Don’t Tell Mummy (9 page)

On other days I would take a book into the vast kitchen, which was always filled with delicious baking smells from the various breads and cakes my mother made. Here all the cooking was done on the old peat-fuelled range. Before I lost myself in adventures with the Famous Five or went
swimming with the famous Water Babies, I would be given various tasks to do. I would be sent outside to bring in pails of drinking water from the pump. I collected peat for the range and baskets of logs for the fires in our rooms. On fine days, which in the Northern Irish winter were not too frequent, I would walk in the woods, collecting fallen branches and sturdy twigs for fires. These we would place at the back of the stove to dry, then use as kindling. My mother had read somewhere that tea made from stinging nettles had medicinal qualities, so, armed with gardening gloves, I filled baskets with the green weeds, which she then simmered on the range, filling the kitchen with a pungent aroma.

On the winter school mornings, when I made my candlelit way along corridors to fetch water for washing, I could hear the scurrying of mice. I wasn’t frightened of them, simply looking on them as an inconvenience because their presence meant every scrap of food had to be placed into tins or jars. One morning I saw that my father had left a packet of sugar out when he had returned home late. Sitting in it was a plump mouse with small beady eyes and twitching whiskers. I chased it away and threw out the remaining sugar. Even though Cooldaragh had an army of cats, every morning fresh mouse droppings appeared and my job was to clean them up.

Easter came and went, bringing with it improved weather. Then I was able to return to spending most of my time exploring the woods with the dogs. I would walk through the leaf-carpeted woodland, warmed by the rays of the sun that shone on the new green foliage. I heard the joyful notes of birdsong as egg-filled nests were guarded by the future parents. Scamp, who had become blind, was too
old now for those walks, but the other three happily accompanied me, racing around beside me, digging in the undergrowth. Judy would often desert me in a hopeful hunt for rabbits. Bruno, on my command of, ‘Go fetch’, would search for her and herd her back.

Between the Christmas tree plantation and the woodland ran a stream. There I’d lie, looking for frogspawn, tickling the water with a stick to see if any life lurked in the mud. My patience would often be rewarded by the sight of small frogs that had only just left their tadpole stage behind, or a glimpse of the toads that lurked in the primrose-dotted clumps of grass.

In the early evenings, I would walk with Mrs Giveen to give the ponies titbits. They always knew the time we were coming, standing up against the fence, patiently waiting for us. On returning to the house I would help my mother prepare the high tea that had to be ready before my father was due back from work. I would take Mrs Giveen’s tray to her lounge then return to the kitchen to eat with my parents.

My father said very little to me in those months. I could sense, still, his eyes following me, but on the whole he ignored me, and I him.

Those days were a peaceful interlude in my life, an interlude that as time went by I assumed would last for ever, but how could it?

At the beginning of my school summer holidays, I woke up to an eerie silence in the house. I could sense something was wrong as I went down the back stairs to the kitchen. As my mother made my breakfast, she told me that Mrs Giveen had died peacefully in the night. She spoke to me very gently, knowing how fond I was of the old lady. A feeling of
desolation crept over me for I knew that she had inadvertently been my protector as well as my friend. I wanted to say good-bye to her; I went up the stairs into her bedroom, where she lay on her bed with her eyes closed and a bandage tied around her chin to the top of her head. I wasn’t scared the first time I saw death. I just knew she was no longer there.

The dogs were quiet that day. They seemed to feel as I did, that we had lost a friend. That evening I gave the ponies their titbits, stroked their necks and found some comfort in their solemn gaze.

I don’t remember the funeral or relatives coming, but obviously they happened. What I do remember is her daughter-in-law coming to stay for a few weeks, mainly to do an inventory of the house, especially of all the antiques. She was a charming, lovely woman, who always smelled of perfume. She would invite me into her room, which was on the other side of mine, and give me gifts of hair slides and ribbons. Most excitingly, she brought me a tartan dress from London. My mother, an experienced dressmaker, made me my first suit out of grey flannel. I was very proud of my suddenly grown-up appearance, which I saw reflected in the mirror, and looked forward to wearing it when young Mrs Giveen took me to church.

It was during her visit that the Sunday service was interrupted by the appearance of a small bat, which suddenly appeared and swooped over our heads. To me it was just a flying mouse; to the panicked congregation it was a creature that instilled fear. That Sunday the service was cut short. Grown-ups, I decided, were scared of the most peculiar things.

