We Come Apart Read online

  ‘reparation scheme’,

  head down,

  tongue shut

  with other

  terrible teenagers.

  They also tell Mămică and Tata that I must go to school

  because ‘as parents’ they have a

  ‘Duty of Care’

  and

  if we are living in this country

  our family

  ‘must adhere to the laws and rules in England.’

  They say at end:

  ‘Is that clear? Got it?’

  If not got it Tata must go to man jail

  or pay heavy cash fine.

  And who will be the blame?

  Me, that’s who,

  like all other times.

  School!

  Night … mare.

  Just in Case

  I’ve been stealing stuff for ages.

  Can’t remember the first time any more,

  but it was way before

  I started secondary school.

  Small stuff back then –

  other kids’ rulers,

  fags from Mum’s bag.

  And I hang on to loads of the stuff I’ve nicked,

  not because I’m one of those freaky hoarders

  you see on TV

  or anything.

  It’s cos I don’t steal stuff you can sell,

  nothing of any value:

  I mean,

  who wants to buy a pair of Top Shop tights,

  cheap mascara,

  gloopy nail varnish

  or pencils pinched from a teacher’s desk?

  I take the gear out now and then,

  and I

  can’t help feeling proud of all the times I got away with it

  before they finally caught me.…

  then caught me again and again

  and gave me my very own caseworker.

  There’s a knock on the door,

  and before I can throw everything back into the shoebox,

  Mum’s in my room.

  ‘I got KFC for dinner,’ she says,

  then stops,

  stares at the stuff

  piled on the bed,

  frowns.

  ‘What’s all that?’

  ‘Just some things I found,’ I say.

  I chuck the stuff back into the box,

  push it underneath the bed.

  She rubs her forehead,

  letting a load of worry trickle into her face.

  Thing is,

  that’s not the box she should be worried about.

  See,

  I’ve got a different one on top of my wardrobe.

  I’ve got a box filled with supplies:

  a toothbrush, tampons, spare T-shirt, socks, knickers

  and a couple of crisp fivers

  just in case.

  Like,

  just in case,

  I ever need to get out of this place

  in a hurry.

  HIGH VIS

  At reparation scheme

  they make me dress in

  high vis vest

  in piping hot park.

  Me and many criminal others

  cleaning muck,

  sweeping leaves,

  picking up, picking up, picking up

  crisp packet,

  fizz can,

  half kebab,

  booze glass,

  butt cigarettes.

  The lives of the pollute people.

  Breathing Down our Necks

  Mum and I are watching

  Jeremy Kyle

  which

  makes me feel way better about my life,

  looking at a bunch of losers

  and knowing that no matter how

  horrible everything is for me,

  I’m not

  them;

  I’m not in the gutter just yet.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be picking litter, Jess?’ Terry asks.

  He cracks his knuckles

  because he can.

  ‘Just Saturdays, isn’t it, Jess?’ Mum blurts out.

  Terry leans on the doorframe,

  sniffs

  and sips at his can of beer.

  ‘But did I ask you, Louise?’ he says.

  ‘Sorry,’ Mum whispers.

  She turns off the TV,

  jumps up from the couch

  and scurries into the kitchen.

  ‘I better get started on dinner.’

  Terry peers down at me.

  ‘You know,

  getting into trouble at school is one thing,

  but having the police breathing down our necks

  is something else.

  I don’t like it.’

  I nod.

  ‘I know.

  You already told me, Terry.’

  He sniffs hard.

  ‘You being cheeky?’ he asks.

  He cracks his knuckles again.

  Mum is standing behind him,

  shaking her head,

  her eyes wide and terrified

  cos she knows that if I do anything

  to annoy him,

  she’ll be on the receiving end of his boot.

  ‘No, Terry. Sorry,’ I say.

  I go to my room,

  curl up on my bed

  and wish it weren’t Monday,

  wish I were

  picking litter instead of here

  in this house,

  with

  him.

  PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

  Some Saturdays we do the job

  of servant men,

  when body sweats and hand sores

  with hurting.

  They calling this ‘Personal Development’.

  ‘Personal Development’ help everybody to

  becoming

  decent peoples again.

