(Loosely based on Andersen’s Hansel & Grettel)
Once upon a fairly recent time there dwelt in one of the gloomier districts of Leeds a family of four who knew little of the finer things in life. Their lives consisted of a daily battle with the twin demons; struggle and want. The husband and wife tried to work, but with the arrival of a son and then a daughter, they gave up what they felt to be an unequal fight. No one knew whether their situation was one that betrayed a lack of application or a dearth of opportunity. Few, it would seem, cared. The boy was called Kirk and the girl was called Ruby.
By trade the father was a labourer, although through a combination of ill luck and regular run ins with the genie of the bottle, he rarely engaged in his professional calling. His wife took her wedding vows seriously and shared the trials of their marital bed, often lying with him long after the children should have gone to school. In times of plenty the cupboard was rarely full and in times of hardship the children barely had a crust to share between them.
One night, as the husband tossed and turned in his bed with that needful worry that flows from a full stomach and fire in the veins, he turned to his wife and prodded her until she awoke. The man sighed and said to his wife, “What the bloody hell are we going to do? There’s never any money left since we had those two brats. I thought we’d do well on benefits, but it barely does more than pay for you and me. With the price of fags and all, there’s never enough to buy a round.”
As his wife surfaced from beneath the rolling waves of slumber she groaned and mumbled, feeling for a tumbler full of bathroom tap water that should have been on her bedside table. She cursed when she remembered that she had smashed the glass earlier that night when she and her husband romped home from the pub.
“I’ll tell you what we’ll do”, she said irritably. “We’ll take them both down to the city centre tomorrow when we go to collect the unemployment. We’ll park them on one of the train station benches with a bottle of fizz and then we’ll tell the little monsters we’ll be back later to collect them. The cops will pick them up, unless one of those perverts gets to them first. They haven’t got a clue where we live, so that’ll be that”.
The husband looked at his wife in astonishment. He was shocked by the grim and determined tone of her voice. He considered the situation for a moment or two and shrugged his shoulders.
“Darling...I like it. Only we’d best make sure there’s nothing about them that’ll lead the fuzz or the social back here. And we ought to warn them about strangers”.
“What?” she asked incredulously.
“Well, I don’t want little Ruby being ripped apart by any of those back street beasts”.
“Sod you.” said his wife. “It’s that or thieving again and my money’s on leaving them. I can’t be doing with the hassle. It’s simple. We can’t afford bloody kids and it’s not as though we get anything back for all our hard work. No, we’ll leave them”.
The argument didn’t last long. The husband’s heart wasn’t really in it and he knew he would get no peace if he kept up his pretence of worry for the little girl’s soul. They rolled over, lay their heads on their pillows and both were snoring loudly within a minute.
The sound of their parents stirring woke the two children. They had learned through hard experience to sleep lightly, for they never knew when a harsh word or the back of a hand might come their way. As quietly as mice, they sat up in their beds and listened to every word their mother and father exchanged. Ruby was dreadfully upset by the despicable fate her mother had chosen for her and she sobbed quietly into her bedclothes.
“Oh, Kirk, what are we going to do?” she whispered underneath the low rumble of nasal thunder that was brewing in the next room.
“Don’t worry”, said Kirk, putting a reassuring hand on hers. “I’ll work something out. You’re my little sister and I won’t let anything happen to you, I promise”.
Once the pattern of snoring and grinding teeth settled down in the next room, Kirk slipped out of the bed he shared with his little sister, pulled on a threadbare dressing gown two sizes too small for his arms, and crept downstairs. He sneaked into the living room, which was lit by brilliant white moonlight streaming in from a night bright sky through windows that had never seen any curtains. Then he went fishing through the liberally disheveled contents of his parents’ lives, contents that lived in disarray on a low coffee table propped up by three wooden legs and some house bricks. He carefully avoided the half finished cartons of Chow Mein. He took extra care whenever his small hands brushed one of the empty cans of strong lager that his mother drank in the afternoons before going down the pub. And there, sitting under a spilled dollop of chicken jalfreezi was the object he was looking for, his parent’s council rent book. He slipped it underneath his pyjama jacket and crept back up to bed.
Ruby was waiting for him when he got back upstairs and she gave him a huge hug when he said to her, “Don’t worry, sis, it’s all taken care of”.
Ruby really wasn’t sure how he knew that everything would be all right. She thought about the two of them, small, alone and lost in the big city amongst all of those huge, hurrying adults and she felt terribly afraid. Somehow, though, Kirk’s tone of voice reassured her that they would get through it all and she fell asleep in his arms with just the faintest trace of a smile on her lips.
The children’s mother woke them shortly after nine the next morning, which was a surprisingly early hour for any of them to stir on a school day.
