CHAPTER 24
We stayed that way for the rest of the morning, alternating a few of my more ‘lyrical’ albums with a couple of Nell’s tapes. There was one I did like, as bits of it were almost like heavy rock, but the others were a bit too fiddly for me. Nice tunes, especially in the one she had started with, but not really my thing.

“What was that loud one called again, Nell?”

“Sinfonia da Requiem. Britten wrote it for the Japanese, and they didn’t like it. Too Christian, they said. You liked it?”

“I liked the boom-boom-boom parts. Goes on a bit, though”

She actually laughed out loud at that, the most forceful sound I had yet heard from her.

“Wait till I play you some Mahler. He has symphonies where one movement takes half an hour, just on its own!”

No thank you, girl. There were prog albums like that, and I always found myself getting up halfway through to make a cup of tea or go to the toilet. I heard the outside door bang, and then again as it was pulled shut, Kim appearing shortly afterwards.

“You two ready, then?”

“Give us a couple of minutes, and we will be. You fine with Newport, Nell?”

“I need to learn to be, don’t I? Being outside, I mean. You said something about my hair?

“Yeah. Scarf or… hang on. KIM?”

“What’s up?”

“You wearing your leather? And that woolly hat Rosie left you?”

“I’ll grab them. We doing a Maccy D?”

“You not grab something at work?”

“Was busy, so I told Ruth I’d sort myself. What we shopping for today?”

“Clothes for Nell, today. I need a new chain and sprocket set as well, so we can look for a lid for her as well. Anything you need?”

“Nothing I can think of, but I’ll spot something while we’re out. Going in the van?”

“Um, three of us?”

She grinned happily, so much easier in the world than she had been when we first met, and I had to ask myself how much of that spirit had been released by her father’s departure, how much had been restored to her after returning a few swings of his belt.

We sat across the front seats of the Transit, and once again my memories were there, still warm. I stuck the CD of ‘Wish You Were Here’ into the player, as the closest I was willing to move towards half-hour bloody symphony movements, and we were off. I didn’t know Newport that well, apart from the big stores I delivered trailerloads to, so headed for what was called a ‘retail park’, avoiding the town centre as best I could. That didn’t actually mean much, as the shopping centre was smack in the middle of the town, but had reasonably quick roads in and out. I knew of a bike shop on the outskirts, so before I got too stressed out with the city traffic, I did the sprockets-and-chain purchase, which let me find a helmet to fit Nell. I noticed that she had made no comment whatsoever about riding on the back of my bike, but that was how I travelled, so tough luck if she didn’t like the idea.

I found a place to leave the van, after a bit of a search, and then we were out and about, my black eye drawing numerous stares as well as a few muttered comments. The girls were a contrast, Kim being girly for the day in one of her dresses, but with thick tights on against the bite of the wind, while Nell was clearly trying to make herself as invisible as possible, hunched down inside her borrowed jacket. I had discussed our group strategy in the van, and asked in as simple terms as I could what sort of clothing she wanted me to find for her.

“Nothing short, nothing tight…”

It seemed that I had the frightened little bird once more. Nevertheless, she still climbed out of the van with us and walked through the shops with her eyes open, even if they were pointed at the ground half the time. We visited about four clothes shops, she fixated on beige and grey, cardigans and calf-length skirts. She didn’t ask for make-up, nor heels; the only items she wanted that could have been deemed at all girly were some nighties with rather soppy designs, all snuggly teddy bears and droopy-faced donkeys.

There wasn’t a single challenge from the shop workers when she tried stuff on, and I suspect that was down to a combination of her demeanour and my bruised face. We filled bags, bought some household necessities, and both girls got their ears pierced.

Not my thing, piercings, but it made a difference to their mood, and if their parents were going to object, well, fuck the lot of them.

“No Maccy D’s here, Kim. Fancy a cuppa for now? I’ve got something to show you, or at least I think I have, and if it’s what I think it is, greasy fingers would ruin it”

There was a café not far from the car park, so we found a table and settled in behind some warming mugs, and I pulled out the envelope I had collected that morning. Once Kim had finished the cake I had bought us, and cleaned her hands with the wet wipes I knew she carried, I laid the envelope on the table between us.

“You can open it, love”

She gave me a puzzled look, but as soon as she spotted the ‘photos’ marking, her eyebrows went up.

“Pat?”

“I think so. She did promise”

Kim put the envelope back down, unopened.

“Nell?”

“Yes?”

“I think I should explain some stuff. Not all bad, OK?”

Nell just nodded, and Kim drew in a long breath.

“I wasn’t in a good place when we met. I told her to fuck off, called her a nonce, all sorts of rubbish. She took me in, wrapped me up, healed me… I was really ill, could have died. What you told me, last night, I thought some of that. Instead, she brought me friends, showed me all sorts of stuff. One of those friends… Deb took me somewhere gorgeous, and she had a friend there, and we went places that were so beautiful, so far from what I knew. If I am right, these are pictures from that trip. You look at these with me, and you’ll see who Deb is. If you don’t want to stay, then that’s your choice. I’d like you to stay. Want to see what I saw?”

Nell’s eyes flicked towards me, and I left her to speak. I hadn’t realised how terrified she was, but there it was, laid clear and obvious before me. Enough betrayal, and trust vanishes. I drew a slow breath of my own.

“Nell, Pat is someone I met many years ago. She is a one-off, a really lovely person. She showed me things I would never have seen, and then she did the same for Kim, and the only thing she asked was that we made her a cup of tea when we got back to our tents. Kim will make a joke about sore legs, but… I was lucky when I met my Mam and Dad, but I can never repay them, so all I can do is what they say, pay it forward, yeah? If you are worried there’ll be a price, don’t be. What you see really is what we are. Shit! Kim?”

“Yeah?”

“Have you heard from Sparky? Got some more work for him, but I need to pay him for what he’d already done”

“We. We need to pay him. It’s already arranged”

Her stare challenged me, so I decided to leave the subject for later, and reached for the little brown package, ripping open the end to reveal a bundle of photographs, utterly gorgeous in both their objective beauty and the memories they delivered.

“Look, Deb! That’s all of us on Y Garn! I wonder how that old man got on?”

“Hang on, Kim. Move the plates and cups, please… yup”

I spread out the next set of pictures, overlapping them as necessary. The fit wasn’t perfect, but it was close enough, the circular panorama Pat had harvested as two of us shuffled around behind her. There were others, covering other moments and places of beauty and grandeur, and then the pictures switched to that night at the folk club. One shot was of Kim and myself, eyes closed, singing along to some piece or other, utterly absorbed in music. I held the last one in my hands for a while, just looking at it, feeling warm memories yet again.

I recognised Nell’s worries, even if they had only been shared with Kim, but it was my own state of mind I was finding uplifting. From that moment with the records on my settee, to that session of photo-sharing, I was feeling able to revisit old times in as happy a way as I had managed for years. Yes, they involved Mam and Dad, but it was so much more than emptying ashes into the wind by an old temple in Northumberland. That picture of three of us smiling at the top of Y Garn was perfect in its message: we weren’t just alive, in a place of beauty, but three friends who were living, and would continue to do so. I pushed the pictures back together, keeping that group photo out, and smiled at Kim.

“Best of times, love?”

Her own eyes were moist.

“Absolutely. Nell, this is what saved my life. Stay with us, please”