NUMBER NINE

`

NUMBER NINE.

They know me in the
cafe. I've sat at the same seat for the past six months
overlooking the same crossroads.

"
Watching.

Waiting and
watching."

I feel I know everybody in the street, from the old lady in
number 1 to the newly-weds in number 17. From the pink curtains
of number 2, to the gold velvets of number 18. Just eighteen
house in all. Eighteen stories waiting to be told to an audience
that doesn't care and hasn't the time to listen. Yet one of the
stories, one of the house's will alter my life for forever. I
know that the minute I make my decision I'll never be the same
again; my life will have changed. For better or for worse; I
know not. Other people; people close to me will alter, change. I
don't know if I have that right. After all I'm not god. Only God
has the right to create, to undo, to destroy and rebuild lives.

"I'm not
God."

The coffee is black and strong. In fact it's one of the things
that attracted me to the cafe. That and the view. How many
lonely people like I, are sitting in cafe windows staring out
into the street; pondering the future. Balancing the books,
weighing the odds. The fore's and the against.

"Involved; why do I get
involved".

That's a laugh. Involved. The whole of my life has been one
giant involvement. Just ask my friends, they'll tell you. If
you're not sure what to do, involve Claire. Just like my name's
sake in the women's magazines. Everybody's problem Aunt.
Everybody's problems except mine. When it comes to them I'm a
total failure. It's not my fault really. I just listen. Not many
people do that today. Listen. The world's too busy to stop and
listen. Lend a sympathetic ear my mother used to say.

"MOTHER".

Where are you when I need you now? You were always there for me
when I was a little girl.

"Whenever I fell and cut myself.

Whenever the nightmares came; you were
always there for me.

Now I'm alone. Tired and afraid.

Afraid of the truth. Afraid to look inside
myself and find the real me."

Instead I just sit in the cafe window staring out into the
street wondering. Wondering and afraid.

Fear comes in many forms. Fear of the dark. Fear of open spaces.
Fear of animals. The greatest fear of all is the fear of
yourself. To be afraid to look inward at yourself and your life.
To be afraid of seeing yourself not as others see you, but as
you really are.

As a child I could never cross the street in the dark,
especially near that house. The witch's house. She wasn't a
witch really, I realise that now; it's just when you're a child
you see the world through a child's eyes. The trouble is that
when you're older even though your eyes are older; the child's
fear remains. She was hunchbacked, stooped forward in her walk.
All the children in the street had been to the Ritz cinema to
see Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.. One of us, I can't
remember who had pointed out, that with her black winter coat
pulled tightly around her and her wicker shopping basket she
looked like the witch in the film. From then on she became the
witch in our minds; even now after all these years I still call
her the witch. Like my mother before me I frightened my children
by promising to give them to the witch unless they behaved their
selves.

"MY
CHILDREN"

It's strange how you still think of them as your children after
all this time. They've grown up now, married and moved away with
children of their own to frighten. It was only the other week
when I went around to baby-sit that I heard Jane telling Mark
that if he didn't behave himself she'd send for the witch.

Of course the witch is dead now; a long time ago. Her back had
become so bent that her face almost touched the floor. She was
nearly sixty when they decided to operate. I went to see her in
hospital once, just once. It was so sad. That poor frail body
lying there recovering from the operation. She died the next
day. Her lungs couldn't cope after all those years bent double;
the strain was too great for them. I was surprised how many
people turned up at the funeral. Familiar faces from my
childhood; now older, greyer and changed. I remember thinking to
myself "Do I look as old and as tired as that to them". Pat was
there, we hadn't seen each other for thirty years; I was
surprised she even knew about the funeral. Being together
brought it all back.

GIRLIES.

Girlies, that's what she called us the witch. As I left the
hospital bed she said "Good-bye Girlies, I don't suppose I'll
see you again"

Pat and I played on the same doorstep from the age of two. We
lived in each other's houses, we were like sisters; closer in
fact because besides loving each other we liked each other. When
we were about eight the witch caught us. At the bottom of her
garden was a crab apple tree that overhung the wall into the
lane. Crab apples are the bitterest of all to eat; but to the
children of our street they were food from the gods.

We'd take our mothers sweeping brushes around the back and down
the lane to knock apples off the branches with them. Being
little we could only reach the lower branches which soon became
empty. We needed to gain height and reach the higher branches.
The corner shop always had vegetable delivered in wooden boxes;
which, when emptied were stored in the lane. These we borrowed,
stole really. They became our stepladder to heaven. I forget
just how many boxes we took; but before we knew it, not only
could we reach the apples on the higher branches, we were
sitting on the garden wall. That's when we saw them.

