Invisible Child

by Mary Hayward

  Linda and I squeezed into the back of the little two-door sky blue Morris Minor. I sat behind her dad who was in the driving seat on the right, and Linda sat behind her mum. Clacton-on-Sea was about sixty miles from London, and it took us about two hours on winding roads, and something called a dual carriageway. I wasn’t a good traveller and felt sick on the way, but I wasn’t going to let that spoil it for me.

  It was about 11 o’clock when we arrived at the car park just across the road from the pier. An old man, dressed in a cloth cap, and mackintosh, sat on a wooden seat at the side of a small shed. Linda’s dad wound down the window and gave him a shilling. He pointed and we parked at the end of a row of other cars. Linda wanted to get out as soon as the car was lined up, but her mum was determined she should wait.

  “Come on mum!” Her mum took no notice. Instead she sat calmly applying some lipstick and powder, using a little compact she kept in her purse. Her dad opened the door and held the seat forward for me to get out whilst Linda’s mum continued to take her time.

  “Come on mum!” She thumped the back of the seat with her hand.

  Her mum didn’t react.

  “All done,” she said, and dropped her compact and snapped her purse closed. “Just be patient.” She slowly opened the car door, but Linda didn’t wait for her. She shuffled across the back seat and clambered out the driver’s side following me out. Dashing round to the back of the car, she retrieved her bucket and spade from the boot. As we both rushed across the road towards the Pier, her mum and dad were left to lock up the car.

  Linda led the way, full of fun and mischief. She held her wooden spade in the air like an over enthusiastic tour guide. Her mum and dad took their time strolling along behind, seemingly unconcerned. She took us to this monument in the middle of a formal garden; a war memorial, her dad called it. I thought it looked a little sad. It had a big square stone base mounted on steps; above was a bronze statue of an angel. Her face was covered in white streaks from the seagulls. Her large wings were spread open, as if to take off. In her right hand she held a wreath and in her left a twisted vine. Carved on one side of the square were the figures ‘1914—1918’, and below it ‘1939—1945’, and on the other, there was a wreath, and weathered brass plates with the list of people’s names.

  The flowers were so pretty, some in borders of bright blue, tightly packed about the base of the palm trees. Others formed into large carpets of pink and white, the scent of which I found overpowering.

  Untangling his camera from its strap, Mr Bistow lined us in front of the war memorial. We looked like sisters as we posed for the picture, me in my green and white striped dress, Linda in a yellow checked dress with a smart white leather belt.

  “Right now, girls, pay attention,” Mr Bistow snapped. “If you get lost,” Linda mimicked the words as he spoke, “this is where we will all meet up.” He looked at his watch. Linda looked at me, giggling and making funny faces behind her dad’s back.

  “Stop showing off,” her dad pulled her in line. “Now pay attention, will you? Linda, show Mary where things are, and make sure you don’t get into any trouble.” He added: “Back at the cafe by 3 o’clock. Right?”

  “Yes dad,” she shot off. “Come on, Mary.”

  “Bye,” I said. “Where are we going, Linda?”

  “We’re going off to the beach by the Pier.” She waved to her mum with a flick of the wrist, but didn’t turn round. I snatched a glance back to see where her parents had gone. Linda grabbed my sleeve and tugged me as we ran away towards the Pier. She seemed to know her way around very well, and was well used to the routine of it.

  The entrance to the Pier had two giant white towers, one on each side with a big union jack flying overhead. To the right was a large ramp that led down to the beach. There wasn’t any water like there was when I was at Hastings. Instead, there was a vast expanse of flat smelly sand that stretched as far as the eye could see.

  Linda was larking about, looking at some boys and giggling as she took me past the candyfloss stall. We stood and watched as the man spun the sugar onto a stick. We didn’t have one; instead, we wondered over to the hotdog stand nearby. I was busy looking at the Pier and all the people milling around, when Linda thrust a hotdog in my hand.

  “Do you want anything on it?”

  “Like what?” I said.

  “Onions, tomato sauce, HP sauce or something?”

