In Search of Adam Read online

  Tibet…

  Victoria…

  Boston…

  Greenland…

  Spain…France…Scotland…America…London…

  Libya…Malta…Tibet…Victoria…Boston…

  Greenland.

  I placed a small heart-shaped sticker onto a country. Onto a place. Then. I moved it around each day. I plotted my mother’s travels. I watched her move through my book. I watched her move around the Atlas. I held the world. I held her world. I carried the world with me. Always. Always with me. My room was tidy. Always. I asked for and received so very little. Yet with the uncluttered space came calmness.

  I started to write poetry. I started to draw. I spent hours scribbling words. Or sketching my mother. In different countries. Outlines of her, with signs pointing to her next destination. My drawings weren’t very good. They weren’t good enough. I had no photographs of her. My father had taken them all. I tried to sketch her. In case I began to forget. But. I couldn’t capture her ocean eyes. I wasn’t good enough. My drawings were rubbish.

  But.

  Her eyes.

  They penetrated to my soul.

  At night.

  As I closed my eyes in the cold darkness of my room.

  My mother appeared and her eyes warmed me.

  I longed for my mother. My precious mother.

  As I closed my eyes.

  In my darkness.

  My mother.

  Behind her a signpost.

  Pointing.

  Four different directions.

  All leading to Adam.

  All searching for Adam.

  Her bag of secrets.

  Her bag of her. Still buried. Untouched. Waiting. Waiting for her return.

  In the year that followed my mother’s death, my father entertained many women. I would be sent to my room, as he played his records, smoked his cigarettes and drank from cold tin cans. Lionel Ritchie would float through my floorboards. He would dance around my room. I hated his voice. I hated my father’s music. I hated those women who giggled and groaned in my mother’s front room.

  The women came and went. Good riddance.

  But. But then one woman started coming around more and more and more. It was in December 1980. Just over eight months after my mother went away. I didn’t take much notice at first. Thought she’d be replaced. Like the others. My father liked to have a different woman to visit. A different woman every night. Then. Then she started coming back. More and more. She was in my mother’s house every day. Every night. Her voice was squeakier and her groans were louder than the rest. She called my father babe and she slept in my mother’s bed. She slept under my mother’s purple duvet. She slept on my mother’s sheets.

  She was introduced to me.

  She was called Rita. Jude pet, come and say hello te Miss North East 1981. Jude meet Reta. I didn’t understand my father’s words. He was smiling. He was excited. Rita’s hair was bleached white and she wore short skirts. Her thighs were really fat and dimply. She wore blue mascara. It clogged on her lashes. Her lips were ruby red and her skin was orange.

  She was a monster.

  She talked of sunbeds, fake tan and keep-fit videos. She was fat and ugly. She wasn’t like my mother.

  My father liked Rita. She kept her toothbrush in our bathroom and within the year after my mother’s death, Rita would walk around my mother’s house without any clothes on. Her breasts were saggy and her nipples were huge. She was hairy. Black hairy. She was scary. She wibble wobbled about. Her fat wibble wobbled about. She smoked cigarettes. Between twenty and twenty-four a day. She drank out of tin beer cans. One two three four five. Sometimes she would wake me in the night. She’d be giggling. Cackling. Squealing. Falling downstairs. Or. Coming into my room. I didn’t like her coming into my room. She banged the door. She cackled. She breathed her nasty smell into my room. Onto my things. I didn’t like Rita. She didn’t smell very nice and her eyes didn’t sparkle.

  I missed my mother. As I curled up in bed. I covered my ears so that I couldn’t hear them. I thought of my mother’s ocean eyes. I longed to be with her. Maybe. Maybe one morning I wouldn’t wake up. I’d just go away. I’d go off looking for an Adam too. If I was really lucky. If I wished and wished and wished. Then just maybe I’d wake up in my mother’s arms. She’d have come back for me. If my mother wrapped her thin arms around me. If she pulled me tightly to her. Then. Then I’d be safe and nothing else would matter.

  I could sleep. I looked forward to bed. It was the waking that destroyed me.

