Porky (2 page)

There weren't many fields left, they'd mostly been developed. The few vacant patches, they had signs amongst the bushes saying ‘Flyways Hotel: Opening Soon'. They were all being built for the airport trade. The airport was right opposite our gate, on the other side of the road. Through the wire fence you could see the prefabs where they kept the ambulances, and the animal hostel, and what I'd been told was where they put the Pakis. Day and night, the odour of kerosene hung in the air. It was always in my nostrils; it was the smell of my childhood. I could never get rid of the memories, even though I travelled to airports all round the world.

You'd think the old associations would fade, once I'd smelt it everywhere. But one whiff and I was back to the beginning again. It didn't work . . . Take it from me: nothing does.

There were plenty of jobs at the airport, on the catering side and in the toilets. When I was little I never knew what my Mum did, I just saw what she brought home. Slabs of soap, and Danish pastries. Sometimes every item of our tea was wrapped in Cling Film.

On occasion she gave something to me. She wasn't used to showing affection, so it meant a lot. I kept a shower cap for ages. That must have been when she was working at the Post House Hotel. It's a huge building like a barracks, spotlit at night, rising out of the vacant land by the flyover. You could see it from our bungalow. I never knew how anyone got into the hotel, it was marooned amongst the slip roads and the elevated section of the motorway. Somehow my Mum did, catching the early-morning bus through the grey dawn. I cherished that shower cap. It was made of the thinnest, crinkly plastic. It was made for overnight visitors but I made it last for months, until it was all torn around its frail elastic band.

It wasn't just for the money that my Mum worked long hours. It was because she didn't want to come home. It was only later that I realized this, with a thud. As I said, you take everything as normal when you're a kid. What my Mum and Dad were like together, for a start. What they were like with me and Teddy, that's my little brother. How we never seemed to eat the same food at the same time, sitting around the table like a family.

Gwen's family did. Soon after I'd started at the big school, I went home with her. There was her Mum, making clucking noises because Gwen's hem was coming down; but fond cluckings, I could tell. She called me by my name, saying how much we've all heard about you, Heather. ‘We' kept cropping up in the conversation, quite naturally. In Gwen's too. I felt included but excluded, if you see what I mean. They had a lovely lounge; it had a big electric fire with the coals radiant as a mountain range, you could dream yourself away into that fire. And little lamps, and a copy of the
Radio Times.
I mean, at home nobody thought about deciding what they snoozed in front of. And then her Dad came home, and he was ever so nice to me but cross with Gwen because she hadn't done last night's homework. He minded, you see. He said he was angry because she wasn't doing herself justice. Oh yes, they sometimes shouted at me, my parents, but never for anything like that.

When I got home I shut myself in the bathroom. The lock didn't work; you had to wedge yourself against the door. When I cried nobody could hear because the wind was up and the loose guttering was banging against the wall. I cried about Gwen. Not just Gwen but the other people in my class too. Their homes must be like hers. I realized it then.

And I cried because I'd made up my mind to tell Gwen about me and my Dad. She was the only person I'd ever known who I thought I might be able to tell. I was twelve years old; I longed to speak to someone.

But I couldn't tell her, after this. And if I couldn't tell Gwen, there was nobody. I thought I'd been lonely before, but I'd never felt really lonely until that moment.

I tried to feel the same towards Gwen but I never did, though we stayed best friends for years.

I MUST TELL
you about him now. I can tell you how he smelt. He smelt of old cigarettes and warm skin. He smelt of wool, with a sharp, sour whiff about it. He wasn't really a dirty man, despite the mud around his trouser legs. He washed every day – not that I saw him, because he kept the bathroom door shut. I never saw him or my Mum bare, they were both modest about that. When he'd been sitting out the front, watching his car park, then, when he took me on his knee, his skin smelt baked and biscuity. His face was reddish-brown but it stopped at his neck. Below that, when he opened a button of his shirt, his skin was white and quite smooth. He was a big, fleshy man. I thought he was really handsome, but you'd say he'd gone a bit soft. His hair was brown but his moustache had all these colours mixed in it, I used to point them out to him and count the red ones. He said I was the only person who'd noticed; he hadn't, for a start.

