CHAPTER 21
It was raining the next morning, the sky low and lifelessly grey. Looking out of my bedroom window, I could see a couple of pigeons sitting miserably in the tree at the end of the garden. Laid over the end of my bed was a stocking holding some fruit, nuts and a small bar of chocolate.

I pulled on some shorter socks along with the dressing gown that had lain beneath the sock, making my way as silently as I could down the winding stairs to the kitchen, where I filled the kettle and set it to heat. Boiling water into the pot, and I looked up as the door opened, Lorraine smiling down at me.

“Morning, love. There’s some bacon left, if you’d like”

“Ken up?”

“Not yet, love. He had a bad night, bit restless. Let him sleep in a bit, OK?”

She pulled down the frying pan, dropping in some slices of back bacon as it heated, then some sliced mushrooms I hadn’t known were in the fridge, and finally a couple of eggs. I buttered four slices of bread at her instruction, and our breakfast was a yolk-dripping sandwich each. Lorraine was grinning happily as she wiped egg from her chin.

“Not a traditional Chrimbo meal, but do we care?”

“Nope!”

I finished my own messiness, using the last scrap of bread to wipe the yellow drops from the plate.

“What’s today, Loz? What are we doing?”

“Working, love, in the afternoon. Got a stack of scarves and jumpers to punt out, plus some more tat for New Year. Hats, mostly. We’ll pole the awning out from the van and stick with the small table. Morning’s ours, though. Ah! Morning, love. Pot’s still warm, if you want. Can do you an egg and bacon banjo, if you want”

Ken yawned.

“Ta, love. Tea and toast for me, I think, then we can get started on loading the van. First things first, though”

He took us each by a hand and drew us into the living room, where there were a few parcels of various sizes. He passed one to me.

“Lot of problems sorting stuff for you, duck, and biggest one was your size. Didn’t want to get you anything you’d grow out of in two months, so I thought this one would be safe”

I opened the package with a little bit of shame gnawing at me, for I had nothing for either of them. How could I? It turned out to be a small cassette player, and in another package were headphones together with an adapter cable to link the two, something Ken had clearly produced himself.

“Headphones? You two don’t trust the music I like?”

Lorraine shared a look with Ken, before turning back to me.

“Not that, love. Sometimes sleep doesn’t come when we want it to, and then you can settle down and listen to something better than your fears. That’s why. Nothing bad”

I was lost for anything close to a sensible answer, for she was absolutely right. I dodged the conversation we didn’t need by working through other parcels, some of them with my name on. One of the Arab scarves, a woolly hat with my name embroidered on it, a little bundle of patches to sew onto my little denim waistcoat; nothing world-shaking, but all welcome. The last package held bras. I looked up to catch Lorraine’s nervous grin.

“A… A girl who arrived the way other girls do would be looking at wearing one about now, love, so I just thought, you know…”

I crawled over to hug her, whispering in her ear.

“You said we’d have to talk about things, but no need. This is who I am, so we do whatever we need to”

The tears were there, no more words needed, until Ken broke the mood, quite deliberately.

“Time to get loaded, girls, so teeth and clothes and then the van!”

I needed the woolly hat, and the scarf, and the ski jacket, and I was most definitely in trousers that day. Our stand was in a car park by the town centre, a mix of vans and more elaborate stalls, but we made do with the small table under an awning, enough variety laid out to advertise what we had without it all getting soaked in the steady drizzle.

“You’s a bit young to be out here, ain’t you, girl?”

“No school today, Mister! Helping my Uncle out. Like an adventure, yeah?”

The middle-aged man in the flat cap and grey mac turned away, tugging the gaunt woman in the clear plastic rain hood with him, and as they moved on, I clearly heard his mutter of ‘Bloody gyppo’. Up yours, you sad straight, was my thought, and then I really started thinking.

I hadn’t been with my new family that long, but I could feel the loyalty in me, the anger at the attitudes we encountered almost everywhere, and my little attempted break for ‘freedom’ two nights before looked more and more stupid. I belonged here, as I had never done anywhere before, as I belonged in the world that held Rosie and Sam, roosting owls and snuffling hedgehogs.

I called out a quiet “Fuck you!” to the man’s back, and somehow it must have carried, for his wife turned her gaze towards me. I gave her my sweetest smile and a little wave, before I suddenly started laughing.

Ken’s hand came down on my shoulder, and he muttered out of the side of his mouth, “I heard what you said, duck. Why the giggles?”

I brought myself under control, but I lost it as I tried to explain.

“Was another thought, yeah? I said that, then I thought something Rosie says, and she says ‘And the horse you rode in on’, and then that woman turned round, and I just saw her face, and thought ‘Horse!’, and…”

Lorraine snorted.

