‘I haven’t done anything wrong,’ I said.
I said it as though I was saying it to my mother. I said it as though I was saying it to my father. I felt strong saying it. I felt right saying it.
But Luca just laughed. I pushed the hair from my face. The wind was so hard it was stinging my cheeks. His expression was dead, voice low and gravelly.
‘You’re nothing but a crackhead whore.’
I didn’t take my eyes off him. There was so much disgust in his face it made me feel nauseous, yet I didn’t want to be the first to look away. But then, after a while, I couldn’t take it any more and looked down at the sand. When I looked back up Luca was on his feet, back towards me, wings tucked away, walking off into the distance.
My body buckled to the side. The universe burst out of me, leaking into the night.
Attacked by the Wicked Wolves
Once there was a young girl who went with her friends to find a Wizard. He was the only one who could help them with their problems. After many misfortunes and adventures, the young girl and her friends reached the Emerald City where the Wizard ruled. At the gates they were told to wear green-tinted glasses to shield them from the brightness and glory that lay ahead. Later they found out that the city was not really made of emeralds at all, that the glasses created an illusion. They were one of the Wizard’s many deceptions in his make-believe utopia. The truth was that the Wizard was a trickster, his whole life in the land a lie.
He could help the girl and her friends no more than he could help himself.
As I walked along the beach I saw the lights of Skegness Pier on the horizon. The round orbs glowed like fireflies caught in a web. I walked back on to the street and into the arcade, wearing my paper glasses to protect myself from the harshness of the lights.
Luca’s part in my adventure was clear. He wasn’t the Scarecrow with no brains. If anything he had too much going on in his brain, the way he overthought everything. He wasn’t the Tin Man rusted up with no heart. His heart was big; I’d seen that in how he treated Cora. He wasn’t even the Cowardly Lion. It took courage for him to leave his parents’ house, to take his dad’s car and reject everything that was expected of him. I’d been right when I said it in the bar; he was the Wizard of Oz. Caught up in his own lies, unable to help himself, let alone anyone else.
And now I had to find my own way home. Except there was no home, no Kansas, no Aunt Em. Just a lonely pier on the east coast of England.
I heard the high trills of the fruit machines and the clinking of coins in the penny pushers. Children ran past me, screaming with laughter, animal masks tipped back on their heads. I couldn’t laugh with them; I couldn’t even smile. I had a new feeling. Like I was nothing but a hollowed-out husk. Barely a real person at all.
I made my way out of the arcade and on to the pier, walking until all I could see were the fuzzy globes of intermittent lamps ahead. It was windy and bitter cold without my jacket, but I didn’t care. Physical pain is only temporary; Mother taught me that.
I leant against the rail, took the glasses off and dropped them into the water. I watched them fall as waves crashed back and forth against the pier. It got me thinking that life was like those waves. Crashing back and forth, wearing you down to smaller and smaller grains until you aren’t even a rock any more but just a piece of sand.
The first time he came into my room I was twelve. Mother was on a business trip in Aberdeen and was due back the following day. At first, he stroked my hair. I remember thinking how comforting it was, the way it is when dads do things like that. He was the only one who was ever kind to me. I suppose that made it a double betrayal.
He told me afterwards that it always hurt the first time. That after a while I’d like it. I’d liked the stroking so I thought maybe he was right. If anything, it got worse. Just seeing his shadow creeping into my room, stretching tall against the wall with a hand reaching out to touch me, made my limbs stiffen. I was frozen with panic, knowing something awful was about to happen but not knowing how to stop it. My lungs stopped working but the instinct to breathe always won, the same way he did. Which was why I tried to fight it in the bath. I wanted control: of my body and what happened to it; of my life and where it would go.
‘You just want attention,’ Mother said. Which is why she’d never let me go to the doctor. Even with the cuts, even with the bleeding down there when it was too early for me to bleed anywhere.
