Free Nobody Saw No One by Steve Tasane Page B

upped and left us. Even at boy Byron’s toddling age, dear Dad managed to out-toddle me, staggering back from his sessions with the booze. Instead of building blocks, little Byron had empty cans of lager to build up and bulldoze down.
    So how could Mum leave me and Tri and Dee to that? How come she never took us with her? Why’d she leave us – with him?
    Uhh. What Byron put up with depresses the Good Citizen even now. Dad got worse and worse, until that final day when he got truly, deeply, Famously Drunk.
    Even then, Mum never came back.
    The Digit’s got her to thank for teaching him the original great disappearing trick.
    So Citizen Digit shoved Byron’s tragic head right down the toilet bowl. Drownded him right out. Danced out of the loo with springs on his heels and quips on his lips. With a song and a dance, and a laugh and a joke for all the Misters and Misses.
Don’t look at the Byron File, ignore the
Mirror
– watch the Good Citizen dance!
    All them psychiatricks wanted me to talk about it. The carers, the fosters too. I preferred to dance to a merrier tune, tell fairer fairy tales. So I taught myself gobbledegook off the gogglebox. I learned to speak Trotterese, from repeated viewing of
Only Fools and Horses
, the language of
Loadsamoney
and
Dad’s Army
. Spending hours glued to TV Gold, soaking up the oldies’ shows –
Morecombe and Wise
and
Happy Days
and
The Two Ronnies,
et cet, et cet.
    Once you’ve learned how to wear all those masks, it’s a doddle to pick up other things. Pilfer voices first, then learn to pinch other bits and bobs. One bit and one bob at a time. Mask up and become the master thief.
    You can get away with blue murder if you’ve got an honest fizzognomy. I did too. Well, not murder, but pilferation. Citizen Digit’s tricky fingers danced their dexterous dance, his marvellous mask and magical powers putting clear water between him and Byron’s Tragic Life Story. After all, who wants to play the Victim all the time? Citizen Digit saves the day, over and over again.
    “Oh, little Byron,” they’d whimper, “you must be so sad. What can we do for you?”
    Lock that saddo in the cupboard – out leaps Super-Didge. “What can
I
do for
you
?”
    Here’s a scarf I picked up from Peacocks. Suits
you
, Mrs Foster-Lady.
    Here’s a chess set I came across in Smiths. I know you love a game, Mr Daddio.
    Here’s a kettle. Fast-boil. Just for you, Sharon-Mum.
    Try this hat, Uncle Eric. A friend got it for me from BHS.
    Oh, look! China pigs. Please don’t thank me. It was nothing.
    But they never wanted any of it, did they? They wanted to rip off the Citizen’s mask and find Byron and his tragedy and grievousness.
    But Byron was well hidden, so the foster fams passed by, then the care homes. And Digit never got caught, he was too criminally masterful, except for that
once
, and that’s when Tenderness and Reliance Plus PLC and Call-Me Norman hit the house party and it all went upsie-downsie.
    Byron’s file with his sisters and dad, one Secure Unit, one locked room, one bleached and sterile bed, one boy’s head filled with memories of a different life.
    Calm down, Didge.
    Stick to the story for the good peeps. This is Alfi’s story, not Byron’s.
    Tell it. One word at a time.
    All me life, I’d been in kids’ homes or foster families o’ one sort or another. It weren’t too bad. The kids’ homes you’d make a few mates and the staff were almost allus all right. But soon as you’d make one friend they’d get farmed out to a foster family, or you’d get farmed out yourself. You’d allus be the New Kid, allus finding your feet, or sticking your foot in it. Never be nowhere long enough to have any stuff of your own. No pets o’ course – most o’ the foster families din’t have pets
’
cos some lads and lasses are freaked out by dogs. Or are cruel to cats. Or allergic to hamsters. Or whatever. Pets don’t like having to meet new kids all the time either, so serious