Secrets My Mother Kept (15 page)

Once we were dressed, Mary walked us towards the hairdressers.

‘What will they do to our hair?’ I asked, skipping along beside Margaret, holding her hand.

‘What would you like them to do? Do you want it curly?’ I started to laugh, Margaret and I both had hair as straight as a poker!

Margaret started jumping up and down, ‘Curly yes, curly!’ When we arrived we were led into the salon. Mary was whisked off somewhere, and Margaret and I were left to the mercy of a very miserable-looking pair of hair stylists. They plonked us onto a chair next to each other and looked stonily at us.

‘I don’t know what she expects us to do with these two,’ one of them muttered to her colleague. ‘Look at this hair! Looks like it’s been cut with a knife and fork.’

The other woman smirked in response, ‘It looks like they’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards.’

Our hair was pulled and tugged and roughly fashioned into an upswept style that would have been more suited to a thirty-year-old. These women continued to talk over our heads as though we were invisible; they criticised our hair, the way we were dressed, and muttered and moaned the whole time. We emerged from the hairdressers resembling two miniature astronauts’ wives and with all the morning’s happiness now replaced with that familiar dread of being different, and not being good enough.

Apart from Peter arriving very late for the wedding – almost too late to give Mary away – the rest of the day went quite smoothly and we managed to have fun. In our yellow nylon flouncy dresses and with our upswept astronaut’s wife hair we danced the night away! I have always loved a good family wedding. Even as an adult they remind me of so many happy times throughout my younger life when we would see all of our sisters and brothers together again, even long after they themselves were married and had their own children. Of course the only one who never came, who was never invited, was Sheila. She was the secret sister that I would never meet and never really know, and it was only after my son Sam was born that I found out why.

20

The Sewing Machine

With Mary and my brothers now married, that left only Pat, Josie, Marion and Marge bringing money into the home. Aunty always paid the rent, but food, gas and electric gobbled up the family’s income and that was without the added stress of Mum’s ‘callers’ who knocked for their money every week, and who were a persistent drain on Mum’s purse. It must have been a constant juggling act for her, deciding who to pay what and when, but she was clever and astute and knew what she could get away with.

Josie was now working in London at an insurance company. She really liked her new job and was very well thought of, especially by the company secretary, Miss Pomfret. She told Josie that she had ‘high hopes’ for her; that she was a clever young lady and would go far as long as she continued to work hard. Then came the incident of the sewing machine.

Josie was keen on sewing but had to make everything by hand, which took a long time, especially as she didn’t have much spare time after she had finished work and travelled home from London. She would go up to her room when she got home and not come down again until quite late in the evening, after everyone else had finished eating. Then she would get her dinner, and sit and eat it before she started her sewing.

She and Mary had started making their clothes some time ago when they realised that it was the only way they could keep themselves neat and tidy for work. Mary had also tried to make Margaret and I a few little things to wear, but now that she was married she wasn’t able to do that so often, so the burden fell to Josie.

Mum said that Josie needed a sewing machine.

‘I know, but there’s no way I will be able to afford one,’ said Jo. ‘They cost a fortune.’

‘I’ll ask Mr Blanchflower if he can get us one,’ suggested Mum.

Josie shook her head. ‘Oh no, no don’t. Please Mum, I’ll make do.’

But the idea was planted in Mum’s head now and within a few weeks an electric sewing machine had arrived. It was a big occasion. Shiny new items like that were not usually part of our life, so everyone was keen to ‘play’ with it, even though we all knew that it was Josie’s. It was put in the front room where Pat slept, and was to be used in there, as there wasn’t any space anywhere else to set it up.

Poor Josie was now responsible for the weekly repayments, which no doubt were charged at extortionate interest rates. It was a struggle, but Josie managed to find the extra money each week that Mum needed to pay the sewing machine off. After about six months it became clear that the sewing machine was a white elephant. Josie didn’t really have time to use it much, and of course, even fabric was expensive, so slowly the machine became idle. Josie got more and more fed up and must have mentioned it at work.

