Pandora Read Free Page A

clustered around the shopping precinct, men and women, grubby, unkempt, with tawdry gold chains hanging over stained football shirts, glowering in hatred at anyone who was different or who still had hope in their eyes.
    Not that many in Lowell had any hope, except the hope of oblivion through drink or drugs. Teenage girls pushed neglected babies through the streets, texting, smoking, drinking and only occasionally glancing at their children. Pandora saw one mother who was still technically at school, given that she was fifteen. She was already showing the swelling of her second pregnancy.
    “Goodbye, Charlie’s Fish and Chip Shop, no greasy, burnt chips where we’re going!” cried Mrs Laskaris ecstatically, despite the fact she had often sent Pandora to Charlie’s to buy the family meal rather than cook herself.
    Pandora looked at the bins at the side of the shop where, two years ago, a tramp had been discovered frozen to death in the mean winter.
    “No more overpriced milk and bread from Pajel’s newsagent,” hooted Mrs Laskaris, who seemed almost hysterical with happiness.
    “No, I suppose not,” said Mr Laskaris sadly. He had enjoyed his chats with Mr Pajel. They shared a bond, both being foreigners in England, albeit long established in the country.
    Pandora looked at the shop front and recalled the time she had seen Chas Walters and Steven Fielding huddled in the doorway, beating up a twelve-year-old boy who just happened to be passing.
    “Goodbye, Dell Sports Field,” continued Mrs Laskaris, waving at the neglected field and cracked athletics track. It was there that Timothy Bradbourne had forced himself on Tina Wilkes. A week later, it had been Donna Smith. Both girls had been too scared to tell their families or the police, and as a result, Bradbourne’s reputation had soared in the area.
    Almost as if reading Pandora’s mind, her mother turned in the front passenger seat and squinted at her eldest daughter. “You’ll see,” she said. “At Willowcombe Clatford, there’ll be much nicer people. Much nicer boys .” She peered in suspicion at Pandora. Mrs Laskaris was increasingly disturbed by the fact that Pandora, at fourteen, had never had a boyfriend, or even mentioned liking any boys. She feared there was something wrong with her eldest daughter.What girl didn’t want to wear makeup, high heels and a short skirt, and go out on dates with boys?
    Pandora sighed quietly. She knew exactly what her mother was thinking. They had been through it all before. She couldn’t be bothered with makeup, she much preferred trainers, jeans and a T-shirt for everyday wear, and she just wasn’t interested in boys. Hardly surprising when examples included Phil Welding, who thought he was god’s gift to women despite being under five feet tall, or Daryl Hipkins, who thought it acceptable to pick his nose in front of you before trying to grope under your school skirt.
    They continued in the spitting rain along grey, greasy roads, on which school children clustered to throw stones, abuse pedestrians and scavenge for cigarettes. One threw a lager can at the car as it passed. The family continued, past the many derelict houses and shops, past the ineffectual police station, past the pensioners shuffling in fear as they quickly did their shopping and fled back to the relative safety of their homes, praying they hadn’t been burgled in the meantime. Finally, the car nosed its way into the near-permanent traffic jam on the filthy ring road which strangled the town. Forty minutes later, they were free of Lowell and on the motorway.
     
    Pandora dozed. A vision rose in her slumbering mind of a beautiful open field, containing an incongruous white temple. Children played outside, chasing each other, having races, wrestling or fighting with wooden swords. They all wore togas and were all barefoot.
    Pandora watched, feeling a warm summer breeze blow over the scene. It seemed an idyllic world. Then the screaming