Secrets My Mother Kept (5 page)

Marge flung it open. ‘Don’t touch, you two,’ she said bossily. ‘We’ll tell you which things will fit you.’

We ignored her and descended upon its contents, trying to push our way through the big girls’ arms.

‘A bra!’ Mary said, shoving Marion out of the way. Marion was always the less confident of the twins and I could see the disappointment on her face. Marge picked up a yellow jumper that was probably a few sizes too big. As she held it against her, Mum said ‘Just wait a minute, will you? Don’t forget Pat and Jo might like some of those things.’ Unfortunately most of the clothes were too big for Margaret and me, so we lost interest quite quickly and just looked over occasionally while the contents of the suitcase were shared between our sisters. We had the last laugh though because when our older sisters were at school and work, we would put on their clothes and bounce on the old iron bedstead singing at the top of our voices!

I do remember one Easter having a new little suit to wear. Margaret and I had one each. They each had a pleated skirt and a little matching jacket. We thought we were marvellous when we wore them to Mass on Easter Sunday. Mum told us that she had bought them but that we had to say thank you to Aunty, as she wanted us to think that she had got them for us. Poor Aunty, you can probably guess who actually paid the money for them.

6

The ‘Special News’ Day

Later that year, Mum told us some ‘special’ news. It was a damp chilly autumn and some of the luckier children at our school had gone hop picking. Our family never went. Mum said it was ‘common’ and looked down her nose at those who went, but Margaret and I were always envious at this time of year. All that time off school playing in the sunny hop fields!

It was Monday and Margaret and I had just started to walk home from school for lunch when we spied Mum across the road waiting for us with her headscarf tied tightly round her head and her big black bag over her arm. She never went anywhere without her bag. She even took it up to bed with her at night, and when she was sitting in her chair by the fireplace it would sit firmly at her feet. No one was ever allowed to look inside. Strangely it seemed almost malevolent lying on the floor next to her, daring us to peep inside. I didn’t know at the time what Mum kept in there, but knowing now, that feeling makes sense.

‘You will never guess what,’ Mum said with a huge smile on her face. I looked at Margaret, as her huge brown eyes got bigger.

‘What? What? What?!’ we screeched. We were quite used to ‘exciting news’. I think, looking back, that Mum may have had marginal bipolar as she would swing between extreme highs and lows with a ferocious regularity. Today was going to be a high.

‘We’ve won the pools!’ she exclaimed, beaming at us. Mum did the pools religiously every week. She would sit in front of the television on Saturday afternoons with the pools form in front of her, ticking things off in response to the monotonous voice of the commentator ‘Arsenal 1, Chelsea 1; Wolverhampton Wanderers 0, Crystal Palace 1 . . .’

‘No school for you this afternoon – we’re going to see Aunty Maggie to tell her all about it.’ We jumped up and down, clapping our hands. This day was getting better and better! Off we walked, Mum holding one of our hands in each of hers, swinging us along Becontree Avenue to the bus stop in Bennetts Castle Lane. The 145 or the 148 would take us to Aunty Maggie’s house in Seven Kings. She lived there with her husband George, a small kindly man who worked at Plessey’s with Aunty.

We had to sit upstairs on the bus so that Mum could have a cigarette. I raced to the empty front seat and Margaret followed. This was always our favourite place as we could pretend we were driving the bus. Today as the bus started to move I noticed the first few raindrops splattering onto the windows. We spent the whole journey talking about what we were going to do with all of the money we had. Pat and Josie could give up work, we would all have new clothes, and I could have a party and invite all the girls at school. By the time we got to Seven Kings it was pouring with rain. Our coats were quite old and poor quality but Mum had a battered old umbrella that the three of us huddled under to keep dry as we walked to Aunty Maggie’s house.

‘Don’t jump in the puddles,’ Mum said cheerfully, ‘your feet will get soaking,’ but we slyly splashed just the same, giggling together either side of Mum.

