Autumn Grady was a child-benefits millionaire, in local parlance. She had ninety-nine kids on paper. Only eleven in reality, but she was a busy girl nonetheless.
Autumn was born in eighty one. Her career began at the age of nine, when her uncle fixed her up with a position as a bagger-out on the Manchester rave scene.
Bagging out consisted of taking delivery of a plastic bag of ecstasy tablets in the morning and turning it into a bag of money by dusk. Her rounds took in the Pendleton estates of old Salford. She had a bike, a bag of change, a money purse and a wrist watch. No mobiles in the days of yore. Most evenings she'd circulate to a pretty regular schedule, so the locals roughly knew when she'd be around. From this premise, she operated much like a child completing a paper-round. Except she'd do laps.
The pubs had their own supply chain so Autumn would cater for the non-drinkers. Most kids and the smoke-from-homers.
Playgrounds, precincts and parks, plus a few gangland checkpoints. The role didn't much require a pro-active sales technique. Customers tended to "make an approach". Most locals, when sober, were predictable. Often no words were exchanged throughout a transaction.
Autumn was earning herself ten pounds a week before she turned double figures and there was no nonsense from anyone. It was well known that she was related to and acting on behalf of Twinny. Her customers tended to view her actions as a community service bound up with the requisite connotations of old fashioned altruism. She was known as "Little Autumn" or "The Twinny Girl" and treated with a respect and deference that many an adult would never know.
By ninety four Little Autumn had gotten real big, but by ninety five she was little again. She called her first son Henry after her granddad. Henry lived at home with his mum, his grandma, his step-granddad and his great uncle. The social services were fine with the arrangements. But getting a babysitter for when she was working the estate began to prove tricky, especially after she had Jermaine and Chamillah one year later. By late ninety six Autumn had quit the bagging out and moved onto child rearing for real.
She loved being a mum. Nobody called her Little Autumn or The Twinny Girl anymore. Not to her face or even in reference to her when she wasn't around. She felt like and began to be treated like an adult - a position that she felt she could never have achieved in such a tight window, without the kids.
She met Tetley at her eighteenth birthday party in Melody's bar in town. Blokes tended to come and go before Tetley, usually leaving her with a big bumpy goodbye gift, and she didn't mind that. She liked the kids knowing only her world, without having to compromise. Being a mum was hard enough without having to learn how to go steady with a fella at the same time. She figured she'd learn how to do that when she was good and ready.
She'd not long dropped Chesney so she was feeling terrific. Enjoying having her figure and her life back once more. Tetley took her home and knocked her up with Bronson by way of saying "hello" and "happy birthday" all in one. A kind of extra special introductory welcome.
The top six came through in consecutive years between two thousand and one and two thousand and seven.
Justin, Rebekah, Ashton, Little Black Mark, Sugar and Summer.
As a twenty six year old woman with eleven kids, Autumn was enjoying the top end of the social security benefits system. She was given a five bedroomed gable end house in desirable Monton village in the more well to do part of Salford.
Her time, to the last second, was devoted to her kids, and she wouldn't have switched it for the world. Her mum pitched in and they became closer and happier than ever. She'd never known her mum so continually buzzing. Like she had a new reason for being alive. It was like Christmas every day.
But the best thing was that Autumn started seeing the money roll in. All off the state so all legit. No dirty deals and dodgy hand to mouth moments. Her entitlement. By law. She was a proper upstanding citizen of the nation. She couldn't have been any prouder of herself and what she had achieved.
All the stuff she saw only as the furnishings of other peoples worlds, she now saw as within reasonable reach for her own life.
The whole house redecorated from top to toe on a yearly basis. To keep it nice and fresh and homely. A new L shaped five person white leather sofa. Two new laptops and a new massive flat screen TV mounted on the wall in the main lounge. Cable and broadband. Mobile phones for herself, her mum, her babysitter and Henry. Trips away to the Lakes and up into Scotland four or five times each summer. A second hand but good as new Renault clio. A dishwasher. A second loo and shower where the downstairs storage cupboard used to be. Five brand new sets of bunk beds and as a special treat from her mum for her twenty seventh birthday, a waterbed.
She had four triple seater super-prams and a voucher for unlimited free child minding on most weekdays. Then they suggested that she might want to think about going to college and getting some qualifications, to really harness the value of the state support for her kids right now.
She took up the offer and enrolled as a part time student of paediatric support. She figured that what she learnt she could apply at home and then, after the kids had flown the nest she'd be able to hold down a secure and enjoyable career working in the national health service. She liked to think that she would be giving something back to the system, which really was only fair. She didn't want to take advantage now. She wasn't that kind of person.
But something changed in Autumn when Tetley walked out. A switch flipped. The young woman entered a totally different mode of being. It can happen. She'd been known these last few years and a good many too now, as Autumn Tetley. First off, she set about a re-branding exercise. From early two thousand and nine onward she began referring to herself as Autumn Grady. Without fail. And she corrected anyone who left off the surname until society behaved as instructed and momentum took hold. Persistence is the key in such matters.
Autumn Grady and no mistake. It was as if she was re-feminising. Asserting her individuality and, with that surname, leaving no room for any bloke to come along and be part of her life in the future. It was an expression of new found confidence and strength and it was a warning to any potential courtiers to keep their distance.
But the name was just for starters. Then came the big make-over. The image re-work. It was, and is, a thing of beauty and class. You have to hand it to Autumn Grady. The child benefits millionaire, at least in local parlance.
(the above is an extract from Autumn Grady, a chapter in the novel MakerMeeter, by Gary Knapton )
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