Chapter 6B: An Eventful Foray

After the little contretemps Charlie was concerned I wouldn't want to take her running with me. "Are you really upset with me?"

She was easily hurt, and somehow in her mind, she had put together the fact that I had criticised her, and then suggested I might not wanted her with me as I took my exercise.

It wasn't difficult, in fact it was the easiest thing in the world to go and pull her on top of the bed for a cuddle. It crossed my mind that our relationship didn't have a very good start with our running around the country trying to evade people from chasing us.

The moment that that crossed my mind I asked myself what I thought by 'our relationship'. There was no doubt about it, Charlie was getting to me. She might have been younger than either of my previous girlfriends, but in some ways she was more adult, probably 'streetwise' would be a better word.

I didn't think that it was just that she was trying to fit in, but she had adapted to my more mature interests as if her life depended on enjoyed hiking. I had been astounded by her positive reaction to the stuff in the church, which lots of kids would find dead boring.

She appeared to share my quirks and had a wicked sense of humour when it was called for. She didn't get all mopey when a bit of rain came down, as Josie had done when she had been camping with me. I admired Charlie for that.

I just wish I had never made that stupid suggestion about the wedding ring and pretending to be couple, she was far too young to separate fact and fiction.

My feelings were mixed towards her. Was she going to become trouble, a leech which I couldn't get rid of? I did think of cutting her loose, but where would she go? She was getting more confident, but at times she needed and looked for guidance from somebody older than her, and dare I say it, she needed somebody with experience she could look up to.

For some strange reason, she respected me and thought that she owed me her life with that cricket ball. I noticed she now kept it with her things. I said nothing about that, but set out the facts, "Without me, you'd never have had that man put a gun to your head."

"Without you, I'd have died of cold that night when you arrived. You're OK," she said. "You don't talk down to me." It was later I discovered how low she had been the couple of days before I arrived, wanting to end it all, but not having the courage to jump under a bus.

Next day we got up early to one of her "Yippee's"

"Pleased to go running?" I enquired, pulling on my shorts.

"It's the last day of my exams. I was worried about my exams all the time. Now, they're over."

"Exams?"

"GCSE's."

"But you're only fifteen?"

"I'm one of the youngest in the year. The school year that is, it ends on September 1^st." So her birthday was near the end of August.

There was really no need for it, but I was bloody annoyed. I'd almost flogged myself to death for years, knowing that studying was my only road to freedom. First, it had been trying to get my GCSE's, 'O' (Ordinary level) and then 'A' level and now my Master's degree. I just thought, 'What a waste! Is Charlie going to miss out on every opportunity she could ever get? All this time and she'd been wasting her one chance at education.

With a hint of anger, I announced, "You're sitting the exams again in November and you're going to pass them! We'll get you some books later today."

Where had that come from? Probably the last seven years of exam swotting and a sense of guilt that even I, had not finally completed my last couple of exam sittings.

From here, I expected a tirade of refusal, but all I got was an assumption that she would, but she added an apologetic proviso, "I'll try, but I don't understand it all."

"Of course you don't, I'll help."

When I offered she threw her arms around me though we were not dressed. I didn't forcibly object to the physical contact, as it had nothing to do with sex. Of course, I believed she had an urge to do well and get her certificates, but I later found she'd do anything to foster deeper contact with me.

And I didn't see it.

Before we went to sleep we made a pact. A beach holiday was on, but I wanted some exercise and she would join in. Then it would be studying under my supervision, at the beach if the weather was good.

It gave me something to do, but time would tell me how demanding it would be.

I adjusted my large, but empty rucksack as we jogged along the beach towards the town. My friend tried to keep up with me, so I made the effort to go at a slower pace than normal. She soon found that it was easier to run on the wet sand than through the deep dryer stuff higher up the beach.

It was only a few miles, but I think her thighs were aching solid as we walked the last half mile before we hit the shops. We found a good stationers with some GCSE texts. I had to order texts for English and the Maths books as well as French and the Sciences. I didn't worry about the technology stuff, you needed practical work for that. I elicited the details of her optional subjects; Geography and Commerce. To make up for the technology, I saw a good course, like the one I had taken, on Medieval history. I'd get her through any history course.

On the way back because she'd been quite up-beat even for an hour in the stationer's I relented and we walked slowly over the sands, rather than jogging. Eh, my rucksack was full of groceries and I didn't have the heart to make her carry it.

This time she took off her trainers and socks and paddled in the water most of the way. "I've always thought beaches were full of pebbles," she announced in surprise.

Surely there were sandy ones near Southampton from where, I understood, she came.

