The Real Me - Chapter 15

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Dannie’s seat companion took out her phone and checked her social media. Dannie thought of Rachel, still in America. Rachel had said she would just be there and back, into L A one day and back the next. Rachel was the remaining wreckage of her family she had clung to and even she had deserted her, at exactly the time of most danger, when she was just transitioned and when her criminal father had landed like a bomb in their midst.

‘Sorry!’ Dannie said. ‘For what?’ ‘For clamming up.’ ‘You don’t have to tell anyone anything but sometimes it helps.’ ‘Dad smashed my room up and broke my phone. Can I send a text with yours? I know it’s a liberty.’ ‘Here. Help yourself.’ Dannie took the phone. She wrote. ‘Dad’s home, everything smashed. Left home.’ She was going to press send, then thought it was unfair to worry Rachel when she was far away and working. She deleted it. She wrote instead,  ‘Wish you were here. She passed the phone back. ‘Thank you.’ ‘How old are you?’

Dannie flushed. ‘Sixteen,’ She lied. She took out a tissue and blew her nose, a distraction from the further conversation, Dannie hoped. She was surprised to see blood. She attempted to hide it. Sat back in her seat, her head back and the tissue under her nostrils. She hoped her companion had not noticed. Dannie enjoyed five minutes of silence as the coach rumbled on, now running through the outskirts of London proper. Her companion broke the silence. ‘Are you sure about that?

Are you a runaway? If so, don’t. It’s dangerous. Where are you going?’ ‘London.’ ‘To see someone?’ ‘What’s it to you?’ ‘I’m worried about you. That bruise on your face. There’s blood in your tissue. It looks as though you had a good thrashing.’ ‘I told you, my Dad.’ ‘Then you are running away. Who was the text to?’ ‘My sister. She’s in America, working.’ ‘Is that where you’re heading?’

‘No, Sis is coming back today.’ ‘You’re going to meet her?’ ‘No. Look, I don’t have to tell you everything.’ ‘No. You don’t.’ ‘Anyway, I don’t know you.’ ‘No. You’re right. But you’re a kid in trouble and I shall worry. Here’s my card. If things aren’t working out, get in touch. Promise me.’

Dannie looked at the card. Greer, Forshaw and LeSaux, Corporate Accountants. The address was in High Holborn. Associate Ms. Sian Evans. ‘Thanks,’ Dannie said. She cried, hiding her face in yet another tissue. She felt Sian take her hand and caress the back of it with her thumb.

As much as Dannie was touched by Sian’s concern for her, she was also wary of giving away too much. For no accountable reason other than some sort of misguided pride, she lied, ‘I have friends who say I can stay till I get sorted.’ She offered the card back. ‘Oh, that’s good. Well keep the card, put it somewhere safe. Now you know who I am, who are you?’

‘Daniella Artherton.’ She replied, too frightened and upset to think up an alias. Sian put her hand out to shake formerly. Daniella produced her hand, squirming in her seat to do so. ‘Look Daniella, London’s a bad place to be alone and especially for a young kid. I know there’s a lot you’re not telling me. OK if you don’t want to, but you can if you want. Are you really sixteen?’ ‘Why? Don’t I look it?’ ‘No frankly. And your makeup, less is more.

Put too much and it looks like you’re trying too hard, trying to look older. Anyway, you need a good repair job after those tears. I’m really worried about you. I think you need to get help in London. I don’t know who from, maybe the Salvation Army or if you are desperate, I think I read that St Martin-in-the-Fields help people. That’s the big neoclassical church in Trafalgar Square, looks like a Christopher Wren building but isn’t.

That’s somewhere easy to find. Go there or ring me.’ ‘Thanks. I don’t know how to say your name. See-ann?’ ‘Shahn. It’s Welsh, Celtic. Have you money?’ ‘A bit.’ ‘What’s a bit?’ ‘Thirty quid.’ ‘That will go in a day. A Tube ticket will eat that.’ ‘I have a debit card with money.’ ‘Oh, Daniella. I shall worry about you. You should be able to use a Visa card if it’s contactless to pay the fares.

We are five minutes off the terminus. Promise me, you’ll ring me if you are desperate. Don’t trust anyone, well unless they work for a respectable institution.’ ‘Well, you want me to trust you.’ ‘Yes, I do. You know where I’ll be if you need help.’ ‘I have to tell you something, then perhaps you’ll change your mind.’ Dannie feels hot and her face burns. ‘Ah, the dark mysterious secret, I knew there was one. Whatever can make you blush so?’

‘Now we are nearly there, we’ll soon part, so we won’t be embarrassing each other.’ ‘What?’ ‘I’m trans. Sis says I should be out and proud. I’m trans.’ ‘Trans?’ ‘Transgender, you must have seen stuff on TV?’ ‘You mean you’re a boy?’ ‘Well, yes, was, I ‘spose still am, officially. That’s why Dad beat me up, except like he always did because I was never boy enough.’ ‘Well, I wouldn’t have known. You look fine.’ ‘Thanks.’

