Solace of the Road (2 page)

‘Holly,’ Miko said.

‘Yeah. What?’

‘Do you want to know what’s new or not?’

‘Whatever.’

‘It’s a placement prospect, Holly.’

I shrugged. I’d heard that one before. It never came to anything.

‘It’s just what you wanted. Nice-sounding couple. No kids.’

He was grinning ear to ear like I’d won the lottery. I reached over and got a scrunched-up ball of paper out of the bin and dropped it from one hand into the other.

‘You’re in
serious
luck, this time,’ Miko said.

‘Oh, yeah?’

‘Honestly. I’ve chatted it over with Rachel.’ Rachel is my social worker, which is different from a key
worker. A key worker lives part-time in the Home with you and the social worker just works nine to five in an office, same as anyone.

‘She’s met them and she thinks they’re really good people,’ Miko was going.

Good people
. I put a finger in my mouth, down my throat.

‘OK.
Nice
people. They have a very pretty house. Victorian and all done up. You’d have a room all your own. And like I said, no kids.’

‘Are they Irish?’ I said.

‘Hey?’

‘Grace only has black placements. So I only want Irish.’

‘C’mon, Holly. Their name’s Aldridge. Which isn’t very Irish. But most English people have a bit of Irish somewhere – it’s a fact.’

‘Huh.’

‘So?’

‘So what?’

‘What d’you
think
, Holly?’

I threw the paper ball right at Miko but instead of it hitting him in the nose like I’d intended, he caught it real fast.

‘That’s what I think,’ I said. ‘Crap-ville.’

Miko threw the paper ball right back at me and I hit it back and we volleyed it around some and then he headed it straight back into the litterbin.

‘Aw, Holly,’ he said.

‘Aw, Miko,’ I said. I couldn’t help smiling. Miko was the best footballer I knew not signed up
professional. ‘I don’t want a placement,’ I said. ‘I like it fine here.’

‘But school, Holly. You never go. With the Aldridges you’d start fresh at a new school. A better school.’

I looked as if to say
Throw me another lemon
.

‘Holly.’ Miko’s voice went quiet.

‘Yeah?’

‘Don’t pass this placement up on my account. Will you?’

I got the zipper of my sweatshirt and gave it a yank. ‘Ha ha. As if.’

‘Because, Holly, there’s something I want you to know.’

‘Yeah, what?’

‘I’m leaving here.’

There was a long silence. I turned back to the window and watched the raindrops cruising down like ants on a doomed mission. ‘Leaving?’ My voice felt small. ‘What d’you mean, leaving?’

‘I’m applying for a new job. It’s time.’

The rules said that when you and your key worker parted company, that was the end of all contact. For ever.

‘But what about our summer plans, Miko? We’re going back to Devon again, right? You promised. You’re gonna teach us surfing, right? What about those plans, Miko?’

He didn’t answer.

‘What d’you mean it’s time?’ I could feel myself losing it.

Then Miko’s hand was on my shoulder. ‘Oh, Holly.’

‘You’re my key worker, Miko. You and me. We’re a team. You said.’

‘It’s hard, really hard to explain. See …’

I bit my lip.

‘I’ve got to go, Holly. There’s nothing much I can do here any more. You’re on a slide. Like I keep saying. You need a real home. You deserve a real home. And the Aldridges have one. Just waiting for you. Trust me, Holly.’

I got up from the chair and gripped the hard edge. I didn’t want Miko to see my face so I turned back to the window and stared out at the dismal trees.

‘And I’ve got to go for another reason, Holly. It’s the shift work. It’s ruining my relationship.’ He was talking about his girlfriend, Yvette. Up to then I’d never even thought she was real, with a name like that.

‘ ’S wet out there,’ I said.

‘Just agree to meet them. Then see how you feel, Holly. Go on. Please.’

I stared at the dead leaves stuck on the lawn. ‘Soaking.’

‘Is that a yes, Holly?’

I didn’t answer.

‘Just a yes to meeting them, no strings attached?’

I waved a hand at him. ‘Yeah, Miko. Whatever you want. I’m going back to watch all those Irish people in third class get freed.’

And I drifted back to the lounge and the
Titanic
was half in and half out of the water at a bad angle.
Grace was hunched on the floor, starting to paint her toenails a weird colour that the bottle said was called XTC. The room stank like bad deodorant. The room always stank like bad deodorant. Trim was sitting up on the sofa’s back and punching the air as the ship went down.

