Secrets My Mother Kept (27 page)

I arranged to move in with Sherry on the first day of the summer holidays and so Colin agreed to pick me and my belongings up in his car as I didn’t drive.

He usually cycled to work from his teacher’s flat in a tall tower block in Stratford, so I was surprised to see him arrive in an old Sunbeam Talbot car that he was in the process of renovating.

‘This is a funny old car,’ I said laughing as he pulled up and swung open the door. ‘How old is it?’

‘It was made in 1955, I think,’ he answered, proudly stroking its aged paintwork.

‘That’s only a year younger than me,’ I smiled, and Colin began to put my bags and boxes into the little boot. The car was painted British Racing Green, and had lovely curved bumpers and leather seats. Although it was quite rough around the edges I loved it! We loaded up the car and set off for my new flat share.

We started to chat about things and then he asked tentatively, ‘Are you separated from your husband now?’ I was a bit taken aback, as although it wasn’t a secret, I hadn’t broadcast the fact.

‘Well, yes I am actually,’ I stuttered. ‘How did you know?’

‘This is our school we’re talking about here. Everyone knows everything – you should know that by now.’

‘Hmm well, I didn’t think it was such a big deal really,’ I answered irritated. I didn’t like the idea of being the topic of people’s conversations.

‘It is to me,’ he said softly. I wasn’t sure I had heard him correctly, so didn’t comment.

‘What I mean is,’ he continued, ‘that it’s a big deal to me, because if you are separated from your husband, I for one am very glad. I mean very, very glad.’

I looked at him as he stared fixedly ahead at the road. I hadn’t really thought of him like that. Although we had been good friends since I started at the school, our friendship hadn’t had any romantic connotations.

My heart was starting to somersault, and I felt awkward suddenly. This was a sensation I hadn’t expected. Once we had unloaded the car and I had sorted a few things away, Sherry asked if we would like to go out with her and her boyfriend, who confusingly was also called Colin, and also taught at the same school as us. There was a Labour Party Social being held that evening in East Ham.

Colin looked at me. ‘I’d love to go. What about you?’

I nodded.

The evening was great fun and included a fish and chip supper that I couldn’t eat because I felt funny inside and strangely confused. Many of the teachers from school were there, and I was very conscious of being smiled at and whispered about. It was all very good-natured but still very embarrassing! As Colin walked me back to the car he put his arm around my shoulder for the first time and I felt a warm, unexpected glow of happiness.

From that night on Colin and I started to ‘go out’. He turned my life upside down and inside out and I felt as though he had given me back my wings and I could fly wherever I wanted to. We talked endlessly – about school, the children, politics, our families, books we had read, plays we had seen. We just seemed to slot together, as though we had always known each other, and every time I saw him my stomach did flip-flops! One day, later in the holiday, Colin came round to see me full of excitement.

‘I’ve seen an advert for a holiday cottage in Devon,’ he said with a big smile on his face. ‘It’s for hire next week because they’ve had a cancellation – shall we go?’ It sounded perfect so I agreed, and during that holiday in that tiny cob cottage deep in the Devon countryside, I think we both realised that we had fallen in love.

Colin and Sherry became great friends with my Colin and I, and although we didn’t know it at that time, they went on to help us survive the most traumatic time of our lives.

41

Babies and Other Mysteries

Sherry was desperate to have a baby. She and her Colin had been trying for quite some time, but so far they had not been successful. They bought a beautiful old four-storey Georgian house in Hackney to renovate ready for their longed for family and kept themselves busy between that and teaching. At about the same time Colin and I bought a house in Ilford. It was a very smart little Edwardian house that had been ‘done up’ really well by the previous owners, so it was extremely comfortable to live in if a little boring. I was almost twenty-six and Colin thirty-one when we decided that the time was right for us to also think about babies.

I had a real dread of marriage though, and was quite hung up about it. My first marriage had been a big mistake, and I now associated weddings with deceit and hypocrisy. My family had taken ages to come to terms with what I had done. Margaret and Tony hardly spoke to me for a while, and Pat and Josie were extremely disapproving, although since Mum had told them to mind their own business they didn’t say much. Aunty had made her feelings known right from the start, and whenever I visited the house and she was there, she felt it her duty to point out my shortcomings.

‘Where you livin’ now?’ she would ask, knowing full well the answer.

Mum would say, ‘She’s just living with Colin, because he’s got a nice house with plenty of rooms,’ as though anyone really believed that fiction.

I had taken Colin to meet Mum with a real sense of anxiety, but she had been fine, although I could see she was watching us like a hawk. She had told everyone in the family that I had left Patrick because he beat me, which couldn’t have been further from the truth, but I suppose she felt she had to justify my actions.

The idea of having a baby before you got married at that time was still a little unconventional, especially for a Catholic family in Dagenham, so when I eventually became pregnant we had a problem.

I was adamant at first.

‘No, I really don’t think it’s a good idea,’ I said when Colin broached the subject of weddings. ‘There’s no point. We’re happy as we are, aren’t we?’

‘Yes we are, but it just feels strange.’

‘What feels strange?’ I asked.

‘Well, when I introduce you to someone, or talk to someone about you, I don’t know how to describe you. I say “my girlfriend” – but you’re so much more than that, it just doesn’t sound right.’ He hesitated. ‘And also we won’t know what to call the baby. Whose name will the poor little thing have, eh?’

I laughed, and gave in. ‘As long as it’s just us,’ I said. ‘No big wedding, and no white dress!’

‘Definitely!’ he agreed. He wasn’t the sort of person who liked a lot of fuss.

We booked the register office for 2 January without telling anyone at first but we knew we would need witnesses. ‘Do you want to ask your sister Margaret?’ Colin suggested.