‘So, what’s the big deal? It’s not, is it? How you live, how you have to live to be happy, doesn’t matter, does it? As long as it harms no one, and you don’t do you?’ ‘Dad seems to think just being alive I’m hurting him.’ ‘Yes, but that’s his problem. I would never have known.

Yes, there was something, but I would not have thought that. I knew you had something weighing you down.’ The bus entered the gloom of the terminus, and they shuffled out. ‘Look take care. Call me, I mean it if you need help.’ ‘Thanks, Sian.’ ‘Go home, that’s my advice. I get the tube from here. You can walk with me.’ They walked to Victoria train station, Sian setting a fast pace. It was incredibly busy, people all over crisscrossing each other’s paths. ‘I have to go but I hate to leave you out here. You need a phone. I urge you to use what money you have to buy one. You have my number.

If you need help, phone me. I feel so guilty. My wish Daniella is that you turn around and walk back to the coach station and go home.’ ‘I can’t. Dad’s there.’ ‘Then you go to the police and accuse him of assault. He’d be arrested surely?’ ‘I don’t know.’ ‘Look I have to get to work.’ She tried not to sound exasperated. Solving others’ problems was easy but getting them to take your advice was often impossible. ‘You know where my office is.

Just get on the Tube to Holborn and use your tongue, ask the way.’ Daniella was taken by surprise when Sian bent and kissed her cheek. She watched momentarily as Sian disappeared within the crowds heading downstairs to the Tube station. She turned and wandered about in the madness that is this great railway complex. She didn’t know that this is the second busiest railway station in the UK, a hundred million entries and exits by people in the year.

All she knew was that it teemed with people all dead set on some purpose. Standing she was jostled by passers-by. One man barged her and swore. Once more she was near tears, uncertain what to do. She found a seat and sat, staring but hardly seeing, her mind elsewhere, occupied with trying to decide what to do.

She must have sat an hour or more and had still not come to a decision. At last, still, with no plan formed, she wandered out to Victoria Street. It was calmer than the station at least. The roadway was nose to tail with delivery vehicles, taxis, and buses. The pavements were reasonably clear. The air tasted metallic, city air, poisonous air. She followed a sign that said Westminster. She knew that’s where Parliament and Big Ben are.

She then thought, she needed the loo, so she doubled back to the station and found the ladies. She washed her hands and looked in the mirror. She repaired her makeup, again. Sian was right about that. With a piece of toilet paper and water, she removed the eye shadow. To compensate, she used eyeliner on her upper lids and more mascara. She thought she looked kind of sexy. She studied the bruise on her forehead. Her head ached, whether from the bruise or from the tension of being abroad, far from home and alone, she didn’t know. Her mother would have said, it was hunger, her mother’s answer to nearly everything. Daniella consulted her stomach. She wasn’t hungry.

The very thought of food at the moment was repulsive. She couldn’t even force a chocolate bar down. She was nauseous with fear. She took to the street again. She passed a shop dealing in pawned and second-hand goods. Rachel said such places receive and sell stolen goods. She looked in the window. There was a shelf marked bargain basement, older phones, a Samsung S3, or an iPhone 4. Both are twenty pounds.

She wondered whether that included the Sim. She plucked up the courage to enter to ask the dark-skinned handsome Asian boy she saw behind the counter. Her heart beat faster, talking to anyone is an effort. She wondered whether people see through her disguise, see the boy beneath the sweet little blouse and blue mini, her long smooth girl legs that lead up to her male bits. Will they see that, know she is fake? She quivered inside. She was an alien in this world.

Everyone else of whatever sex, race, or creed was legitimately here, she alone is fake, expecting discovery. ‘Hello,’ the boy said, smiling at the young pretty shy female. ‘Hi,’ she breathed. ‘I lost my phone. I need a really cheap good one.’ ‘Really cheap or really good?’ ‘Both.’ ‘That’s a tall order. Because you are pretty, I try to find the very best.’ He turned and rooted in a drawer. He turned back holding an iPhone. ‘Five. Forty pounds. Excellent for the price.

It was mine, my own so I know it’s good.’ ‘Too much. I was thinking like the ones in the window. I’m not Miss Rockefeller.’ He put his head on one side and studied her. ‘You look like Miss Rockefeller,’ He grinned winningly. ‘Oh, so a good-looking babe like you and you can only afford bargain basement, dodgy batteries, scratched screens.’ ‘I don’t mind a scratched screen.’ He turned and replaced ‘his’ old phone in the drawer and opened another drawer.

