It’s Rat. Tasty. Want Some?

Alice had seen the child several times before and had come to the conclusion he was possibly homeless. She’d no real reason that she could put her finger on to think so, but he’d never been in the company of another child far less an adult and he had an air of extreme competence and assurance that she’d never seen in a child of what, six, seven or possibly even eight at most. He was always clean and tidy and well dressed in clothes that were obviously looked after, and his long blond hair was always immaculately groomed. She’d only ever seen him on Saturdays and usually running the odd errand for the mart stall keepers. He didn’t seem to have regular employment, which at his age would have been illegal, rather he’d run errands for small sums of money, which made her smile as technically that made him self employed and outside the remit of child labour legislation. One Saturday lunch time, she discovered his name was Jimmy when a stall keeper shouted across to him, “Hey, Jimmy. Fetch me a fish, cod for choice but anything will do, and a large portion of chips [US fries] from Harry. There’s a quid in it for you.”

The boy replied, “Sure, Gus. You must be doing okay today. You nearly need a mortgage for cod and chips these days.”

Gus smiled and passed him a tenner [$15] saying “Tell you what, get me a bottle of Irn-Bru(1) too and keep the change.”

Over the months she saw Jimmy many times and he was always the same, clean, pleasant, and well known to all the traders, but despite looking for him she never saw him anywhere else and though she never saw him run he had a knack of disappearing when she blinked. Alice was a high school English teacher and it bothered her that possibly she was failing in her duty of care to children, all children, by not making Social Services away of her unease, but that was all it was a vague unease that could neither be called anything as positive as a doubt nor a suspicion, and since she could possibly be making a terrible mistake and the child was clearly thriving she left the matter. She was not aware that Jimmy was aware of her interest and that he had a suspicion that one day she would bring trouble. Jimmy wasn’t bothered by the situation nor by Social Services, for they weren’t very bright and he’d been giving them the run around for years not months. At best he’d just keep his eyes peeled and his senses sharp as always and at worst he’d just leave and take up residence a long way away and start all over again with yet another new identity. It was a familiar routine that he was always ready to implement with no warning at all. When he got jumpy he moved because he believed that feeling jumpy was a warning it was not wise to ignore, and he was aware it had paid off several times, but for the moment things were fine.

Alice’s involvement with Jimmy ended one Saturday when she saw an obese adult male grab hold of him and throw a punch at him shouting obscenities and accusations of theft. Much to her surprise, Jimmy who was a slender and lightly built boy didn’t protest his innocence, cry, nor even say anything. He avoided the punch easily and used his knee to strike the man in the groin with surprising speed and ferocious force. The blow knocked the man to the ground retching and gasping for breath. Alice was stunned at the casual violence of Jimmy’s next actions. With no expression on his face at all he kicked the incapable man in the groin as hard as he could and then kicked him in the face too, ripping open his cheek in a way that would require dozens of stitches and leave a massive and hideous scar from what Alice realised were a small pair of heavy duty working men’s steel toe capped boots. Whilst the crowd was still gathering, Jimmy slipped away unnoticed away through the press of folk trying to see what was going on. That was that. Alice didn’t see Jimmy round Gateshead again.

It was nearly a year and a half later when Alice’s husband was promoted and they and their four children moved over two hundred miles away to near Birmingham. She had a new job to go to as a deputy head teacher. All in all it was a satisfactory move, for neither she nor her husband, Keith, had any family to leave behind there. Most of their family lived near Edinburgh. Their old house was now too small for the growing needs of her family and even without the move they’d have been house hunting. That Keith’s company were prepared to assist with the move and gave him a substantial bonus to assist with the larger mortgage meant with their salary increases they were considerably better off than before.

That was when fate took one of it’s peculiar twists. Jimmy looked much different, but despite now being dark brunet with shorter hair, Alice recognised him when he smiled. He was still slender but was now five foot five or five six and looked much older than a mere eighteen months could account for. She’d taken her car in to the garage for the windscreen wiper blades to be replaced, and there he was washing cars on the forecourt still wearing steel toe capped boots. She couldn’t stop herself from saying, “Hello, Jimmy.”

