A Song for Joey (9 page)

Gran?
I tried, but there was no answer.
It began to get darker, and colder.
Finally accepting that there was no returning to
The Nest
, I thought of the only other

people who had been good to me, Edith and Jacob. They had visited several times in the
first years after Gran's return, but she never welcomed them, or even recognise them, and
was very rude to them on one occasion; they never returned.

I had a clear memory of the bakery where they lived, and I knew it was on or near the
Caister Road, so I picked up my battered old case and started to head north, through the
centre of town.

After what seemed an eternity, I saw the railway station off to my left, and Caister Road
ahead. But it all looked so different; new buildings had sprung up everywhere, like weeds
in a flower bed, changing the appearance of the whole area. The road had been widened,
and new roads cut away into new estates to my right and left. I reached the place where I
was sure the baker's shop had once been, and stared unbelieving at the building that stood
there, a modern car showroom. How could it be gone, the place that held so many happy
memories? Where was the couple who had taken me in and cared for me?

As I opened up my memories of that road, images of the last time I had walked it alone
rushed at me from all sides. Grainger: again I smelt his foul breath, felt his hands
violating me, and again my body shook with the embarrassment, the shock, the anger.

By then it was completely dark. All around I saw lights gleaming from house windows happy families settling down for the night, warm fires and hot dinners, televisions and
conversations. There would be no more pleasant evenings for me with Gran and the show
people. The laughter and music of those easy times echoed in my head, taunting me,
forcing tears from my eyes.

Cars drove past with a whooshing noise, their headlights briefly slicing through the
darkness - busy fathers driving home from work, or setting off to the pub. I walked
blindly on, hoping I was mistaken and the bakery would suddenly appear. The road
continued, but there became fewer and fewer houses, until I found myself looking out
over open countryside.

Shivering, I retraced my steps, the suitcase becoming surprisingly heavier in my hands
with each step. Again, I scanned every building as I passed, hoping I was wrong, longing
to recognise something in one of them that clicked with my memory of the little baker's
shop, but there was nothing.

Eventually I reached the crossroads again and stopped. Tired and dejected, I put down
the case and looked around, unable to decide what to do.
A short way off to my right was the railway station. I shuffled towards it, attracted by
the lights and the possibility of somewhere to sit down. But when I reached the big,
Victorian building, my confidence evaporated - it was deserted, black iron gates barred
the entrance. This was the end for me; I had nowhere to go, no-one who cared if I lived or
died. I sat down on the stone steps and sobbed.

"Crying won't help." A belligerent voice poked its way into my misery, making me
jump. Wiping the tears from my eyes with my sleeve, I looked around, but could see noone in the darkness. The voice had sounded young, but with a rough edge to it that made
it hard to be sure.

It had an accent, like some of the people from London who had stayed at the .... I
suppressed the thought of my lost home, afraid I would start crying again.
"Belinda," I said. "Who are you? Where are you?"
"My name's Joe. Don't worry, I won't hurt you. Over here, look to your left. Yes, you're
looking straight at me. Walk towards the sound of my voice."
I did as he said and, as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw a doorway, blacker
against the grey of the walls. Piled up at the base of the door was a mound of flattened
cardboard boxes and rags. The mound spoke: "What's up? Are you in trouble?"
"I've been thrown out, I have nowhere to live." Why was I telling this talking rubbish
heap my problems?
"What's in the suitcase?"
Sudden anger surged through me, a defensive reaction: "Mind your own business! Nosy
sod!"
"That's better! I like it. Let it out, Belinda, it's your weapon against the world."
The heap stirred, and something like the shape of a head appeared at one end, boxes
cascading down like an avalanche. "Want a drink?" An arm materialised from the side,
with a grubby hand holding a flat bottle.
I accepted it, unscrewed the top and took a sip. For a moment my brain failed to register
the strange taste, and I had swallowed it before the warm fumes from it had reached my
nose and the liquid had burned my throat. I coughed, feeling it searing my inside.
"What is it?" I spluttered, my eyes watering.
"Whisky. I nicked it from an offie when no-one was looking. It's good stuff, keeps the
cold out."
As the shock of the first taste of the drink passed, I could feel its warming effect in my
tummy. Encouraged, but with some trepidation, I took another swig; this time I was
prepared, and managed not to cough as it hit my throat.
"'ere, steady on, leave some for me," he said, but I sensed it was meant as a joke.
I wiped the rim with the edge of my hand, then, screwing the lid on, handed the bottle
back. "Thanks, Joe."
"No sweat. Look, if you don't have anywhere to sleep, you need to keep warm, like me.
There's room in this doorway for both of us. Do you want to get under my boxes?"
Nervously, I put my suitcase against the door, at the opposite end to his head, then sat
beside it and slid my legs into the heap. It was surprisingly cosy. I shuffled my bum down,
feeling the warmth of his body, and tried to arrange some of the boxes around me, but
they kept falling off.
"Bloody hell! You're letting all the heat out. You never did this before, did you?" he
asked.
For some reason, that struck me as funny, and I began to giggle. "Ho yes," I said, putting
on the kind of silly, pantomime-aristocratic voice I had heard my entertainer friends use,
"I always spend me 'olidays in railway station doorways. It's the latest thing, doncha
know."
I heard him unscrew the lid of the bottle again. "Here, have another swig."
"Don't mind if I do," I said, taking a good gulp of the heady drink, then passing the
bottle back.
"Tomorrow, if you like, I'll show you around. If you're going to survive on the streets,
there are fings you need to know."
"Ok, thangs Jooey - I mean Jowey. Wha's happ'ned to my voish?" My lips felt numb,
and I pressed them together with my fingers.
"It's just the whisky, taking away the cold," said his voice, suddenly distant. My vision
became blurred, the shadows around me started spinning slowly, and without warning I
suddenly felt sick. I just had time to turn my head away before the contents of my stomach
erupted from my mouth.
"Yuk!" I said, wiping my mouth with my sleeve, "that tastes awful!"
"It don't smell too good, neither!" came the sharp reply.
I didn't care, the world was fading slowly, the cold and the sadness, swirling like water
disappearing down a drain, before I passed out.

