Invisible Child

by Mary Hayward

  “I’m sorry about that.” She looked down at the table.

  I glanced back up and looked round the room.

  “You were a rotten cow leaving me with your boyfriend. I am not sure I have forgiven you yet.”

  “What ye not sure of?”

  “Not sure it’s the kind of laugh I want right now.” I was trying to be polite for the sake of the friendship, but underneath I wanted to tell her to fuck off.

  I was friends with her, God knows why, and the truth of it was that I didn’t know why either. There was something about Joyce that was like a drug and I was drawn to her like a fly to a spider’s web. But not this time. Things were going on at home and I had my own plans.

  She reached across the table and grabbed my hand, pulling me over to her.

  “Och come on—let’s run away without telling anyone, not ye Mum, naebody—let’s just go!” She put her face close to the table and looked at me, pleading.

  “Where are you going then?” I glanced up from my coffee.

  “Montrose,” she said. “I’ve a Nan up there and she’ll put us up at her house. Awe, come on, it’ll be a laugh.”

  “Oh. No, no, no, Joyce, I am not going.” I glared at her, shaking my head slowly.

  The prospect of doing something shocking gave her a great buzz and she could talk about nothing else. She knew I was not one for madcap schemes. Not after last time.

  I had left the job at Elsey’s Sports and she knew I wouldn’t want to lose my new job at the claims department of the insurance company in Finsbury Circus; after all, I was only just seventeen years old.

  “I’m sorry Joyce, no. You can forget it.”

  “But Mar...” I stopped her saying any more.

  “Joyce, I am not going, but if you want to rush off up to Scotland, then that’s up to you—but read my lips!” I pulled back from the table. “I am not going!”

  The loud scraping of my chair broke the awkward silence. I got up.

  Her shoulders sank. I saw the disappointment on her face and I knew she was determined to go, with or without me, but I didn’t want to take the risk. Not anymore—I had grown up and Joyce was too dangerous, not only to herself, but also to me. She brought those around her down in her rush for excitement, but like a child, she never knew when to stop.

  We finished our drink and left the Wimpy Bar to go home. I wondered if that would be the last time I would see Joyce. I didn’t know if she had argued with her dad—I just didn’t know what was in her mind at that time. I didn’t think that anyone would know what to do with Joyce—she was so exuberant, and so full of explosive energy at times.

  It left a bit of a gaping hole in my life because we shared everything, our innermost thoughts, our worries, our fears, and I guess that we were very supportive of each other and, of course, we were soul mates. There were other things we didn’t talk about, and perhaps accepted that there was a darker side to both of us. It was that which bonded us together, the fact that there were things we didn’t talk about.

  I never spoke of it to anyone, about how poor my life had been—about the struggle I had endured, and the starvation Jane and I faced at the time of Mum’s TB. I didn’t mention it to Joyce, and I am sure there were things in her life she didn’t want to tell me. We understood that there was something unspoken, and that was okay.

  With Joyce, she didn’t need to know. The friendship was unconditional on both sides.

  Maybe it was the absence of Joyce that made me do what I did next. I was earning a reasonable wage and was determined to leave my unhappy home.

  Life hadn’t changed much. I serviced my own needs for clean sheets and continued to do my own laundry. Dad was still drinking and I stayed out as much as possible.

  So I went to a letting agency and soon found a room to let and I moved into a large pre-war house in Plaistow. A narrow path led to the arched brick porch, and to the left of the partly glazed red front door, there was a bay window. It was a nice square ground floor room to the left of the passage, and overlooking the rear garden. An older woman lived in a room farther down, to the right. Upstairs, the black and white chequered tiles dominated the spotlessly clean bathroom. We all shared the bathroom, except for the lady right at the back who had her own.

  The older woman was very nice to me, and we got on well, although I didn’t know what she did for a living. She had a beehive hairstyle, tight short skirts, a short leather jacket and four-inch high heels.

  Everything about my room was better than I had at home. It was light and bright. A gold patterned table lamp sat on a small wooden bookcase. The brown fitted carpet and gold velvet curtains complemented the yellow decorative wallpaper. A single bed was dressed with a gold bedspread and scatter cushions. Most of all, it was clean, and to have a lampshade was sheer bliss.

  It was so lovely and cosy. I even managed to save up and buy a portable reel-to-reel tape recorder. It was great because now I could record songs from the radio rather than buy them.

  Joyce suddenly turned up. She had gone round to my mum’s and she told her that I had moved out and gave her my address. Joyce seemed a little shocked that I actually had the balls to move out and get my own place.

  She saw this as an opportunity for us to live together. So when one of the double rooms came up at the front of the house, she asked if she could share with me. I knew the rent would be more expensive, but we would split the costs. I would hold the rent book, and she would pay me her half each week.

  Well, I loved Joyce as a friend, and so I moved to the double room at the front, and a new girl, Chris, moved into my old room. Joyce, of course, didn’t have a job. The next morning I had a word with my manager at my firm, and he agreed to see about arranging an interview for Joyce.