  In park

  I am part of team,

  but not the same like

  when I was strong member of

  wrestling team in my village.

  In park I am not

  captain;

  here I am in

  Offenders Boy Team.

  One Saturday

  ex-Army man, Bicep Andy,

  take my team to pond,

  shows us giant bag of plastic,

  many woods and strings.

  ‘Right, lads, your task is to use only

  the wood, string and plastic bottles

  to build a raft.’

  All faces confusing.

  Much puffing of air.

  ‘A raft?’

  ‘Yes, Lee, a raft,’ Bicep Andy say.

  ‘What for?’ other guy say.

  ‘Well, Rick, it’ll improve your

  communication and collaboration skills.’

  Bicep Andy tap Rick on back.

  ‘Doubt it,’ Lee say.

  ‘Your raft needs to take one member of your group

  from this side of the pond to the other.’

  Bicep Andy point to other side,

  where girl team make also.

  ‘Whatever,’ Bill say.

  I tying strings

  tighter,

  better.

  Rick and Lee do

  design control and

  building of square boat.

  ‘Right mate, hop on,’ Bill telling to me.

  And I thinking:

  I could show him my skill.

  Grab

  flip

  hold.

  Learn him the respect.

  But this would be very bad communications.

  I jump on tiny boat.

  It not float.

  Faffing Around

  It’s like these caseworkers pull ideas

  out of their arses

  and all agree

  it’ll do us the world of good.

  This morning I’m sitting with the other girls

  whinging about

  how tough it

  is to be female.

  Dawn reminds us

 
how important school is –

  ‘And I don’t mean sitting in the inclusion unit,

  girls!’

  And now here we are,

  up against the boys,

  but on the other side of the pond from them,

  faffing around with

  rope and wood

  and arguing about which one of us

  has to sit on the stupid raft we’re building

  once it’s in the water.

  Fiona goes, ‘You ain’t getting me on the Titanic.’

  Jade is like, ‘The raft’s tiny, you moron.’

  Fiona goes, ‘Whatevs. I ain’t doing a DiCaprio, right.’

  And Jade is like, ‘Well, I got my period, innit. I can’t go swimming.’

  Dawn sighs. ‘The key is cooperation.’

  Fiona rolls her eyes. ‘Yeah, right.’

  Jade crosses her arms over her chest.

  ‘You know what, Dawn,

  I reckon health and safety would

  be all over this raft-building bullshit.’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ I say, just to shut them up.

  From the other side of the pond

  come hoots

  and whistles.

  ‘He got soaked, man!’ Rick shouts.

  One of the boys is in the water,

  his head bobbing up and down

  like a beach ball.

  When he comes up he shakes his hair out

  like a dog,

  laughs

  and splashes the other boys on the bank

  as though it’s nothing at all

  to have fallen into the pond.

  ‘Who’s that?’ I ask Dawn.

  ‘That’s Nicu,’ she says.

  ‘Good egg, that one.’

  WOMAN LONGING

  Mămică tears because she missing her other childrens.

  Daughters

  back in village with tiny babies,

  sons being mans of house.

  I wanting to give Mămică my

  super son hug,

  for remember her that she have me,

  her very own younger boy,

  in this country.

  But I am older now for

  super son hug.

  I watching her at table

  with photos,

  with tears,

  with suffer.

  Always she saying same thing:

  ‘I want all my babies in one place.’

  Always she talking of return to our village;

  ‘I want to go home to Pata.’

  That is why I only looking,

  not speaking,

  caressing her tearing

  or

  soothing her feeling.

  Mămică not want to listen to

  my need.

  That one day my whole family can come to

  visit

  here.

  Live

  here.

  Working

  here.

  In my new country.

  When Liam Left

  Liam just left.

  I woke up one morning,

  saw his bedroom door was open,

  but not him in among the squalor

  with his

  bare legs dangling out of the

  side of the single bed.

  ‘Where’s Liam?’ I asked Mum.

  ‘Gone.’

  ‘Good riddance,’ Terry said,

  and I had to bite both my lips

  really hard

  to stop myself from saying something

  like

  Yeah, you did this, Terry.

