Handstands In The Dark: A True Story of Growing Up and Survival (42 page)

‘He also makes me cry, Findlay,’ I replied. The champagne was getting the better of me. I was feeling slightly tipsy. ‘It’s not all that it seems, you know.’

‘Let’s get out of here,’ Findlay said, grabbing my arm, making his excuses to the crowd and leading me out onto the riverfront walkway. Across the water, the lights and towering office blocks of the City of London twinkled in the balmy early evening; beside us, people walked along holding hands, a lone fat man jogged and couples strolled with babies in prams. We caught a cab to Quaglino’s, Conran’s new upmarket restaurant in St James’s. Findlay knew the front-of-house staff.

‘Janey, this is Sophie, the receptionist and sexiest lesbian all the way from Soho.’

‘Hello, Sophie,’ I laughed, shaking the blonde girl’s hand. ‘I must apologise for my friend here: Findlay is the most indiscreet homosexual in London.’

‘Is there any other kind of homosexual?’ She winked.

I turned to follow Findlay and immediately balked inwardly. The entrance was a grand twisted staircase that took you down to the floor below. I was terrified I would stumble, fall down the entire flight of stairs and land flat on my arse at the bottom. But he took my hand, we stepped down together and took our table safely at the bottom. He flirted easily with the wine waiter and ordered a bottle of white wine.

‘I don’t really drink much, Findlay; don’t get a whole bottle.’

‘Darling, this is a really good white and, if you don’t drink it, no worries – I will!’ He lit a cigarette and flashed his eyes over the menu.

Over the first bottle and first course, we chatted about how Old George’s death had been affecting us all back home. I went into my usual ‘Ashley this’ and ‘Ashley that’ routine.

Just as I was about to tell yet another funny story about her, Findlay interrupted me. ‘Janey, for God’s sake shut up about your child. How are
you
? What is happening with
you
and Sean? Who
are
you, Janey? You’re not just someone’s mother, someone’s wife. For fuck’s sake, tell me the last time you had fun just being
Janey
?’

I stopped in my tracks. The wine had trickled into my soul and made me feel slightly floppy and warm and he had caught me off-guard.

‘I don’t know
who
I am, Findlay. I am just a woman who works in a pub and tries to keep talking quickly enough so nobody knows what’s happening inside me when it all goes quiet.’

‘Janey, you are lovely and funny and intelligent and you need to try to remember who you were before you got married. Did you always want to live in Glasgow? Who was your mum? Did she smile like you? Do you get your sense of humour from her?’ Findlay probed into my head with a barrage of questions, all the while smiling as he talked.

I told him all about my life with Sean. I talked about my Uncle, my fears, dealing with the Storries, how I actually missed Old George. We talked and talked. I even learned to listen. I sat there with him and we both downed two bottles of wine and three glasses of brandy. Drunk, happy and full of good food, I let my big defensive attitude go; I admitted aloud for the first time that I was not happy with my life; I did not have to pretend; I had never told anyone this stuff before; I had always kept up the Janey Storrie mask, the attitude that nothing got me down. Old George had told me, ‘Never show weakness. Then they will get you,’ and I had never shown weakness; even when Sean slapped me hard on the face in the back shop, I came out smiling, telling jokes and covering my tracks. I always felt I didn’t really deserve much in life and worried that sometimes people might see inside me the weak ‘bad girl’ – the description that my Uncle used when he raped me regularly over all those long years. Findlay held my hand and smiled.

‘You don’t need to let anyone rule your life.’

I was beginning to feel different about myself. I did not have to go home and accept Sean’s bullying. I would stand up to him more. I thought,
I hope my head remembers all this
; I was taking mental notes, because I knew I was sure as hell likely to forget how to be brave. That night, when we went dancing, it was in a seedy, smelly, Soho gay club. I was exhausted and had never drunk that much in years – I had been, in effect, teetotal throughout my life because I saw the effect of drink on my parents. I danced twice, sat in a corner and sweated for an hour, until Findlay decided it was time to go. I had a great time.

