Don't Turn Around (4 page)

‘Jenny!’ Her four-year-old nephew grabbed her legs tightly in a hug. He looked positively angelic, his light blond hair complimented by his cobalt blue eyes. The magic was broken as she realised hugs did not come for free. ‘Auntie Jenny, did you bring me anything?’

She knelt down, breathing in his little boy smell.

Jennifer handed him the bag of giant chocolate buttons, and his eyes twinkled as he peeped inside. ‘Oh, Mummy doesn’t let me have these!’

‘Thanks Aunty Jenny, yes, Josh has eaten his supper.’ Amy scowled as she looked into the bag. ‘Josh, you can have half now and half later.’ Sighing, she waved them into the living room. ‘Now why don’t you show Aunty Jenny the picture you drew for her?’ Amy turned to Jennifer. ‘It’s like he knew you were coming. He always draws a picture just before you turn up.’

Jennifer found a clean spot on the couch and sat down. Her niece was laid in a moses basket under the television, which was playing reruns of
Teletubbies
. Her tiny fingers grasped at the air as she cooed at the sounds.

‘She’s a bit young to be watching TV, isn’t she?’ Jennifer said, instantly wishing she had engaged her brain before her mouth.

Amy rolled her eyes. ‘If you’ve come around here to criticise my parenting skills, you can leave now.’

‘Blimey. It’s only been ten minutes,’ Jennifer said, ‘I’m due another twenty minutes yet!’

Amy creased her forehead, ‘What are you on about?’

‘Nothing. Where’s David?’ Jennifer asked, noticing that Amy’s husband appeared to have vacated the building.

Amy tried running her fingers through her hair, but they stuck in something halfway through. ‘He’s gone down the pub. Got fed up of watching
Teletubbies
.’

Jennifer’s voice softened. ‘You look shattered. Why don’t you let me watch these two while you have a nice hot bath?’

Amy looked at her sister doubtfully. ’I suppose I could have a quick shower if you’re offering. Lily’s been fed, just don’t shake her, or she’ll throw up on you like before.’

There was no fear of that; the last thing Jennifer wanted was baby vomit all over her Karen Millen suit. Not to mention her shoes. Jennifer stared at the ragged bunny slippers gracing Amy’s feet. ‘You should let me take you shopping, buy you some nice new clothes.’

Amy gave a cynical laugh and jabbed her finger to her chest. ‘Look at me, I’m two stones overweight, I’ve got two kids, and as you said, I look like shit. What’s the point?’ She marched out the door before Jennifer could reply.

Jennifer hated seeing her sister so upset, but everything she said came out wrong.

Joshua tugged at her sleeve, holding a picture. ‘I drew this for you, Jenny.’

She examined the drawing. It consisted of a skinny woman in a black dress wearing spiky shoes and carrying a handbag. A yellow moon nestled in a night sky clouded with black blobs and intermittent stars. ‘That’s lovely, is that me?’

‘Yes,’ Joshua said proudly, his dimples melting her heart. Funny how they were the only ones in the family to have them. ‘And is that my shadow?’ Jennifer said, pointing to a black figure behind her.

Joshua’s face clouded over as he frowned. ‘No, that’s the bad man.’

‘Is that one of the baddies Auntie Jennifer is putting in jail?’ Joshua was slowly beginning to understand the concept of her job.

‘No,’ Joshua said, shoving a handful of buttons into his mouth.

Lily’s cries shrilled as the programme ended. Her little fingers were balled into tight fists, and her face grew redder with each wail. Jennifer looked at Joshua. ‘Do you know how to put on another one?’ she asked, forgetting her parental advice to Amy earlier. Joshua shrugged and stood over Lily, waggling his finger. ‘Naughty Lily, be quiet for Auntie Jenny.’

Jennifer grabbed the TV remote, but the programme would not restart. The noise of Lily’s screaming was deafening. She slipped off her shoes and putting them aside, took off her jacket and grabbed a towel from the arm of the sofa. ‘Shush Lily, shh.’ Slowly reaching under the warmth of her body, she lifted Lily from the basket and cradled her on the sofa. The crying continued, and she stood up, pacing the floor. Minutes felt like hours as she paced up and down, cradling the screaming baby. ‘She needs to burp,’ Joshua pointed out.

Jennifer threw the towel over her shoulder and raised the baby, who gave an enormous burp. ‘Well done Josh, you’re a clever boy, aren’t you?’

‘That’s what Mummy does,’ he said, smugly, a dribble of chocolate creeping down his chin.

Jennifer found a dummy and slipped it into Lily’s pink mouth. She sucked greedily, and after a few seconds relaxed in her arms and drifted off to sleep. Jennifer kissed her forehead before placing her gently in the basket. Putting her finger to her lips, she gestured to Joshua, who wiped a sleeve over his mouth.