‘Why don’t you sell it?’ suggested one of the other girls in the office.

‘Who to?’ asked Josie despondently. ‘I don’t know anyone who could afford it.’

Miss Pomfret had overheard their conversation.

‘If you really want to sell it, Josephine, then I would be very interested,’ suggested Miss Pomfret kindly. ‘I need to make the curtains for my new home, and have been thinking about getting one.’

That evening when she got home from work Josie told Mum what Miss Pomfret had offered.

‘Hmm I think that would be a sensible idea,’ said Mum thoughtfully. ‘Yes, I think you should go ahead and sell it.’

The sewing machine was duly sold and poor Josie had to carry it into London on the train even though it was quite big and heavy. Josie gave the money from Miss Pomfret to Mum to finish paying for the sewing machine. She was so relieved to have the burden of the debt taken away and gave it no more thought.

A month or two after, Mary sent a dress for me that she had lovingly sewn by hand. Dave’s Mum sometimes got off-cuts of a new fabric called ‘Crimplene’ and Mary had chosen some pale pink to make me a shift dress. It was gorgeous, and I loved it to bits! She hadn’t had quite enough of the pink so had sewn a wide band of contrasting purple Crimplene around the hem and the sleeves. I tried it on and it was perfect! Mum made me stand on a chair while she looked on smiling. Then I saw Margaret looking on enviously.

‘I’m sure Mary will make you a dress next time,’ I said.

Mum looked at Margaret. ‘I know,’ she said, trying to cheer her up. ‘We’ll get Josie to make you one.’ Then a strange look came over her face, and she was distracted and deep in thought until that evening. Josie was tired out from a long day at work when Mum told her about the dress for Margaret, so she didn’t look very keen.

‘I don’t know, Mum, I haven’t got much time at the moment,’ she said, knowing that to sew it by hand would take hours of work.

‘Well, why don’t you ask that nice Miss Pomfret if you can borrow the sewing machine for a week or two? I’m sure she won’t mind.’

Josie knew that Miss Pomfret would happily lend her the machine, as she had said so when she had bought it from her.

‘Maybe,’ she said, ‘I’ll have a think.’

‘Oh please, please, please, Mo Mo,’ said Margaret, using the pet name that she had for Josie. Josie couldn’t refuse Margaret anything with her big brown eyes and sweet little face.

‘Oh all right, I’ll see what Miss Pomfret says.’

The sewing machine returned to our house the following week, and Josie took Margaret out on the Saturday morning to Romford market to choose some material for her dress. She chose a dark purple velvet material, which Josie knew would be a nightmare to sew, but she let her have it anyway. It took a few weeks of the odd hour here and there before the dress was completed. Margaret tried it on.

‘You look beautiful!’ exclaimed Mum proudly, and indeed she did. Josie had made a good job of it, and the dress, although simple in design, looked really nice.

‘I’ll take the sewing machine back on Monday,’ said Josie, pleased that the dress was finally finished.

‘Oh okay, but I know Mary was wondering if she could borrow it to make a couple of bits. She works really fast so it would only be a week or so longer.’ Josie agreed to check with Miss Pomfret to see if she minded. Miss Pomfret agreed that she could keep the sewing machine for as long as she wanted.

The next day Mum told Josie that Mary had collected the machine and would bring it back when she had finished with it in a week or so. Three weeks later it still hadn’t been returned.

‘Mum, can you ask Mary for the sewing machine? Miss Pomfret is taking a week’s holiday and wants to make some curtains.’

Mum’s face seemed to lose a bit of colour. I watched as she went into the scullery to put the kettle on. Something wasn’t right.

‘Mum, did you hear me?’ called Josie after her.

‘Yes, of course. I’ll send her a letter and ask her to bring it back straight away.’

‘Well, I suppose I could go over there at the end of the week and collect it on my way home,’ offered Josie, but Mum came in with the teapot, shaking her head.