It was the first time I had really seen my mother with another woman of comparable age, whose company she
enjoyed. Instinctively, I had always known she did not enjoy my paternal grandmother’s or my aunt’s company. Often at weekends the three of us would sit in the garden at the side of the house, where we would have afternoon tea in the English fashion. My mother would wheel out a tea trolley with daintily cut sandwiches of egg and cress, or thinly sliced, home-cooked ham. There would be freshly baked scones with jam and cream, followed by fruit cake, all washed down by tea, poured from a silver teapot into china cups. My mother and young Mrs Giveen would talk and on those days I felt very grown up because I was included in the conversations.

The day I was dreading arrived, the day that Mrs Giveen junior told me she had to return to her house in London. Before she went she gave me a present.

‘Antoinette,’ she said, ‘I know it’s soon to be your birthday. I’m sorry I won’t be here for it, but I have got you a little present.’

She gave me a small gold locket on a chain, which she hung around my neck.

Now, with the house empty, my mother, I think, felt she was mistress. Which indeed, for the next year, she was.

T
he golden glow of sunbeams brushed my eyelids, forcing them apart. Sleepily, my eyes flickered around the room. The rays of sun settled on my new tartan dress hanging on the back of the door, intensifying the reds and blues of the plaid, turning them into jewel-like colours.

A twinge of excitement told me that this was my tenth birthday. This was the day I was to have my first party; every girl in my class was expected, all fourteen of them. My father, on hearing that my mother had agreed with this, had informed us he was going to spend the day playing golf, thus giving me a special present – his absence. This was my day and the first half of it I could spend with my mother alone. His presence would not be there to cast a cloud on a day I felt was mine.

My gaze alighted on the gold locket and chain that young Mrs Giveen had given me and with a pang I wished that both she and her mother-in-law could be present. My mother had told me during the summer holidays that this year I could have a party. My thoughts drifted back to taking the invitations into school. All the girls in my class had accepted and I was excited at the prospect of showing them my home. For in my mind, as well as my mother’s, Cooldaragh was my home.

The dogs and I would always end up on our walks in the Christmas tree plantation, where I thought of the young Giveens choosing their very own tree year after year, and then taking it back to the huge hall. I pictured them, dressed in the more formal clothes that I had seen in the sepia-tinted photographs hanging in the drawing room, climbing up a ladder to decorate it. I pictured them on Christmas morning in front of a log fire opening their presents, while the servants stood in the background waiting for their big day to follow.

Lying in my bed, I stretched my toes, wanting to stay for just a few more moments. This was the Cooldaragh I wanted to share with my classmates. I wanted them to feel the magic that I did.

My mother’s voice, calling up the stairs, broke into my reveries. Pulling on my old clothes, which were folded on my bedside chair, I went downstairs to find her. Delicious smells of baking drifted up the corridor, informing me that she was already at work.

I knew that my cake, iced in pink with ten white candles mingled with the words ‘Happy Birthday’, had been baked the day before. When I entered the kitchen I saw more rows of small cakes cooling on racks. Next to them stood the coveted bowl, which I knew after breakfast I could lick out once the cooled icing, liberally dotted with the bright colours of hundreds and thousands, had been spread on the cakes.

There was the table laid for two; a teapot covered in its knitted cosy standing in the middle, brown eggs in white egg cups and, beside the plates, a small pile of parcels.

‘Happy birthday darling,’ my mother said as she greeted me with a kiss. This, I felt, was going to be a perfect day.

Unwrapping the presents I found a pair of new shoes from my parents, shiny black with a little strap that went across the instep; a Fair Isle jumper from my Irish grandparents; and three books by Louisa M. Alcott,
Little Women, Little
Men
and
Jo’s Boys
, books I had dropped many hints that I wanted, from my English grandmother.

Tucking into my breakfast with gusto, surreptitiously passing the dogs scraps, I felt pleased it was a sunny day, happy that I had my mother to myself and delighted with my presents.