It’s easy to let these things drown you, which is where imagination comes in. Whenever I saw his shadow in my room, I’d imagine I was stuck out in Kansas like Dorothy and that, at any minute, a cyclone would come and whisk me away. I would look up at the ceiling and imagine it swirling, swirling, swirling. This was the scary part of the story but it would be OK because soon the house would crash and he would be far away. I would be in a new land of Technicolor and singing Munchkins. Of course, my story would be a little different. I wouldn’t try to go home. I’d stay in Oz for ever.
None of this is an excuse. Everyone has their sad stories and they don’t always end up on the streets doing the things I’ve done. I’ve made my choices, some good, some bad.
The good: running away from my parents. The bad: Rusby, the drugs, the men in cars, getting pregnant when I couldn’t even take care of myself. I guess most of my choices have been bad, even the one with Luca which felt so good to begin with.
I walked back up the pier and heard laughter. There was a group of lads in tracksuits sitting on benches. They weren’t on the bit you were supposed to sit on but perched on the backrest, feet on the seat as they smoked. One was the man from the rollercoaster queue. I ducked my head, hoping he hadn’t seen me, and walked over to the Hook-a-Duck hut. The yellow plastic bodies were bobbing around in a circle, with large painted eyes that looked surprised. I tried to think of a happy memory. If I could just find one happy thing I would at least feel better. But I couldn’t find anything. Happiness wasn’t a choice for me, no matter what my mother said.
‘Want a go, luv?’ said the lady in the Hook-a-Duck hut.
She looked at me all hopeful as she blew warm air into her hands. I shook my head and walked back to the side of the pier, bending my body over the rail and looking down at the water. It would be nice to drop right in and get smashed into pieces, all this suffering washed away in the tide. It wouldn’t take much: a quick shuffle up on the railings, a deep plunge. Then I would be gone and nothing else would matter.
‘She’s over there.’
Suddenly I was full again, my organs all back in place and pumping hard because he was back, he was sorry. But when I looked around there was no Luca. There was Rusby.
He was standing in front of the man from the rollercoaster queue, looking at me with hooded, wolf eyes. He had his baseball cap low, drooling at the fangs as he swaggered towards me. I wanted to run, but my limbs were frozen, just like when I was a child. I knew something awful was about to happen.
‘Told you I’d find you, didn’t I, darling?’
I lowered my head and tried to walk towards the arcade. Rusby grabbed my wrist and tugged me back.
‘Ah, ah, ah,’ he said. ‘You ain’t getting away from me this time.’
His gang lined up in front of me. I recognized some of them from the time Rusby’s knife was stolen.
‘I’ve got friends waiting for me,’ I said loudly.
One of the lads lifted his chin.
‘Hear you’ve got a lot of friends. Right, Rusby?’
They chuckled. Or maybe they growled. Their amber eyes gleamed, teeth snarling as they swayed from foot to foot. They were the wolves and I was their meat.
‘Give us a minute, won’t you, lads,’ said Rusby.
They backed away as he held on to my wrist. When I looked at Rusby’s face, all my fear drained away. I’d thought this was the worst thing that could happen, Rusby finding me, but having him there smiling his broken-slab smile made me realize what a small, tiny nothing he was.
The boards o
f the pier began to tremble.
‘The lads have got a nice place for us in town,’ Rusby said. ‘Just come with us and everything will be all right.’
The men prowled ahead. Rusby was a man of promises. Promises that he’d treat you better. Promises that everything would be all right. But, most of all, promises to other people.
I looked down at the boards. The gaps between them were widening, with little rubber-band hands poking up through the slits. I rolled my shoulders back.
‘Fire!’ I screamed. ‘Fire!’
Everyone inside the arcade looked our way. Jules told me there’s no use shouting ‘Help!’ or ‘Rape!’ No one wants to get involved. But fire? Everyone wants to see fire.
Rusby tightened his grip.
‘Are you crazy?’ he said.
The Rubberband Army were climbing the rails and leaping to the surface of the pier. Hundreds of them, all different colours and sizes, arms raised up in battle.
‘Yaaah!’ they cried in unison.
