LATE THAT DAY 1960.

Fay lay in the bed beside her mother it had been along day from start to finish as she lay in the bed looking at the light on the ceiling from an outdoor light from some street she didnt know at a boarding house she had never been before she thought about the morning after her father had left for work and her brothers had been taken to school by her mother and her mother had left a scribbled letter to her father saying she had left him with Fay and the boys she had to leave behind(they would be with her sister until he could pick them up) and she had gone because she could not stay a day longer living with him and his ways and his damned religion and spitefulness to Fay and her and he would never find them because no one would know where she and Fay had gone and they left the flat that morning once her mother had returned from dropping the boys off at school and came home and they got a train with the twobags her mother had packed hurriedly that morning and the train pulled out of the station and took them out of London out of the familiar out of the known and as Fay lay there she wondered what her father thought when he returned home from work and read the letter and went to her aunt to pick up his sons and puzzle where his wife had gone with her Fay and what he would try to do and would he ask neighbours if they knew(none would know Mother spoke to none about leaving) or Benny would he ask Benny? but Benny would say nothing because he didnt know either and she missed Benny not being there now with her so she could talk to him and be with him and say how she felt and she turned and faced her mothers back the snoring from her mother sleeping now and where would she go to school now? and where were they? how long would they stay where they were? it felt odd being away from London and the flat and Benny and her brothers and her father and her school friends and the nunsat the school and would she be in sin now she had left with her mother and would her mother be in sin because she had left as her father had said her mother would be if she left him a she had promised God she would be with him until death them did part and to break a promise to God was a sin and she would go to Hell and Fay didnt wantthat didnt want her mother to go to Hell and the nuns had described Hell in R.E. lessons and Sister Lucy had been quite descriptive in her details Fay tried to push such thoughts and details from her tired mind she smelt her mother just in front sleeping where was Benny now? she mused where is he? sleeping probably in the flaton the balcony below hers what would he say when he woke and heard she had gone with her mother? she thought of the last time she saw Benny and they had gone to thebomb site off Meadow Row and sat on a wall of a bombed out house and she told him she would be going soon with her mother away from London and he looked so sad and asked where she was going and she said she didnt know but would write as soon as she could but he wasnt to tell her father where they were and he said he wouldnt tell her old man anything and they sat there for a few minutes looking at the coal wharf where coal lorries were being loaded up with coal in black sacks and she had said to Benny when will you be thirteen? December he had said and she said she would send him a birthday card when are you thirteen? he had asked her soon she said and told him the month and he nodded and said will you be gone by then? probably she said and she had and now he was there and she was here in the bed with

her mother a long way from London and Benny and her brothers and father that day on the bomb site she remembered she had moved next to Benny and had kissed his cheek and just in case I dont get a chance to kiss you she had said her mother stirred in the bed and murmured words in her sleep and Fay wanted her mother to wake up and say we are going home Fay going home but she knew her mother wouldnt say that Fay closed her eyes snuggled up close to her mother and in the darkness behind her eyes she saw the Hell the nuns described and whether her mother would go there and would she? she missed Benny and wanted him there to hear his voice and see his hazel eyes and brown hair and his quiff and to be with him on the bomb site again and to talk with him and kiss him again her mother turned and opened her eyes cant you sleep? her mother said Fay shook her head her mother held her close will you go to Hell? Fay said to her mother who told you that? her mother said Daddy said if you left him youd go to Hell Fay said that is just your fathers words not truth her mother said but the nuns at school said about Hell too Fay said just their belief Fay thats all we create our own heaven and hell by our choices and decisions and how we treat others and whatever we do willing and conscientiously her mother said now try and sleep and her mother kissed her forehead with soft warm lips and Fay thought of home and her brothers and her father and Benny and wondered what life held for her now and the next day and would she see them ever again and outside the window she heard the falling rain.