Secrets My Mother Kept (14 page)

‘All right Mum,’ she said, ‘I’ll need to get my things packed up.’ And so it was arranged.

This had the added benefit for Mum that she didn’t need to feed Mary, although Mary was still obliged to send her ‘keep’ to mum every week. At first it seemed like a good arrangement. Mary was happy staying with Michael and Isobel and Vicky, Mum still got her ‘keep’ money and Isobel had a willing helper in Mary during the long lonely evenings.

Unfortunately after a while things began to change. Marion and Marge were given the job of going up to wait outside Mary’s work on a Friday so that she could hand over the majority of her wages to them to take home to Mum. At the same time she and Dave were desperately trying to save a few shillings here and there so that they could get married and try to find a flat of their own. Their savings had taken a dent after our holiday, and the ‘misunderstanding’ that had caused such an argument on our return. Saving was difficult, as after paying Mum her keep, Mary was only left with enough money for fares and the odd pair of stockings.

One day Michael saw Mary fishing in her purse for a spare few pennies.

‘Why are you still sending Mum money? You live here now; just give me a few bob towards your food and stuff and you can keep the rest to save for the wedding.’ This started Mary thinking; she had never questioned the fact that her wages in effect belonged to Mum, but now she wondered. Could she keep the money? Would it really be possible? She desperately wanted to get married as soon as possible, but that day seemed as far away as ever. Dave didn’t earn a great deal, so between them their savings were growing very slowly. Mary made up her mind: she would do it!

The next Friday came and as Mary left the building where she worked, her heart was in her mouth. He knew Marion and Marge would be there waiting for her, and she also knew that if she was ever going to be able to get married she was going to have to stick to her guns. Although it was only five o’clock when she came out into the busy street, it was already beginning to get dark as winter had almost arrived. She saw Marion wave from across the street while Marge was looking in a shop window. ‘Mary!’ shouted Marion. ‘Over here.’ Mary slowly went to join them, a feeling of dread overwhelming her.

‘Look,’ she said, ‘I’m really really sorry but I can’t send any money this week.’

‘Why not?’ said Marge, who had now turned to join the conversation.

‘I just can’t afford it,’ answered Mary quietly.

‘Mum’s going to go mad. What are we going to tell her?’ asked Marion.

‘Just tell her I can’t afford it anymore.’

‘Does that mean just this week or never?’

‘Never,’ said Mary with conviction. It was as though she had just made a very important decision, the first grown-up decision of her life apart from agreeing to marry Dave.

When Marge and Marion arrived back in Dagenham that evening, they were very withdrawn as they came into the house.

‘What’s wrong?’ said Mum, who was always very astute at picking up on all our moods and vagaries.

The twins looked at each other but neither spoke.

‘Come on, out with it,’ said Mum, starting to get agitated.

‘Mary said she can’t afford to give you any more money,’ blurted out Marge. Mum’s face became red and then went a strange white colour.

‘Right,’ she said quietly, ‘we’ll see about that,’ and she went out into the scullery to get the dinner out. Margaret’s big brown eyes turned to me questioningly but I just carried on combing the dog.

The next morning was Saturday, so everyone was home. Mum told Pat that she was going to go over to Michael’s.

‘What, today?’ asked Pat. Although Mum visited Michael’s at least once a week, she rarely went on a Saturday as we were all home.

‘Yes today,’ she snapped back. ‘Margaret, Kathleen, get your coats on.’

We ran to get our coats and join Mum as she left the house, and walked towards the bus stop. It was bitterly cold even though it was only November, so waiting for the bus seemed endless. Mum would always say, ‘If I light a cigarette the bus is sure to come along,’ so we would always be trying to encourage her to have one more, because we thought it was like a magic spell. The odd thing was that it did always seem to work – well almost always. At last the bus arrived and we boarded, heading upstairs as usual. Mum lit up her cigarette and Margaret and I settled into one of the seats nearby. The bus was quite crowded but we managed to find a seat together. Eventually after the usual changes and the trip across the river on the ferry we were almost at Michael’s. By that time it must have been about midday and our tummies were grumbling loudly. We very rarely ate breakfast so we were still waiting for our first meal of the day. Michael and Isobel’s flat was on the first floor and the stairs were on the exterior. It was an ugly 1950s block with concrete landings on each floor. Mum banged on the front door and we heard a baby crying. The door opened and there was Mary, looking as shocked as I had ever seen her.

