Disappearing Home (25 page)

O
utside school I watch him smoke. It's early for him to be up. He can't have had any money to go out last night. I'm behind a wall in the shadows where he can't see me, next to St Josephine's church. When the last kid has gone in, the bell rings but he doesn't move. I can see the final stragglers leg it through the gate. If he doesn't move soon Mr McGann will lock the gates. I feel like making a run for it away from here, just keeping going until I run out of pavement. He throws his cigarette to the floor, and with the sole of his shoe squashes it dead.

It's the last day of school before we break up for Christmas. Angela said she would give the present to Mrs O'Connor on the last day and I want to see her face when she opens it. I've got
Anne of Green Gables
in my pocket to hand in. When I look back over the road, he's gone. I give it a few more minutes to be sure before I walk through the gate.

I go all the way around the back of the school; stoop down on my knees when I come to a window so no teachers will see me. Inside the classroom the register has already been called. ‘Morning, Robyn,' Mrs O'Connor says. ‘You feeling better now?'

‘Yes, miss,' I say.

‘Your mum's been up to tell Mrs Bullock. Good to see you back. Measles, wasn't it?'

‘Yes, miss.'

I can see a carrier bag at Angela's feet. At first play we get all of the girls from our class into the toilets. We take out the silky nightdress and show them it. There's loads of ooooos and ahhhhs then somebody spots the price tag. Angela winks over at me. ‘Me and Robyn had to put the rest to it because we didn't have enough,' she says.

After play, Angela gives Mrs O'Connor the present and she says, ‘Oh my God.' She scans the room. Her eyes rest on every single one of us in turn. When they stop on me I think she's going to shout and say stuff about the difference between right and wrong, but she doesn't. She stands, presses the straps of the nightdress against her shoulders, shakes her head. ‘You've got to be joking.' Turns it inside out and reads the label. She shakes her head again.

Somebody shouts, ‘Try it on, miss.' She wriggles it on over her clothes and laughs. Wraps the gown around herself and gives us a twirl. It makes me smile.

‘Do you like it, miss?' Rose asks.

‘Unbelievable,' she says and shakes her head again.

Outside, after dinner, I sit on the floor in a corner of the playground with Rose. She is saying something about a Christmas disco in the youth club. Angela looks across at me from the other side of the playground and smiles. I smile back. ‘Over here,' she shouts. I tell Rose I won't be a minute. Angela stands beside two girls; she whispers something to them and just before I get there they all roar laughing. Angela turns to me, ‘I was telling Tracy and Kate
how much of a laugh we had. You're a great robber. They want to come next time. It must be brilliant to go out and be able to take anything you want.'

I stare at her like I am trying to turn her into pressed powder. Push my thumb against the tip of my middle finger, watch her mouth move but hear no sounds. That's still all I am, a robber. It's just a game to her, a penny peep show for everybody to take a look at. Soon the whole school will know, more people with lists asking me for favours. Some people like to take things away from you and watch as you disappear.

I got the present because I wanted Angela to be my friend. To change the way she thought about me. To be like everybody else, but I had done it the wrong way. I made myself different again. I push my face right into her face. ‘Fuck off, pissy arse,' I say and walk away.

Rose waits for me at the gate. ‘Coming to the Christmas disco at the youthy?'

‘When?'

‘Friday. I'll meet you there at seven?'

I think about Jackie and how she might not mind if I stay at the disco till the end. ‘Okay.'

Bernie waits for me by the phone box. ‘Your mum's been in every square asking about you. She says she's been walking the streets day and night searching.'

‘You didn't …'

‘I didn't say a word, but Nellie told her she saw you on a bus once doing a message for my mum. She knocked at our door and Mum spoke to her and they both started crying. Everyone thinks something bad's happened to you.'

‘I can't let them find me, Bernie.'

‘Your mum's gonna go to the police soon. She's only put it off cos your dad's wanted for not paying fines. My mum thinks there's more to it than fines; she says if any of her kids went missing she'd go to the police straight away. I've got a feeling my mum's gonna go and tell the pigs about you being missing. You've got to tell our Jackie the truth.'