I sat next to Grace. ‘Pass the bottle over, Grace. I’ll do the rest for you.’

But instead I splattered a load of polish down on the oatmeal carpet like violet sick.

‘What d’you do that for, cow-witch?’ Grace screeched.

‘Shut the fuck up,’ Trim raved.

Placement prospect? More like pass the bloody parcel.

Templeton House without Miko? I’d rather have a ticket on the
Titanic
any day.

Three
Goodbye, Templeton House

Ray and Fiona Aldridge lived in a place called Tooting Bec. They came to visit me at the Home the first time we met. Miko showed them up to my bedroom and left us there.

Fiona was small, with a pinched-up face and crow-lines round the eyes. She had a pixie nose and wavy hair, cut into a crooked bob, like she’d tried to do it herself. She wore dangling bell-things in her ears and a chunky jumper with red and green flecks. I read her right off. She was the kind of person who dresses poorer than she is and saves the whales. The kind of person who’d adopt a three-legged dog.

She sat next to me on the bed like we were old mates and spoke posh and soft and real polite. Ray didn’t say much. He stood by the door, his eyes off to the side, bored. He was thin and neat.

After the introductions were over, there didn’t seem much to say.

Then Fiona asked me when my birthday was.

‘What d’you think, name like Holly?’ I said.

Fiona smiled. ‘It’s a nice name. I suppose you came along around Christmas?’

‘That’s what everyone says. Only my birthday’s in June.’

‘June? That’s a good time. The holly’s green all year round, isn’t it?’

‘Is it?’

‘Yes, I think so.’

‘What about the berries?’

‘The berries? They only come in winter, I suppose.’

Great
, I thought.
So I’m a holly with no berries, just the prickles
. Guess that’s when I decided she was another mogit, whatever about the smiles and nods and sitting next to me on the bed.

I don’t know why but I picked Rosabel up from my pillow and said how she was my pet dog from Ireland and was she allowed into their house too? Then I made a pretend bark.
‘Grrr-rap!
’ And Fiona laughed and said she certainly was, any time.

And I don’t know why I did this either, but I asked why they didn’t have kids. What I really wanted to know was why they wanted me to come home with them. But Fiona said in a sad voice that she couldn’t, and she didn’t talk about it any more.

They said some more about how their house was by a common and how they had a room ready for me. Then they both shook my hand like I was a business prospect, and left.

After they’d gone, Miko came and asked what I thought.

‘Mogits,’ I said. ‘Both of them. One hundred per cent.’

‘Aw, Holly,’ Miko said. ‘Is that all you can say?’

‘Yep.’

‘Do you want to pursue this or not?’

‘Dunno.’

Then he started up again about how it was time I moved on, I’d be better off out of Templeton House, things were getting way too hairy here, and on and on. I scratched my head like I had nits, pretending not to follow. Then he dropped his voice. ‘Holly, I’ve just heard. I’ve got an interview. For that job. I’m on my way.’

I stared. A cold-bath feeling came down on me. I’d been thinking how maybe Miko wouldn’t get the job, end of story, how he’d go on being my key worker and how the Aldridges could take a sky-jump.

The shift work. It’s ruining my relationship
.

‘An interview?’ I said. I picked up Rosabel and twirled her by the ear. I thought how maybe the people at the new job wouldn’t like him. And then how everybody liked Miko. The job would be his, sure as sunset.

Miko got up. ‘Yeah. Next Monday. So think about it, Holly. I’ve got a feeling about Fiona and Ray. They’re a chance in a million for you. You could go for a trial weekend.’

‘Oh, yeah?’

‘Yes, Holly. What do you think?’

I lay back on the bed and examined Rosabel’s brown front paw, imagining I was taking a stone out
from her toe-pads.
‘Grrr-rap!’
I said again. Miko leaned against the doorframe with his head tilted, like he was waiting. So I held Rosabel up and said in a gruff doggy voice, ‘OK. We’ll give the mogits a go.
Grrr-rap.’

‘You serious, Holly?’

‘Yeah. Whatever.’

Miko’s face lit up like Ireland had won the World Cup.

And that’s when I knew I didn’t really have a choice.

Four
Hello, Mercutia Road

The day of the trial weekend at Fiona and Ray’s, Grace, Trim and I stood in a three-way knot, arms and legs muddled. I felt Grace’s smooth cheek and Trim’s rude-boy elbows. Miko lounged against the front door of Templeton House and waved. ‘Knock ’em dead, Holly,’ he called.