‘No, I don’t think that’s a good idea. She won’t want to do it anyway. I think we should ask Sherry and Colin.’

So it was decided.

Colin and Sherry agreed at once, congratulating us heartily. I felt sad for Sherry because she was still not pregnant, and had dreaded telling her about our baby, but she had been really lovely and happy for us.

In the end I decided I would ask Margaret and her husband Tony if they would like to come to the wedding. When I told her about it, Margaret went quiet for a while and then said, ‘Oh I’m sorry but we can’t make it that day. We’ll be at Tony’s mum and dad’s.’

I tried to hide my disappointment. ‘Don’t worry, we just thought you might like to come – it’s no big deal really. It will be just a little wedding.’ I asked her not to tell anyone else about it and hung up, trying hard not to be hurt.

The day of our wedding was bitterly cold and windy. It was the middle of winter and the landscape looked bleak. We’d moved house recently, and were now living in a modern house on a small estate in Frindsbury, Kent. It was very rural, which was why we liked it. Colin had grown up in Balham, South London, and we had both spent our lives dreaming of an escape to the countryside. This was our first stab at it. As we both still worked in East London it was quite a commute, and being in the early stages of pregnancy didn’t make it any easier.

We hadn’t told anyone about the wedding except for Margaret, not even Colin’s widowed mum. He was an only child and, looking back, I can’t believe we kept it from her. She had been so kind and accepting of me, even though she hadn’t liked the fact that we were living ‘in sin’. Still, I was afraid. I couldn’t bear the thought of this wedding being anything like my first, with all the relatives and uncomfortable associations. So in the end just the four of us drove to Chatham Register Office on that cold January day.

When I went over to Mum’s the next week I told her our news.

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I knew you’d get married again.’

Margaret now had a little girl called Emma, who was the sweetest little thing I had ever seen, and was pregnant with her second baby. I hoped that now I was expecting too we would be able to regain some of the closeness that seemed to have diminished over the last couple of years, so I wanted to tell her before the rest of the family.

Margaret was ecstatic. ‘That’s great! What date are you due?’

When I told her the end of June we laughed, realising that our babies would be born just two months apart.

We made an arrangement to meet at Mum’s the following Saturday so that we could go shopping in Ilford. We both wanted a Moses basket and Margaret had seen one in Boots that was really pretty. When we got to Mum’s she was in a happy mood. She had retired from her job about six months before, but still had plenty of spending money. Pat, Josie and Aunty paid for everything between them so Mum had her pension to spend in any way she liked.

Pat came in with a plate piled high with bacon sandwiches.

‘Here you are,’ she said plonking the plate down on the table. ‘You must be hungry.’

‘Oooh thanks,’ I said and as I helped myself the phone rang.

‘Who’s that?’ Mum asked. Both she and Aunty would always say that whenever anyone phoned, as though the other people in the room had some kind of sixth sense and could tell without answering it!

Pat walked out into the hallway and then called out to Mum. ‘It’s Mary, quick!’

Mum pulled herself out of the chair and hurried to the phone.

Phone calls to and from Australia were very expensive at that time. I tried to listen as I munched my way through the tasty food, but couldn’t really hear what was going on. When Mum finally came back into the room she was beaming. ‘Mary’s coming over!’ she announced happily. We were all so excited. It was about seven years since we had seen her and now she was coming home.

Mary’s first visit home was joyfully anticipated by all of us. Of course over the years we had kept in touch by letter and the rare phone call, but it wasn’t the same as being able to see and talk to her. It was almost like old times again, with nearly all of us together again. When it was my turn to have Mary to stay with me, I was over the moon with excitement.

‘Where do you want me to put my case?’ she asked, bundling through the door.

‘Just chuck it down anywhere,’ I answered, ushering her in, and giving her a whistle-stop tour of our little home.

‘It’s funny you live in Kent now,’ she said, looking out of the window over the playing fields of the school next door. ‘It’s where me and Dave started out.’

Over the next few days we talked endlessly about everything, but inevitably it wasn’t long before we got to talking about Mum and her secrets. When Mary had left for Australia I had still been a young teenager, but now I was an adult and I wanted to hear what Mary knew.

‘I know some things,’ she offered, ‘mostly from cousin Dot; although Julie will talk about stuff if you get her in the right mood.’

‘Yes I know,’ I said. ‘We got her talking one day, and she told us about Pat, Michael and Josie going into the children’s home.’

‘Hmm, yes, well, that was about the time I was born, I think; but do you know why Mum wasn’t there?’

‘No. Do you?’

‘Yes, I do. Well, I think I do – you see Josie and I have talked, but she was only little so she doesn’t remember everything that clearly.’

I was on the edge of my seat when Colin came in with tea. ‘There you are,’ he said, placing the hot mugs of tea in front of us. ‘Shall I put some dinner on?’

‘Yes please, anything will do,’ I said hurriedly, and thankfully he left us to continue our conversation.

‘Well,’ said Mary, ‘the thing is . . .’ She stopped and looked at me for a minute. ‘The thing is . . . did you know that I was born in prison?’

‘What? What do you mean?’

‘What I said,’ she repeated. ‘I was born in prison – well not literally in prison, but Mum was in prison when I was born.’

‘In prison for what?’ I asked incredulously. ‘What had she done?’

‘She had committed bigamy. She was in prison because she had married Reg Stevens, my dad, while she was still married to Ron Coates.’

‘Oh God,’ I said, ‘poor Mum! But why did she do it?’

‘Who knows? Things were different then. Remember it wasn’t long after the end of the war; everything was still muddled up and confused.’

‘What? You mean she didn’t know she was still married?’

‘No – of course she knew, but she didn’t care, I suppose. Perhaps she just thought she deserved a bit of happiness.’

I was taken aback by this revelation, but I was totally unprepared for the next.