Kerrymore Road

Dedication

To Romy, Sasha and Martha

Chapter 1

Number fifty-seven Kerrymore Road did not stand out from the other Victorian terraces in the vicinity. The tiny walled garden that created a small barrier from the passing traffic, both pedestrian and wheeled, was just as nondescript as the others, its front gate just as faded and peeling. All these similar, substantial houses on both sides of this suburban road, with their narrow fronts and tunnel backs, stared across at each other, presenting a united front; a respectable, middle-class, law-abiding façade. Behind these no-nonsense, red brick and stone-bordered exteriors, people lived their lives and were not the same. Oh no, things were very different behind closed doors on Kerrymore Road.

There was old Mr Kirshaw opposite at number thirty-four. He had been living in Kerrymore Road since he was bombed out in ‘44. Kerrymore Road had been lucky, if you can call it that, suffering only bomb blast rather than direct hits. There was still the mound of an Anderson shelter in his long back garden. It had seemed a shame to have it dismantled when he had needed a garden shed anyway; he was not keen on disruption and change. There had been enough of that in war time. He found himself thinking a great deal about the war these days and coming home on leave from the front to find a pile of rubble instead of a warm fire and some of Marion’s stew that he had been so looking forward to. He had run about asking people where she was, but they all seemed in a daze and couldn’t tell him anything. The air-raid wardens had said that they hadn’t found anyone yet. He often wondered if, when the bomb dropped, she had thought of him at that moment, believing that he too was dead in some ‘foreign field’, believing they would be re-united in heaven above.

Matthew had never returned from the war. Dear old Matty, just a lad really; how Marion’s eyes would light up when her boy came into the room, while Doreen – she was her daddy’s girl, and what a little smasher she was going to be when she grew up. But she wouldn’t grow up now, would she, under all that rubble with her mam. Matty had only lasted three months at the front. Fancy sending a slip of a lad to where it was all kicking off!

Somehow he had got through it all, and now he was here all by himself in the year of our Lord 2010, and in his late eighties. He peered at himself in the bathroom mirror. All those lines in his skin, circling his mouth and stretching down deeply from either side of his Rocky Mountain nose. And his eyes - all pale and watery beneath his craggy forehead that sprouted grey hairs in every direction. Why was he still here when those lovely, smooth-skinned, shiny-haired, perfect young things were dead and gone, with nothing but a few baby years behind them? It was a cock-eyed world and no mistake.

Old Mr Kirshaw made himself a cup of tea in the tidy, dated kitchen and took it through to his front room for his afternoon sit. There were no twitching net curtains in his bay. He sat boldly in the centre where he could watch the road in both directions. He would wave to some of the children as they came home from the junior school at the end of the road, but mostly people ignored him. Not like the old days in the terraces he lived in before, where everyone knew everyone else and helped each other. Those were the days.

**********

‘There’s that dirty old man sitting staring out of his front window, nosy old fart. Why doesn’t he mind his own business?’ Emily pushed the pink and purple strands of hair out of her eyes.

‘I expect he’s lonely. Let’s wave to him,’ said her mother.

‘No! He’s probably a perv. I’ll bet he spends his evening watching porn videos or has little boys queuing up in his back yard.’ Emily wiped her nose on the back of her hand.

‘Well whatever he does, I expect his manners are better than yours, Emily. Haven’t you got a tissue? Here.’ Her mother rooted in her handbag and produced a small pack of tissues then looked up and waved to Mr Kirshaw who smiled and waved back.

‘Look at him. I’ll bet he hasn’t got any teeth.’

‘He will have Emily, because he lived with rationing in the war, while you at his age will be a toothless old crone, with all the rubbish you eat.’

‘I’ll top myself before I get to his age, don’t worry,’ said Emily with feeling. Her mother laughed.

‘You’ll be like the rest of us, Emily and cling on to life for as long as you can.’ They had arrived at number fifty-seven and pushed open the gate.

