Ma promised we’d only stay one night sleeping in the shed in the park. She didn’t keep her promise.
The next day we stashed the rucksack in a bush behind the shed and we went off looking for a castle. As soon as we stepped outside the park, though, we saw two coppers coming up the street. Across the road, the woman from the pub came outside.
Ma cursed and grabbed my hand, and we ducked behind the pillar of the archway and waited. After a while, Ma said, ‘Right’, and she pulled me back through the arch. The coppers were gone and so was the woman from the pub.
Ma’s hands were already shaking, and the more we walked, the more they shook.
‘Ma,’ I said, ‘What about that? That could be our castle.’ I pointed to this building that was so new, it looked like it was wrapped in blue plastic. I was only messing but Ma said, ‘Don’t be bleeding stupid.’ She started walking even faster.
By the time Ma’s eyes started to sink, her arms were pumping. We’d reached the street in the middle of the city that’s packed with people, the one where cars aren’t allowed to drive. I didn’t want a castle there. And I didn’t think there’d be one anyway. It was too crowded.
‘Ma, do you think we’ll find a castle today?’
Ma didn’t answer. She was looking at this van that was parked in a side street. It looked like a chipper van, only they weren’t selling chips. They were selling clothes. Ma was biting her nails, even though she had no nails left to bite.
‘See them?’ she said. She pointed to some people that were wearing neon yellow vests, standing around the van.
‘Yeah?’
‘Don’t ever go near them. Bleeding Do-gooders. They work with the coppers, you know?’
I didn’t know. But Ma looked stressed and I knew not to say anything.
‘Stay here a minute,’ she said.
Ma went over to the Do-gooders and started talking to them. After a bit they handed her a load of stuff and she walked away. She hadn’t paid, but they didn’t seem to care. Ma came marching up to me and right past me. She didn’t even stop. I had to run through a crowd of people to catch up.
‘Ma, what’s that?’
‘New clothes. You can throw away your dirty ones.’
I didn’t want to throw them away. They only needed to be cleaned.
‘My runners too?’
‘No, ye eejit,’ she said.
‘Ma, you didn’t pay for them.’
‘No,’ she said.
‘Why?’
‘Cos they’re free.’
‘Why?’
‘Cos that’s what they do. Give out clothes and soup, and take information back to the coppers. They’re all in it together, the coppers and the ambulance people and the Do-gooders.’
‘And the social workers,’ I reminded her.
‘’Zactly,’ Ma said. ‘All them Yellow Jackets and busybodies. So don’t you go near any of them, ye hear?’
‘Yeah,’ I said.
We kept walking up the street and I kept a lookout for the Authorities.
‘Ma, are we going to find our castle now?’
‘Jaysus, enough!’ she said.
I nodded and I said nothing for ages. Loads of times I wanted to ask where we were going but I didn’t. Not even after lunch when we just got up and started walking again.
By the time it started getting late, though, I was worried cos I didn’t want to sleep in the park again. Ma had promised. So I said, ‘Are we sleeping in our castle tonight?’
That’s when Ma spun round and I saw that her eyes had sunk to the bottom of her head. ‘I said enough! Just stop! Going on all day at me, stressing me out!’
It wasn’t fair. It was only the third time I’d asked in the whole day. But Ma was looking at me the same way as she had the last time she slapped me. Maybe the only reason why she didn’t slap me again was cos her hands were full of clothes. So I said nothing. I just kept walking. But then we came up to the black rusted gate. With the evil smiley face. And my heart fell into my runners.
‘Ma!’ I said.
She knocked real loud. The bolt grinded back and forth. I hid behind her. A second later I heard his voice.
‘Look what the cat dragged in!’
I didn’t look at Monkey Man. I stayed hidden. But his head appeared around Ma’s shoulder. ‘And your precious daughter too.’ I closed my eyes so I couldn’t see him.
‘Just sort me out,’ Ma said.
‘Not coming in then?’
‘No. Thanks.’
’Where ye staying?’ Monkey Man asked.
‘A mate’s,’ she said.
There was silence for a while and then he said, ‘Suit yerself. What’ll it be?’
When Monkey Man disappeared for a minute, I stood back from Ma and made her look at me.
‘Ma? Please? I don’t want to stay here.’
‘We’re not. I’m just collecting something.’
And at least she wasn’t lying cos a few seconds after Monkey Man came back, we were walking again. This time I didn’t care that we were going back to the shed in the trees. Anything was better than staying there.