Hill and Dale
The windowpanes are grimy, as if someone had dragged muddy fists across the glass. Her footsteps throw a dull staccato against the tunnel of a hallway. The tattered wallpaper tells tales of careless handling of furniture, of keys dragged along in bored destructiveness. Every paper scar shouts proudly: I was here. She reaches out, frizzled roughness beneath her fingertips, little bumps give way to bitsy holes where the wall beneath gapes through. A tiny hill and dale ride.
She fishes for her keys in her coat pocket; the letter rustles. She recognised the big stamp straight away.
The door hinges groan as she pushes inside, ducking past the sagging panel above her head. Another danger she has learnt to ignore.
To her left is the kitchen, straight ahead, the living room. The place smells of mossy carpet, ash, burnt coffee, dusk. She drops her rucksack, stuffed with tins of ravioli and beans, the bites from its straps still prickling, and she pulls at her collar to inspect the tiny red dots scattered across her skin. She didn't complain as she was told off for forgetting her books again, even though she never forgets.
On the sofa, Becky breathes unevenly in her sleep. Beads of sweat gather above her lip and along her sloped cheeks. She looks like someone has cried all over her face. She strokes a damp strand off Becky's brow, but she does not wake.
She tiptoes into the kitchen and stretches up on her toes for a pot but cannot reach it. Her belly growls. Then she remembers the opener in the drawer, prises open the tin, and scoops the ravioli out with her hands. The last drops of uncooked tomato sauce she slurps straight up.
After, she pulls the letter from her coat pocket, and she leaves red fingerprints on the white envelope. There had been rage about the first letter, wailing at the second when it slid under the door. Very carefully, she leans the third against the empty bottle on the wobbly coffee table. She crawls onto the sofa and presses her nose into Becky's neck: soapy, with the sharp-bladed sting of the drink.
She knows men will come soon to take the broken telly, the coffee table, the sofa where they sleep. They will have to leave too. She thinks of the house Becky had spoken about, in the same rushed breathlessness she makes all her promises, a huge and bright house, no old men leaving filthy things in the lift, no boys looming and whistling in the dark hallways, only mums and little girls like her.
Her eyes fall shut, and she dreams of the rise and fall of the seesaw in the yard, tipping up and down among the rubbish, fag ends and broken bottles embroidering the grass, the sun searing her face.