  1981

  Two years, six months and twenty-one days before I was born, my parents moved to New Lymouth. From a block of flats that were as high as a giant. My mother’s house was brand new. It was shiny. Spick and span. There were two new estates being built in New Lymouth. The housing estate that I was to live on and another one. They each had four parallel streets and formed a perfect square on either side of the main road.

  On this Coast Road, there were The Shops. Dewstep Butchers was also New Lymouth Post Office and displayed a smiling pig’s head in the window. New Lymouth Primary School. My primary school. Was a perfect E-shaped grey building with a flat roof. Mrs Hodgson (Number 2) told Rita that many cuckoos were put in nests on that roof. I didn’t understand. New Lymouth Library was on the Coast Road too. It was a rectangle. Like a shoe box. Inside the library there were eighty-seven Mills and Boon novels and three Roald Dahl books. There were signs everywhere. ‘Absolute silence at all times’. The grumpy librarian liked to read her Introducing Machine Knitting magazine. I read the first chapter of Danny Champion of the World twenty-seven times. I read all of Matilda and The Twits. Thirteen times each.

  Brian’s Newsagents stretched across 127-135 Coast Road. Inside the shop I heard gossip being tittled and tattled, as I stood looking at the jars of delicious sweets.

  Rhubarb and Custard. Chocolate Raisins. White Gems. Aniseed balls. Coconut Mushrooms. Brown Gems. Cola Cubes. Pear drops. Cherry Lips. Licorice Comfits. Toffee Bonbons. Jelly Beans. Edinburgh Rock. Pontefract Cakes. Pineapple Chunks. Sweet Peanuts. Scented Satins. Sherbet Pips. Midget Gems. Sweet Tobacco. Chocolate Peanuts. Toasted Teacakes. Rainbow Crystals. Sour Apples. Lemon Bonbons.

  Unable to decide. I wished that I had the courage to ask for one from every one of the twenty-five jars.

  On the other side of the Coast Road there were five really big houses. My class teacher Mrs Ellis and Mrs Hughes the local librarian lived in two of them. I didn’t know who else lived there. The children in those houses didn’t go to New Lymouth Primary School with me. The children in those houses didn’t play foxes and hounds around the estate with us local bairns. I walked down that road on my way to school. I peered into those large houses. I stopped walking to stare in. I tried to look past the fresh flowers in the window and I thought about all the nice smelling things that would live inside.

  The Coast Road ran a slope from New Lymouth down to the Lymouth seaside. The estate that I lived on was at the top of the hill. As the road continued up, it travelled through a number of similar estates and villages. Signs warned drivers when they were leaving one village and arriving in another. My father said that the nearer yee lived to the coast, then the richer yee were. We lived about a ten-minute walk from the coast. I’m not quite sure what that made us. All I know is that when my mother was alive, my father talked about one day living on the sea front. The houses there were enormous. Five stories tall. They went up and up and up to the sky. You could stand on the roof and your head would be in the clouds. I thought that really important people lived in those kinds of houses. People like the Queen could live there. A hacky lad in my class at school lived in one, with about twenty other children. His mother and father hadn’t wanted him. They, the twenty other children and the hacky lad, lived in their mansion that looked out over the beautiful Lymouth cove. They were very very lucky. They must have been very very rich. They must have been the richest people in England.

  Lymouth Bay was shaped
like a banana. There was a pier at each end and three caves lived in the cliff. Just over the left pier. Sat tall on a throne of rocks. There was a lighthouse. The most beautiful. The most elegant. A white lighthouse. Legend had it, that hundreds and thousands of small green men with orange hair lived in it. I never saw them. But. Paul Hodgson (Number 2) had seen one buying a quarter of toasted teacakes in Brian’s Newsagents.

  There were one hundred and twenty steps to climb down. One hundred and twenty steps before touching the grey sand. The sand was unhappy. It looked poorly sick all the time. A green handrail wove next to the steps. I never had the courage to touch it. The paint was covered in carved initials, decorated with lumps of hardened chewing gum and topped with seagull droppings. Yackety yack. Hundreds and thousands of lumps. Hacky yack yack. Paul Hodgson (Number 2) told me that his uncle caught an incurable disease from touching that handrail. He said that his uncle’s hand had dropped clean off. I wasn’t going to risk it.

