I don’t fit in here any more, she thinks. I’m not a perky Scouser. I’ve lost the we-suffer-but-we-laugh-through-the-tears thing and I don’t know if I’ll ever get it back. Do I fit in anywhere, though? I’m not a Londoner. Not really. I thought I would be, but I don’t suppose I’ll ever go back there, now. But here? There’s nothing that keeps me here apart from the fact that the council wants me back. And even they don’t really want me; they’ve just got to take me, and resent me, and eventually turn me into a statistic. But everyone who ever loved me here is dead, or in prison, and apart from my Nanna the love thing was never exactly obvious.
It’s only one o’clock, but night is already drawing in. The day never really got light at all through the misty rain, and what brightness there was has long since given up trying to penetrate the clouds. A long, northern winter: salt wind off the Mersey, institutional Christmas dinner and a single present picked out by someone who’s been paid to choose it. Coca-Cola and the sound of Sylvia crying for New Year, then the long grey wait till the end of the school year and sixteen-ness finally sets her free. I can’t stay here. There’s no point; it’s just more loss of time and the long, long slide to nothing.
Cher reaches the turn that leads to school, and stands looking up the road towards it. I could go back, she thinks. At least it’s warm inside the Special Needs block, and they mostly just let you sleep on Friday afternoon. I could go back there and suck it up.
She dips her head and walks past the turning. Walks on into the darkening streets. As she walks, she strips off her stripy tie and hangs it, damp and droopy, from the spike of a railing as she passes it; stops for a moment by the greengrocer’s and digs in her bag for her denim jacket. Strips off her school blazer and pulls the jacket on in its stead, then drops the blazer in the clothes collection bin outside Age UK. She leans against the blank window of the bookie’s to kick off her black school trainers and replace them with a pair of red patent wedges. Uses the window of Burton as a mirror to paint her lips dark red. Feels in the bag once again and finds her raspberry felt cloche, with the mauve rose over her temple, and pulls it over her hair. It was far too big when her nanna gave it to her that last birthday, but she’s kept it with her ever since, and now it fits just right. By the time she turns the corner once again, Cheryl is gone for good.
She steps up her pace. Just a few hundred yards to the station, now. They won’t be looking, she thinks. You don’t have to worry. It’s ages until the bell. But still she looks over her shoulder, fearful that a teacher will be out prowling for stragglers, that Wicked Steve will have taken it into his head to escort her back to the gates. The road is empty. Here, away from the shopping crowds, she might as well be in the country, for all the company she’s got.
The lights of the station loom up ahead. Drab little suburban station, nothing but a waste bin and a timetable and an empty grey platform. She climbs up on to the footbridge and looks down on the tracks. Oh, well, she thinks, easy come, easy go, and walks on down to the southbound platform.
A gate on the platform leads out to the car park. Cher passes through it and stands on the pavement, looks left and right. Over by the exit, an old transit van, white paint, rust on the bumpers, turns on its headlights. She tosses her head and walks towards it. As she nears, the door on the side slides open and shows a dark, box-filled interior. She doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t think. Just reaches the van and climbs inside.
Vesta slams the doors and clambers into the front seat. ‘We thought you were never coming,’ she says.
‘I know,’ says Cher. ‘Fucking social workers. Talk, talk, talk.’
‘Language, Cher,’ says Vesta, and Cher feels a big smile spread across her face.
‘Hiya,’ she says.
‘Hi,’ says Collette, and puts the engine into gear.
‘How’s your hand?’ asks Cher.
‘Bloody horrible,’ says Collette, ‘and I’ll never play the piano again. How’s your collarbone?’
‘Bit less broken,’ says Cher. ‘Thanks for asking.’
‘Great,’ says Collette, and starts to reverse. ‘Sit down, there’s a good girl. Don’t want you killing yourself before we even get there.’
‘Where are we going, again?’ asks Cher.
‘Ilfracombe,’ says Vesta. ‘You’ll love it.’
‘If you say so,’ she says, contentedly. ‘Sounds like crap to me.’
She settles down on one of Vesta’s sofa cushions, next to the sports bag Collette’s been carrying with her for three long years, and allows herself a sigh of contentment.
‘By the way,’ says Vesta. ‘Your cat’s in that crate. Bloody nightmare, he is.’
Alex Marwood
Alex Marwood is the pseudonym of a successful journalist who has worked extensively across the British press. Alex lives in South London and is working on her next novel.