  “No thanks,” I said. “How do I pay you for this?”

  “You don’t have to. Mum told me to buy you lunch and gave me a ten bob note, so we can do what we like.”

  “Thanks.”

  I bit into the hotdog. It was really nice, and we sat down on one of the benches along the promenade by a small garden. I could have eaten another one, but I didn’t say in case she thought me too pushy.

  “That was great. Do you want another?” Linda asked.

  “Yes please!” I could hear myself sounding too keen.

  “It’s all right, I’ll get them, and you wait here with the bucket and spade.” She shot back to the hotdog stand whilst I sat quietly, breathing in the fresh air.

  The sky was blue, clear and crisp. Seagulls drifted aimlessly in the breeze above, and as they breathed in the subtle blend of seaweed and salty mud, they practised bombing the sunbathing people, spread out like linked sausages roasting in the sand. I say sand; but the beach was a mixture of sand and shingle, which seemed to form in layers down the water’s edge. Further out I could make out great clumps of black seaweed that clung to the large stilts that supported the Pier.

  Linda returned in no time and we sat and munched another delicious hotdog in silence, sharing a bottle of Tizer. I soaked it all up, the sun, and birds: bliss!

  As we retraced our steps back to the Pier all the smells intermingled. I remember the sickly sweet smell of candyfloss, the overpowering savoury aroma of choking onions, all competing with the flavour of the hotdog still lingering on my tongue.

  Walking down the large slipway to the right of the Pier we stopped by a little stretch of sand. We sat down and made sand castles with Linda’s bucket and spade for a little while. She kicked my one down, and so I stamped on hers until we had destroyed them both in a fit of fun and laughter. We both made a little tunnel and bridge, scraping the sand away with our hands until it was about two feet deep. Linda decided to walk across it to see if it could take her weight. It didn’t, and she collapsed, laughing, into the hole we had created.

  We started to tire of the sand games, and as the sun was starting to get very hot, she suggested we move somewhere cooler.

  “Do you want to go and collect some mussel shells?” Linda asked. “It’ll be cooler out there.”

  “Yes, all right,” I said.

  We took off our shoes and socks and placed them in the bucket. She carried the bucket and I the spade. Wandering out onto the hard sand, we dug around in the rocks collecting any small little shells that we found. We wandered aimlessly, until soon we had reached the Pier.

  Linda went under the stilts where the sand was cold and muddy. I looked up at all the giant pillars that crisscrossed in a tangle of metal and concrete, some twenty feet above us. She started picking off much larger shells she had spotted on the giant girders of the Pier. She was telling me how her mum would cook them in a saucepan and how the shells would open up. I was fascinated with it, and she showed me where she had picked them, when suddenly I felt the cold trickle of water rushing over my feet.

  “The water’s coming over my feet, Linda.”

  “The tide’s coming in—we ought to get a move on.” I didn’t know what tide was.

  “Isn’t tide a washing powder?”

  “Don’t be soppy, it’s the water, it’s coming back over the sand.”

  I looked up at the Pier, its giant legs stretching up above me. I knew enough to realise that Piers, being on legs, usually had water underneath, but how deep I didn’t know.

  Well, that was it. Linda struggled to free herself, and instea
d sank up to her knees. She couldn’t budge, and as soon as I went to help her the same thing happened to me. The more I struggled, the more I stuck. Black cold, oily mud squelched up between my toes as my feet sunk down into it. After much pulling and poking with the spade I was lucky enough to ease myself free.

  When I first went into the shadow of the Pier the relief from the hot sun was welcoming, but now it was starting to get surprisingly chilly.

  “Come on,” I beckoned with my hand.

  “I can’t, I’m stuck!” She frantically tugged at her feet, but she just made it worse.

  The warm water was coming in fast, splashing against the pillars, and making the mud suck even harder.

  “I can’t stand up!” She lost her balance. Her hands stuck almost as deep as her feet.

  “Hang on,” I said, “I have an idea.”

  The water was about six inches deep when I first spotted a plank of wood floating nearby.

  “I’m not bloody going anywhere, Mary.” She was now talking to the water on all fours.