Thereafter, for a few days we went on a run for our food each morning and were soon running back, splashing through the water if the tide was up. Later in the day saw us on the beach reading texts, unless the weather was crap, in which case we went for a few miles hike and settled to working in the caravan.

I was generally up before her and had a quiet half hour's Tai Chi until she sussed me out and joined in that, too. It was rather embarrassing; she got hold of the moves within minutes, routines that had taken me months to sort out! Dammit!

I had always discovered much energy devoted to physical exercise helped me sleep well at nights and improved my learning capacity, so had no qualms about pushing her in a second run each night.

It was one morning towards the end of the first week I was waiting for the second baking of bread at an aroma-filled baker's shop having heard that a batch of bara brith* was on the way. As Charlie wandered on ahead, unaware of the culinary treat in store for her later in the day, I was to catch up with her near the sea as arranged. When we met up she was leaning over a fence at the top of the beach, her eyes fixed on a grassy area in front of a wooden hall where a dozen shapes were twisting in an almost silent rendition of Tai Chi.

Needless to say our routine changed and we arrived earlier, each morning, subsequently paid a few pounds, and joined the tee-shirted informal group. Charlie lapped it up, and within three days was pleading for me to pay for the evening sessions for her. No problem, I was well aware that physically fit people studied better.

It was no problem though I did have to fork out for a pair of 'pyjamas' for her as well as for her own ball. After that, the evening bus from town re-passed the campsite back to its depot. At five to seven she was on it, first two nights a week and then five. The difference showed me up during the casual morning sessions when casual tee-shirts were the order of the day.

Our routine changed, but Charlie was making great progress in all her subjects. Her main problem was that she'd changed schools during the two year GCSE course, and integral facts of almost every subject were missing. I had a go at the past tense of irregular French verbs, equilateral equations, ratios, and comma work in English. The science errors were easy to correct, and she sped ahead, absorbing everything I could throw at her about Mediaeval History. She struck me as a very bright girl that a good school would have rapidly sorted out.

The first week in June came and went and we were still ensconced in the van like an old married couple. Charlie's Tai Chi course had been affiliated to the university in some way and she trotted off to the student health centre a couple of days –women's things!

Evenings, I generally went on my big six or eight miler run then and came back past the Tai Chi hall when we would spend an hour walking back. A few rainswept days I'd use the car.

It was a Thursday night and I was waiting for her and turned on the news in the car.

And now back to the Surrey murders: The police are making an active search for the suspect in the distinctive lavender coloured coat. He was the man who is believed to have travelled from the Portsmouth area. Initial reports suggest he had an accomplice who made a hostage of Mrs Stirrupson whilst forcing her husband to get a ransom in cash.
Many of the same police officers involved in the murder have moved to new site in the New Forest area and have taken away a Peugot 3008 for forensic investigation. Last week there was a death on the railway line and a weapon was also found by a railway worker. Another incident involving John Reedman, the man found semi-conscious by carriage cleaners has subsequently been connected. It was confirmed that Reedman was recently identified to be suffering from a gun wound to his scalp.

Human rights organizations have today expressed concern that three prisoners who committed suicide at the Guantanamo Bay Detainment...

Bloody Hell! I switched the radio off, as if being caught listening to it might make me more of a suspect, and I determined to find out exactly who had been killed. At least it was good riddance to the gunman, if it had been his body found on the line.

The trouble was that I was only too aware that the death of Nasty Man#1 didn't mean there wasn't anybody else chasing me. I considered what I had heard and decided that I'd better make a will and send copies to Stirrupson's law firm and others to Switzerland as well as letting Herr Gunter know I was alive.

There and then I pondered this and came up with a solution.

Using the, as yet unused, mobile phone, I texted his daughter "Grande prix demandez votre papa pour le prix – 'reports of my Mark Twain are greatly exaggerated' -Mr Caledonia."

I was very careful. I hoped that no casual interception would notice this child's text. Had the girl enough sense to show it to her father to get the prize (grande prix)? And would Gunter be able to interpret it to have come from me, Scott (as Mr Caledonia-the old name for Scotland) The reference to Mark Twain I made to suggest that I was not dead, as reported, but still alive.

Almost immediately a message flew back with another text on it, simply another 'phone number.

Two can play at that game and I kept quiet. I'd also get another cell-phone before I transmitted to Switzerland again.

Quickly I took the battery out of this one so it was definitely off the air and could not easily locate me.

Next step: a lawyer.

It was three days later we were up at the ungodly hour of four o'clock and caught a 5:15 train at Aberystwyth. By eight thirty I was in Birmingham New Street. I decided that the city was a big enough place for me to use a lawyer.

