I posted in a blog that I was writing this, and I am afraid it will be an exercise in complete self-indulgence. I just fancied letting a collection of my favourite people relax together. Don't expect any dazzling revelations here; then again, as I am still writing it, who knows? For new readers, this story won't make much sense unless you have previously read my novel 'Mates', available on this site and on Kindle.
We flew via Singapore, of course, for there was no way we would ever be entering Malaysia. The compensation from their end, mostly from the disposal of what there was of Husseiyin’s legitimate business, had come as a surprise, but there was no way we would be turning it down. It was the wrong word, anyway, for there was no way that money could ‘compensate’ for what we had all lost—in fact, nothing could come close to restoring what had been ripped from us.
Rahim had been true to his word, or correct in his forecast, for dear Suleiman and around ten of his colleagues, friends, fellow turds, had been left to stand or sit next to a post in some dreary backwoods, backyard, wherever, as a group of poor squaddies used them for target practice.
I had read all the Wiki articles, wondering how it was done, and there was the same thing I had read about First World War firing squads: only a few of the rifles were supposed to be loaded with live ammunition, the others firing blanks, so that the poor bastards in the firing squad could convince themselves they hadn’t actually, you know, fired a bullet into another human’s heart.
I couldn’t believe it, because I had done a little bit of shooting at clay pigeons before I realised how silly it was, or rather how useless I was at it, and I knew full well that the kick of a weapon came solely from the reaction to that rapid departure of a small lump of metal. Blanks would feel different.
Whatever the answer, I didn’t actually care. What I did care about was sitting around me in the business class seats of a Singapore Airlines Airbus as we flew into the West. That upgrade was another bit of attempted compensation, this time from the Singaporeans themselves, and I wondered how far their holier-than-thou willy-waving with their northern neighbour was going to go, and how long it might last.
Never mind; it was much nicer than cattle class.
The only problem was that the seating was in pairs. I had worried that Little Caro would be clingy to her mother, but that wasn’t true. Maz had been quite blunt about how things had gone, for those six awful years.
“As soon as she was old enough, darling, they had her as a house skivvy. The rest of us would be in the greenhouses all day, so she only saw me part of the time. That’s why they covered her hair, love: whore mother, whore child…”
She had trailed off just then, and I knew why. If we hadn’t found them, what would have happened once LC had passed into her teens? All the possible answers to that question were vile in the extreme; I walled off that part of my imagination.
We were fed well, and there was free booze, which Maz looked at with fascination.
“Mike?”
“Yes, love?”
“I want, really want, to get very, very drunk. But that would be wrong. Can you watch me, please? Let me get relaxed, but not wrecked?”
She was still so awfully thin, but at least the bruises had faded. Nothing like the body mass she had once carried, alcohol for the soaking-up of. I simply smiled and nodded, before rising from my seat and checking on the other two.
“How are you two doing?”
Ish grinned, pointing at his sister, who had her headphones on, staring at the seat-back screen in fascination, mouth hanging open..
“Elsie’s found the cartoons, Dad. Calmed right down after take-off. I need the loo… coming?”
He clearly meant that he wanted a private word, so we smiled and waved at LC before finding a quiet spot near the galley.
“What’s up, son?”
“Ah, Dad, just a little bit shitty. Sorry, but best word for it. She still doesn’t quite trust you. Big man, ey? Me, well, from Mum’s side of things, me, I look a bit like her. When we took off, she was thinking that…. We had a whispered chat, okay? She wanted to know if we were going back to that place again. That flight, when you brought them back, that was her first, so she thought that was all there was. Singapore, Australia, Sumatra”
“And?”
“It’s the flight map thing, Dad. Been showing her where we’re going, and she’s got no idea of geography at all. At least she speaks English. Sorry, Dad---that came out wrong”
“I get what you mean, son. Thank your Mum for that, though. She got a lot of those bruises because of it. Remember how your grandmother would always write in Malay?”
He glared at me.
“Not… Never my bloody grandmother, Dad. Not ever. Anyway, stuff: I have been thinking. Are we going to do Crab Gog?”
“Oh, Crib Goch? We have your sister now, son. Might be a bit too much for her. Wait and see, okay? And thanks for helping her settle. It…”
I felt my words leaving me, but my boy simply stepped into a hug.
“It lets you and Mum have each other again. Yes, I get that. Anyway, where are we going first? I haven’t met these friends yet, have I?”
“Online, yes. Good people, son. Our people. Keep looking after LC, please: you are making all of this so much easier”
Another direct stare.
