Can't Anyone Help Me? (25 page)

The ones I thought had suffered most were the quiet ones. With their arms wrapped around their bodies, they looked out at the world through eyes from which the innocence of childhood had long gone. Some were so disturbed that foster home after foster home had given up on them and returned them to the state’s care.

But however they had come to be in that school, they all had one thing in common: they felt worthless.

There was one boy, the eldest of six children, who was angry and bitter at the system he thought had let him down. ‘Don’t think my mother knew who half our fathers were,’ he said offhandedly, as though that was normal. ‘But you know, in her own way, she tried. Well, when she was sober she did. The neighbours kept reporting her about the state we were all in, how the baby cried all day, the men she brought home, and the screaming rows that the whole neighbourhood could hear. Round those do-gooders would come. I’d see their faces grimacing at the state of our home – she never cleaned it. There would be empty booze bottles all over the place. But they never took us away, not even when they could see my baby brother was stuck in the same stinking nappies all day. Funny thing, though – the dog. We’d gone on, as kids do, that we wanted one. In the end she said I could have a puppy for my birthday. Off we all went to one of those homes where strays were being looked after. They had nice clean cages and plenty of food. Lucky them, I thought. The ads said they needed new homes. I picked one little black-and-white thing up. It licked my nose and I decided that was the one for me. And you know what those people that worked there said then?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘That we had to fill in a form and answer loads of questions. Like would someone be in all day – they didn’t want to think of a puppy being left. And did we have a garden? My mum said there was a park and she didn’t go out to work so it would have company, if that was what bothered them. I think it was the sight of all us that worried them. A bunch of scruffy kids, the baby in a beat-up pushchair, and even though she’d cleaned herself up, my mum still looked a mess. But they didn’t say that. They just told us that someone would call round and see us all at home.

‘Well, this lady arrived, unexpected, like. Well, you should have seen her face when my mum let her in – she’d been drinking as usual and smelt like a brewery. That lady couldn’t wait to leave and we never got the dog. Our house wasn’t suitable, they said. I thought it funny that it was all right for us kids to stay there, but not good enough for a little mongrel dog.’ He laughed harshly.

‘So how did you end up here?’ I asked.

‘She got a new man who beat us up when he was drunk. Put the little ’un in hospital, the bastard. The police were called and brought in Social Services, who took us away. We were all sent to different foster homes. But the one I went to didn’t want me, so I got sent here.’

‘And your mother?’ I asked.

‘She can fuck off,’ he said. ‘Stupid cow, she took him back, you know, after what he did.’

He was just one who spat with rage when he talked about his parents. When questioned, I said I had played truant, hung around with the wrong friends, done drugs and got caught.

‘Is that all?’ they asked.

Well, it was all I was going to admit to.

Pocket money was limited in the school. Instead, we were given odd jobs where we were rewarded with small amounts of extra cash. Earning money was meant to give us self-respect, I was told.

Not bloody likely, was the sentiment many of us expressed. We did the odd chore so as not to raise suspicion and then, like the teenagers I had met before, looked for other ways to supplement our incomes.

We would take a bus to the next town, pair up and shoplift. We sold the stuff – tapes, small items of clothing, makeup, perfume – to contacts that those who had been in the school for several months had made. Marijuana was bought, joints rolled and passed round and, for a while, I thought little had changed for me.

My five-year-old self came out a couple of times, but without the pressure of being in my parents’ house, she seemed happier, or so I was told. Well, she didn’t throw herself at a wall. And the matron seemed able to cope with her.

I stayed there for several months. When the first holiday came round, then the second, my parents refused to have me at home. I, like some of the other children, remained at the school. Christmas came and went. Then it was Easter and my parents finally agreed that I could go home for a week.

The headmistress called me to her office and imparted the news in the expectation that I would be overjoyed at the thawing of my parents’ resolve to have nothing to do with me.

I wasn’t. Their minds might have changed, but mine had not. I had no intention of seeing my parents again, and it was then that I decided to leave.

Dave had managed to get up to see me a few times – we had met in town – and it was him that, in a panic, I had phoned. He had moved away from his parents and gone to London while I had been at the school. It was to there that I made arrangements to go.

I waited till the weekend when we were free to go into town, threw as much of my stuff into a duffel bag as I could and simply walked out.

I don’t think my parents would have opted for that place if they had known how easy it was to leave and how little supervision there was. Before anyone could realize I was missing, I was on the train.

Dave and I had decided that with the coach taking six hours, even though it was cheaper, catching it was risky. I might be stopped once I reached London. Once the school reported that a girl was missing the coach station would be the first place the police would go to make enquiries. I bought a ticket to Manchester, changed there and bought another to London. That’ll throw them off the scent, I thought. They’ll think I’m on my way home and it’ll give me more time to travel without being detected.

That day, I felt I was having the biggest adventure of my life. I sat in a smoking compartment and sipped coffee. I hadn’t dared to try to buy wine or beer from the bar. Not seeing anyone who looked the least bit interested in me, I lit cigarette after cigarette and placed my headphones on my head. Won’t be long before I’m smoking something a bit more interesting than this, I thought. Then, pressing my forehead against the window, I watched as the train flashed past small towns and villages. It was when we got to the outskirts of London that I began to see just how big it was. Rows and rows of terrace houses and council estates of old brick tenement buildings where I could see washing hanging out on the balconies, then the more modern tower blocks with their high windows and nearby play areas.

It was early evening when the train drew into Euston and, picking up my bag, I jumped on to the platform ready for the next stage of my adventure.

