Authors: Mikey Walsh

Gypsy Boy (21 page)

BOOK: Gypsy Boy

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I went to work each day with my father, and then spent the evenings sitting with my mother, Minnie and the boys. I would play with them until they went to bed, and then sit with my mother and talk.

Despite my frustrations and longing to be with Caleb, it was a special time.

My mother talked about her colourful childhood and shared stories with me as we went through her CDs and reminisced about the past. I loved the feeling of being close to her in a way that had rarely happened in the past. The
two of us would sit up together until the men came home from the pub, when I would slip away to my trailer before my father came in. He still wasn’t speaking to me, and my mother and I both thought it best for me to avoid him. We knew it was only a matter of time before the rage building up inside him would erupt.

After another month of boiling silence, it finally did.

We were gritting a driveway when my father decided I had been too slow shovelling the grit. He walked over, grabbed the shovel out of my hand and swung it across my face, knocking me over. He swung the shovel at me again and again, until finally he threw it down and carried on with the job. As I wept, one of the dossas came over to help me up, but my father ordered him to leave me exactly where I was. The dossa picked up the shovel and carried on from where I left off

When we got back home, my mother was horrified at the sight of me. She screamed at my father, who kicked Henry-Joe and Jimmy out of the trailer, telling them to go and play, then dragged her inside.

I was left standing outside, covered in grit and blood. And in that moment, I knew that this was it. I had to go. I ran down the lane, through the camp and towards the retirement camp next door, desperately hoping I would see Caleb’s little orange pumpkin of a car.

As I turned the corner my heart leaped – it was there. He had come down after work to wait for me, as he had every day, in the hope that I would be able to sneak out. I opened the car door and got in, and we both burst into tears. The joy of finding one another again was muted by my fear, and Caleb’s horror at the sight of my battered face.

Wiping his tears on his sleeve, he took off, and didn’t stop driving until we had found a quiet side road in which to stop and talk.

I told him everything, including what Joseph had done to me, and my real age. And I told him I couldn’t go on being around my father, or hiding who I really was.

Caleb listened, and then told me he had guessed I was far younger than I pretended to be, though he was shocked to find I was only fifteen.

‘How did you know,’ I asked.

‘Because whenever we talked about the Gypsies getting married early, I wondered why you and your friends were not doing all of that yet. Besides, what twenty-year-old has curfews and still has to live by his father’s rules?’

It was a good point. And it made me realise that if I remained there, I would never, ever escape my father. Not when I was twenty; not even when I was forty. I would never be what he wanted, and I would never leave his shadow. I could waste my whole life trying to win his approval and never succeed.

I had to accept that he would never change.

I told Caleb how desperate I felt.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘That’s why I’m going to take you away.’

He had a plan. He had been made manager of a Dyna Bowl up north, and he was leaving to begin his new job the following week. He asked me to wait two months, so that the Gypsies wouldn’t link his going with mine, and then follow him. He would be waiting for me, and we would begin a new life together.

I was happy, excited – and scared. Could we really do
it? Could I face leaving my mother, Frankie, the boys and Minnie, knowing I might never see them again? It would break my heart.

But I had to go.

I had dreamed of escape so many times. But until now I’d had no idea how I would survive. Now I had someone who loved me, who would show me how to make a life for myself in the Gorgia world. Now the time was right.

When I got back to the camp an hour later, my absence hadn’t even been noticed. My mother filled a bowl of hot water and passed it to me. She had a black eye and several large bruises. We looked at one another and held back our tears. And as I turned to walk over to my trailer, she rubbed my back. ‘Clean that old bastard off you, my boy. I love you.’

It was only the second time I had ever heard her say it. I looked at her, and felt so much love. She had always done her best to fight for me. And now I was leaving her.

The day before Caleb left for his new job, I slipped out early and went to spend the day with him. I knew I would have to face my father’s wrath when I returned, but it was worth it to spend a few precious hours together.

Caleb drove me back well before my father was due home from work. But he had second-guessed us, and was waiting.

I jumped out of Caleb’s car and my father jumped into his and sped off after Caleb. I was terrified, but thankfully when my father returned an hour later, his black mood confirmed that he hadn’t caught him.

I was beaten again, but I didn’t care. Aching and bloody, I lay in my bunk and dreamed of my freedom.

For the next two months I carried on going to work with my father, and spent the evenings with my mother. I said nothing to her about Caleb or my feelings for him, but I knew that she knew there was someone. And she knew too that I was unhappy.

One evening Frankie slipped into the trailer, grinning. ‘Guess what I did today?’ she said.

‘What?’

‘I got married.’

I gasped. ‘You married Wisdom?’

‘Yes. I love him, Mikey, he’s the one. I didn’t want to wait any longer. We went to the Register Office in town and did it.’

I was shocked, and somehow saddened. I had imagined a big wedding for Frankie, with all the family there. And I wanted her to find a good husband. She was only ever going to have one chance, and I felt very afraid that she had blown it by sneaking off and marrying a low-life like Wisdom. But I said none of this.

‘Congratulations, sis. I’m glad if you’re happy.’

‘I am,’ she grinned. ‘I’m going to find the right moment to tell Mum, and then she’ll help me with Dad. Don’t say a word to anyone yet.’

‘Course I won’t.’

A few days later I managed to slip out of camp to call Caleb. The two months were almost up, he was settled, and I didn’t want to wait any longer. We agreed he would come for me a week later.