  Then

  I left for school like normal

  but didn’t go in,

  hid between

  the recycling bins

  in the Queen’s Head car park.

  And I couldn’t stop crying,

  couldn’t even breathe properly,

  because without Liam

  I was on my own.

  Completely and utterly

  on

  my

  own.

  LANGUAGE

  When I hearing this

  fresh English language,

  I think I will be

  able

  never

  to speaking in same tongue,

  to telling my joke

  or

  showing my imaginings

  or

  being the great listening ears to peoples.

  But.

  English is the tough watermelon to crack,

  a strange language with many weird wordings:

  heart in your mouth

  fall off the back of a lorry

  if you pardon my French

  and

  too many more.

  We have ways to understanding though:

  Michael Jackson helping Tata with learning.

  Celine Dion helping Mămică with learning.

  YouTube and Jay Z helping me.

  Breaking Bad helping everyone.

  I working hardest than ever

  to being in this England world

  fluently.

  I not wanting to

  start school

  with too much

  foreign tongue.

  Recording

  Terry stands in front of the TV even

  though I’m watching it.

  I don’t shout, ‘Get out of my bloody way, Terry!’

  I say sweetly, ‘You all right, Terry?’

  He holds out his phone

  and I go cold,

  look around for Mum.

  ‘Film me

  doing my press-ups,’ he says.

  He pulls off his vest.

  I take the phone.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I wanna examine my technique,

  you know?’

  He flexes his muscles.

  Rolls his neck.

  I press the red button,

  watch him as he hits the floor

  and counts to fifty,

  each press-up punctuated by a grunt:

  ‘One, argh, two, urgh, three, huuu, four…’

  By the time he’s finished

  his face is as red as a battered pizza.

  He stands up all sweaty and panting,

  pleased with himself.

  ‘How did I look?’ he asks.

  ‘You looked great, Terry,’ Mum says.

  She’s wearing a bathrobe,

  her hair hidden beneath a towel.

  Terry snatches his phone from me.

  ‘Make me a cup of tea, Louise,’ he says,

  and falling down into an armchair,

  turns the TV off

  and watches himself

  puff and pant

  all over again,

  with an ugly

  grin on his face.

  NASTY WEATHER

  My clothes is heavy with raining.

  My feet squash and slip

  in my shoes.

  My hair stick to me like I step out of

  deep blue sea.

  In England it rain

  all times.

  Reparation scheme is zero happy when wet.

  Every other delinquents

  shielding under shed hut,

  smoking, spitting, stone kicking,

  bantering.

  All delinquents except two:

  me

  and

  girl.

  Not us.

  I am under umbrella tree.

  Girl hide below kids’ silver sliding tube.

  She seem lonely.

  She seem lost.

  She seem total tragic sad.

  And I want to rush to her feelings,

  show her my smiles,

  make conversation chit-chat,

  peace her mind.

  Maybe tell some tale of my land,

  how stars shine so bright,

  how wild horse tame with one kind hand.

  But

  for this girl of perfect visions
/>   I remaining under umbrella tree

  and follow only with my eye.

  Eyes

  I know he’s watching –

  Nicu,

  the boy who fell in the pond

  and didn’t moan about it.

  But

  what does he see when he looks at me?

  What does anyone ever

  see?

  BAD SHOES

  So we go to garment shop to get

  a tie,

  grey shirt,

  clunk shoes,

  and I ready for going to school.

  It feel like I dressing for wedding,

  and I wonder

  how everyone put on these elegants all days.

  School in England must be like

  big song and dance

  or

  the military with these uniform.

  Students all looking same.

  And I hoping

  it be more easy

  now

  to be one of them.

  School happens on

  Monday

  Tuesday

  Wednesday

  Friday

  and

  Thursday.

  Phew!

  School and reparation scheme my new life,

  but I still don’t miss my old –

  no way.

  Never going back,

  where people like us

  always

  under attack

  from the rich-wealthy and those born of plenty.

  Here

  everyone is Romanian in all eyes,

  but

  back home

  we are the Romani Roma gypsies

  and we are kept in gutter.

  No chance.

  Here

  with school, reparation scheme