Daughter of Riches (59 page)

Debbie looked up into the black face beneath the tightly pinned down black hair and the incongruous little starched gingham cap that went with the uniform of main line station buffet attendant.

‘Couldn't I stay just a bit longer – please? I won't go to sleep again, I promise.'

‘You want another coffee?'

Debbie cudgelled her sleep-fogged brain trying to decide if she could afford such a luxury. She had a little money in the cheap plastic shoulder bag that she had slung around her neck for safety and the rest of her savings tucked away in her shabby hold-all, but she did not know how long it was going to have to last her. If she was able to get a job straight away maybe it would be all right, but she couldn't be sure of getting a job straight away. No, better not spend any more of it now, on her very first night in London.

She slid down from the stool and picked up her hold-all.

The waitress shrugged and watched her cross to the door, a slender waif-like girl in an imitation leather jacket and mini skirt, teetering slightly on three inch heeled sandals, just another of the runaways come to London in search of the glamorous life. Fools, she thought scornfully, silly empty-headed little fools. God alone knew what became of them – she did not want to. She shrugged again and turned to load the dirty coffee cup and used ashtray from the counter.

On the station concourse Debbie stood for a moment uncertain what to do next. There were not many people about at this time of night and the display boards announcing arrivals and departures above the platform approach were still. Out here, away from the claustrophobic heat of the buffet, it was cold, a chill wind blowing the odd paper cup or cellophane food wrapper. Debbie crossed to a wedge of plastic bucket seats and curled up in one, pulling her imitation leather jacket around her.

If only she had arrived earlier, she might at least have been able to find somewhere to sleep, but she had not really planned to come today. Perhaps she hadn't really intended to come at all – it had all just been a lovely dream, something to make life at home in Plymouth a little more bearable. Debbie had read every article and feature she could lay her hands on describing high life in London. – the clubs and the restaurants, the shows and the parties. London was where ‘it was at' and she wanted to be part of it. She had fantasised and dreamed and planned, imagining she was the girl on the arm of this pop-star or that celebrity, dressed in Mary Quant or Biba, with the flash bulbs popping all around. She was as pretty as any of them, she knew – her looks were the one thing Debbie was sure of – and sometimes she stood in front of the fly-blown mirror in her bedroom wearing nothing but her bra and panties, holding her hair away from her lovely heart shaped face and imagining she was posing for a glamour photographer or charming a minor Royal. One day she would leave her sordid existence behind forever, Debbie promised herself. One day she would have wonderful clothes and real gold jewellery, have her hair styled by John Frieda or Vidal Sassoon, drink champagne and dance until dawn at Annabels. One day, one day … But she had not expected that day to come quite so soon. Only this morning when Barry, her mother's boorish live-in lover, had made yet another pass at her had she decided: that was it. Enough.

She had been in the kitchen making herself a late breakfast and he had come in, grabbing her from behind, sliding his hands beneath her cotton wrap and groping for her breasts. Her heart had sunk and she had twisted away, glowering at him and muttering angrily at him to leave her alone. But he had followed her, trapping her against the sink, smothering her with his huge hairy body and those awful groping hands. Debbie had struggled with him, sickened by the stale beer and tobacco smell of his breath, and the pervasive sweaty odour that emanated from the singlet and shorts she knew he had been sleeping in, alarmed by the hot pressure of his aroused body against her bare legs where he had yanked her wrap open. But she was afraid to scream or even shout at him, because if she did she knew her mother would hear and come in and find them. She would blame Debbie. That was the worst of it – well, almost the worst.