Jimmy turned and with a flat look to his eyes coldly replied, “I know you. Fact is I know hundreds just like you. Gateshead wasn’t it. You were about to blow me in to Social Services weren’t you? Nosey busy bodies like you should learn to just mind your own business. I know you’ll blow me in because you’re a teacher and you have to. I don’t need Social Services and I don’t need you, your do gooder intentions, nor your sympathy. I’ve no intention of telling you or anyone else anything about me.” How Jimmy knew she was a teacher and that she’d had concerns for his safety puzzled her and his vicious repudiation of her concerns upset her.

Jimmy had decided last month it was coming up time to move on. As always he’d had started preparing for his next move from the day he’d moved to Birmingham, this just moved his plans forward a few days. He’d forget about the money he was owed and just move on and he’d do it immediately giving the authorities not even seconds extra in which to consider a course of action, which he knew would take them hours because to quote something he’d read that always amused him they thought with a limp, and rather than do something immediately they’d argue about it, which was really nothing to do with child protection, but a method of establishing their relative positions in the Children’s Services pecking order.

Money he knew was nothing, but anonymity was everything. He’d been doing it for years and Social Services had never even got close to him. They didn’t have a name nor even a picture. CCTV images didn’t give them a picture of what he looked like because he changed his appearance every time he moved and he was good at it. Some social workers didn’t believe he’d ever existed and that they’d been investigating a composite of many children all of who had perfectly appropriate families which was why they never discovered anything, which was closer to the truth than any realised. In the past they’d investigated apparent anomalies to discover a child out on their own or with friends under perfectly appropriate circumstances with nearby adults keeping a discreet watch over the children yet giving them the illusion of freedom. Such children had been in caring families and were doing well at school. Most of such investigations they managed to pull the plug on with no unfavourable consequences, but a few had resulted in public opprobrium which had hurt them badly.

As always he’d already planned his next move and how to go about it. Glasgow had initially seemed attractive, but ultimately for a variety of reasons he’d decided on Cardiff and he’d had the train ticket for weeks. None would suspect him of using the train due to its cost, but planning paid off, for if you bought a ticket far enough in advance the price was peanuts. A ticket from Birmingham to Cardiff cost him just £13 [$17].

He was going to become a read headed girl called Jessica this time. He’d already got the wigs and all her clothes ready packed and stowed in a suitcase in a left luggage locker at the station which he regularly fed with pound coins. He’d bought them all some time ago from the ethnic quarter. A few shop keepers there had owed him favours and they all understood the necessity to avoid the authorities from time to time. Their prices were right and they asked no questions. He’d collect his clothes, walk into the disabled lavatories as a boy, change and walk out as Jessica wearing a short blonde wig. After ensuring there was nothing in nor on his clothes to identify himself he’d pack his suitcase with his male attire and put it back into the left luggage locker. Eventually the money would run out and they’d be removed and discarded by which time he’d have been long gone. At the first opportunity he’d dump the clothes he was wearing and change wigs.

Whilst at the station he’d stay close to family groups requiring the same train as himself but only going partway so as to appear on CCTV as a member of them. A little bit of listening soon told him whom to approach. Usually he’d appear confused and ask them something so the adults would help him. It would look convincing to any studying the footage. Given enough time Jessica would grow her hair out and colour it. As was his wont he was already planning his move after Cardiff and considered an extended stay in the wilds of Scotland somewhere would make a pleasant change.

He put the sponge he’d been using to wash the car with in the bucket and as he walked away he said without turning, “I won’t be seeing you. Bye.” Alice followed him across the forecourt but when she reached the corner he’d walked round he’d gone. By the time she realised he must have entered the building via the fire escape door and left it via the front doors of the vast area where new cars were displayed it was too late. Another vanishing act.