All week I had looked forward to my party. I imagined showing the girls from school around my home. Imagined them being impressed that I was lucky to live in such a place. The anticipation of being able to invite my classmates had lent more satisfaction to returning to school after the long summer holidays. Even though the holidays were enjoyable, they were also lonely. Once young Mrs Giveen had left I felt an isolation that the dogs’ company could never quite dispel. Dressed in shorts, T-shirt and plimsolls I would spend my days exploring the estate with them. Taking a small bottle of squash and some sandwiches, I would sometimes disappear for most of the day, returning with dead branches and twigs, which we would use for lighting the range in the cavernous kitchen. I enjoyed my daily tasks, which now that I was a little older included sawing the dead branches from the woods into logs. But I hardly saw anyone, or left the grounds of Cooldaragh, and I missed the contact of other children. With no nearby farm, the nearest shops being in Coleraine and only the twice-daily bus service, we seldom ventured out. Instead we relied on our daily milk delivery and the twice-weekly grocery van.

However, that summer holiday had brought my mother and me closer, having to rely on one another for company. On the days it rained we would sit companionably in the kitchen, open the range door and feast on the homemade cakes she enjoyed baking. I with a book where I lost myself in the pages, and she with her knitting; the constant clicks from her needles making a soothing background noise as, with head bent, she would concentrate on the creation of each garment.

She had made me a dark green jumper, its V-neck edged in black and white, for my return to school. Other times she would place one of my woollen socks over a wooden mushroom to darn the holes that regularly appeared, or would sigh over a skirt that needed letting down until there was no hem left. Extra schoolwork always had to be done, because my school believed in setting projects for the holidays.

After breakfast was finished and I had helped my mother with the icing of the cakes, I went outside with the dogs. My mother’s warning not to venture too far, since I had to get ready for my party in good time, stopped me going to the woods. Instead I went to say good morning to the ponies. After giving them a hug and some titbits from my pocket, I headed back.

The sun was giving the red bricks of the house a warm mellow glow as I entered the courtyard, through the back door and into the kitchen. Pans of water already stood on the range, ready for me to take upstairs for my bath. It took three journeys up the steep back stairs before the water was deep enough.

I dressed in the presents from young Mrs Giveen. First the full-skirted plaid dress, with its row of buttons down the back, was pulled over my head and my mother fastened it.
Then the new black shoes were slipped on over white socks, and finally my mother fastened the gold locket around my neck. My newly washed hair was brushed then tied back on the side and fastened in place with a slide. Gazing into the mirror I posed for a few seconds, liking what I saw.

Half an hour before the girls were expected I stood on the steps, my eyes firmly fixed on the drive, waiting for the first car to arrive. The dogs lay nearby, intent on keeping me company, sensing something was in the air. Like me, their gaze scanned the drive.

Within minutes of the time stated on the invitations, a convoy of black cars drove down the dusty drive. Gravel flew as they crunched to a halt in front of the steps where I waited, feeling as proprietary as my mother. Doors opened, spilling out the neatly dressed pre-teens, all clasping prettily wrapped packages. After assurances to my mother that they would all be collected at six-thirty their parents left.

My mother brought out jugs of squash as we sat on the lawn with my pile of presents. Eager faces watched me as one after another their gifts were unwrapped. Wrapping paper was removed to reveal boxes of sweets, which were laughingly passed around, until my mother, not wanting us to ruin our appetites, took them inside. Other parcels revealed hair slides and ribbons. A new pen in a case drew a breath of pleasure from me as did the one that contained a pink-covered diary, a diary that was never going to be written in because after that day I felt there was nothing to write about. But at the beginning of that afternoon, surrounded by my classmates, with the sun casting its warmth over us, I was not to know what was to come.

My mother helped me to gather up all the presents, then told me to show my friends around the house, which I
needed no persuasion to do. I led them into the hall where, when pointing out all the American memorabilia, I caught a change in the atmosphere. There was a whisper, the odd mutter and a surprised laugh and suddenly I saw my beloved Cooldaragh through their eyes.

Instead of the grandeur I had so often described to them, I saw the blocked-up fireplaces, with newspaper stuffed into them to keep out the draughts, the cobwebs hanging in corners, the dusty carpeting on the stairs that led to the unfurnished bedrooms above. In the dining room I felt their eyes resting on the now grimy silver, unpolished since Mrs Giveen’s death. I saw the threadbare curtains that had hung for so many years and noticed the oil lamps that stood on the sideboard, informing them that this huge relic of another era had no electricity.

‘Where,’ I heard one whisper, ‘would any hot water come from?’