I was awakened by a man's voice, god-like, from above, and a stirring of the body next
to me.
"Come on kids, clear off before the bobbies find you," said the voice, not unkindly.
A misty, grey dawn had crept in, and I looked up to see a tall man wearing a smart, blue
uniform and peaked cap.
"Ok Mr Parker, thanks," said Joey, rising from the cardboard boxes like the Creature
from the Black Lagoon. I had a headache, a piercing pain in my temples, and an
unpleasant taste in my mouth, but I followed his example and stood up, holding the ball
of agony that sat on my neck where my head should have been.
"And, Joseph, clear up that sick, please."
"Sure fing, mister Parker," Joey responded cheerfully, while simultaneously giving me
an accusing look.
We collected up his boxes and carried them around a corner of the station. There we
found a gap between two buildings and stuffed the boxes into it. Then Joey showed me
where the toilets were, and he emerged with a bucket, presumably from the cleaner's
stores, filled with water. Together, we washed away my sick and swept it into the bushes
with a stiff broom.
As we worked, I studied my new friend. It was easy to think of him as a friend, even
though we had only just met and I knew nothing about him; I felt ... well, comfortable
with him. He was about eleven or twelve years old, shorter than me, with a dirty, pearshaped face, sticky-out ears and a tangled bush of dirty blonde hair that erupted from his
head like candy floss. He wore baggy, grey trousers and a distressed, green, school blazer,
with the initials "A.P.S." on the breast pocket.
"Mr Parker is the stationmaster," he explained. He's a good sort."
Joey then took the tools back into the Gents' toilets, while I visited the Ladies for a wee
and a wash.
" Hungry?" he asked as we emerged.
"Yeah, starving."
"Right, lets go see what we can find to eat then."
I picked up my case and he grabbed my hand and led me away from the station, along
the road that, the night before, I had trudged alone and friendless.
"You will be amazed at the amount of good food there is to be 'ad for free," he said as
we sauntered along. "The supermarket throws tons of grub away every day, stuff left from
the day before that they're not allowed to sell."

We arrived at the huge store that had sprung up on the outskirts of Great Yarmouth a
year earlier, like Atlantis rising from the depths. I had never been in it; all the shopping
for the guest-house had been ordered by phone from our traditional suppliers - the local
bakers, butchers and greengrocers - and delivered to our door. Nor did I get to see the
inside this time, for Joey led me around to the back of the building, where there was a row
of large dustbins. After checking that no-one was watching us, he lifted the lid on the first
and peered inside.

"See, Bell, at night they fill all the shelves with new stuff, and dump all the old out
here," his voice came, muffled, from inside, "and a lot of it is good, eat-able food. Like
this." He emerged, brandishing a French stick, which he passed to me.

We moved along the row, plucking goodies from the bins, constantly alert for anyone
spotting us. I was amazed at what we found - sausages, eggs, fruit, bottles of milk, it was
all perfectly good food, and I found it hard to understand the philosophy of the store that
made them waste it.

After a while, we were joined by another boy, who Joey introduced to me as Charley.
He was a quiet lad, who scarcely spoke a word - unlike Joey, who chatted away
constantly, in his intriguing London accent, about what to look for and who to avoid.
Soon, our pockets were full, and we left Charley still rummaging.

"Charley's had a rough time," Joey explained as we headed off around the building. "His
dad was in the army, got killed in France, and his mother drank herself to death on gin.
He's been alone nearly all his life"

I stopped walking and looked back. Charley can only have been about ten years old, but
carried himself like an old man. He wore a long overcoat, several sizes too big for his
little body, and shoes that also looked huge below his short legs, like the over-size boots
that clowns wear. His shaggy brown hair hung down over his face as he leaned into the
bins.

