Porky (17 page)

All he did was to sell the car park field. They brought in the piledrivers. A crane rose above the pigs' field; it bent down, as if inspecting us with a weary, superior look, before it swung away. It carried a huge slab of concrete. One day, I thought, it'll swing right round and drop a slab on us. Instead, over the hedge I saw the scaffolding climb up into the sky. He must have got a lot of money for that land, but not nearly enough. Dad was the original soft touch; he was a child when it came to business and I realize now that they cheated him. They got him drunk, you see, and he signed it away when under the influence. Mum didn't know that. Despite her complaints she was an innocent, too, when it came to that sort of money.

He bought us presents: a bike for Teddy,
carte blanche
up the West End stores for Mum and me. He bought us a new telly and a music centre with dials like a mission control; none of us knew how to work it. He abandoned his old lorry, which joined the other vehicles behind our yard, and bought a new one. He talked for hours about his plans. He'd set up in the big-time haulage business; he'd clear the junk out the back; he'd build greenhouses and grow orchids for VIPs.

But the money melted away. He'd run up huge debts at the taxi rank, I discovered later, and he spent more time there now, losing in greater style. He was a useless poker player, being so emotional.

Then he had a visit from a couple of smoothies who said they ran an investment company. They persuaded him to part with a lot more cash. They were setting up a leisure centre in Swanage: Space Invaders, TV games, all on the rental system; that was the new thing in 1976. It was a high-risk business, they said, and only people of a special calibre had been approached. Dad fell for that one. My heart sank when he repeated this conversation, in an important voice, shortly after he sobered up. He didn't dare tell Mum.

The project fell through, of course; that's what they told him.

He lost £5,000. By the time the building was completed in our field – it was a big car showroom – we were near enough back where we'd started. It was autumn again now, and I'd found a job. Each morning I walked down the drive like my Mum. Ahead, the first planes were taking off. Down one side stood the showroom, all glass and yellow brick, with the trees rising behind. Some mornings were dirty-dark; on others the mist rose through the trees and the glass glinted in the early light. On the other side stood the garage whose toilets had meant so much to me. It was 24-Hours open now, its Mobil sign glaring throughout the night, and they'd expanded the forecourt to display used vehicles. There were usually four or five, and they each wore a placard on their roofs saying ‘£2,999 and I'm Yours'. I was saving up for driving lessons. Waiting at the bus stop, I'd look at my getaway cars. One day there was a Mini that cost ‘£499 and I'm Yours'. I had to meet its eye for four mornings. But the next week it had gone.

Coming back from work, looking out of the bus, I'd see the tall, skeleton poplar trees around the factories, and the sky streaked red behind them. In the hotels the bedroom lights would be switched on and the curtains closed. Shadows moved in there. Soon they'd be making their getaway; soon they'd be closing their curtains on the other side of the world.

I spent as little time as I could at home, and then I stayed indoors. Mum was for ever complaining about the mud; you should have seen it. Out the back it had always been muddy, except in summer, when the weeds grew tall and cotton wool blew from the willow herb. The caravan was only made of plywood and its panels had warped now. More than ever, our back view looked spoilt, and temporary, and submerged.

Out the front, though, we'd once had a patch of grass. Trouble was, the veranda roof had collapsed, breaking the panes, and Dad had hauled a new load of bricks and planks right across the lawn. He never did rebuild the veranda – like everything else he started it, and fiddled around, on and off, for years, but he never finished. So the front of our bungalow looked like a building site, too. He'd covered the planks with plastic, but as time passed the plastic got torn, through natural causes aided by Teddy's penknife, and it flapped in the wind like wings.

I remained indoors, in my room. I was confident enough by now to know the door would stay closed. I'd told Dad I didn't want him in there and nowadays he meekly agreed with what I said. The décor hadn't changed much. I hadn't painted my room because I'd set my sights on leaving it. The only thing I'd done was buy a blind for the window, which I could pull right down so no gap showed.

