Read an Excerpt
Sadie Frost Crazy Days
My Autobiography
By Sadie Frost John Blake Publishing Ltd
Copyright © 2010 Sadie Frost
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-84358-803-0
CHAPTER 1
Mary and David
Mary
With a finger, Mary wiped the bead of sweat from her forehead, tracing its journey down her temple. It was a useless task as no sooner had she brushed it away than more beads formed on her chest, her neck and even her arms. It was as if what was inside of her was pushing everything outwards. She repeated the words to herself, 'If the contractions are two minutes apart you are entering the final stage of labo –' She resisted the urge to shout out and forced herself to concentrate on the facts in the book, dog-eared and dirty, clutched to her chest like a bible. The childbirth manual that she'd found in a second-hand bookshop in Camden Town was her only source of knowledge. There was no one else she had been able to ask about her expanding stomach and all the complicated feelings that came with it.
After the cramping pain had subsided she tipped her head back and studied the anaemic little delivery room that they had shoved her into at the Whittington Hospital. The only sound, apart from her own breathing, was the ticking of the clock on the wall, which displayed the date in a little box within the face: 19 June 1965. So this was to be the day. She gripped the book to her breast and nursed her belly with the other hand, rubbing the material of the crème anglaise-coloured nightdress that she'd chosen with great care for the birth. She'd so desperately wanted the birth of her first baby to be special, but she was totally alone. No mother or father or sisters or friends. She'd resigned herself to that months ago. But I want him to be here. Him. Where is he? Where was he when she needed him? Even the nurses were too busy to sit and comfort her, and she felt ashamed. Of what, she didn't know exactly.
She returned to the book and wondered if she would ever have got this far without it. All her friends back home were busy with homework or enjoying school discos. London was huge and unfriendly, and however much she adored him, he hadn't been much help at all. A vast, shuddering pain interrupted her reading and the book slipped from her grasp as she reacted to the searing rip – as if someone was chopping her open from the inside. Her cry brought a nurse to the door, a stern woman with a time-worn face.
'Nurse!' said Mary, panting. 'I think my baby's coming.'
'Just keep breathing, love,' said the nurse, distracted by something that was happening outside the door. 'We've just got something to deal with out here.' And then she disappeared again. Through her pain Mary heard shouting in the corridor but instead concentrated on the cruel strip light on the ceiling as if it was a beacon showing her the way. The shouting became louder and she made out a man's voice. She heard 'Fuck you!' and 'Let me through, you bastards!' and other swear words, but it meant nothing to her because of the pain. She couldn't understand who was shouting and why. All she wanted right then was him beside her, holding her hand. She leaned her head to one side and a tear slipped down her cheek as she remembered the first time she'd ever set eyes on him, standing on that bridge in Ashton, over a year earlier.
She hadn't really wanted to meet him but her mate Maureen had persuaded her.
'Come on, Mary, what's up with you? Don't you want to meet a fit lad? He's not from 'round here.'
'Where's he from then?' she'd asked.
'Ashton-under-Lyne,' Maureen replied in a magical whisper, as if Ashton was the most exotic place in the world. Mind you, compared with Denton, where Mary had spent all her life, it was. Even a town five miles away offered excitement and new possibilities. 'And he's like 18 and he's dead grown-up and he's got this nose that's like dead flat, like a shark. He's been in loads of fights and he's not like other lads round here. He's right nice. And he knows stuff. Come on, Mary, come and meet him. He said that I could bring a friend and he'll take us both out.'
Mary listened as she pushed her hair back into place, using the window of her parents' sweet shop as a mirror. Maureen only wanted her to go along because she was too scared to go and meet him on her own. 'OK then,' she sighed, as if it were a big hardship. 'If it makes all that much difference to you, I'll come.'
She and Maureen were the adventurous ones at school, and Mary had always been up for a bit of excitement to ease the dull life that her parents wanted her to live. Mary dreamed of something other than the terraces of tiny, red-brick houses in Denton, a working-class hinterland a few miles from the heart of Manchester. She dreamed of anything else but her parents' shop. Through the window she could see Tom Nolan, her father, serving a customer, his bald head shining, a healthy, sturdy man who loved his beautiful daughters. Of the three strong-willed, intelligent Nolan girls, Mary was the youngest and the most easily led. She didn't want to work in the sweet shop or a bakery and had already got herself a part-time job as a magician's assistant at the local theatre. At the tender age of 15 she was far too interested in the glamour of the stage and the adult world for her father's liking.