‘Hold these while I find my key, Emily.’

**********

Mr Kirshaw watched the woman struggling with her bags at the door of her house. Attractive woman, he thought - nice neat hair, unlike her teenage daughter. What a mess these youngsters made of themselves these days. He wondered if Doreen would have dressed like that one - a pelmet round her hips and one purple leg and one orange one, with boots on the end of them. ‘Just look at her!’ he said out loud. ‘A long-sleeved jersey topping the lot in a dirty grey colour, and the sleeves – they pull the sleeves right over their hands as if they are perished with cold. How can they use their hands properly?’ He sighed. He was getting too old to understand.

The mother – he could appreciate her. She was always nicely dressed and with a bit of make-up on, not too much. She didn’t seem to have a husband – none that he’d seen anyway, but there were at least two other children, a boy and another girl who was much younger. He’d seen the boy coming home from that posh school on the edge of town. He had that walk that lads had these days – as if they had small springs in their shoes but their shoulders bent and head down, looking at the pavement. It made you want to call out to them, ‘straighten up and throw your chest out lad.’ The little one? She was a proper little bobby dazzler, but he supposed she would go the way of her sister, although she was nothing like her. She had fair, curly hair and pink cheeks. He was just wondering where these two siblings were when a car drew up – one of those large four-by-four jobs - and a man got out and helped the little girl out while the boy clambered out of the passenger door. The man saw them into the gate, spoke a word or two to the mother and then got back in the car. That would be the father then.

So much divorce these days. Folks didn’t put any effort into their marriages, expected to be happy all of the time and thought they’d been short-changed if they weren’t. Now he and Marion would have been long-termers, respected each other’s privacy and trusted each other. She made the decisions about the kids and he about the money. That way you knew where you were. She looked after the house and he looked after everything else. Of course, these days the wife often worked and that made things more complicated, he supposed. He’d often seen young men walking about with small babies strapped to their fronts. It was a topsy-turvy world and no mistake.

Mr Kirshaw’s eyelids drooped and soon his chin was resting on his chest. The sound of his deep, regular breathing filled the room, and there was no-one to hear it.

**********

It was dark when Mr Kirshaw awoke with a start. He stared about him for a moment to establish exactly where he was. A moment ago he had been back in the trenches, wading through mud and sharing a roll-up with old Monty. They called him Monty because of his sharp little nose and ‘tash like the great man himself. He’d bought it a couple of days later. Poor old Monty.

Tea! That’s what he needed; a nice cuppa and a bit of toast with butter and some of that nice strawberry jam. He was just about to get up when something caught his eye. Over at number fifty-seven that young girl was coming out through the front door, but there was something about the way she was walking – sort of creeping down the steps as though she didn’t want to be heard. She hopped over the front wall instead of opening the iron gate and pulled her coat on as she walked down the road. Then a car drew up – a sporty number with a soft top. It stopped beside her and the door opened and a bloke got out. He looked a lot older than her but he bent down and gave her a kiss on the lips, then she jumped in the car and off they went. Mr Kirshaw stared at the place in the road where they had been. It was a bit dodgy but youngsters did all sorts of things these days. He would go and make that tea and then perhaps, come back and see what transpired.

Chapter 2

Martin, have you done your homework? You’re not playing games on that thing are you?’

‘No Mum,’ called back Martin, closing down the game and making it true.

‘Tea’s ready. Call Emily on your way down. She’ll never hear me over all that loud music.’

Martin banged on Emily’s bedroom door as he passed and yelled ‘tea!’ through it, then clattered down the stairs towards the kitchen where his little sister was already sitting at the table. He prodded her in the back as he went past.

‘Mummy, Martin poked me,’ she complained.

‘Martin, do you have to be so provocative? Just leave her alone and let’s have some peace. And you - don’t tell tales. Did you call Emily, Martin?’

‘Yes,’ he replied rolling his eyes.

