by Sara Pascoe
* * *
‘Oh, Raya. I’m getting too old for all this.’ Angie shook her head. ‘I thought you’d run off.’ She sounded angry and worried – like she really cared. That was the worst – any whiff of real affection put knots in Raya’s stomach. In her experience it never lasted. And getting a taste of what she didn’t like to admit she craved only brought up a storm of uncomfortable emotions. That’s it, I’m out of here, one way or another.
She composed herself and said, ‘What? No, I just had a row with Gemma, that’s all.’
‘Did you, now?’ Angie arched an eyebrow. ‘Well, it looks like you had a rough time, in any event.’ She tried to give the girl a hug, but Raya dodged it, afraid she’d burst into tears, and started towards the door.
‘OK then, how about a nice hot bath and something to eat?’ Angie said.
A while later, clean, fed and exhausted, Raya tumbled into bed. Her feet bumped into something. She forced her eyes open and saw Oscar sleeping at the end. Weird, Angie got a cat in the two minutes I was gone? Maybe it’s the one the social worker lost, was her last thought before falling to a sleep laced with nightmares of being chased by the police.
The next morning, Jake studied Raya across the table from where he sat munching his cereal. The moment Angie walked out of the front room, he leaned forward.
‘So what happened?’ He almost hovered off his seat.
‘Oh, just didn’t work out is all.’ Raya yawned for effect, but inside she wanted to tell, and yell, and cry, and run away from herself, if only that was possible. She was terrified the police would tie her to Tony. If he was capable of holding up that poor foreign couple, even if it WAS a fake gun, I’m sure he’d lie and drop me in it if he thought that would help him somehow. Just thinking about Tony made everything look a disgusting brown. Another one of those colour-visions; her heart sank further, burrowing into the ground – maybe she WAS going psychotic.
‘What do you mean it “just didn’t work out”?’ Jake brought Raya out of her head, but clammed up as Angie walked in.
‘OK, you two – fifteen minutes and you’re both off to school.’ Oscar came out of Raya’s room looking strangely more black and less white than she remembered. He wound around Angie’s ankles and meowed, but Raya heard in her head, ‘Hey, lady, I’m hungry, if you don’t mind. And by the way – I’m more of a poultry man.’
Oh sweet Jessops – now I’m having proper hallucinations!
Angie went into the kitchen with the cat at her heels. Raya followed.
‘Angie?’ Raya said. She was shaking. Angie put a bowl with tuna fish on the floor and turned towards the girl.
‘Oh, poppet, what’s the matter?’ She put a hand on Raya’s arm.
‘I SAID poultry. Oh, that’s right – you’re not a witch.’
Oscar glared at Angie and sniffed at the food. ‘Oh well, be careful what you wish for, eh?’
‘Did you hear that?’ Raya asked Angie.
Angie’s concerned eyes met hers. ‘The cat? He certainly is noisy.’
Raya grabbed her rucksack, still packed from last night, and bolted out of the cottage. Her heart hammered, her head pounded. Part of her felt like maybe she could outrun it – the monster that stole her mother. She ran, the thumping of her feet her only anchor. She thought she might rise up and explode, like a big greasy soap bubble. If only I could.
The mile run to town helped calm her down. Puffed out, she leaned against the wall of an alleyway, lined with the back doors to shops. She opened her phone and flicked her SIM card into a commercial rubbish bin. Who knew restaurant rubbish stank so? She put her new SIM in and walked around until she found free Wi-Fi. She messaged Tony’s friend who ran a squat in east London: ‘Coming after all. Other plans didn’t work out. Hope that’s OK, Podcast.’
Raya used a fake name, one of the few good ideas to spring from Tony’s rotten head. Looking back, she could see he knew a bit too much about all things dodgy. At least she was moving forward now and felt better for it – Plan B.