Charlie went off shopping and for some medical appointment. I was pleased that she had taken my advice and was getting checked up.

The morning saw me giving a brief résumé of what I wanted in my last will and testament. The details and my specification of millions of pounds astonished the lawyer who thought that I was having it written up as a joke, an expensive one judging by his prices. I left three million to Charlie though she didn't know this. The balance if there was any, was left to my college where I'd been made to feel at home for four years.

By the afternoon I had it signed and witnessed. As a precaution I also had it notarised and immediately posted off a couple of copies down to the lawyers in London and four to Switzerland.

Then I sat back to present a low profile and hope things could be sorted out from their end. After all, the trouble had started overseas.

For some reason Charlie wanted to stay another day in Birmingham, so I took the opportunity to go home to Miniwenster. I could see the time coming when I might have to get on the cross-channel ferry or fly out to Switzerland, and I wanted to be prepared. I collected from the post office the rigmarole of passport application forms and, leaving Charlie in a bed and breakfast, I had to go and get a couple of signatures from people who had known me for a number of years.

Of course, I kept away from home or should I say McAlpine's house. My first problem was that the schools had broken up and all the teachers who I knew would be able to provide a reference for me, appeared to have scarpered off abroad.

Fortunately I bumped into an old primary school teacher who couldn't do enough for me, and even called in her neighbour who I had seen many years previously, a retired old police constable. It did take all afternoon in social politeness to get everything signed.

Now came the real problem. I decided to use my college address as it was already known, but I had no idea of the depth of the search that was on for me. Were all my likely addresses under surveillance, or was there somebody even in the Passport Office who would alert my enemies to the fact that I was going to collect some post? I knew that there was only one way I could get the passport now, that was by applying directly in person to the Passport Office, so that nobody had time to track the application and set up an ambush at the delivery address if it were sent out by post.

A personal visit meant I should have disappeared from the office by the time anybody was alerted, I hoped.

Charlie was downcast when I arrived back in Birmingham and told her that I had made arrangements to get a passport, "You're going to leave me! You said you were going to help me get through the exams," she said the first thing that came into her head to blackmail me.

And what a mood she was in!

"No," I protested "it's just that sometime I might have to get this sorted out and I'll be ready to go."

"Go!" she snorted. " ... without me, leaving me alone, I want one, too."

I raised a few objections indicating that if I did disappear it would only be for a day or so and then I explained that it would be almost impossible to get the document before she was sixteen, "minors can't get passports," I announced.

What did I know? She was down to the nearest post office with all the forms and to prove that it just needed her parent's signatures with those of other professionals who had known her. She was in a real mood. I didn't really know why she was that upset, I'd never seen her like it before.

"Come with me down-home and I'll get my mum to fill in the forms for me. Our doctor'll sign anything for a tenner too."

"If anybody's latched onto the fact we're a couple it could be dangerous going back to your house," I protested. "Anyhow they might call the police on you, you're still a minor."

A very determined voice responded, "She won't."

I still wasn't sure about, this, but later the next morning we caught a train down to London and then another from Waterloo to the South Coast.

"There's no hurry," she said. "If we get there by about two, dad will be gone to the betting shop for the Saturday afternoon races and my brother will be settled in the pub for the afternoon."

There are some parts of many cities that you don't ever really want to visit. I don't think I'd like to go again to the rundown housing estate that the bus from the railway station took us to.

First we went to her local GP's surgery and was next in when she presented a tenner and said all it was passport application form. "You've got have someone known you for years according to the passport requirements, but Old Dewey has only been my doctor for less than two years. He'll sign anything if the price is right."

A twenty minute walk and we came to her council estate. You know the type of place. There were half-broken down cars in a permanent state of repair, littered packing cases and broken children's toys dispersed around as you stepped away from the broken glass and dog faeces underfoot.

It made me feel uncomfortable just being there.

She led the way round the back of a council house, signing for me to stay back as she peered in through the kitchen window. "Whatever happens, you stay out of it," she was adamant. After another look around and seemingly satisfied, she took the door knob in both hands and with some manipulation managed to open it.

I could not see her mother, but heard the reaction from outside as she came to terms with who was at the door. "Charlene, your fucking hair! where's it gone, you little tart!"

I wasn't quick enough. I saw little of the action apart from two hands grab the hair from above Charlie's ears and yank her feet off the back step into the kitchen.

By the time that I had approached alongside the wall and was at the door, Charlie's mother was on the floor blood pouring from her nose and holding her face, "You little bitch," she kept snarling.