Let me get one thing straight, though you might not believe me. He was an innocent kind of man. In the paper, he never paused at the busty brunettes, he turned straight to the cartoons. My Mum didn't really understand us children, but he did. He said he was just a kid at heart. He liked the sort of games we did, though I could never quite trust him. He would suddenly get impatient, or the romps would get too boisterous. He liked tickling us breathless; he liked hiding our toys.

Just an edge of me used to feel wary. He could get violent, you see. It hardly ever happened with us, though; he was much nicer with us. It happened with my Mum. Our bungalow had thin walls. One night I remember lying curled, all clenched, the pillow pressed on my head so I wouldn't hear the words being shouted in their bedroom.
‘Bitch, bitch!'
The morning after that, my Mum went to stay with her friend Oonagh in West Drayton, a couple of miles away, and didn't come back until the Monday, when she returned from work as if nothing had happened. He'd fed us sweets all weekend.

When I was little I adored him, even though he sometimes let me down. I always forgave him. You do, when you're small; you have to. For instance, there was my Kanga house. I didn't have any dolls, I don't think I wanted any, but I had a grey knitted kangaroo. I held Kanga wherever I went and I told her everything. In her pouch she had a small Roo made of tighter knitting. Dad had promised me he'd make them a house. He was the one who suggested it; there were lots of planks around. When I reminded him he kept saying he'd do it tomorrow, he had a lot on his plate at present.

That autumn, I must have been eight, they were building a petrol station at the end of our drive, right beside the main road. I used to watch the workmen for hours; they were my friends. One evening, when I'd given up asking him in case he lost his temper, he came into the kitchen looking ever so pleased, with some plastic panelling under his arm. It was fancy, hinged panelling, punched with holes. I recognized it.

‘But Dad, did you get that from the garage?'

He stopped in his tracks. ‘Me?' His eyes wide. ‘Little me? Oh no.' Then he winked. ‘It came by special delivery.'

I knew he'd pinched it after the workmen had gone home. I minded a lot, of course, but what I minded more was that he'd lied to me.

After a week or so he did build a sort of house, a sort of lean-to. I made sure that I was popping Kanga in and out of its gap whenever he was around. But from then on I didn't talk to the workmen in case they became too friendly and dropped in for a cup of tea and saw it. They thought I was sulking. Soon they even stopped calling out, ‘Give us a smile, ducks' or ‘It might never happen'. It took all winter before the petrol station was built and they left.

Something else I remember. When he had a short job on, he would take me with him. He loved me looking nice, to show me off to his mates, so I'd wear my best dress. I'd sit up in the cab, lording it over the dual carriageway. By the time I was nine he'd let me steer, if he was in the mood, and I'd sit pressed next to him, the gear-stick digging into my bottom. He'd laugh, urging me on. Actually I steered very carefully, but tense, because just when I wasn't expecting it he'd put his foot down and we'd shoot forward, too fast.

Anyway, he often made promises. Like at the end of the delivery he'd take me to the Excelsior Hotel Coffee Shop – that was the newest place – where he'd buy me hot chocolate with sprinkled foam on the top. All the customers could see me in my tartan frock. But before we got there he was detained at the Spread Eagle. I sat in the cab. I knew I was in for a wait when he came out.

‘Won't be long, Podge.' He gave me a bag of crisps, pinching my cheek.

I can't remember if this episode happened once or several times blurred together. I watched it growing darker and more cars pulling up until the car park was crammed. The street lights flickered on, one by one, red fading to orange. It was so cold that I could easily stay awake. There was a sign over the door, lit up, saying, ‘Tonight: Shaun and the Sounds'. The Spread Eagle was a big place built in a bygone style with pointy roofs and attics. When it was nearly dark the neon light was switched on; it was a thin blue line zig-zagging up and down the eaves. Later, when my eyes started closing, the lines danced and it was a palace out there, far off, and if I reached it something beautiful would happen.

