The next House

I can't really say that I ever 'lived' in that house.

Our first night there is lost to me. No matter how hard I think I cannot bring it back into reality. There were odd things that were alien to me. The toilet was not in the main bathroom, the kitchen small and the garden unloved. They are things that would become my norm over the passing months.

As I stepped out of that car - my life had changed beyond all recognition - I just didn't know it.

There was just the three of us now. My mum, my sister and I. My brothers 19 and 18 chose not to make the move with us and there was this unsaid vibe that stopped me from asking about the whereabouts of my father.

Yet boxes and boxes of my brothers unwanted belongings filled the largest bedroom of the tiny little house and my sister and I crammed in on top of each other in a room no bigger than the bunk bed that we shared.

It's easy to see now, that I was in shock. I was nine years old, leaving school on Friday to be wrenched away from everything that I knew to be true.

Monday for me meant a new school. I had come from a small town. Everyone knew everyone else. All of my siblings had passed through the schools before me, my two best friends were born one day either side of me, our mothers meeting whilst confined to the hospital ward and us children thrown together in friendship forever (or so we thought).

I had never had to do anything alone before. Strength in numbers - if my siblings reputation didn't proceed me. Today really was the first day of the rest of my life.

I can't recall going there, to school with my mum on my first day - but I know (hope) that she wouldn't have sent me alone. Again - another marker of that traumatic time in my young life that is missing from my memory.

I do remember a few things from that first day - like what I was wearing (homemade maroon dungarees), what was for lunch (fish fingers and chips) and that from that very first day, my card was marked.