‘Oh,’ she let out a little cry. Mum bustled us in through the door. Michael was sitting at the kitchen table with a large sandwich in front of him, Isobel sat opposite with Vicky on her lap and Mary’s place was next to this, her half-eaten sandwich on a plate. Margaret and I looked at the food hungrily.

Michael got up. ‘Mary, put the kettle on.’

Isobel watched over the top of Vicky’s head, which was covered in golden curls.

‘I’m hungry,’ I whispered to Mum, tugging gently at her arm.

‘Shush, wait a minute,’ she answered.

Mary filled the kettle as Mum sat in the place she had vacated. She looked at Mary and said, ‘You’re coming home,’ and as Mary tried to protest, Mum turned to Michael.

‘If she’s not home by Monday night, I’m informing the army that she’s been living here for more than the allowed three months, and you’ll be in deep trouble.’

With that she stood up, scraping the chair across the floor and grabbing our hands, dragged me and Margaret out of the door, both of us casting a longing, backwards look at the unfinished food on the table.

Mary didn’t want to come home. She had tasted freedom, and glimpsed a different kind of life. Michael and Isobel were quite poor, and their flat was small and cheaply furnished, but for the first time in her life Mary had her own bedroom. She was allowed to go out with Dave a few nights a week or he would sit and watch television with them after Vicky had been put to bed. The only rules Mary had to follow were to help out Isobel with the washing up, keeps things tidy, and play with Vicky in the evenings before she was put to bed. It was quiet and uncrowded in the flat compared to our house, and she was allowed to see her friends without it causing an argument. She definitely wasn’t going home. Michael came up with a solution. He had a friend who ran a pub down the road, and he let out a small room in the attic. Michael suggested that Mary live there and just come to the flat in the evenings for her meals and to keep Isobel company if Michael was working. That evening when Dave came round he was greeted by Mary sobbing her heart out.

‘What’s wrong love?’ he asked putting his arm round her. When she told him the whole story he was horrified.

‘There is no way you’re living in a pub,’ he said. ‘My aunt’s got a room; we’ll see if you can live there.’ But when they told Dave’s mum, she immediately insisted that Mary move into the spare room until she and Dave were married.

Mum didn’t say a word when she heard the news, but I could tell from the set of her lips that the battle was far from over.

19

Mary’s Wedding

During the time Mary lived at Dave’s parents’ house, she would send us little gifts, which her old friend Helen would bring round. At first Mum didn’t tell us who they were from, but one day we happened to be there when Helen knocked and heard her say she had brought us some things from Mary. Nothing was very expensive, sometimes a ribbon or a new slide for our hair, but I treasured those things because they were mine and only mine. One day after several months living at Dave’s parents’ house, Mary and Dave came to visit. It was the first time that we had seen them since the argument. It was a Saturday afternoon, and Pat had been to the shops in Green Lane to get a piece of meat from the butcher there, and had just got back, when there was a knock on the door. It was the family knock: rat-ta-tat-tat tat-tat. Mum was in the scullery getting the meat ready for our Sunday dinner and called out, ‘Open the door, can you?’

Pat grumbled as she got up from her chair, which she had just positioned ready for the football results on the television. Margaret and I were playing on the floor with a pile of paper and pencils, Margaret drawing dollies and me drawing horses as usual.

‘Oh,’ said Pat when she opened the front door.

We heard Mary’s voice: ‘Hello Pat.’

We ran out into the passage and then stopped suddenly. We weren’t sure if we were allowed to hug her or not.

Mum came out of the scullery with that pinched look on her face. ‘Oh, what do you want?’

‘We want to invite you all to the wedding,’ Mary replied trying to smile.

‘Wedding? What wedding? You’re not twenty-one yet and you need my permission, and you needn’t think I’m giving it either,’ Mum answered, standing in front of poor Mary.

At this point Dave spoke up. ‘Look, we just wanted to know how many of you lot want to come,’ he said. ‘My mum needs to know how many to cater for.’

