Mrs Quinn was the housekeeper. She made my meals, but I didn’t eat very much. Nothing would stay in my stomach. Terry would sometimes come into the kitchen and drink coffee or make toast. He wasn’t allowed in the rest of the house.
‘Hello, Scout,’ he’d say. ‘You ready?’
He called me Scout because he said that was the name of a little girl in his favourite book about a mockingbird that died.
When Terry drove, he talked. ‘Hey, Scout. Look at the cows!’ he’d say, like I’d never seen cows before. ‘Hey, Scout, look at the wind-farm.’
I said nothing. The steering wheel looked small in his hands and he had a ring on his pinkie finger that had a little silver skull and red stones for eyes.
When we reached the address, Terry would jump out and open the door like I was a film star on a red carpet. He would carry my overnight bag and ring the doorbell.
‘I’ll pick you up here tomorrow,’ he’d say, as the door opened and he made sure I was at the right house. The next morning, he’d be standing on the doorstep, taking the bag, never asking about what happened inside.
One day we stopped and picked up burgers and fries on the way home. Terry ate and drove, cramming chips in his mouth from the bag on his lap. My food grew cold because I was too scared to swallow.
‘Maybe you like your food on a plate,’ he said to me. ‘Like a proper princess.’
The next time he picked me up, he produced a plate and a knife and fork from the glove compartment. He put my burger and fries on the plate and kept glancing in the rear mirror, hoping I would eat something, but I didn’t touch the food.
Terry didn’t get angry. And he didn’t stop talking. He told me he used to work as a bouncer at a strip club, stopping the girls from being ‘touched-up’ by the punters.
‘What’s a strip club?’ I asked. These were the first words I’d said to him.
He looked embarrassed. ‘It’s a place where women dance.’
‘Who are punters?’
‘Customers.’
‘Do they touch the dancers?’
He glanced in the mirror. ‘No. It’s not … it’s … complicated.’
Another day, we stopped at a park where kids were playing on swings and climbing on a colourful pyramid of painted metal poles.
‘Do you want to climb?’ he asked.
‘I’m wearing a dress.’
‘Oh. Right.’
‘And I’m a bit old for playgrounds.’
‘Right. Good. Sorry. I should be better at this. I got two boys. Jonno and Dean. They’re nine and seven.’
‘Where do they live?’
‘With their mother.’
Terry made them sound like they were perfect children, well-behaved and good at school. ‘Everything I wasn’t,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t dumb. I just didn’t listen.’
Whenever we passed someone on a motorbike, he made a point of telling me the make and the model and the engine size and how fast it could go.
I asked him how it stayed up.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Why doesn’t it fall over?’
‘You balance it. You must have ridden a bike before.’
‘No.’
‘You’re pulling my leg.’
‘How can I pull your leg when I’m back here?’
He laughed and I felt foolish. Angry. I didn’t speak to him again for the rest of the way home and when we reached the big house, I went inside without saying goodbye.
When Terry picked me up the next time, I opened the car door without waiting for him and sat in the back seat, directly behind him, so he couldn’t see me in the mirror. I didn’t answer any of his questions, or laugh at his stupid jokes. And I didn’t fall asleep and let him carry me to the car when it was time to go home.
The time after that, I got in the Merc and saw a shiny plastic helmet on the seat. We drove. I said nothing. I ran my finger over the helmet. He caught sight of me, but said nothing.
‘Where are we going?’ I asked.
‘It’s a surprise, but you have to get changed.’
‘Why?’
‘You can’t ride a bike dressed like that.’
He tossed a bag over the seat. It had a pair of jeans, a jumper, socks and trainers.
‘I won’t look,’ he said, tilting the mirror.
I got changed and sat up front until we arrived at a bike shop in a small town with a stone bridge over a river.
‘Is this your little girl?’ asked the woman behind the counter. ‘What pretty hair!’ She reached out to stroke my head.
Terry blocked her, knowing I don’t like people touching me. ‘We want to rent two bikes.’
She took us out back where dozens of bikes were propped on stands, or hanging on racks by their front wheels. She measured me up against a height chart, before adjusting the seat and handlebars on a purple bike with a white basket on the front. She took longer to find a bike for Terry because he was so big. She put extra air in the tyres, which seemed to sag when he put his backside on the seat.
The woman showed us a map with different bike paths along the canal, or around the grounds of a castle. Terry folded the map into the pocket of his jeans and we wheeled our bikes to the towpath.
He leaned his bike against a tree and took mine, lifting the back wheel and spinning the pedals until they were the same height.
‘This is the brake, OK? But the trick is not to stop. You have to keep pedalling. If you slow down, you’ll get all wobbly. The more speed, the easier it gets.’
‘What if I crash?’
‘Aim for the water.’
My eyes went wide.
‘I’m joking. I won’t let you crash.’
I sat on the seat. Terry had one hand on the handlebar and the other hooked into the back of my jeans.
‘Ready?’
‘No.’
‘One … two … three.’
He pushed me and I lurched forward, steering wildly. He held me steady and pointed me along the path.
‘Pedal … pedal … faster.’
He was running next to me, holding on to the seat, occasionally touching the handlebars to straighten me up. I made it about fifty yards, splashing through puddles, before Terry stumbled and let go. I crashed into a bush and grazed my knee.
‘You OK?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You want to give up?’
‘No.’
We tried again. I pedalled and Terry ran alongside me, puffing and sweating. As I got faster, he grew slower, until I realised that he wasn’t holding on to me. I looked over my shoulder and almost steered into the canal, but corrected in time.
‘Keep going,’ he yelled. ‘Don’t stop.’
I kept pedalling. It was like I was floating over the ground. Trees and bushes and fences and canal boats were rushing past me. I was free. I wanted to keep pedalling into the future, away from Mrs Quinn and the uncles and aunts and the ‘special friends’.
I heard Terry’s voice. He was behind me, getting closer. He overtook me at speed, making brmmmm brmmmmm noises like he was riding his motorbike. He had his bum in the air, off the seat, and he was pedalling with his knees going out at strange angles. I laughed because he looked like a circus clown on a tricycle.