Beginnings

by L. T. Smith

  Even Donny didn’t seem to be laughing now.

  Light blinded me as the door flew back and my mum came into the room with a roll of black bags.

  ‘Come on girls. Get yourselves up. We’re going on a trip.’ She tried to keep her voice cheerful, but we knew this trip wasn’t to Butlins. ‘Here…’ She passed us a couple of bags she had torn off, ‘pack as many clothes as you can into these … Angie’s too.’

  ‘Over my dead body!’ My father bellowed.

  ‘It can be arranged.’ Her voice was a growl, and even my father slunk back, knowing that she would rip his head off if he as much as made a move in our direction.

  Not that he would have put himself on the line like that. He was neither brave, nor did he give a damn. His kids and family meant nothing to him. He had proved that with his inability to give two shits about anyone but himself.

  My body was shaking. My small hands were grabbing everything and anything, randomly shoving clothes haphazardly. Jo was crouched next to me, tears trickling down her face as she slowly placed each item carefully into the sack.

  My world was falling apart … falling apart … falling apart. Each refrain mimicked the action of my hands, as they silently packed the few belongings we owned into shiny black plastic. Every muscle seemed to vibrate through me … panic and fear vying for dominance …

  Until it struck me …

  Ash.

  When could I see Ash?

  Could I say goodbye to her?

  I didn’t want to say goodbye … a noise danced in my throat … a wail waiting to be released into the silent room. I didn’t want to leave Ash … she was my friend … I didn’t want to leave.

  Tremors shook through me, the wail winning out, the tears flowing freely now. I brought my hand to my face to smear the tears across my cheeks, my nose bunging up, breathing becoming difficult.

  ‘Come on sweetheart. It’ll be all right.’ Mum was crouching next to me, trying to get me to calm down, her loving hands on my shoulders, quickly rubbing the knotted muscles. ‘We’ll still be together …’

  Instead of calming me, this thought just made me cry even harder. Loving hands slipped underneath my armpits and I felt myself being lifted into the familiar scent of my mum. ‘Shush there, sweetheart … I’ve got you.’

  It was ages before she let me go. She rocked me back and forth, stroking up and down my spine. Jo stood silently next to us both, her hand tangling through my hair.

  That’s just like my sister. She must have been feeling just as scared as me, but she still rose above it and worried about me first. That is why I love her as much as I do.

  An hour later saw us in the back of a black cab. Mum, Angie, Alan, Jo and me … five bin bags and not much else. We looked a sorry sight. The rest of the lads decided to stay with their father – their father, as he was no longer mine … and I doubt he ever was – although biologically I could never escape that fact.

  I can still remember the taxi driver reversing into Ash’s road, and my eyes staring up to the dark window of her room. I wanted to wake her up … tell her that whatever happened she was still my friend and I loved her.

  But as the taxi pulled away, I felt a part of me stay there in Levenshulme. I just hoped that Ash would find it and know I didn’t want to go … didn’t want to leave her.

  I had to take some comfort from the knowledge that no matter how long it took … I would find her again.

  That was a promise.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  1984

  Ten Years Later …

  LOADS OF THINGS had happened in those ten years. Too many to go into any detail, but the main thing was, I never had the opportunity to see Ash again. Never had the chance to say goodbye.

  Every time it rained I thought about her. I know … weird. Even to this day, as soon as it rains heavily, I still have the image of her standing there, drenched to the skin, hair and body soaking wet, smiling at me, even though she was freezing cold.

  I still have those books from that day. They still look like concertinas, all bevelled and ruined. The pages barely separate and they look tired and old. I keep them wrapped up in a bright red jumper. Her bright red jumper. They were the only things I had of hers and there was no way I would part with them.

  Ever.

  After my mum left my dad, I found out she had actually been seeing someone else. It was funny in a way, because I had met him on more than one occasion. He worked with my mum at the nightclub – he was the head chef, so I had never thought it was weird when my mum had taken me and Jo around to his flat to meet him.

