On the morning of our flight, Mum clattered about in the kitchen, looking tense. She’d just called South Africa from a neighbour’s house as our phone had been disconnected.
Then the doorbell rang. It was Peter. He looked cheery as ever, although his face dropped when he saw how upset Mum appeared.
They spoke in hushed tones, as Mum started weeping.
‘Come and use our phone,’ he assured her after they’d spoken. Mum left with him and returned looking deathly pale.
She’d been crying. ‘We’re not going. Not only has your Dad been looking for somewhere for us to live but also his girlfriend Karen. So I’ve told him we’re not coming. Our new life is cancelled.’
We stood in the empty kitchen. Paul and I looked at each other, not quite sure what to do.
‘Well, you might as well go to school,’ Mum sighed, waving at me. ‘Go on, Terrie, get ready.’
She turned and lit up a fag on the gas cooker.
I frowned, upset. The new term had started two weeks earlier. How could I possibly just turn up at school as if nothing had happened when we were supposed to be on our way to the airport, starting a new life?
‘But I’ve not got a uniform,’ I began. ‘They’ve all been at school for weeks.’
‘Just wear your old one then,’ snapped Mum, looking upset.
Peter put his arm around her, so I dropped it. ‘Come on,’ he said gently. ‘Everything will work out. I’ll drop Terrie and Paul at their schools if you like.’
Peter dropped me off outside the school gates at 10 a.m. I looked at my reflection in a large window before entering the building. I felt embarrassed. I had last year’s uniform on, and my socks looked grey. Then there was my chopped, short, spiky hair. I looked down at my feet and sighed. But I raised my head and took a deep breath as I entered the building. I confidently approached reception but inside my stomach was churning, my heart pounding. Both of my hands were clammy and I was shaking. I explained who I was and why I was there. The receptionist looked at me disapprovingly. I could feel her eyes looking me up and down.
‘We have a uniform code. Your Mum should have received a letter.’ My anger rose at her nasal tone. ‘We have a lost property bin, I suggest you look in there for a jumper.’
She took me to a room where I had to rummage for a jumper that was too big and had worn cuffs, and then she showed me to the classroom for my first lesson. As I walked in alone, I wanted the ground to swallow me up.
‘Ah, Terrie Duckett,’ sniped the teacher. ‘We’re honoured by your arrival. You do know term actually started two whole weeks ago and school starts at 8:50?’
Heads swivelled to look at me. I could hear stifled giggles. I blindly found an empty desk to sit at. After class, everyone brushed past me, wearing new cardigans and shiny shoes, looking down their noses at my clothes. Keeping my head down, I found a bench at break time but soon found myself surrounded by kids from the previous school.
‘Thought you weren’t coming back, Terrie Buckett?’
‘Nice hairdo,’ one sniggered. ‘Did your Mum use a chainsaw?’
‘Yeah, you said were going to South Africa. Change your mind, did we?’
‘I bet they were too smelly to be let into the country.’
‘Terrie is just a little liar. But been caught out now, haven’t we?’ she smirked.
I ran home in tears. I hated my life, I felt nauseous, my stomach was churning and my head wouldn’t stop pounding. Today had been horrendous. How was I going to face them the next day? I didn’t understand why Mum had to send me to that hellhole, yet I was happy because I didn’t have to leave Nan and Pap. Paul didn’t look any happier when he crashed in through the door after school either.
‘The kids chanted “pants on fire” all lunch,’ he said, miserably.
‘I know. We just have to ignore them.’
We sat in my bare bedroom, our voices echoing off the walls.
‘I wonder when Dad’ll send our stuff back?’ said Paul, looking around, lost. ‘I’ve hardly got any toys as it is.’
I gave him a wry smile. Deep down I knew it was unlikely Dad would be worrying about that. Now our belongings had gone I couldn’t see him sending them back any time soon.
Mum looked strained when she came home from work. On the verge of tears, she nipped off again to Peter’s to use his phone. Then she came back, trembling as she told us to sit down.
‘I’ve told your Dad he’s not to come back to this house,’ she said, clutching a ball of sodden tissue in her hand. ‘I’m divorcing him.’
For most kids it’s an earth-shattering statement, but for us it was the one silver lining in this cloud. No more shouting. No more rows.
I suppressed the urge to leap up and punch the air. Paul and I were silent. We looked at each other knowingly. Out of Mum’s earshot, Paul and I shared our own reaction to the news.
‘Isn’t it brilliant?’ I squealed to Paul. ‘We’ll be so much happier without all the arguing.’
Paul shrugged. ‘Yeah, I suppose so.’
Despite living in a threadbare house, without the worry of Dad appearing again we felt awash with relief. We played out after school and often came back late for tea. Mum would be standing menacingly at the door, telling us to get inside. We’d have to time running in just ahead of the swipe of the palm of her hand. If we felt like staying up a bit later we did so, reading with a torch under the bedclothes until the early hours of the morning.
Mum sent us on frequent errands.
‘Can you go and fill this up?’ she’d ask, bringing her empty sherry bottle through to the living room as we watched TV.
Every night either Paul or I would carry the bottle to the off-licence to get a top up and stop at the newsagents for more fags for Mum. After drinking a few glasses Mum nodded off to sleep. Once she’d passed out we’d creep back downstairs from bed to watch TV from the bottom of the stairs, or sit together in my room playing board games and reading books. We were relishing our freedom.
Mum would often kick us out of the house early at the weekends and tell us to come home for tea. We’d get back and she would be passed out drunk on the sofa. Then she started to go out drinking with her friend Cheryl. She’d organise a procession of local teenagers to look after us, as no one would babysit us more than once. We would both slip out of Paul’s bedroom window, wobble across the corrugated roof of the shed and walk like cats along the wall before dropping to the grass below. We would then play around the estate for a while and slip back in unnoticed.
Mum would arrive home in the early hours of the morning, a little worse for wear, and wake us up.
‘Hey, let’s make some crisps!’ Mum said, smiling around my doorway.
We rubbed our eyes tiredly, but it was an adventure and we’d join her in the kitchen to slice potatoes super thin and deep-fry them. Mum never had the spare money to buy crisps so it was a big treat as we salted them and sat around munching on them at 2 a.m., giggling. Other times she treated us to ‘poor man’s doughnuts’ – jam sandwiches dipped in batter and fried and then rolled in sugar. They were delicious!
Mum had to work all hours to replace our furniture, as well as pay the rent and bills. The day a second-hand sofa arrived was a big event. The sofa had big soft brown cushions, the kind you can sink into. We were all very excited.
‘Wow!’ yelled Paul. ‘This is great.’ He tried to jump up and down on it as Mum told him off.
‘Calm down,’