CHAPTER 16
Jess woke to the sound of a cockerel crowing in a nearby farmyard. She had no idea what time it was, having no watch or any technical means of telling the time, but it was light, and it was June, so she guessed it must be around 5 a.m. Not that it mattered. The clock no longer ruled her life. No place to go, no place to be at any particular time. Nobody waiting for her and no chance of being late. For anything. That in itself was liberating, and for the first time in many years, she woke without fear, without anxiety, and without the stress that today she had to perform some task she hated and all for no conceivable purpose.
She had decided long ago she was chronophobic, a word she had invented and was quite proud of. Like most people, the clock had ruled her life and its tyranny had a debilitating effect on her. Being rid of it was a blessing she could not have imagined. But then her circumstances had been forced upon her. She may never have had the courage to get away and start again if there had been a realistic alternative.
Had she been thrown out onto the street and declared bankrupt, the council would have been forced to provide housing for her, and with benefits she might have been able to eke out an existence of sorts on the bottom rung of the social ladder. But the men in black coats would have found her and so it would continue until they had bled her dry again, or worse. Jess knew that there could be no compromise on that score, and the only conceivable choice was to disappear and start again. Reboot. As someone else.
However, she was not so naïve as to think she wouldn’t encounter a new set of challenges and problems along the way. Paradoxically, she had more money now than she had had for a long time. She had used the proceeds from the sale of her mother’s rings together with her father’s debit card to buy her tent and equipment and then, before she left town, emptied his account of what remained: the princely sum of £70. She had then bent and twisted his card and dropped it down a drain.
In the last fortnight she had burned through half of it buying food and water, so she knew how much longer it would last; and that assumed she had no need to buy anything else. The small gas canister she had brought with her to cook packets of soup and make tea would run out soon and she couldn’t afford to replace it. And stopping off in public lavatories to clean up as best she could was not a sustainable option.
In any event, for the time being at least she preferred to avoid civilisation, only venturing into villages and petrol stations to use their facilities and buy the cheapest food she could. She wanted to be alone for a while. She didn’t want to be hurt. She wanted to be safe. But she did have to eat and she knew she would have to sacrifice her independence at some point if that was going to happen. She had planned to get as far away from Wellingford as possible, to somewhere she could not possibly be identified, not possibly be found, and eventually get a job and a place to stay. Quite a simple plan, really.
The riverside path she had followed out of town soon petered out and she had been forced to go inland across fields, following footpaths where possible, but crossing open country where necessary if there was no obvious path, or even just because she liked the look of it. And if she had to make a choice between two paths, she took the more obscure route.
She had remembered from school the English teacher making them read The Road Not Taken by an American poet named Robert Frost and she had been fascinated by its premise that one should go one’s own way and not follow the crowd. Now she actively avoided the crowd, although one day soon, she knew she would have to re-engage with the human world, with society, a society that had done her no end of harm. But for the moment she was calm and confident in her own company. Her life had only just begun and this new independence was precious to her. It was pretty much all she had.
The cockerel crowed again so she unzipped her sleeping back and crawled out of the tent to greet the day. The field she had slept in looked bigger in the morning sun. She had picked a discreet corner away from the road or any gates, and as there was no farm in sight, felt confident that she would not be disturbed. She realised she was probably trespassing, but she meant no harm and would leave the place as she had found it.
She stood and stretched and looked around her. Her two-man pop-up tent (she had decided to go for the bigger one to accommodate both her and her rucksack) had been easy to erect. In fact, it was automatic in that as soon as it was released from its circular bag, it exploded into shape, and all that was needed were a few pins to fix the guide ropes. Having built her home, she had assembled the gas canister and microburner. There were no instructions, but it was fairly obvious that the burner screwed to the top of the gas canister and metal legs needed to be teased out to form a platform to hold her tin cup. It needed no matches either, igniting instantly with a press of the trigger, and for supper she usually boiled up some powdered soup from a sachet with bottled water.
