Rose had a week to break it to her friends she was moving away - a long way away and she wouldn't be able to get on a bus from another part of London to meet them on Saturday morning, which meant no more trying to dodge store detectives when being cheeky and one of them asking an assistant for their size in a dress they couldn't afford and them all sneaking in the dressing rooms and taking it in turns to try it on.
That had kept them amused for a while and the poor Saturday girl whose job it was to make sure every item was returned to the rail was kept busy getting another size if one of the friends found it didn't fit. She would miss that more than anything, they'd been doing it since they were twelve and a half, well that and lurking around the men's department and looking for cute boys looking embarrassed their mothers were buying them t-shirts and school shirts.
So when they'd had enough the following day when they'd all got their spending money and tried to fool the bus conductor they all had bus tickets, they went to the kiosk and bought two cans of soda to share and had gone to sit outside Hendrik's Department Store after swearing several months back when they'd mostly all turned thirteen they were going to get jobs there when they left school.
Shareen was sipping on a straw after Rose offered the can of orange to her after taking hers out.
"So, where did ya say you were going?" she asked Rose, who was looking at a cute boy following his mother out and carrying two bags.
Shareen nudged her, the others giggling.
"What? Oh some town near Glasgow I've never heard of. Mum's getting all giddy over it, she's already planning shopping trips there every Saturday but I'd rather be hanging around with you lot."
"Face it Rose, you'd rather be looking at the cute boys," Charlene laughed, nudging Keisha, who was taking too long taking a drink.
"Yeah, I guess I'll miss that too," Rose laughed. "Anyone want my red bike?" she offered, knowing one of her cousins would probably claim it and wishing now she'd never asked for it.
She'd asked for the red bike for her twelfth birthday to join some of the other kids even though her mother couldn't really afford it but there it was, outside on the balcony and her mother had claimed she had no idea where it had come from and Rose knowing she didn't want to admit she'd gone without something to pay for it.
Now, she had better things to do and the bike was forgotten about.
"Think I'll give that a miss," Shareen laughed, handing the can back to Rose and Rose shaking it to see if it was worth sticking the straw in again or just finishing it off. "So you'll be starting a new school then?"
Rose thought that was rather obvious and felt like saying no, she'd be getting the bus every morning.
"Yeah, some posh grammar school by what mum said, Bob reckons schools are different up there," she replied.
"When was he at school then?" Keisha laughed as Charlene scowled at her for finishing the drink. "Was that in the dark ages?"
"Probably, I don't know what mum sees in him, he's worse than Jimbo and Howard put together. I think he must have charmed her on the way to the shops. I bet it all started that time the washing machine stopped working and she went to the launderette when the repair man said he'd have to go back with a part for it, I mean Bob had to do his laundry, right?"
The others nudged her.
"Yeah, betcha he saw her going in so he took his shirt off and stuffed it in the dryer just to chat her up," Shareen laughed.
"Yeah, then I bet she asked him for change even though there's a change machine," Keisha joined in.
"How do you know there's a change machine, thought your mum had a washer?" Charlene questioned her.
Keisha tried to bluff her way out of it.
"I went in once with my gran," she replied, knowing they'd never go for it.
"Whatever," Shareen huffed, trying to aim the empty can at the rubbish bin and missing. "Hey Rose, betcha anything your mum flashed her knickers at him when she took them out of the washer!"
"Shut up Shareen," Rose blushed at the thought but that could explain why her mother had suddenly started getting all defensive where she was going.
She'd never worked out why Bob had started calling for her mother and her being told to go over to her cousin's flat. Now, he was taking them away from their friends and family and her mother was willing to do it.
"Well he must be some bloke then?" Charlene suggested, sitting on the back of the bench as people walked past looking at them. "I mean to follow him all the way to Glasgow. Where is it you're going?"
"I think she mentioned Paisley," Rose had to admit, trying to forget about it.
"Where they make the shirts?" Keisha laughed.
"What would you know about shirts?" Charlene prodded Keisha's shoulder from behind. "Oh, does your brother wear fancy patterned shirts?"
Rose had to smile at the thought. She was beginning to like Jay but he was older and probably had half a dozen girls lined up already and she'd just be in a long line of them. She wished Mickey Smith had a long line of potential girlfriends so he wouldn't want her to hang around with him, which she was always trying to avoid.