“Come on you lazy buggers”, she yelled, “It’s money day down at the social, so get yourselves moving. You’re coming with us today”.
The family made its usual peremptory visit to the world of personal hygiene, got dressed in whatever reasonably clean clothes came to hand and set out on the number seventy-eight bus that would, with a couple of changes, take them to the black heart of the city. There was little or no conversation on the bus. The two children sat remarkably quietly on the bench seat in front of their parents, holding hands as they watched the wet and glistening streets drift by outside their window. Their mother and father were equally quiet. They were suffering from the combined effects of thumping heads, dehydration and the bile churning nerves that accompany deeds such as the one they proposed to execute that morning.
On the final leg of their bus journey, the husband turned to his wife and whispered conspiratorially, “It’s not natural. They’re never this well behaved. It’s like they know something”.
“Don’t be bloody pathetic”, replied his sour faced wife, as she absentmindedly picked at her fingernails with a broken match head.
She hated public transport now that the buggers in the government, lead by that cigar chomping public school twat, had introduced all these smoking bans. It was at least forty minutes since her last fag and she was starting to get really scratchy.
“It’s a bloody good job they’re behaving themselves. I’m not in the mood for any shit this morning and they’ll get it if they play up. Anyway, what does it matter? It’ll all be over soon enough and we’ll be off, free and easy, like magpies”.
All the way to the great vaulted station that stood at the heart of the city like a huge steel-roofed cathedral, Kirk kept one hand tightly closed around little Ruby’s cold and trembling fingers, while with the other hand in his coat pocket he kept a tight grip on his parent’s rent book. If his parents had bothered to look into his small and grimy face they would have been chilled to the bone to see the cold and steely determination burning behind his bright blue eyes.
When they arrived at the station the family went straight through to the main concourse and found a vacant wooden bench that wasn't covered in too many pigeon droppings. The children were made to sit at one end of the bench with their father while the mother went off to buy a couple of bottles of fizzy pop and a packet of jammy biscuits.
Once she had unscrewed Ruby's bottle top and given the biscuits to Kirk, she turned to the father and said, "Okay, time to go and sign on". Then she spoke to her children in what she hoped was a reassuring and loving voice. "Oi, Kirk, look after your sister. We'll be gone for an hour, at least, so don't move off this bench. Remember, if the boys in blue start asking questions, your mum's just nipped off to the loo. I don't want no trouble, so keep yourselves to yourselves ‘til we get back".
With that both she and her husband hurried out of the station and headed towards the bus stop. Once they thought they were safely out of their children's line of sight, they lit much-needed cigarettes, took the smoke down into their lungs in huge gulps and started to laugh and cough all at the same time. In the station, under a huge steel sky, the two children sat quietly amid the hustle and bustle of bags and feet that rumbled by oblivious to their plight.
Kirk and Ruby remained sitting quietly on the bench for an hour. No one pestered them or asked them if they were alright. At precisely one minute past the hour, when he was sure the coast was clear, an older gentleman in a well-cut suit came and sat on the bench. He asked them if they were waiting for someone, but both of the children stuck fast to their promise not to talk to strangers. The older man asked them if they wanted something to eat and even suggested to them that he might take them to a nice little cafe just around the corner, but still they sat in mute silence. This relatively civilized introduction to importuning went on for a few minutes more until interrupted by the approach of two railway policemen. The older gent's self preservation skills flickered into life as soon as he saw the approaching policemen, and by the time the boys in blue reached the two abandoned children the older gentleman was nowhere to be seen.
"What have we got here, then", said one of the policemen as his colleague made enquiries over his two-way radio. "Two little runaways, or are we just out for day's sightseeing?"
He tried to sound as light and as jovial as he could but his eyes spoke a different language, revealing a mix of concern and tiredness in the face of so many disappointments. The children were taken away and given a hot drink in the office at the back of the station. There followed a succession of visitors, all of whom took the utmost trouble to check on the children’s health and on their background. Kirk and Ruby refused to tell anyone anything other than that they were lost. Eventually, armed with the address printed in the rent book, the police handed the kids over to a lady from social services and filed their report, a copy of which was sent to the local police station where Kirk and Ruby lived.
There was an awful scene back at the family home when Kirk and Ruby arrived in the back of a police car. Their mother, who hadn’t yet hit the cans, made a real fuss of them and told the assembled figures of authority that they were always running away and she was so relieved they had been found. She explained that her children had left for school as normal that morning and she had no idea they were playing truant in the big city.
“I mean, its fucking unbelievable, isn’t it?” she said, making cow eyes at one of the police constables. “Anyway, thanks for bringing them back. I’ll make sure my husband gives the two of them a right bloody bollocking when he gets back from work!”