She sneaked onto the train platform without a ticket. After boarding, she made a beeline for the toilet and stood behind the door, but left it unlocked. She held her breath when the conductor tapped, peeked in, then carried on. No use spending any of her hard-earned dosh unless necessary. It had taken months of doing every job she could convince people to give her – gardening, errands for old people, painting fences, dog walking. Anything but babysitting – didn’t want the responsibility. After the conductor passed, she locked the door, changed into the dull-grey hoodie she’d brought for the occasion and put on her Goth make-up – thick rings of black eyeliner, great blobs of mascara, wedges of black for eyeshadow and dried blood-red lipstick. That’ll do. No sense going all out – she wasn’t exactly going to a party. She settled into an empty pair of seats facing backwards.
‘Is this seat taken?’ a grandmotherly woman said.
‘Yes, I’m afraid it is.’ Raya smiled back. Company was the last thing she wanted.
She logged onto the train’s Wi-Fi. Nothing from Tony who had her new number. She wondered if he was in borstal or what.
Why would he think robbing a petrol station was a brilliant idea? If I’d been a few minutes earlier… She realised she didn’t miss him as much as she was angry. Surely the police will go and talk to Tony’s cousin. And anyway, I don’t even know him – probably a plonker just like Tony.
Raya stared out the window. Green fields, cows and sheep, houses and ribbons of road receded in front of her. Her phone chimed – a message from Home Girl: ‘Hi Podcast, glad you can stop over. Meet me at the shopping centre straight down from the Dagenham Heathway Tube stop. I’ll be in the sports shop.’ Raya knew what Home Girl looked like from Tony’s old Facebook pictures as she didn’t risk putting anything new up now. She’d been living in squats for over a year, knew how it all worked.
As the train neared Victoria Station, tall apartment blocks and industrial buildings flashed by. The sky had clouded over. Raya’s reflection flickered in the window. She looked younger and sadder than she’d imagined.
* * *
When she emerged from the Dagenham Heathway Tube stop, Raya was surprised how ordinary everything looked. The Heathway was lined with all the typical shops; buses and cars went by, people darted across the road. She realised she’d thought life, everything, would look different somehow once she was free. But it didn’t.
No one gave her a second look; she was just another kid with too much make-up, and an unnaturally black ‘Atomic’ – like the bomb, the name she gave to her hairstyle: shaved on the sides, the rest standing on end. There were a few people in the sports store, but Home Girl was easy to spot. She looked like her photos, except thinner and scruffier. She was handling a pair of multi-coloured high tops.
‘Hiya,’ Raya said. Her voice sounded meeker than she’d meant it to. ‘You Home Girl?’
‘Yup. So you found your way all right?’
‘Yeah. Finding you was the easy part. It’s all been kind of hard going, really, what with the police taking Tony and–’
‘Tony was arrested?’ She put the high tops back on the shelf. ‘I’m sorry. Come on, tell me about it on the way back.’
They walked out of the Heathway Shopping Centre and down the road.
‘That’s the library. Remember that – they’ve got computers in there and it’s a nice place to hang out,’ Home Girl said, nodding to the bright, modern building on the corner where they turned left.
‘So, what happened to Tony?’ she asked as they walked in matching strides.
‘Would you believe it – he tried to rob a petrol station with a GUN and everything.’
‘No way! Did you know? Did they try to arrest you too?’ Home Girl stared at Raya without slowing.
‘Of COURSE I didn’t know. It was a plastic gun, anyway – but how stupid, eh? I got there just after he’d done it. For once being late paid off.’
Home Girl snickered, shook her head. ‘I am sorry. Sounds
horrible.’
Raya dug her nails into her palms to keep from crying as she relived Tony robbing those poor people at gunpoint, even if it was a fake, and her almost being part of it. She hunched down into her hoodie. They continued on in silence. There were lots of people out: mums with pushchairs and bags of shopping, businessmen and women, a postman rolling his red, square cart down the pavement.
‘That’s kind of cool,’ Raya said looking at the building on their left. Home Girl followed her gaze to the flats with brightly coloured translucent balcony panels, like sheets of boiled sweets.
‘Yeah. I like that, too. I wanted to be an architect,’ Home Girl said.
Raya took a good look at her – she was seventeen at most. ‘So why not, then?’
Home Girl laughed. ‘You in school?’
They walked on, past houses, a shop here and there, then the road curved. Cars passed, a double-decker bus churned out exhaust and noise.
