When Tim returned he made straight for me again and said ‘Hi’ warmly. At least he was speaking to me – just to me. I asked him the time, as I had no watch, and realised I was getting dangerously near my curfew of 10 p.m. I had no door key – I’d never had one of my own – and I knew the chain went across the door and it was bolted at ten exactly.

‘I have to go,’ I said to Tim. I didn’t want to explain, as I would seem too young and uncool. He looked a bit disappointed.

‘Oh, okay. Oh, er… see you around then?’

We held each other’s eyes for a moment and both smiled. I felt my heart leap in my chest as something electric passed between us.

‘Yeah, bye then,’ I said, grinning at him, and left.

I started walking as fast as I could. I had no money, so couldn’t get a bus. It was dark now, and I walked fast, head down, hands in my pockets, thinking about Tim’s gorgeous smile. I was walking down Longwall Street when I became aware of footsteps behind me – lots of them. I speeded up and didn’t look round. However, the footsteps sounded closer and closer, so I crossed the road. The footsteps crossed the road. My heart really started pounding, as I was in a dark narrow street now and there were no residential houses around.

I was half-running when I suddenly heard, ‘Filth’, and ‘We’re gonna fuckin’ kill you, bitch.’ I glanced over my shoulder and there were four huge white skinhead-type boys. They didn’t like punks. They had obviously come out of a pub and seen me looking very ‘alternative’ and decided to have a go. I was terrified.

Luckily, at the end of the street there was a red phone box with a payphone in it. I darted in and closed the door and held it. The boys surrounded the phone box and started shouting through the glass at me, like rabid dogs: ‘Bitch!’ ‘Whore!’ and ‘Slut!’ I should have been used to these names by now but I was feeling very tired and vulnerable. I felt in my pockets and found one ten pence piece. I dialled the house. When it picked up Ian answered. I was desperate and said, ‘I’m in St Clements and some boys are trying to get me.’

Ian just said, ‘I’ll pass you over to your mother.’ They were clearly already in bed. A second later I could hear Barbara sniping down the phone: ‘Well, serves you right. You should be home, you shouldn’t be out.’ And she slammed down the phone. Just like that.

I held onto the phone, trying to think.

‘We’re gonna fucking rape you, cunt,’ came at me from a huge, spotty bloke with a beer gut, tattoos and bald head. Then they started trying to rock the phone box, and one tried to climb up the front of it. I had no idea how I was going to get out of this situation. I didn’t think of calling 999, as my experience of the police had not been a good one. They’d probably take one look at me in my punk gear and join in with the thugs.

‘Oi, leave her alone,’ I then heard, in a dramatically loud male voice. One of the four thugs turned shouted at him, ‘Make us.’

The one on top jumped down. Then there was a huddle on the pavement outside the phone box and I suddenly saw, to my amazement, Tim, on his bicycle.

‘I’m getting the police,’ he shouted loudly. In a flash the thugs just loped off drunkenly, shouting, ‘Fuck you,’ as they went. Then Tim came and opened the door, and I was shaking.

‘Wow, thanks,’ I said, feeling I’d met my knight in shining armour at last.

‘What on earth were you doing?’ Tim asked.

I explained what happened. Apparently Tim left the pub just after me, and was coincidentally whizzing home on his bike through his usual short cut, when he found me pinioned by the thugs. He then insisted he walk me home and we strolled, with him wheeling his bike, all the way back across town to my home. I didn’t want him to come in, or even see the house, so I hovered on the pavement outside. Tim seemed concerned about me, checking I was okay and not too scared the whole time we walked. I wasn’t used to someone being concerned about me at all, so I didn’t know what to say. We hung around on the pavement for ages, and it was way past eleven now. I had no idea how I would get in the house. I didn’t think I would. But I didn’t tell Tim, as it was too complicated to explain.

Tim didn’t want to go, and I didn’t want him to go. We just kept talking and talking. He said he’d never met anyone quite like me before. There was still a force field between us and I felt like I wanted to hold him close. There was a kind of magic in the air.

‘Can I take your number?’ he asked in the end, and I gave it t

o him. No one had ever called me before, so I was worried about what would happen if he did. Would Barbara even let me speak to him?

‘I’ll call you tomorrow, to see how you are, if that’s all right?’

‘If that’s all right?’ All right? Here was my hero, my life-saver, walking me home, showing he cared, taking my number. I was in seventh heaven. We stood closely and said bye and I felt we might kiss, but we didn’t. I felt entirely smitten by the time he left, like my life had changed completely – for the better.

