Escape From Evil - Cathy Wilson [20]
It was pitch black outside. I probably should have been in bed long ago.
‘Where are we going?’
Mum smiled and her whole face lit up.
‘We’re going hunting!’
That was all the encouragement I needed. Our prey, however, didn’t quite live up to its billing. For the next half an hour we traipsed up and down the local roads, looking in bins, going through gardens, scrabbling around for anything that looked like it might burn. Finally, laden with boxes and branches and bundles of newspaper, we struggled back home and, a few minutes later, cuddled up together in front of a lovely roaring fire.
That became another of our little rituals. I liked it. We got to spend time together and always had a hug at the end. Even when Mum was too ill or tired to come out scavenging, I would happily do it on my own, trawling the night-time streets without a care in the world, knowing we would be all toasty together soon enough.
Just writing these words makes me feel terrible. No one in their right mind would allow a six-year-old out at night to scrabble for sticks in dark parks and poorly lit streets. And that’s the tragedy of it all. Mum obviously wasn’t in her right mind. I just didn’t realize.
You can only live with what you’re given and kids are supremely adaptable. I honestly never noticed anything wrong with the way we carried on. We did what we did. There was nothing for me to compare it to. As far as I knew, every house in the country got by the same way. There must have been hundreds of us up and down the length and breadth of Great Britain, collecting kindling at night. I honestly thought that, if I thought about it at all. I never once suspected it was anything other than normal.
Staring at the fire was pretty much the only entertainment we had. We didn’t have a TV or radio, although at some point Mum did take delivery of her old record player and boxes of LPs from Granny’s house. I was really excited about it, but Mum wouldn’t let me play it while Granny was there. So, as soon as she’d gone, I grabbed the plug and shoved it into the wall. A large button marked ‘on’ seemed the obvious place to start, so I pressed that and—
Nothing.
Confused, I looked at Mum, who was just staring. Her eyes looked sad.
‘Sorry, love, there’s no electricity.’
So that’s why she wouldn’t let me touch it in front of Granny.
I was really disappointed, but not for long. Feeling sorry for myself is not in my nature. I hadn’t had a record player that morning and, to all intents and purposes, I didn’t have one now either. I was no worse off.
Evenings, then, were spent staring at the red flames burning whatever trash I’d managed to reclaim. Mum would read or doze or smoke her sweet cigarettes, staring into space, just thinking. Sometimes I would sew or knit or crochet, drawing on those life skills Granny had insisted on teaching me. There was nothing I liked more than adding another few feet to my latest Doctor Who-style scarf or weaving a few woolly pom-poms for the cat to play with. A few months after moving in, our flat was full of the things.
I also began to play cards. Typical of what I recall as their suburban Jerry and Margo from The Good Life aspirations, Granny and Grandpa had regular whist or bridge nights at their home, attended by Grandpa’s boss, colleagues and friends. The more I stayed at their house, the more card games I picked up. Granny was the real enthusiast and was happy to give me my own deck and a couple of ‘teach yourself’ books.
Mum was never interested, so it was just as well that Granny had shown me half a dozen different versions of solitaire. I didn’t mind. I enjoyed playing against myself. I loved mastering any new skill. Then, once the fire had died, the light went with it, so that was bedtime. Life was pretty simple.
Without paying the electricity or gas bills, there wasn’t much in the kitchen that worked. This didn’t seem to bother Mum, though. As I’ve said, she never really had an interest in food. Apart from our