Dustbin Baby (5 page)

4

NO PROBLEM INDEED!
Weston is
huge
and I don't have a map. I ask about twenty different people if they know the road. I get sent right out of the town, then I'm told that's all wrong and get sent back again. I'm directed down leafy streets near the river with big posh houses and I start to think I started my life in suburban splendour, but I end up in an Avenue rather than a Road and realize this isn't it either. Eventually I trudge all the way back to the railway station and take a taxi. I've got a few pounds in coins and a five-pound note in my school bag. I'm only in the taxi a few minutes but the fare comes to £2.80. I offer the driver three pounds, thinking that will be fine, but he says something dead sarcastic about the generosity of my tip. I end up apologizing and give him the five-pound note
instead
. He asks if I want any change. I
do
, but I don't dare say yes, so he just drives off, leaving me feeling flushed and foolish.

A girl with bright orange spiky hair is sitting on the garden wall watching me. She's wearing a very short skirt and a tight T-shirt that shows her tummy. She's got a tiny rainbow arcing over her navel. I
think
it's felt tip but it could just be a real tattoo, though maybe she's not much older than me.

She's got a baby in her arms, a squirming damp bundle, dribbling and whining. He's large and lumpy but she flips him over expertly so he lies across her bony knees, chuckling as she pretends to smack his bottom.

‘You must have more money than sense,' she says. ‘Feel free to lob a few pounds my way.' But she smiles as she says it.

I smile back. I can't help staring at the baby, wondering.

‘He's my third,' she says. ‘My other two are at nursery school.' Then she cracks up laughing when she sees my face.

‘Joke!'

‘Oh!'

‘It's April Fool's Day, right?'

‘Yeah, right,' I say. ‘It's my birthday, actually.'

‘Oh well, Happy birthday! What's your name?'

‘Guess.'

‘Oh-oh! April?'

‘Yep. What's yours?'

‘Tanya.'

The baby gurgles on her lap.

‘Yeah, mate, OK. He's saying his name's Ricky.'

The baby squeals excitedly when she says his name and then drools all down Tanya's leg.

‘Yuck!' says Tanya, taking off one of his woolly booties and using it as a mop. Then she squints up at me with her small green eyes.

‘Are you bunking off school?'

‘No.'

‘Oh, come on. You're in your school uniform, idiot.'

‘OK. Are you bunking off too?'

‘I haven't
got
a school at the moment. They're still sorting me out. Don't let's get started on me. There are huge casebooks and files and folders on
me
.' She says it proudly, chin in the air. ‘So. What are you here for? Come to see Pat?'

‘I don't know,' I mumble. ‘Pat? Is she . . . Patricia Williams?'

‘That's her. Auntie Pat to all the little kids. Oh, I get it. Were you once one of them?' She laughs. ‘Quick on the uptake, that's me. Still, you don't look like one of Pat's kids. Or sound like it either.'

I swallow. I've started talking carefully again since I've been living with Marion. ‘I'm just talking posh to impress you, right?' I say, in my old Children's Home voice.

She laughs. ‘Yeah, you're quick on the uptake too, April. So, do you want to come in and meet Pat?'

‘Maybe it's not such a good idea,' I say, scared all of a sudden.

‘She's OK,' says Tanya. ‘Come on.'

She stands up, slinging the baby on one hip. She tugs my arm with her free hand. I let her pull me to the front door.

It's on the latch. Tanya kicks it open with her high-heeled sandal. The hall is shabby, with scribbles on the wallpaper and bits of Lego and little cars all over the carpet. The house smells of cooking and nappies and washing powder. I breathe in, wondering if this smell is familiar.

‘Pat? We've got a visitor,' Tanya calls, pulling me along the hall into the kitchen.

This woman is standing by the stove, while two little boys bang saucepans at her feet. She's just how I imagined her; soft, cosy, pink cheeks, no make-up, old jumper, baggy denim skirt, scuffed shoes. But there's no prickling at the back of my neck, no tingle at all. I don't recognize her. She doesn't recognize me either, though she smiles cheerfully.

‘Hello, dear,' she says. ‘Who are you then?'

‘I'm April,' I say. I wait.

‘April,' she says brightly. ‘That's a lovely name. And appropriate for today.'

‘That's why I'm called it. Don't you remember? I'm April the Dustbin Baby.' I hate saying it. It sounds so stupid. Sad. Totally pathetic. I feel like I've been shoved right back in the dustbin with the rubbish rotting around me.

‘What are you on about, April? What dustbin?' Tanya asks.

‘That's where they found me. The day I was born,' I mumble.

‘Oh. Right.
Cosy
,' says Tanya, raising her eyebrows.

‘Yes, of course. I remember you now,' says Pat, shaking her head and smiling. ‘You were small but very noisy. You cried a lot at night. I walked you up and down, up and down, but you just went on crying. Three-month colic – though it lasted much longer.'

‘Maybe she was missing her mum,' says Tanya. ‘Did she
really
dump you in a dustbin, April?'

I nod, hoping I'm not going to cry now.

‘Dead maternal, your mum,' says Tanya. ‘Didn't she like the look of you then?'

‘Now then, Tanya, I'd have thought you of all people would know better. You don't talk about other people's families like that. Who are we to pass judgement?' says Pat. ‘Some women get very sick when they have babies. Sick in the head. They can't cope. They leave their babies in all sorts of strange places. Telephone boxes. I even had one poor little lamb left in a lavatory.'