I pulled my leg back and kneed Rusby hard in the balls. He crumpled like a puppet with its strings cut. The army’s cries turned into cheers. I knew I should run but their cheering spurred me on. I kicked him harder and harder. I kicked him in his stomach and head. I kicked him until the blood was pouring.
‘You! Are! Nothing!’ I cried.
I kicked harder with each word. I looked up at the wolves, but they were all stepping back with fear in their eyes. I carried on kicking.
‘You! Are! NOTHING!’
When I stopped, Rusby lay curled up in a ball, groaning and rolling on the boards. He glanced up at me, but only for a second, too scared even to look me in the eye. I stood panting as the Rubberband Army formed around my feet.
‘I’m sorry,’ Rusby was saying. ‘Please, Molly, please.’
That was when the security guards came.
The Rubberband Girls began to run. I bent down and pulled off Rusby’s jacket before dashing down the pier after them. I saw them running down a flight of metal stairs leading down to the beach. I shot down behind them and, as soon as my feet hit the sand, began to sprint.
The tide had come in and my shoes splashed straight through the water. There were Rubberband Girls running, jumping and somersaulting through the air by my feet, whooping and cheering. I could hear the commotion on the pier above but I couldn’t tell if anyone was following so I ran all the way down past the rollercoaster, past the Ferris wheel spinning round and round. I imagined the wolves chasing me – paws pounding the ground, teeth gnashing – and tried to sprint faster. It was so dark that I could barely see anything so I closed my eyes, remembering how I’d sailed along on that bicycle in the wheat field. How I’d felt like I could go on for ever. I imagined the sun shining down on me, I imagined my little girl by my side until eventually I realized that there was no more cheering. I looked behind me but the beach was empty. I was alone. I was free.
It was only when I stopped running that I realized my legs were aching, my chest stinging like a thousand bees had daggered me. I dropped down at the top of a grassy sand dune, the jacket still clutched in my hand. I searched Rusby’s pockets: a packet of cigarettes, a lighter, a couple of tenners, and then I felt something cold and metal. I thought it might be the pillbox, hair the colour of autumn inside, but then pulled out a switchblade knife. Funny how I tricked myself, believing that something smashed on a dance floor would be in Rusby’s pocket. As if he cared about Izzy, as if he cared about us. I buried the knife deep in the sand, then swung the jacket on.
I’d never hurt someone like that before. I didn’t know if I should feel guilty; he’d done the same to me and worse. I thought of his face as he fell. The wolves when they realized that the mouse they’d trapped was really a lion.
I laughed. A loud whole-body laugh that rattled out like a warning alarm.
I am the Rubberband Girl! Watch me twist and bounce out of danger!
I carried on laughing until I couldn’t breathe any more, my body slumped to the side, chest wheezing as it tried to catch up with itself. I coughed out the last blasts until there was none left in me.
Even a Rubberband Girl can snap.
As I lay there on the cold sand, I tried to think of Izzy. I tried to picture exactly what her face would look like: the ginger hair, the freckles across the nose. But no matter how hard I tried, all I could think about was the day they took her away. The way she’d been so warm in my arms and how cold it felt when she was gone. She’s the only thing I’ve ever loved without hesitation. An undiluted, pure love. I hoped she was happy. More than hoped. It made my heart burst, thinking she could be happy.
I curled up, tucking my knees deep into my chest. I closed my eyes and tried my best to disappear.
Away to the Sea
It was the noise that woke me. A gentle chorus of warbling voices. When I opened my eyes there was a blur of turquoise and purple, the curved pattern of feathers. My vision cleared and I saw them: a flock of pigeons strutting around me. I sank my head deeper into the sand but the birds only cooed louder, flapping their wings at me, pulling at the skirt of my dress with their beaks until eventually I gave in and sat up.
‘Come, come,’ they said, rising up and then landing a few steps ahead.
Or maybe they said coo coo.