Amy came downstairs, pink and fresh from her shower, towel drying her damp hair. ‘Sorry for snapping, I know you’re only trying to help. Why don’t you stick the kettle on while I run a brush through this?’

Jennifer nodded, following her into the kitchen through the open double doors. The pair of them chatted, Jennifer about work, and Amy about the pressures of raising a family. Their lives were poles apart, and Joshua seemed to be the only thing keeping them together. She watched Amy brush her long brown hair, teasing out the tangles, just as Jennifer had done for her when she was a little girl.

‘Remember when Mum used to brush our hair?’ Amy said, smiling at the memory.

Jennifer sat on the high stool, her face haunted from the past. ‘I remember a lot of things. I remember her leaving us to fend for ourselves.’

Amy frowned. ‘Why do you always have to spoil it? Every time I talk about Mum, you bring up the bad stuff. Don’t you have any happy memories at all?’

‘I have memories. Mine are different to yours, that’s all.’ Jennifer blew the steam from her coffee before taking a sip.

Amy lay down the brush and began to braid her hair into a plait. ‘You need to move on with your life.’

‘You’re probably right,’ Jennifer said, wishing she could.

As Jennifer drove home, she wondered if her sister even liked her. She had never expected thanks for taking on the mothering role, but lately all she felt from Amy was simmering resentment. Now that Amy was married with a family of her own, Jennifer was not sure what part she played in her sister’s life anymore.

F
rank could not find
the words to tell Gloria he didn’t like being touched. Her fingers bit into his shoulder as she spoke.

‘It’s a bit late for you to be out alone. Is your mum at home?’ she said, smiling with lipstick-stained teeth.

Frank nodded in response. He liked sitting on the steps of the town hall. Faded posters of variety acts hinted at better days. But the theatre had long since closed its doors to the public, who preferred the advent of television to stage shows.

‘Has your mum got … visitors?’

He stared, willing her to go back to the other women on the street opposite. Back to the kerb-crawlers. Frank was almost thirteen, and knew all about sex. He knew about everything. He chewed his nail. She just stood there, smiling patiently, waiting for him to answer. Her dark bobbed hair and black lined eyelids masked a ghostly white face, tinged by a faint bruise above her cheekbone.

She ruffled his hair. ‘I’ll take that as a yes.’

Frank nodded, pushing his skinny hands into the sleeves of his jumper to stop the biting cold numbing his fingers. A newspaper clung to the lamppost in the winter breeze, and Frank shivered, feeling like a gutter rat with no place to go. The last few years had not been kind, and he had taken to the cobbled streets to escape his mother’s temper.

Gloria dropped her gaze and sighed. ‘It’s not right, you being out here alone at this time of night, with no proper coat. You go home to bed. I’ll speak to your mum tomorrow.’

Gloria turned to the others. ‘It’s Viv’s kid. Look at the state of him. She needs a good telling off, letting him out in this weather.’

‘Well he shouldn’t be here, should he? We ain’t no social services.’ The young woman laughed as she joined them, her dishevelled blonde hair framing her sharp features. She knelt down, her breath stinking of cigarettes and alcohol. It was his mother’s signature aroma.

‘Come back in a couple of years when you know what to do with it.’ She cackled and Frank blushed furiously as the anger spread from his gut to the rest of his body.

Gloria pulled her away by the scruff of her leopard print coat, almost knocking her off her high-heeled feet. ‘Get lost, Tina, he’s only a kid.’

The beam of a car’s headlights illuminated the path as it slowed.

‘Fuck’s sake Glo, you nearly had me over there!’ Tina found her balance and brushed herself off as she sauntered over to the car, her hips jutting from side to side.

Gloria produced a coin from her coat and pressed it into the palm of Frank’s hand. ‘Here, get a bag of crisps and a drink for yourself on the way home. The newsagent on the corner should be still open.’

Frank pushed the coin in his pocket, and ran home, taking the maze of short cuts he had become accustomed to. He stood solidly as he knocked on the door, his cheeks stained red from the cold.

His mother’s sharp face stared from under the hairnet stuffed with curlers, and she ushered him into the narrow hall before bolting the door. ‘I hope you’ve not been getting into trouble. You’d better not bring the police to our door, you hear me?’

Frank frowned, fingering the coin in his pocket. He could give the money to his mother, but did she deserve it?

‘And I asked you to clean this dump. You best do it tomorrow or you won’t be going anywhere.'

Frank bound up the worn lino stairs. It wasn’t a dump to him. Their two-up two-down house was just as good as anyone else’s on the terrace, it was his mother that made life difficult. He remembered her wailing the day she had moved there. He couldn’t understand it. At least the neighbours didn’t make snide remarks and look down their noses at them. Nobody really cared what they did.

