Caro said she didn’t think sex attackers had any money.
So I said, ‘Suppose he had already decided to do a sex attack on Josie Farraday? When they were outside the shop. So he sent her in alone so that Mr and Mrs Dessai wouldn’t see him. He wouldn’t want anyone to see him and Josie together.’
But Caro said, ‘If he’d already decided to do a sex attack he wouldn’t want any smoky bacon flavour crisps either.’
And I really couldn’t argue with that.
Actually, that’s one thing Josie Farraday and I have in common. I don’t like smokey bacon crisps either. Outside the shop I wondered if I really had to buy them. I had some money, but I wondered if I was supposed to pay for crisps I didn’t want to eat. And what was I supposed to do with them when I had them? Josie gave them to a sex attacker. I don’t have anyone to give them to.
I went inside, and there was Mr Dessai in his grungy old suit and Mrs Dessai with that hand-knitted cardigan she always wears over her sari.
The last time I was in there was when Caro and I bought the Evening Standard to find out what really happened to Josie. That time, Mr Dessai hardly looked up. He just said, ‘Thirty p.,’ and that was that. This time he looked all nervy and jumpy and he didn’t say anything. But a lady in a brown woolly hat did. It was awful.
She said, ‘Don’t you go telling no one it was a black man did it.’
I said, ‘Pardon?’
And she said, ‘You folks’ shit stink too, y’know.’
And Mr Dessai handed me a packet of salt and vinegar flavoured crisps. But his hand was shaking so much he dropped it.
The lady in the woolly hat said, ‘You, little girl.’
‘Me?’
‘You little girl know nothing, get yourself in trouble, firs’ thing happen you blame one of us.’
I left the salt and vinegar flavoured crisps on the floor and got out as fast as I could. I mean, what a thing to say! It was incredible. Fancy telling a total stranger her shit stank. In public.
My face burned, and I wondered if the cameras could see how red I’d gone. Josie Farraday has a lot to answer for, getting me humiliated like that.
And then I almost turned back into the newsagent. I wanted to tell the lady that I hadn’t got into any trouble and I wasn’t blaming anyone. And I wanted to pick up the crisps and tell Mr Dessai he’d got the wrong flavour. But I couldn’t go back in. I just couldn’t. It’s all too horrible. And it isn’t my fault. It’s Josie’s.
So I pulled up Josie’s socks again. It was funny, because this time I was quite glad she wore loopy old socks and flopped her hair all over her face. It meant the cameras couldn’t see me blushing. And I was glad the cameras hadn’t been inside Mr Dessai’s shop.
It’s bad enough when horrid things happen, but it’s even worse when other people know about it. When horrid things happen to me I never tell anyone any more.
Once I went to the Tate Gallery with a boy called Mark. It was sort of like a date except that our parents arranged it. I liked Mark and I was quite excited I’d been allowed to go out alone with him. We caught a bus down to Millbank and we sat right at the front on the top deck. We were sitting so close together our legs touched and I wondered what I’d do if he held my hand. Just thinking about it made my hands sweat so I hoped he wouldn’t. But on the way back, he did. He picked up the hand closest to him in both of his. And my heart kicked the inside of my chest and I thought I was going to be sick.
He said, ‘You know what really hurts?’
I said, ‘What?’
So he said, ‘What, what?’
And I said, ‘What really hurts?’ I wasn’t thinking about anything except him holding my hand.
And he folded my hand into a fist. Then he squashed down really hard on my bent little finger. Really hard. I couldn’t get my hand away because he was holding on so tight. And it hurt. It really hurt. I had tears running down my face. I screamed. And he let go.
I said, ‘What did you do that for?’
And he said, ‘You asked me to.’
I said I didn’t. But he said, ‘Yes you did. You asked, “What really hurts?” And I showed you.’
So it wasn’t much of a date. But when I got home, Caro said, ‘What happened? Does he like you? Did he kiss you?’
I said, ‘We just held hands.’
And she said, ‘Is that all?’ But I could see she was jealous because she kept going on about Mark being my boyfriend. I got pretty fed up, so in the end I told her about how he squashed my finger.
And she said, ‘That would never have happened to me. I don’t have sweaty hands. Your hands sweat. Yeugh! Boys only like cool dry hands, like mine. You should have dusted your palms with talcum powder before going out. It isn’t romantic to have sweaty hands.’
I shouldn’t have told Caro about it because she made it seem like it was all my fault when it wasn’t.
From then on, I always dusted my hands with Mum’s talcum powder. Until one day when I dropped the tin in the basin and it all spilled out.
Mum said, ‘What on earth were you doing with my powder?’
So I told her what Caro said. And she said, ‘I don’t know why you waste your time with Caroline. She’s a profoundly ignorant little madam.’
I didn’t tell Caro that because it isn’t true. Caro isn’t ignorant. She knows a lot more about what boys like than Mum does.
I always keep my hands in my pockets so no one will see them. That’s where they are now – in the pockets of the brown leather jacket just like the one Josie Farraday wore. If this really was Josie Farraday’s jacket I bet the pockets would be all wet and soggy. Her hands sweat too. But nobody knows this except me, because even the police and TV cameras can’t see into people’s pockets. Which is just as well, because the lights from the Esso Station and car-wash are very bright and everyone is staring at me.
The lady policeman said, ‘Slow down. Don’t run.’ She made me jump. I’d almost forgotten about her.
She said, ‘We want everyone to get a good look at you.’
Then she said, ‘Are you all right?’
And I said, ‘Where’s Mum?’ But I regretted it immediately. I don’t want her. Only little girls want their mothers. Mothers spoil everything.
The lady policeman told me to keep my mind on what I was doing, and walk slowly to the Social Security office on the corner.
It isn’t so bad at this time of night, but usually the Social Security office is a place to avoid. It’s a huge, dark grey building and in the daytime it’s always busy. People just hang around and sit on the steps smoking cigarettes and drinking things. Even now the pavement is filthy with cigarette ends, drink cans and broken glass.
If I have to come this way, I always go on the park side of the road. But that is where all the bus-stops are. So even if I’m on the other side of the road to the Social Security office there are still lots of people, and there’s always the risk someone might stop me.
They ask me for money and they say things like, ‘The bastards wouldn’t give me no emergency payment.’ And then they ask for the bus fare home, or a cup of tea. And sometimes they say, ‘Ain’t you lucky to have such lovely shoes?’ And that makes me feel awful. So usually when I come this way I run.
I haven’t got any money either. Why can’t they see that? Mum is very mean with my allowance.
You don’t see many girls from my school here, and I can’t think why Josie Farraday came this way. If, all the time, she was planning to go into Kennington Park, why wasn’t she walking on the park side of the road? There are a lot of things I don’t understand, and now that I’m actually walking in Josie’s footsteps they seem even more mysterious. I keep looking towards the park, even though it’s so dark and I don’t want to. I am going to walk in there later. But there are other things to do first.
If you don’t look at the park, but instead you look across the big junction where Kennington Road meets Kennington Park Road you see the bank, the cafe and the Post Office. And you see Ashton’s, the funeral parlour.