“She’s family, Dad, and she’s been hurt. Doesn’t bloody happen again”
“I know, son, and thanks for making me proud of you. Head back?”
He just nodded, and as I settled back into the rather comfortable seat, with a smile for my lover, I wallowed in the wave of smugness that surged over me.
My boy. Here’s one I made earlier, sound as.
The seat belt announcement woke me, in a state of utter bewilderment, but Maz was next to me, and all was right. Ish called out that LC was secured, and I then heard him start to describe things on the ground to her, with her response, “Will it be cold? How cold?”
Welcome to a British Summer, little darling.
Wobble. Mormon Tabernacle. M23 full of crawling cars. Wings extending all sorts of flaps and slats and stuff. Lean back in my seat and… not as hard a bump as I had expected, but it still brought a squeal from LC. The usual landing routine followed, as we taxied in light rain towards the terminal, where we, naturally, disembarked before the hoi polloi.
The family queue at passport control wasn’t too bad, but when we got to the desk, the questions got pointed.
“Why the temporary passport?”
I led on that one.
“It was an emergency”
“What sort of---oh. Excuse me a moment”
He picked up his desk telephone, dialled a number, “Hi. Paresh here. Emma or one of the other SAMS Officers free?”
He listened to whatever answer arrived, then smiled at us.
“A colleague will join us shortly. If you look that way, can you see that sort of glass box? Won’t take long”
I was a little irritated by the delay, but complied, and in less than a minute, a motherly-looking woman joined us.
“Hello. My name is Emma Morton, and please hear this the right way: my job is in safeguarding and anti-modern-slavery. We were warned of your arrival, but nothing nasty. It’s just…”
She paused for a few moments before adjusting her smile.
“The information I have been given is that you were in that position for some years. This is a voluntary thing, but it may help us in our work if you are happy to answer some questions. It just might assist us to build up a profile”
Maz held her hand out to shut me up, and smiled at the Officer.
“This might help abused people?”
Our new friend nodded, then glanced at LC.
“OTHER abused people, Mrs Rhodes. I also support on FGM”
Maz looked sharply at our girl, then shook her head.
“No. Not this time. I told them that I, or my husband, would kill them if they tried”
She sagged slightly.
“In reality, I suppose it was a threat they held over me. As long as I behaved, Carolyn was safe”
‘Emma’ was nodding.
“Thank you. That one was actually very useful. I hope you are now starting to understand why we do this”
I did, to be honest; after a few more questions along the same lines, Emma led us upstairs to collect our baggage, and then through the Customs Channels, with the odd wave to an officer looking for a pounce target. She left us just before the exit doors, as I rearranged our cases on the baggage trolley.
“Mike!”
Steph hit me with a hug, Geoff tackling Ish, before both stepped back. Steph, as ever, took lead.
“Ladies, Geoff and me are your first hosts. We have some neighbours who have a car, as well as some non-neighbours, who also have a car, because we only have a two -seat van. Those people picking us up are our neighbours Naomi and Albert, and the others Eric and Annie. This way, please! Short term car park costs a number of vital body parts, so they’ll meet us at the drop-off area”
LC was back to clinging to her mother again, but her eyes were going everywhere as the Woodruffs led us out and down to a busy area that felt almost underground. Eric and an older woman promptly appeared in their respective cars, and we split up. Ish and the Woodruffs with ‘Naomi’ and the rest of us with Eric. A short drive took us from busy dual carriageway to a much quieter country road, and then into the driveway of a rather posh house. Eric helped us out with the bags, then turned to get back into his car.
“Off to pick up Annie and the lad. She’s all excited, like a bloody teenager. See you in about half an hour”
Ish was given a room at the neighbour’s house, LC and the two of us a couple of bedrooms in chez Woodruff, which was definitely for the best. It had taken nearly two weeks of gentle coaching before LC could settle into her own bed without needing to sleep cuddled up to her mother, and we still had nights where she would creep in to join Maz in bed, for there was still a distinct hesitance in her approaches to me.
What ‘compensation’ could pay for that? At least she ate at the table with the rest of us now, rather than squatting in a corner of the room with her plate or bowl.
We sorted out what we needed from our cases, before a call from downstairs alerted us to imminent buffet food and the arrival of Eric’s family, who repeated that tsunami of greetings instigated at the airport. Eric was apologetic.
“Sorry for being late. It was just something Ish said to Steph, and I repeated it to Chantelle here, and she had an idea. Say hello, Shan”
A slight blonde, late teens or early twenties, stepped forward with a parcel.
