Beira, Queen of Winter

Beira's life was hard, right up until the day it was not. She grew up with little, except the brusque, if stable, affections of her working parents. Her inheritance consisted of little more than a small flat in Leith, her father's mantra,

"It might not be thriving, but we keep on surviving";

And her mother's talent for dressing well on a shoestring.

This she inherited at 16; her parents' lives abruptly ended, on December 21st, by the 11:45 Edinburgh to Glasgow train, as they rambled over the level crossing at Curriehill. It was a shock to Beira, to discover that the flat was mortgaged and not rented. Indeed, her father had often sucked his lip, sighing over the "cut for the landlord", when Beira, or her mother, made a rare request for 'recreational' funds.

The mortgage was about a year from being paid, and, curiously, in her father's savings account, she found a little more than the outstanding balance.

Beira, the survivor, responded to the interventions of well meaning, over-worked, Social care workers with well-dressed self-assurance. No, she didn't need a mentor; yes, she'd be fine.

When a smattering of relatives and family friends appeared, they encountered the same. It was nice of them to be concerned, but she'd be fine. She had funds, and a roof: she could take care of herself.

The doors closed, Beira wept as she went through her parents' meagre belongings, and steadily donated, sold, or threw out, everything of no utility to her. All the things that made her ache inside.

Everything except a few photographs which she cut down and inserted into her purse.

The very last document she found was a small, tattered notebook; stashed in her father's solitary winter coat. In it, she found his redundancy notice, dated several years earlier. Scribbled on the pages were a rough ledger, in pencil, that she first took for the household accounts. Yet, the numbers didn't make sense, and when she found a phone number at the back, she decided to call it.

"Yeah, mate, how much product you wantin'? Mate? Mate?"

She hung up and understood; understood far too much.

Beira found a zero-hours contract job at a nearby call centre. She left school shortly after, finding she was just too tired to complete assignments in the meagre evening hours she wasn't working.

Co-workers regularly commented on her style; was she really on the same wages as they? She was lucky to live alone and to have a flat of their own. They could only aspire to her lifestyle.

She thought her life was shit; ok, but still shit. By extension that meant she worked alongside people who aspired to shit. Her understanding grew.

Two years later, she had very modest savings, some casual friends, and had abandoned attempts to get back into education. She could never save enough to make up for the insufficiencies of state support.

She met a cousin on Leith Walk, walking home from work one afternoon. Jane 'didn't notice her' until Beira stood directly in her path and said "Boo stranger!"

"Oh hi, Beira, I forgot, you live around here, don't you?"

"That I do, aye. What brings you down my way, you look cheery like."

"Oh, I was just walking home, it's such a nice day. Fancy meeting you here, how are you doing these days? It must have been, what, a few months since I saw you last?"

"6 months. Who you been visiting?"

Squirming, visible squirming.

"Oh, you know, friends"