She remembered how on New Year's Eve she had stood on a stool next to her Uncle David at the kitchen sink and he had shown her how Champagne corks could float on water. How clever of them. She wanted to be a Champagne cork. Then she wouldn't sink to the bottom of the pool and her swimming teacher wouldn't have to haul her out of the water by a rubber ring at the end of a long pole. She hated being treated like a flailing fish. It was so humiliating.
"Why are you like a stone?" Mrs. Mackenzie always asked.
She would shrug, not knowing what to say and Mrs. Mackenzie would tell her that it was a rhetorical question, whatever that was, and didn't require an answer. She loathed swimming lessons. She hated being disabled and having legs that couldn't be relied upon to work properly.
The first day of the summer holidays was turning out to be a momentous one. Her father disliked driving in the city so she'd had her first experience of a train journey and her first encounter with an escalator. Getting on the escalator at the bottom had been okay. She had shrugged off her father's hand on her shoulder and didn't want him standing close behind her as though she might fall backwards. She was just able to reach the moving rail. On the other side, so close that she felt she would be able touch them if she'd reached out her hand, the people on the downward escalator looked serious and harassed like her mother when she was preoccupied with thinking about all the things she had to do. She thought it odd. They didn't seem to be enjoying themselves, yet it was a Saturday and here they were in a huge store, shopping. Her mother had told her that shopping was fun – if you had money. That last bit was always added in a somewhat wistful tone, like an afterthought.
She wasn't sure how she felt about being on a moving staircase. If she was honest with herself she felt a bit wobbly. Of course she wouldn't admit that to her father – not in a million years. She did grab the rail a bit tighter, though, hoping that her father wouldn't notice.
Higher and higher they went. A thought struck her so violently that she almost gasped aloud. Was this like dying? She had heard the expression, stairway to Heaven somewhere.She couldn't quite remember who had said it, but perhaps it had been in a song. Is this what the singer meant, she wondered. Did your soul ride up an escalator to reach Heaven's door? She imagined a beautiful angel with gorgeous long pale blond hair and a flowing white dress coming to answer her knock on light feet. Somehow she didn't think it was a good idea to ask her Dad about it. She could already anticipate his exasperated sigh, then, without answering her question, patting her lightly on the head as though she were a dog and telling her to go and play.
Growing up in a small village meant there was no need for escalators. The tallest building, apart from the church, was the school. There were only two storeys. The older pupils had their classrooms on the top floor. Luckily she didn't have to go up there very often. She struggled to lift her legs up the steep steps. Coming back down was even more difficult. She couldn't reach the bannister so held onto the supporting iron bars on one side with both hands, turned sideways, tentatively feeling for the next step with her better foot and then dragging the other one down after her. It was a low and exhausting business. She always hoped no one was watching. Thankfully her classroom, and those of the other primary years, were on the ground floor, next to the main doors. Separated from it by a wide corridor lined with ugly grey lockers and rows of clothes hooks was the school dining room.
Ladies Fashions the sign at the top of the escalators said. Her mother took dresses on hangers off circular rails, holding each one up to herself with her head slightly to one side so that the hanger didn't hide her face. "What do you think?" she'd ask my father with a coy smile. Dad would either nod and smile back, or do a waggly thing with his right hand which she thought meant it was neither very pretty nor very ugly in his opinion.
Once, when she said, "I think that one would one would look nice on you, Mum," her mother had turned sharply in her direction as though she had forgotten her daughter was there. An expression of annoyance crept onto her face as she hung the dress back on the rail. "No one asked you", her mother told her.
This sort of thing often happened. It seemed that people thought she was too young to have an opinion on anything. She had thoughts and feeling just as much as grown ups did, she wanted to scream, but didn't. Her mother then tried on several jackets while her father went through the same nodding, smiling and hand waggling procedure as he had with the dresses. In the end her mother moved on without buying any clothes.
They missed out the second floor. That meant taking two escalators, one after the other. Her father steered her by the shoulder as if he thought she was too stupid to turn to her left on her own and step onto the next escalator. Once on he tightened his grip even more. She winced in pain and annoyance. She hated it that her parents didn't trust her to do anything on her own. Not the slightest thing. On the third floor her mother pulled her towards the shoe department.