T
he week passed without event
. He kept his head down, went to school. Leaving private school for state had not been that hard. The dumber the other children were, the easier they accepted whatever persona he presented to them. The best way of keeping a low profile was to immerse himself in the mundane. Act like them, talk like them. A smile, a joke was all it took – at least during the day. The night was his own.

F
rank woke
to the sound of a woman’s raised voice from downstairs. It sounded like Gloria was paying his mother a visit. But Frank’s mind was not on Gloria, it was on the spoils from his burglary the night before. Ducking his head under the bed, he pulled out a cardboard box containing the red leather bag he had stolen the night before. His habit of waking up at two a.m. served him well. He was able to reach the outskirts of Maple Avenue in twenty minutes if he ran without stopping.

He pulled the stiff gold clasp of the bag open and rifled through the contents. Hair clips, a tissue, a comb, lipstick, papers, a few loose shillings, and five pounds! Frank kissed the crisp note and threw the bag back into the box under the bed. At least he wouldn’t have to listen to his stomach grumble. He might even treat himself to a new coat.

He smiled, wondering if the owner would miss her handbag. What did she expect, leaving it in full view on the kitchen table last night? Frank had been shocked to see her old man with his nose in the fridge. Frank’s heart had felt like it was going to pound itself clean out of his chest as he hid behind the long velvet curtains in the living room. The old geezer was lucky he didn’t cave his head in with his crowbar. The cold solid metal had felt good in his hands. He would have smashed his skull to pieces for sure. He began to imagine standing over the old man’s body as crimson red seeped into the patterned swirls of their expensive carpet. But in the dimness of the light, the old coot was either blind or too stupid to see him.

F
rank’s attention
was brought back to the voices from downstairs. They grew louder, relaying the same old story. Gloria arguing with his useless mother, telling her to look after him better, and Viv reeling off a bunch of excuses as to why she couldn’t give a shit.

‘When are you going to sort your life out? You owe it to Frank.’ Gloria’s muffled voice filtered through the bare floorboards. Frank squirrelled away the five pounds with the rest of his spoils, some shillings and trinkets of jewellery hidden in a box on top of the wardrobe. It was just as well he could look after himself.

‘Sort your own life out before you start coming around here preaching at me. At least I’m not sticking needles in my arm!’

Touché, mother, Frank thought, although it was a shame, Gloria had gone downhill lately.

‘I’ve been clean for three weeks, I’ll have you know.’

‘Don’t give me that. Look, Frank is fine. We are both fine, now sod off. We don’t need you to tell us what to do.’

Gloria replied something Frank could not make out. He crept downstairs, feeling six years old again as he peeped through a chink in the kitchen door at his mother, framed in a cloud of cigarette smoke.

Her response to Gloria was sharp and to the point. ‘Now you listen to me. If you call social services we are finished. What’s more, I’ll make it that everyone knows you’re a grass. You get that?’

‘I’m just saying he needs to be with people who will look after him.’

‘What’s the social going to do for him? Only throw him in a home full of people he doesn’t know! You think he wants that? You ask him. You see if you’re doing him any favours.’

‘I’m fine, honest.’ Frank stood in the doorway, his long arms dangling from the shirtsleeves two sizes too small for him.

His mother sat at the table, wearing the same old silk dressing gown, frayed at the edges. Gloria was standing over her, arms folded, with a scowl on her face. Smiles were rare in this house. Smiles had to be bought and paid for.

‘Aw sweetheart, your mother and I were just – having a talk. Nothing to worry about,’ Gloria said, pulling out a chair and sitting down.

‘Stop treating him like a baby. Frank, Glo wants to call the social. You want to go into a home?’

Frank stood beside his mother and put his arm around her skinny shoulder. ‘No, I’m happy here with Mum.’

His mother nodded her head, shifting in her chair to shrug off his embrace. ‘Is that good enough for you? Now have you got anything to drink, because I’m parched.’

Gloria rolled her eyes and slipped a small bottle of whiskey from her bag. ‘C’mon then, you get the mugs.’ Viv stood in the small kitchen and, as if for the first time, noticed the delicate china teacups hanging on hooks from the shelf on the wall. She had hung them the day she moved in, displayed as a symbol of hope for the future. Viv took two of the rose-patterned cups and set them on the table, dissolving any remnants of hope in the honey coloured liquid that flowed within.

Frank slid out of sight of the two women, who grew more cheerful with each swig.

Gloria stubbed her cigarette into the saucer on the kitchen table. ‘You were right about what you said about the social. I’ve spent half my life in homes and I don’t want that for Frankie. What if I take him for the summer holidays, when I sort myself out? I’m getting too old for this game, I’m chucking it in.’