I'd given Teddy most of my unsuspecting toys. Under his ownership they hadn't lasted long; if they were hard he took them to pieces and if they were soft he disembowelled them. I just kept Kanga. Both her eyes were gone now; a grey sack slumped on my pillow, she mourned blindly her lost son. I'd pinned up some film posters; Sandra's brother worked for Rank and he'd given them to me. They covered the damp patches. My wardrobe was nowadays crammed with clothes. Its sliding door was stuck and my crimson dress poked through the slit like a tongue.

If you're wondering what I did, all those hours alone, I'll tell you. I inspected my face and I played my
Let's Speak French
cassettes. I didn't need to keep the tapes low, because the telly was so loud. Just once there was a bout of shooting, then a hush. Everyone must be dead. I was just replying to my tape,

‘Oui, je suis étrangère.'

My words were clear as clear. But nobody asked me, later, who I was talking to, not even Teddy. I don't think they took in anything while the TV was on.

I'd passed my O-level French, quite well actually. You needed a foreign language to be an air hostess; the British Airways form said, ‘One foreign language would be a great advantage', and I knew the competition was fierce. I'd set my heart on that job, though I had to wait until I was eighteen. So I worked my way through the course and I was up to Cassette Six now. I stored the tapes in the chest of drawers, under my woollies.

It wasn't just my face I inspected; it was all over. I shut the door and tilted the mirror this way and that, each time jumping on to the bed to inspect the next portion. You can see why I needed the blind. That winter I was slimming in earnest. I had a weight chart which I kept hidden amongst my underwear. I had to be slimmer if I was going to get anywhere in life.

All day I worked with food, which you'd think would make it harder. But it didn't. By the time I got home the smell of cooking nauseated me and it was easy not to eat anything, even though I often fried the tea for the rest of them. My thighs stayed plump, I've always hated my thighs, but by the spring I had got my waist quite small. My heavy breasts still embarrassed me, even though the leather man had seemed to like them. So had the man at the Holiday Inn.
Have them
, I'd thought, keeping my head turned away. You'd call my figure ripe and old-fashioned, I suppose, like those Edwardian ladies you see undressed on postcards.

I lost weight in my face, which was the best thing. Mum actually said I looked peaky. My face was no longer a pink pudding. It stayed pink, but its shape showed now. My features weren't remarkable, but they looked neat enough. I had to tie back my hair for work, but in the evening, with my fair hair brushed around my face and my make-up on – then I actually looked pretty. This sounds egoistical, but you must realize that my looks were all I had. Some people better themselves through their brains, or their high-powered connections. Some people, like Gwen, wanted to be vets. I wanted to get out.

The only person I let into my room was Teddy. I haven't really told you how much Teddy meant to me. The simplest things are always the hardest to explain. I loved him. It frightened me, how much I loved him; it was the only pure emotion I had. He was the reason I could bear to stay at home.

He was a real toughie by now, with his crew-cut bullet head. Like me, he wanted to be off. At six years old he was roaming miles. You couldn't do anything with him. That lovely, clear face would seem to be listening but then, the moment you turned your head, he'd be off again. He told such tales, the little liar, that you could never find out where he'd been. Sometimes he came back covered in mud, or tar. He talked about the gypsies under the flyover. Once he came back with a roll of photographic paper, so he must've been up at Kodak. I hoped he hadn't nicked it, but it was no good asking. I think he went round the back of factories and looked appealing. People would take him in and give him their sandwiches.

When he came home hours later, exhausted but still swaggering, it was to my room that he swayed. He'd drop asleep on my lap, just like that, as if a light had been switched off in his skull. He looked so beautiful, sucking his fingers, his face streaked and his nostrils bubbling. He did, honestly.

One day in spring, though, something terrible happened. I'd just got home from work. Teddy's school bus dropped him off earlier. With the lighter evenings he was often off somewhere by the time I arrived back. Dad was over at the garden centre, doing a labouring job, so I presumed Teddy had wandered away in that direction.

I went into my room. As I said, Teddy liked going in there, and I saw the usual evidence – the armless torso of his Action Man, propped against the chair leg, with his guns lined up in front of him. Teddy had long ago lost the uniform so the doll sat nude behind his weapons. I was going out later that evening, so I started to pull off my shoes. It was then I glanced at the Action Man again, and saw what he sat on.