"You need new shoes for school".
"No, I don't."
"Yes, you do. You've nearly outgrown the pair you've got. And don't always contradict me."
"What does contradict mean?' She rolled the unfamiliar word around her mouth, like a whisky taster savouring a quality malt, before saying it out loud. Her mother sighed. but made no reply.
"To contradict someone is to say the opposite to what the other person says", came her father's voice from behind her.
"Sit down", her mother said, pointing to a row of chairs lined up against a wall. It looked like the naughty row outside the headmaster's office at school. She wondered if adults were naughty too and came here to be punished. Her mother was in a mood, because she hadn't found anything to buy in Ladies Fashions, so she didn't dare ask. No one in her class, as far as she knew, had yet been called up to the headmaster's office, but she had seen older children waiting outside with nervous expressions on their faces.
Her mother went up to a woman who wore a silver name tag on the lapel of her suit jacket. She was called Rose. Her mother talked earnestly to Rose and the two women glanced in her direction. She looked around for her father, but couldn't see him anywhere. After a few minutes the two women came over to her. Her mother sat down beside her. Rose hunkered down and from under the next chair slid out a long silver contraption that looked a bit like a tray with lines painted on it.
"We're just going to measure your feet." Rose looked up at her with a warm smile as she unlaced the young girl's ankle boots and pulled them off. First the right one and then the left one. She felt her bad foot cramp and winced. Rose asked her if she was all right. She nodded. Rose had a soft friendly voice and she imagined her reading stories to children like her teacher did at school. She wanted to tell Rose that she was also called after a flower.
"You'd better stand up," Rose told her kindly. "Your feet don't reach the floor properly." Rose held her by the hand to steady her as she put her good foot on the silver thing. It felt cold through her sock.
As though Rose had read her mind, she asked her young customer, 'What's your name?'
"It's Daisy."
Rose smiled, but didn't say anything for a moment as she manoeuvered the sliding bar up to Daisy's toes.
"Daisy is a lovely name," she said as she took the girl's hand again, saying, "now, the other foot."
Again the pushing the bar up to her toes. Looking at both mother and daughter, Rose said,
"Ok, I'm going to see what boots we have in your size. I won't be long."
"I don't want boots. I want shoes. Black and shiny, with a strap." She bent down and drew a finger across her right foot.
Rose looked from Daisy to her mother. Her Mum sighed her annoying sigh.
"Yes, ankle boots, Daisy. You need the support they give you."
"No I don't. You don't know what I need. Nobody else in my class wears ankle boots to school."
"You know you can't walk in shoes that don't give you enough support." Her mother's cheeks reddened with a mixture of frustration and embarrassment. She didn't want to have to argue with her daughter in public like this. At the same time she felt guilty. She knew she should have talked to Daisy about the purchase of new footwear while they were still at home, but this morning she'd had a headache and hadn't felt able to take on her daughter's tantrums. This uncomfortable situation was her fault. She should have taken the time to get Daisy onside. Even aged six a child had a right to feel involved about decisions taken by adults that were in her best interests.
"I'm tired of being different from everyone else."
Rose looked at her sympathetically. She wanted to hate this mother, but also empathised. She was probably having a bad day, but showing a little more patience with her daughter would have made this purchase easier for all concerned. To Daisy she said,
"You're different, because you're extra special. And to be as special as you are requires you to be strong and braver than others. Ankle boots are a big help with that, you know."
She gave the sales assistant a shy smile of gratitude for trying to make her feel better. Despite her young years she knew they were no more than platitudes. Nothing was going to change her situation no matter how much grown ups pretended it would. Out of the corner of her eye she saw her mother's colour deepen further. When Rose left to find boots in her size she sat studying the other customers and the assistants serving them, refusing to look at her mother. The people trying on shoes looked happy, chatting and laughing as they waited for shoes to be brought to them. Why couldn't her family be like that? The sales assistants, hurrying to and fro wore friendly smiles on their faces. They would probably go home and say nice things to their children as they sat around the dinner table. She could almost smell their food as she pictured the scene in her mind. When her Mum put a tentative hand on her shoulder she shrugged it off.
