Creative non-fiction competition - Runner Up

When I was twelve, I had to say we lived on the corner of Park Road.  
Actually, our front door was in the High Street but Mother said it sounded nicer.

As she watched the toast didn’t burn under the grill, she glanced out of the window.  ‘Oh, I say.’
I lolled over my cornflakes, my head full of Dr. Kildare. ‘Eh?’   
‘Elbows off the table, Janet. And it’s ‘pardon’, not ‘eh’.  
‘Someone’s moving into the house opposite.  With a nice little girl.  They look very suitable,’ she approved.
I dragged myself back from Blair General Hospital.
A ‘nice’ little girl.  Boring, more like.

Next morning, a lanky, black-haired girl, wearing a crisper version of my uniform, came out of the house in Park Road.  
We spoke together.  ‘’Lo.’
‘You too?’ she gestured to her blazer pocket badge.
With a world-weary nod intended to convey that, after nearly two years, I knew everything there was to know about the Girls’ Grammar, I looked her over.  Skinny wrists protruded from the unyielding newness of green serge.  ‘How old are you?’  
‘Nearly thirteen. Heather,’ she offered, adding as we looked right, left, then right again,  ‘Sharpe-with-an-e.’
‘Oh.  Anyway,’ I pointed, ‘you can’t wear that.’
On her third, grimy-nailed finger, the ring’s bright green stone twinkled in the May sunshine.
She rolled her eyes.  ‘My Dad.  We move a lot – for his work. So he buys me things.  They won’t let me wear that, Dad, I said.  He said You wear it.  They’re just jealous, teachers.’
With growing respect for my new friend, I decided not to tell Mother about that.

‘With an e?’ she mused that night.  
‘I wish I could afford his car,’ Daddy observed from behind the Daily Mail. ‘It’s the latest model.  The P6 2000.  Quite the thing.’
Mother’s eyes flashed.  ‘Is it?’
He looked up startled.  ‘Well, it’s a Rover, dear.  A gentleman’s car.’
Whether it was the car or the e, I never knew, but Heather’s visa was stamped Approved. ‘Why not ask her round to tea?’  Mother smiled brightly.

But I went to her house first.
 
‘Oh dear ... the potatoes…’ Mrs. Sharpe, a wraithlike, transparent woman slid absent-mindedly out of the room.  
Slabs of liver rested, grey and limp on my chilly plate.  ‘I don’t eat liver,’ I whispered.
Under that dark fringe, Heather’s eyes darted to the door. ‘You’ve got to.  Mum’s a bit funny … she’ll have one of her turns …’
‘Can’t.’  
Tight-lipped, she reached over with her fork.  ‘Give it here.’
I was chasing the last of the peas round my plate when Mrs. Sharpe came back, a limp hand to her temple.  ‘Now … what …?’
Heather burped, ‘Potatoes, Mum.  But me and Janet have finished, haven’t we?’
As I nodded, the dining room door swung open.  
‘Uh-oh,’ Heather muttered.
‘Heather, my darling,’ the man in the pinstriped suit boomed, then the dazzling smile beneath his coal-black moustache flashed at me. ‘And this must be Janet,’ he gripped my hand and I caught a whiff of something like Christmas pudding.  
Glancing at our grey-green smeared plates, he told his wife hurriedly, ‘No – not for me.  Lunch with a customer today. Still full.’

 ‘They say I can go.  In the car, next Sunday.’  A few weeks later, I was desperate to join the trip celebrating the end of term. ‘They’re having a picnic …’
‘Well …’ Mother wavered.
‘Please?’
‘See what your father says.’
And, of course, because it was a Rover, he said yes.

