Ghosts in the Morning - By Will Thurmann Page 0,44

alongside Mick, cursing the weather.

But as I got to school and turned to climb out of the minibus, he had reached across and cupped his hand firmly under my bottom. A thick finger had jutted out and probed at the seams of my panties. ‘Hear you like a bit of that, want me to pick you up later?’ he had leered, and I had jumped from the minibus, felt my face burning, had scratched at the tears wet on my cheeks...

‘Penny for them?’ Anita said.

‘Eh?’

‘Your thoughts – penny for them? And a penny is about all I’ll have left after our shopping,’ Anita laughed.

‘Oh, er, I was just thinking of the, um, the old days.’

Anita stopped laughing. ‘The care home, you mean?’

‘Yes, the care home. Just thinking about something that happened...to Mick...do you remember Mick the caretaker?’

‘Of course I do, Andy, how could anyone forget that one-eyed pervert, the filthy bastard was always loitering around the showers, trying to catch a glimpse of underage flesh. Why, what happened to him, did he get caught perving? Dirty bugger deserved to be in gaol, I reckon.’

‘Do you remember the old minibus he used to drive?’

‘What, the lovely bus with the great big badge down the side advertising the name of our care home. Thus thoughtfully ensuring that everybody in our beautiful island knew exactly, who we were, where we lived. Hey, look everyone, here come the orphans and the naughty kids!’

I smiled. Anita was right, the care home had always carried a certain unflattering stigma within the tight-knit local community.

Anita sighed wistfully. ‘The bastard shouldn’t have been driving anyway. Not with that glass eye. He used to clip the pavement whenever he turned left. Anyway, spill the beans then, what did happen to him? So, did he finally get put in prison for being a pervert?’

‘No, he, um, well, he had an accident. He was trying to fix something underneath that old minibus – I heard someone say afterwards that he fancied himself as a bit of a mechanic – anyway, the minibus was jacked up high, and he was under it supposedly, and from what I heard the jack was even rustier than the old bus, and it...well, it collapsed. I heard that poor Mick didn’t have much of a chance, supposedly he would have died fairly quick, his chest was crushed badly. The thing is, it was me who found him underneath that bus. I had to run and get Phillips – you never met Phillips, he was the new head of the care home, Anita, after you had left. He was not a nice man.’

‘Blimey, that’s terrible. I mean, I know Mick was a dirty old perv, but still...can’t have been much fun for you either, finding him like that. I can’t believe you never told me about it.’

‘No, it wasn’t much fun finding him, all you could see were his two skinny legs poking out from underneath the bus. And, I don’t know...I’m not sure why I never told you before. I guess it’s one of those things you just don’t like to talk about, you know.’ I shrugged my shoulders. ‘There was a bit of an investigation, supposedly they had trouble working out exactly how it had happened, but I think it was eventually decided it was just a freak accident. They offered me counselling, said it would be a good idea after seeing him like that, said it would help, but, you know – ’ I shrugged again.

Anita nodded. ‘Yes, Andy, I know. Girls like us don’t do counselling.’

‘Amen.’ I said. It was true, girls like us didn’t believe in counselling. Sure, it was supposed to have its merits, but it was hard to take advice from some over-educated, over-keen graduate who had grown up in a cosy, middle-class family, who hadn’t a clue what it was like to be without a family, who had never known what it was to feel like a piece of cheap meat, never felt the nails of an old man scraping their thighs, or the choking of a greasy rag stuffed in their mouth ...

‘Come on then Andy, enough of that morbid stuff, let’s get shopping,’ Anita said.

I downed the last drops of my wine and headed back out into the throng.

Chapter 12

‘Morning, Mum. Looks like I’ve beaten Daniel out of bed, have I?’

‘They think it was just a fight, that’s all, just a fight...’

‘Mum? Are you alright? What are you going on about? A fight, what fight?’

I shook my