Hot

It was a scorchingly hot dry day. It was so hot, that the road tar bubbled and hissed like a slimy black cauldron.

You could smell the acrid odour in the air as you breathed in - like a strong ‘whiff’ from the cheap rubber-soles of the shoes worn by the people walking along. The soles gradually melting on the lave hot pavement you could have boiled mercury on.

Looking down the street, Tilly could see a blue haze shimmering in a dip in the road, like a pool of smoky water. In this built-up inner-city area of concrete, bricks and tar – there was no shade to be had at all.

Swinging 60’s

Tilly had been sent out into this urban desert first thing this morning and told not to come back until ‘tea-time’ by Mum. This was so Mum could take advantage of the good weather by washing the bed sheets and blankets in the tin bath in the tiny backyard at the back of their tenement - as were most of the other women in the street that day.

The ‘swinging’ ‘60’s it was not. Not here anyway.

Any form of domestic or female emancipation didn’t arrive in this slum clearance area and for the ‘not so well off’ until much later and in some cases, not at all. 

The only thing good about the ‘60’s for most women was the contraceptive pill. Being able to decide NOT to have 11 kids by the time you were forty was the main benefit.

Tilly had tried to help her mum, but being a scrawny six-year-old, she couldn’t lift the heavy, sopping-wet blankets and tended just to get soaking wet. 

Banned

She had already been banned from helping with the clothes mangle after an incident where she had gotten tangled up in the washing as she was pushing it through the mangle and got her hand trapped. 

Dad had then had to dismantle the mangle and put it back together again – accompanied by a lot of ‘colloquial Anglo-Saxon’ and violent temper shouting and the flinging down of screwdrivers so hard that one made a dent in the linoleum flooring – another thing to be angry at her for.

Bored

This day, Tilly was bored. She didn’t really have friends as she was very single-minded about what she was prepared to play and not to play. She hated the ‘Catch and Kissing’ game so refused point blank to play it. She hated the ‘Play House’ game as it wasn’t ‘realistic’. All the kids pretended it was idyllic – perfect babies, perfect husbands, perfect life – when she knew it wasn’t. It was full of arguments, fighting, infestations of mice and ‘mend and make do’ or do without.

She preferred to read, but being six years old, adults around her didn’t believe she could already read and books were hard to come by. So, she resorted to reading the local newspaper, asking her Mum about words she didn’t know as she came across them.

‘Mum! What does a-d-u-l-t-e-r-y mean? Mum what does e-m-b-e-z-z-l-e-m-e-n-t mean?’ to which her Mum would say ‘Shut up can’t you see I’m busy?’

Her mission

Today there was no newspaper so she sat on the edge of the road kerb, watching the tar bubble up and burst like an evil witch’s brew - when she spied an old ice-lolly stick. With a cry of glee, she grabbed the stick and began to pop the tar bubbles with it.

The sun beating down on her tight auburn curls, she stared at the road surface intently. Watching the tar like a little Kingfisher, waiting for the bubbles to rise to the surface – a signal to the watching ‘bird’ that a fish was ready to be plucked from the depths. 

She was focused totally, oblivious to the traffic (not that there was much traffic where she lived as not many people had cars)

Pop, pop, pop….wait… wait… pop, pop. The smell of the tar rising from the road surface invading her nostrils. The stick getting ever stickier as she popped the tar bubbles to her heart’s content. She had a mission.

A Cheery Voice

After a while, she didn’t know how long - a cheery little voice pulled Tilly from her trance. 

A peaches and cream face of little old lady came into view. She was not that much taller than Tilly to be honest.  

She had tapped Tilly lightly on the shoulder so as not to startle her. Tilly recognised her as one of the neighbours but couldn’t remember the lady’s name.

Cake!

She was trying to coax Tilly away from the road, asking her to come inside for a cup of tea. 

Tilly had been told about ‘strangers’, so very firmly, but politely said ‘No Thank You Missus’ and went back to her self-set task.

The old lady went back into her house, but then a few minutes later came out with a piece of cake wrapped in a serviette. Cake!! ‘Wow, now we’re talking!’ Thought Tilly. She had been warned about ‘strangers’, but not about little old ladies bearing cake.

Cake was unheard of at home unless it was someone’s birthday

The trade-off

Tilly got up from the kerb, wiped her sticky hands down her frock (she was going to be in trouble for that – nothing could get tar out of fabric then) and gratefully accepted the offering. 

The old lady told her she was giving her the cake on the understanding that she stopped popping the tar outside the house. That was the trade-off.

With a mouthful of cake, Tilly nodded in agreement and the old lady went back indoors whilst Tilly woofed the rest of the cake down before anyone could change their minds or make her share it.

Tilly then moved further down the road and started to pop the tar bubbles again. 

She didn’t realise that she was causing the poor old dear anguish and that the old lady had been trying to get Tilly out of the road and out of harm’s way. 

Tilly had thought the lady just didn’t want her to pop the tar outside her house (She came under the classification of someone who ‘scrubbed the doorstep’ and ‘polished the door brasses’ and had ‘Dolly Doilies’ over the toilet tissue rolls for Tilly).

The old lady’s net curtains kept ‘twitching’ (obviously checking Tilly was ok) but she felt like she was being spied on.

After about 5 minutes, the lady came out of her house and walked briskly down the road. Tilly was disappointed there was no more cake on offer. 

Face like Thunder

Then out of the corner of her eye, she spotted her mum hurtling towards her with a face like thunder, wisps of wet blond hair sticking out of the sides of her hastily scraped into place hair bun.

