CHAPTER 37
The pattern of my life was set for the next year and a half, and to be honest, it wasn’t that bad. I worked hard in the week, putting in the hours at both the training centre and the local haulier, Mossman’s, that Dad had passed my care onto. There is more to driving a freight lorry than sitting behind the wheel, and Mossman’s gave me a decent apprenticeship in those extras. Their fitters talked me through the basics of maintenance, so that I could make a half-decent guess at the cause of a problem, and perhaps solve it without needing to call out a fitter or tow truck, but that wasn’t all of it.

Etiquette, in essence, was the main part of my education. I took my lessons as ‘driver’s mate’ in the left-hand seat of wagons travelling throughout the West Midlands and Merseyside, learning where the best greasy spoons were, and not just Hollies, with particular emphasis on those cafes that offered their tea in pint mugs rather than in smaller measures. A cold day tugging at the side curtains of an articulated lorry, or running a pallet truck around an unheated loading bay, left me with the need to wrap both hands fully around a sizeable and warm object, and a pint mug was ideal.

I started my own little list of those who also offered hot chocolate in similar measure, as well as one for those places whose reaction to a woman trucker was less than progressive. I only had to punch two warehouse hands before word got around that grabbing my arse was bad for the health of those around me, especially the owners of the hands in question.

And I read, particularly a book by a young man who had survived that place in Carlisle. I really had been so very, very lucky. Don was dead, and I would never, ever have to hear, see, feel or taste Charlie Cooper, ever again.

Weekends varied, because Mam and Dad were on the road, and that meant almost anywhere in Great Britain. If their weekend plans were near enough, Carol or Pete would run me over in their car. If possible, I would hop a train, to be met either by one of my parents or, on several occasions, by a biker with a spare lid and a space on his pillion. The words were almost always the same, either “You Debbie?” or “You Badger’s girl?”, but always followed by a grin and a “Hang on, love! Bar’s open and time’s wasting!” and an enthusiastic blast to the rally site, cobwebs blown out of my mind along with the memories of the straights I had to work beside.

It was at times like that when the questions rose up about my choice of lifestyle. Why couldn’t I simply stay with my parents, live my, our life the way I loved it? I would rock out in the marquee, Mam beside me with any other friends we were sharing the weekend with, and the music would take me in its embrace and give me life for a few hours.

I was sitting in the sun one Saturday morning, recharging before the evenings emotion and release, when I caught Mam grinning at me.

“What?”

“Nothing much, love. Just, well, remembering when we first met. How you’ve come on. Carol says there’s been a few black eyes around loading docks in The Potteries”

“Well, Stoke’s a shithole, and it’s full of tossers who can’t keep their hands to themselves!”

She laughed out loud, a sound I would never tire of hearing, and reached across for my hand.

“Only partly my point, love. Remember telling my why you picked your name? Can’t really see Debbie Reynolds bopping away like you do, can I?”

All I could do was grin back, conceding her point, and she squeezed my hand.

“Not trying to be anymore, Deb, love. That’s you now. You are fully and clearly your own person. Warms our hearts, it does. Now, there’s a reason I ask this, but bear with me. How is your doctor treating you?”

“She’s a diamond, Mam. Right from the start she’s treated me properly”

“How did she react to… What did she say about your history?”

I squeezed back, smiling.

“I think she wanted to be less than medically professional with those bastards from Runcorn. And she said something like she didn’t need to know who or where, but the person who treated me graced the medical profession. Those were her words. Graced”

“Thank you, love. Dad and me, well, we took a big chance on you back then—no! Listen to me. Not having a go at you, am I? Would I do such a thing, love?”

“Sorry”

“Well, OK. What I meant was that all we saw was a dirty kid. Wasn’t till I saw… It wasn’t until we both realised who you really were that it made sense, and this is important, so shush till I finish. We gave you a hell of a lot in those early days, Debbie, but you needed it. Not calling for repayment, nothing daft like that. Just saying the truth. I know you, we both do, him and me, and you will have been thinking how it’s all been one-way traffic, us doing the giving, you just taking. Well, making things clear, I am now. You’ll have been sitting in our house wondering how to repay us, all that sort of crap, thinking you’re a sponger, and I think some of that is behind the black eyes you’ve given out. Thinking of yourself as worth less than other people”

I stared at her, and she continued, her smile far softer.

“Deb, I remember that time we had the gob from that arsehole outside Gretna. I remember those girls where you sat your O-levels. I know how alone you must feel, sitting in Cannock. Just remember, love, that it’s a two-way street, two-way traffic. You see us at places like this, and it brings you back to yourself, yeah?”

“Yeah”

“Well, same for us. We are a family again, just for the weekend, love, and me, your Dad, well, it completes us as much as it does you, and when you’re gone again, we know it’s no great deal, because you’ll be back in a week or two, and we’ll be a family once more. Now, there’s a reason for it all getting maudlin, but not an urgent one, and what I really wanted to say is that Dad and me have sent a letter to a solicitor in Cannock. Last will and testament thing. You are the beneficiary, love. We’ll get it all sorted formal-like when we’re next at the house, but it means that if anything happens to us, you are still family. Is that OK?”

I started to argue, as I knew they had distant blood kin somewhere, but she stretched across and put her finger to my lips.

“Relatives aren’t family, love. Family is what you find for yourself. Family is what you do for each other”

All I could do was kiss her fingertip, then move across to hold her tightly.

“Getting tall, love. Now, why don’t you go and give your Dad a break from the stand for a little while? I have some plans for his body, and it might scare people’s dogs if I carry them out in the open…”

That Winter, we went together to the solicitor, Mam and Dad preparing and signing similar Wills, each naming me as second beneficiary, just in case either of them went before the other. Christmas and New Year came and went. Peter got frozen feet again, and everything was as it should be. Nobody got arrested, no pubs were trashed, but the debris on the morning of January 1st took two days to clear up. Another New Year, with even more changes in my life. Those days of standing in The Rows and dreaming of Debbie Reynolds while staring at holiday posters seemed like someone else’s memories, another person’s life, and I could see exactly how misjudged my attempt to get back together with my biological parents had been.

They had never been family, just relatives. I took another crate of empty bottles out to the back yard, doing my best not to rattle them as I passed the sofa, where my real family lay asleep.