‘Come on, baby, you know what to do.' Barry's voice was rough and he was forcing her head down, forcing her on to her knees with one hand while with the other he opened his shorts. The body odour smell was overpowering now, filling her nose and mouth, and she twisted her head, desperate to get away from him, desperate to take in only clean fresh air. She knew what he felt like in her mouth, thrusting at the back of her throat until she gagged, because he had made her do it before, not once, but many times, whenever he could get her alone. Once he had climbed into her bed when she was asleep and she had woken to find him lying on top of her forcing himself into her, but that had been the only time he had actually raped her and she thought that then he had been so drunk he did not know what he was doing. Mostly, in his rather thick-headed way, he had too much sense for that. He didn't want to make her pregnant. He was too afraid of finding himself hauled up before the court for having sex with a girl below the age of consent, so he preferred it this way. Besides, it had other advantages. She could not scream with her mouth full.

‘Come on, come on you silly little bitch!' His hands were one each side of her head, pressing, so that she felt he was going to crack her skull between them like a nut. He forced himself against her tight closed lips and tears of helplessness stung her eyes. ‘ I don't want to!' she wanted to say but she knew the moment she opened her mouth he would be in it. Already she could practically taste him, the taste that meant she could never eat fish these days without wanting to be sick.

He thrust himself at her harder and as her lips parted she imagined herself biting him, biting with all the savagery of a cornered animal, but she knew she could not do it. Instead she went on to auto-pilot, distancing herself so that it was as if she had flown up to the top corner of the kitchen, high above the dingy green-painted wall cupboard, floating somewhere just beneath the flaking ceiling that was sticky from the residue of chip-pan grease and discoloured by the smoke of too many cigarettes, and looking down on the clumsy uncouth man and the girl on her knees in front of him.

All she wanted now was for it to be over so she could crawl away, wash herself in the rust stained bath, clean her teeth, get rid of the smell and the taste and the feel of him, but he was slow this morning, too much beer the previous night stunting the performance his lust demanded. On and on it went, disgusting, interminable. And then, quite suddenly, there was a voice screaming above the roaring in her head – her mother's voice.

‘What the fucking hell are you doing?'

Barry jerked away from her so abruptly Debbie fell forward on to her hands. She looked up, terrified, to see her mother in the doorway, still wearing the off-white nylon slip she had slept in, her face raddled, hair mussed. Her eyes, dark-smudged from mascara, were ablaze with fury, her scarlet-stained mouth screamed abuse. Debbie hardly knew what she was saying; she was too dazed, too shocked and afraid. She tried to get to her feet, pulling her robe around her with trembling hands.

‘Mum – I didn't – it wasn't my fault …'

Her mother's hand lashed out, catching her in the mouth. Debbie fell back jarring her shoulder against the cupboard. Something inside fell from the shelf with a clatter.

‘You filthy little slut!' She lashed out at Debbie again but this time Debbie managed to avoid the blow, slipping past her to the doorway.

‘I couldn't help it! I couldn't! He makes me!'

‘You love it – you know you do!' That was Barry.

‘I don't! I hate it! I hate you …'

‘You can't get enough of it!'

‘I hate it!'

‘Always parading about with nothing on! She asks for it – bloody begs!'

‘I don't! It's not true! You make me! He makes me!'

‘Liar!'

‘Shut up! Shut up,' her mother screamed. ‘You filthy two-timing bastard! And you …' She swung round on Debbie again, ‘get out of my sight! Go on – get out – get out!'

Debbie backed away. When she was in the hall she turned and ran up the stairs, her bare feet rasping against the worn-out stair carpet. She half fell into her room and slammed the door. She was shaking violently, her breath coming in harsh dry sobs, and when the tears began they ran down her cheeks in scalding rivers. She could still hear the raised voices downstairs but they sounded a long way off.

It wasn't fair – it wasn't fair! She had never done anything to encourage that lout – as if she would! But her mother wouldn't believe her. She worshipped the ground the bastard walked on.

Debbie fell back on her bed, sobbing bitterly, curled up with her wrap pulled tightly around her and the pillow over her head to shut out the angry voices downstairs, and when the spasms eventually passed she knew what she was going to do. She would not stay here under the same roof with them a day longer. She'd leave – go to London as she had always promised herself – and she would go now.