‘So, who’s in the squat?’
Home Girl looked around. ‘Shh. Say “home” or “place”, in case anybody overhears.’
‘Oh, right. Sorry. Any other rules?’ Raya said.
‘Not many. The most important thing is don’t leave if you’re the only one there. If there’s no one in it, we could lose it just like that.’ She snapped her fingers. ‘The only other thing is no open fires.’
‘What?’
‘When it gets cold, sometimes people try making a little bonfire inside to warm up, but that’s just stupid – obviously.’
‘Obviously.’
They passed neat blocks of brick-built flats, a patch of green behind a fence, then reached a corner where they turned left, along a larger, divided road. The cars drove by faster. They turned left again along another block of flats and behind a fenced-in, boarded-up pub. About a hundred yards down, Raya followed Home Girl through a break in the chain-link fence. Home Girl rapped three times on the back door to the white box-like extension to the pub. A lock rattled, the door opened and a toothless guy in his fifties smiled at them.
‘Hey, Homie. Is this the new recruit?’ He walked away before getting an answer. Raya and Homie walked through the kitchen where the tap dripped on a few dirty dishes. There was a new kettle on the counter. They walked into the next room, a large space with a stage at one end. It was dim and smelled of mould and unwashed people. There were bedrolls and sleeping bags in groups of three or more spread around. There were a couple of tables with chairs on the stage. Raya felt queasy – not so much at the grossness of the place, but at the reality of her choices. So this is it? Either live in an absolute dump or with fake parents who get paid to do it and then spit you out at eighteen anyway?
The toothless man had settled back down on his bedroll.
‘RJ works nights,’ Homie said.
‘He has a job?’ Raya said.
RJ chuckled.
‘He’s got a corner,’ Homie said.
‘And it IS hard work,’ RJ chimed in.
There were three more people in at the time, two men and a woman. Raya smelled alcohol. She nodded and tried to remember everyone’s names. The others besides RJ looked to be in their twenties or thirties. Homie had the most going for her – she wasn’t a druggie or an alchy, and seemed pretty smart. It made sense she was in charge.
‘You can put your bedroll here, next to mine, if you want,’ Homie said.
‘Thanks, appreciate it.’
‘Best not to mix your stuff up with other people’s. Bedbugs, you know.’
Raya followed Homie around while she showed her the toilets, and some sinks where they could give themselves a birdbath. She didn’t ask how they managed to keep the water and electricity on in the building. She kept her rucksack on her shoulder. I guess it could be worse.
Back in the main room, Homie stopped by a long wall of cupboards. About eight of them had padlocks.
‘Here’s yours. I’d go out and get a hasp and lock. A key is best. People might watch you do the combination.’
‘A hasp?’ Raya said.
‘The metal parts that let you put the lock through. Oh, and get a few screws. The kind you can’t get back out again. I have a screwdriver you can borrow.’
‘Good idea. Is the high street the nearest place for that stuff?’ Raya said.
‘Yup.’
‘OK. I’ll be back soon,’ Raya said, but the look in Homie’s eyes told her she knew Raya wasn’t coming back. Homie’s shoulders slumped; she looked disappointed. Maybe she’d been hoping for someone near her age. Raya felt guilty leaving, then felt stupid for feeling guilty. She’d only just met Homie – maybe she saw herself in her. The squat would still be there if it came to that. ‘Thanks for everything,’ Raya said. ‘You’ve been very kind.’ And she meant it.
* * *
‘The postcode? I’m sorry. I just moved in with my nan. I’m staying with her while my mum’s in drug rehab, and I don’t know the post–’
‘That’s OK. I can look it up for you,’ the librarian said, disbelieving but resigned. ‘We’ll post your card to you in a fortnight.’
‘Thanks,’ Raya said, then jumped onto her assigned computer, not wanting to waste a precious minute. She got onto Google maps and studied where she was – Dagenham, east London, and the surrounds. It looked like there were more shops and things going west, towards central London. Surely I can find some work, maybe somewhere that will put me up. Anywhere’s better than that place. It was a little after three in the afternoon and she had an all-day Travelcard. Raya moved the map around on the screen and followed the Tube line west to Barking. BARKING!