She asked someone inside about the boy who was washing cars. “Alex?” she was informed. “He’s been valeting cars for a few weeks now. He does a good job. He’s a clever lad, knows a lot about all sorts. Speaks very fancy English. None here knows anything about him because he keeps to himself. We reckon he comes from the upper class side of town and just wants to earn a few quid that his family don’t know about. You can’t criticise a lad that is willing to work for his money, can you? He’s only just left school and says he wants to be a mechanic. If he’s still around when we get a vacancy for an apprentice it’s his for the taking, but he’ll probably end up going to university. We’re waiting for details from the National Insurance and Tax people, but you know what dealing with them is like. It takes forever just to get a sixteen going on seventeen year old school leaver issued with a National Insurance number that they should have received automatically in the post just after they turned fifteen, and without that no paperwork is possible even if you tell them you’ve got the kid working for you. We keep a record of everything and just wait till they send us what we need. To save us both trouble till we get the paperwork through we pay him cash as he doesn’t work regular hours. Twenty quid [$30] a car. He comes by in the morning to see what we’ve got for him, some days there might be nothing other days five. When he’s done he collects his money and goes. Why?”

Jimmy, Alex, how many other names had he used she wondered. How old was he really. How did he get to be well spoken, clever and apparently educated. How was he so well dressed and clean. And how did he manage to stay below the radar of Social Services for what she was beginning to suspect had been years. The questions were endless. Alice didn’t believe she’d ever see him again, nor ever receive answers to her questions, but she informed Social Services of what she did know as she was legally required to do. They weren’t happy that she’d not informed the Gateshead office but as she pointed out, “I may have a duty of care, but there’s a fine line between that and harassment and I had nothing other than a confident, well dressed and well groomed, thriving boy in front of me who I never saw with an adult. How many tens of thousands of kids do you think that could be said of by someone somewhere in the country where there was no need for any intervention by you nor indeed anyone?”

Weeks later a social worker came by and asked her, “Are you sure his name is Jimmy? Because the boy the garage employed doesn’t exist. He disappeared just after you spoke to him. He didn’t wait to collect the money he was owed. His actions were those of someone who is experienced at disappearing, for he simply has left no trace. There’s no relevant CCTV footage at the bus station nor of anyone of his age hitching a lift at any of the places there are cameras. There’s a short clip at the train station of a boy from behind but it’s not helpful and he’s neither dark haired nor blond and is clearly part of a family group. There is a shot of a boy who fits the description at the æroport, but he was in an American family catching a connecting flight at Heathrow back to the States. There are numerous Alex Prices in the UK between the ages of nine and nineteen. A computer ruled out all but a few, and discreet enquiries ruled out the rest. We checked them all including Alec Prices and all conceivable variants of both names. Then we did the same with Jimmy and James and their variants. Whoever your boy is he isn’t one of them. The folk who live at the address he provided are an elderly couple with no grandchildren who have only just moved in and the parental details he gave are for people decades dead who didn’t know each other. The school he said he went to have never heard of him and say they had no school leavers last year who anywhere near match your description, neither blond nor brunet. We have the school photographs of the last three year’s of school leavers for you to look at.”

Alice looked at the photographs and said, “No. He’s not there.”

“Well then. We’ve drawn a complete blank, and the police have ruled out him being a missing person, so there is nothing else to investigate. The Gateshead office and their police couldn’t discover anything from the market traders. They just knew him as Jimmy, none knew his surname. They said he was helpful and polite and that they’d run the trader who attacked him off because whatever Jimmy was he was no thief. One said he’d had more than enough opportunity to steal but had proved over and over again that he was honest. He was trusted and they wished him well. The police say the traders are genuinely puzzled and don’t believe any of them are withholding any information.” Meanwhile Jessica was working in a clothes shop that catered mostly to teens and tweens. Then George worked in a sheet metal fabrication shop in Glasgow. After that Abi worked as a waitress in Bristol and so life went on.

Fate is a fickle creature, and two years later Keith was working in The Netherlands for a month and Alice had to go on a ten day residential summer course, ironically on the safeguarding of children and the implications of the recent legislation for those with a duty of care. She’d dropped her children off with her elder sister who lived just outside Edinburgh near Portobello on the coast, and was driving the first leg of a four hundred and fifty mile journey to Bristol via her cousin’s house near Durham where she was staying overnight. It was late afternoon, and she was driving across an open stretch of countryside on what she thought was the B6355, but she’d unwittingly left the B6355 when it bent to the side and had continued straight on for several miles on what petered out into a narrow and potholed unclassified road. She was looking for a field entrance to use to turn round in when her engine died. She rang the AA(2) recovery service and was told they were very busy and would contact a local recovery company, but it would probably be after dark when they reached her. They had been able to determine her exact location, but the conversation took half an hour due to repetitive loss of signal strength.