From the entrance to the shoe department she saw her father scanning the heads before him. She waved, but he didn't see her.
"Dad," she waved again. The shout wasn't that loud, but it nevertheless made her mother flinch. Her father nodded and strode towards them.
"Where have you been?" demanded his wife. Her father studied her mother for a moment before replying, no doubt assessing her mood.
"Just browsing. Buying some new shirts." He lifted the smart carrier bag in his hand for her to see, before letting it drop by his side again.
"You shouldn't just have wandered off."
Ignoring his wife's sharp tone he replied calmly that it didn't take all of them to buy shoes and anyway he was back with them. He sat down on his daughter's other side.
"You're surely not still waiting to be served?"
"Rose is just finding shoes in my size. Well boots." Daisy spoke quietly, giving her mother a dark look. It didn't escape her father's attention and he patted Daisy's knee, understanding without having to ask that there obviously had been some disagreement about the type of footwear to be purchased. Instead he asked who Rose was. His daughter pointed towards their sales assistant who, at that moment, emerged through a set of swing doors in dark wood at the far side of the department. She was carrying a pile of large boxes. Her face was pressed to one side of them so that she could see where she was going. Once she had reached them she carefully lowered herself and set the boxes down beside her. She glanced at her father and the two adults nodded at one another. Her mother sat tight-lipped and silent.
"You know, Daisy," Rose said as she began opening boxes and threading laces, "ankle boots are actually really fashionable and by wearing them to school you're trendy all the time, not just at home at weekends and in the holidays. Daisy shrugged. Pressing her lips together she allowed Rose to guide her misshapen feet into a pair of black ankle boots. She liked their soft suede look, but she didn't say that out loud. Rose tied the laces into double bows and asked Daisy to stand up. With the pads of her fingers Rose gently pressed down on the front of each boot, feeling for Daisy's toes. Asking Daisy to walk up and down she watched her carefully.
"She seems to have enough support in those", Rose observed to Daisy's parents without taking her eyes off the young girl.
Her father nodded. "They will do the job, I think. Thank you for your patience with Daisy."
Rose told him it was her pleasure and that she thought his daughter was a lovely girl.
Returning to them from her tour around the department Daisy saw that her Dad and Rosie were talking to each other and noticed also that her mother didn't appear to take part in the conversation.
"Do those shoes feel comfortable?" Rose now asked Daisy. She had deliberately said shoes, rather than boots, hoping to give Daisy a sense that this was normal footwear for someone her age. The girl nodded.
"And they're not rubbing or hurting anywhere?" Daisy shook her head.
Rose asked her to sit down again so that she could take off the shoes and pack them up so that they could take them home. Her father followed Rose to the cash desk while her mother slowly moved off her chair to help her daughter put her old boots back on. Neither spoke or looked at the other. With her uneven gait Daisy went to stand beside her father as Rose tapped on the till's keys, her red-painted nails making little clicking sounds as though they were giggling softly at a private joke. Coming around the counter Rose asked who was going to carry the shoes home. Daisy pointed at her father. She didn't want anything to do with those boots until she had to start wearing them to school. Rose handed the carrier bag to her Dad.
"Goodbye, Daisy." The young girl stretched out her hand to Rose.
"Thank you for helping me today," she said, adopting the formal tone which she had heard grown-ups use in serious situations. This was a serious situation, she thought.
A slight smile crossed her face as Rose took Daisy's hand and told her it had been a pleasure to meet her.
Her mother was waiting for them by the escalators.
"Shall we find somewhere to have something to eat?" her father suggested, looking at his watch.
Shaking her head her mother said that everywhere would be crowded and that she had a headache and just wanted to go home.
"We always have to do what youwant," Daisy said. "I want to go to a smart restaurant and eat nice food. I hate those boring sandwiches you make which you think is what people have for lunch."
