Picture of Innocence. TJ Stimson

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       Lydia

      She’s never been so happy in her life. She was frightened at first when Mae abandoned her with strangers, because even though she’s scared of Mae, at least she knows her, she knows where she is.

      But then the lady with the yellow hair came out from behind her desk and talked to the crying lady in the blue hat and the old man with the shiny bald head for a long time, and then the crying lady stopped crying and came over and crouched down beside her and said, my name is Jean and this is my husband Ernie and what’s your name? She didn’t want the lady to be cross with her because she couldn’t remember her own name, so she said Mae, because it was the only name she could think of. And then the not-crying-now lady said, how would you like to come home with me, just till everything gets sorted out? And so she did.

      She’s been here for weeks and she still can’t believe how big their house is. There is an entire room with a table and chairs just for eating in and another room with a big green bath for washing yourself. There was a bath at Mae’s house, but no one ever used it for washing themselves. Once, one of Mae’s special friends stayed with them for a while and he kept his two pet ducks in it. When he left in the middle of the night without saying goodbye, Mae was so angry she wrung their necks with her bare hands.

      Jean lets her have a bath every day. She has a bed, too: a real bed, not just a mattress on the floor, and it has pink sheets on it. She didn’t know what the sheets were to begin with. Clothes for a bed! It seemed such a funny idea. The first night she slept on the floor, so as not to get them dirty or wrinkled. But when Jean came in the next morning, she laughed and said it was OK if she messed the sheets up, that’s what they were for. Then Jean jumped on the bed with her shoes on, laughing until she climbed on the bed herself and jumped up and down, too.

      And there is food, so much food! It seems it’s always time for one meal or another. Slow down, Jean laughs, as she crams toast into her mouth at breakfast and shoves more in her pockets for later. You’ll make yourself sick. She does, too, her belly isn’t used to feeling this full. It takes her a few days to realise that the gnawing pangs in her tummy have gone. She still fills her pockets with scraps when she leaves the table, she can’t help it, but Jean doesn’t seem to mind. You poor love, she says. We’ll soon fatten you up.

      Jean takes her shopping and buys her new dresses as clean and fresh-smelling as the sheets and her very own shoes that don’t pinch or slop around on her small feet. Jean shows her how to wash her hair with shampoo and how to braid it neatly into two plaits, and she never hits her, not ever, not even when she has an accident because she’s too shy to say she needs to pee and has forgotten how to find the bathroom in this huge house. Jean doesn’t even shout. Jean strokes her hair and hugs her and says it doesn’t matter, it was an accident, we’ll fix it in a jiffy, don’t you worry.

      She doesn’t ask how long she’s going to stay here. She doesn’t miss Mae at all, which proves just what a wicked little girl she really is. But she doesn’t want to think about Mae. She’s in the middle of such a lovely dream and she doesn’t ever want to wake up. Sometimes, she hopes she’s dead so she won’t have to.

      But then one day Jean answers the telephone and when she comes off she’s crying again. Ernie asks her what’s the matter and Jean collapses in his arms, I’m not going to let them take her, she says. What do they know, these social workers, I’m not giving her back to that wicked woman, over my dead body.

      But Jean won’t be able to stop Mae. No one can ever stop Mae when she’s made her mind up about something.

      Jean does her best, she writes letters to important people and she begs and pleads, but it’s no good. The night before Jean has to take her back, she cooks her favourite macaroni and cheese followed by chocolate ice cream. Jean brushes and plaits her hair and reads her a story and tucks her into her nice clean warm bed with the pink sheets for the last time and her face gets that strange look people have when they’re trying really hard not to cry. Jean kisses her cheek, I’ll never stop fighting, I’ll make them listen, I’ll come back and get you, just you wait and see. But she knows deep down it’ll never happen. Davy promised he’d come back for her, too, but he never did.

      Mae is waiting for them at the shop where she left her, looking so different in a normal mummy dress instead of the low tops and short skirts she normally wears that she almost doesn’t recognise her. Mae bursts into noisy tears and throws her arms around her in a suffocating hug, my baby oh my baby thank goodness you’re all right!

      She doesn’t want to let go of Jean’s hand, but Mae is holding on to her so tight she can’t breathe, pulling her away. You’ve been very kind, looking after her while I was under the weather, she says, but I’m right as rain now, few pills, bit of rest, just what the doctor ordered. Mae’s fingernails dig into her shoulder, but her mother’s bright smile doesn’t slip.

      She wants to beg Jean not to let her go, she wants to run right out of the shop and keep on running as far away from Mae as she can get. Her heart is beating loudly in her ears and she feels hot and shaky and sick in her tummy. Her little hands clench into fists by her sides. She wants to hit something, she wants to hurt someone as much as she is hurting, and she realises, in a kind of dazed surprise, that this is what angry feels like.

      She doesn’t know why Mae even wants her back. Mae says she’s never been no good, nothing but trouble since the day she was born. Should have got rid of you when I had the chance. But maybe Mae has missed her after all, she thinks hopefully. Maybe things are going to be different now.

      It’s only when Mae is marching her back down the high street, towards the bus stop, the grip on her shoulder so tight she knows she’ll have bruises tomorrow, and leans into her and says, you think I wanted you back, you little cow, they was going to take the house off of me with you and Davy both gone, now you’re going to fucking well earn your keep, that she understands Mae hasn’t missed her at all, and if she thought it was bad before, it’s going to be a hundred times worse now.