Tilly’s mind raced ahead, trying to give reason to her mum’s demeanour.  ‘What have I done? What have I done?’ but she couldn’t think. She jumped up off the kerb on to the pavement, panicking slightly.

Mum rushed up and grabbed the top of Tilly’s arm tightly, her fingernails digging in and dragged her towards home, with Tilly shouting ‘What’s up Mum? What’ve I done? Mum! What’s wrong??’ 

Frog-marched along the pavement her mum hissing in her ear ‘Shut up! You’re making a show of me – wait til I get you home, you’re for it!’

Tilly was unceremoniously thrown through the front door into the hallway and she fell against the bottom stair, slightly winded. 

Mum slammed the front door and screamed in Tilly’s face ‘OH MY GOD!!– The SHAME of it! Embarrassing me like that!!’

‘Like what Mum?’ Still not knowing what she had done and totally confused.

‘You know full well what you did, you little madam!’ – Tilly was totally perplexed - ‘No, I don’t’ – What did I do mum? Tell me!’

It always annoys me the way adults assume that kids know when they have done something they shouldn’t have. How many times did someone say to you when you were a kid ‘You know what you have done – you’re just playing dumb to get out of trouble/trying to deny all knowledge of what you have done / you’re being ‘hard-faced’ or cheeky – when you genuinely did not have a clue what you had done because you were daydreaming and had the memory of an absent-minded goldfish.

J’Accuse!

‘YOU!!’ Mum’s accusing finger of fate pointed directly in Tilly’s face – ‘Were playing in the road! Do you know how dangerous that is? Mrs McAleavey was having kittens watching you in case you got run over!’ 

She paused for breath ‘She was so worried, she came and got me! You took cake from her! How many times have you been told you not to accept things from people? Look at the state of me! I’m in the middle of doing the washing! I’m soaking wet, my hair’s all over the place and I don’t even have my lippy on. I didn’t know where to put myself!!’ 

(Mum didn’t go outside the door without her hair and make-up done - ever). 

‘Get up those stairs to bed and stay there until your dad gets home! Just wait ‘til I tell him what you’ve done today – you’re going to get a hiding!!’

Tilly ran up the stairs as if the devil himself was after her, ran into the bedroom and slammed the door. She jumped on the bed and tried to hide under the covers.

She wracked her boiled brains as to how bad in trouble she was. Then it hit her – in the road - tar bubbles – neighbour – cake – mum – washing – no makeup!! 

‘Oh god – I’m in big trouble. Dad is going to kill me – or worse – leave me alive after the belting I’m going to get’. Thought Tilly panicking and hyperventilating slightly.

She jumped off the big iron bed and pushed it against the door with all her strength and then jumped back on it. She sat there like a marooned sailor protecting his patch of island. 

‘Dad will have to break the door down to get in now. Although, I wouldn’t put it passed him, but he might be too tired to hit me after that’ she thought glumly.

Tilly sat on the bed terrified. 

The day went from light to dark, then darker still – Mum didn’t come and check on her and no sign of dad yet, so she got into bed dinner-less - her empty stomach doing summersaults. 

She didn’t waste her energy on crying as she knew it would just make her thirsty and tired. She may need all her strength later.

Dad’s home

Then, the front door slammed open against its hinges. Tilly listened intently as dad fell sideways through the doorway, sliding along the wall.

He was well drunk! The smell of beer, cigarette smoke and a chip shop supper wafted under her bedroom door. She felt so hungry she nearly opened it. 

Nearly – but she wasn’t so hungry that she would chance getting a beating for it.

There was a bit of an altercation between her mum and dad. 

‘Where’ve you been? Where did you get the money to get that drunk? Shouted mum. He’d obviously blown his wages again thought Tilly.

Tilly heard dad grab her mum and push her against the wall. She heard a slap and a slight cry-out from her mum. Dad roared back ‘I can do what the fuck I want! It’s my money – Do you want some fucking chips or not? Get the kettle on and some bread buttered and shut the fuck up’. 

You know – the usual Friday night chitchat. 

Rules

Mum knew not to argue back as arguing back was like heavy cigarette smoking – it could seriously damage her health – but immediately. Tilly heard her mum moving around in the kitchen.

Tilly breathed a sigh of relief. It meant mum was now too mad at dad to tell him what she had been up to, and dad was too drunk to do anything about it anyway. 

By tomorrow, they would have both forgotten and it was an unwritten rule that if she couldn’t be punished on the actual day she had done something, then it was left unpunished.

She didn’t know why this rule was in place, but tonight she was really glad it was.

A wave of calmness came over Tilly as her little body finally relaxed and most of the visible tension fell away. Her stomach was still fluttering like a house full of butterflies. 

Starry Night

She got up out of bed and crept up to the curtain-less window and perched her elbows on the window ledge. She traced star patterns cross the sky with her finger. Tilly loved looking at the stars.

They always made her feel safe. She felt that the stars twinkled just for her to say hello and to smile at her and say ‘everything’s okay’. She always took great comfort from that.

A clear crescent Moon smiled its lob-sided smile. Tilly smiled back and sighed heavily. She couldn’t move the bed away from the door now as the noise would have brought some unwanted attention. 

She made a mental note to herself to move the bed away from the bedroom door early next morning.   

She said good night to the stars, blew them a kiss and got back into bed.

She snuggled under the candy-striped blankets, wrapping them around her like a protective cocoon. Then telling her grumbling stomach to shut up, she gradually fell asleep. 

She dreamt of a starry night and the sea. A huge galleon in full sail taking her away across the waves to somewhere quiet, green and full of trees to sit under and not a tar bubble in sight.