'Eh, brill,' said Maureen, doing a little jump. 'I'll meet you tomorrow and we'll get the bus to Ashton. We're to meet him on the Guide Bridge at four o' clock,' she said, skipping off happily. Mary caught her father's eye through the window and waved at him. For some reason, the description of the boy that Maureen had given her had piqued her interest more than usual. That night she conjured up a mental picture of him, which meant that as she approached the windy bridge the next afternoon with Maureen, she couldn't help but be a little nervous. As they walked along, their smart, pointy shoes clacked against the pavement and their linked arms were tensed together in excitement. David stood alone on the middle of the bridge with his hands shoved in his pockets, braced against the wind, watching them. It was a chilly day, rain was drizzling and, from where Mary stood, Ashton seemed as depressing as Denton. As they got near, the boy took his hands out of his pockets, removed the cigarette from his mouth and blew smoke into their path before flicking the butt down into the river below.
'All right?' he said, and gave them a broad smile. 'I'm David Vaughan. Or Dave the Rave, as people call me.'
Mary smiled cautiously and looked away. Something about him made her heart flutter. It wasn't really the way he looked, which wasn't exactly what she had imagined. He was dressed in tight corduroy trousers with the waist button missing, a windcheater and a shirt that was up-to-the-minute mod fashion but a bit grubby. His hair was messy and cut awkwardly around his face, which wasn't handsome, but rather chiselled out of some rough stone and then maybe sand-blasted to leave smooth, round cheeks. His eyes seemed sad but were soft and kind at the same time and his nose – well, Maureen had got that part right. It was flat and crooked, as if it had been punched a fair few times and then some. Mary stole another look at him and summoned up the courage to speak.
'I'm Mary. Mary Nolan.'
He wouldn't stop looking at her for some time, and it was as if something was happening around her. Maureen chattered away happily enough as the three of them left the bridge and went to get a cup of tea, but Mary was thinking only about David. They went into a café and David entertained them both with stories of parties that he had been to, music he liked, his ideas and ambitions. He seemed to know everything and he was 18; he was so old. When Maureen went home for her tea, Mary stayed. She was too scared to look at him for too long, instead focusing on his hands, which were big and grubby with long fingernails that were full of paint. They seemed to tell a thousand stories. He told her that he was an artist. That he wanted to get out of Manchester and study at art school. He didn't seem like any other man in the world. He had ambition. He explained to her that his mother had abandoned him when he was a baby and that his grandmother had brought him up.
'Mum did come back once when I was about four or five,' said David, sipping his tea, now dark with a skin that had formed in the time he'd spent chatting. 'All I can remember is that she came back to get some clothes, she said, and I followed her up the stairs, then she came out of the room and instead of picking me up, she pushed me down the stairs and I fell. I couldn't understand why she wanted to hurt me.'
'At least you had your grandma to look after you,' said Mary, trying to find a way through the pain she felt on his behalf.
'My nan was as mad as a hatter,' said Dave, staring deeply into his tea. 'Instead of giving me dinner, she'd cut pictures of food out of magazines and put them on my plate.'
Mary bit her lip, trying to contain an overwhelming urge to touch him, to take away his pain. He didn't know who his dad was, he said, and tried to not look particularly bothered about it either. But this vulnerability had made her even more attracted to him. Everything he did, whether it was stirring his tea or lighting a cigarette, was strong and certain, but his eyes told another story. David walked her to the bus stop, all the while never taking his eyes off her face.
'I want to draw you,' he said finally, as the bus came along.
'Me?' she said, staring at the pavement. 'Why do you want to draw me?
'Because you're beautiful,' he said, grabbing her face in his smoky, grubby fingers and staring even harder. As he did so her face caught the light of the streetlamp and showed off her huge, round, blue eyes – oval-shaped, elfin eyes which shone like a beacon. Eyes that might melt a thousand hearts. He let his gaze roll over her face, which to him was as pretty and delicate as any doll that could ever be crafted. He felt as if he'd seen all the girls that Manchester had to offer but Mary was something else. There was something about her petite beauty, the slim figure and doe eyes that had instantly driven him crazy. She wouldn't have looked out of place among the models he'd seen in fancy London fashion magazines.
'Go on then,' she said, breaking free of his hand and mounting the bus. 'I'll meet you tomorrow if you like.' As she watched him through the window, she felt butterflies and knew that she was in love.
The next day they met, and he was true to his word and had turned up with his charcoals to set about drawing her. She was impressed with his skill and tried to keep still and avoid the temptation to fiddle with her hair.
'I'm gonna get out of here soon. I'm gonna go and live in Cornwall with other artists, then I'm gonna apply to art school in London and I want you to come away with me,' he said in his thick north Manchester accent, and then he kissed her. They kissed for a long time with closed eyes and through the dream she brought his rugged face into view. His dusty-blond hair felt like straw but to her it was manly and impossible to resist.