  To me, the Coast Road seemed to go on for ever and ever and ever. I was told that it was a perfectly straight road, which travelled from the seafront and through four villages. You could catch a bus on the Coast Road. The road passed by my school, up the slope, close to my house and then on through village after village into lands that were unknown. Into lands that sounded magical and exciting. North Lymouth. Marsden. Hingleworth. Coastend. Mrs Hodgson (Number 2) told me that Coastend was famous for its cheapness of tricks. A magical place.

  I lived in Disraeli Avenue, in between Gladstone Street and Campbell-Bannerman Road. The neighbours all said it dizz- rah- el -lee (four chunks) Avenue. My mother’s house was a semi-detached on a street with 31 similar-looking houses. They looked identical but I knew that they weren’t. There were differences.

  Thirteen had red front doors. Seven had green front doors. Five had blue front doors. Seven had yellow front doors. The garages matched the front doors. Except for Number 17. Mr Lewis had a yellow front door and a green garage. I didn’t know why.

  green,

  red,

  red,

  yellow, green, red, red, yellow, yellow, green, red, red, red,

  green, blue, blue,

  red,

  blue,

  green,

  yellow, red, blue, blue, yellow, green, green, red, red, red,

  yellow, red, yellow.

  I wanted the numbers to fit better. I wanted the colours to fit better.

  It should have been sixteen red front doors. One half. Eight green doors. One quarter. Four blue doors. One eighth. Four yellow doors. One eighth. It was simple. The colours could look really nice. I had worked it all out.

  red,

  red,

  green,

  red,

  green,

  red,

  blue,

  blue

  green, red,

  yellow, red, green,

  red, yellow, red,

  red, green, red,

  green, red, blue, blue,

  green, red, yellow,

  red, green, red,

  yellow, red, red.

  I wasn’t happy with Mr Lewis (Number 17). His colours didn’t match. Maybe he didn’t realise. I wished that I had the courage to talk to him about it.

  There was a little wall in front of the garden. A dwarf wall. A dwarf wall for Snow White’s friends to play on. There was also a drive for my father’s Mini. There was a garden to the front and a slightly larger one to the back. The front lawn was just big enough to squeeze onto it a folded tartan picnic blanket. The soil surrounding the perfect square of grass was always packed with flowers. I watched the flowers. I noted them all in a little lined book. It was green and lived on my windowsill. Thorny rose bushes, coordinating colours and then down to a mixture of blossoms. Depending on the month.

  Gaillardia ‘Burgunder’.

  Shiny red flower, with light yellow centre.

  June-October. 30cm.

  Dahlia.

  Really orange and red.

  June-November. 60cm.

  Narcissum ‘Amergate.’

  Orange outside with a darker orange

  in the middle.

  March-April. 45cm.

  I liked to write things down. In the green notebook that I kept on my windowsill. Flowers. Colours. Number plates. Full names. Times. Routines. All of the first chapter of Danny Champion of the World. So I wouldn’t forget.

  Hold your palms out. Let me read your fortune.

  I see that you are destined for great things.

  Love…yes. A great love.

  Children…bend your little finger…

  Ah. I see a boy and a girl.

  It’s all here. Written within your palm.

  Aunty Maggie lived at Number 30 Disraeli Avenue and every Monday she looked after me. Her hallway walls were jam packed with black and white photographs of her darling husband Samuel. Who passed away in his prime. They were all the same photograph, but in different-sized frames. Aunty Maggie had never been blessed with children. I didn’t understand. Before my mother died, she liked Aunty Maggie. Aunty Maggie used to make boiled rice for my mother. She’d cook it to a fluffy perfection in one of my mother’s pans. Then. She’d walk along Disraeli Avenue. Number 30 to Number 9. Both hands clutching the black handle of the steaming pan. My mother used to pretend to my father that she had cooked it. My father used to like Aunty Maggie’s feathery white rice.

  When Aunty Maggie looked after me. I would sit in her pink room and she would open a cupboard brimming with untouched toys. They were shiny and perfect. Treasures. Aunty Maggie was always old. Always one hundred and ninety-five years old and her face was a web of wrinkles. I wanted to run my finger along the tracks. Round and round and round and round. I never did. Her breath was smelly. Mint. Toothpaste mint. And about her lingered a flowery scent. Sweet and lasting.