Aunty Maggie and Uncle George had bought their own house in a neat Victorian terrace on a quiet road. I knew that house well. I often came to stay for a few days and would be given my own room to sleep in. Every time my Aunty Maggie would take me to the big cupboard in the kitchen and when she opened the door inside would be an array of neatly stacked clothes including various quilted dressing gowns, or house coats as they were often called then, which had belonged to Julie. I would be given one to wear and then allowed to bring it home with me. Once I got home the ‘housecoat’ always seemed to vanish. I don’t know where they went, but next time I came to stay I would be given another one. They had a dog called Trixie, who was a cross between a border collie and a few other things, and pretty snappy. Aunty Maggie and Uncle George were constantly warning me not to put my face too near her but I never listened. Margaret and I had no fear of dogs. We had always had a dog and whatever dog we had it was always called Pongo. The Pongo we had at the time was getting very old. She had a chronic skin condition that meant her hair fell out in huge clumps and my sister Pat would have to smear a foul smelling green sticky ointment over her back. The sight of the green slimy ointment together with the potent smell of wintergreen always turned my stomach.

In the front room at Aunty Maggie’s there was a piano and a glass cabinet that held all of their treasures. There were small china animals, a tiny teapot ornament and a variety of knick-knacks that they had collected over the years from seaside holidays. I was sometimes allowed to play with them as long as I was careful.

On the ‘exciting news’ day we arrived rather damp and chilly at Aunty Maggie’s front door. We knocked and waited, listening to Trixie barking and flinging herself at the door. When the door opened Aunty Maggie was standing looking a little surprised to see us.

‘Flo – what are you doing here? Why aren’t the children at school?’

‘They’re not very well,’ Mum replied as we were ushered into the tiny back room that was warmed by a black coal-fired stove.

‘A bit daft to bring them out in the rain then,’ muttered Aunty Maggie, as she took our coats and gave them a good shake. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’

Why wasn’t Aunty Maggie happy to see us? She would soon cheer up when she heard we had won the pools. Perhaps Mum would buy her something special. On the bus Mum had pointed out the house we would be moving to. It was very large and we would all be able to have a bedroom each. There was a big garden with lots of flowers at the back and Margaret and I would have a bike. And I was definitely going to be allowed to get a horse. In fact I could probably have two! This had been my dream forever. I loved horses. I had once been allowed to have a ride at the funfair on a Shetland pony and had fallen hopelessly in love with it. Since then I had been horse mad. I painted and drew horses continually, longed for a
Pony Annual
every Christmas and played horses in the garden with Margaret. We had a stable each where we kept them. My favourite was a golden palomino named Champion. We would build jumps for us to ride the horses over. I almost always had a clear round, but Margaret often got faults for knocking the jumps down. The horses were in reality just sticks, but to us they each had a name, colour and personality and we loved them – so much so that once when my brother Peter had come out into the garden to play with us and had accidentally broken one of the sticks, I was heartbroken. I cried my eyes out while Peter tried to console me.

‘It’s only a stick,’ he said. Little did he know that he had just killed Blaze, my second favourite horse!

This time it would be different. I was going to get a real horse now. I couldn’t wait. The excitement was running off my skin like the raindrops. Margaret and I were given a biscuit and a drink of milk while Mum and Aunty Maggie had their tea.

‘Yes, eight draws – all came up,’ Mum said happily to Aunty Maggie. ‘Only problem is that we won’t get the money for a while. It takes time you see, to get it sorted out.’

I looked up and saw a strange look cross my auntie’s face. She didn’t look very pleased at our good fortune. In fact, she looked rather resigned and serious.

‘I haven’t got any spare money Flo,’ she said firmly.

Mum’s face took on the pinched look that I had seen before. It usually meant she was going into one of her moods. Her eyes would change too, and become more distant and worried looking. ‘Just until the winnings come through,’ she said, but Aunty Maggie was shaking her head.

She went over to the mantelpiece and took down one of several tins. Each was labelled differently: ‘electric’, ‘gas’, ‘fares’ and so on. The one that she reached for said ‘food’. She took it off the shelf and handed Mum some money from inside.

