Ringing The Changes

It’s four o’clock and I’m just back from school.
“Are you hungry?” Mum asks.
“Course,” I say.
“What tickles your fancy for sandwiches, then?”
“What you talking all posh for, mum?”
“I’m not.”
“You are, you’re talking different.”
“We’ve got peanut butter, sandwich spread, chocolate spread... Pâté too, if you like.”
I pull a face. “Mum, what’s happening? You always give me jam,” I say.
At this, my mother waddles over to an unfamiliar contrivance, silencing it with a decisive click.
"You little cow," she hisses. "You did that on purpose."

The cassette recorder was meant to fool Moira. She and hubby Phil run a weekly club for wayward children in the social care system and there my bruises caught Moira's eye. I claimed I got them playing netball, an intentionally ropey lie even a social worker could see through. I also declared my intention to abscond. Concerning, given my history of disappearing acts. And so this evening Moira is whisking me away. Mum isn’t fussed, as long as she can cling onto the child benefit.

Next thing, I’m dropping clothes and toys in a carrier.
"Leave them toys, they're share toys!" mum bellows through the stair rods. I put the toys down.

Moira turns up at a quarter to seven, her blotched face and sensible bob a stark contrast to Mum's dishevelled glamour.
“If I had the kind of money they throw at your lot we could play happy families as well,” mum says.
“No we wouldn’t,” I chip in. “It would just mean more shoes under the bed and more booze down Bernie’s gob.”
Mum’s hand flinches. “Less of your lip, young lady.”
Bernie is my step-dad. He’s a saint compared to mum but he also sold my Christmas presents down the pub on Boxing Day so he could buy some booze. He has his limits.
"You think replacing her mum is the answer? You'd do better puttin' her in a home,” my mum suggests.
Moira smiles tightly. "I'm sure we'll manage, somehow."
“You can’t turn your back on her,” my mother advises.
Moira nods politely.
“She’ll run circles round you. Just you watch her.”
"Mrs. Chaffinch," Moira sighs, "I appreciate your concern."
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” mum replies tartly.
“Ow, you pinched me,” I say to my mum.
“See, this is what she does,” my mum says as I rub the arm mum pinched while Moira wasn’t looking.
Moira gives mum a searching look. “Don’t you think it’s best this way?” she asks.
"Wait till she starts bunking off school. Or bringing home God knows what. You'll be begging to send her back before the summer's out."
"We should be going,” Moira says.
“See yourself out.”
“Have you got your things?” Moria asks me.
“I left my bag upstairs.”
“Go and get it then. I’ll wait in the car.”
Moira turns to my mother. “One thing’s for sure. I won’t turn my back on her. Not like you have.”
As I leave the house I look back to see if mum is upset. She isn’t. She never is. I swing my bag down the garden path. The gate squeaks the same old squeak; though my world is changing. The close-knit council houses ricochet with the sound of French bulldog. I climb inside the weird car Moira calls ‘Daisy’ with its dashboard gear stick and sliding windows.
“Is that all you’ve got?” Moria asks when she sees my worldly chattels, stashed in a VG Stores carrier. “We’ll have to take you shopping.”
“I don’t have any money,” I say.
“That’s okay. I’ll get a grant from social services,” Moira replies.

"You alright?" Moira asks, later, at the traffic lights. I’m looking at a healthy hand offering me Rothmans on a billboard.
“Yeah,” I say and gaze down at my shoes wiggling side to side.
"Here we are," Moira says, pulling into a driveway. "Home sweet home."

We’re in a pleasant suburban street, evening sun spotlighting the four storey house Moira and Phil live in with their young son. Moira opens the heavy front door with a latch key and nudges me forward. The house doesn’t reek of fags, like mine. It has the gentle aroma of furniture polish and fresh laundry.

“Go on through,” Moira says. Inside the lounge Phil is sat with Daniel on his lap and a colouring book and crayons. I’ve never seen a snapshot of family harmony like this.

“Daniel, say hello to Rachel.” Phil says.
“Hello,” Daniel says shyly.
“Hello Daniel,” I say.
“How did it go?” Phil asks Moira quietly.
Moira chuckled dryly. "Oh, you know. Lots of…”
“Verbal?”
“Verbal encouragement about what to watch out for."
“Mm,” Phil nods. Moments later I’m sat on a worn but opulent sofa. Though neither Moira nor Phil smoke, ornamental china pots brim with cigarettes.
“Would you like a cup of tea, glass of orange squash or something?”
“No thank you,” I say, not wishing to put anyone out.
“Let me show you your room,” Moira says.

It's an attic arrangement. Out of the way but welcoming. There’s a floral bedspread, a large wardrobe and sturdy drawers. The wall is plain but there’s thick carpet. The main thing is, I’m glad to be away from mum.

A few days later I’m in the car with Moira, and her Red Setter ‘Barley’, having walked him in Minster. My mum had a dog once but he used to walk himself and then one day a boyfriend of hers killed the dog and that was horrible.

Once we’ve pulled into a parking space in Canterbury Moira turns to me and says, “I understand this change will be difficult for you, even though you begged for it to happen. So if things get tough don’t feel bad or ungrateful. Come and tell me.”
“Okay,” I say. And I mean it.