‘She'll kick me out.'

‘Why don't you go back home?'

‘No. I'm never going back.'

‘Tell our Jackie the truth before she talks to Mum.'

‘I'll tell her.'

‘When?'

‘I'll tell her tonight.'

Jackie calls me into the kitchen. Shows me what she's bought. ‘I got it all,' she says, like a big kid. ‘Dave will be made up, can't wait to see his face.' She stops talking and looks at me. ‘What's wrong, Robyn?' Her face is close to mine. ‘Is it your mum?'

I shake my head, tell her everything. About my mum and how she's not really in hospital and how I've run away from home, and how I'm a filthy rotten liar. I start to cry then because I'm scared she'll make me go back to Tommy Whites. ‘Let's go and sit down,' she says. In the living room, Jackie pulls her chair close to mine. My hands are shaking and I'm crying like a baby.

‘What are you frightened of, Robyn?'

I can't speak.

‘Are you scared to go home?'

It's like Jackie is reading my mind. I nod.

‘Why?'

I don't answer.

‘You've run away before?'

I shake my head.

‘I'll make us a drink and then I want you to tell me what's happened, okay?'

While she's in the kitchen I try to find the words in my head that don't sound stupid. My dad beats me up. Stupid. He's going to kill me. Stupid. I can't find a way that doesn't make it all sound stupid. In my head it sounds too mad, like I'm making it all up. Jackie hands me a cup. I put it on the floor by my chair then Jackie sits down.

‘Once,' she says, ‘when I was little, I'd gone shopping with my mum. We had bags and bags of food and the bus in front of us was about to pull away. Mum told me to run on ahead and stop it. When I got on the bus, the driver let me on but closed the doors and pulled away without my mum. I panicked, started shouting and screaming at him. I thought he was trying to kidnap me. I didn't realize he was driving the bus to Mum, not away from her. I felt like a fool but I remember the relief I felt when she got on. Your mum and dad are probably panicking about you. I think whatever you've done, once you're home they'll be made up to see you, the rest won't matter.'

For a moment I believe her. I see them on the step waving at me, not angry but glad to see I'm all right. Then I think about how I feel living here with Jackie. Waking up without being scared, the way she knows nothing about me and what I am. Here, I'm a brand new Robyn with a brand new future and I know leaving Tommy Whites to start again was the right thing to do.

‘No, I'm not going back. My dad is going to kill me.'

‘Once he sees you …'

‘He hates me. He wants me dead.'

‘We all say stuff in an argument.'

I'm not saying it right. Tears sting my eyes. ‘When I'm in Tommy Whites, I feel like I'm trapped on a bus like you were and there's no way off. My face squashed flat against the glass so I don't feel like me any more. The day before I left home, Mum was out. He'd painted the step. I stood in it by accident. He had his hands tight around my neck. Told me how he's waiting to squeeze the life out of me. He really does want to kill me. He hates me. You haven't seen the way he looks at me. I'm scared of him, Jackie. The same scared you felt on the bus.'

Jackie is quiet. We sit for a long time without saying a word. In the end, she calls me into the kitchen and says, ‘Come on then, let's get cracking with this pan of scouse.' In the kitchen, I tell her it's easy. She helps me chop everything up and toss it into the pan. Carrots, onion, potatoes, salt, pepper, an
OXO
then lob in the meat and bring it all to the boil. ‘Dave will love this,' she says once it's ready.

Jackie gets dressed up, turns the telly on loud, tells me she has a date in the flat and I'm to stay in the living room. I'm never supposed to see her date. That's the way she likes it. Being with Jackie during the day is better. When I tell her about Rose and the disco she lets me try on her clothes and shoes, gives me a few bits she doesn't wear any more. She shows me how to put make-up on, blue glittery eye shadow, turns her records up loud and shows me how to dance. Over the noise she shouts, ‘Ever heard of the Bay City Rollers?'

‘No,' I shout back.

We let the sounds twist us, bend and shake and whirl us all over the flat. Barefoot, Jackie clicks her ringed fingers around in circles. We laugh, hold hands and spin around. The sound of the music fills me like I'm a bubble about to burst, and when the laughter breaks us up we fall backwards into the chairs, eyes sparkling.