Finding she had hit her mother was anathema to me, but Charlie acted very business-like. She took her mother by the shoulders near her neck and dumped her on a precarious upright chair by the table, heedlessly sweeping off dirty dishes and food straight onto the floor.

I must admit that I stood in shocked amazement. There was such a conflict of unspoken emotions present at that instant. Nobody said anything for some time. Charlie was obviously embarrassed at the state of her messy home. Or was she embarrassed that she had hit her mother, or the fact that her mother had laid hands on her? I never knew, but she dared not face me in the eye.

I was still taking in the fact that Charlie's mother was sitting, petrified in pain and unmoving. It took me quite some time to appreciate that Charlie's fingers were deeply embedded into what must have been pressure points between the neck and shoulders.

"She's bleeding." I said, almost like a dummy not knowing what else to utter.

"Throw me that," she responded authoritatively, turning her head to the dirty sink.

There was a smelly dishcloth on the drainer that I picked up and was about to rinse under the water. My attempts to wash it out were cut short by a reached out hand. I turned up my nose at the smell as Charlie washed the blood away, to be replaced by greasy food smears over her mother's face.

I attempted to speak, but was interrupted "This bitch knew what was happening to me and went along with it. You know why I HATED my long hair? She used to pull it, just like she did then, and her bloody stepson did the same when he made me..." she choked and there was no need to say any more.

I had walked into a far deeper mess than I had appreciated.

A juxtaposition of thoughts was mangling through my head; the filthy home environment, Charlie's embarrassment, the half-dressed bleeding woman, her callous greeting, Charlie's violent reaction, and now her new found assertive attitude, what a real mess it was! I was stunned into standing by helplessly as an observer.

The next half hour passed in a daze, as Charlie demanded her mother fill in the passport details, signing the back of the photographs and threatening her time and time again. It was only as the events unfolded that I began to understand that Charlie had been seen as a potential money earner on the sex front, with the implicit co-operation of Mum.

Bitch! It made me feel sick.

I was too nauseated by my revulsion to do anything but stand there. I know my inactivity was seen by her mother as a threat by the now-cowed woman, but I found it hard to condone Charlie's actions. But then, who was I to raise a complaint, what right had I to object?

The last thing Charlie did before she left was to take a tea caddy, dip her fingers into it and come up with a few fivers, and thrust them into my hand. We parted from the now snivelling woman with Charlie offering a parting sneer, "This is mine! You fucking grab my hair again and it will be a broken nose next time, and that isn't all."

I think I was still in a state of confusion as she led the way, marching out of the back door, grasping firmly the documents, and waiting for me to get out before slamming it shut. She strutted onto the pavement (sidewalk) saying nothing, and I had difficulty keeping up with her long strides until she came to the bus stop.

It wasn't long to wait for a service bus, but even as we stood there, her physical features began to droop. I grasped her hand hard to give her support as I began to understand that though I had questions myself, they could wait, this meeting had been more than trying for her.

The double decker passed a small area of parkland I pulled her off the bus and we found a seat under some trees where, the moment she sat down, she collapsed against me and just wept inconsolably for some minutes. Finally she brought herself back under control, heaving her body a few times with very deep breaths. I began to appreciate why she had probably been so uptight over the previous couple of days, if this was what she had been looking forward to.

"Thank you," she muttered finally in a stronger local accent than I was used to.

I said little more, but offered a few words of nebulous consolation, whatever they were I forget.

She had to let it out, "It was almost all I could do when she grabbed me like that, I knew she would, you know, if I'd butted her up with my head properly I'd have driven her nose into her brain. They told me to be careful of that, it's a lethal move. I didn't do it, did I?"

What was she on about?

"They told you?"

"The women's self-protection classes."

"Er?"

"The evening sessions at Tai Chi, the martial arts groups and the Saturday afternoon Women's self-defence classes."

That caught me unawares

"You didn't know? I thought... , but after that man on the train platform almost killed me I never wanted to be in like that again. I thought you knew," And it came tumbling out that her step brother had easily overpowered her on occasions and forced her, though she didn't go into details. Heh, I didn't want to know them. It was quite clear that grabbing her long hair had almost always initiated some terrible humiliation.

What I did understand was that she had taken different level courses of Tai Chi defetui shou (response drills) and sanshou (self-defence techniques), three nights a week as well as women's self-defence classes on her other visits. How could she have done this without me knowing? We were living on top of one another. I had just assumed...

"I had to stand up for myself, your cricket ball saved me once, but you won't be there the next time, I've got to stand on my own two feet."

It began to make sense. One moment she was proud of having tackled her mother for the first time, then she went to pieces again, "I saw you hated me for what I did to her, I know!"