"Back from the pub, you mean", muttered Kirk.
The lady from social services made a note to put the children on her ‘At Risk’ register and arranged with the mother to call back in a few days to make sure everything was alright. The policeman and policewoman who had driven the children home made a note to mark the house down as a potential source of trouble.
That evening, with a four pack empty on the already crowded coffee table, their mother subjected both of the children to another verbal assault while their father sat slumped in an alcoholic stupor in front of the television.
"You see what you do to us, do you? Do you? Your father was so sick with worry he's gone and made himself ill. After all we've done for you. After all the love we give you is this all we're ever going to get back? We'd all be better off if they'd taken you to a home. Now, you can piss off upstairs and go to bed without any tea."
For about a week things returned to a state resembling normality. The children’s parents rose late into the morning, unless it was benefits day, and hit the pubs at lunchtime. They sat watching mindless garbage on the television late into the night while they consumed more alcohol and smoked so many cigarettes that they regularly exploded in apoplectic fits of coughing. The kids did the best they could to keep themselves to themselves and to fill their half starved bellies with scraps and leftovers from take aways and half finished fry-ups.
Then late into the small hours of another disturbed night Kirk woke Ruby up and told her to be very quiet. Their parents were talking about them again in the next room. The children heard their mother speaking first.
"It's all shit again. There's no money until next Wednesday unless you get off your fat arse and do some robbing or begging or something. I've got half a loaf downstairs and two fags left. We've got to get rid of those bloody millstones. You listening?"
"Yeah, yeah, listening", mumbled her husband as the wardrobe swayed gently in and out of focus.
"I read in the papers about these adoption agencies. All legal, well almost. They pay you for your kids then spirit them away to some poor sod that's got more money than sense. Two grand, it said".
"How much?” slurred her husband.
"Two bloody grand. You know a few people, you know, the ones who buy car stereos off you and that. They must be able to point you in someone's direction."
The husband felt something stir inside him, something that told him this was wrong, but he buried it again quickly. He was already complicit in the conspiracy and once committed he knew there would be no turning his wife from her course. And there was the matter of two grand to consider.
Kirk and Ruby listened in horror as they heard the conversation continue in the next room. Their father was going to start making discreet enquiries the very next day, while their mother was going to invest some of her meagre weekly allowance from the government in new secondhand clothes to make sure the kids were presentable.
"But I don't want to go and live anywhere else", whimpered Ruby. "This is our home".
"Shhh, don't cry, Ruby, don't cry. We're not leaving here. I'm going to think up a plan. Shhh, don’t worry, I won't ever leave you alone". Kirk cuddled his little sister in his arms once again and rocked her gently until she drifted off into the troubled land of her dreams.
Over the next few days the children lived in a world of hushed whispers and furtive glances. While their parents made their plans for an unencumbered future and discussed the possibilities that a large amount of ready cash might bring, Kirk and Ruby spent their time in their bedroom playing with Ruby's toy kitchen set.
Their mother, having bought them some nearly new trainers and a couple of faded tee shirts each, spent the rest of her money on fags and booze. It being cold and grey outside, there was little incentive for their father to go out and find work or to relieve unsuspecting motorists of their mobile entertainment systems, and there was little food in the house and certainly no warmth. It was no surprise when the day came for the visit of the social worker that the children were left alone in the house to greet her.
When the doorbell rang Kirk answered the door and asked the lady to come in. He told the lady that his mother had just popped next door to borrow some sugar so that she could make a cup of tea and she wouldn't be long.
"So, how are you both?" asked the social worker. "No more little trips out and about, I trust".
"No, miss, we've been very good all week", Ruby called out from the kitchen.
Kirk tried to show the lady into the living room, but she said she preferred to do these things in the kitchen.
"It's usually makes people feel more relaxed if we sit around the kitchen table", she said.
Kirk followed her into the kitchen, smiling at Ruby from behind the lady's back.
The lady from social services let out a small shriek as she entered the kitchen. There, in broad daylight, Ruby was trying to light a really old and very large gas oven with a lighter so that she could boil the kettle. The lady rushed over and snatched the lighter out of Ruby's hand and turned off the gas. Then she opened the kitchen window and started to wave a dish cloth in the air saying, "Goodness me, what a terrible pong. Now, little one, you can't boil a kettle in the oven, can you".
"But I can't reach the cooker bit", said Ruby, "I'm only small".
"Here, let me", said the lady and she filled the kettle full of water, set it down on the hob and lit the burner.
"Anyway, the oven won't work. That's why it smells of gas", said Kirk.