Amelia Beddington served the pasta onto four plates and placed the sauce and Parmesan cheese bowls in the centre of the table. She glanced upwards listening for some movement in Emily’s room above. She cursed under her breath and climbed the stairs wearily, ready for another row. The sticker on the door said, Do not disturb – doing important project. Do not want any supper.

‘Emily, don’t be ridiculous. Open up.’ Amelia tried the door and found it locked from the inside. Amelia was not stupid and bent to check if the key was still in the lock. It was not, so she went downstairs to the kitchen and reached for the other bedroom key from the hook. You only had to be locked in a room once to make sure it never happened again. She retraced her steps and unlocked Emily’s bedroom door. She was not entirely surprised to find the room empty apart from the usual pile of detritus plus most of the clothes from her wardrobe. A clear sign, she thought, of someone trying on clothes in an attempt to find something suitable to wear for a purpose. Amelia switched off the music, had second thoughts and switched it back on but with the volume down. She closed the door behind her and locked it on the outside.

Later, she sat in the bay window having turned off the lights and drawn the curtains just enough to conceal herself. As midnight approached, she shook herself to prevent falling asleep and felt the sweat in her palms and on her forehead. Panic was only a hair’s breadth away. Emily was her first born, her lovely little girl who had turned into this temporary monster that she had to protect until its wings dried and it could fly away safely. Should she ring her ex-husband? The police? How long did you wait before you were sure something had happened? Just then, the lights of a vehicle pooled on the pavement and road a few yards away. Amelia stood up and stretched her neck round the edge of the curtain. She saw her daughter with her arms wrapped round the neck of the driver of the car, then she got out and waved as he drove past the house and on down the road. Emily turned and walked rather unsteadily towards their house then climbed over the wall into the front garden. Her mother shrank back against the wall behind the curtain as Emily began the short ascent onto the top of the bay window and from there in through her bedroom window. Amelia’s relief now took the form of deep anger at having been put through this agony by a snotty teenager, even if it was her own beautiful snotty teenager.

Amelia went upstairs and waited outside Emily’s door, working out how best to react. There were sounds of movement inside and then the door handle turned slowly and quietly. Nothing happened and the handle was tried again. Silence. Amelia unlocked the door which opened to reveal a pyjama’d girl with smudged make-up.

‘You’d better go to the bathroom Emily. I’d hate you to wet the bed.’ Emily sloped past her mother and into the bathroom. Amelia went into Emily’s bedroom and cleared a place on the bed to sit down and wait. Emily strung it out as long as she could in the hope that her mother would tire of the whole thing. It was never going to happen, so she went back to her bedroom avoiding looking at Amelia by messing about picking up clothes.

‘Would you like to tell me where you have been?’ began Amelia, realising straight away that she had phrased that badly.

‘Not really,’ Emily shrugged rudely.

‘Let me help you with what I already know, Emily. You are sixteen. You left the house without my permission or knowledge, to an unknown destination from which you returned after midnight on a school night, having clearly been drinking. You were picked up, presumably, and certainly dropped off by a man who is obviously a lot older than you. No, I haven’t finished! These are the facts. You put yourself in danger because no-one would have known where you were. You broke the law by under-age drinking, never mind staying out so late that you couldn’t possibly concentrate fully at school tomorrow. Those are the facts, the rest I don’t know. I don’t know where you went or who the man is, how old he is or what you have been doing. Have you any idea, Emily, how frightening that is for me?’ Emily stared at her petulantly.

‘You’ve actually been spying on me. How could you? That’s really sneaky.’

‘Sneaky?’ shouted Amelia. ‘You don’t think that climbing in and out of your bedroom window while pretending you were working on a school project is sneaky?’

‘You can’t blame me. You wouldn’t have let me go if I’d asked.’

‘Try me, Emily, try me. Tell me where you wanted to go and with whom and see what I’d have said.’

‘Oh there’s no point. Anyway, I’m tired and I want to go to bed. After all, I have got school tomorrow,’ she said curtly.

‘Emily, I said