She’d asked the AA to inform her cousin of events and waited patiently. No vehicles passed her and she’d eaten her sandwiches and drank her flask of tea and was wondering when she’d eat her next hot meal. It was gone eleven, and in the gloam that was near dark she still waited. She was hungry and felt the need to empty her bladder. She didn’t wish to do that at the side of the road despite the isolation, so she entered a small patch of woodland. As she squatted she kept looking about her nervously. She was frightened when she saw a tiny flicker of light further into the woodland and as she rushed to wipe, pull her knickers up and her skirt down she heard a female voice say, “It’s okay, Lady, there’re only we two girls out here. Come and have a warm by the fire. We’ll hear the recovery vehicle long before it gets here. There’s hot coffee and something warm to eat too, if you want it.”

Alice was surprised by the well spoken voice and the use of the expression ‘there’re only we two girls here’, rather than the usual ‘there’s only us two girls here’ indicated a considerable sophistication in the use of educated English. As she approached she could see a small but hot fire with a deep bed of glowing coals with an enamelled canteen of the type that had a mug as its lid just off the heat containing what she assumed to be coffee from the aroma. There was what she thought would be a rabbit on a spit contrived of green sticks. Two upright forked branches held the spatchcocked meat on the spit skewer just above the glowing embers. In the dim light of the fire which emitted a lot more heat than light she saw a mid to late teenage girl who’d put most of puberty well behind her turning the spit. The girl poured two coffees into tin mugs and silently passed her one. Alice thanked her and asked, “How come you didn’t let me know you were here before?”

“I like my privacy. I work on the principle every one is entitled to theirs too. I only spoke because it was obvious my fire gave you a fright.” There was something in the girls inflected speech and the use of ‘gave you a fright’ rather than ‘frightened you’ or even ‘scared you’ that resonated with something in the back of Alice’s mind, but she couldn’t work out what. As the girl moved towards the fire to turn the spit Alice could see she was wearing a touch of make up with pale nail polish and her hair was styled attractively. She was a pretty young woman, and, despite her casual wear which was eminently suitable to her environment, she seemed to be dressed in stylish and not overly inexpensive clothes. It seemed anomalous to find her in the middle of nowhere on her own, even though it was clear she was perfectly at ease with her surroundings. “The meat’ll be ready in fifteen or so. I’ve a French loaf that was fresh yesterday to eat it with.”

“What are you doing out here?” Alice asked.

“Cooking, getting ready to eat, enjoying the solitude and staying away from idiots who think if enough of them say the same thing often enough it must be not only right but the truth too. I live in places like this. I only associate with people when I need to earn a few shillings.” That killed the conversation till the girl said, “Things to do. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” She rummaged in her rucksack and withdrew a plastic container that was as familiar to Alice as it would have been to just about all women and probably most men too. It was one of the free items provided by a major manufacturer of tampons that was designed to contain two of their applicator types. It was now a product so universally familiar that it was decades since one could consider it to be discreet. The girl laught and said, “That’s one of the things that drives me back to earn a shilling or two. It’s one of the major benefits of living north of the border. In England birth control is free, but in Scotland menstrual products are too. Won’t be long.” When she returned she washed her hands with water from a gallon container and some soap from a tube before turning the meat again. After a silent ten minutes, she prodded the carcass with a stick and said “That’ll do,” before reaching into her rucksack again, this time for two enamelled plates and cutlery. “I have two of everything, in case of loss and to entertain a guest with.”

As she took the carcass from the spit, Alice asked, “What is it rabbit?”

“No. Rat. A big one. Killed it with my sling at first light. Clever that one. It managed to take the bait out of my trap without triggering it. Not clever enough to avoid the stone that killed it though. I gralloched and skinned it in a stream maybe thirty miles from here as soon as I’d killed it. Popped it in a poly bag tied to outside my rucksack ready for eating. It’s been on for an hour and I dropped it down nearer the heat to finish cooking maybe twenty minutes ago. Only young, so it should be tender and tasty. Still want some?”

Alice was appalled and hesitantly asked, “Is it safe?”

