Chapter 19
I GOTTA MOVE
MICK
When everything in your life had gone tits up, the first few moments after you woke up in the morning were like a cruel joke.
For an instant, as you opened your eyes and came around, everything was normal.
Fine, even. Your brain had forgotten the shit that was going on.
Then it remembered. All the grief came flooding back into your mind, and you had to experience it all over again.
That happened to me when I woke up in Michael’s bed after being chucked out of the only home I’d ever known.
A sweet, smokey smell filled my nostrils. Bacon. Smokey bacon which was weird because my mum hated smokey bacon.
And that was what made reality crash down around me. I wasn’t at home. My mum wasn’t cooking bacon. Well, she might have been, but she was doing it for me, at home. Was it even home anymore?
Fuck knows. I tried not to think too hard about it.
Either way, I wasn’t in it. I was in Michael’s house.
Because I’d sat on his doorstep like a little lost child until he came home and looked after me.
Not just that, he’d nursed me when I was sick, too.
My cheeks heated as I remembered him helping me to the bathroom, and–shit–hand feeding me tomato soup.
Pathetic, that was what I was. Fucking pathetic.
Getting out of bed on my own for the first time in a couple of days, I padded to the bathroom. I still felt a bit ropey but much better than I had been.
“It’s good to see you up and about. I thought you might need something real to eat.
Sit down, love.” Michael nodded towards the small table as I crept into the kitchen.
The easy affection he sent my way made my heart beat faster, and I hoped it wasn’t just kindness and a need to care for me that made him call me that.
I hoped that something more might be brewing between us.
Although I might have put the kibosh on that by needing him to nurse me through a cold.
“Do you want red or brown sauce?”
“Hmm?”
“On your bacon sarnie, do you want brown or red sauce?”
“Oh. Brown please. Can’t stand tomato sauce.”
He pressed a buttered slice of white bread on top of each of them and brought the food to the table.
“Get that down you. You’ve lived on nothing but tomato soup, orange juice, and water for two days. Besides, you can’t think on an empty stomach. Eat up and then we’ll start.”
“Start what?”
“Working out what you want to do with your life. The quicker we start, the sooner we’ll have a plan.”
We. We’ll have a think and come up with a plan. That word was so bloody comforting. Two letters making up a tiny word that made me feel like I wasn’t alone in the world.
After breakfast, Michael sat down at the table with a notepad and a pencil. “Right. Let’s make a list. We’ll start with what you need to do going forward.”
I groaned. “Oh, no. You’re one of those people.”
“What people?”
“You’re a list person.”
“What do you mean a ‘list person’? Everyone writes lists. It makes life more manageable.”
I snorted. “No, they don’t. But that’s fine, we’ll make a list.”
“Yes we will. First of all, you need to get your stuff from your house.” He scribbled “stuff” on the small pad of paper.
“I’ve got my stuff.”
He looked up at me, shock clouded his face. “That’s everything you own?”
“Yeah. Pretty much. Everything I’d want to take.” I thought about the pictures and cards I’d made for my mum. “And some more besides.”
What else did he expect me to own? I lived at home and worked most of the time. All I owned was a couple of books, my clothes, and–oh fuck.
“My records!”
“They’re not in the suitcases?”
“No. There’s far too many. I’ve got more than fifty, I reckon.
Singles, that is. And a handful of LPs. I didn’t think about them when I left; it was all such a fucking blur.
Shit, what if they’ve chucked them already.
How am I going to get hold of them? If I go there, I know they’ll slam the door in my face. Fuck! What am I going to do?”
“Alright, it's okay. Let’s come up with a plan.”
“Don’t bother. They’ll be in the bin by now. No way my mum cared enough to keep them.”
“You don’t know that for sure. Isn’t it worth at least trying to get them back?”
Michael’s optimism should have pissed me off, but instead, it seemed to make me feel a bit better.
“Can one of your friends go and fetch them? Tommy, perhaps?”
It was sweet that he was trying. I should accept his help and try to do something.
“Yeah, maybe. I could go round there and talk to him.”
“There. We have a plan to deal with that.” He scrawled “ask Tommy” on the pad and started writing on a new line.
“Next, we need to find you a job. You can stay here for as long as you like, and I don’t expect you to pay rent. But I won’t be able to afford to feed both of us for very long - not at the rate you eat.”
Guilt flooded my system. Shit, I’d eaten so much of his food already and I’d not even been here a day. That wasn’t fair. I needed to get a job quickly. But doing what? I had no knowledge, no skills, no qualifications. Unless you count a History O level I got a D in.
“Not to mention I know you. You’ll be bored out of your mind if you’re left to sit in the flat all day.”
He was right about that. It was comforting that he knew me so well. It made me feel less alone.
“What can you do well?”
I smirked and raised an eyebrow suggestively. “You don’t remember?”
He coughed and turned bright red, which was hilarious, because I didn’t think it was possible to embarrass Michael.
“I’m not sure those skills are going to help you get a job.”
“You never know.”
“Fine, we’ll put ‘rent boy’ as plan B.” His glare was full of mock-exasperation. “Why don’t we try and think of a job you can do standing up?”
“Ugh, I don’t know. I’m no good at anything.” I’d made the joke about my “skills” to avoid having to actually answer the question. “I’ve worked for my dad’s moving firm since I was fifteen years old. I don’t know how to do anything else.”
“Well, think about what that job taught you.”
“I don’t bloody know. How to shift furniture and drive around London.”
“Right. So you’re strong and not afraid of hard labour. There are plenty of warehouses round here. Monday morning, go knock on some doors and try to speak to the foremen, see if anyone needs a hand.”
“Yeah, okay. I can do that.”
“And you can drive, and you know the streets. There are plenty of driving jobs nowadays. You’ll need your license though.”
“I’ve got it.”
“You have?”
“Yeah, it was in an envelope along with my birth certificate and my History O level. Mum made sure I had no reason to come back.”
Sadness shone in his eyes, and it made me feel worse. I didn’t want him to pity me. He must have noticed because he fixed his expression.
“That’s good then. You can apply for driving jobs. There’s good money in that.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I know the roads of London pretty well as it happens.
Maybe I could look into doing the Knowledge.
I’d be made for life if I had me own cab.
I could borrow a scooter off someone to learn the runs.
Eric might lend me his Lambretta. Yeah, I could do that alright.
I’d have to get better at paying attention.
And it’ll take a while. My Uncle James did it in a year and a half, but that’s rare.
But if I could get a job during the day… ”
I realised I’d been babbling on to myself, and Michael had no idea what I was talking about.
“Sorry,” I said looking up at him. But he wasn’t annoyed. He was grinning like the Cheshire bleeding Cat.
“What? What’re you looking at me like that for?”
“You got all excited about the idea of becoming a cab driver. It was the first time since you got here that you looked hopeful, and it was nice to see. You looked like your old self.”
It was my turn to blush, which made him smile more.
“Oh behave will you?” I said, but I was playing and he knew it because he laughed a big, loud laugh. “Stop it! You can’t laugh at me. I’m a poor abandoned orphan.”
The laughter died, and his eyes widened. I let him stew for one… two… “I’m joking! You think I’m gonna use that as an excuse for the rest of my life?”
He smiled, but still looked wary.
“Come on, let’s get out of here.” I poked him in the chest.
“As you wish,” he said, still smiling. “Where do you want to go?”
“Let’s start the plan,” I said. “We’ll go and see Tommy and Eric. I can ask him about borrowing the Lammy and see if Tommy could try and get my records back. If you think you can handle the mean streets of Barking?”
“I think I’ll manage, dearie.”
“Cushty. Come on, then.”