Her mother looked at her for a long moment. Her daughter held her gaze, half expecting her mother to start shouting at her, but she didn't.
"Fine,"her mother finally said. "You two do what you like. I'll make my own way home."
Her father lightly touched his wife's arm. "Don't spoil a perfectly nice day." Her mother pulled her arm away.
"Your daughter has already done that," she said stepping onto the escalator to take them back down.
Holding her hand to help her on her Dad stood behind her with one hand on her shoulder. This time she didn't shake off his hand. Leaning over his daughter's head he told her mother that he doubted Daisy had meant to upset her.
She noticed that her mother's shoulders were shaking which probably meant that she was crying. Her mother did that a lot and she hated it.
When they reached the first floor her mother stepped off the escalators. She and her father followed without a word.
"I'm going to buy that dress after all." Her mother's voice was weak and croaky and her eyes red. A large single tear rolled down her cheek. "You've made me do it, even though I might never wear the thing," she told her husband accusingly.
Her father made no reply. Daisy knew it was the best course of action. Any response would have merely fuelled her mother's anger. Her mother couldn't help these moods, her father had once explained. Her frustration was with herself and not with them. It wasn't Daisy's fault, he had told her. She didn't know whether believed him.
Her mother was doing the holding up dresses against herself thing again; her father nodding his head now and them. He didn't do the hand waggling now, she noticed. Neither of her parents were smiling. She wanted to run away. When they got home there would be shouting, doors would be slammed and, if things got really bad, plates would be smashed. She didn't want to be part of that any more. It scared her.
Walking backwards with her awkward half limp, half stumble wasn't easy, but her eyes never left her parents. They were fully engrossed in the dress-choosing exercise. Turning, she went through an archway and found herself in the stationery department. She lovedstationery. Crayons, pencils with bright pink erasers on the end, pencil sharpeners shaped like cars, dustbins or teddy bears. She liked the notebooks with their patterned covers, drawing careful fingers across them as she limped past the shelves they lay on. She didn't mind the ones with plain covers they had to have for school, but she preferred the patterned ones. Some had flowers or butterflies on them, but there were also ones with horses, trees or gardens. She went along the aisles, touching them longingly. She didn't have any money, but if she did she would buy herself one to draw in and practice writing the words they had learned so far. The cat sat on the mat, the cat sat on the mat, she chanted to herself under her breath. Which one would she buy? Probably one with butterflies on it, she decided. But then she also liked those with stiff black covers and a red cloth spine. They looked really smart. Someone with a notebook like that would be taken seriously, she was sure. When she grew up she would use ones like that to write stories in. She wanted to be a writer and would start as soon as she had learned to write properly. She had asked her Dad when that would be. He had said she would probably be eight or ten years old before she was really confident. She wasn't sure, but it sounded like a long time to wait. She didn't like to think her father might be wrong, but she wanted it to be sooner, much sooner.
She wondered where she should run away to. Wouldn't it be great not to have to listen to her parents fighting anymore? Or was the prospect of not having to go to school even better? She couldn't make up her mind. Both were horrible and scary. Still thinking about her dilemma she went back through the archway into Ladies Fashions. The dresses on their racks hung quietly like sad scarecrows on a windless day. Her parents were nowhere to be seen. Where were they? She wandered around the department looking up at mannequins wearing pretty dresses in light floral fabrics. They looked back at her with blank, unseeing eyes, stiff arms outstretched, pointing long, unbending fingers as though trying to feel their way in the dark.
This was it. She had done it, She had outwitted her parents. She had officially run away. She was freeeee. Singing the word quietly to herself she was already starting to make plans in her head. Like grown-ups did in unfamiliar places she would explore the city, get to know its secrets and when she got hungry towards the end of the day she would see if she could find a kind adult who would buy her some food. All her young life had been spent living in the suburbs. Her parents only rarely brought her into town. When they did it was only to rush around the shops for some urgent, mostly boring, purchase or to take her to the doctor or dentist. Those occasions were inevitably stressful and tempers usually fraught. Even today, when her Dad said they were coming to the city for a treat and not for anything horrible to do with doctors or medical examinations her parents had spoilt things. She was certain it wasn't her fault her parents were fighting, even if her mother had told her it was. Her mother had only snapped at her because she had a headache. She had done nothing wrong.