As if.

It was Rachel’s job to take me on the tube to the Aldridges’ house. They lived on a street called Mercutia Road. The trees along it had yellow leaves. It was posh, with big tall houses in old yellow brick, and the kind of windows called sash. They looked down on you, all smug. The purple-grey roofs were the same colour as the sky. The doors were painted different colours. They had fancy door-knockers and slits for mail and seven steps up to them.

‘This is it,’ Rachel said. ‘Number twenty-two.’

‘Yeah.’

‘How’re you feeling, Holly?’

‘Fine.’

‘Not nervous?’

‘Nah.’

That first weekend I did everything Fiona said. She suggested I go to bed, I did. I didn’t put my earphones in when she was talking to me. I tried not to mind her making conversation all day long like some kind of recorded announcement on the Underground. That’s what her voice was like, the woman who tells you to alight here and mind the gap between the train and the platform edge. Posh and phoney.

Like the house. There was wood everywhere, even in the toilet. And everywhere was neat and tidy and just so. I swear I tried not to breathe from Friday to Sunday night.

At least Fiona and Ray had no kids. I’d be free of little brats here, not like in that placement at the Kavanaghs’. The brat there had given me a hard time. The worst thing was how he tore up the only photo I had of my mam. That was like being stabbed in the eye and his mother refused to believe he’d done it.

Here I had my own room and could keep everything private. I had a big bed with an apricot duvet, soft as they come, a chest of drawers with a key and a wardrobe with a long mirror. From the ceiling a lamp with glass pendants hung low, catching the colours in the room. By the window was a glass-topped desk and you could sit and look out over the garden to an ivy wall. Beyond the wall was more yellow brick and smug windows and beyond that the common. Tooting Bec. Snooting Heck.

‘Do you like it?’ Fiona said. ‘We’ve just had it decorated.’

I thought how at the Home, Miko’d draped the gold lamé curtains I’d chosen, all elegant over the window.

‘ ’S fine,’ I said. I’d brought Rosabel with me and put her on the pillow for a nap.

Fiona asked me what I liked to eat. I told her how I hated eggs. OK, she said. No eggs. Then I said pizza was my favourite and she got it for me.

The second weekend was the same. I went back to the Home on the Sunday night. Ray dropped me. He’d drive the car and say ‘Nearly there now’ every time he turned a corner. That’s how I knew the fostering was Fiona’s idea, not his. He couldn’t wait to see the back of me.

Come Christmas, Miko and Rachel told me they had a surprise present for me. The Aldridges were ready for me to live there, a proper placement. They liked me fine, Rachel said, and thought I’d fit in.

Yeah
, I thought,
like a heavy metal singer in a ballet class
. ‘How long do they want me for?’

‘Open ended, Holly. Isn’t that great? They’re really keen,’ Rachel said.

‘Open ended? So they can send me back whenever?’

Miko waved a hand. ‘Why would they do that, Holly? You’re going to go straight, hey?’

Like I was some big-time crook. ‘Dunno, Miko. Being delinquent’s awful fun.’

Miko raised a brow.

‘OK, OK, I’ll try,’ I said. ‘But if they send me back, it’s not my fault. It means they don’t want to know.’

‘It’s open ended on
both
sides, Holly. You can decide you’ve had enough too.’ Rachel grinned. She was OK, Rachel. Only fifty per cent mogit. Some people, like Grace, have social workers that hardly ever come near you, and when they do they talk like you’re trash. Rachel wasn’t like that.

So in January, just before school started up, she took me to Mercutia Road on a Friday and left me, maybe for good. She knocked on the door and I dropped back to the fifth step so I could breathe. Snow was coming down like feathers and I thought of Trim and Grace and our three-way knot. But mostly I thought of Miko and the last hug he’d given me that morning. In my mind I was hugging him back again and again and thinking maybe it wasn’t the end after all, maybe he’d break the rules and send me a letter sometime, or I’d walk down the street one day and there he’d be, smiling.

‘Holly,’ he’d said. ‘You’ll be fine. I know.’

‘Yeah, Miko. Fine.’

‘Just remember. The mattress trick. And cracking each day open—’

‘Yeah, yeah, like a nut.’

‘That’s it, Holly. You’re a class act.’