“Hiya. I’m called Chantelle, but everyone calls me Shan. Ish said you found the cartoons on the aeroplane. Did you like them?”
Carolyn gave a very hesitant but clear nod, and Shan smiled.
She paused, looking over to Annie’s son Darren, who gave her a much firmer nod, and she turned back to LC.
“Me and my man here, we had bad times when we were kids. Not as bad as yours, but bad. I didn’t get to be a little girl, not properly, so I thought I could pass stuff on. Got you this”
She held out a package to our daughter, who recoiled slightly before looking to Maz for permission, and then simply stood holding it as if unsure what it was. Maz bent down.
“It’s a present, darling. You rip off the paper. Like this…”
Maz started to tear the paper, then passed it back to LC, who quickly got the idea, and tore off the rest of the wrappings, to reveal something diaphanous and pastel in colour. It was a princess dress. Shan gently took it from her and held it up to check the length against our daughter.
“Yeah, me and Daz, we went up Westfield, the big store there. Every girl needs to be a princess. Want to try it on?”
Again that look to Maz for permission, but it was Shan who held out a hand to lead her off to change, and that dress stayed on her for six days before we could persuade her that it wouldn’t disappear if she took it off.
The buffet was wonderful, apparently provided by Naomi in the main, and as other people steadily arrived, LC’s confidence seemed to mirror that famous Dunning-Krueger graph, peaking at the start before a steep plummet almost to terror, before slowly recovering. I suspect that a lot of that recovery was driven by the number of presents that utter strangers delivered, and that was confirmed by our son in another session of ‘A quiet word, Dad’.
“And?”
“Elsie asked why she was getting pressies, and I said presents were for birthdays and Christmas, so she said it was neither of those. I just said they were for all the missed ones”
He grimaced.
“I think she’s frightened to cry, Dad. Going to take a lot of work. Shan’s really good with her, though. What happened to her, Dad? Shan?”
I simply shook my head, as Annie had told me a long time ago, and that was a subject I wanted to avoid, as there are far worse ways of losing one’s childhood than through slavery.
“Time to mix and mingle, son, then I need to do some phone calls”
I was losing track of who was who, watching as tents sprang up all through both gardens, and then what I had been expecting to happen finally started, as someone began playing a squeezebox. As the music unfolded from multiple instruments, LC’s reticence finally began to crack properly, probably helped by the colourful confection of gauze and taffeta and its associated glittery tiara.
“You’ll be Mike”
The speaker was much shorter than me, with a bent nose, but his hand was out for a shake.
“Stewie McDuff, mate. Little bird, or rather a tall ginger one, told me why you’re here, so the little girl’s having her missed birthdays all together. What happened to the arseholes?”
“Ish, our son, he said something like that about birthdays. Explaining to Carolyn how she doesn’t have to give them all back. Anyway, all the arseholes got shot”
“Oh dear how sad never mind. Moving on…”
There was something much darker than usual in that standard sarcastic quote, but yet again, not for that just then. Stewie smiled again, honestly that time.
“What are your plans, Mike?”
“Oh, we go back half way through September. Got friends” and a wife “in a town north of London, then some places in Suffolk, Sheffield, the Peak and Snowdonia. Want to go to Cardiff as well, pay my respects, say thanks”
“How are you travelling?”
“I have a set of quotes from car hire places nearby. Just need to see what they have available”
“Why don’t you ask the car hire man?”
“I have”
“Not the one standing in front of you, you haven’t. Fancy showing me those quotes?”
That summed up the mood of that afternoon and evening, which was added to with a number of offers of camping equipment as well as multiple enquiries as to our plans around the August bank holiday weekend. We were being bloody assimilated, and that was clearly the case with LC, as I spotted her with a group of young people clearly being shown how a tent worked.
Great planning, Rhodes, a camping trip through Britain without actually checking if your child would be able to cope,
Carolyn started to laugh around people, Ish got tipsy, and Maz got pretty well drunk. Nobody cared, or rather had a negative reaction to it. There was music, including some singaround stuff Ish and I joined in with, and Maz tried to, and all through it a tiny girl in a princess dress looked as if she had now realised that, yes, all her Christmases had indeed come at once, along with her birthdays, and had brought friendly dogs who liked chasing balls.
Our first morning in the UK was brighter, a communal breakfast taken in the conservatory and garden, bunkhouse style in the way everyone clubbed together. I still felt like shit, my usual reaction to long haul flights, but Maz and I had been woken by our daughter at about seven, Maz pretending to be asleep even after a prod from the girl. I understood why when LC finally turned to me for permission.
“Dad?”