STRAWBERRIES

A sea of strawberries covered the whole of her backyard, we'd
never seen anything like it before and we wanted them. Pat slid
off the wall and into the witch's garden, within seconds I
followed her. You know that feeling you get when you fall down
into a puddle of mud, that slow realisation of a damp, gooey
substance seeping through the knees of your jeans. Well that's
what it was like. Except, there was the most glorious scent of
freshly squashed strawberries. We leapt on them like a pack of
wild pigs guzzling theirselves on freshly dug truffles. We were
so engrossed in devouring our heavenly fruit that we didn't
notice the witch's arrival. We did notice and feel he effect of
her sweeping brush as she brought it across our backsides. With
a howl of surprise and pain we leapt to our feet. Rich, red
strawberry juice's ran out of our mouths and down our chins.
Guilty, with no defence. The witch frog-marched us back to our
homes and parents. Lucky for me Dad was at work; so I only faced
my mother's wrath. That night I was tucked up in bed earlier
than usual; instead of Dad's goodnight kiss and bedtime story, I
was told off good and proper. Although minutes later I heard
them both laughing downstairs; it wasn't till years later with
children of my own, that I understood the laughter.

I grew up with laughter ringing in my ears. My dad loved the
radio; especially every Sunday lunch-time with a whole hour of
comedy on the Light Programme, as it was called then. There was
no Radio One or Two. What we would have given for a real music
station; the two of us, Pat and I were pop music mad, Billy
Fury, Tommy Steele and Elvis. We were two hooked girls who in
the summer of '58 went on holiday to Butlins.

The booking office was on the main road, into town. I knew it
was only the front room of somebody's house, but with its red
glowing sign which read BUTLINS it promised two fifteen old
girls a stairway to heaven. After all everybody knew that in
Butlins you could dance to rock 'n' roll and ride the Waltzer
all night. Every Friday night we'd go to the agent in Dad's old
Cowley. Pat's dad was a rep' for the sweet factory down the
road, so he had a Vauxhall Victor Estate. It was huge just like
those American cars we'd seen in the pictures; we used to
imagine that we were Hollywood stars riding to our latest film
Premiere

Even now, I can still feel the glow of that red neon sign. Dad
paid weekly for our holiday; in advance. He'd have nothing on
the knock, he was proud you see. His own upbringing and
childhood had been hard during the thirties, always on the move,
always one step ahead of the baliff. Money was important to dad.
He saved for everything and paid cash in hand; I supposed he
couldn't bare the sound of the talisman's knock on pay day. So
it was that Bank Holiday we were all packed into the car like
sardines jammed between suitcases. All the way down the motorway
we went with the wind whipping through the tarpaulin cover over
the suitcases tied to the roof rack.

Whispering

Calling.

To
Butlins.

To my
destiny.

My fate
sealed forever.

I'm still not sure who dared who, but Pat and I chatted up the
two teddy boys working the waltzer. Not that they needed much
chatting up; as they'd been eyeing us up for the past week.

We'd two days left. Two days too loose our sanity. Too loose our
respectability. Today being pregnant before marriage is nothing
to be ashamed of, but then. Then the world was older.

Virtue was
God

Girls like
us were scum.

Sluts.

Spoken of in
whispers.

Spat at.

It broke my dad's heart when I told him three months later.
Three months growing inside me. Becoming part of me. Me; I had
created this unborn child inside me. Unborn waiting to launch
itself into the world. Unborn not knowing what lay there waiting
outside the warmth of it's mother's womb.

MOTHER.

I was the egg; the chalice that held it's life cacombed within a
wall of safety, of warmth and love. Love! My love waiting to be
given; given with joy. Given because I loved that unborn child
nestling inside me. But in that time, in those days; only shame
awaited a child born out of wedlock. Born of lust; not the love
of man and wife. Born instead of ignorance believing that you
can't get pregnant the first time, when you lose your virginity.
When you become a woman of the world you put away your childish
things. No more playing with dolls; for unto me a child was to
be born.

Great Aunt Mary lived in the highlands of Scotland and it was
there I was sent to wait until my time had come and I would give
birth to the child I carried inside, waiting. I wish I could
remember more of the birth; more than the pain, more than the
cold winds that blew across the highlands in early spring.
Instead I remember nothing. Except for a feeling of dread, of
pity for the child I had brought into the world and held for a
just a few short minutes. They were kind people - so I've been
told since. Kind people. They loved her as if she was their very
own. A love I could not give her. A few short minutes to hold
her, to tell her how much I loved her and how sorry I was not to
be able to see her grow with each passing day. Not to do all the
things a real mother should do for her.

" A few short
minutes to say sorry.

A lifetime to cry
quietly alone at night.

A lifetime of
wondering and regret ".

The rain is still running down the cafe window like a mother's
tears as I sit here waiting, watching. Asking have I the right
to knock that door. To knock and enter into a life. A life that
I conceived, that I gave birth too. That I gave away.

The door-knocker feels cold in my hand; as cold as a highland
wind. Slowly, like a film in slow motion I see my hand raise and
fall twice. Then through the frosted glass like a figure in an
early morning mist I see her. Older, no longer a new born baby
in my arms, but married with children of her own. Her hand
reaches the door catch and slowly; ever so slowly it begins to
open.

HAVE I
THE RIGHT.