When I heard the door handle turning I woke up quickly and pretended I hadn't been asleep. It took him some time to open the door. He had some of his friends with him; they were all very affectionate, their faces crowding in, with fruity breath and cold air. I wanted him to be proud of me so I laughed at their jokes. I never had my chocolate drink. Last thing I remember was falling asleep against his shoulder, lights swinging as we swerved round the roundabout, and his hand rubbing my thighs to warm me up.

Next day he was full of remorse. In fact, over the next few years, when things became more confusing, his remorse was one of the worst aspects because I didn't know how to make it better. I tried to think up excuses for him but that made him angry. Sometimes he cried, his big body shuddering, and that was the most terrifying thing of all.

That was when I was older, when I didn't want to sit in his cab. In fact, when I had to find any reason not to go.

I'd always been closer to him than to my Mum. As I said, she wasn't one for showing affection. I never knew how much she felt, deep down – I wondered about it a lot but I don't think I wanted to come up with an answer. She never hugged me, but then I never saw her hug my Dad either; she wasn't the type. The way I remember her best is from the back, walking down our drive to catch the bus. She looked sadder from the back. I wasn't nervous of her then. The cars would be speeding past, there was always the hum of traffic where we lived. She would be picking her way around the potholes, wearing her headscarf with the polka dots and her ageless turquoise coat with its fitted waist. Then her thin beige legs with the flat shoes. She always carried her plaid shopping bag, with a change of shoes and her purse in it. She'd never been in an aeroplane and yet there they were, slicing up into the sky in front of her, trailing smoke. Watching her go, I felt I should be running down the drive to tell her something that she'd been waiting to hear.

She made it plain, without saying it in so many words, that she was disappointed. For instance, she never went near the pigs. The usual number was three sows, and piglets when they had them. It was a small field – we didn't have much land – its tussocks roughed up by the pigs' rooting, and with pitted mud around the troughs. There was a container crate where they went when it rained. It didn't look much, but Dad's sows meant a lot to him. The only contact she had was to empty the peelings into an orange plastic bucket which she wouldn't allow in the kitchen – she had to carry the damp handfuls right out to the back porch. She set herself these tasks, you see.

She must have loved him once. I tried to believe that I was the result of passion – that tenderness had made me – though it was hard to credit it later. He must have been a fine figure in his younger days, and her so shy, and petite as a deer. She must have gazed at his balancing act on the dodgems and known, with a pang, that he wouldn't be there next week. Our bungalow showed some signs of their early married bliss: curtains she'd rigged up below the kitchen sink, matching the window ones, and cones of plastic flowers on the wall. Above their bed hung a framed photo of a woodland glade with sunlight slanting through the branches. Those trees must have blessed them once. It was made of wood, our bungalow, and stained by the rain, but two wire baskets hung outside the front veranda. I'm sure I remember, when I was a toddler, blooms trailing down from them. I saw them. Later the veranda was just the place where things were dumped – mostly Dad's empties, the bottles cobwebbed together.

She'd expected something better from life, no doubt about that. I felt included in the general dissatisfaction, I suppose because I was big and clumsy, like my Dad, and content with our lot – I mean you are when you're a child, aren't you? She wasn't. She gave up with the house; she tidied it, with sighs, but there weren't the little touches. But she still put her hair in rollers. They weren't for us, her faded blonde curls, but I'm sure they weren't for some fancy man at work either; that wasn't her temperament. They were for something that nobody could supply.

They had their rows, her and Dad, but most of the time they just didn't talk, except for where did you leave this or that, or when are you going to do something about the lounge ceiling (our roof was always leaking). That was parents, I thought. It was only later that I realized what an outsider would see, after one glance: that they didn't get on. I don't suppose they ever admitted that they weren't happy; neither of them thought in those words. If they'd admitted it they would have to start making decisions and neither of them was used to that. Anything was better than a choice.