She got up and dressed in a mini skirt and cotton polo-neck, slung a few chains around her neck and clipped on her big dangly ear-rings. Then she yanked her old school hold-all down from the top of the wardrobe and began throwing things into it. She didn't own much, a few items of cheap clothing, some tinny jewellery from Salisburys, her make-up – Miners and Outdoor Girl – her hot brush, and a couple of tapes of the Partridge Family and the Carpenters. She searched through her odds-and-ends drawer for the old sunglasses case that she used to hide her savings – her mother was not above robbing her if she was skint and desperate for a drink or a packet of cigarettes – took out enough money to cover her train fare to London, and tucked the sunglasses case into the hold-all beneath her clothes and her favourite white plastic boots. One much loved soft toy went on top – a furry koala bear she had had since she was a little girl – and a well-thumbed paperback copy of The Dragon Book of Verse which she had managed to avoid handing back in at school because she loved the poems in it. Then Debbie zipped up the hold-all, slipped on her imitation leather jacket and picked up her handbag.

She opened the bedroom door and crept out on to the landing, listening. The raised voices were silent now but she could hear certain unmistakeable sounds coming from her mother's bedroom. Her mother and Barry were making up. Bile rose in Debbie's throat at the thought of it. She went swiftly and quietly past the bedroom door and down the stairs, half expecting to hear her mother's sharp voice asking where she thought she was going, though she knew they were far too busy to take notice of a creaking board.

In the kitchen she wrapped the bread-and-marmalade sandwich she had been making for her breakfast in a piece of cling film and stuffed it into her handbag. At the moment she did not feel she ever wanted to eat again but common sense told her she would be hungry before long. Then she let herself out of the back door and closed it after her.

It was chilly outside but the fresh air tasted good and when Debbie shivered it was more from nervous excitement than from the cold. She glanced back once at the house, curtains still drawn at the windows though it was almost midday, and felt an exhilarating tingle of freedom. She turned into the street, hurrying as fast as her high-heeled sandals would let her and she did not look back again.

She was leaving, she was going to London to
be
somebody and she was never coming back. Never!

Only that had been this morning. Now, hours later, as she hunched into the bucket seat on Paddington Station, cold, hungry and a little afraid. Debbie almost wished for a moment that she was back home where at least she would be warm and could make herself a hot drink without wondering if she could afford it. It wasn't too late to change her mind. She had her train fare back to Plymouth. Her mother would scream at her, ask her where the hell she thought she'd been, but in a day or two it would be forgotten and everything would be as it had been before.

Everything. As she thought of it Debbie's resolve hardened. She couldn't go back to being trapped in that life with her mother resenting her and blaming her for everything, including having grown up into a beautiful young woman whilst she herself was fast becoming a haggard old has been. She couldn't go back to Barry and his disgusting demands. He'd start on her again before long she knew, just as soon as her mother's back was turned. She couldn't go back – she wouldn't. She had made the break now. All she had to do was stick it out.

‘Hello there, darlin', all by yourself then?'

Debbie looked up, startled.

‘Are you talking to me?'

‘Well I don't see anybody else around, do you?'

The man was youngish with a thin weasely face and shoulder-length hair tied back in a bunch at the nape of his neck. He was wearing flared jeans, platform soled shoes and a great deal of jewellery.

‘There's no need to look so scared!' He laughed, pulled out a packet of cigarettes and thrust them towards her. ‘Want one?'

Debbie shook her head.

He lit a cigarette himself and flicked the spent match away.

‘Just got here, have you?'

Debbie nodded.

‘Left home and got nowhere to go. I know – it's the old story. D'you want a bed for the night?'

A bed. He might have been offering her heaven. For a moment Debbie hesitated – but only for a moment. She knew what he was, she'd heard about men like him – a pimp, touring the stations and streets to look for new girls, runaways to London with nowhere to go. If she went with him now it would be just the beginning of a new sort of degradation. She hadn't escaped from Barry to end up working the streets. She clutched her bag tightly and looked away from the weasely face.

‘No thank you.'

‘It's a decent room, not a squat. Come on, darlin'.'