Hackney Child by Hope Daniels Morag Livingstone

Author:Hope Daniels, Morag Livingstone
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781471129872
Publisher: Simon and Schuster UK

11

FIRST VISIT

Presents, 1983

‘Your parents are coming to visit, on Sunday.’

‘Shit.’

‘Hope, what have we told you about swearing?’

‘I know, sorry, but SHIT.’

I had not thought this through. I thought we would never see them again. Be safe.

What? Why? Shit. They will give me such a hard time. Fuck. Mum will blame me. I’ve told Craig all about the night before we came into care. He says it’s not my fault and I did the right thing, but I’m not so sure. I took everyone into care. We shouldn’t have told. Mum was always telling us not to tell, and I told. Mum will blame me. Dad will hate me.

I see them walking up the path. I run to the bathroom to check my eyes in the mirror. They are still red with crying all morning, but I still hope Mum and Dad won’t notice. The cool water hits my face. If I stay here, maybe they will forget to see me. Maybe they won’t want to see me. My friend Jane finds me still in the girl’s communal bathroom.

‘They are here, you’ve to come down.’

I follow her.

Dad has a bag of stuff for us. Presents.

I look at Mum. She looks furious. The boys run to Mum and Dad and give them huge hugs, like I-really-missed-you-and-don’t-want-to-let-go hugs. I stand in the doorway until Craig gently guides me by the shoulders into the room. Quietly saying, just so I can hear, ‘It’s OK, Hope, we are here.’

I really want to see my Dad, and have been looking forward to this. I wish it was just Dad who’d come and that my mum wasn’t here.

Dad has brought us a bag of presents. One each. Excited, we open them. My nighties! I pull them out. I try to mimic the tone of voice the girl at the party had when she said thanks for something she didn’t really want.

‘Thanks, Dad!’

They look grubby. I will hide them underneath my side table. I don’t want to put them in the drawer with my new clothes.

I am looking through the bag. I hear my mother’s voice. I don’t need to look at her to know her gaze is as hard as the tone of her voice. Both are directed at me:

‘Why did you go to Stokie Nick, Hope? Why didn’t you just stay at home like we fuckin’ told you to? Creating all this fuckin’ mess? Givin’ yer dad an’ I trouble? You know wha’ I mean?’

‘I was scared to go home.’

‘Fucking scared? You cunt. What was there to be scared about?’

‘Just scared, Mum. It ain’t safe for me an’ the boys. Dad, tell her, it ain’t safe.’

‘I don’t understand, Hope,’ he says. ‘We were getting on OK. It was a struggle, sometimes, but we looked after you kids. We did OK. We managed. You didn’t need to do this, Hope, you really didn’t.’

I try to change the subject. ‘The kids’ home tried to cut our hair, Mum. But the hairdresser turned us away ’cos our hair was full of nits.

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