* * *

The following week, I was back in Glasgow’s East End, back in the war zone of Toad Hall. Sean updated me on the latest round of arguments. His brother Philip was making decisions about the Weavers – like what staff should be brought in and how many barrels were used – and this disturbed Sean no end. We were buying the pub and it was our money that was paying the builders. Why was his brother Philip taking such an active interest in our private investment? The six brothers had quickly spent the cash their father had left them and the minute it started to run out, they had started to ask questions about how much we had.
How much did their dad pay us over the years? Why did we have savings and they had none?
Sean and I got nervous at these probings and tried hard to just keep working and planning our future. But there was also the annoying fact that Sandra was starting to arrive at Toad Hall unannounced, declaring her stake in ‘the Storrie fortune’. Young George had already warned us all to treat her with kid gloves: ‘She knows too much aboot Dad.’

Sean had replied: ‘Well, that’s what happens when you tell women your business. I don’t fuck Sandra, I’ve never fucked her and she knows nothing about me. If she knows too much about you, George, then take her somewhere else and treat her nice. Just keep her away from Toad Hall and away from my daughter.’

In my absence, Sandra had been upsetting Ashley by telling her that her Grandad George never really liked her and had always preferred to spend time with Sandra’s kids whom he really did love. Ashley had run straight to her dad with this revelation and Sean immediately threw Sandra out of Toad Hall onto the main street. Literally. He grabbed her by the back of her neck and pulled her out of the house as she held one of her small shitty dogs in her arms. The other dog was yap-yapping behind them. Sean opened the gate, threw Sandra out, shut the gate and expected the second dog to follow through a gap, but it didn’t; it was still yap-yapping around his heels; so he picked it up and threw it over the wall.

‘Don’t come back here!’ he screamed at Sandra, as strangers at the bus stop outside enjoyed the free entertainment. ‘Go to the caravan, ya mad cow! There must be men down there that haven’t had sex with you yet! Don’t ever speak to my daughter again!’

Sandra had called on Young George to ‘sort out’ Sean, but it never happened. He knew that, if Sandra had upset Ashley, there was no going back with Sean.

Ashley had started to ask questions about our future: ‘Mummy, will we be getting our flats back above the pub? Will we be going back to the pub? Uncle Dick told me the Weavers wasn’t Daddy’s any more and Daddy will have to get a new job.’ Her anxious eyes searched my face for reassurance.

‘Uncle Dick was just being difficult and annoying,’ I told her. ‘Ignore him and, if he says that again, tell him to go buy teeth with the money his daddy left him.’

‘No, Mummy, that’s cruel. Uncle Dick is shy about having no top teeth.’

We could not go a single week without either Young George or Dick descending on us. I just wanted to leave Toad Hall and get a temporary flat somewhere: ‘Sean, they said they would let us live here alone. I am fucking sick of it! The place is a mess, the smell of hash would knock ye oot and they keep being fucking snide to Ashley. I want to go!’

Sean rubbed his eyes as he sat in his father’s kitchen. ‘Well, now, you are letting them win by being upset. That is what they want, Janey. So calm down. It won’t be long until we move back to living above the Weavers.’

‘I fucking hate them!
You
hate them! They told Ashley we don’t own the pub and we need to look for a new job! Dick told
our child
this, Sean! I want to go now!’ I was not going to back off, not after my talks with Findlay.

‘Look, why don’t we go on a holiday?’ Sean asked.

* * *

He thought a good two-week break in the Caribbean would chill me out and give him time to decide what we were all going to do. I guessed the holiday was a good idea; it would make Sean relax. Indeed, as it approached, he became more and more excited about the trip and asked me if I wanted to renew our wedding vows on the beach in Jamaica. I was thrilled and put aside all past fears.
He really must love me!
I thought.
He’s been putting up with all this stress, dealing with the renovation, his father’s death and still he wants us to have a beach ceremony to honour our wedding vows!
I thought I would burst with happiness. Ashley was over the moon too as, finally, she would get to be a bridesmaid. I set up cover at the Weavers, organised everything at Toad Hall, locked up all our personal paperwork, switched off our computer and locked our bedroom door. I told one of my sisters-in-law: ‘Please keep it locked. It’s hard to keep anything personal in this house and it already feels like I’m living in a hostel.’