“Debbie is most definitely one of us, lover! Anyway, give it another hour here, I think, then home. Carol’s cooking tonight. You like apricot chicken, Deb?”

It wasn’t bad, in the end, and it allowed me to do two things, the first of each was to dress as girly as I could manage. The second was to reassess our neighbours. Carol didn’t ask a single question that could have been considered ‘probing’, which was odd in itself, as simple polite conversation would have required some questions about hopes, desires, family. We ate the meal, I had some of the wine that was being shared, and the conversation bypassed me, until Ken held up a hand.

“You’ll like this one, Pete! We had a right berk at the stall today, and he makes some snide comment about gyppos, so this one, here, she only murmurs ‘Fuck you and the horse you rode in on’, and then the wife turns round, and, well, I saw who I’ll be backing in the Grand National!”

Carol laughed out loud, as Pete did something to his guitar that made it neigh like the animal in question, and then his wife took my hand.

“I see your soul, love. It’s a bright one. Keep it that way, don’t let evil men put out your light. I can tell they have tried, but I feel you are a fighter. Karma has brought you here, and dharma will take you forward”

She smiled down at me.

“Don’t worry, love. Not going to hit you with the heavy stuff today. Just saying that you deserve a decent break in life, and I think you have the spirit to fight your corner. I mean, horses…”

We were all laughing at that, so Peter started playing a song about a horse with no name, and it had a sort of chorus, so I joined in when and where I could, and that was our Boxing Day.

The drizzle continued all week, so our midweek slots were pretty dreary, but work is work, and income is just that. We made the best of each day’s trading, taking our camping stove with us for hot drinks, before the drizzle turned into sleet and then snow on December 29th. More schoolwork seemed to be Lorraine’s answer to the freeze outside, so I spent the rest of the year with my headphones on and music in my ears, including a tape of his own playing recorded by Peter, and a range of subjects staring at me from the textbooks.

English, maths, general science, geography, history: I would work through them, and Ken would give me an insight into some aspect of physics, while Lorraine would show me how the last two subjects tied so closely together. I look back now, and see how clearly one subject never made an appearance: religion. It wasn’t avoided, as Lorraine explained Carol’s Buddhism to me, along with Peter’s odd mixture of humanism and animism. That was as far as it went, with no attempts to tell me how some particular route to perfection was more perfect than all the other perfect systems. All Lorraine would say on that issue was “Have a look and see what you think”

We were sitting talking through maps early on New Year’s Eve, looking at the maps in ‘Lord of the Rings’ and ‘The Hobbit’ while discussing rain shadows and how rivers found their courses, when there was a banging at the front door. I was halfway out of my seat at the racket, Lorraine seizing my arm to pull me back into my seat.

“No, love. Not ever, OK? Wait here while I get the door”

I sat shaking at the table as she went into the hall, and then the door opened again, and I was hit by two little missiles.

“DEB-BEE!”

Sam was the more excited, as Rosie tried to explain past his prattle.

“We’re here for a party, Dad says! We came in the chair! Didn’t tell us where we were going! Then we see Loz! Yay!”

They were only the first arrivals, and as I packed my schoolwork away, ken explained.

“We need willing bodies, kids! Frame tent is going up in the back garden for those who want to be silly, and I hope you have brought some booze and that with you!”

Gandalf was just behind his children, laughing.

“And us on the Pussy, badger? Where would we put it?”

“In our van, mate! Dump your lid, and we’ll do a run to the cash and carry. Be a few people here tonight, so we’ll load up with crisps and stuff as well. Deb?”

“Yeah?”

“Want to take those two upstairs, show them your room? That’s where they’ll be sleeping, so dig out two of the sleeping bags from the box room”

It turned into an amazing night, and if we had been in a field, it would have been a rally. Three tents went up in the back garden in the end, as motorbikes and cars filled our drive and spilled out along the road outside. There were bikers and hippies, nurses from the hospital, friends and fellow travellers, kindred spirits. Several of Peter’s friends had their own guitars or other instruments, so when a record finished on our stereo, they would play something wonderful before the next LP was set going. Pork pies, sausage rolls, cocktail sausages on sticks with cheese and pineapple, nuts, crisps, bowls of gloopy stuff made by Carol, along with drier things full of onion or peas, I found myself rocking out in our living room fuelled by all sorts of nice food.

The three of us were allowed some wine, beer for Sam, though I suspect there was some water added, and as the clock chimed, we held hands and sang the old song about old times as one year left space for a newer one.

I slept on the floor, leaving my bed for Sam and Rosie, and even though the party went on all night, I slept soundly. I needed to; I was on kettle duty in the morning.