As I watched him working, I saw a movement at the far side of the yard, and at the same
moment Joey shouted: "Leg it!" from behind me, startling me. A man had rounded the
corner of the building and had seen us.

Without even looking, Charley dropped to his feet from the side of a bin, and ran,
amazingly quickly, towards us. Simultaneously, the man gave a yell and also began
running. We turned and fled, heading for the rows of houses a short distance off.

"We 'ave to split up, Bell," Joey puffed. "Hide in a garden or somefing over there." He
waved a hand towards the backs of some houses, then loped off in a different direction.
He seemed to be surprisingly slow, and the man seemed to be getting dangerously close to
catching him, but I could not help, and had to find somewhere to conceal myself. I ran as
fast as I could into an alleyway, clutching my suitcase to my chest, trying to avoid
dropping the goodies I had salvaged.

I found a narrow, overgrown path between the backs of some houses, and turned into it.
After scrambling through a mass of bushes and weeds, I hid, panting, behind a heap of
rubbish piled against a fence. Eventually risking a peek from the cover of a mattress, I
looked back along the path. A man ran past the end, without even glancing in my
direction.

Joey was waiting for me at the end of the road when I emerged. "You gave them the
slip, well done," he chirped.
"I was worried about you," I said, "you didn't seem to be going very fast."
"Oh, I can do a turn of speed when I need to."
"You mean you were going slower on purpose?"
"Yeah, well ... you're still new to all this, I wanted to lead him away from you." He
grinned, cheekily. "Don't worry about me, they never catch me. I know this town better
than any of them."
We walked across the busy market place and down to the beach that I had once thought
of as my own. A picture of Oliver flashed into my mind, so vivid that it seemed to me it
must be visible to everyone around. Oliver smiling, talking, walking. I wondered where
he was, what had happened to him, why he had vanished.
"You ok, Bell?" Joey was studying my face.
I realised I had stopped walking and was staring along the beach. I looked down,
sheepishly. The memories of Oliver had transported me into the past and reminded me
how important he had been in my life for a short while.
"I'm fine, thanks. I used to come down here every day. There was someone I cared
about."
"A boy?"
I nodded, sadly. "It wasn't love, or anything like that; just friends. I wish I could go back
to those days, they were good."
Joey stopped walking, put his hands on my shoulders and fixed me with an analytical
gaze. He had to reach up, as he was six inches shorter than me, but his expression was
that of a man twice his age. "Life comes in two bits, Bell," he said gravely. "Yesterday ...
and all the rest."
He grinned. "Someone told me that, and it's stayed with me. He was a drop-out, a drunk
who lived on the streets here in Yarmouth for a year or two, then vanished. I think he used
to be a professor or somefing. Randolph, he said his name was, but I fink he made that up.
Anyways, he was a very clever man.
What he actually said was: '
shit 'appens'
. I asked him what that meant, and he said
'
what's past is past; it's what's made you who you are, but it doesn't decide what you will
be'
. I didn't really understand it at first, but I think I do now. It's all about what you make
of the stuff that happens to you, see. You can never go back. Life may deal you a handful
of shit, you can't change that, but you can change how you let the shit affect you, and how
you turn it into what you want to become."
We sat on a bench and started to eat our food; bread, cheese and cake, and shared a
bottle of milk. Somehow, it seemed to taste better, knowing that it was not only free, but
also would have been wasted if we had not rescued it.
"I understand what you're saying, Joey, but my memories are so strong it's like re-living
things again and again and again. So the torment goes on every day - the people I've lost,
the mistakes I've made, the things people have done to me, they keep buzzing around my
head, reminding me. I keep thinking that, if I could go back and change one thing, it
would all turn out differently. It's hard to move on."
Ignoring the whining tone that had crept into my voice, Joey cut through to the heart of
the matter. "I fink you did love him. What was his name?"
I looked at him, amazed. "You are way older than your years, my dear friend." I
squeezed his hand. "Oliver, his name was Oliver."
"Well, Oliver gave you some good thoughts, didn't he? Those are what you 'ave to cling
to, Bell. Where is he now?"
"I don't know; that's part of the problem. He just vanished, the day before the floods. I
figured his parents must have moved on; they were looking for somewhere to live."
He shrugged. "That's it, then. So he's still around, somewhere. Probly finking about you
just like you're finking about 'im."
"Yeah, I suppose you're right."
"Bell, if the bad stuff is weighing you down, you've got to fink of the good fings, and
friends are the most important fings of all."
I looped my arm in his and leaned close to kiss him on the cheek.
"I'm glad you're my friend," I whispered.
"'ere! Don't get all sloppy," he mumbled, wiping the sullied cheek with his sleeve, but
he was smiling.