that she’d run away from Vincent.
She found the job in the Home and Colonial shop in Crouch End the very next day. She didn’t want to work in a shop, especially not weighing up cheese and bacon with her hair under a white net. But as she walked in there to buy some groceries she saw the sign on the window that they had a vacancy and applied there and then, purely because it was so close to her room. She told herself it was just a stop-gap until something better came along.
She had thought living in fear of what Vincent might do to her was the worst thing that could ever happen to her, and that as soon as she got away everything would be fine. But that wasn’t so. She was frightened, lonely and missed her mother and the little ones so badly she cried if she dared think about them.
At work she could cope, even though the other staff were mainly older married women and didn’t want to bother with her. But when she got back to her room in the evening the feeling of total isolation was so bad that she would often crawl into bed and cry herself to sleep. For as long as she could remember she’d always had chores to do, the younger ones to take care of, and in later years a lot of homework. She might have felt hard done by sometimes, but now she was experiencing having nothing to do and no one to care for, there was a huge hole in the centre of her life which she had to idea how to fill.
All through the summer months, she went into parks on Sundays, in the hope she’d meet someone of her own age in a similar plight. She did see many other young girls, but they were never alone. She would watch them walking hand in hand with a boyfriend, or giggling with a friend, and wish desperately that she had someone.
At Christmas she cried nearly all day, imagining her brother and sisters’ joy as they opened their presents. She didn’t have a single Christmas card, let alone a present. When her sixteenth birthday came in January it was just as bad, and by then she’d come to think that this was how it would be for ever.
Then, out of the blue, along came the chance encounter with Jackie that suddenly transformed her life.
They stayed by the pool that afternoon chatting as though they’d known each other for years. It was all about records, boys, makeup and clothes, and the party Jackie was having that evening.
‘You must come too,’ she said, her green eyes dancing with excitement. ‘Come home with me when we leave here. If you want to change for the party you can borrow something of mine.’
‘I can’t do that,’ Laura said, astounded at the invitation.
‘Yes you can,’ Jackie grinned. ‘I can guess what you’ll do if I don’t make you come home with me. You’ll go on home and then bottle out of coming later. I can’t let that happen, can I?’
She was right. Laura probably would have been too scared to go to the party alone. Back in her room she would have started to doubt that the tale she’d first told her landlord about her dead parents and her guardian, which she continued to tell anyone who asked, including Jackie, would stand up to more rigorous questioning. She would also be afraid of wearing the wrong clothes or just not sounding right.
On the way to Jackie’s house she ran into a record shop and bought a copy of ‘Runaway’ by Del Shannon that was currently in the Top Ten. Laura remembered feeling it was a bad omen and that soon she would be exposed as a fraud.
But it didn’t turn out to be a bad omen, for within an hour or two Laura discovered Jackie didn’t care about people’s backgrounds, how they dressed, spoke or even where they lived. She got that from her parents.
Frank and Lena Thompson were artists. Frank worked as a cartoonist for the Beano comic, and Lena designed greetings cards, and the only word Laura knew at that time which would describe them was bohemian. Even their own children called them by their Christian names, and they appeared to have no regard for convention.
She found the job in the Home and Colonial shop in Crouch End the very next day. She didn’t want to work in a shop, especially not weighing up cheese and bacon with her hair under a white net. But as she walked in there to buy some groceries she saw the sign on the window that they had a vacancy and applied there and then, purely because it was so close to her room. She told herself it was just a stop-gap until something better came along.
She had thought living in fear of what Vincent might do to her was the worst thing that could ever happen to her, and that as soon as she got away everything would be fine. But that wasn’t so. She was frightened, lonely and missed her mother and the little ones so badly she cried if she dared think about them.
At work she could cope, even though the other staff were mainly older married women and didn’t want to bother with her. But when she got back to her room in the evening the feeling of total isolation was so bad that she would often crawl into bed and cry herself to sleep. For as long as she could remember she’d always had chores to do, the younger ones to take care of, and in later years a lot of homework. She might have felt hard done by sometimes, but now she was experiencing having nothing to do and no one to care for, there was a huge hole in the centre of her life which she had to idea how to fill.
All through the summer months, she went into parks on Sundays, in the hope she’d meet someone of her own age in a similar plight. She did see many other young girls, but they were never alone. She would watch them walking hand in hand with a boyfriend, or giggling with a friend, and wish desperately that she had someone.
At Christmas she cried nearly all day, imagining her brother and sisters’ joy as they opened their presents. She didn’t have a single Christmas card, let alone a present. When her sixteenth birthday came in January it was just as bad, and by then she’d come to think that this was how it would be for ever.
Then, out of the blue, along came the chance encounter with Jackie that suddenly transformed her life.
They stayed by the pool that afternoon chatting as though they’d known each other for years. It was all about records, boys, makeup and clothes, and the party Jackie was having that evening.
‘You must come too,’ she said, her green eyes dancing with excitement. ‘Come home with me when we leave here. If you want to change for the party you can borrow something of mine.’
‘I can’t do that,’ Laura said, astounded at the invitation.
‘Yes you can,’ Jackie grinned. ‘I can guess what you’ll do if I don’t make you come home with me. You’ll go on home and then bottle out of coming later. I can’t let that happen, can I?’
She was right. Laura probably would have been too scared to go to the party alone. Back in her room she would have started to doubt that the tale she’d first told her landlord about her dead parents and her guardian, which she continued to tell anyone who asked, including Jackie, would stand up to more rigorous questioning. She would also be afraid of wearing the wrong clothes or just not sounding right.
On the way to Jackie’s house she ran into a record shop and bought a copy of ‘Runaway’ by Del Shannon that was currently in the Top Ten. Laura remembered feeling it was a bad omen and that soon she would be exposed as a fraud.
But it didn’t turn out to be a bad omen, for within an hour or two Laura discovered Jackie didn’t care about people’s backgrounds, how they dressed, spoke or even where they lived. She got that from her parents.
Frank and Lena Thompson were artists. Frank worked as a cartoonist for the Beano comic, and Lena designed greetings cards, and the only word Laura knew at that time which would describe them was bohemian. Even their own children called them by their Christian names, and they appeared to have no regard for convention.
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