Mum swung her stare in Dave’s direction.

‘Did you hear what I said? She needs permission and I’m not giving it.’

Mary starting to quietly cry and Dave put his arm around her.

‘And you can stop that silly nonsense right now,’ said Mum with her hands on her hips. I wasn’t sure if she meant the crying or the comforting, so I watched Mary and Dave to see what would happen next.

Dave guided Mary back out of the house; they hadn’t even got as far as the kitchen. As they left, he turned to Mum and said, ‘We’re getting married this October whatever happens. If you don’t give your permission, we’ll just have to ask Mary’s dad,’ and with that parting shot they walked back down the path to Dave’s motorbike with Mary still crying and Mum wearing a look that was a mixture of anger, incredulity and shock. I was puzzled. Didn’t Dave know that we didn’t have a dad? What did he mean? The air was heavy with the coming storm, but strangely it never arrived.

I don’t know what made Mum change her mind about giving Mary permission to get married, but she did.

This entailed a visit to the registrar. We went with Mary and Mum into a big building with shiny polished floors. Mum asked the lady behind a desk something and she pointed to the big swing doors. As we went through Mum turned to Mary: ‘You wait outside with these two; I need to talk to the registrar first.’ So we duly waited outside. After what seemed like hours, but was probably no more than twenty minutes, the door opened and Mary was called in while we sat outside swinging our legs and waiting. This process was to be repeated every time one of us was to get married, but it would be very many years after that we found out what Mum told those registrars.

A few weeks later, Mum called Margaret and I downstairs. We had been practising rolly pollies on the double bed that Margaret shared with Josie while listening to Dusty Springfield singing ‘I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself’ on Josie’s tiny transistor radio. I had done so many, so badly, that my neck was wobbling as though my head was going to fall off, so it was quite a relief to have a reason to stop. We ran downstairs to find Mum sitting in her chair by the fireplace with a strange look on her face. She was holding a letter in her hand.

‘Do you and Margaret want to be Mary’s bridesmaids?’ she asked.

‘Can we?’ I asked. Margaret looked on hopefully.

‘Yes of course you can, Mary’s your sister! She’s coming over on Saturday to take you out to get your dresses.’ I was eleven years old and Margaret was almost ten. Of course I had already been a bridesmaid to my cousin Julie when I was seven, all dressed in green satin with a feathery headband and silver sparkling shoes, but Margaret had never been one and was very excited. Even now, almost fifty years later, whenever I hear that Dusty Springfield song I still think of rolly pollies and bridesmaid dresses!

My family were still not going to the wedding. Michael had been forbidden from giving Mary away but Peter had said he would do it despite what Mum had decreed and so that was the arrangement. Then suddenly, just a few weeks before the ceremony, Mum wrote to Mary and told her that the whole family would be going to the wedding after all! This caused all sorts of panic to Dave’s mum and dad, who were not only planning the wedding with Mary and Dave but were also paying for much of it, but Mary was still happy that Mum and our sisters and brothers would all be there.

The day before the wedding, Margaret and I were taken to stay at Dave’s house, so that we would able to go to the hairdressers early in the morning. Dave’s house was a Victorian terraced house in Leytonstone in the East End of London and had no inside toilet, so we had to go through Dave’s dad’s lean-to if we needed to go. I remember the smell of geraniums and damp earth, and Mary telling us that if we needed the toilet in the night there was a ‘pot’ under the bed.

When we woke in the morning, Mary was already up.

‘Come on, you two,’ she said happily, ‘we have to be at the hairdressers in half an hour.’ We had never been to the hairdressers before, and were full of excitement at the prospect. I just hoped desperately that my head wouldn’t ache. I had developed severe migraine headaches when I was about seven. I remember clearly the first time I had a bad attack. It was on the way back from a day trip to Southend with Aunty, Margaret and Marion. We had gone by train and on the return journey I had vomited all the way home and my head had felt as though it was ready to burst open. I was now constantly afraid of getting a ‘bad head’, as my Mum would call it. It always seemed to happen when I was excited, afraid, hot or hungry. Today was a potential ‘bad head’ day and even at eleven years old I feared it.