  To tell the truth, I thought he was wonderful. He always had time to chat, always took an interest in what we were doing, and in retrospect I realised he thought the absolute world of my mum. It was good for the soul to see her so happy. Years had been wasted with a man who had told her nobody else would ever give her a second look, but now she was with a man who thought the sun rose and fell because she was on the earth.

  Those ten years were not easy, by any stretch of the imagination. My dad had great joy divorcing my mum on the grounds of adultery. All his philandering meant nothing to him, and he glorified in his statement that he would never forgive her for leaving him … ‘for another man at that.’ He failed to recognise his own shortcomings – the affairs, the lies, the fact he got a girl who was a year older than his daughter pregnant, believing it was his right to do all these things.

  My brothers were on his side, following steadily in his footsteps as womanisers and drunks. All except Alan, and as soon as he was old enough he was off to join the gang. I told you he was an idiot didn’t I?

  Angie had married a man who looked like Brains from Thunderbirds, although most of the time he reminded me more of Joe 90. Four of my brothers got married and then three of them got divorced. They were definitely like their father. Actually Aiden was remarried … and wifey number two was getting sick and tired of his absences … and I don’t mean the times he spent in nick either. I doubt they will ever learn.

  At sixteen I left school and started college to do my A levels.

  And that is when I saw her again.

  Ash.

  My Ash. In the flesh. Bigger, taller, darker, and absolutely positively the most gorgeous creature on the planet.

  I hadn’t been enrolled very long, and was still trying to find my way around Stockport College, when I saw her. Don’t get me wrong here. I didn’t look at her and say to myself ‘Oh look! That’s Ash.’ It was more embarrassing than that.

  A lot more.

  Being a ‘newbie’ we were constantly the butt of everybody’s jokes. When we asked for directions we were sent the opposite way; we were told stories about teachers to make us wary of the staff. They took the piss out of us constantly, but that was to be expected. All in all, it worked out fine.

  Until the incident.

  I still cringe about it to this day, but realise if it hadn’t happened I would never had met Ash again.

  I had been at college for two weeks, and had made a few friends who insisted I went along to the karaoke night at the student union. As you well know, I couldn’t hold a note (still can’t), but I’d agreed, on the understanding I would not be getting up there and making a fool of myself.

  Big mistake.

  I should have stayed home and washed my hair … watched telly … read a book. Even studied.

  But no. Karaoke night it was.

  My friends were there, all cramped around a table with some older students, laughing and fitting in well. I bought a coke from the bar and joined them. They seemed like a nice bunch, although slightly pissed already and it was only eight o’clock.

  As the night wore on, more people were getting up the nerve to sing. Not me. I just sat there and sipped my drink, laughed in all the right places, and chatted mainly with Mandy, a girl who was in my A level Sociology course, and at who’s house I would be staying over at that night.

  I felt quite relaxed, and I think it had something to d
o with what Ray, an older Art student, kept slipping in my drink. He thought he was being sly about it, but he was too pissed to realise he was being obvious.

  Then came the joints. I had never even smoked a cigarette, never mind a joint, but hey – it was college, and everyone else was doing it.

  Another … big … mistake.

  I swear, I only had a couple of drags … honestly your honour … just the two. But it felt like I had smoked ten. And that’s how I found myself on the stage, in the student’s union, singing ‘Waterloo’. Fuck.

  And then …

  Double fuck.

  The lights in the place were blinding. The smoke in the air was making my throat dry up even more than it was already, but for some strange reason I didn’t care. I was waving my arm above my head and croaking out the jumbled words to Abba’s winning song. I was killing it … slaughtering the poor song … hanging it up and slitting its metaphorical throat.