I followed the birds as they walked in a line, stumbling down the sand dune, into an empty car park, wandering up the streets as I brushed the sand out of my hair and off Rusby’s jacket. I walked past arcades and cafés with the shutters down until eventually I was on residential roads. The pigeons had flown to the skies now and when I looked up their bodies were forming the shape of an arrow. I followed and found others were following too. Women with pushchairs, a few men with book bags in their hands. They were all talking about the new term starting. Today was the first day.
It was only when I got to the school gates that I realized what the pigeons had wanted me to see. In the playground, dressed in bottle-green jumpers, grey shorts and pleated skirts were the children of Skegness. They were running and shouting, swinging on railings and whizzing around on scooters. I watched the parents walking through the gates with their children and wondered if one of them would guess who I was. If they had seen a photograph of me or would know from the way I stood there alone. I looked at all the girls, searching for flame-red hair, but there were too many. Any one of them could have been my Izzy.
Except she wasn’t my Izzy. Not any more. I gave up all rights to call her mine the minute I let them take her from my arms. She probably had a new name; they could have called her whatever they liked because they were her parents, people with good steady lives, enough to make them good parents, at least on paper. But then my parents were good on paper too. That’s why, when I was filling in the adoption papers, I’d made sure to say, Choose someone who’ll love and take care of her. I don’t care about anything else. They’d looked at me with this patronizing smile as though of course that was what they’d do. But I knew from all the stories I’d heard on the streets that foster care and adoption isn’t as clear-cut as that. The agencies make mistakes the same way the Social had when they’d come to see me. Nobody was perfect.
Then I saw her.
A girl with a white polo-neck shirt, grey skirt and socks that went up to her knees. She was skipping in the centre of a yellow circle painted on the playground, pigtails bouncing up and down with each jump. It was her; I knew it was, not because of the ginger hair or the freckles like Rusby’s but because of the eyes. Big and innocent, just like mine.
‘Izzy,’ I said quietly to myself. I wanted to run and scoop her in my arms, to cling on to her and for her to cling back. But of course I couldn’t do that. I wasn’t a mother to her. I was a stranger.
I wiped a tear from my eye as I caught sight of two women chatting near Izzy. One was tall and gangly, wearing a long tie-dye skirt; the other was older with jeans, arms crossed firmly under her bosom. Tie-dye looked like she’d feed her child with special beans from the P
eruvian mountains. Jeans looked like she’d feed her child a full English every morning. It didn’t matter either way; both were better than me.
The whistle blew. Izzy wrapped the rope around her hand and ran up to an old woman on a bench. The woman’s hair was pure white and rolled into tight curls; a walking cane rested beside her. Izzy pecked the woman on the cheek three times and then ran into the line, chatting rapidly to the girl in front of her. I could see Rusby in the way she was talking so fast. The old Rusby, before he became so harsh.
I sniffed back my tears and then looked to the skies. The pigeons were gone, leaving thin wisps of cloud in their wake. I hugged my middle, trying to squeeze out the hollow feeling inside, then felt something sharp digging into my wrist. When I looked down I saw it was the jagged beads of the bracelet Cora had given me. They were all different shapes and colours with four cubed beads in the middle. On these cubes, spelt out in capital letters, was the word ‘L-O-V-E’.
I walked back to the beach, following the signs with the happy fisherman, then sat on the bench in the bus shelter. I looked out to the sea. The tide had washed away Luca’s holes so it looked like nothing had happened. The water was grey today, as though someone had dropped a storm cloud right in the middle of it. But it looked calm too. Settled. It seemed more beautiful somehow.
It was only when I heard the panting that I realized Luca was sitting beside me. He had his trumpet case by his feet and Boy in his hands. She went berserk when she saw me, yapping and trying to scramble out of Luca’s arms so she could lick my face. I looked at Luca. His eyes were soft, the hatred drained.
‘I found her by the car,’ he said. ‘Jules was right. You can’t get rid of her.’
She was still scrambling, back stump wagging, so I went ahead and took her from Luca’s arms.
How to Find Home Page 19