September, 1958

Despite all the chaos in her life, there was something quite serene about Robin Knight as she sat cross-legged on the front wall to her new house, smoking her fourth cigarette of the day. That serenity would not last much longer, not as her mother stood in the doorway, watching her nervously, knowing the ticking timebomb of her daughter's emotions.

"Uncle Al's just finished carrying all of your boxes to your new room if you want to go start unpacking, love," Rita Knight suggested, calling out from the front porch of the house as she watched her daughter on the wall.

Robin expelled a large burst of smoke before throwing the cigarette onto the path, squashing it out with the toe of her boot as she jumped off the wall. Silently, staring down at the floor, she headed back through the front door, practically shoving past her mother as she headed down the hall and up the stairs. A few months before if Robin would have shoved her like that Rita would have been fuming, but she knew it wasn't the time, not when her whole life had been turned upside down. If anything, she was glad she shoved her; it was the first gesture Robin had done in weeks to actually acknowledge her mother.

Acknowledgement didn't extend much past that, as Robin did as her mother suggested, heading up the stairs and into the room which was now meant to be her own. She wasn't sure about a lot of things at that point, but she was sure she'd never class her uncle's house as home, even if he'd promised her she could paint the room whatever colour she wanted and put up whatever photographs she wanted to. He'd been so nice about the whole situation, but Robin wasn't entirely sure how to respond to nice anymore, not since the world had shown her it was anything but.

The room was far larger than her bedroom back home in Sheffield. She didn't realise her uncle Albert was rich enough to have a house this large in the nicer side of Liverpool, considering his brother - her father - had them all living in a tiny flat in the Park Hill building, but yet there they were. The room that had been bestowed upon her was large, about the size of the living room and kitchen space in her last flat, with a large bay window and no furniture yet except for a rickety-looking double bed, a fairly small wardrobe and a dressing table. It looked thrown together, like a bedsit, but she didn't mind. It looked temporary, and seemed to reflect just how she wanted her new life in Liverpool to be; fleeting, a brief stop on the way before she went back to her real life.

Her mother had been right, boxes piled up in the corner of the room next to the unmade bed, except where her mother had been wrong was her choice of words. Saying 'all of your boxes' made it sound like Robin had a lot of things to unpack, when really, it was just three boxes, a small suitcase, and a leather satchel. In the end, that was all her life seemed to amount to after the move.

Robin began by shutting the door. She wasn't in the mood for any company, the past few weeks being enough to prove to her that everyone just wanted to be overly nice to her, and she didn't really fancy false sympathies. So with the door shut, she opened the first box, heaving out her portable record player, hoping that it hadn't been damaged in the move. She looked around for somewhere to place it before settling on the window-cill, the bay window providing more than enough space. She quickly set it up, trying to ignore the memories of the times she would spend using the player to drown out the sound of her parents arguing, before going and finding her record collection, stored safely in the same box. She didn't look which record she put on, and she barely paid any attention to the music, but she was glad it at least drowned out the silence whilst she got to work on the rest of her stuff.

She unpacked the suitcase first, carefully hanging up all of her clothes in the wardrobe, trying to organise the dresses and skirts separately from the shirts and trousers. Once she was done with the clothes she decided to place all her shoes on the bottom of the wardrobe, arranging them from flats, to boots, to heels. She liked her things to be neat and organised, and setting out her clothes in this way let her feel like she at least had some sort of control in this situation, when really she had no say in the move.

Once the suitcase was empty she placed it on top of the wardrobe before moving onto the already opened box where her other records were. She set them all out in a pile by the window-cill according to colour, wishing she'd not let her mother throw out her father's record box, the one he'd used to store all of his, like they were his prized possessions. It was no use dwelling on though, so instead she threw the cardboard box into the corner, planning on making use of it as a makeshift canvas.