It was my pills – my foil panel of pills . . . You know, birth control pills. I kept them in my jewellery box. It was next month's supply.

I snatched up the doll. The panel lay there. Its three rows of blisters were all popped.

‘
Teddy!
' I screamed, and rushed out into the yard.
‘Teddy!'

Micky, our dog, started barking. Otherwise, silence.

‘Teddy!'

Twenty-one pills, he'd eaten. I ran round behind the garage to look at the depot, jumping up to see over the hedge. Teddy sometimes went there. The doors were shut and the cars gone. The reception window was dark. It closed early on a Friday.

I was just going to search the outbuildings when I remembered his bike, so I rushed into the garage to look. It was gone.

That ruled out the market garden. Dad was working far off, in the middle of the field, building a tractor shed. Teddy wouldn't have bumped across that ploughed earth on his bike. He must have gone off along the road.

I ran down to the petrol station. The attendant hadn't seen Teddy so he must have gone the other way. I ran along the verge. The lorries roared past; someone wolf-whistled. How long before he died?

My footsteps thudded. Oh God, what had I done? There was nobody selling flowers today, not even the boy who'd replaced my friend. I stopped outside the car showroom. Round the side, by Parts and Accessories, men in orange boiler-suits were horsing around, punching each other. It was knocking-off time, and Friday.

The space was so wide, between me and them. At last I reached them.

‘Have you seen my brother?' I gasped.

They paused. ‘The little boy?'

‘On his bike.'

They shook their heads. ‘We've only just come out. Ask Len. In front.'

I ran back, past the miles of plate glass. Cars on plinths stood in there. I pushed through the front door and asked the man in the showroom. He hadn't seen him, but he'd been busy on the phone.

I ran on down the road, stumbling over the grass. Tears were streaming down my face, because of my wickedness. It took an age to reach the Flexed Products factory. Cars were reversing, and queuing up to get on to the road. I ran past. They were leaving the Kodak factory too. There was no bike; he wouldn't be there now, with the factories closing. I ran on.

Ahead, parked on the verge, stood the snacks caravan.

‘What's up?' The man leaned out of the window.

‘Have you seen a little boy on a bike?'

He pursed his lips, considering, screwing tight a ketchup bottle.

‘In a blue anorak?' he said.

I nodded.

‘Seen you with him before,' he said. ‘Your son, right?'

‘My brother. Have you seen him?'

He jerked his thumb. ‘That way. Going like the clappers.'

I ran on. My legs were dragging now, heavy as concrete. My darling boy, my darling Teddy . . .

I reached the hotel. It seemed to take an hour, my feet dragging in their slippers, to get past the car park. I kept my eyes on the road. Where would he collapse? Would his dear body swell up? My head roared . . . I could hardly breathe. Ahead of me, in the sunlight, I saw the roundabout and the parade of shops.

An AA caravan was parked on the verge. It had been there for years; there were flower beds around it, planted with tulips. Across the road, I saw Teddy's bike lying on the grass.

Cars hooted as I ran. Brakes screeched. I was over the grass now, and leaping up the steps.

A man sat at a desk, with Teddy beside him.

‘
Teddy!
' I shouted. ‘Did you eat them?'

Teddy looked up calmly. He was cutting up a brochure with scissors.

‘I'm a member,' he said. ‘He said I'm a member now.'

‘Have you eaten them?' I shouted.

‘No. Cross my heart.' He rolled his eyes.

‘Er, my fault miss.' The man cleared his throat. ‘He's not telling the truth.'

‘Isn't he?' I swung round.

‘Now, little man. You tell her. Go on, or I'll take away your membership.' He winked at me.

‘Did you?' I asked.

‘Only three.' Teddy pointed the scissors. ‘He gave 'em me.'

‘He what?' My head span.

‘Just three,' said the man. ‘No harm done, I hope.'

Teddy wiped his nose. ‘S'not my fault.'

‘What?'