  About a third of the way through, I felt someone come behind me on the stage and begin to sing with me. I was overjoyed, and not a little zealous, to thank this person for becoming part of my act. I turned and stumbled into something warm and tall. I knew it was female because my face was pressed into some very impressive breasts. A laugh escaped as I stumbled back and looked up into …pale … blue … eyes.

  I froze.

  The eyes had me.

  The rabbit incident happened all over again. I don’t know why I stepped away, maybe it was to focus my attention on the whole package, and not just those blue eyes gazing intently into my own.

  Now this was the biggest mistake of them all. I know … drinking alcohol as a minor, smoking pot, murdering an Abba song – they were mistakes, kind of … but stepping back … stepping backwards on a tiny stage and not paying attention …

  That’s the show stealer.

  I landed squarely on top of a table full of empty glasses, surrounded by amorous young men, ready for a woman to drop into their lives. Plastic glasses flew in all directions, my arse hitting the edge with enough velocity to tip the table forward and enable me to slide gracefully to the ground.

  The music stopped. The room was silent for what seemed like an age. And then the laughter began. Raucous laughter that ricocheted off the walls and pounded in my befuddled ears. The room began to spin – not a good sign, especially because my stomach began to spin with it.

  A concerned face hovered in front of me, and I struggled to control my wandering eyeballs, which decided to move on their own volition about the sockets.

  They landed on blue eyes, twinkling blue eyes that captured me in a tractor beam gaze. I was transfixed. My body ceased to squirm, my eyeballs decided to behave and focus on this vision in front of me.

  ‘Lou?’ That voice. So familiar, yet so different. ‘It is you, isn’t it?’ I couldn’t answer … I was struck mute by the situation, the alcohol, the pot, and her eyes. ‘Louise Turner? It’s you, isn’t it?’ Her hand came out and stroked my cheek, my eyes fluttering closed.

  ‘Ash.’ The word parted my lips in a gesture of hope. I couldn’t believe it was her … couldn’t believe after all these years she would just pop into my world again.

  ‘Yup … in the flesh.’ I opened one eye to focus on her, taking in her classic beauty again. My reaction to this vision was one I bet many of you have experienced at one time or another.

  I threw up.

  All over her.

  In a bar full of people.

  And then I threw up again.

  I told you it was embarrassing, didn’t I?

  CHAPTER SIX

  GREY DAWN PEEKED through the window and nearly blinded me. My eyes felt like red hot coals in snow. Not good.

  The taste in my mouth was indescribable, as all the flavours that had spewed forth the previous night came back to haunt me. And I mean spewed …

  The bed I was in was big … and not my own. And even in my state, I knew I wasn’t alone. Shit. What had I done last night?

  I tried to think … but my brain was AWOL … and the empty space where it should have been sitting was occupied by a full out drum section.

  Mandy’s. I was at Mandy’s. It must be Mandy’s bed I was curled up in, and that must be Mandy who is spooning up the back of me with her arm draped over my belly.

  Just a minute … spooning the back of me? With her arm around my middle?

  A quick look under the covers told me I was undressed … a t-shirt that obviously wasn’t one of my own was covering my top half, but the bottom half was … gulp … naked. Shit … again. What had I done last night?

  Tentatively I turned around, fully expecting to see Mandy’s ruffled brown hair on the pillow behind me.

  But I was wrong … oh, so wrong. The sight that greeted me was like a blast from the past. Long black hair cascaded over the pillow, a fine chiselled face angelic in sleep, the nose straight and perfect.

  Older, yet still faultless.

  Ashley Richards.

  My eyes shot open at this revelation. I was half-naked in bed with Ashley Richards. Ash. My Ash. The Ash I hadn’t seen for over ten years. And here I was, hung over, with the taste of dead kittens lingering around in my mouth. Shit … big time.

  To say I was embarrassed would be redundant, as images of me puking over her the previous night came gallivanting back into my mind. Not sick on her once … but twice! How was I going to get away with that one? I wanted to get up, dress, and run. My wild eyes scanned the room, looking for my jeans and top from the previous night.

