A Little Girl's Story

Chapter One

It was there again. It never really went totally away but sometimes I could make myself for a minute imagine it wasn't there. It was a lead weight. Behind my front ribs. Like in a story when somebody's heart had turned to lead, or stone. It had been there for months now, since I was nine, and this afternoon I could feel it hurting as my backpack pressed into it from the other side.

I call it a lead weight. I have never seen any lead but I have read about it. It is heavy and nothing can get through it, not even kryptonite.

I have never told anybody about the weight. I don't think anybody else has a weight like this in their chest and I know they will only think I am silly or wicked. It is worse when I have been running, when I stop. Sometimes I can't feel it when I am running and thinking about something else. But soon I feel it again.

Like today. It was back again as I came over the top of the hill. I looked down and paused at the top of the path. They were down there at the bottom. They were going to play with me. We were going to play the game for half an hour or as long as it took for one of them to get tired of it. I am their toy. They think I like it and I do but only when we are playing. Afterwards and before, it makes the lead in my chest hang heavier. Sometimes during the game, when I'm pretending it's all real, the weight really hurts because I want it so much to be real, but it's worth it.

They sat on the bench at the bottom of the hill, my mother and father. This was the day we played the Friday game of We Are A Family. I knew what was going to happen. We were all going to walk to the snack hut on the other side of the park, by the lake, and I wouldn't be able to eat. They would have coffee, or tea, and I would have squash because my mother says cola is bad for you and they would try to get me to have a sandwich and I would try. Then I would walk with them to the lake or the putting green and my dad would row mum and me about until the man called us in or we would have a putting match which I usually won. They argued about whether winning was good for me.

Anybody watching thought we were a real family. I always hoped my friends would see us all together. I had never said which group I was in, the one- parent or the two-parent. They weren't really gangs. They just had different things to talk about at playtime. I had never said anything but I usually sat with the two-parent girls and pretended I belonged there. Well it wasn't really dishonest. I did have two sometimes. I wanted somebody to see us together before somebody suspected something.I always pretended very very hard that when we had finished whatever we had been doing in the park we were all going to go back home together.

Then whoever I had been staying with would leave and I would go with the other one to wherever my home was for the weekend.

Today it was just the same. But I was going to ask again, even if it made the pain in my chest worse and my breath tighter.I hadn't asked for a long time and they might have changed their minds. I started to run and my backpack bounced, colliding with the the lead, thump thump thump. They stood up when I got nearer. I took what breath my chest would let me and said as calmly as I could, "Can we all live somewhere together please ? Like we used to ? "

My mother laughed. "What's brought this on again all of a sudden ? " she said. I didn't know what she meant and neither of them answered.

My father just said, "Come on," and indicated I should go with him to the car park. " We are going straight home today. I have got some work to finish and there is no time for rowing on the lake."

Why had she laughed ? What was funny ? The lead weight throbbed and another weight started to grow in my feet. They wouldn't move. I couldn't walk. My feet were too heavy. I tried to walk to my dad but I couldn't. I was frightened then. My mum could walk. She took a step towards me. I just stood still and when she was really close I threw my arms round her and held on really tight. I wanted my mum. Sometimes I wanted her more than ever and today was one of the times. I wanted her to hug me back but she didn't, much.

"What's this for ? " to me. "She wants something," to Dad. I could feel that she was laughing.

I found my voice through the weight in my chest, "I want to go home."

My mum said "Where ? " and I replied "I don't know." I didn't. I let her go and looked up at her. She wasn't as tall as she used to be. She still looked as though she thought something was funny.

Dad held my hand and said again, " Come on." He had a sad sound in his voice. He wasn't laughing. Was he sad ? Why ? He shouldn't be sad. He had no reason. Nobody had done anything to him. My feet were stuck to the ground. Dad gave a little tug to get me to walk with him but I still couldn't move. I felt tears come to my eyes.

I said again, "I want to go home," but I didn't really know where home was now. It used to be with my mum and dad, then with my dad when we were waiting for my mum to come back. When Mum came back she didn't come home. She went to live somewhere else.When I was with her was that my home ? It didn't feel like it.Dad moved and lived somewhere else.Was that my home too ?

I couldn't help it. All I could do was stand there saying over and over again that I wanted to go home. Dad gave me a little shove in the direction of the bench and I sat down. They were talking over my head.

" Perhaps she's not well."

" I hope she's not going down with something. I can't look after her."

"Perhaps that bag on her back is too heavy for her."

"She gets a lot of homework now."

" I hope she is not in trouble at school. There will be somebody still there. I'll go and ask."

"No. If it was important they would have phoned. I expect she's tired. They have games on Fridays now. You'll have to pick her up in future instead of making her walk through the park."

"Nobody makes her walk. She likes it."

The lead in my chest got heavier. I had to let it out. I coughed hard. It was better than howling like a wolf, which is what I wanted to do. It didn't help. They thought then I had a cold coming on and started to discuss whether I should go to Dad's after all.

I wanted to say again that I wanted to go home but I kept it in. The lead sank. I didn't know where home was anyway. I understood something suddenly. I had heard somebody else once saying she wanted to go home. Mrs Havers. Sometimes she knew who her visitors were and sometimes she didn't. She had said once, " I want to go home," and Barbara had asked her where she lived. The old lady hadn't answered. She had just stared ahead and then after a minute went back to talking about the blitz and how she went to Spain on a plane.

Barbara had explained that her mother hadn't really wanted to go home. She didn't want to go anywhere at all in fact. She had meant something else.

" She really means, 'I want my life back,' " Barbara had said. " It comes back to her occasionally, the life she used to have. She remembers when she had her own home to run, when she was a housewife thirty years ago and my brother and I were children. She would have been happy then. She was in charge. My father went out to work and she did everything else. She forgets all about that life most of the time but now and again something reminds her or she gets a flash of who she was. She wants to be the person she used to be, to live how she used to live, but nobody can do that. Life is not a video tape. You can't wind it back to the good bits and play it again."

That was what I wanted. My life back. But I wasn't going to get it. Barbara had been right that time. The tears were running down my face now. I used to love Barbara. That is what hurt the most. That's why I had kicked her really hard the last time I'd seen her.