Moira opens the window, in case the sun “feels like coming out”, and leaves Barley with a bowl of water. Then we go to Marks and Sparks.
She’s been given a £200 grant, a princely sum in 1975. She buys me a beautiful mohair jumper for my new start at Ellington Girl’s school, my first pair of proper jeans and wedge shoes (‘wedgies’) from Clark’s, which are the in-thing. I’ve always worn hand-me-downs that don’t fit, now I can't help but smile all day.

As the days pass I realise Moira isn’t half-bad. She is a bit hyper about housework, she doesn’t wear makeup, she always listens to your side of the story. In her own way she is trying to save the world.

In the summer holidays, two foreign students arrive as lodgers. Iranian Ahmed, French Claire, both in their late teens. It’s a busy, chatty house. The students are a welcome distraction from Daniel, who’s a brat.

One day Moira sends me upstairs and asks me to put clean towels in the students’ rooms. I go into the airing cupboard, which has floor to ceiling shelves laid with flannels, towels and bed sheets all neatly folded, not just thrown in a heap.

I put the towel on Claire’s bed and then I notice the notes in her bedside cabinet fanned out like a deck of cards. So I pick one. Later at the bureau de change, 10 francs become 8 pounds.

A few days later I do the same thing. At dinner, Claire has a face like thunder but says nothing. She's completely off her food and asks to be excused. I do the washing up with Moira.

“Is something the matter with Claire?” I ask.
“She’s fine,” Moira explains, scooping Pedigree Chum into a dog bowl. “She lost some money and she’s a bit upset about it.”
“I saw her money in her room, but I didn’t touch it.”
“I know. It wouldn’t be much good to you, anyway. It’s French.”
Claire rushes into the kitchen. “I know she did it. She was the only person in my room.”
“No, look. I’m not having this. She always get the blame and it’s not happening under my watch,” Moira says.

Claire starts crying, which makes me feel bad. Now I just want to fade away. Ahmed lingers in the background grinning at the friction in the air. Only Barley really understands. He’s a rescue dog who now wants for nothing but is wolfing his food down as if might be snatched away at any moment.

As I shuffle off towards the lounge Ahmed asks, “Do you want to go the cinema?”

We go see Tommy. I’m looking round hoping my mother is not there. No word of a lie, she got my sisters to send letters in to a ‘mother of the year’ competition the cinema was holding and they won and got free cinema entrance for a year.

Ahmed’s hands start to wander just as Ann-Margret starts writhing in a sea of baked beans.
“If you don’t stop I’m going to head butt you and you’ll have to tell Moira why your nose is bleeding,” I say. I feel for Ahmed, he’s a long way from home, but I’m 10 years old and ‘rulez is rulez’ as Moira says, when she’s being matey mummy. The film is rubbish. At least as far as ten year old me is concerned.

Later, Phil says I’m welcome to play anything I like on his hi-fi. He has a Garrard record player I call ‘Gerald’ and there are two records I make Gerald play all the time. Breakfast in America by Supertramp and Changes by David Bowie, both expressing the feelings swirling inside me. A young person is so carbonated with hope and dreams. Shake us and we fizz up.

One day I’m home earlier than expected and I walk in on Phil having sex with another social worker, Trish, who wears make up.

“Oops, sorry,” I say and walk out. I try make everything seem normal by putting Crackerjack on the tele and eating Monster Munch loudly. Soon after that I go stay with Moira’s Dad.

Her Dad is lovely. And I thought Moria’s house was fancy; this is something else. Every day he takes me somewhere. Go-karting, horse riding, walking in the woods. I see where Moira got the idea of filling china pots with ciggies. Later on, Moira’s Dad smells cigarettes on me and buys me my own, Player’s No 6. Moira goes bezerk.

And back in Ramsgate things aren’t the same. One day I’m on my period. “I’ll give you your pocket money early,” Moira says. But up to then pads were something she covered. I’m a special case with a file full of misadventures that began with hospitalization at 2 years old. I’m well known to the police, various schools and care homes. Foster-carers get a large bonus for taking me on. Why the sudden pettiness?

Then one day Moira has a miscarriage. “I think you need to go to another family,” she says.

I cry buckets all night. I really thought Moira and Phil were different.

And so off I go to another house. In the hallway it’s like tunnel vision. Unsmiling foster kids peering. The air smelling of damp clothes. And a woman says, “We don’t have no runaways here. I keep the door locked and I keep the key.” But kids that run away don’t walk through doors, they climb through windows.

So then it’s just the familiar squeak of the garden gate. I’ve a feeling in my gut about seeing mum but I mega miss my sisters. Bernie answers the door, pissed.

“Hello trouble,” he says, cheerily.

Mum barely looks up from the TV screen. “Back again, are you?” she says, like I’ve been out for a pint of milk. But it’s all an act. I know how this plays out.

The atmosphere is a sickly truce. Mum chain smokes while I trade gossip about my adventure for my mother’s attention amidst the canned laughter of the television, the excited babble of my half-sisters and a neighbour’s barking dog.