  She soon started at the company, but it wasn’t long before she started to become unreliable. First, she didn’t arrive for work, or would be late. She let me down and embarrassed me. I felt responsible because I had recommended her in the first place. But they said it wasn’t my fault and that I shouldn’t worry about it. This continued and in the end they sacked her.

  One day I overheard the guys at the insurance company discussing a backpacking holiday together. The idea was to take time off and work our passage through Europe. I thought it was a great idea, a great adventure for me. After all, the guys were a reliable bunch.

  Back at the house, I told Joyce all about the trip they were planning. She was well up for the idea straight from the start, and although we would have a problem funding it, she said she had an idea to raise the extra money. I wasn’t sure, but the guys at work seemed quite happy to include her, and so I went along with the deal.

  Joyce got a temp job, going from business to business. Then on her way home she saw an advert in the local Fish and Chip restaurant in Green Street. We both went down there and chatted for about ten minutes to the manager—Pete, I think his name was. After a bit of chatting up she managed to get us both an evening job. The plan was that she would work one day, and I would work the next, and so forth, like a kind of job share.

  One evening I was working in the shop when Joyce brought in two guys. She was going out with Kevin, I think; they were both friends working together at Plessey in Ilford.

  “This is Kevin, my boyfriend, and this is his mate Terry.”

  “Right,” I said.

  “I’m going back to the house with Kevin and Terry. We’ll see you later, all right?”

  I wanted to say something before she went. I didn’t want to meet any potential boyfriends smelling of fish!

  When I got back to the flat I cleaned myself up, and walked into the room. Kevin and Joyce were sitting on the sofa, and Terry sat with the girl, Chris, from my old room. We chatted and played records and had a little party with drinks. The time slipped by and we were all having a great time. I was talking with Terry while Kevin and Joyce were getting closer on the sofa.

  I didn’t remember what Chris was doing other than moaning about her room and the landlord,
until it got so late that the boys weren’t going to be able to get home. Joyce noticed the top flat was unlocked, empty, and still furnished. So we gave them something to sleep on and they both settled down for the night up there.

  The next morning Terry’s mum knocked on the door. Apparently she was furious at him because he was supposed to be going off on a caravanning holiday to Yarmouth. His Mum thought I was a fallen woman because he had stayed at my house all night, and she gave me a bit of a funny look when we met for the first time. I didn’t know why Terry was round at our place when he was supposed to be going on holiday. But Terry seemed to do things in his own time. Perhaps it was a sign of defiance, or independence, I wasn’t sure which. However, he was reliable, well dressed and I found him attractive, and so we started dating, and we made a foursome with Joyce and Kevin.

  Joyce came home one day, dressed up with nice new clothes and this large blonde wig.

  “Where did all this come from?”

  “Well, I was in the office during lunch and my boss had left the safe open.”

  “So what did you do?” I waited for the answer, my eyes wide with expectation.

  “I just helped myself to this wad of money.” She held out a big bundle of fivers.

  “What?” I didn’t know what to say. My jaw dropped, and I stood there like a gulping fish.

  “It’s all right; I’m not going back.” Well, that threw me into complete panic.

  “What do you mean, it’s all right? All right for whom?”

  “Well...”

  “Well!” I shouted, “It might be all right for you—it’s not all right for me! It’s not all right Joyce, it’s a bloody mess!” I lowered my voice: “You will have to get rid of it. We can’t have it here.”

  “So where are we going to put it?” She held it out to me.

  “Give it here.”

  I took it and counted it out. There were twenty crisp five-pound notes in two bundles tied with a paper strap. I put it under the corner of the carpet for safekeeping until I could think of something better. Later Joyce found an old tin and we hid it in there, and buried it in the garden.

  During that night we continually sneaked a look out of the curtains, until we saw the police arrive and quietly park outside.

  “They’re not watching us, are they?” Joyce asked.

  “Don’t know.”

  We turned the lights off and sat peeking through the windows. They were coming up the path. Joyce ducked down behind the sofa whilst I continued to peek through the gap in the curtains. Someone answered the front door, I didn’t see who. We braced ourselves ready for the knock on our door.

  I hid behind the chair, pretending I wasn’t there. It was silly really, because the landlady had a key to the door and could have opened it at any time. This was it. We waited, holding our breath. Nothing.

  They walked down the hallway, and then stopped halfway. They were outside our door. The voices weren’t formal voices. It wasn’t “Excuse me Mrs Plumb,” or anything. It was more like, “Hello love, everything all right then?”

  “Where they going then?” Joyce asked.

  “Can’t tell.” I felt my heart pounding.

  “What’s the time?” I flicked my cigarette lighter and glanced at my watch.

  “Ten o’clock.”

  “Ole right.” Joyce sat down.

  I wondered why they hadn’t come for us. Surely they would have been here by now.

  We sat silently in the dark, listening. The Copper left, got in his car and drove away.

  I checked the time.

  “Eleven,” I said.

  A car pulled up outside. It was another police car. This was it! I heard footsteps on the path, which I assumed was him, then the door closed with the faintest hint of a flicking latch.

  Struggling to hold the mirror still, I peeked through the gap under the door. I saw high heels—black patent leather, I think they were. Sweat was trickling down my face onto the mirror and I was panting like a dog on heat. I couldn’t see properly. I had to know—it was driving me crazy.