  I grabbed the wood and attempted to drag it over to Linda, but it was too heavy for me.

  “It’s too big, Mary!” she screamed. “I’m scared.”

  I looked across. I could see Linda shivering, her eyes wide, her face begging me to do something.

  “I’ve got another idea—hang on.”

  I slipped the spade under the plank and tried to lever it. It didn’t budge. Splashing the water with the spade, I created little waves. It was enough to float the heavy plank, and using my foot I was able to slide it across onto the more solid sand behind her.

  With the water swirling and gurgling round the big iron pillars at the base of the Pier, I started to panic as the cold numbed my toes. Would I have to leave Linda and run for help? It dawned on me that if I didn’t get her free soon we would both be in trouble. I wasn’t sure if the plank was wide enough to support both of us.

  Gingerly as I worked my way along the plank, she somehow managed to get one hand free.

  I needed to get behind her where the sand was firmer. If I could get behind her and onto the more solid area I spotted earlier, then I thought I might have a better chance.

  I stretched my arm out as far as I could.

  “Grab my hand.”

  She managed to grab it. Gripping hard and giving her a big heave, I managed to prise her foot free and then pushed the plank further towards her, where she was eventually able to get a firm foothold with her good leg.

  “Okay, you pull,” she said.

  Standing there with one foot on the plank and one in the mud, I grasped her arm. “One, two three—go!” I pulled for all I was worth.

  Sluuurrpp—plop.

  Her foot broke free from the gungy black sand. The water was now swirling almost up to our knees.

  Quickly she made her way across the plank, and grabbing her bucket and spade, we scurried out from underneath the pier and into the daylight.

  Although clear of the Pier we were still fifty yards from the beach. The water was rising so fast that it was now up to my skirt, gushing between my legs with little waves. They were shallow at first, then rushing torrents that almost pulled my legs from under me.

  There was no time to lose. We dared not wait for the water to get any deeper; otherwise we would have become stranded. Linda started picking out the high ground and darting from one island to another until we reached the safety of the shore.

  Dropping to the beach I nursed my toes, picking out the mud and trying to wash myself clean. That was until Linda pointed to her watch and shouted out that it was now ten minutes past 3 o’clock and we were due back at the cafe at 3 p.m. We quickly put on our shoes and gathered our things, and raced back up the ramp by the Pier and back to the cafe.

  Arriving at the cafe we must have looked a right sight, our legs covered in sand and mud. Linda’s parents didn’t look best pleased. Mr Bistow frowned, and shook his head. Then he went over to the owners and asked them if they had a bucket of water that the girls could use to clean themselves up with.

  “What have you been up to?” I didn’t think he expected an answer because he could see the sand still firmly stuck to our legs. We cleaned ourselves up in the little yard out at the back.

  Everyone on our table was immersed in discussion, excitedly talking about what we could all do with the shells. As we passed them round for all to see we didn’t draw attention to the fact that the tide had nearly caught us.

  I had a great time and Linda and I remained friends through the summer, until strangely one day, the whole family just completely vanished. They seemed too well off to be living in Langhedge lane, and I wondered if they had bought their own house and moved up market.

  I never found out where they went and I never heard from Linda or her parents ever again.

  18

  Meeting Joyce

  AFTER THAT I USED TO GO AROUND WITH MELANIE, an outgoing and lively girl who sat in front of me. It was one of those occasions when arguments just seemed to happen—when girls are all together and have to muck in. This was how I first got to know Joyce.

  I grew up a bit by the end of the summer, and it was then that I was drawn to Melanie. She was very confident and had an answer back for anything. She seemed to like me and I guess she took me out of myself and away from my home situation. I visited her house only once or twice. She never came to mine. Most of the time we met at school, or outside her house.

  She came from a family with a very comfortable home. Mine would never compete and I felt I could never let Melanie know of it. She had all the nice fashionable clothes. Her mum seemed to spoil her with everything. I didn’t mind that because she was fun and I enjoyed it.