Once he was gone I tiptoed carefully over the gravel to get in but the door was bolted, predictably. I went around to the back of the house, where the gate was still open. My only option was to sleep in the shed – the horrible shed where William used to be imprisoned and where we would eat the birdseed. I bedded down on some sacking, and although it was damp and musty it was fine for the night. Neither Barbara nor Ian came to check I was home safely – I guessed they thought I’d creep in like a feral cat, at some time, and I should be ignored completely, to teach me a lesson. I could have been in hospital, or even dead, but they clearly didn’t care. Unlike Tim.

The next few weeks and months went by predictably badly at home. There were constant threats and rows. Barbara was threatening to put me in care, send me to strange foster parents, or hand me over to the hopeless Julie. I had spent a weekend in her house, with her new man, and it had been disastrous. She showed no interest in me and her children resented me. She was just as awful as Barbara as a mother, but in a completely different way. Julie was like a child, constantly preening herself in front of the mirror and having hysterics about everything. She spent money like water and didn’t look after the children properly, either. The two children just spent time together and left me out of things.

By then it had become clear, too, that John’s kidney was fine. He’d actually had a problem with his foreskin and had to have an embarrassing operation, which caused referred pain in his waterworks. No one ever said sorry to me for making me feel as if I was killing him. Barbara had either misunderstood the situation or was using his illness as another stick to beat me with. Whatever, I was never really accepted by them and we didn’t get on. So it wasn’t really an alternative and certainly not the cosy home I was so craving at this time.

Back home, Barbara went on and on at me endlessly. I was ungrateful; I had shamed her; I was a waste of space. I cried a lot, but also felt defiant and angry. I was still doing all my usual household chores, and more, and I was ignoring the family as much as I could and just trying to keep out of harm’s way. I would retreat to Sean’s caravan as often as possible to get a breather; to help him with his garden or sit and talk with him. He was still my kind ally. He even tried to calm Barbara down when she was ranting at me.

Sean always trod carefully with her, as he didn’t want anyone complaining to the council about his caravan or the traveller site, but he was also polite to her at the same time as trying to protect me. He was clever doing that. Despite all the drama at home, Tim had phoned the next day, to my delight, and we became pretty inseparable. Every waking moment I wanted to be with him; we would talk and talk, and we kissed soon after we met, and I knew I was falling in love with him. I also knew that he was going away in the autumn, so I wanted to be with him as much as possible. He was teaching me I meant more than all that but I missed him terribly all the time when we were apart.

Luckily I spent most of that summer, post-school, hanging around the posh houses of Tim’s family and his other friends. I had wonderful meals around big pine tables smelling of beeswax, with white scatter rugs on the floor and lots of lovely William Morris-designed furniture and vintage crockery. Tim’s mum, Lucy, had things like an ice cream maker and a yoghurt maker, which I’d never heard of. She ground coffee beans and we had wonderful hot steaming mugs of fresh coffee with frothy milk. They made their own bread. I drank wine and talked politics with nice parents around the table loaded with gorgeous food – and I could eat as much as I wanted.

Once Tim and I became a couple, his mother invited me to stay over at the weekend. I never told his family anything about my home, but I guess there was something about me that spelled out that I was very unhappy without my saying so. I think they picked up how restrictive things were. Lucy would phone Barbara and explain politely that I would be staying ‘in the spare room’. In fact, although Tim and I did cuddle up together in his bedroom, we didn’t have full sex. I had almost a phobia about it, not least because of all the horrible things that had been done to me by Kevin and Mark (which I never told Tim about), but also because of Julie getting pregnant with me at fifteen (which I also didn’t mention) – the very age I was. I was terrified of history repeating itself; I didn’t want to be like her.

Barbara had drummed it into me endlessly that I was a whore like my mother, so I felt very wary of getting into trouble. I didn’t want to rush anything, and Tim was a loving, gentle, sweet young man. He was content for us to cuddle and kiss and explore but not to rush me into anything. I was happy with him, and happy spending time with these lovely, educated, kind people who showed me there was a different way of living without violence, cruelty, rudeness and threats. It made it even more difficult for me to go back to Barbara and Ian’s house, where I was attacked, threatened, hit and called rude names before I even got across the threshold.

Tags: Louise Allen Crime
Source: readsnovelonline.net