No, I couldn't understand how anyone could react like that to their own family, particularly a female, but then I'd never suffered what she had. I had had a mother who doted on me, even Mrs. McAlpine#3 hadn't bullied me physically.

Charlie needed her confidence boosting, not recrimination. "I saw how she grabbed you. You had to do something." I confirmed. Her speed had certainly caught me flat footed, yet I still had an image of that half-dressed slattern with her bloody face who I had naturally felt sorry for.

"I'm never going back there," she hissed with added confidence, looking to me for support.

"You don't have to," I offered without thinking of any long term consequences of the four brief words. It was a few days before their being uttered really impacted on me.

In the meantime we talked together, bringing Charlie down from a swinging high of adrenaline to a level equilibrium. It was late before we got a bag of fish and chips each and caught the return London train. We both wanted to get out of the South as quickly as possible.

"We can get our passports now," declared my friend, obviously wanting a positive objective.

I'd not considered that, but saw no reason not to be prepared, and somehow I wanted to have a positive strategy and that seemed as good an option as any to overcome the strained interaction between the two of us.

"We can go to the passport office. It's in London," she declared.

In my student days I'd heard that someone had rushed to get an out of date passport renewed by person, and in the back of my mind was the fact that the queues were horrific. "They have one in Cardiff and another in Liverpool," I countered.

"Then it's Cardiff, that's in Wales," she declared.

I countered, "The Liverpool office is probably easier to get to and if anyone traces us to Cardiff it may indicate our location in Wales, more than Liverpool. Liverpool deals with the whole of the North of England, it won't provide anyone with too many clues as to where we are."

"But it's nowhere near..."

"Don't be silly, Liverpool is just over the border from North Wales. There will probably be as good transport links to Aberystwyth from there as to Cardiff or Swansea."

Good, she was more positive as she concurred with my reasoning. We rang the Bed and Breakfast in Birmingham and rebooked the same room, as we would now arrive very late evening, too late to go rooting round for other accommodation.

At Euston station, looking at the departures board, she complained, "We could have caught a train direct to Liverpool from here."

That had been silently ruled out by me already, "And get in a big city at midnight to started looking for accommodation! This way, we have the ticket paid for as far as Brum* and then a bed for the night." It made sense to me.

Alighting at New Street Station that night, before we left we visited the ticket office and booked on the seven o'clock train the following morning that would get us into Liverpool just before nine. I knew the queue for passports could take all day and this was coming up to peak season, so we wanted to be there in good time.

We were tired when we turned in, rose before breakfast, and were back at the station where we managed to get a couple of overpriced sarnies* and coffees before boarding the direct train on the West Coast Mainline.

I hate drinks in those damned cardboard-like containers!

On the journey, a perusal of the passport info. was ambiguous as to where the Office was that we wanted. Not knowing Liverpool, we made the decision that, as time was important if we wanted to get everything done that day, we wanted to be near the head of the queue and had better look for a taxi to take us there direct.

It had been a good decision because it looked as if all the old broken down London cabs were sold off to Liverpool, where their fares were remarkably low. The Scouser* who drove it told us most people went to Water Street, but the Passport Office had moved from there some time before, though lots of documentation in the Post Offices throughout the country had never been updated. He took us about a mile or so down near the docks, but even so, we were caught up in the gridlock of the morning pre-nine o'clock traffic congestion.

The Passport Office already had a queue that tripled in size within seconds of our arrival, and then grew and grew throughout the three and a half hours we waited. By some lucky quirk we were out before one o'clock. Each of us with a brand new passport! Thank goodness for meticulous planning, we saw more than a few dispirited applicants being turned back because a signature was not exactly placed in the designated box, or the photographs had inadequate contrast for their technology. Eugh!

Lunch took us to a pub where we had a dish of the local scouse* and a French stick, each of us having a beer. OK you have to be eighteen to have drink Charlie's height and her new confidence let her pass for that age. I must say the food was filling, but it wasn't swilling in grease as I'd been led to believe the original scouse usually was.

Now back to Aberystwyth. We almost got on the wrong train at Liverpool Lime Street Station, until we found the trains that went under the River Mersey left from a lower level. Forty minutes later, we were in Chester, where we got a train to Shrewsbury. Then the two hour jerking and bumpy diesel unit returned us on the slow and uncomfortable trip back to Aberystwyth for seven thirty that night.

We arrived into a sea fret that had spread onto land to welcome us into a misty permeating drizzle. Despite the lousy weather we were reassured to be back Charlie read my own mind as she confided as we emerged onto Ffordd* Alexandria, "Thank goodness that's over." We felt safe being back at our base.