As I gave my ticket to the inspector and walked through the barrier, I was oblivious to everyone except Dave, who was standing there with a huge grin on his face. He gave me an enveloping hug, took my bag and led me to the escalators that descended to the Underground.

I stood on the moving staircase as it took me down and down. I could feel people jostling me, but it was the noise I was conscious of: the roar of the trains, the loudspeaker announcing arrivals, the warning to mind the gap, and the hundreds of commuters rushing to their platforms.

Once on the crowded train, we had to stand with my bag between Dave’s feet. Hanging on to an overhead strap, I swayed backwards and forwards in time to the train’s movements. I found it hard to keep my balance as it charged through the tunnel before it stopped to let a few people off and still more on.

We changed from the Northern Line, which Dave told me was the oldest section of the Underground, to the District Line at a station called Embankment. Again we had to stand until we reached Earl’s Court, where Dave was living.

We walked down Earl’s Court Road, which was full of shops that were still open and restaurants that were already full. I could hear the babble of different languages as I stared around me with something like amazement. I had visited Manchester but only in the daytime. This was the first time I had seen a city during the evening. In the area where my parents lived and the small town where my uncle’s house was, all the shops were closed by five thirty. Apart from those going to the pubs or restaurants, there were very few people on the streets. Not so in Earl’s Court, where the pavements were crowded. There were women dressed in saris, men wearing turbans, olive-skinned people from the Middle East, some in Western clothes, others wearing the long white
dishdasha
with, incongruously, feet in black lace-up shoes peeping out at the bottom.

I could see only the eyes and hands of their female companions, who were wearing the
hijab
– the long, loose garment that hides the body and covers the head. In some cases even their noses were concealed by something that reminded me of a large bird’s beak.

We turned left into a tree-lined street where there were four-storey houses with flaking stucco façades. Their shabbiness and the rows of bells by the front doors showed that it had been many years since they were one residence.

‘Here’s where I live,’ said Dave, pointing to an iron staircase that led down to a basement. Once we were in, he showed me proudly round what seemed to me a small space. My room, which had a door that led out to a tiny back yard, had been freshly painted and on the single bed there was a pretty flowery duvet cover. ‘Tried to make it look nice for you,’ Dave said. I smiled my appreciation.

There was no sitting room. He explained that rents were high in London, but there were a couple of chairs and an old television on the table in the kitchen so we could sit in there. Apart from that, the only other furniture was a gas stove and a fridge, both of which had seen better days.

For a moment I thought of my bedroom at my parents’ house, with its fresh paint, my music, those fitted wardrobes full of clothes and, more than anything else, its cleanliness. I forced the thought away. They had sent me to that school, hadn’t they? Wanted rid of me, looked at me with contempt. No, that was not my home any more. As soon as I can earn some money, I thought, I can make this place look more homely.

That night we wandered round Earl’s Court, ate a curry at a small restaurant and went for a drink in a noisy bar. ‘You sit down,’ Dave told me, guiding me to a dim corner. ‘Don’t want anyone noticing that you look a bit young.’ But no one paid me any attention.

For the first few weeks, London was fun. I tried to find work, even though Dave had told me he earned enough for both of us. When he saw that I was determined to pay my own way, he suggested I tried some of the takeaway cafés in the area. They might take me on as casual labour and pay cash. But every place I went to wanted papers that showed my National Insurance number.

A couple of the owners looked at me suspiciously and asked how old I was. That scared me: I was a runaway and surely people must be looking for me. I knew my parents would have been informed that I was missing on the day I’d caught the train to Manchester. They might not want me at home, but that didn’t mean they would be content for me to disappear. And I didn’t want to be found. The police would have been notified, I was sure, and each time I saw a policeman or a panda car, I was nervous. I didn’t know then just how many runaways end up in London and that there was a limit on the amount of police time that could be spent on tracing them.

‘Just give them a false name and another address,’ Dave said, when I confessed my fears to him. So, summoning up my courage, I persevered and my days took on a routine. In the mornings I ventured out, looking for work. Once or twice I was given a few hours’ washing-up or clearing tables, but no would give me more than that. Not allowed, they told me, not unless I had that bloody number.

Dave kept telling me it didn’t matter, but still I felt bad about it.

In the evenings, arm in arm, we ambled down the streets to a cheap pizza place, a bar or pub. Although it was early April, it was still cold and the lights from the street lamps, cars and buses threw an orange glow over the pavements and shops. However late it was, the streets were never dark.

I liked that. Dave did ‘business’ from around nine. There was a pub, large, dark and dingy, its walls painted nicotine yellow. Here, hirsute men with tattoos, clad in black leather and chains, surreptitiously passed him money in exchange for small packets.

There were nights when we went to the many clubs in the area. Sometimes we did not go in, but dived into an alley where packets of white powder were exchanged for money. Once the deal was done those boys, wearing hooded jackets and new Nike trainers, slunk off into the darkness.

By midnight, Dave’s pocket was bulging with money. ‘Told you it doesn’t matter you not working,’ he said.

At the clubs, we were ushered in quickly without paying, instead of having to join a long queue. Dave, I soon learnt, knew a lot of people, and when I was looked at curiously, he told them I was his kid sister. ‘Easier that way,’ he said. ‘Stops the questions.’ Afterwards we went back to the flat to smoke thick joints, and at night my sleep was dreamless.

Saturday nights were different. Then we hailed taxis that reeked of cigarettes and warm leather and went to the West End. Dave explained that on Saturday nights promoters often took over a club and put their own staff and DJs in. Raves, they were called, and they ran for twelve hours.