  We used to meet in the milk bar or coffee bar, talk about the boys, walk along the High Street and look in the shops, before going on to the cafe. The mods would hang about with their Vespas and Lambrettas, and the rockers with their motorbikes.

  I had seen Joyce around the school, and once before when I was searching for Jane. We hadn’t spoken much but we knew of each other, and sometimes met through mutual friends.

  A few weeks later she was sitting in the Wimpy Bar with a couple of other girls. Melanie and I walked in. Joyce called over and asked Melanie to come and join them. I sat opposite Joyce. Apparently Melanie and Joyce had gone around together before. Joyce and I got on very well, swapping jokes and we really had a good laugh.

  Suddenly we ran out of money and time; we all got up and went our separate ways, and said we would all meet up at the Quabana milk bar at the weekend.

  The next time we met was in the changing room for PE (Physical Education). I noticed her bra was grey, and some of her clothes the same. I wondered if she, too, was neglected by her family. Was that the common bond? I kept those thoughts to myself.

  Joyce, bursting into the room shouting with her broad Scottish accent, instantly sucked out the silence, her big brown eyes, like her dress, vibrant and sparkling.

  I was sitting there all alone when she came right up to my face, her cheery smile beaming at me. She said I had such a pretty face, with my full lips and bright green eyes. No-one had ever told me I was pretty before, except my Dad when I was very little, and so I guess I was a little flattered by it. I didn’t know if it was Joyce’s intention to flatter me and draw me in. But whatever it was, it worked and it certainly endeared me to her, and from that moment on Joyce and I clicked like sisters.

  Soon we found ourselves bumping into each other more frequently, especially at break times when we would be chatting for ages, as if there was never enough time to say everything. I wasn’t sure if she wanted to make a new friend, or whether she had recognised the signs of poverty. We both understood what poverty was all about; she didn’t ask about my home life, and I didn’t ask about hers. The comfort in poverty was that you knew that the other would protect you from those embarrassing questions.

  In my case, “Why is your house in the dark?” and in her case, “Where’s your mum
?”

  One evening I went into the changing room for Badminton after school. It was full of the usual group of girls from the school. Melanie spotted us together, and I got the distinct impression she was jealous.

  Joyce was in the corner talking to Melanie; then she got up and both sheepishly disappeared almost as soon as I arrived. Joyce bounced back into the changing room with new blue eye shadow on, doing more fussing around the mirror than a hornet on a jam jar.

  “What da ya think?” she shouted, giggling and doing a twirl; then glancing back at me, she tossed back her head, eyes sparkling and her cute nose twitching with mischief.

  I got up and wandered over to the sink. “Hello Joyce,” I said. “Like the eye shadow—really fab!”

  Turning her head, she put up the back of her hand close to her face and whispered: “I wanted to tell you that Melanie has been saying nasty things—no, don’t look round—she’s been spreading rumours about you behind your back.”

  “What’s she been saying then?”

  “Says that yer Dad’s always drinking, and yer doon tha pub wi ’im?” she said.

  “Oh, did she?” I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know Joyce that well, and I was a little taken aback.

  Later I spotted Melanie talking to one of the other girls over by the bench. She certainly clocked me talking to Joyce, and I could see from the look she gave me, she was not a happy bunny. Although she did not realise that Joyce had a sting all fired up in her tail.

  Melanie started. She looked across at Joyce as she stood by the mirror.

  “What yer got on then?” Melanie teased. “Looking like a clown running away to the Circus, are yer?” She turned to the crowd as though she were some sort of stand-up comedian.

  The room erupted like someone had just thrown in a grenade of laughing gas, and despite the insult Joyce just couldn’t help joining in, stifling a rye smile that made her rub her eye.

  “Oh shit!” Joyce said.

  “What’s the matter?” I glanced back at her.

  “Eyelash—oh no! Oh bugger it—would you no’ believe it!” Joyce stood in front of the mirror trying to get the lash out. Pulling her lashes up with one hand and trying to catch a glimpse in the mirror somewhere between her elbow and her wrist, she juggled amid all the chatter of girls at a hockey match.