He pulled out one wrapped in paper with writing on it, secured by an elastic band. He slipped off the rubber band and removed the phone. ‘This is one I was keeping for someone special. Good battery, small crack in the back cover, scratch on the screen.’ Dannie eyed it with suspicion. It is not exactly an object of desire. ‘The one in the window looks better. I’d like that one please.’ ‘That’s a display model.’ ‘Does it work?’ ‘It works, everything works, just we like to keep that there, a display.’

‘It’s the one I want then, twenty pounds.’ The boy stared at her. ‘I can see you are a young lady of taste. Meet me for a drink at lunchtime and the phone is yours.’ ‘I need the phone now.’ The boy wandered to the window and took the desired phone from the display. He held it up like bait. ‘No sim, so it won’t work.’ He said. ‘There must be a shop nearby where I can get a sim.’ ‘Meet me for lunch and you can take the phone now.

You can get a sim up the road for five, ten pounds.’ Dannie pulled a twenty from her purse, holding it out. The boy hid the phone behind his back. ‘Lunch?’ ‘Where?’ Dannie asked. ‘Two doors down, Coffee ‘n Chats. One o’clock.’ ‘You won’t turn up, I know you boys, you just play around.’ ‘Not me, little girl. Anyway, how old are you?’ ‘Sixteen.’ ‘I thought you were at least eighteen. What’s your name?’ ‘Daniella.’ ‘So pretty, pretty name for a pretty girl. You know your way around Daniella. You’re a clever chick. One o’clock?’ He held the phone in the air. ‘If you’re paying,’ Dannie said, playing him as he was playing her. ‘Sure. Pretty blond like you.

My pleasure.’ ‘Deal, but I need the phone now.’ ‘Sure. Show me your money again.’ She offers the note and he takes it from her, his hand touching hers unnecessarily, his fingers squeezing hers.  She tries not to flinch. She takes the phone and pulls it from his fingers at the same time. ‘Thanks. Can I have a receipt please, just in case it’s dodgy?’ ‘Dodgy? What do you mean.’ ‘Well the person who sold it to you might have stolen it or it might not work properly.’ ‘You just saw the screen light up. The battery sign said full.’ ‘Oh yes.

I want a charging cable too, they usually come with the phone at no charge.’ ‘Oh, I think maybe you are more trouble than you are worth. Here’s a cable and here’s a cover. That’s it. Done deal.’ ‘Thank you.’ ‘Ranjit.’ ‘What?’ She asks, mystified. ‘Ranjit, my name, Daniella.’ ‘No Daniella’s my name.’ ‘No,’ he started, ‘ah I see. You are playing games. I see you for lunch then.’ ‘Sure.’ She said, on the way to the door. She turned at the door and stuck out her tongue. Ranjit giggled.

White girls, he thought, are so fun. Daniella bought a sim only a few shops away, for just five pounds of her meager funds. She suddenly felt more secure. She checked the phone. She entered Rachel’s number and that of her new friend Sian while sitting on the wall outside New Scotland Yard.

She wandered northwards, and saw Big Ben down the canyon-like street, away in the distance, but having glimpsed the greenery of a park ahead, she decided to go in that direction. She walked through the park seeing the ducks swimming smoothly on the lake and a lady, with a trolley full of nuts, who fed the grey squirrels. She arrived at a wide road and she recognized the Mall, the long road that is the approach to Buckingham Palace, not a shopping precinct.

She doesn’t know that Mall originally applied to a wide area where people could walk or parade. She wondered whether she should walk to the Palace and see the guards in their scarlet uniforms. She decided not to. She crossed the wide tree-lined thoroughfare, that had banners, and flags, flying all the way towards the Palace to her left and walked past monuments of figures she had never heard of, but realized she is in an area where seriously rich people live in grand houses. She read the street names as she traveled, the weight of her pack upon her back. She crossed Pall Mall and came to Lower Regent Street.

These were names she vaguely recognized, names from the Monopoly board. For some reason, she was drawn ever uphill. She reached Piccadilly Square, so many tourists, just hanging, loads of teenagers, milling, standing, waiting for she knew not what. In something of a daze, she stopped in a crowd to cross a wide street, the Eros statue away on her left. She remembered that from years ago, before her dad went really bad when they’d had a rare day out. She had walked hand in hand with Rachel, it seemed for miles on hard pavements that day.

She wondered whether they had picnicked in the Park she had just crossed. They had gone on the big wheel,  the London Eye. That had been a rare good day in her childhood. She wished Rachel was here to hold her hand now. Suddenly the crowd surged and she was carried along with them. She escaped the press into a quieter road. It was all rather frightening. She wished she was home. At that time, it would be a mid-morning break, Thursday, and next would be History followed by English before lunch break. She wanted to cry again. She wanted to curl up, hide from the world like a wounded animal.