Although erecting the tent could not have been simpler, getting it back into its bag on the first morning had proven to be a challenge almost beyond her wit. Despite examining the diagram and the reading the instructions, clearly written by an English-speaking Chinaman, she had been completely flummoxed. There was no doubt that she had to end up with a disc-shaped tent to fit a disc-shaped bag, but she could see no possible way that the dome-shaped frame could revert to being circular, despite her certain knowledge that what came out of a circular bag must somehow go back in.
It had taken her an hour, during which she almost despaired of ever succeeding, before she finally learnt the technique, and like a magician performing an impossible stunt, turned and twisted the frame until it conformed to the required shape and it could be stuffed into the bag before it could explode again.
This morning, as most mornings, she would boil up a cup of water on her portable micro-stove, using up more of her precious gas, and make a cup of tea with one of the three remaining tea bags she had brought from the house. She had the remains of a packet of cream crackers she had bought in a petrol station, and a couple of these plus the last banana from the same place would comprise a handsome breakfast. A robin chirped at her from its perch on top of her tent, no doubt hoping to share in the spoils, and she felt at one with the world. She felt at home, and share her modest meal she would.
Within an hour, she was packed up and ready to go. She gauged the direction from which she had come from the rising sun and turned her back to it. If she had any fears it was that she might lose her bearings and go round in a circle to end up where she started, so she had determined to guide herself by the position of the sun. She set off west. She would find a river again, if possible, and follow it. And she needed a shower. She had no idea how that was going to happen, but if she found a river then that would do. That would be her work for the day. She had an apple for lunch, a packet of soup for dinner, and two bottles of water replenished yesterday from a drinking fountain in the park, so she had supplies, meagre though they were. One day at a time, she thought.
***
She didn’t find a river but she did find a campsite, and late in the afternoon, tired and weary, she stood with her arms on the five-bar gate looking into a small field adjacent to a large cottage.
The site was a modest affair with half a dozen caravans, most of which looked like they had not moved in years. But the sign outside offered toilets and, most alluringly, a shower. She hadn’t washed properly since she had left Wellingford and that must have been at least ten days ago, and she felt intensely grubby. She would do anything for a shower, and she could take the opportunity to wash her dirty tee shirts and underwear at the same time.
She opened the gate and stepped into the field, and immediately a woman appeared from one of the caravans to greet her.
“Hello, love.” It was the first time she had engaged in conversation with anyone for a while other than exchanging the odd pleasantry with people out dog walking. But before she could say anything, the woman said, “Do you want a pitch?”
“Er, yes please, if that’s OK.”
“No worries, bags of room. That’ll be five pounds for a single tent for the night, then.” Jess was momentarily taken aback. She hadn’t thought for a minute that she would have to part with her precious cash, and five pounds would make a big dent in her reserves, but she chided herself for being stupid and fished around in her trouser pocket, pulled out a crumpled fiver and handed it to the woman, who in turn slipped it into her shirt pocket.
“Shower and toilets over there by the house,” she gestured, “and there’s drinking water from that standpipe over there. You can stick your tent opposite that other one.” She pointed to a large tent and gazebo in the corner of the field with an estate car parked alongside. “If you need anything else, just come up to the house and ring the bell.”
“Thanks,” said Jess, and wandered over to her pitch.
Within ten minutes she had set up, and sat outside her tent to enjoy the late afternoon sunshine.
The large tent opposite belonged to a middle-aged couple who were pottering about outside, the woman setting up table and chairs and the man assembling a portable gas stove, presumably in preparation for cooking the evening meal. Food, thought Jess. She didn’t have any and she was hungry, but it wasn’t the first time and she would manage. First things first. Get washed and do the laundry.
She rummaged in her rucksack and pulled out her towel, soap and shampoo, her dirty underwear and a clean tee shirt which she had saved for the occasion, and set off in search of the showers.
Twenty minutes later she was back in position, brushing her wet hair, clean, refreshed, skin tingling from the good scrub she had given it, and her clothes, laundered with shampoo, hanging over the tent to dry. She couldn’t afford the five pounds it had cost her, but as luxuries went it was right up there with the best of them. But she was hungry and wondered whether the campsite owner would sell her some bread, or anything for that matter.
