Dustbin Baby (9 page)

I'm crying. I fumble in my schoolbag for a tissue.

‘What's the matter then, love?'

I freeze.

A man dodges through the graves towards me – a man with wild hair and dirty clothes, clutching a bottle in his hand. I look round. No-one else. Just him and me. And I'm a long, long way away from the cemetery gates.

I turn sharply and start walking away.

‘Hey! Don't ignore me! I'm trying to be
helpful
. Want a hankie, eh?' He pulls out a filthy rag from his trouser pocket and waves it at me.

Is
he just being kind? He doesn't look it. I shake my head and give him a quick, scared smile.

‘Thank you – but I'm OK. Well, I've got to go now. Goodbye.'

‘Don't go! I want to talk. What you crying for, eh? Want a drink? It'll make you feel better, darling.'

‘No. Really.'

‘Suit yourself. All the more for me.' He tips the bottle and drinks.

I walk on but he walks with me, lurching a little.

‘Someone die then?' he asks.

‘Yes. It's . . . my mother and – and my father's just over there.' I gesture vaguely beyond the
graves
. ‘I'm going to catch up with him now. Goodbye.'

I run for it. I don't think he believes me. He calls after me but I don't stop. I hear his footsteps and I clench my fists and run harder, as fast as I can, my schoolbag banging against my hip. I run and run and run, twisting my ankle on tufts of grass, staggering as I zig-zag through gravestones, on and on, wondering if I'm really going in the right direction. Maybe he's catching me up, his grimy hands reaching out to grab me – but there's the arch of the cemetery gates, I'm nearly there! I rush towards them, through, out by the main road, cars whizzing past.

I lean against the stone wall, gasping for breath. I wait, ready to scream for help if I see him staggering towards me. But he doesn't come. He's given up, still somewhere in the cemetery. When my heart slows I walk on shakily, still sick and scared, but feeling a little safer now.

I don't know whether I should tell anyone. I'm not sure he really did anything to me. Maybe he really meant well – but it would have been crazy to wait to find out. I hated the way he was looking at me. I couldn't stand him calling me ‘love' and ‘darling'.

I think about my mother, my real mother, not poor Mummy neatly tucked up under her shiny black slab. Maybe my mother was attacked by some hateful drunken stranger? Maybe that's why she couldn't bear to keep me?

I don't know where I'm going now. The cars roar past, disorientating me. I keep looking back just in case the wild man follows me. I don't know what I'm doing here. It's like a dream. Nothing seems real any more.

But then I'm used to that.

10

I STOPPED FEELING
real after Mummy died and Daddy got shot of me. I felt as papery and easily crumpled as Daffodil and Bluebell and Rose and Violet. I had two foster mothers in quick succession. I read it in my notes.

The first one was another short-term specialist like Auntie Pat. I think I can remember my sixth birthday there. I left the white-icing rosebuds from my birthday cake because they looked so pretty but someone took my plate away before I could save them.

Then I went to live with Maureen and Peter. Their friends all called them Big Mo and Little Pete. Did we call them that too? Probably not. I think we just called them Mum and Dad. We were their foster children and there were a lot of us. Some came for a few days, some a few years.
Some
lived there for ever.

I asked Big Mo if I was going to live there for ever. ‘Probably, little sweetiepops,' she said, and then she charged off to separate two of the big boys who were fighting and unhook one of the little boys who'd wound himself round and round in the long living-room curtains.

That was the way it was. You never got the chance to have a proper talk. There was never time for her to stop and give you a cuddle. I didn't really want one anyway. Big Mo was a good kind-hearted woman but I didn't like the way she looked. She
was
Big – probably only a bit taller than average but she seemed to tower ten metres in the air when I was little and she seemed ten metres
wide
too. Big Mo was like a mountain range, vast slopes of bosom and belly and bottom. She wore great patterned sack dresses, bright red jersey in the winter and pink floral print in the summer. She never wore tights even in the coldest spells so her legs were mottled red and pink too. Sometimes when she sat on the battered sofa you got a glimpse of her awesome knickers. Everyone used to giggle uncontrollably when she pulled her clean pairs out the washing machine. Big Mo didn't seem to mind. When she was in a good mood she'd wave her knickers in the air like flags and we'd all fall about.

Little Pete wasn't
that
little, just normal size, but he looked like one of us kids beside Big Mo. He behaved like a kid in lots of ways too, down on his hands and knees making mudpies with the
little
ones and fixing the bikes and chatting fanatically about football with the big ones. He even had a go on their scooters. Big Mo got very irritated when he fell off and sprained his wrist and couldn't help her around the house for a week. Little Pete winked at the boys happily and they guffawed.

I didn't fit in. They were mostly boys there and I was an exceptionally girly girl at that stage because of the way Mummy had brought me up. I liked to keep my dinky little dresses clean. Big Mo bought me a pair of dungarees with an embroidered bear on the pocket.

‘There now, sweetiepops, you can run riot in your dungies. It doesn't matter a bit if you get them dirty,' said Big Mo.

But I didn't want to get them dirty. I sat cross-legged in a corner, head bent, chatting to the teddy bear. I pretended he was a real bear cub called Cuddly, and Bluebell, Daffodil, Violet and Rose took turns looking after him, feeding him honey and brushing his fur and taking him for walks on a silver chain lead.

‘That little kid April is a right nutter! Always talking to herself. Whisper, whisper, whisper. What a little weirdo!' said the boys. Sometimes they barged into me on purpose when they were playing football. Once they tipped me upside down and my flower girls got scattered and Daffodil got trodden on, mud all over her yellow dress, and Rose lost a leg and had to make do with a crayoned pink prosthesis for the rest of her days.