‘I hope you gave it a good wash before taking it home,' says Tanya. ‘Hear that, Ricky? You'd better stop dribbling on me, matie, or it's down to the bottom of the bog for you.'

‘Tanya!' says Pat, clucking. ‘You stir my mince for me while I fix you both a drink.'

‘Bacardi and Coke for me, Pat. What do you fancy, April?' says Tanya.

‘Sure. Bacardi and Coke. Only funny thing, we're clean out of Bacardi,' says Pat. ‘Do you want a Coke too, April?'

‘Yes, please.'

‘Where do you live now, dear? Do they know you're here?' She's trying to sound casual but she's obviously checking up on me. ‘You've not done a bunk, have you?'

‘Oh, no. I – I had a dental appointment near here and so I thought I'd just come and see where I used to live.'

‘Isn't that nice! Well, like I said, I definitely remember you, April.'

She doesn't. She really doesn't. I've just been one of dozens of babies through the years and we've all merged into one little wailing waif.

‘Who are you living with now then?' Tanya asks. ‘Did this mum of yours come and claim you?'

‘No, I got adopted.'

‘Hmmm,' says Tanya, sighing. ‘My little sister's adopted. It's easier when you're little and cute.'

‘Do you still get to see her?'

‘Nope. Well, not enough. They say it unsettles her. Of course it does. She misses me like crazy. And I miss her.'

‘We know it's really hard on you, Tanya,' says Pat, putting her arm round her. Tanya shrugs the arm away.

‘I'm OK. No need to feel sorry for me. And I've got Mandy now. She's this little kid over the road. She's like a little sister, sort of. You got any sisters, April? Adopted ones?'

I shake my head.

5

THERE WERE JUST
the three of us. They adopted me. Janet and Daniel Johnson. They gave me my name, Johnson. They wanted to give me a new first name too. Danielle, after my new dad. But I wouldn't answer, wouldn't even look up, no matter how many times they said it. They told me this as I got older, laughing, but you could tell it still bugged them a bit.

‘You were really only a baby too – and a good little girl in most other respects,' said Mummy.

‘You just didn't want to be a daddy's girl,' said Daddy, pulling one of my plaits a little too hard.

Too right I didn't. Not
his
girl. Or hers either, come to that.

Is that really true? Maybe I loved them then. I still miss
her
sometimes.

Tanya is watching me.

‘Come up to my room for a bit, April,' she says. ‘I got these incredible new shoes on Saturday. You've got to see them.'

‘Yes, that money was supposed to be for
school
clothes,' says Pat, stirring the mince a little too vigorously. ‘As if you could ever get away with wearing those heels to school.'

‘Well, I haven't
got
a school yet, so what's the point wasting money on boring kid's stuff?' says Tanya. ‘Come on, April.'

She props Ricky on the floor, pops his dummy in his mouth, and prods me upstairs.

Tanya obviously shares her room with one of the babies. It's lilac and fluffy, with a lamb mobile and a Little Bo Peep lamp. I wonder if this was ever my room? Did I ever sleep in that battered old cot in the corner?

Tanya sees me looking and raises her eyebrows.

‘Yeah, it's too gruesome, this dinky room. Wait till I get my own place. I've got it all sussed out. I want one of those converted warehouse lofts, all polished wood and white rugs, matt black furniture, kind of minimal chic.'

‘It sounds great,' I say politely, as if it actually exists.

‘Yeah,' says Tanya, sighing. Her eyes meet mine.

‘As if!'

I laugh sympathetically.

‘Still, I could get lucky. There's no chance of me being adopted like my little sister, I'm too old for
that
lark now, but give me another couple of years and I might meet some rich guy who'll want to set me up somewhere stylish. Then my sister can come and live with me – or maybe my friend Mandy across the road. We play these games together, her and me. Pretend games. Don't laugh.'

‘I play pretend games too sometimes.'

‘So, your new mum and dad? The ones that adopted you? Something tells me it's not all Happy Families,' says Tanya.

‘You got it. Well, we're not any kind of family any more,' I say, leaning against the little cot. I fiddle with the bars, lowering them so I can perch on the edge. I fight a mad desire to scrunch up really small and curl up in the cot myself. I smooth the Thomas the Tank Engine quilt.

‘The new mum didn't dump you in a dustbin too, did she?' says Tanya.

‘No. She was OK, I suppose,' I say, pleating the quilt. Thomas the Tank Engine is concertinaed up tight.

‘Was?' says Tanya. She's changed her tone. She perches beside me. ‘Is she dead?'

‘Mmm.'

‘What, she got cancer or something?'

‘No, she . . .'

‘I get it,' Tanya says softly. ‘Yeah,
my
mum topped herself.'

Neither of us say anything for a minute. I don't have to pretend with Tanya. I can really talk to her. But there are some things you can't ever tell.

‘And your dad?' Tanya says eventually.

‘Him!'

‘Ah,' says Tanya. ‘So, who are you with now? You're not in a Children's Home, are you?'

‘I was for a while. I've lived all over. But I've got this new foster mother, Marion. She's OK. But she's not like a
real
mum.' I pause, smoothing the quilt out again. Thomas the Tank Engine looks as if he's been in a bad train crash.

‘Is that why you came to take a deck at Pat?' Tanya asks.

‘I thought – oh, it's so daft, I was just a baby, but I wondered if I'd remember her. What's she like, Tanya? She seems . . . nice.'