‘No, no there’s no need to do that; Mary can bring it over on Saturday. She wants to see the littluns anyway and Kathleen can show her how nice the dress she made her looks.’

When Saturday came, and Mary didn’t arrive, Josie started to get anxious. She was sure Mary wouldn’t intentionally let her down, and she began to wonder if Mum had forgotten to write the letter.

‘Mum are you sure you wrote to Mary?’ she asked.

Mum smiled.

‘Oh yes, I forgot to tell you, she wrote back asking if she could keep it for another week, just to finish off some bits.’

Josie was annoyed. ‘But I told you Miss Pomfret needs it back. She takes her week off from next Friday.’

Mum promised to go over to Mary’s and collect the sewing machine herself on Monday to make sure Josie would have it to take back on Tuesday. Of course on Monday evening it still wasn’t there. A dreadful realisation started to dawn on Josie. While she was drinking her tea she kept looking at Mum, who steadfastly refused to meet her eyes. Marion and Marge were washing up and Pat had the television on, but all the time I could feel the tension growing in the room.

Then suddenly Josie said, ‘Mary hasn’t got it has she?’ almost in a whisper. When I looked at Mum I knew that was the truth. She got up and went out into the scullery and Josie followed her. ‘You’ve given it back, haven’t you? Mary never had it at all, did she? You’ve sent it back, back to Blanchflower!’ We heard Josie’s raised voice, and Mum’s calm, quiet replies, but we didn’t hear any more words.

Josie didn’t go to work the next day, or the day after. She stayed in bed for almost a week, and we hardly saw her. Josie never went back to the job she had loved and to Miss Pomfret, one of the few people who had ever believed in her. Mum rang them to say she was leaving, and she never returned, not even to work out her notice or to say goodbye.

21

Mum’s Good Luck

Marge and Ron were getting engaged and were going to have a big party! I was so excited. It meant that all of my sisters and brothers would be there and my aunts and uncles and cousins. Marge had to have a new dress, a special one for the party! The twins went shopping with Mum and when they came home they were carrying two dresses. The dresses were exactly the same except Marge’s was white and Marion’s was blue. They had a lacy bodice and a full flouncy net skirt, and Margaret and I fell in love with them. When we rushed forward to look, Mum said firmly, ‘Don’t touch, you’ll make them dirty,’ so we had to be satisfied with looking at them from a distance.

As the day of the party grew nearer, we got more and more excited. Marge and Ron had hired a hall in Ilford, and our brother Michael, who was now a fully trained chef in the army, was going to do the catering and make the cake.

Then we had some more exciting news. Over the past few weeks Mum had been in a competition. Every week she updated Marge and Ron with her progress.

‘Only twenty people left in the draw now,’ she said, and the next week: ‘Only 10 people left now.’

The first prize was a car, and she was now in the last four. When Ron called round for Marge that evening, she asked him in for a cup of tea.

‘You’ll never guess what,’ she started. ‘I’ve only won that car!’

Margaret and I were amazed.

‘Yes,’ she continued, ‘and I’ve decided that I am going to give it to you, Ron.’ Marge stared ahead with an anxious look on her face.

‘After all,’ said Mum, ‘you’ve been so good to me taking me and the littluns out; you deserve it.’

Ron didn’t look as pleased as I thought he would. Didn’t he realise he was going to get a nice brand new car?

Then Mum carried on. ‘The only thing is I need to pay the £50 for the prize to be released and to pay the tax and other stuff before I can collect it for you.’

Marge still hadn’t said anything, but Ron now replied. ‘Where are you going to get that sort of money from?’

But Mum was ready with a solution. ‘Well, I thought if you sold your car and gave me the money, I could pay to get the new car released for you,’ she said smiling.

Ron didn’t answer at first, but I saw him exchange a look with Marge.

‘I don’t think that’s a very good idea,’ he said. ‘I’ll wait until the car arrives before I sell my old one just in case anything goes wrong and then you can have whatever money I get for it.’