Three of Jackie's blouses hang up in her wardrobe. ‘Choose your favourite colour,' she says. I choose a sky blue blouse with tiny pink roses on it.

‘I think that's going to look great,' she says. ‘Friday, I'll use the blue on your eyes.'

That night I can't sleep. It doesn't seem right for me to be this happy. I close the cupboard doors tight, pull the blanket up under my chin and prepare for the worst. The worst being one day I will have to go back to Tommy Whites.

Jackie takes ages doing my make-up and hair; drops me off at the Christmas disco in a taxi and says, ‘Knock 'em dead, girl.'

Rose walks right past me. ‘You look about fifteen,' she says when she realizes it's me. ‘Come and show our Rita.'

The man playing the records jumps down off the stage. ‘What's your name?' he says to me.

Rita elbows him. ‘Down, boy. It's only Robyn done up like a prozzy.'

I don't know what a prozzy is.

She cocks her head at Rose for us to move.

I stay at the disco until the end. Skinny boys start to peel themselves away from the walls. A lad dressed like a piece of streaky bacon gets me up for a slowy. Scruffy cream and maroon striped jumper. It's not that great, a slowy. We look like a couple of Frankensteins rocking on the spot from side to side. On the way out a lady on the door gives everyone selection boxes of chocolates, which makes me smile.

I
can smell smoke. At the living-room door I see Mum sitting on the wide brown rubber bands that stretch across Jackie's chair. I feel like running to the lift to get as far away from her as I can. Instead I open the door and say, ‘What do you want?' She looks different, thinner, like there's not much of her left.

She smiles. ‘I missed you.'

‘I didn't miss you,' I want to say. ‘Choosing that bastard over me and then leaving me there for him to kill.' But I don't say it. Jackie looks at me and I look away.

‘I'm not coming back,' is what I say.

‘I was so worried. I had this feeling, though, that you were okay.' She looks at Jackie then back at me. ‘I know what he did to you.'

Why don't you go and leave me alone?

‘I don't care. I'm not going back.'

‘Okay. I've been to see Carmel and she's got our old room ready.'

I don't want to leave here.

‘So?'

‘So we're not going back to Tommy Whites.'

Why don't you ever ask me what I want?

This is it. There is no
will you come back with me?
There is no
sorry.
There are no decisions left to be made.

‘It'll be just like last time when you told me a pack of lies then went back to him.'

‘It won't, promise. I've told him it's over.'

‘I don't believe you.'

‘I know you don't.' She starts crying, takes out her fags. ‘Your nan misses you. She wants to see you. I told her the police were out looking for you, so she didn't worry herself sick.'

‘You didn't get the police.'

‘No. I didn't want the police involved. They would have contacted social services, had you taken away from me. Put into care. I couldn't take that. I did everything I could think of to find you myself first.'

I see Nan at her kitchen window, watching for me to come across the road. Turning on the radio for the news and hearing somebody has been murdered and thinking it was me. I see myself saying: I am sorry. I never meant for you to worry. I am sorry for being so selfish and running away. Sorry that I never sent Bernie to let you know I was all right. I didn't realize they could put me into care. I think about the care home where Lizzie said her mate got stabbed.

Jackie puts a saucer on the arm of Mum's chair.

I start crying. It makes my nose run.

Jackie tries to give me a hug, but I wriggle away. I can't look either of them in the eye.

‘I spoke to our Sylvia and she told me how upset your mum was and I told her you were with me. You're a missing person, Robyn,' Jackie says. ‘The police will arrest me if they find out you're staying here. I'm so sorry, love.' She talks like I've already left.

I didn't want to leave Jimmy's Café, didn't want to leave Nan, didn't want to leave my mum, don't want to leave Jackie's and
I don't want to leave St Josephine's School. Lately that's all I've been doing: learning how to leave, learning how to walk away when things don't work any more. I think about Robert Naylor and how he learned how to leave that night when he disappeared, when he must have thought I would be better off without him.