INGRID AND BEES HUMMING.

[dadio]

It is all quiet. Her father has gone off to work, her mother gone shopping, her sister is out with her Spiv boyfriend, and her brother is still asleep in his bed. Ingrid has the flat to herself, for a while, able to sit without being moaned at or criticised, able to read her mother's Woman's Own magazine without censor. She walks from kitchen to living room, from living room to her mother's bedroom. She looks through her mother's chest of drawers, her wardrobe, sorting through her clothes, putting on her hats. Tries them on in front of the mirror, does a twirl, poses, hand to hat, hand on hip. She listens out for sounds. None. She undresses and puts on her mother's new dress, although it is too big she likes the colour and design. Her mother's new dress, is in fact her mother's newest dress for years. It feels cold on her naked skin, goose pimples come. She takes it off and puts on her own dress of faded yellow flowers. She puts her mother's dress back in the wardrobe and shuts the door and makes sure it was as she found it. She sits in front of her mother's dressing table. She sees the fading bruise under her eye where her father's hand had caught her. She rubs it with the tip of her forefinger. She picks up her mother's hairbrush, wooden handle, stiff bristles. She runs a finger over the stiffness of it. Her father beat her with it at one time, made a ritual of the whole affair, pronounced sentence like some high court judge, brought it down on her bare buttocks. She puts it down on the dressing table top. She picks up her mother's lipsticks: reds, oranges, pinks. She wants to try one, but fears she'll not be able to get it off and that would be tantamount to confessing she'd been in their room, and that would, if her father found out, mean a good hiding(has he put it). She fiddles with other things, picks them up and then down. She stares at herself in the mirror, at her eyes, at the glasses, at her nose, her lips. She pulls a face, pokes out her tongue. She smiles. Getting bored, she leaves her mother's bedroom, and goes out the front door and stands on the balcony. She looks out on the Square. Morning time. Kids playing about and on the pram sheds, or playing skip-rope, or riding cycles about and about. The milkman with his horse drawn milk wagon; the horse stationary, the milkman putting bottles of milk on doorsteps; over the way, the coalman with his lorry, heaving heavy sacks up the stairs of the flats. Looking down she sees the man with his boxer dog who lives on the ground floor who always says hello to her if he sees her. On the balcony to her left, lower down she sees Mrs Boatbridge going off shopping, cigarette in her mouth, head scarf, little kid dragging behind. On the balcony to her right, lower down, she sees the Scotsman who tried to cut his throat a year or so ago, but survived, he is standing on the balcony, smoking. Below coming towards her block of flats, is Benedict, his cowboy hat pushed back, his hair combed so so, his white shirt open necked, his blue jeans with the gun and holster hanging from his belt. He looks up and waves with his free hand, in the other he carries a bag of shopping for his mother, she smiles, and waves back, feels happiness spark in her, ignition of feelings, her sadness leaves her, seemingly packs its bags and goes off. She can hear him singing some cowboy song coming up the stairs. Her father doesn't like Benedict, says he's too brash, too cocky, needs bringing down a peg. She thinks he's her brave knight, her knight in shirt and blue jeans, her Roy Rogers, her Billy the Kid. She's his Maid Marian or Annie Oakley or Queen Bess. She can hear him getting nearer and nearer, his singing more out of tune. She goes to the top of the staircase and waits. Her father stood here that time she was late home, having been out with Benedict scavenging coal from under the gates of the coal wharf, early evening and the time had fled by. He waited for her, that look in his eyes, that stance he had when he was annoyed, and she climbing the stairs as slow as she could, knowing what was to come and Benedict just gone. Now, he is there, before her, bright eyed, bag in one hand, smiling. They talk briefly, he mostly, just going to take his mother's shopping to her, he says, then we can go, have some adventure. A thrill runs through her nine year old body, electric with excitement, tingling in her toes and fingers. Then he's gone, off to deliver, leaves her there, looking at the stairs where he's disappeared. She wants to go before her mother returns from the shops, doesn't want any last minute hold ups, last minute chores. She can hear him singing again, then silence. She waits, stands by the balcony, looks to where his flat is, the blue door, the closed blue door, waits for it to open, for the open road of adventure, the day before them, her father at work, her mother shopping, her sister with her Spiv boyfriend, and her brother snoring and dreaming his sordid dreams. She waits. Buttons up her cardigan, brushes down her dress, feels the bruised thigh, looks at the scuffed brown shoes. Soon be here, she thinks, soon be coming, she feels the excitement, sensing it, likes bees humming.