She sat cross-legged in front of her tent as her hair dried in the gradually setting sun and looked across at her fellow campers. The man was hard at work in front of the stove frying something, and the sound and smell travelled across the twenty-five-metre gap between them to where Jess was sitting, pricking her senses and exacerbating her hunger. The torment was almost unbearable and she couldn’t shut out the aroma, which was slowly driving her insane with hunger. She lifted her knees and rested her head on her arms, turning away from the sight and sound of the man unwittingly taunting her, and closed her eyes, attempting to think of something else.
And then, after a minute, she sensed a movement which startled her, and she looked up in surprise to see the woman camper standing over her, smiling, hand outstretched, wrist adorned with a number of colourful bangles. The woman said nothing and nor did Jess, but the meaning was clear. Jess hesitated for a moment and reluctantly held out her hand. The woman pulled her up onto her feet and led her across to the gazebo opposite.
***
Jess lay in her sleeping bag as the sounds of the night filtered through the cool evening air. They had been a delightful couple and Jess felt humbled by their generosity, the kindness of strangers. She had tried to offer them payment for her dinner, the first proper meal she had had in ten days, but they would have none of it. It had been a long time since anyone had shown her such consideration and she only wished she could reciprocate in some way.
They had tried to quiz her on her background and situation, and she felt guilty about being unforthcoming, but there was no way she could explain, and she thought they might want to help her some more and she wasn’t ready for that yet. She had to find her own way. So she simply told them she was backpacking for a couple of weeks between jobs, and there was at least some semblance of truth in that.
She felt warm and replete but couldn’t sleep. Tomorrow she had to find some more food, and as she only had about twelve pounds and some loose change left, she knew that sooner rather than later she would need to find a way of earning something. She closed her eyes but sleep would not come, and inevitably her mind turned to the things she missed the most. And as always, one thing, one person, one little girl, who was always on her mind, night and day, and who was lost to her forever. She felt the damp forming in her eyes and bit her lip to stop it trembling. Leila. Where are you? I hope you’re safe and well, wherever you are. I love you. And then she was asleep and the sounds came back to her, as they did time and time again.
“Mummy, Mummy,” whispering quietly, secretly, not wanting anyone else to hear, just between them, a delicious secret to be shared. “Mummy, Mummy!” with more urgency but still a whisper. Trying to attract her attention. “Mummy, Mummy!” There’s someone at the door and then Jess is wiping her hands on a tea towel and standing in the hallway, Leila tugging at her pullover, Mo and four other men jabbering away in a strange language, then quiet, then Mo looking serious, “Go upstairs! Take Leila,” hesitation, Mo shouting and stepping forward menacingly, “Go now!” picking up Leila, who’s starting to cry, Mo looking angry, men watching her, running up the stairs, people at the back door too, coming into the kitchen, then she’s in the bedroom, slamming the door shut, turning the key, hugging, nursing and rocking Leila on the bed, chatting to her, kissing, smiling, consoling, but anxious and terrified, then quiet. Downstairs, murmuring, laughing, bottle, glasses, more strange language, more agitated, more laughing, getting louder, new voices, girls voices, men shouting and jeering, on and on, an hour, two hours, three hours, getting dark, one girl crying, men shouting, a slap, a squeal, another girl crying, wailing, men grunting, primeval … and then eventually doors slam and it’s quiet and she’s nervously opening the bedroom door, carrying Leila asleep to her room, putting her into bed and tucking her in and going downstairs very slowly and seeing the kitchen strewn with glasses and bottles and half-empty takeaway cartons and food smeared on the worktops and table and the sitting room, furniture all displaced, cans and bottles and sofa cushions on the floor and the stench of stale beer and sickly cheap perfume and the stains and patches on the sofa and the carpet, sticky, wet, repugnant …
Jess, wide-eyed and awake, sweating in her sleeping bag. She fumbled for the zip but it was tight and wouldn’t move, and as she twisted her body, the bag tightened around her, pinning her arms like a strait jacket. She wrestled herself free and sat up and reached for the zip at the front of the tent, pulled it up sharply and thrust her head outside in the cool night air, gasping for breath.
The stars were out, blinking at her in unison, and the full moon in the east shone brightly, bathing her face in a silvery glow. She breathed in the pure night air and felt grateful for the day ahead.