Chance

By Phyllida Perrett 

“With yer long blond hair and yer eyes of blue, the only thing I ever got from you was sorrow”; the Bowie song went round and round in her head, kick-starting memories. She sat in the scruffy, fat-smelling café, face bent over the steaming mug, soaking up the warmth, listening to the radio. Her hair, once the colour of sunshine, hung in greasy clumps, her blue eyes shot with a roadmap of red. Stevie waited until her shaking hands steadied enough to pick up the coffee. 

“Hey, you aright, love?” Stevie looked up quickly, then ducked her chin back into her thick green scarf, recently liberated from a careless student. “You ok? You look like death”. She looked away from the intruder. It worked if you did that, people would shrug and move off. A chair close to her screeched, making her feel more jagged than she already was. She felt rather than saw someone sit opposite. Stevie didn’t move her eyes from the chipped mug, but she could smell him. He smelt clean, soapy, civilized. He didn’t smell of piss, filthy clothes, vomit or any of the other reeks normal in her world. She kept staring hard into the cooling drink.  

“Can I get you something to eat? Baked beans? Bacon sandwich?”  “I’m not hungry”. She didn’t look up, didn’t acknowledge him other than that. He didn’t say anything, just stood up and moved away. “Good” thought Stevie “I can drink my coffee in peace, bloody man probably after a cheap shag, or worse, he’s a do-gooder”. Stevie sat quietly ignoring everything and everyone, just adding more sugar to her already sweet drink. The minutes ticked. The radio played another song from the 70s.  

“Here you go, egg and chips and another coffee, that one must be cold by now”. A lovely, full plate of mouth-watering hot food was shoved under her nose. She turned her head away, went to get up but instead staggered, the room slipped and swung around her, a hand grasped her arm pulling her back onto the chair. “Look, I don’t want anything, please just eat, I’m going now. Please, eat”. With that the man walked away, the café door opened, then shut.  

It was getting dark as Stevie left the little café in Herne Bay. They were closing for the evening, 7pm, lights flicking on everywhere now. People either rushing to get home or sauntering to the pub looking forward to a pint or maybe oblivion. She hobbled along the seafront, desperately wishing she had enough money for a fix. Perhaps she could beg, approach someone friendly looking, maybe pick someone up? She stumbled: a man and woman moved quickly out of her way; she heard the woman say “God, she stinks” and realised that no-one would want to go anywhere near her.  

“Check her pulse, I think she’s dead, bloody ‘ell she smells”, the young man turned his head away as his stomach heaved at her pungent stink and the blood seeping through the thin blue coat. “I’ve called an ambulance, God I didn’t see her, she just appeared in front of me” The woman whose car had hit Stevie, suddenly sat down on the pavement, shock catching up with her. Jamie recognized the woman laying twisted on the road, the red, yellow, blue lights from the arcade’s revolving clown garishly illuminating her with jarring jollity. He’d bought her dinner because every time he saw a down and out he knew it could be his mother. He couldn’t tell, maybe she was, maybe she wasn’t. He just hoped that if he was kind to one person then someone, somewhere, might be kind to his mum. If she was still alive.  

The ambulance arrived, the police arrived. Uniformed people leaping out of fast vehicles, taking control, making order out of the unordered. Paramedic leaning over the thin scarecrow woman, feeling her pulse, flicking her eyelids back, shouting for oxygen, kit, stretcher. “Anyone know this woman?” the young police officer asked not expecting a yes. And before he could stop himself, Jamie replied, “she’s my mum”. As soon as he said it, he realized how nuts it was but the words had burst out of him.  The small crowd of gawpers all seemed to stop talking and stare at him. He felt like staring at himself too! “Ok mate, get in the ambulance, we’ll sort out the details on route, she’s in a pretty bad way”. 

Stevie opened her eyes slowly, adjusting to the bright orange hospital curtains surrounding her bed. She felt like crap, her body ached, her head ached, her left leg and arm were encased in plaster. “Eh, um, hello mum.” She wondered who was being spoken to. Someone was peering at her. Blimey, it was the egg and chip man! And he was saying “mum”. She stared back, confused. “Well you smell better, oh God, sorry, sorry, that came out wrong, I meant …” Jamie went red, looked away.  

Stevie moved her head carefully; it hurt like hell, “who are you?” she said, none too gently, but not loud enough to attract attention. She needed to work out what was going on first. Jamie ducked his chin towards his chest, looking younger than she’d originally thought when he was in the café.  “Jamie, my name’s Jamie – I told the police you’re my mum - just blurted it out” He stopped talking and looked at her. Not a pretty a sight, arm and leg in plaster, black sunken eyes, lips scabbed and bleeding. She squinted back at him, trying not to move too much, “so why tell them I’m your mum? I’d never admit to knowing me, I’m trash and I look like trash. What do you want?”  

It was a very good question. Jamie had thought and thought about it since she went in for surgery and his head ached horribly - not helped by the nasty coffee from the hospital machine. “Well, I saw you in the café and, I, well I thought you could be my mum because she ran away from Dad and me. She’s a junky on the streets like you – sorry but …” Stevie nodded her head to encourage Jamie to keep talking, “and you just looked so bad I thought if I could help you with a meal maybe someone would do it for my mum and then you got run over in front of me.” Again he suddenly stopped talking and once again ducked his chin, embarrassed. “So what’s my name supposed to be then? Might help if I know when to answer the nurses”, Stevie asked drily, inwardly amused by the young man and although she hated to admit it, touched. Nobody had been quite so nice to her for a longer time than she wanted to remember even if he did call her a junky. To be fair, she was, well trying not to be, that was why she had returned to her hometown thinking she could find her feet again. Maybe start over.  

“Tanya, Stephanie, Campbell – my mum, she’s very beautiful.” Jamie delved into his jacket and retrieved a small, battered photo. “Here she is. With me. I was two then”. He placed the photo in Stevie’s left hand. A happy photo of mum and son, both laughing up at the photographer, both with corn-coloured hair blowing in a sea breeze. Stevie felt a huge lump choking her throat, a weight pressing on her chest. She turned her head away, closed her eyes and let the photo drop.  

Four weeks later she checked out of hospital. Stevie, or rather, ‘Tanya’ looked so much better, still bandaged and covered in stitches but she was no longer gaunt and no longer smelt of the street. Jamie had persuaded her that she could stay at his place for a while. He didn’t tell her, but he had told a few people, like his landlord and Bill, the plumber he worked with, that she was his mum. Of course he knew that at some point he’d have to try and square all this away but maybe, just maybe he was right? Hadn’t she welled up when she saw the photo? Her hair was clean now and it was blond, she could have been pretty, maybe still was and she seemed happy answering to Tanya. She even had his sense of humour, laughing at really stupid jokes … 

And Stevie, well, she was getting a free ride. She didn’t want to go on pretending to be someone’s mother. Not her thing at all; she’d escaped from it once, all that dependence on other people, kiddie always wanting something, no time for yourself, boyfriend constantly wanting sex or food or yelling at her. But as Jamie drove her away from the hospital, she looked at his frowning profile and floppy blond hair and wondered; maybe this new day was the first of a new life? Maybe this was her chance …

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 Judges comments: Congratulations! An interesting story with good use of dialogue. You led the reader along to a very satisfactory ending.