The flight to the Caribbean was long and tiresome; it seemed to take forever to get from the airport into Ocho Rio by bus and, by this time, Ashley was fast asleep on my knee, all hot and sticky. But the hotel grounds were beautiful and, when we woke up the next morning to explore our surroundings, we were amazed by the beauty. It was everything the brochure had claimed: white sand that stretched for miles on our own private beach, the blue sea dotted with tiny boats and catamarans for our personal pleasure!

Ashley squealed with delight and immediately ran down into the ocean in her pyjamas: ‘Mummy! The water is
warm
! Come in quick!’ She dived under the first wave and stood up in her pink top and soaked cotton trousers shouting, ‘It’s lovely! Come in!’ It was great to see her unwind and enjoy life for a wee while. She was only eight and I knew she was under strain as well. She had had to deal with missing her beloved Grandad George; she too had been uprooted from her home and had had to live with people who were always very difficult and rude to her.

Sean and I made plans with the Jamaican Wedding Supervisor for our beachfront wedding: the food was all-inclusive and a special Scottish Wedding Barbecue was arranged for the evening to celebrate our special day. I was surprised how much effort Sean was putting into it. Normally, he would balk at any display of public affection or anything that involved him talking in front of people. But he was enthusiastic, helped choose my flowers and picked one of the Jamaican bar stewards as his ‘best man’; he had champagne and flowers delivered to my room, just before the ceremony.

And it was an amazing day! There was a crowd gathered round a white gazebo erected on the hot white sand and children ran around bare-footed, singing and throwing flowers onto the white sheet we were to be ‘married’ on. The old Jamaican minister came to greet me as I walked down the sand, dressed in a white off-the-shoulder summer top and flowing white skirt. Sean was dressed in white linen shorts and shirt and all the guests were barefoot. Ashley wore the brightest fuchsia cotton dress with pink flowers tied in her light brown hair, smiling and giving flowers to people as she passed. The ceremony felt quietly spiritual and the minister asked us to both declare we would continue to respect and cherish each other as we grew in spirit and in age. Sean stood in front of all those strangers sitting on the sunny sand and declared his love for me as loud as he could, then he kissed me on the lips as the crowd clapped and cheered. We drank champagne, cut the two-tiered white cake and chatted on the beach with our congregation who had taken pictures for us. I thought I would burst with happiness. Sean had bought me a new wedding ring and I gave him a new watch, as he never wore rings. We sat and watched the sunset over the Caribbean and both temporarily forgot the Storrie family.

But they hadn’t forgot us because, while we were away, they opened up our room and went through every single box, drawer, paper folder, handbag and – finally – our computer. When we got back to Toad Hall and walked into our bedroom, I was horrified.

‘What the fuck happened?’ I asked. ‘They never even had the decency to tidy up after them.’

‘The kids wanted in to play and we thought it would be OK,’ Sean’s brother Stephen tried to explain.

Our computer displayed file after file that had been opened, as the person/s doing the prying obviously had no idea how to shut them back down. The computer only held information about takings at the Weavers, the list of tenants’ identities and how much was paid to us by the Government. This was not secret information and it was
easy
to work out if you could count your own ten fingers, but it was the fact that someone had tried to go through our files to find information that bothered us. Sean closed the computer down and sat with his head in his hands. The holiday had been great for us but now the pressure was on him even more. He had to admit his brothers were hounding him. All his working life, he had dealt exclusively with Old George; he had never had to explain himself to his siblings. Now he was being questioned on every aspect of our business, even though it did not concern them – they had not bought the Weavers, we had. For 14 years we had built up the business and worked daily in that bar, pretty much sacrificing our marriage, health, relationships, friends and everything else that goes with committing yourself to a business full-time.

And now we both felt it all slipping away from us.

LIVING UP IN
Toad Hall had one advantage – my sister Ann lived just round the corner. It was good to see and be near her, though we both worried about the day when Uncle David Percy would be tracked down by the police – he was still on the run. Neither of us knew what would happen when the case went to court – we just tried hard to be supportive of each other’s pain. Ann was going through a terribly depressive time; her husband Brian told me she was not coping with even small domestic issues. It was hard watching her constantly fall apart then get herself together then fall apart again; she had two very small children and two teenagers to deal with. I tried hard to put on a brave face when she asked how I was coping at Toad Hall. I wanted to be strong for her; I did not want to tell her how hard the six Storrie brothers were making my life.