She also wished they didn't have to go past the garage he worked at on the way back from school. She had been thinking of ways to avoid him all summer, now that wasn't going to be a problem.
"You with us Rose?" Charlene asked her, nudging Rose with her leg. "You daydreaming again?"
"Yeah, Earth to Rose," Keisha laughed. "Bet there's different stars up in Glasgow?"
"Do ya even know where Glasgow is?" Shareen teased her.
"Yeah," Keisha huffed indignantly. "It's in Scotland – duh!"
"You only know that 'cos Rose said," Charlene joined in. "You've gone quiet Rose. Come on, let's go get two lots of fries from the takeaway, anyone got any spare money or we'll all be walking home."
Once home and saying she'd see them all on Monday, just after five, there was a knock on the door, Rose dreading it was Bob coming back with his belongings as he'd just gone back last night with an overnight bag but that was probably all he'd brought with him. It was Mickey, which was almost as bad. Her mother just had to pop her head around the kitchen door as she was preparing tea.
"What's he doin' here? What do ya want Mickey?" she shouted. "Rose is too young ta be hangin' around with you."
"Leave him Mum, you never bothered before," Rose protested, not knowing why she was defending him. "I'm going out for an hour."
"You'd better be back in an hour, we're not waitin' for you to come back to eat, yours'll be in the oven young madam," her mother replied. "Well you won't be hangin' around with him for much longer, just you remember that."
Mickey was about to ask what that meant when Rose grabbed his arm and pulled him outside.
"What did she mean by that?" a confused Mickey asked.
"Nothing, which did ya mean?"
"Both. Is she still seeing that bloke, they'll all be gone by Monday, then she'll be upset," he replied. Then he saw the look on her face. "He's staying?"
"Not exactly," Rose admitted as they walked down the steps.
Mickey stood in front of the door when they reached the ground floor.
"She'll be upset when he goes, won't she?" he asked as Rose tried to get past him. "Answer me Rose, is he staying or going?"
"Chill Micks, he's just staying with us until Tuesday, then he's going home," Rose replied.
"And?" he questioned her. "You mean she's just gonna forget about him? Huh, I can't see that, I've seen them coming home from the pub."
Did he have to remind her? She'd gone home and straight to her room so she didn't catch them in the living room.
He moved out of the way and they walked across to sit on the concrete bollards, Rose taking up two as she put her legs up and rested her feet on the side of the next one.
"Okay Rose, what aren't you telling me?" he asked, seeing her staring at the ground.
He'd come to know when she was avoiding something.
"No! Hang on a minute. She's going with him? I mean you're both going with him, to Scotland, wherever he comes from?"
"Mum said he's from Paisley," Rose replied quietly. "We're leaving Mickey, next Saturday."
Mickey looked lost for words, for a change Rose thought.
"That's a bit soon," he finally said after five minutes silence.
"Tell me about it, how do ya think I feel? I have to leave school and my friends."
"Can't you stay here with your cousins?" he wondered.
"Yeah, great idea Mickey, I'll just share a bed shall I? You know what my mum's like when she gets an idea in her head as well as I do," Rose replied.
"Well if you ask me, it'll never last," Mickey suggested.
"She'll do it just to prove a point, trust me," Rose told him.
While they had been talking, she'd seen Bob go towards the front of the block of flats then seen him walk along the balcony. She didn't like him much, he was a bit too smug with himself and she wondered why on Earth her mother had picked him up. She'd had to smile to herself that her friends had been right, about picking Bob up in the launderette.
"I'd best go Mickey or mum will let my tea dry up in the oven and her cooking's not brilliant to start off with though I think she's got a cookbook stashed away from the library lately."
"Come by the garage before you leave?" Mickey asked as she got up.
"I was told to stay away, remember?" she reminded him.
"Yeah, sorry. Guess I won't see you before you go then?"
"Guess not unless you call and you saw what mum was like?"
"Yeah, thought she'd have lightened up since she met that bloke," he grinned, not knowing what else to say. "Just for the record, I mean if you don't come back, I was gonna ask you to be my girlfriend when you were sixteen."
"You were? You seriously thought I'd agree?" Rose teased him.
"Well we hang around together, I thought, you know?" he muttered back.
