Tired, miserable and feverish, Ash plodded on toward home. She passed a public phone box and she opened the door, checked the coin return slot and fished out a couple of coins. Better than nothing, she thought and slipped the coins into her jacket pocket.
A mile or so more of trudging, another phone box loomed into view. Again, she pulled open the door and checked the coin return slot.
Nothing… well, maybe… her finger brushed against something that shouldn’t have been there and she had another probe of the coin return slot. A piece of paper – that shouldn’t have been there.
Pressing the paper against the hard surface of the chute, she pulled the piece of paper that blocked the coin return channel.
“Jackpot!” she said. Removing the paper freed a lot of coins and they spilled out into her hands.
More than seven quid in coins!
Enough to get a bit of something to eat and have enough to get the bus home too!
The closest shop to where Ash stood advertised hot sausage rolls and she bought one. She also bought a cup of coffee and the woman serving her stared at her like she was some sort of freak.
“What? Never seen a kid drinking coffee before?” Ash said and turned away.
“No, I’ve never seen someone looking as poorly as you look and still walking. Get yourself off home before you fall down. You look ready for the knacker’s yard,” the woman said.
Ash nodded. She couldn’t quite make out whether the woman was being sarcastic or concerned.
The sausage roll was not as hot as it could be, but it was a welcome warmth for Ash’s belly. The pastry scraped her throat like it was made of glass and the coffee felt like it had sand in it as she swallowed.
The cold and flu remedy tablets she’d bought the day before were still in her pocket and she found them when she distributed the money in her various pockets. She didn’t subscribe to the ‘Eggs in one basket’ mentality.
Sometimes, if she forgot to take out her money when she hung up her coat, she found she’d none left when she came back to it. One pocket had a hole in it and she slipped notes into that. It was no good for coins, they jingled when the coat was shaken, but notes made no noise.
She gulped down two tablets and hoped they started working before the bus came.
Ash let herself into the house in time to hear her parents arguing about her.
“Look, I didn’t know she was gonna run off! Stupid bitch, she only got her leg felt-up.”
“You are one fucking stupid bastard!” Ash’s mother yelled. “What the fuck did you take her there for? You know what they’re like and now they know you’ve got a daughter, they’ll start coming ‘round here again and I don’t want them hanging round here, especially not with Stacey. We left all that life behind before Stacey was born. What the fuck are you thinking, going back there?”
Ash’s dad muttered something.
“Old time’s sake? Are you for fucking real?” her mother screamed.
Then something smashed and Ash’s dad yelled in pain rather than anger.
“You fucking stupid bitch! That could have hit my head!”
“Well that’s what I was aiming for!”
Ash sighed and went upstairs to the tune of her parents screaming at each other. Stacey was already in bed, asleep and Ash undressed and crawled into her own bed.
She felt only a little better the next day and almost on instinct, she reached for her jacket and checked the money was still there.
Looking at the battered alarm clock, she roused herself and got up, got dressed and went to the bathroom to wash, brush teeth and relieve her bursting bladder. That’s what had woken her up, the need to pee.
Creeping downstairs, she looked in through the living room door. Someone was asleep on the sofa; it must have been her dad.
Keeping low, Ash reached in through the door and hooked one leg of his jeans and pulled them slowly close enough for her to search his pockets.
He had about a fiver in change, he wouldn’t miss a couple of quid of that. Then she felt the bulge of his wallet.
She slipped it out of his pocket, making certain she knew exactly which side faced forward, so she could replace it just right.
Three hundred and twenty five quid in notes!
Ash was so tempted to take it all and run, but she knew they’d catch her and she’d never get a similar opportunity again if she did that.
One twenty from the neat wad. As she replaced the notes, she saw another note wedged down at the bottom of the wallet. It was creased and crumpled and looked like it had been there a while.
She took that too… another twenty.
She didn’t stick around for breakfast, she let herself out of the house and was off on her toes like a common thief.
“Right, that’s just seventy quid you owe me now, mum,” she said out loud, to no one.
Robin arrived a little later than usual and Ash had already fetched Justin’s clothes ready for getting him dressed.
Justin lay on the sofa, sipping his tea, waiting for Robin to arrive. He was in a cheerful mood for a change.
Ash had emptied the piss bucket, cleaned and bleached it and fetched some supplies from the shop to keep at Justin’s for emergencies before Robin got there.
“Sorry, I overslept,” he muttered, getting Justin dressed as Ash made him a cuppa.
“That’s not like you,” Ash said, making conversation.
“I’ve probably caught that fucking disease you’ve got!” he snapped at her.
Ash grinned. “Yeah, well I like to share.”
“As long as you don’t fucking share it with me, you disease-ridden little bastards!” Justin snarled. “I don’t want it.”
“Bloody hell, Justin, it’s just a cold. You’ve got enough medication to clear it out before you even realise you’ve got it,” Robin said.
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