  They weren’t anywhere. Fuck.

  The idea of going home with just the t-shirt on actually became an option at one point. But could I really do with all the stares on the bus? Well …

  ‘Morning, Lou.’

  Too late! I took too long! I was caught now. Oh crap. I resigned myself to the situation, albeit unwillingly, and said the only thing that popped in my mind.

  ‘Can I borrow a toothbrush?’ Sweet, eh? I hadn’t seen her for ten years and all I could manage to do was throw up all over her and then ask to borrow a toothbrush.

  Her face broke out into an all out grin, white teeth shining in the morning’s growing light. She threw her arms above her head, and I felt the loss of the contact immediately. She stretched , making a little mewling noise as she did so. ‘Sure … I’ll just show you where the bathroom is and get you a toothbrush.’ That smile again. ‘I bet your mouth feels like crap, doesn’t it?’

  Could I go any redder? Nope. Not unless you dipped my head in ketchup.

  ‘Come on then … I’ll show you.’ With that, she leapt out of bed, exposing miles of naked legs. Did I say I couldn’t go any redder?

  I lied.

  I spent ages in the bathroom. Ash had told me to grab a shower if I wanted one, and by one quick sniff of my skin, I decided she hadn’t asked out of politeness.

  The water was like a gift from the gods – cool on my over heated skin, the throbbing of the brass band in my head was calming to a dull roar. Minty toothpaste tried its very best to decompose the lingering tastes in my mouth … and eventually I calmed it down enough to feel a little more confident about speaking to people.

  I had been in the bathroom for a good forty minutes before I realised I was at Ash’s house. I knew I was at Ash’s house, what I meant to say was Ash’s house – from when we were kids. I couldn’t believe it. After all these years she was still in the same place where I had left her. I also couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed where I was before that.

  Blame the hangover.

  A sense of sadness washed over me. Why hadn’t I written to her? I had missed her so much in those ten years – I could have dropped her a note to tell her what had happened. I honestly can’t tell you why I didn’t … I felt so stupid … so shallow. The only excuse I could think of was that I had been only six at the time, and by the time I could have written to her, tried to find her or made some effort to try to contact her again, too much time had passed.

  I wasn’t even sure sh
e’d remember me.

  What must Ash think of me? What must she have thought when I just disappeared off the face of the earth one night and never even contacted her … when she lived at the same fucking address she always had?

  The sadness flopped into my gut, stopping the churning of misspent youth, and weighing heavily on my conscience. I sat on the toilet seat and put my head in my hands, trying to find some semblance of reason in my fucked up mind.

  Then it dawned on me. Like a lightning bolt from the subconscious. Why hadn’t she tried to find me? Unreasonable, I know, but anything to pass the buck.

  I leaned back against the cool wood of the toilet seat and sucked in a breath. What was the point of going over past events? It wouldn’t change anything, would it?

  At least I had the opportunity to see her again … like I always promised myself, but was too bloody lazy to do anything about. A grin split my face. I was here, in Ashley Richards’ house, and she was just down the hallway from me. I had the opportunity to have her back in my life once again … A bigger smile adorned my face.

  ‘Lou? Are you okay in there?’ Her voice was like nectar to my ears. I felt like I had been transported back ten years. ‘I’ve made you a coffee …’

  ‘I’ll be right there!’ Then I quickly rubbed the towel through my long hair again, threw on the dressing gown she had given me, and opened the door to my future.

  Ash. My Ash. Back in my life again.

  What a day! What a bloody fantastic day!

  Hangover forgotten, I nearly skipped down the hallway to my old friend’s bedroom.

  Over coffee, Ash told me about her life up to now. She was studying Law, Psychology, Social Sciences and Maths at A level, as she wanted to join the police force like her father. Well, she had the height for it; she must have been getting on for six foot if the length of her legs were anything to go by.