"I was teasing ya, you 'nana. Still, it's a long way off, you might have found someone by then anyway, don't wait for me Mickey."
"So what's all that with you stopping by the garage every night then?" he wanted to know.
"I'm not going out of my way to get home Mickey, I used to go past it before you started working there ya know?"
Mickey looked disappointed but tried to laugh.
"Yeah, if you say so Rose, see ya around then, I mean maybe before you go?"
"I don't wanna go to Scotland ya know? It's not like I have a choice."
With that, she ran off and put the code into the door to get back in.
While she'd been out, after Jackie and Bob had made out, as Rose would have called it, he reminded her of a few things.
"So you agree then?" Bob asked her.
"Well she'd get most of that if she had a dad I suppose?" Jackie admitted. "About the rest though?"
He put his arms around her and kissed her neck.
"You're not backing out on me are you Jackie?" he asked.
"No, 'course not, it's just, ya know? She's only thirteen," she reminded him.
"That's why we came to our little arrangement Jackie love," he reminded her back.
"Sorry Bob, I just have to get used to it," Jackie replied, trying to rescue their tea.
"Well consider the alternative?" he asked as he heard the door open.
Rose walked into the kitchen, Bob sitting on one of the wooden chairs.
"You could have shouted hello when I passed you," Bob told her as she went to wash her hands.
She glanced at her mother.
"Yeah Rose, you shouldn't have ignored him," her mother agreed.
"I thought it was rude to shout over to people across the courtyard?" Rose asked.
"Don't be cheeky to your mother," Bob reminded her yet again, how many times, Rose had lost count.
"Well say sorry to him," her mother told her, dishing up what Rose thought was maybe one recipe she could actually manage not to spoil.
"Sorry Bob," Rose said quietly, wishing she dare add that next time, she'd lean over the balcony and do it.
"That's better, best get used to being more respectful to your elders Rose," Bob grinned at her mother as she put his plate on the table. "This looks good love."
Rose was dying to say wait until he tried the rest of her cooking. Actually, maybe if she herself sabotaged his food, he may go off on Tuesday and tell them to stay here. She had no such luck though as he left for work on Monday morning, Rose having gone over to Shareen's the previous afternoon to escape watching yet another repeat of a James Bond film, one with the Scottish version, surprisingly.
"Bye Jackie love," Bob was saying as Rose was deciding what to do that day before her mother had her packing or taking things to various friends and relatives when she decided what they were leaving.
"Yeah, see ya tonight Bob, we are going out?"
"Yes love, we are, then an early night, I have a train to catch tomorrow morning. Don't forget to check the times on Saturday and book your tickets."
Rose wondered where her mother was getting the money from to pay for them, she was giving up her job as a home hairdresser. Rose had heard her cancelling appointments for next week. She was about to give Bob time to leave when her mother asked where she thought she was going.
"Just to Shareen's, why?" Rose replied.
"You can forget that madam, go down to the shop and see if ya can get any cardboard boxes before someone beats ya to it. Cousin Mo's taking your dad's trophies and some of the ornaments and any clothes we don't want you can help me take them to the charity shop. Oh, Bev said she'd take that bike for Vicky if ya don't want it any more. I mean there it was, on the balcony when you went to answer the doorbell, despite me telling ya not to answer the door then a year later ya never go near it."
"Mum, come off it, I know you bought it for me. What did ya have to do without to pay for it or did ya take extra clients?" Rose asked her.
"What ya talking about Rose? I keep tellin' ya I've no idea where it came from and then we were tripping up over it in the hallway. Well get goin' then or they'll be no boxes left and we'll have to carry them over a few at a time."
Rose shook her head. So where had the bike come from? Bikes just don't appear out of thin air, no matter how much you wanted one and she'd lost count of how many times they'd passed the bike shop and she'd stopped to look at it and her mother had to go back and drag her away.
Had it been her dad watching over her and somehow, a total stranger had been prompted to buy it and leave it outside on her twelfth birthday? No, it had to be something else. She set off to the shop and began to wonder how they were going to choose what to part with but there would be no room in their cases for anything except necessities. It wasn't like they were going down to Southend and staying in Jimbo's run-down caravan that smelled of damp and she'd gone back with a chest infection.
