it! When you’re cooped up in an institution with thirty other kids, there’s always someone egging you on to take drugs, or bunk off school, or nick cash from the staff, or sweets and stuff from people’s rooms. I actually started drinking and smoking at the ripe old age of twelve. We used to make “prison-ciggies” from filter-tips and fag-ends picked up from the street and, as for booze, it wasn’t beyond our wits to break into the local off-licence and make off with quarts of cider. But, despite my petty crimes, I knew at base that if I didn’t take this one big chance offered by Miss Mays, I’d end up as a dead-end kid – achieving nothing, constantly in trouble and being excluded from school, most like.’ He shuddered at the memory of just how low he might have sunk.
Mandy shook her head in bemusement. ‘Well, all I can say is your Miss Mays must have been a saint, if not a miracle-worker.’
‘She was both – and more besides. The only thing she couldn’t do is protect me from the bullies. Bullying’s rife in children’s homes, and I was a natural target, being small, red-haired and bookish. And when I tried to change my accent, I was taunted so badly for “talking posh”, that, in the end, I adopted two completely different kinds of speech – one for the home and one for elsewhere. It was quite tricky to keep switching between them, but I reckon it saved me a lot of thrashings! Mind you, I sometimes felt I couldn’t win, because even if I brought books back from the library, I’d be set upon again and beaten up. It was fatal to like reading because then you were classed as a geek, a sissy and almost certainly gay.’
‘But that’s plain daft, as well as cruel.’
He shrugged. ‘The same attitude’s around today, to some extent. But, you know, I only became a librarian because of Miss Mays’ influence. And it was the perfect job, of course. Most foundlings know zilch about their origins or parentage, so it was always a huge draw for me to be surrounded by certainty and knowledge – all those solid, indisputable facts, encapsulated in books.’
‘I’d like to meet this wonder-woman. Is she still alive?’
‘No, alas, though we always kept in touch. She died four years ago, and I honestly think I was more upset than anyone else at the funeral. So I was fortunate, you see. Most of the kids I grew up with had no one rooting for them, so it wasn’t really surprising if they messed up their lives and went to the bad. And a lot of the girls got pregnant and often had their babies taken into care, just as they’d been, earlier. And some went on the game as young as twelve or thirteen, simply to make a bit of pocket money.’
Mandy got up and walked slowly to the window. ‘I feel thoroughly ashamed,’ she said, tracing a squiggly pattern on the cold and misted pane.
‘Whatever for?’
‘Because I’ve been so spoilt in comparison – I mean, coming from a happy, normal family, with two loving parents and a whole tribe of other relatives, to prevent me going off the rails. I wasn’t even allowed in a pub till I was officially eighteen!’
Yes, he thought, most normal folk took such things for granted: their family tree, family photos, family traditions; even their genetic inheritance. It required an imaginative leap to envisage how it felt to have no idea who you were, where you came from, or what sort of people your parents were. His mother might have been a duchess or a slag; his father a CBE or a thug. When the other kids said casually, ‘My dad’s a builder; my mum works in a hair-salon,’ he could hardly add his own version: ‘My dad’s a mystery; my mum’s an unknown quantity’. Indeed, sometimes, as a child, he had felt so insubstantial he’d become a sort of x-ray picture, with no colour or solidity and with all his bones and innards vulnerably exposed.
Suddenly he caught sight of the clock; horrified when he saw how late it was. He’d been banging on for hours and they hadn’t had their lunch yet, let alone their supper. The omelette would be ruined; Mandy’s plan for a cosy little meal in bed totally disrupted. ‘Mandy, I’m so sorry. I must have bored you rigid, going on about myself like that, when it’s your life I want to hear about.’
‘No, mine’s the boring one! Yours is just … amazing. And that ambulance-man was right, you know. You are a Victor. I mean, to have gone through all that trauma unscathed makes you a true hero.’ Returning from the window, she pulled him up from the sofa and put her arms around him. ‘Darling, I want to hear much more – every single detail of the story and how—’
He scarcely heard the rest of the sentence. It was the ‘darling’ he was fixated on; rolling it around his mouth; sucking it like the most delicious sweet. He was ‘darling’ again – and, even more momentous – for the first time in his cowardly life, he was a victor and a hero.
chapter ten
Eric padlocked his bike and stood looking up at the huge, fortress-like building opposite, suppre
ssing a shudder as he recalled the gallows here, dismantled only in 1993. The thought of it induced a choking panic, as if he were the hapless bloke being bound and gagged and hooded; the noose closing round his neck, as he prepared for the dizzying drop. And, yes, it could have been him, he reflected – just as he, too, could be banged up here with the other 1400 men. His whole background and experience had taught him that those inside and those out were separated only by a hair’s-breadth, and whether you were fêted as a good, upstanding citizen, or condemned as so-called scum, was often just a matter of circumstance and fate.
Having unstrapped his case from the carrier on his bike, he crossed the road, dwarfed by the intimidating presence of the massive ramparts now rearing up in front of him. Pausing for a moment, to try to get his bearings, he located the main prison entrance up a flight of steps. However, once he’d humped the heavy case to the top, he was instructed to go down again and report to a second, smaller entrance, up a different set of steps. He was already feeling somewhat disoriented as he entered a bleak and featureless lobby and joined the queue at reception.
‘Yes?’ said the man behind the glass security-panel, when, at last, it was his turn.
‘My name’s Eric Parkhill and I’m here to attend the prison book club.’
The bloke checked through the visitors’ book, only to shake his head. ‘There’s no paperwork for a Mr Parkhill, which means you’re not expected.’
Eric frowned in consternation. ‘But I confirmed my visit yesterday – with the prison librarian, Abi Ayotundi.’
‘Abi’s not here.’
‘Not here? But he’s running the group this evening and he arranged to meet me an hour and a half before.’
‘Sorry, he’s not on the premises. That’s the information I’ve been given.’ The man consulted his book again. ‘In fact, there’s no paperwork for the book club either, so I reckon you must have got the date wrong.’
Broken Places Page 11