Frank felt a flicker of hope as his mother mulled it over.

Gloria continued. ‘It would give you a break, and you know I’d look after him – fatten him up with a few home cooked meals.’

Frank bit his lip. Home cooked meals! He had stayed over at Gloria’s place once before, when his mother was in the hospital. Sleeping in crisp, clean sheets, waking up to hot buttered toast in the mornings. At night they read together, and when he left, Gloria had entrusted him with a hardcover poetry book. It was his most treasured possession. He held his breath now as he listened for Viv’s response to her offer. If he were too keen, she’d say no, just to watch the disappointment on his face.

But half a bottle of whiskey had mellowed his mother and taken the shrillness from her voice. Frank smiled. Glo was a crafty cow; she must have planned this all along.

‘How are you gonna support Frank if you give up work? You don’t think I’m paying ya. I’ve barely got enough to support us as it is.’

Support your booze habit, more like, Frank thought bitterly.

‘Well, you know Mr Wallace? He’s one of my best clients. He said he could get me a little job down the bingo halls in Lexton as a cloakroom assistant. It wouldn’t be much, but I’ve been putting some money aside. You could have Frank weekends when I have to work and I can look after him during the week.’

‘Sounds like you’ve worked it all out,’ Viv said, raising her cup for more. ‘There’s only one problem, isn’t there?’

The sentence hung in the air. Glo leaned forward and whispered, ‘He doesn’t have to know.’

‘And how is that gonna happen? You think Osborne is gonna let one of his best earners go, just like that? Off into the sunset, “Ta ra Glo, I’m gonna miss you!”’ Viv extended her fingers in a tinkly wave to demonstrate her point. ‘If he finds out what you’re up to, the only way you’ll leave that place is in a box.’

Gloria looked around. Frank pulled back behind the door, holding his breath as he strained to hear.

‘Mr Wallace is going to rent me a flat over the bingo hall. It’s not much, but it’s a start. There’s a spare room and everything, Frank would love it there, it looks over the town, all the lights, you can see for miles. If we travel down on the train, we can get Frank here to you every weekend. I might even be able to get him a little job so he can help you out with the bills. It’s about time you started taking it easy.’

Viv lit another cigarette and looked at Gloria coolly. ‘So this Mr. Wallace; married, is he? Planning on paying your rent in kind?’

Gloria sighed. ‘Maybe, but he’s a good man that wants to help. Osborne will be none the wiser until it’s too late.’

‘Glo you can plan all you want, take Frank with you, I don’t care. But you listen to me …’ Viv grabbed Gloria’s forearm hard. ‘Osborne won’t let you go. I’ve seen what happens to girls that try to leave. Why do you think I’ve never walked the streets? You and I may have our differences, but I don’t want anything to happen to you.’ Viv’s cigarette bounced on her bottom lip, and she jabbed the plastic tablecloth with her finger to drive home her point. ‘If you’re leaving, you plan it good. And don’t tell anyone what you’re doing. You get me?’

Gloria nodded somberly. ‘I won’t tell a soul. When I’m settled, I’ll come and get Frank. That’s if he wants to come.’

‘Of course he will. I know I’ve not been much of a mum to him. Since his dad left, life has been hard. Some days it’s all I can do to get out of bed.’

‘You try your best Viv, but I think a little break will do you both good. You know I would never have called the social on you. I may be a lot of things, but I’m no grass.’

F
rank counted
down the days to the summer holidays. The weeks passed and as the chill left the air, he dreamt of the day Gloria would come for him. She had made him a promise and she was moving away just for him. Once he left, he would never come back to this dive again.

Thump, thump, thump. The headboard vibrating against the wall in his mother’s room distracted him from his thoughts. Old Andy O’Leary was paying a visit. Shouldn’t take very long, although he always shouted to God when he was nearly finished. He wasn’t a churchgoer as far as Frank knew.

Faster; thump thump thump. It gained momentum. He really should try to fix that headboard. Wedge something to stop the noise. ‘Oh God, Oh God, Oh … GOD.' Frank imagined ramming a large cloth in Mr. O’Leary’s mouth and taking him down with his crowbar. That would grant him his wish to meet God for sure. After a few minutes, the bedroom door creaked open and Mr. O’Leary padded downstairs, exiting through the back door into the night. Frank looked out his window to the garden below to see the small Irishman swivelling his head from side to side as he checked the coast was clear.

‘Frank, come here!’ His mother shrilled from the bedroom next door. Frank got back into bed and pulled the blanket over his head. An object hit the adjoining wall. ‘Frank, you come in here right now.’ Frank dragged himself out, cursing under his breath as his feet hit the hard wooden floor.