She moved onto the next box, the one containing the few decorations, photographs and posters she had. In the flat she used to have her snow globe set out on the bedside table next to a photograph of her and both of her parents, but this new room didn't have a bedside table, so she instead emptied the contents of the box onto the bed before tipping the box upside down, using the bottom of it as a makeshift table, setting out her globe and picture frame. She then stuck up her paintings around the room using the tape she'd already nicked from Albert's kitchen, hanging up her water colour of her old flat building above her bed, sticking up her portraits of Debbie Reynolds and Ella Fitzgerald either side of it. The portraits hadn't been her best work, and neither was the painting of Park Hill, but they were the ones her father had loved the most, so it seemed only right that those went pride of place.

The final box was full of her makeup and art supplies, so she made quick work of emptying out her makeup bag onto the dressing table, arranging everything until it was perfect, before spreading the art supplies out across the floor, propping the large sketchbook up against the wall, open at an unfinished drawing of Chuck Berry. She liked everything else to be organised, her clothes and her makeup, but not her art. Art to her was meant to be chaotic, and she liked her process of just picking out whatever materials she stumbled upon first when making a piece.

She liked chaos in art, but she liked being able to set it aside and go back to order. That seemed to be no longer possible though, not now she had been made to leave home and what she knew as her order far behind.

She considered lighting up another cigarette, hoping the smell of nicotine would make the room feel a little more like her, but just as she went to her satchel to fish out her packet and lighter, a knock came at the door. Whoever it was didn't wait for her to answer, and so her Uncle Albert came into the room, holding a pile of sheets and a large brown envelope. Robin didn't look at him, the uncle she barely knew outside of her father's stories, instead taking a seat on her new bed, looking across the room to avoid eye contact with him out of sheer stubbornness.

"Settling in, Roberta?" he asked cheerily, hoping the smile he put on his face would help hide the nerves he was so obviously feeling.

"My name's Robin," she corrected him, rolling her eyes as she spared a glance to him.

"Oh, yeah, your Mum did say you preferred Robin," he seemed to think out loud. "You've made it look rather nice in here. I've got you some bedsheets, didn't think you'd want to sleep on just a bare mattress, and a letter came for you from the art college,"

That made her look at him, swivelling in her position to face him properly, raising her eyebrow as he held the envelope out to her. One of the many things Robin had left behind in the move to Liverpool was a year at a local art college, and on the drive to this new city her mother had mentioned briefly about her enrolling in the Liverpool College of Art to complete her qualification. She thought her mother meant for her to apply, but clearly not trusting Robin to complete such a big task for their new life, Rita had gone straight ahead and applied for her.

Robin, with an inaudible sigh, took the envelope off her Uncle, her eyes gazing over the front, marked with the college's logo and underneath addressed to her as 'Miss R. E. M. Knight, 249 Menlove Avenue'. It was still strange to her to see her name labelled next to the new address, but not dwelling on that further, she tore open the envelope carefully, shaking out the contents onto the bed, picking up the letter and reading over it carefully.

"What does it say?" Uncle Albert asked, curiosity getting the better of him as his niece set aside the letter.

"I start tomorrow," she shrugged. "I thought they'd want to interview me, seems stupid them accepting me when they haven't seen any of my work,"

"Oh, they have, when your mum sent in the application for you they told her originally that they wanted to at least see some paintings though they were impressed by your grades," he explained. "Your Dad had been sending me your artwork for the last few Christmases, so I just went down to the college with some of those and they seemed pretty happy. Your Mum gave me the list of classes you wre doing in your last college so I gave that to them too so they've organised a perfect timetable for you to complete your course properly,"

"Right, was anyone going to tell me all of this or was it just one big secret?" Robin asked firmly, feeling a sense of betrayal, like the only two members of her family left had been plotting her new life out for her behind her back.

