Friday reading
Deb finds new lodgings and prepares to continue the search for her father
No prizes for guessing that I moved into the squat when Rose went back to Dublin. Before leaving she made one last faint attempt at persuading me to come ‘home’. I told her that even the sound of the word bore down on me like a weight, pressing the air out of my lungs.
Seeing the panic in my face, she touched my arm and said, It’s okay, Deb. I’m not going to drag you back kicking and screaming. I was just opening the door.
All right, all right, I nodded. I’m sorry, I just can’t do it. And now that I’m here I’m liking it. I feel strong enough to go on looking for this man, this person, who is supposed to be my father. I want to see him, talk to him, find out a bit about him. If he turns out to be a shit or a creep, at least then I’ll know I had a lucky escape. And if he turns out to be nice well that’d be a good thing wouldn’t it? I need to know his story too. Can’t you see that?
I do, Rose said slowly. I understand. Maybe the problem for me is that I hate my father.
Fair cop. He was mean to your mother. But at least you know him, who he is, what he’s like and you can see him, if you really want to.
Big effing If! The last time I saw him he told me to grow up and stop acting like a tomboy.
Rose’s face quivered when she said this and I felt bad for her. It took guts then to be as out as Rose was and is. Maybe you were better off without him in your life for the past few years, I said.
Yeah, I think I was. And so I don’t know what to wish for you – that you have the same feeling when you meet your dad or that he turns out to be kind and nice and interested.
I’m trying not to hope too much, I shrugged. Although of course I was hoping for someone who would show me something new about myself and where I should be going.
Mark told me to tell you that he may be able to help you.
He did? How come? I mean I thought you said he was an insurance broker, not a detective.
Yes he is. But he also has a lot of contacts. She half-winked.
I don’t get it.
She took my right hand in hers as if to shake it then tickled my palm with her middle finger.
I laughed awkwardly, feeling I had missed a punchline.
You don’t know about the secret handshake?
I shook my head. Nope.
Masons.
Oh. I still didn’t get the point but didn’t want to look stupid.
When Rose had explained the secret order and how its members help one another I began to wonder did that have something to do with Mark’s talk of getting the Mission shut down. Maybe the Masons didn’t like competition. By then I no longer cared what happened to the Mission. I felt that I was out of its reach at last. I gave Mark the few details I had forced out of Mam, my Da’s name, Gerry Lynch, and that he was last seen running a hardware shop in Huddersfield.
It’s not much to go on, Mark said, fingering the page where he scribbled the name. Give me your mother’s name too.
I shrank from that and swung in fear to Rose who nodded encouragement. You’re not to contact her, I said quickly.
Don’t worry, he said. I’ll make some discreet inquiries. I’m a master of discretion, as you see. He spread his hands.
It took me a minute to catch his meaning but then it hit me. He had a secret life and he managed to keep it secret.
When the wimmin in the squat agreed to let me join them Rose took me shopping. We scoured charity and second-hand shops for clothes, the kind you can wear to work, Rose said. Mark gave me some bedding and towels, delft and cutlery. We bought a hot water bottle and toiletries. The wimmin made a big nut roast for the night I arrived and we brought a fiasco of Valpolicella. (The one with the straw on it – handy candleholder when it’s empty!) Moyra helped me set up a corner with a mattress and a curtain and gave me another woolly blanket because she said it could get perishing up there in the winter.
Saying good bye to Rose was hard. We hugged tight and I cried again, thanking her for all she had done. When she was gone I curled up on the mattress in my nook, and tried to sleep. I sobbed for a while, thinking this must be what it’s like for kid who goes to boarding school when their parents drive away, leaving them to fend for themselves. My head was in a whirr, planning my new life or at least the next few weeks and months. First of all I needed to find work, to pay my way in the squat and save money before going on with my search. And I would wait to see if Mark came up with any information for me.
The wimmin ran a tight ship! You could say it was a bit like the Mission in that we were divided into two teams, one for shopping and cooking, the other for cleaning and going to the launderette (the worse job because we had to lug big bags of laundry onto the Tube and go a few stops then haul it up to the street, wait while it washed and then bring it back to the warehouse). We swapped around every week.
I soon learnt how to cook real food. To save money we went to a food market near closing time when the stallholders were selling off or even giving away the last of their stuff. We just cut away the bits that were really bad or slimy and mixed the rest into stews and soups. With lots of spices it tasted fine. Although it took me a while to get used to the new flavours and how to use them.
Unlike at the Mission, however, everyone went out during the day to their various jobs, as teachers, social workers, waitresses, librarians. Daphne found me a job in a workmen’s café a couple of Tube stops away. I worked early morning to late afternoon, serving big breakfasts and lunches. The chef called me ‘Irish’. I ignored him. Besides, most of the customers were Irish lads (Paddies, he called them) so I had solidarity. And it wasn’t long before I had a boyfriend, PJ from Nenagh.
As in pajamers? Asked Bev (the one who had passed me the joint the first night) when I told the girls about him.
No, as in Patrick James, I said.
Close enough, she laughed. But wozz’e like wifout ’em?
Without—?
His PJs, jammies, jim-jams – when ’e’s got ’is kit off.
Oh that. I don’t know. I blushed at my own embarrassment. Yet.
Well don’t forget to tell us, Luv. She poked me in the ribs.
I won’t, I tried to join the laughter.
The truth was me and PJ had only met a couple of times, at the pub, once we went to a film (Excalibur – which made PJ a little homesick) and one night he brought me to a céilí in Kilburn. That was the best laugh ever. PJ was a good dancer – he had me spinning around right off my feet. He couldn’t believe I’d never been to a céilí before.
We were gagging to get our kit off after that but there wasn’t anywhere to go except a patch of waste ground and as it was raining we gave that up. He was living in a digs, and men weren’t allowed in the squat. It was a Wimmin’s Room, for the wimmin, by the wimmin, of the wimmin and in the wimmin – according to the fake parchment scroll Daphne had stuck on the door. PJ said Daphne sounded a bit like his landlady, Mrs. Maloney.
As always I’d love to read your responses to Deb’s latest adventures.