It smelt of men, somehow. Of hide and oil and ashtrays and spanners. The wipers’ hypnotic sweep swished at the warm rain and, cocooned by steamed-up windows and thick wool carpet, Heather and I rolled from side to side on the conker-shiny back seat as the Rover burbled between Kentish hedgerows.
‘It was nice when we left,’ Mrs. Sharpe reminisced wistfully.
‘Stop complaining,’ her husband snapped.
I studied the shiny jet-black of his Brylcreemed head, mesmerised by the narrow band of pale roots shimmering along the razor-sharp parting.  
He took a slim, silvery case from his pocket and flipped it open, like in a film. ‘Light me one.’
‘Er …’ His wife looked around nervously.  
He jabbed at a black bakelite knob on the dashboard.  ‘There.’
With trembling fingers she placed the lit cigarette between his lips and as smoke wreathed around the car, they sat in silence, ignoring us.
‘Your legs are really thin,’ I looked enviously at the pearly skin on display beneath Heather’s shorts.  My own thighs spread, pink and pudgy, beside them.
‘S’pose,’ she shrugged.
‘Did you watch it? On Thursday night?’ I whispered behind my hand.  ‘When he kissed that patient?  They were really in love.  Dr. Gillespie came in just as he was going to lose control and go all the way,’ I babbled.
‘It’s just telly, Janet,’ Heather said sharply.  
Crestfallen, I glanced up to see Mr. Sharpe’s eyes in the rear-view mirror, laughing at his daughter and her silly friend.
 At Alkham, the sun broke through the clouds and we bounced over the ruts at the entrance to a field.  The air was fresh and clear after the car and we chose the farthest corner, down by the river, for our picnic.  
With a flourish, Heather’s father shook out the travel rug. ‘Girls - your magic carpet awaits.’
‘My Dad says your car’s the bee’s knees, Mr. Sharpe,’ I smiled up at him.
‘Ah, there’s a man who knows his onions,’ he nodded.  ‘Matter of fact, I’m in the trade. If your father’s looking for a new motor car, I’d be happy to take him for a spin in her.  Just send him along to the A&B Garage.’
‘Oh,’ I blurted, ‘he can’t afford to buy one.’
‘Ah,’ he slid an arm round my shoulder and squeezed, ‘have to rely on Ernie coughing up, eh?  Right well, I’ll get the basket─’
‘─oh, let me help,’ I rushed, desperate to compensate for my father’s penury.
There was one of those tiny pauses you only remember when you think about it all afterwards.  
‘Good girl, Janet. Heather─’ he barked, ‘keep an eye on her.’  He nodded to the riverbank where Mrs. Sharpe, reed-like herself, gazed down into the dappled water.
I ran to catch up as he marched back to the car. The shiny, dark green bootlid swung up and I stretched in eagerly, puffing slightly.  
‘Better check …’ he said knowingly, and Old Spice swirled around me as his long arm outreached mine to lift the wicker lid.  There was only a jar of meat paste and a green plastic flask, tea seeping steadily from the greaseproof paper around its cork.
He seemed unsurprised.  ‘Looks like ices on the pier again.’  
Oh,’ I gushed, ‘ices would be lovely.’
That moustache glistened as he said appreciatively, ‘You’re quite the young lady, Janet.  You know that though, eh?’ he growled.  ‘Popular with the boys, I bet.  I saw you looking at me …’  Gripping my wrist, he swung me round to face him, pushing me backwards and I gasped as the cool metal of the Rover’s wing pressed against the backs of my legs.  ‘Like to try a real man now?’
 ‘I …’
There was a thin cry, from somewhere a long way away.
 ‘─Come on, now. I heard your little chat,’ he said thickly. ‘All the way, eh?’ Somehow, his feet had got between mine, his trousers scratchy between my knees.  
‘Dad!’  Heather’s voice was closer now.  ‘Mum’s fallen in!’…

Naturally, I’d been warned, in embarrassed undertones, about men.  And read the letters in the back of Jackie about what happened when men lost respect for a girl.  I’d just asked for it, talking dirty like that, then scrambling to be alone with a real, dangerous, man.

If only that silly woman hadn’t lost her balance …

Surely thinking the same thing, he drove in fast, furious silence, obviously too preoccupied to catch my eyes in the mirror.  Pale, play-acting Dr Kildare was left behind - Heather had been right, that was just telly.
My heart was so loud I thought everyone could hear it.  
This was the Real Thing.

‘Shall I come round to play next week?’ I asked eagerly, as her mother trailed miserably indoors.
Heather shook her head sadly.  ‘I’ll be busy.’

‘My, what an adventure.’  Mother put beans on toast in front of me.
I stared down at the brown lino, replaying the delicious scene over in my mind.  Oh, there’d be difficulties, but he’d wait for me to turn sixteen, I just knew, then people would see we were meant to be together.

‘Early night for you, young lady,’ Mother cleared the untouched supper away.  ‘Too much excitement for one day.’  

‘Aren’t you going to play with Heather?’ she quizzed me on the Monday morning.
‘She’s busy,’ I mumbled miserably.
By the evening though, I’d thought up an excuse - a homework project, I said.  
Heart thumping, I willed him to open the door.  He’d take me in his arms.  Oh, my darling …
But Heather answered my persistent ring.  
She wouldn’t be coming out to play, she glanced over her shoulder.  Her mother’d be ill for some time.  Heather would have to be the lady of the house, her Dad had said.
Heart-broken, I turned away.  How could I possibly live without seeing him?  Surely, somehow, he’d get a message to me?  I’d wait by the window, pale and pining, for a glimpse of him every day, I swore.  People would notice how sickly I’d become, my clothes would hang off me …

But before long, the summer had slipped away and then one morning just before the Autumn term began, there was a removal van outside their house.  
At lunchtime, Mother poured custard over my apple pie then, still nursing the jug, wandered absent-mindedly over to the window and stood watching Mr. Sharpe, dashing even in his shirtsleeves, directing operations. ‘I can understand them promoting him,’ she sighed wistfully.  ‘A manager’s post in Eastbourne, they said in the corner shop.  
She was rather unfortunate … but he was a real gentleman.’