She swore she'd never go in a caravan again.
Alec had gone off to his aunt's, her fussing over him ever since his mother had died.
"What's wrong with you this morning Alec?" his aunt Mary asked him as he took his notepad out of his shoulder bag.
"Nothing, I just miss my mum during the holidays."
"Sorry. Are you going swimming with your friends later?" she asked as she saw the towel.
Alec nodded. It would be the first time he'd been allowed to go on his own, he was meeting a few of the other boys he actually talked to who didn't think he wasted his time writing stories.
"Tell you what, tomorrow, why don't you pick some flowers from the garden and we'll take them to put on your mum's grave?" she suggested, patting his shoulder.
Alec smiled. He'd not been able to accept his mother had gone just like that, even though she'd been ill but she'd covered what had really been wrong with her. He'd always thought she'd recover when she'd been taken into hospital but she was gone, the surgeon saying she'd never admitted to her own doctor she'd been having heart problems.
He'd never even got to say goodbye to her properly, his aunt had been with him while his dad had laid on her, holding her hand, even after they'd argued for the past few years that he'd been aware they'd been arguing. Now his dad was trying his best to make up for it.
"Well go on then, use the dining room table if you want to write," his aunt smiled at him.
"Where's Peter?" he asked about his older cousin who had been off at university.
"He was staying in Edinburgh a while longer with his friends though I expect that's his excuse and he's got himself a girlfriend," his aunt smiled. "Not got a secret girlfriend of your own then Alec?" she teased him.
"No, I'm not interested in girls yet," Alec smiled back as he got his pencil case out.
"Well that'll all change soon enough, trust me," she replied as she went back into the kitchen. "Maybe you want to be a writer when you get older?"
"No, I want to go to college, I want to join the police," he replied.
"Really? You never said before Alec. What makes you say that?"
"I just want to help people. I've been thinking about it for a while," he told her.
He'd never get his mother off his mind but he could join the police and help other kids get over losing theirs by finding out how they'd died. He couldn't bring his own mother back but now his aunt was offering to go to the cemetery with him, maybe he could say goodbye without his dad seeing him getting upset.
By Friday, after Rose had seen her friends to say a final goodbye, their furniture had been taken to the storage unit and they were staying at Mo's for the night then heading for the station for the train to Glasgow. She was hoping that every time the phone rang or her mother called Bob, they were going to call it all off, though it would have been hard getting all their things back and her mother was handing the keys in to the council office after taking their things across the courtyard.
Rose had guessed Bob had given her mother the money for two one-way tickets to Glasgow, where he was meeting them so she supposed he had a car and had chosen not to drive down to London. She'd heard her mother saying how they were looking forward to it but she wished her mother wouldn't speak for her.
It had been hard the last few days, trying to cram everything into their suitcases and cart the rest to the charity shop in black bin-liners, her mother smiling at the woman behind the counter and saying they were having a clear-out. Rose thought her mother was fooling no-one, she'd bought most of them from the shop next door.
It was when she was laid on the sofa trying to sleep that it finally hit her. She had to start all over again, making new friends, settling into a new school and trying to hide the fact she was English to save being picked on. She'd already been given several ideas from her friends and was deciding which one to go with and may settle for Shareen's idea of losing her voice but that wouldn't last long but maybe long enough for her new classmates to accept her.
If her new teacher knew where she was from, maybe she'd get away with admitting it. Maybe she'd find someone to confide in who would help her break the news and who would stick up for her? Well she could but hope as she drifted off to sleep and tomorrow, her and her mother would be starting a new life but something was worrying her.
All the quiet phone conversations all week, her mother trying to keep her voice down but she'd heard a few things and couldn't work out if they were about her or not. It was too late now though, they were committed to going, the flat was empty where she'd spent the last thirteen years of her life and they would be living in Scotland. She'd been to the library, much to Shareen's dismay as she had a library ticket but she'd just looked at a book at the large table while Shareen was pulling faces and chewing her gum, less the disgusting part of taking it out of her mouth.
The next morning after a quick breakfast and saying goodbye to cousin Mo and her younger second cousins, they got a taxi to the underground station which took them to their train station and struggled between them with their luggage. Then as they were let on the platform for their train to Glasgow, she glanced at her mother, who seemed a lot happier about it than she did.