‘I don’t want it back, Flo, but I haven’t got any more.’ She then went over to the kitchen cupboard and filled a bag with an assortment of tins and packets. These she also handed over to Mum.

Mum looked down sadly as she took the bag. ‘Time to go,’ she called to us and home we went.

Through the years of my childhood Aunty Maggie was a stoic support for Mum and us and I don’t know what we would have done without her.

By the time we got home that afternoon, Mum’s mood had changed. She hadn’t said much on the bus, but instead had looked out of the window as if she could see something we couldn’t. She didn’t talk about winning the pools anymore that day, so neither did we.

I would see that sad, faraway look often on my Mum’s face throughout my childhood, but it wasn’t until I was a mother myself that I actually saw her cry.

7

Overcrowding

One day Mum told us that Michael was coming home!

‘Is he going to live at our house?’ I asked.

‘Yes and he’s bringing Isobel with him.’

‘Is Isobel our sister?’ Margaret whispered to me.

‘No, she got married to Michael,’ I said knowledgably, ‘and guess what? She’s going to have a baby!’ At this news Margaret jumped up and down; she always loved playing babies best of all. I didn’t let her play that game often because I thought it was boring. I liked action games where we would explore unknown territories or come across a band of renegade Indians.

‘Will the baby live here as well?’ she asked excitedly.

‘Yes in yours and Josie’s room.’

Margaret’s look of excitement now became one of perplexity. ‘But where will we sleep?’

I was relishing my superior knowledge now and took great pains to explain what was going to happen. The only reason I knew was that I had overheard an argument the night before between Aunty and Mum. I had crept out of bed to go to the toilet and had heard Mum talking downstairs.

‘Tell your aunt that we’re going to have to move the settee round to the other side so we can open it our more easily.’

I heard Aunty sniff loudly.

Then I heard Pat’s voice saying: ‘Michael and Isobel will need the back bedroom.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Aunty spat back.

My stomach lurched.

‘Tell your aunt that Kathleen and Margaret are going to sleep in the bed settee with me.’ Mum’s voice had taken on a prim and proper air now.

I heard something being slammed down hard.

Aunty’s voice got louder. ‘I’m bloody well fed up with this!’ She was shouting now. ‘How am I supposed to get ready for work in the mornings with them all ’anging round the place?’

‘Well they’re coming here and that’s that,’ Mum retorted. She didn’t often challenge Aunty. Aunty had a ferocious temper and we seemed to spend our lives avoiding awakening it. I was frightened by Mum’s tone of voice and the fact that she wasn’t backing down.

‘Well you can sodding well
all
get out then,’ Aunty retorted. ‘And good riddance. P’raps I’ll get a bit of peace then!’ I heard a noise of something landing with a crash. Marion, Marge and Mary had all crept out of the bedroom they shared with Aunty. We huddled silently on the landing listening to the commotion below. I held my breath, hoping Aunty would calm down and stop shouting at Mum. Aunty slammed out of the room and stamped up the stairs; we slunk in the bathroom doorway as she charged into her bedroom. It was then that I noticed little Margaret had crept out to join us and was standing trembling, hanging on to my arm.

‘It’s all right,’ I whispered, ‘they’ve finished now.’

I always had to pretend to be brave for Margaret’s sake. I was the big sister. I would always look after her, even when inside I was quaking with my own fears.

Mum got her way that time. Michael and Isobel did come to live with us for a while until their first daughter Vicky was born and they were given an army flat in Woolwich. How we all fitted into that house is completely beyond me now: Michael and Isobel in the back bedroom, Aunty, Marion, Marge and Mary in the big bedroom, Peter in the box room, Mum, Margaret and I on the bed settee in the kitchen and Pat in the front room. Poor Josie had to sleep in the tiny narrow hallway on a camp bed covered with coats as there were no spare blankets.

I needed the toilet one night, and was gently trying to squeeze past her little bed. As I began to make my way upstairs I stopped. ‘Do you like sleeping out here?’ I asked her innocently. ‘Don’t you feel cold?’