Before leaving the library, she looked up youth hostels. Oh, that’s really cheap. £11.50 per night with free Wi-Fi and brekkie? She jotted down the address in Lambeth, south London. Just for one night. I’ve got £231.64, so that would leave me with… £220.14. I won’t eat until tomorrow – I could do that. The pictures of the clean shower stalls and tidy bunk beds looked like a palace compared to the squat. She wrote down how to get there on the Tube then put her pad and pen back in their zipped pocket.
She smiled at the doubting librarian and left, taking large, happy strides towards the Tube stop. Maybe it’s better without Tony – I can do exactly what I want. She’d wanted to go back to Barking for a long time but no one would go with her. That was where she was from, where she’d lived with her mum and grandparents when she was little.
Raya laced through the packs of people when she got off at the Barking Tube stop. Guided by wordless memory, she loped past the old building converted into a supermarket and down the high street. Even though she’d moved away to Redhill with her nan when she was only five after her grandad died, she’d travelled these streets many times when her brain was still soft, and it had all sunk in without trying.
She turned onto another street of apartment blocks, passed the clock tower, then turned again. When she saw the ordinary three-storey block of flats where she’d lived with her mum, grandad and nan, yearning pummelled her.
The schizophrenia robbed Raya of her mother. Raya didn’t remember her healthy, although her nan said she pretty much was until Raya was about three. Mostly, Raya remembered doing the odd things her mother asked her. Like hiding under the kitchen table because the red Formica top would protect them from aliens stealing their thoughts. At times, it was kind of fun, like being in a kids’ den with her mum, but those moments would evaporate with the terror etched on her mother’s face. Or having to say, ‘Butter up, butter down, butter the bread all around,’ whenever her mother made her toast or sandwiches to make sure no evil would get into Raya through the food. Once, when Raya giggled while saying the little rhyme her mother smacked her – real fear in her eyes. As a little one, Raya tried to make the world safe for her mother. She was sure her mother would stop worrying about all these things, that it would be OK if only Raya did everything right.
Then, one day, there was a picnic at nursery and Raya ran around swatting sandwiches out of the children’s hands and mo
uths, sobbing and chanting the rhyme, worried all these children would be victim to evil without the pre-emptive ditty. A teacher restrained her with a bear hug until she could stop the choking sobs long enough to explain. This started the ball rolling – social services, and psychiatric treatment for her mum.
At first, they tried to let her mother continue living at home with her parents and Raya. Although the medication seemed to take away a lot of the weird ideas and stopped the hallucinations she also had, her mother did anything to not take it. Part of it was the crummy side-effects, but looking back Raya also wondered if that other world, revealed by psychosis, was the real one for her mother. Who could blame her for choosing fighting aliens and evil instead of just being an ordinary mum? But it still hurt. After about a year in and out of hospital, her mum was placed in supervised housing, where she still lived.
No one knew who Raya’s dad was because her mum either didn’t know or wouldn’t say. Sometimes she’d say he was a famous person, a dead person from history, or even a superhero – more crazy stuff. So her grandparents were given custody.
Raya remembered the smell of cigarettes. Her nan had been a terrible smoker, died of it shortly after they’d moved. That was after her grandad had died.
Grandad.
Tears caught her by surprise. She was suddenly back on his shoulders, her arms around his neck, the comforting smells of car oil and coffee. He’d walk her around the neighbourhood, showing her off to anyone who’d listen. He’d stop in front of the flats before going in, taught her to count with the windows. Theirs was the fifth from the right in the middle row. She was convinced theirs looked that much brighter.
Sometimes, when her nan was at work, and with her mother too unwell or not there, her grandad would take her to the garage where he worked. He’d set her up in a scrapped taxi, with plenty of blankets and lots of toys. The other workers were always nice to her, bending their grease-lined faces down to check on her, offering her more biscuits than she could eat, sharing their cheese and pickle sandwiches, and giving her very milky cups of tea. She started along the familiar route. He’d died eleven years ago but her heart believed there might be some souvenir, some echo.