“Yes, love?”
The slightest of twitches from her, and then that surge of confidence, or maybe hope, that warmed my heart.
“Can I play with the dogs again?”
“If they are awake, love. You need to ask their owners if it’s okay first, though”
“Am I allowed to speak to them?”
That bastard’s dead, Rhodes. Deal with what he’s left behind, but nicely.
“Want me to come with you?”
“Want Mum to”
I looked down at Maz, who had her back to LC but was wide awake, and she mouthed ‘You go’ at me.
“Your Mum’s asleep, love”
I lip read ‘hangover’ and wriggled out of my side of the duvet, thankful I was wearing sleep shorts and a T-shirt, and slipped my feet into my trainers.
“Leave Mum to sleep, and I will come downstairs with you. Get Mum a cup of tea for when she wakes up, and see what the doggies are doing”
We padded down the stairs to find a reasonable number of people getting outside their own hot drinks, the two hounds curled up against each other right in the doorway. So typical of dogs: won’t play with me? I’ll just get right in your way till you do. LC walked up to them and bent down to pat the tops of their heads, one hand for each of them. One of the younger people called out to her.
“If I say the word, Pie will go mad, so do you want me to get the thing to throw?”
LC looked at me for permission yet again, and I nodded.
“Yes please, Tuan”
The lad laughed happily.
“I’m not Dwayne, or whatever. I’m Jim”
He waved her forward, slipping her a tennis ball and telling her to keep it out of sight, then called “Pie!”
The collie sat up, the spaniel looking a little aggrieved.
“Go with Carolyn!”
Once she was in the garden, he added, “Now let him see the ball”
That brought both dogs to their feet and outside, and all I then heard of them was a mixture of yips and laughter. No dogs at that slave camp, then.
I nodded my thanks and quickly assembled a cuppa for my wife, who sat up in bed to take it from me.
“How is she doing, darling?”
“Out with those two dogs. What does ‘Tuan’ mean?”
“Oh, Malay for ‘Sir’. Who did she call that?”
“Lad with the dogs. Jim”
“Fits. We were both… we quickly learned to be polite to them”
So many bruises.
“In the past, love, so let’s keep it there. What do you remember from last night?”
“I—oh! What is happening with our car? Hire car?”
“You were out of it, then. We have an offer of a loan rather than a hire, from one of the collective. He runs a hire business, and he just offered, out of the blue. He’s sorting us a reasonable estate car, and we’ve got about eighty offers of tents, sleeping bags, et cetera. And a lot of questions about the end of August, for some reason”
She slurped her tea, sighing in satisfaction, and I pointed to the bedroom door.
“Looks like they are starting a big fry-up, love. You okay for that?”
She stared into her mug for a moment.
“Still doesn’t seem real, my love. Sleeping in a bed, not on the floor of a hole in the ground. Proper drink. Proper food. Having you with me again… I need a Full English; prove this is real”
We had our Full And Extended English, before most of the visitors packed up and left for their homes, but Jim and his family, with their dog, stayed another night, which brought more happy laughter from a giggly girl, and that night Maz and I found an old, traditional way of proving that things really were as they seemed.
She was still so horribly thin, though.
Stewie’s temporary present arrived two days later, a well-worn Vauxhall that he assured us was in perfect condition, or at least as perfect as Vauxhalls could ever be. I got used to it with a few shopping trips into Crawley, where we picked up extra bits and pieces for our journey that included fleece jackets and walking boots for Carolyn, along with another childhood necessity in the shape of a bear. LC was fascinated by the Italian Kitchen place, with its multitude of salads and sandwich fillings, and the whole food court seemed to put her at risk of over-stimulation in offering too many new things at once.
She never asked for anything, though. Beaten out of her, I realised.
Our time with the Woodruffs was over far too soon, but they were storing our cases and some other bits ready for our return flight home in September. It was an emotional departure, of course, but this time the emotions were positive ones. LC was gradually emerging, helped immensely by such treats as a half day on Brighton’s remaining pier with its rides and games, where she finally decided to make a positive statement about, of all things, ice cream. Specifically, how her favourite flavour was choc-chip mint.
The drive up country was not exactly pleasurable, as it involved almost entirely motorways, but things improved a little north of the Dartford Tunnel. Ish was navigating for me, using my phone and a UK SIM, not that I needed it, and I was fretting slightly, as Auds and Alan, who were putting us up, had moved from That Place to Toddington some years before, so I would miss the opportunity to drive through the scenic wonders that are Chapel Street and Hockwell Ring, and so confirm that said That Place deserves not to be named fully.