“Over the years I’ve eaten hundreds of ’em. Take the head and tail off, gut and skin them discarding all the contents, wash them in a stream or under a tap and sear the entire carcass inside and out in the flames to kill any nasties. I’ll eat rabbit giblets but not rat. I’m still here, and as far as I’m aware I’ve only ever had a bad stomach from stuff I’ve bought from shops, and never from anything I’ve picked or killed in the wild.” Alice admitted the meat smelled appetising to her half starved self and so she nodded. “Throw the bones in the fire. I like to leave a place as tidy as I found it.” Now the meat was off the fire she threw a paper bag onto it and Alice realised it contained her used tampon. “You should fetch your tissue and burn it.” It wasn’t a request and she passed Alice a stick with a flame at one end to light her way. After collecting her tissue and putting it on the fire, the girl offered Alice her some of the soap and passed the water bottle over. As the pair of them washed their hands the girl said, “It’s okay to wash in it, but I wouldn’t drink it unboiled.” The girl pulled a French stick from her capacious rucksack, snapped the two foot long loaf in half and put half on Alice’s plate along with her share of the rat. The meal was delicious and the girl nodded in approval as Alice clearly enjoyed her half. They had another coffee, which emptied her canteen, and she asked Alice, “Hear that?”

“No. What? I don’t hear anything.”

“That’s your knight in shining armour. Well, it’s your recovery truck anyway. It’ll be three quarters of an hour before he gets here. I’ll pack everything up ready to go. I was going to camp here for the night, but the moon’ll be up soon, so I think I’ll take advantage of the light to catch tomorrow’s meal.”

“Where are you going? You could get a lift with the truck.”

“Thanks, but no thanks. I’ve had enough company tonight to last me till the end of the month, and I’m not going anywhere. I’m just going.” She washed her plates and canteen, packed up her belongings and made sure the fire was out before saying, “Less than five minutes till he gets here.” She saw Alice nervously looking around and said, “Your car is that way. Come on I’ll take you. My eyes’ll be more used to the night than yours.” They waited at the side of the road till the truck pulled up.

While the man loaded her car Alice said, “I can’t thank you enough for the food and the warmth. What is your name?”

The girl laught and said, “Same as yours, Alice.”

The man interrupted her and told Alice, “Sorry to rush you, Mistress Carmichael, but we have to go in five minutes once I’ve double checked everything and radioed in that I’ve got you and your vehicle. I’ve another job to do tonight and that is a stranded woman on her own too. I’m sure you can appreciate the situation. She might not be as lucky as you’ve been.”

It was a stunned Alice who as she climbed into the cab asked, “How do you know my name? Have we met before, Alice?”

The girl ignored Alice’s first question but replied, “Oh yes. We’ve come across each other before. Many times in Gateshead, and you blew me in to Social Services in Birmingham once, but I’m old enough to be beyond their reach now, not that they ever got close enough to even work out who I was.”

Who I was, not who I am, Alice noted before asking, “Jimmy? Alex?” As she asked Alice noticed for the first time the girl was wearing a pair of steel toe capped boots.

“No. I was always a girl, but I’ve used so many names now I’m not entirely sure I know who I started out as.” She chuckled before continuing. “I don’t have any hard feelings. We all do what we have to do, and I have to go. I’ll maybe see you around, Alice.”

At that she walked back into the woodland and as always just disappeared. There was her tiny fire pit but nothing else to shew any had been there. Even her spit had been burnt before she extinguished the fire. After it had rained the vegetation wouldn’t take a week to hide all trace of the fire pit too. Alice now knew her name, that she was female not male as she’d always believed and that she lived as part of her environment as free as all the other wild creatures that inhabited it too. However, in providing those pieces of information she’d left even more questions behind her. Too, Alice remembered what she done as a child to the man who’d assaulted her in Gateshead. Her namesake was free, wild and dangerous and probably still completely unknown to the authorities.

The recovery driver tried to engage her in conversation, but she was completely silent and lost in her thoughts till he dropped her off at her cousin’s house.

1. Irn-Bru is a Scottish carbonated soft drink, often described as "Scotland's other national drink" (after whisky).
2. AA, the Automobile Association.