The day before I left was bright and hot and I looked on as my father trained seven-year-old Jimmy to fight. D��jà vu
set in as I watched Jimmy begin to cry following a punch from my father. Smack, smack, smack; he hit him three more times.

I jumped from the trailer. ‘Leave him alone,’ I yelled.

As my father turned to beat me out of the way, both my mother and my sister stood up to him too.

‘I swear to God, Frank, if you touch that boy again, I will kill you myself,’ my mother screamed, angrier than I had ever seen her before.

My father drew back a hand to hit her.

‘Go on then,’ she screamed. ‘I swear it, Frankie, I’ll call the Gavvers (police) right now and have you put away for life.’

As the argument raged and Frankie joined in, I grabbed Henry-Joe and Jimmy and led them away.

We walked through the fields behind the camp, and I told them I was leaving. I wanted to let them know, so that they wouldn’t wake and find me gone and think I hadn’t cared about them. I told them that they were not to ever take the shit from our father that I had. Henry-Joe, at nine, was so mature; he understood the whole obsession our family had for fighting almost as well as I did. But he knew that his fight would be to protect Jimmy. The two of them were understanding, beautiful and innocent. I reached down and grabbed hold of them both, hugging them as tightly as I could.

‘Your big brother loves you, don’t forget that,’ I whispered. ‘And tell Minnie for me too, when she’s old enough to understand.’

When we got back Aunt Minnie beckoned me over. My mother and father, Uncle Jaybus, Frankie and Romaine
were all gathered together in Aunt Minnie’s trailer, the row over Jimmy forgotten.

‘Someone’s here to fight you,’ they chorused. I stepped inside the trailer.

‘Who is it?’

‘Davey Nelson,’ Frankie said. I looked over to our plot and saw his van parked next to it.

‘What should the boy do?’ asked Aunt Minnie. ‘He’s a rough one.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Romaine, peeking through the curtains.

Then they all piped up, telling me what to do, how to handle him, or to run away. But my father’s voice was louder than all the others. ‘If you don’t beat this boy, I’ll beat you all the way to Basingstoke.’

It was the same line I had heard him say when I was six years old in that boxing club and had heard over and over again ever since.

I opened the trailer door and marched out. My mother ran up behind me.

‘Mikey, you don’t have to face this boy if you don’t want to do it.’

I looked at her. ‘I’ll be all right.’

I walked over to the parked van, and without giving the boy sitting inside the chance to make the challenge I opened the door and dragged him outside.

Suddenly it all flashed before me. The fights, the beatings, the put-downs and insults. And all those years of hating myself for this stupid sport.

I punched, and I punched, and I punched him over, and over, until I tore the skin from my knuckles and the blood from his face was all over my hands.

He hit the ground, and I stood back and waited for him to get up as the whole camp gathered round. He scrambled up from the floor, got back into his van, and was gone.

I had done it. This was the moment my father had waited for all these years. All he’d ever wanted was for his son to publicly beat the crap out of someone.

Suddenly, there was a different father standing in front of me. He beamed with pride, patting me on the back and trying to raise my arm like a champion. I pulled out of his grip and walked away.

I wasn’t proud at all. All I could think of was what a waste of a life it was, beating the crap out of some bully, who deserved to be beaten by a better man than me.

I felt numb.

The following day it was raining. I packed a bag and then threw it from our trailer window into the back of the pick-up.

When I went outside I saw that our van was gone. My father saw me looking at the empty space.

‘Your mum’s gone to pick up some things from your granny Bettie’s.’

After Granddad Tommy’s death a few months ago Granny Bettie had settled into a bungalow half an hour’s drive away.

I felt overwhelmed with sadness. I had wanted to see her just one more time. But I couldn’t afford to wait. I hoped she would forgive me.

I grabbed the keys to the pick-up.

‘Where are you going?’ bellowed my father.

‘Just going to ring Mum from the phone box,’ I called.

‘Be back in five minutes; you’re still not allowed off this place and I need the motor,’ he shouted.

My heart was skipping beats as I flew up the road to the phone box. When I reached it, I jumped from the pick-up, threw my bag into a hedge and put my last ten pence in the phone. Caleb had come back to Newark the night before and was waiting at his family’s house for my call.

‘Are you coming?’

‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘Hurry.’

I put down the phone and drove back to the camp.

I pulled over in the pick-up, threw the keys on the table inside, and stood at the end of our plot. I could hear Romaine and Aunt Minnie, singing along to their Whitney Houston album as they cleaned out their trailers a few yards away. I waved to Frankie, as she and Kayla-Jayne walked over to the toilet block. Life as usual. But I would never see it again.

I waved to Frankie. I would miss her, but in some ways I felt I had lost her long ago. We were once so close, but she was no longer the best friend I played with when we were children. The influence of Wisdom, the late nights and the drugs had changed her so much. I didn’t like what she had become, and I hoped that one day she would once again be the wonderful funny, kind-hearted girl she had once been.

I looked into my parents’ trailer and saw my father engrossed in an old western on TV.

I turned and walked to the end of the camp and around the corner. Then I started to run. Suddenly I was running for my life; past the house where Adam used to live, under
the trees, through the front camp and toward the gate. The wind whistled and slapped at my face as I picked up speed.

Then I heard my brothers call me. They came rushing towards me, covered in mud.

‘Are you going now?’ Henry-Joe asked.

I hugged them.

‘I love you both, don’t you ever forget that.’

BOOK: Gypsy Boy

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