It simply meant driving two junctions further up the M1 before once more pulling off onto rural roads.
“Nearly there, girls! How are you finding it?”
Maz shouted something about boring motorways, and I had to agree.
“I’m afraid it’s like that a lot, but some of the places we are going are much nicer, but those blocks to your right there, they are Hockwell Ring, and that is definitely not one of the nice places”
“What are the nice places like, Dad?”
I had to concentrate just then, as Carolyn had asked that question, totally out of the blue. Thank you, god, fate, whatever.
“There are a few of them, my darling. One in particular has a lot of friends, and a lot of mountains”
Ish laughed, saying “And a lot of sheep, and a lot of rain, so a lot of wet sheep”, but LC hadn’t finished.
“Will there be music there again?”
Oh wow.
“Do you mean like the music that Steph and Annie and their friends played?”
“Where I got my dress, and met the dogs, yes. It was nice. Will there be more?”
“Ish?”
“Yes, Dad?”
“I don’t need the maps. Could you use my phone to call Audrey for me? Number’s already entered”
“Okay… Hi! This is Ish Rhodes! Fine, thank you. Just passed a place Dad called Hockwell Ring. Yeah… Looked it. Anyway, Dad has a question. Dad?”
“Just ask when the folk club’s next on, or if it’s already the Summer break”
“He says is the folk club on, or is it Summer… right. Who’s on? Okay, we know him. Jimmy Kerr, Dad. Tonight”
I concentrated on getting us safely off the M1, as that exit has quite a tight bend and I certainly didn’t want to lose a family I had only just regained. Ish chuckled.
“Dad hasn’t said it out loud, but I know he’s thinking it. We’re just leaving the motorway, so is the kettle on?”
A couple more jokes, and he hung up.
“She said the club’s moved, Dad. Really awkward to get to now”
“Where to?”
“Pub called the Sow and Pigs. Where’s that, do you know?”
I couldn’t help laughing.
“I suspect it is now their local, as it is in the same village! Sorry, son, but Auds has always been a joker. She…”
I bit down hard on what I was about to say, for while Carolyn needed to know where her name came from, it wasn’t the right time. We would say hello as a family, and that information could wait until we were all ready.
“Carolyn?”
“Yes… Dad?”
“There will be music tonight, and it will be very good. A man who plays the fiddle, like the lady with the long red hair”
Maz added, “Just not as mad, I would guess”
‘At least Steph speaks English’ was my silent response, but they would find out the simple way. Leighton Road… Right! They had plenty of room out front of their house, and before I had turned the engine off, Auds was waiting for her hug, and it was nothing subtle. Alan held back slightly after a brief squeeze of Ish, and then softly asked Maz if a hug would be okay, and to my horror she started to weep before answering the question by embracing Alan as she tried to explain.
“I am sorry, but it was two things, together, and I am still not, you know, recovered. Someone asking me for permission, to do anything at all to me, that… It hasn’t been a feature of my recent life. And then, sorry, but your name. I lost another Alan”
She squeezed him again.
“I will be fine. It is simply that everything is still a bit raw, a bit sensory overload. I heard someone say ‘kettle’, I believe”
Auds led the way in, and there was indeed tea waiting for us. I settled into the sofa with a sigh, LC bookending her mother as always, and looked at our hosts.
“The kids?”
Alan laughed happily, pointing at some graduation photos on the wall by the door to the dining room.
“Not been ‘kids’ for some years, mate. Al’s on a dig up near York, and Gina’s counting beavers in Devon. Things they couldn’t get out of, I’m afraid, but they send their best. You’re looking well, Mike”
“Boy here pronounces that as ‘old’, Alan. Carolyn, what Mum and I explained to you, these are friends… I met the lady you are named after because she was a friend of this lady here. We all used to go and listen to music together. The man who is playing tonight is a friend of the lady with the red hair”
Audrey looked at her husband for a second before turning to me.
“Mike, this friend of yours, would she be called Steph?”
I nodded.
“Well, muggins here ended up running the club when we lost the grant. That’s how it ended up here rather than staying in Lu—”
I think I was first, but both wife and son matched my shout of ‘Don’t say the name!’. Auds gave me a funny look, so I simply suggested she think of ‘Candyman’ films and ‘P Fairies’, which got the message across, and she chuckled.
“Point taken, then. Well, we had to leave That Place That Begins With L, and the landlord here is amenable. What I was going to say was that we didn’t book the act, the act asked us to book him, and he said he’d been asked by someone called Steph. At least, that’s what I think he said. Steph?”