  I cracked open the door and watched them walk down the hallway. She was wearing fishnet stockings and he followed in his black heavy boots. I couldn’t work it out.

  “Where they going, Mary?”

  “Seems to be to the lady in the back room.”

  “What, Chris?”

  “What? No, no, the lady,” I said. “You know. The one with the big beehive hairdo and tight skirt.”

  “Ole, right.”

  Joyce and I spent most of the night watching the procession of coppers arriving and leaving at all hours.

  “You don’t think she’s on the game, do you?” Joyce asked.

  “What do you mean, prostitute?”

  “She has a red light on the table by the window.”

  “What difference does that make?” I didn’t understand, but Joyce just burst out laughing.

  We still worried that the police might be looking for Joyce. Joyce had never returned to work after taking the money. I thought they must have guessed who took it; after all, they had her address.

  In a state of panic and worry, we went to Petticoat Lane Market the next day and spent all the money on clothes and other things.

  Joyce refused to get another job because she didn’t have a reference, or so she said. The rent due, which now fell on me, was twice as much—because we had a double room. Without the money from Joyce I was unable to keep paying the rent.

  Eventually I had to sell my precious tape recorder. I was gutted to have to part with it in order to pay the rent. Then Joyce and I had a huge row.

  “Joyce,” I said, “come on, you need to get a job.”

  “I can’t Mary, I don’t have a reference.”

  “We can’t carry on like this! You have to start paying me something.”

  “We’ll manage. Tell the landlord he will have to wait.”

  “I can’t do that Joyce, he’ll sling us out—and besides, it wasn’t my idea to go stealing the money from my boss’s safe while he was at lunch. That was a choice you made. You didn’t ask me, and now I’m paying the price for your bloody mistake.”

  “So...?”

  “Well, get a bloody job!” Had I been a man I would have belted her one.

  “I can’t, so there it is.” Joyce just sat there, calmly ignoring my rant.

  “The trouble is Joyce, I always pay the price for your lousy ideas. Look at the trip to Scotland with your mate Tony. I still haven’t forgotten that.”

  “Well, if you hadn’t insisted on spending it all, just because you panicked, then we would be able to pay the rent, wouldn’t we?”

  “That’s not fair!” I turned on her and spat out the words: “You brought it back here! It’s my room, and I’m the one who would have been caught by the police. Tell me what was I supposed to do?”

  She didn’t say anything further. I stormed off out of the house and went for a walk to calm down.

  The following morning I left for work. When I came home she had kicked all my clothes out of the room. I didn’t know why, perhaps because she had split up with Kevin. I didn’t understand what her problem was.

  I went back to live at Mum’s. I invited my friend Chris, the girl who took my room to come with me, and suggested that we could both pay Mum for our keep. Jane was quite happy, and Mum seemed pleased to take the extra money. I didn’t know about Dad—I didn’t see much of him at that time.

  Joyce started dating Pete, the manager of the Fish and Chip shop. Chris and I both stayed at Mum’s for some time until one day I came back with Terry.

  He was chatting away to me, when I noticed that Chris had moved out with all her things. I didn’t know what Mum had said to her, but she didn’t say anything to me. Chris had completely vanished and I never saw her again, not ever, not a phone call, nothing.

  Terry and I had a bit of an argument over money. I found that it was difficult for me to save. He wanted to know what the problem was. I told him I had to gi
ve over half of my earnings to Mum, and then on top of that, I had to pay for all the other things. If I wanted a bath because I was going out, then I had to put money in the meter. If I wanted the lights on I had to settle the electric bill, and so it was costing me all my wages just staying at home. Terry suggested it would be much better if I went over to stay at his mum’s house, and then we could both save.

  Mum hit the roof, started screaming and shouting about how I didn’t care about her, and didn’t love her, and how she had scrimped and saved all these years to bring me up, and now look what I was doing!

  I didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. After all, I had moved out to my own little room before, and she didn’t row like this. I suspected she was getting so much money from me that she was living quite well, and not having to work so much. Then suddenly Dad called me out to the hallway, and he said to me that if I wanted to go it was all right and he would sort Mum out for me.

  I really felt his love when he did that for me. I didn’t understand why I felt that way; after all, he had been totally irresponsible about bringing in the money and supporting the family all these years. He was the main cause of all our hardship, with his drinking and gambling, and he was a complete bum. Still, I felt the warmth of genuine concern from him.

  I moved out after that and went to live with Terry and his parents. They had a beautifully furnished, comfortable home that I fell in love with. He had a large, close family, who all took to me and I to them. I felt happy.

  I slept in his room and Terry slept on the sofa-bed in the living room. At the weekends, Terry and I would go with his mum and dad to California Caravan Site at Yarmouth. All his uncles and aunts would be there, and it would a great family gathering.

  Kevin would come round from time to time, and Joyce was still going out with Pete from the fish and chip shop. I got to know Terry’s family at Christmas, met all his cousins, and their kids, and a huge family descended at his parents’ house.

  25

  Married Life

  THE TELEPHONE RANG early one morning.

  “Hello Mum.”