My classmates were products of detached houses with landscaped gardens, modern furniture and shining silver. They came from homes where their ‘dailies’ firmly exorcized any traces of dust and daily baths were taken for granted. They could not see the magic that I could. They could only see a derelict building. With that unerring instinct that children have, they added to the information already gleaned from their parents. They knew my mother was the caretaker. They knew I was not the product of a professional family and I was set apart from them.

I felt again that distance between us and knew I was an outsider. Curiosity not friendship was the emotion that had brought them there that day. The friendship that I had wanted to believe in was going to elude me. I felt I had stepped behind a sheet of glass. Watching through a
window as my peers laughed and talked, I could only mimic them with chatter and copy their giggles. I was on the outside, looking in on someone else’s party and watching myself.

That afternoon we played games, with so many rooms hide and seek was the favourite, but when it was my turn to hide somehow I knew that their search was not as diligent as when looking for one of their friends. I could feel their togetherness as they waited for the cars that would release them and return them to their sterile homes.

My mother’s spread of sandwiches, fruit jellies and small iced cakes was eagerly received and washed down by more squash. The birthday cake was carried in and before it was cut I was told to blow out all the candles; if that was achieved in one go I could make a wish. Breathing as much air into my lungs as I could hold, with tightly squeezed eyes, I blew. I heard the applause and opened them. All of the candles were out and shutting my eyes firmly again I made my wish.

‘Make them like me, make them my friends,’ I asked, and when my eyes opened for a while I thought my wish had been granted. Now, I thought, would be a good time to pass around the sweets that had been given to me. Going to where my presents were piled up I found, to my dismay, they were all gone. They must have been eaten during our games of hide and seek when, crouched in one of the dusty unused rooms, I had waited so long to be found. Not knowing what to say I looked at my mother.

She laughed. ‘Darling, you have to learn to share.’

I saw her exchange conspiratorial smiles with the girls and knew both she and they were laughing at me. I looked at the smiling faces surrounding me and my feelings of apartness returned.

As the party drew to a close I stood on the steps of Cooldaragh watching my ‘friends’ leaving in a convoy of cars, after politely thanking me for the day and giving vague promises of invites to their homes. Wanting to believe them, I did and waved happily at the departing cars until the last one had disappeared from sight.

Seven o’clock brought with it my father. A father whose flushed face told me he had been drinking. His stare was fixed on me. I wanted to leave, to escape it, but as always his eyes kept me firmly rooted to my seat.

My mother, in a voice pitched higher than usual, a sign which betrayed her nervousness, instructed me to show him my presents.

‘Look, Paddy, what she was given.’

One by one I showed them to him.

‘What no sweets?’ Seeing the answer in my face he snorted. ‘Did you not think to save your old man any then?’

I searched his face, was this the jovial father who could be cajoled, or the other one? I wondered, a knot of dread growing in my stomach.

The last present I showed him was my pen, black with a silver clip. As I held it out for his inspection I felt a tremor in my hand and knew by his smile he had seen it too.

‘Where’s your other pen, the one your mother and I bought you?’ he asked and with a sinking heart I saw that he was not the jovial father that night.

‘In my satchel,’ was all I could stutter.

He emitted an unpleasant laugh. ‘Well, get it then – sure you won’t be needing two.’

‘I do,’ I protested. ‘I need a spare, that’s why Marie gave me this one.’

In front of my eyes, like the toads I had seen in the woods, he seemed to swell. His chest seemed to puff up, his eyes went bloodshot. I saw that tell-tale quiver of his mouth and too late I knew I should not have disagreed with him.

‘Don’t you be arguing with me, my girl,’ he roared as his hand grabbed the neck of my dress and pulled me off the chair. The ground came up to meet me, the breath left my body, his hands were round my throat and dimly I heard my mother scream.

‘Paddy, stop, you’ll kill her!’

My hands were scrabbling with his, trying to release the fingers that gripped me as my breath wheezed and my legs flailed helplessly on the floor.

I heard him bellow, ‘You do as I tell you, my girl.’ Then, through the sound of my mother’s pleas, I felt his grip lessen on me.

I pulled myself up, dazed and disorientated.

‘Get her out of my sight,’ he yelled at my mother. ‘Get her to her room.’

She, without a word, took my arm and propelled me into the corridor and up the stairs, then abruptly released me. Glaring, she ordered me to stay there.

‘Why do you always have to annoy him? You know he has a temper.’ She sounded weary. ‘Can you not try and keep the peace for my sake?’ I heard a note of pleading in her voice and knew she was as afraid as I was.