She pushed me down hard onto the worn wooden bench of the little train, snapping the rough rusting safety bar tightly across my escape. My clasping hands gripped tightly as the other children screamed in fear and trepidation. Stuttering forth towards the dark cobweb covered tunnel, amidst the hysteria of childhood wonder and tears, I turned, arms outstretched for mum to come and comfort me. Standing with her latest lover, she never gave me a glance or second thought as she raised the vodka bottle to her lips. Fear and dread filled my young being, not for what lay directly ahead on the ghost train ride, but for life. At eight years old I realise my mother, has no love for me, or anyone, only alcohol. No tears, no feelings, nothing, just a strong resolve to never be like mum!
******
"Why Yvonne, why do you never cry?"
Kate's eyes, damp and reddened, plead with me to open up. Our third reconciliation in five months of togetherness. She's correct of course, it's me, I don't cry, I don't get angry, I am emotionless. As I sit rigidly crossed legged on the rug, she's gripping my fingers in hers, her thumbs rubbing the backs of my sweaty digits when I feel it. Welling up behind the lower lid of my right eye, straining with all my mental strength, I attempt to halt its progress but it leaks up over my eyelid. Stream like, it rolls down the curve of my cheek, along my chin line then drops, to dissipate into the cotton of my blouse.
"Give me something Yvonne, I don't know anything about you, tell me!"
"What Kate, what do you want to know?"
"Well, where did all this come from, that would be a start. I mean your thirty one Yvonne. Who at thirty one owns a city centre bar and a plush apartment in London. Nobody I know, except you Yvonne."
"You ain't gonna like this Kate but it started I guess, just the day before my nineteenth birthday..."
That's when he moved in, his name was Ronald. Just the latest in a long line of partners my mum used to feed her need for alcohol. Descending the stairs next morning I could hear them in the living room, drunkenly singing to eachother. I ventured in, hoping to see a gift for the first time in my life, nothing, nada, zilch, why should my nineteenth be any different. They didn't even mention it, at best they don't know, at worst they don't care.
With my expectations fulfilled, I went to make some toast for breakfast. He followed me in, as I picked through the stale bread he came alongside me, smiling. His hand landed softly on my bottom, I smiled up at him, till it squeezed my butt.
Sharp glinting light burned my eyes and I traced it to it's source. The bevelled edge of our butchers carving knife reflecting early morning sun, it's bone handle just there, for me. Grabbing I pulled the knife on Ronald and pushed it's sharp point into the loose skin of his double chin.
"I'm fucking leaving you bastard, I won't ever be back, you or her see me in the fucking street, you fucking cross the road, got it. Keep your dirty mouth shut for an hour till I go, if not I fucking chib you."
Shacking he nodded and I head upstairs. I've no suitcase, just an old rickety shopping trolley I use to get groceries and the likes home, it takes all my worldly goods easily. I call Valerie, my community psychiatric nurse. I'd been assigned her a year ago, when my social worker was relieved, due to me now being eighteen and an adult, in the eyes of the law.
"We've been expecting your call at sometime Yvonne, so don't worry okay. Just get the bus to the council offices and I'll meet you there in an hour."
Slamming the flakey paint door behind me, I refuse to look back. I will never look back. Never return. For the first time in ten years I really want to cry, nothing comes. I walk out onto the street, my only focus the bus stop around the corner. When I grab onto the cold aluminium structure of the bus shelter, relief fills my soul as I almost collapse and the broadest smile paints itself across my face, freedom.
True to her word, Val appears at the council offices and we go into a meeting with the emergency housing officer. Within thirty minutes I've been allocated accommodation at the Greentrees hostel. Val says I'll be getting a flat of my own within six months if I behave; imagine, my own little flat, clean, welcoming, life's looking up all of a sudden.
Greentrees isn't green and there are no trees. It's a dark forbidding old Victorian house that has been converted. Val leads me upstairs. As we enter the first floor landing we bump into Kerri Anderson; we're the same age, attended the same school but we weren't friends. She's my doppelgänger!
"Hey Yvonne there's your sister, haha."