I got teased when I tried to talk to the boys. I didn't understand about accents. I just knew I talked differently from the others. I suppose I talked like Mummy. I hadn't realized it before but this niminy-piminy way of talking seriously annoyed everyone. Even the word ‘Mummy', which I called Big Mo once by mistake, sent everyone into hoots of laughter. I was mocked for days. The boys called me Posh-Nob and Swanky-Pants.

There was only one other girl at first and she sometimes copied the boys but she didn't mean to be nasty. Esme cheerfully copied everyone. She was much older than me, nearly grown-up, but she had Down's syndrome so she stayed like a little girl in lots of ways. I could already read but Esme couldn't get the hang of it, so I sometimes read her stories. Sometimes I made up my own stories for her, telling her my flower girls' current adventures. Esme was enchanted. She kept asking me where I got my stories
from
, not understanding they came out of my own head.

‘The stories are in here,' I said.

‘Show me!' said Esme, hooking my hair behind my ear and peering hard as if she could see right inside.

She liked my long hair, running her podgy fingers through it like a clumsy comb. Esme's own hair was cut short. It hung limp and brown either side of her flat face. I wondered if she knew she wasn't pretty. Out of earshot of Big Mo some of the boys called her nasty names but she didn't seem to take it to heart.

We played together a lot. I sometimes stopped talking in my own voice and copied Esme, using her easy short sentences. I spoke like this at my new school too and my teacher had a word with Big Mo.

I don't know whether it was because they were worried about me and my development but in a matter of weeks Big Mo and Little Pete started fostering another girl.

‘She's called Pearl. She's a couple of years older than you, April, and seems a little sweetheart in spite of everything. She's had a very bad time too, poor little pet. I think she'll be a good friend for you,' said Big Mo.

‘I've got a friend,' I mumbled, but they didn't seem to count Esme, and they didn't know about Bluebell, Violet, Daffodil and limping Rose.

Pearl was supposed to be my friend now. She had black hair, big blue eyes and pearly teeth to match her name, the biggest whitest teeth I'd ever seen – all the better to bite me. She did too – but when Big Mo spotted the ring of purple toothmarks on my arm I said I'd bitten myself. I knew if I told on Pearl she'd inflict far more damage when we were alone together.

My heart still thuds when I think about her. Pearl was far, far more scary than any drunk in the cemetery.

Big Mo took Pearl and Esme and me out on Saturdays. We went to a film once,
Beauty and the Beast
. Esme loved the talking teapot and screamed with laughter every time it was on the
screen
. I didn't laugh. I didn't cry either – though Pearl wrenched my fingers backward in the dark and spat in my ice-cream tub. Big Mo thought we were holding hands and sharing ice-cream. Everyone thought Pearl and I were the best of friends.

I thought I was safe at school because Pearl should have been two years above me, but she'd missed out on so much schooling in the past she hadn't yet learnt to read so they put her back a couple of years. Into my class. They moved the little boy beside me so that Pearl could sit next to me, ‘seeing as you two girls are such special friends'.

I tried to run away from Pearl at playtime but she could run much faster than me. She'd whack me hard with her book.

‘You're supposed to help with my reading, April. Come on, get cracking, or I'll tell on you.'

I had to sit down beside her and open up the book and point to all the words about Freddy and his teddy. Pearl read along as I pointed, but she whispered her own words. She might not have been able to read conventionally but she could certainly read
me
.

‘There was a stupid, spotty, smelly girl called April and no-one liked her, not even her own mum and dad, so they dumped her, ha ha, what do you expect. This daft, fat lady said, “Oooh, never mind, April, little diddums, we will make Pearl be your friend.” Do you think Pearl will be April's friend?' She said it as if she was still
reading
. She dug me viciously with her elbow. ‘Oi, dumbo, I'm talking to you. Am I your friend?
Am I
?'

‘No! Yes! I don't know,' I said helplessly.

‘Can't you make up your mind, stupid? Well, I'll make it up for you. If you don't want to be my friend that means you're my deadly enemy.'

School was bad enough but Pearl was worse at home. I'd start to feel sick every evening when it got near bathtime. There were so many of us needing baths every day that Big Mo thought it would be fun for us girls to have our bath together.

I tried to hide but it was no use.

‘
Found
you!' said Big Mo, and she'd haul me out from under the bed and give me a little shake. ‘You're as bad as the boys, sweetiepops. They don't like baths either. But you want to be a nice clean girl, don't you? Come on now. Pearl's already in the tub. She's squirting bubbles everywhere, bless her.'

I begged to have a bath with Esme instead.

‘No, dearie. Esme's quite the little lady now in lots of ways. She needs her privacy. You pop in the tub with Pearl.'

Big Mo effortlessly held me up with her giant arms, suddenly squinting at me. ‘What's up, eh? You and Pearl haven't had a little tiff, have you?'

I shook my head. ‘A little tiff' implied an argument. I didn't dare disagree with Pearl.

I had to share the bath with her. When Big Mo was in the room with us Pearl couldn't go too far,
though
she'd pinch me under the bubbles and run her sharp toenails down my skinny legs. But when Big Mo went out the room to fetch some clean towels from the airer in the kitchen Pearl would play her favourite game. Mermaids.

‘What do mermaids do, April?' she'd whisper, sitting really close to me, her teeth gleaming. Soapsuds glistened on her pale arms. Her wet black hair lay flat against her head, shiny like a Dutch doll.

‘I'm talking to you, April. Can't you hear me? Haven't you got any ears?' She yanked a lock of my hair to one side and jabbed her finger right into my ear, making it ring.

‘I – I don't know what mermaids do,' I stammered that first time.

‘And you're such a clever-clogs too! Well, dopey, drippy April, mermaids have got long fishy tails so they can – what?'