  In the pink room, where everything was pink, I was surrounded by smiling faces on photographs of school children who sometimes visited. I would play with her Bible Fuzzy Felts and sip at milky tea. I was on my best behaviour. As I left she would always give me a shiny fifty-pence piece. A whole shiny fifty pence. I was rich. Aunty Maggie spoke with a swish accent and her house was always tidy. Always. She used to watch me from her window and I knew that she longed to be my mother. I was glad that she was not my mother.

  On February 1 1981 I was seven years, two months and eight days old and it was within the first year after my mother’s death. Although Rita was nearly always in my mother’s house, I still visited the neighbours after school. Aunty Maggie was expecting me. As I entered her house, cigar smoke was swirling from her pink room.

  She had a guest.

  Eddie was her brother. He was fat. He wore brown and his big belly was forcing the buttons on his shirt to cling to the holes. His trousers stretched over his solid fat belly. Up and over. Up and over. He looked like a brown egg. With little chicken drumsticks coming out the bottom. He was perched on the edge of Aunty Maggie’s special chair. Not daring to touch her plump cushions. He wore a brown cardigan with a thin mint green tissue sticking out of the pocket. His hair was flat and looked like it had been drawn on with black felt tips. He was shiny. Very shiny. But he had a laugh like I imagined Father Christmas would. Ho Ho Ho. He boomed and he chuckled. I thought that I liked him. When I left he gave me a fifty-pence coin too. I was rich. Two fifty-pence coins. One hundred pennies. One whole pound. They asked if I would like to visit them again the next day. I knew that I would be given more coins and I had had a nice time. So Aunty Maggie said that she would have a word with Mr Johnson.

  On February 2 1981 I went to Aunty Maggie’s straight from school. Eddie was perched on the edge of the special flowery chair. Ready to swoop. I saw him watching me through the dirt-free windows. Edged with coordinated flowery drapes. He was ready. He opened the door. A fat cigar balanced in between his fingers. His shirt was a dirty cream. A hot wash of whites and browns. Tight shirt. Old shirt. His forehead glistened with tiny beads of sweat. A tiara of s
weat. His nose was a purple plum and as he spoke stale smoke escaped between his narrow lips. He smelled. Sweat. Sour smoke. Chip fat. Smelly smelly man.

  Eddie was happy to see me. I liked that he was happy to see me. He’d been looking forward to it all day. He smiled. He smiled and showed me his painted brown teeth. Aunty Maggie had had to nip out. She wouldn’t be long. He led me into the pink room. Where everything was still pink. He told me to take off my shoes. He liked my white socks. Aunty Maggie didn’t like shoes to be worn in her house. I didn’t know that. Eddie had shoes on. Brown shoes.

  He sat down on the pink chair. Daring to sink into the freshly plumped cushions. He patted his lap. He wanted me to sit on him. I stayed still.

  Again.

  He slapped his thighs with the palms of his fat hands. He was telling me where I must sit. I didn’t want to. I didn’t feel happy. I didn’t want to sit on Eddie’s lap. I wanted to sit on my own chair. He told me not to be a naughty girl. His face went all screwy. Angry lines sprouted on his forehead and around his eyes. Not happy anymore. Not smiling anymore.

  I sat on his lap.

  He rubbed his fat fingers over my cold thighs. Pushing the tips into my skin. He was strong. He kissed my neck. Kiss nibble kiss kiss. A nibbling eagle. His breath was getting faster and faster. His fat fingers were playing harder and harder. His hands moved up to the top of my thighs. Up up up. Gripping. Gripping. Gripping my thighs. Pulling me into him. He asked me if it felt nice. I didn’t say anything. Silence. Fear. Silence. He told me that it felt good. His angry voice asked me to like it. I said yes. I said that it was nice. It wasn’t. Really it wasn’t. I didn’t like it. I didn’t want to be on his lap. I didn’t want him to touch me. I didn’t know what to do. I was drowning. Drowning. Drowning.