Freeheehee. I am freeheehee she sang again under her breath. Tomorrow she would find a job. That's what grown-ups did to get money to buy food and clothes. It was what her father did. He was always talking about having to go to work so that he could take care of Daisy and her mother. Going to work meant having a job. She wasn't sure what that entailed, but there would surely be people – adults – who would be able to tell her. Her Dad sometimes complained that his job made him feel very tired, but having a job must be better than going to school, she thought.There wouldn't be teachers to tell her to hurry up or stop day dreaming. She wouldn't be teased by other pupils. No one would laugh at her or copy the stupid way she walked.
She was back at the escalators. This feeling that she was watching all those people milling about below without them being aware of her gave her a confidence she hadn't known before. There was no one grabbing hold of her, ordering her what to do, or think, or to hurry up. She didn't know much about God, not really, but she liked the idea of him being able to see everything without being seen himself. Did he really make the world in just seven days? The world was a big and complicated place, full of people she didn't understand. God must have worked very hard.
Looking around her there weren't many people on the first floor. Not that she could see, anyway. She reached up to the escalator's handrail and gingerly picked up her right foot to step onto it. She didn't like how everything was moving at once – the rail and the steps. If the steps were moving all the time how was she supposed to get both feet on without leaving one leg behind while her right leg moved with the escalator and her arm and the rest of her was pulled along by the handrail. How had her parents done it? She ought to have watched more carefully. Instead he had been annoyed by her father holding her by the shoulder so hard that it hurt. Pulling her foot back she let go of the rail and watched it move on relentlessly downwards. All the time new steps appeared out of the floor, moving like a fast silver waterfall inside the two rails. It had looked different going up. And getting on the escalator at the bottom had been easier. She tried to remember what her feet had done when they had travelled from the third floor back down to first after the shoe-buying exercise. Unable to remember she felt tears begin to burn behind her eyes. She shook her head. She was notgoing to cry. She was not a baby.
Three more times she tried. Stretch to reach the rail, but don't hold it too tightly so that the hand moves with it. Lift right foot, ready to put on the step coming out of the floor. Quickly drag left foot forward and onto the step already on its downward journey. Her heart was thumping, her tummy felt funny. She concentrated so hard she bit her lip until she tasted blood. On each attempt she had to pull her right foot back before she was dragged forwards. The steps just moved too fast for her to do everything – hold rail, place right foot on step, drag left foot forward to join first foot. She felt herself get hot. The tears were threatening to come out of their hiding place behind her eyes. She stood for a moment, looking down on the world below, collecting herself.
For God's sake,she said under her breath. Everyone else can do it.All of a sudden she was standing, both feet together, on the escalator. Her shoulder was aching, but she was holding onto the moving handrail. And then she was at the bottom. On the ground floor. She stepped off the escalator, took her hand off the rail. She felt a smile creep into her face, like the sun from behind a rain cloud. The people hurrying all around her didn't look at her. They were rushing to get their shopping done, unsmiling, thinking about all the jobs they still had to do before the end of the day. Nobody took any notice of the little girl standing at the foot of the escalator, looking bemused.
How had she done it? She didn't know. She only remembered suddenly becoming aware of being moved downwards with both feet standing firmly on the escalator step and her hand holding the rail. She could see the wide entrance to the store in front of her. Sunshine spilled in through the huge shop windows like melted banana split, painting patterns on the shiny floor near the doors.
With quick limping steps and half skips she moved towards the sun-filled space. Freeheehee. The word popped into her head again. The doors were two steps, then one step away. She was through them. Something landed on her arm. With a sense of the surreal she looked in astonishment at the large chocolate-coloured hand just resting there. The hand wasn't hers and her arm with that dark weight on it felt as though it must belong to someone else. A hot breath beside her ear. When the deep voice boomed into it she jumped.
