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She turns to face me now.
‘How do I look?’
I consider her wet-look leggings, leopard-print blouse and ridiculously clunky heels.
‘Nanna said that money was for me to go to university.’
She plants her hands on her hips. ‘Yes, well, your nanna isn’t around anymore. We need to fix things in the house, Rebecca, and I don’t see you contributing any other way, do you?’
Besides the money that was left from my dad’s estate, that I never saw, you mean?
‘But—’
‘Sweetie, it’s a nice dream that Meg had for you, but it’s not like you’re going to be a lawyer or a doctor now, is it?’
‘I was going to do a culinary course.’ I can feel my eyes stinging for the millionth time today.
‘Well, if you want to cook, all the more reason to have a nice kitchen to do it in. You don’t need a degree to read a recipe, Rebecca. It would be a waste of money, and I don’t think Meg would have wanted that, do you?’ She walks by me, not saying another word on the subject. ‘Dave! Let’s go. I told Rhonda we’d be at the pub by seven.’
But that money is for my education, just like the money my father left.
I’ve so often wondered how different things would have been if my father had taken me to live with him, if he’d never died, if I had been allowed to live with Nanna.
Nanna used to tell me about my father.He was a very good businessman and a good person, she’d say. She only told me one time what happened between him and my mother and she would never repeat it.
‘He made one mistake, Rebecca,’ she told me. ‘He and his wife were having some problems, and your mother was in a bar one night when he was looking to drown his sorrows.’
She made a point of telling me that I was not a mistake, that he loved me very much. Nanna said he had tried to do the right thing and stay with my mother when I was born, but my mother had a number of men on the go and she drank a lot; Nanna couched that in better terms, but I knew the truth. I lived the truth.
‘Your dad wanted to take you with him when he moved back in with his wife,’ Nanna told me. But she said my mother wasn’t interested in him taking me; she was more interested in the money he would send every month. I never had reason to question the truth of that statement.
My father died in a road accident when I was one. I don’t remember him. I do know that his wife sent some money to my mother from his estate. I have never seen a penny of it.
When I hear the front door close, I wander into the kitchen. It really is a dump. The cupboards are held together mostly by nails. The work surfaces are cracked and bubbled at the seams.
I wish I could throw myself on the floor and kick and scream and demand that someone hear my voice.
I open the freezer and see ice for Dave’s gin and tonics, a can of beer he must have forgotten to take out, and a small cheese pizza. I close the door and head upstairs to my bedroom. I lie back on the bed, not bothering to turn on the light. Not bothering to take off my dirty clothes. And I sob, for no one’s ears except my own.
At some point, I must have cried myself to sleep because it is almost 10 p.m. when I wake. And I wake with a new resolve. I’m going to leave home. I don’t know where I’ll go. Perhaps Aunt Lizzie’s. I’m seventeen. It’s not like I can’t fend for myself. I just need somewhere to stay. Somewhere far away from here.
I drag a bag out from under my bed and start to stuff clothes inside. I grab the toiletries I absolutely need, like a toothbrush and toothpaste. Locating the tin I keep hidden in the bottom of my clothes drawer, away from my brothers and sisters, I count the money I have saved inside from making coffee on Saturday mornings. Forty-six pounds and twenty-one pence.
Before I leave, I glance one last time around my tiny bedroom. I don’t feel sad. I feel relieved to be going.
My coat does little to shield me from the blustering wind and rain until I reach the bus stop where I got off just hours ago. I’m still wearing my black, skater-boy dress and thick, wool tights.
I ride the bus to the nearest station and go inside, still with no idea where I am headed. I remember the name of Aunt Lizzie’s town in Yorkshire, but the information stand is already closed for the night. The entire station is deserted but for the driver who just closed down the bus I came in on.
‘Excuse me. Excuse me. Can you tell me how to get to York on the bus?’ If I get to York, I’ll be closer to Aunt Lizzie. I can work out the rest from there.
‘York? Treacle, that’s a long way. You need a coach.’
‘Where would I pick up the coach?’
‘There’s a station on the other side of town, but you won’t be able to book a ticket now.’
I jump, startled by the sound of a breaking bottle. Two drunk-looking men start to have an argument.