"Your Mum's been so worried about you, Robin, you've always been quiet but she says since the accident..." Albert began, but cut himself off when he heard Robin let out a bitter laugh. "It's oly natural love, but we just wanted to plan this out for you just so you at least had something here waiting for you,"

Robin understood that, and part of her was grateful. They'd enrolled her in art college so she at least had some sort of purpose to her life in Liverpool, and it was a good art college too, one where she could pursue her passion properly. Even if she was secretly glad of it, she wasn't going to let either her mother or Albert know that, because part of her still felt bitter about them arranging it without her permission. It was like neither of them trusted her to be motivated enough, Albert had practically said so himself. Neither of them thought she'd be bothered enough in her dark spiral of grief to arrange an education for herself.

They were right though, because Robin had been so consumed by her father's death and having to leave Sheffield to even consider her academic future, and when her mother had mentioned the art college, she knew herself that she had no intention to apply just yet. If it had been up to her she would have gladly spent the first few months living in Liverpool wallowing in her room, painting as she listened to sad records, smoking far too many cigarettes in a day and drinking whisky as if it was a constant toast to her father. It was an unhealthy spiral she would've been entrapped in, even she knew that. At least with college her painting would have a purpose other than a coping mechanism.

"Fine," she shrugged again. "Letter says I have to be there at eight tomorrow,"

"I'll take you," Albert said, and she knew it wasn't as much of a question as it was a statement, insisting that he would drop her off for her first day to at least make sure she actually went. "There's a bus route that's pretty easy, and I think the lad next door goes to the same college, maybe you could get the bus with him in the mornings?"

Uncle Albert's suggestion made Robin snort out a laugh. Even before losing her father, she didn't surround herself with friends, let alone lads. She preferred to stick to herself, enjoying her own company far more than the silly girls who were in her classes, the ones who would do nothing but plan out their future weddings and talk about which boys they fancied. The lads were even worse, constantly lusting after any bird that walked past them, and so Robin had made a sure effort to avoid both. It wasn't her thing, to lust or to be lusted after. Art was her thing, nothing else, and she tried to make that clear to everyone by steering clear of any sort of friendship.

It was only when her father died that she realised how lonely that sort of existence was, but the realisation wasn't going to change anything, not at a new college anyway. There, she would be the new girl, the outsider, the one with the funny Yorkshire accent, and she knew the unavoidable differences between herself and her new peers at college would drive a big wedge between them. If people laughed at her in Sheffield, called her strange and alone there, she couldn't imagine how it would be at the new college.

"I'll get the bus alone," she corrected him. "But I'll get a lift tomorrow... Please,"

"Of course, love," Albert nodded, glad she was taking it in so maturely rather than being angry like her mother thought she would be. "Well, I'll leave you to it, you'll probably want to look at your timetable and sort out the stuff you'll need. Dinner's in a couple of hours as well,"

"I'm not hungry," she told him, deciding she'd had enough company for the day. "But cheers,"

With that, he left the room, closing the door behind himself. Robin was glad he didn't hang around, clearly knowing she wanted space, and she wished her mother was as understanding, since the last few weeks in their flat she had been constantly hovering over her, watching her carefully as if she could disappear any second. It was her own way of coping with grief, knowing that she'd lost her husband and didn't want anything to happen to her child too, but it seemed to suffocate the natural introvert within Robin.

She looked around the bedroom, taking in the surroundings her uncle had seemed to be impressed by. Even with all of her stuff unpacked it still felt so alien, so unfamiliar, and for the first time that day she felt a pang deep in her stomach, wishing she was still at home and not subjected to such intense change that left her feeling so utterly lost. She let out a long sigh, letting her head fall into her hands as she ruffled her dark hair, trying to force away her deep thoughts. Biting her lip, she glanced over to the window and decided she needed to smoke, and so she grabbed her satchel and headed downstairs, too engrossed in her own mind to pay any attention to her mother or uncle, hoping a cigarette out in the fresh air as the sun went down would help settle her mind.

It didn't, because it was that cigarette out in the garden that attracted the attention of her neighbour.

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Word count: 2733

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