"Just a moment."
She felt herself being twirled around. In front of her the tallest man she had ever seen was straightening up from bending down to shout into her ear. She watched him go up, up and up. Finding his face was like looking a long way up into a huge tree.
"Come back into the store, please." The hand was still on her arm, so she couldn't try to turn and run.
"Why?"
"Let's just go back inside," the deep voice boomed down at her. It wasn't that loud now, she noticed, but it had a penetrative quality which made it seem loud.
They stopped just inside the store. The man took his hand off her arm, but looked ready to grab her again if she tried to run. Not that she could run, but that wasn't the point. She knew what she meant in her mind.
"Tell me your name," the voice boomed above her.
She opened her mouth, hesitated a moment, then closed it again. She wasn't sure what this man wanted or who he was, but she decided silence was probably the best option.
"What's your name?" came the question again.
Her eyes travelled up his long body. He was wearing some kind of uniform. The colour was sort of milky coffee. The jacket, fastened right up to the neck had lots of buttons – she counted ten. A half-smile played around his big lips. The eyes, kind, with dark pupils, set in pools of white, were striking against the blackness of his face. The man's voice was the scariest thing about him.
"I haven't stolen anything." She put her hand up to her mouth. She probably shouldn't have said that.
"That's not what I asked," came the deep voice. This would be what a werewolf sounded like, she thought. Perhaps he was one. She didn't really know how a werewolf looked or spoke, but if she had been asked to try and explain how she imagined one to look, it would have been to describe the man who towered above her right there.
"Ok, once more. What's your name?"
"It's D .... Da ...." Something sharp flashed inside her. Like full headlights on a country road at night. "It's Dorothy," she said, nodding, hoping to portray confidence. She had an uncanny sense that she was in a tricky situation she couldn't quite fathom.
"Are, you sure?"
Her eyes travelled up the ten buttons to the christmas-pudding face. Was there a hint of annoyance there? She couldn't be certain.
Nodding again, "Of course I'm sure. After Dorothy from Alice in Wonderland, you know."
"I see. Well, Dorothy .... or should I say, Daisy, your parents are looking for you. They're concerned about where you got to. There are people looking for you."
As she stared up at the man with saucer-like eyes, a brown hand went to a holster on his belt, pulled out a walkie-talkie and briefly spoke into it.
"Right, young lady, It's back to your parents."
As they walked to the escalators he said, "you weren't trying to run away, were you?" She didn't answer.
"Aha. Silence is as good as admission." Then, just before they got onto the escalator, the werewolf hunkered down in front of her so that he was more at her level. "You know, Daisy, because that's your real name isn't it? I admire your courage."
He paused a moment and she met his eyes with a steady gaze. "People are complicated creatures and sometimes life can be a challenge. I don't know why you were running away, but I hope that things will get better for you. You seem like a smart kid, so try and hang in there and hopefully things will work out."
There was nothing to say. She knew the man meant well. His words evoked feelings in her she couldn't put a name to. Perhaps it was gratitude that he had shown her understanding and empathy, dread of having to return to her parents. Fear of the unknown which the years ahead presented, both at home and at school. As they took four escalators – she counted them – the big, dark man and the small white girl with light brown hair standing side by side, she felt tears of frustration burn in her throat and prick behind her eyes. They walked down a long neon-lit corridor lined with doors the colour of overcast skies. They were almost at the end when the man opened one of the doors. In the large room behind it a white-haired man in a pin-stripped suit, with a maroon handkerchief tucked into the top pocket, sat at an enormous desk. There were pictures all around the walls. Sitting in two leather arm chairs across from the white-haired man were her parents. Her father looked grey and tired. Her mother's crumpled face said clearly that she had been crying. When she saw Daisy her mother rose. She was visibly shaking with both anger and relief.
"You irresponsible child. What did you think you were doing. You've caused us and lots of of other people no end of bother and worry." Her mother's voice became more shrill with every sentence.
Daisy stood silent, keeping her expression as blank as possible, There would be enough drama for ten operas once they got home. She wanted to turn and run away all over again.
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