Soon enough her parents started to get concerned that she was often out late and skipping her homework. One day, in the small front room of their neat, two-up two-down house, they confronted her.
'So who is he? This new lad of yours.' Tom stood by the window and looked out at the row of red-brick houses opposite, his blue eyes sparkling. Mary had got his eyes, and the prettiness of her mother, Betty, who sat next to her on the sofa. What she hadn't inherited was their contentment with what they had.
'He's called David ... Why, Dad?'
'Because he's standing over the road smoking,' said Tom with a worried look at his daughter. 'Why don't you go and ask him to come in?'
Mary did as he said and soon David was drinking tea on their sofa, while her mum and dad stared at him.
'So what's your trade, lad?' said her father after a few minutes of awkward silence.
'I'm an artist.'
Mary winced inwardly as she knew that wasn't the answer her father was after. She saw him bristle.
'An artist? You need a proper job, lad.'
'Why should I? Just so the bloody government can take it all in tax? Fuck that.'
David stood up, drained his tea and strode out of the door, leaving Mary shell-shocked and her mother twiddling her rosary and saying her Hail Marys. Her father went to the window and watched David retreat with an air of satisfaction.
'You are not to see him again, Mary, you hear me?' he said sternly. Tom had brought up his daughters to be spirited, taking them out on bicycles into the Pennines, but not so spirited that they disobeyed him. Mary grabbed her coat and marched towards the door. 'Why not? Just 'cos he doesn't have a job? That's no reason to stop seeing someone,' she shot back, angrily slammed the door and ran to catch up with David. Suddenly everything looked too small to Mary: her parents wanted her to be a good Catholic and go to church rather than live her life.
She continued to see David despite their disapproval, until one day Tom got the ammunition he needed to end his daughter's relationship once and for all.
He brought it up the next day at dinnertime. She got in late and plonked herself down at the table, immediately noticing that her mother and father were not eating but staring straight at her. Tom cleared his throat.
'This lad of yours. I told you to stop seeing him.'
'You can't make me stop seeing him just because you don't like him,' said Mary, defiantly popping a chip into her mouth which nearly fell out again as her father brought his fist down hard on the table.
'You are to stop seeing him, because the lad is married. He's only got a bloody wife, and she's only got two kids by him as well.'
Mary stayed silent, looking fastidiously at the meat on her plate. She noticed that her mother, dressed neatly in a sweater and skirt, wasn't eating either.
'But he loves me,' Mary said as she tried to absorb the news.
But Tom wasn't going to back down. 'You're not even bloody 16 years old,' he went on. 'You should be concentrating on your education. You'll stop seeing him or you'll be sent away. You can go and live with your cousins in Torquay.'
She fled from the table to her room to cry and later on she snuck out to meet David and buried her head in his arms. It seemed as if they were the only two people in the world. She asked him about his wife, even though she didn't care if he had a wife, or ten million children. All that mattered was the two of them.
'I'm not with her no more,' he explained, as Mary looked at him inquisitively. 'It were a stupid mistake. I got married and had kids. I was too young, I'm still only 18, and I want to be with you.'
Mary looked up at him in despair. 'They told me that if I see you again they're going to send me away to Torquay,' she said as she felt his strong heartbeat through his nicotine-stinking windcheater.
'Good,' he said defiantly. 'Let them.'
The next week, as she was put on to a train at Manchester Piccadilly station, her mother gave her a final hug in the aisle of the carriage while Tom heaved her suitcase up on to the luggage rack. He looked at his daughter awkwardly before hugging her himself.
'It's for the best, love, you'll see. Give us a ring when you get to Torquay. Your cousins will help you get some work as a waitress, OK?'
Mary nodded dutifully, hoping they didn't look at her too closely and see what she was really thinking. As the train eased out of the station she waved one last time and then turned to watch Manchester slip away past the window. No sooner had the suburbs disappeared than the train pulled into Stockport station. Doors clanked open and new passengers bustled on board, accompanied by a burst of chilly air.
'Come here often, love?' said a familiar voice. David plonked himself down next to her and kissed her full on the lips. She smiled a smile of utter faith as he threw his bag on to the rack next to hers. 'Next stop St Ives,' he said, grinning devilishly. She didn't understand why her parents hated him because the more powerful he seemed, the deeper she slipped into love with him. To her, David was a charming, kind, talented and exciting man. He made her life worth living.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Sadie Frost Crazy Days by Sadie Frost. Copyright © 2010 Sadie Frost. Excerpted by permission of John Blake Publishing Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