"Really", said the lady, "let me have a look"
She opened the oven door and bent down so that she could poke her head inside. As she squatted down awkwardly with her head in the oven, Kirk and Ruby moved silently around behind her. They picked up the kitchen broom and without saying a word they hit the lady really hard on the bottom so that she rolled headfirst right into the oven. Kirk slammed the door shut, turned the gas up full and hit the button that fired up the automatic pilot light.
Having raided the lady’s purse to get enough money to buy the necessary ingredients, the children spent the rest of the afternoon working out how to make pastry by reading their mother's solitary and previously pristine cookbook. By tea time every work surface, every utensil, the floor and every appliance was covered in blobs of congealed dough and snowstorms of spilled flour. The children resembled pygmy zombies from a second rate horror flick, but there in the middle of the kitchen table was a beautiful meat pie steaming away in readiness for the return of their inebriated parents.
Some time later mother and father rolled through the door in the middle of a heated argument about the pros and cons of holidays in the sun and gambling trips to Las Vegas. It appeared that mother was winning and the bright lights of the Nevada desert would soon be graced by two new high rollers with money to burn. The argument ceased abruptly when the adults saw the mess covering every inch of the kitchen and every last hair on their children’s' heads.
"What the bloody..." stuttered father.
"What the hell have you done now?" screamed mother.
She exploded into the kitchen in a blind rage and laid about her with extreme prejudice. Cups and plates went spinning through the air to smash on the floor and against the walls. The huge pie dish slid all the way down the table and spilled its contents all over poor little Ruby, who wailed and screeched and sobbed. Father stood in the hallway open mouthed as his wife raved and ranted at the kids and chased them up and down the stairs until she came to a sudden, spluttering, coughing halt.
While Kirk wiped the pie juices off Ruby’s clothes with the bedspread, the frightened little girl called out to her mother from behind the bedroom door.
"Mummy...mummy...we only...mummy, we got some food and we wanted to make you and daddy a lovely pie for your tea. We thought..."
"You thought what exactly?” screamed their mother from the living room. "You thought you'd make my life hell is what you thought. What the blazes will the social lady think tomorrow when she comes back and finds the place looking like a bomb's hit it."
The children barricaded themselves in their bedroom, but their parents made no attempts to break in. Instead they went back to the pub, via a local car park, and didn't come home until the wee small hours.
Kirk and Ruby didn't sleep a wink that night. Instead, they talked and they talked until they made sense of the world. They carefully hid the social lady's handbag in their wardrobe, safe in the knowledge that their mother would never find it in there. It took three attempts to get the counting right, but they were now the proud owners of two credit cards, a cheque book and quite a lot of ready cash.
While their parents slept on peacefully, the children crept downstairs and as the dawn sky uncurled from its slumbers they cleaned every last inch of the kitchen. Kirk wrapped a cloth around the broom and scrubbed the floors and the walls, while little Ruby stood on a kitchen chair and washed all of the pots. Together they scoured the cooker and when it was all done Kirk ran down to the corner shop with some of their money to buy some more ingredients and a fresh packet of cigarettes for their mother.
Towards lunchtime father emerged from his pit and stumbled down to the kitchen. He had the worst hangover in the whole wide world and he felt physically sick as he remembered the state of chaos that he and his wife had left behind them the previous evening, but when he opened the kitchen door he was blinded by the dazzle from the work tops and the gleaming surfaces of the kitchen appliances. Kirk seized the moment and gave him a nudge in the back. In his confused state the man lurched forward in surprise, still dazzled by the glittering kitchen, and tripped over the open oven door. His upper body and head fell across the hob, where Ruby was waiting with the frying pan. The rest was simple, if hard, work.
By the time that their mother surfaced to greet the day, there was a nice stew bubbling away on a slow heat in the kitchen. She couldn’t remember a thing about the end of the evening and assumed that her bloke had buggered off somewhere. The kids said they had already eaten but there was plenty left if she wanted some proper food for a change. Their mother looked at them. She had no idea why they were suddenly starting to be useful, but with a fresh packet of fags laying open on the kitchen table, with the kitchen cleaned, with something smelling lovely bubbling away on the cooker and with a head that was hosting a motorway maintenance crew, she didn't feel inclined to argue. Kirk laid the table and Ruby dished up a huge plate of fresh, fatty stew. Their mother sat at the kitchen table and accepted with a shrug the food that was being served to her by her smiling offspring.
"He'll be back", she said to herself as she tucked into the first plate of proper home cooked food she'd had in a long, long while.
And for all that anyone knows this happy family still lives in one of the gloomier districts of Leeds. Social services raised the alarm when one of their staff went missing, but no one considered it possible that two small children might have something to say on the matter. With father gone, Kirk and Ruby grew up to be fit and healthy young people, living in the company of a number of long-lost uncles who visited the family home all too briefly, and never, ever seemed to be around on the day that Kirk and Ruby made stew for their mother.