A Song for Joey (8 page)

Uncle Ernie stayed for two days, during which he was as unpleasant towards me as he
could be. Just before he left to catch a train back to Yorkshire, he grabbed my arm in a
fierce grip, crouching down so that his eyes were level with mine.

"You had better take good care of my mother, or it will be the worse for you," he hissed.
"I wouldn't leave her with you except I have to get back to my business, and she wanted to
be in her own home. She sacrificed herself for you, you little bastard; she wouldn't be in
this state if it wasn't for you."

"What have I done?" I stammered, frightened of him and close to tears. We were
standing on the landing at the top of the narrow stairs, just outside Gran's bedroom door,
and I felt very unsafe in his grasp, tottering a few inches from the steep drop.

"Done?" he barked. "She nearly died because of you. She shouldn't even be bringing up
some damn foreigner's spawn. It's a pity my sister didn't get rid of you when she had the
chance!" I felt his hot breath and spit on my face.

"Not my fault," I mumbled, looking at the floor, afraid of what he would do to me. But,
to him, the conversation was over. "There's my taxi," he barked, releasing my arm and
standing up.

Angrily wiping my tears and his spittle from my face with my sleeve, I turned and went
back into Gran's room. Outside, a car door slammed.
"I heard voices," she said feebly from her bed. "Who was it?"
"It was your son, Ernie, Gran," I replied, absently brushing her hair away from her eyes
with my fingers.
"Ernie? Why didn't he come in to see me?" she croaked.
"He had to get to the station to catch his train. Don't you remember, he's been here for a
few days?"
Her eyes darted around the room as she tried to take this in, to remember. Then they
settled on me, and took on a shrewd expression. "Who are you?" she demanded, shrilly,
her little hands gripping the bedspread.
Tears sprang to my eyes as I tried to think how to reply. Every day ... several times
every day ... she had asked the same question. It seemed she had forgotten all the times we
had spent together, a whole piece of her life was lost without a trace, seven years of
memories erased.
I forced a smile. This wasn't about me; she needed reassurance and help. "I'm Belinda,
Gran. You remember me, Rita's little girl."
"Rita?" she cackled. "Where is she? Why isn't she home yet? I need her to help with the
cooking."
"I'll help for now," I said. "Would you like a cup of tea?"
"Yes ... yes, I'd like that. And a ginger biscuit. What was your name again?"
"Belinda."
She tested the sound of my name. "Belinda. No, don't know it. But if you're here to help,
you'd better get started downstairs, otherwise the guests will be arriving and we won't be
ready."
I touched her arm as I left to make her a pot of tea. There were no guests due, we had no
bookings, but it was not the time to put her straight.

Gran gradually gained some strength through the warm summer, and was eventually
able to leave her bed. She wanted to be busy, but soon became tired, so I fixed up a day
bed on the settee in the front room for her, where she could watch television or sit up and
look out of the bay window to see the world outside.

But soon autumn arrived, then Christmas. It was a quiet, sombre affair, though I put up
some decorations, and she seemed to respond when I walked her to church on Christmas
Day. We didn't mark the turning of the new year; Gran didn't know which day it was, and
I saw nothing worth celebrating.

In the first few months of 1954, we worked together to get the B & B ready for summer,
and it was a little like those earlier times. Although she didn't remember anything about
me, she became used to my presence, and addressed me as Belinda. My eighth birthday
passed without recognition, though I wrote a card for myself - it seemed important to me
that the day was marked.

As one or two guests began arriving, we cooked and cleaned together, went shopping
together, and sometimes even sat and talked about the day. But she was forgetful, and I
had to watch carefully so that she didn't leave the cooker on or a tap running, and to make
sure meals were prepared on time. I would come home from school half afraid of what I
might find, though thankfully we avoided any catastrophes.

The summer was busy for me. Although nothing like the days of my childhood, when
every room of
The Nest
was full, it was still hard work for an eight year old. But even
those few guests fell away as another winter advanced, and we found ourselves with little
to do. Gran became morose, and started spending most of the day in bed. I enlisted the
help of a neighbour to carry the television upstairs into her room, and the man from
Hardings Electrical came and re-routed the aerial for us. She watched everything, from
'Television Newsreel' and 'The Grove Family' to the potter at work in 'The Interlude'.

All through that winter, and every winter after that, she was a victim of fevers, and
dreadful coughs that left her breathless. She became forgetful and bad-tempered,
neglected her personal hygiene and aged dramatically. She seemed to have lost interest in
the guest-house, became resentful of its demands on her, and it fell to me to run it as best
I could.

I tried. I kept it clean, and even redecorated some of it. I worked hard every day after
school, helping her, trying to do the things she used to do, remembering the ways she had
taught me, but I was only eight years old, and there was so much I didn't know. I coped,
just, but gradually the place became shabbier, the guests fewer.

In 1958, Gran was confined to bed by the doctor, and I became her nursemaid in
addition to all my other tasks. I felt permanently tired. I was waking at five o'clock every
morning to care for Gran, cook for what few guests may be staying, and do my
homework. Then I spent the day at school, rushing home at dinner time to give Gran some
lunch, then back to the classroom, where I often fell asleep during lessons. The teachers
knew what was happening at home, and were surprisingly tolerant, but my education was
slipping away from me.

The one thing that kept me sane and helped me through each exhausting day, my
constant companion, was the radio. In those days, the only official broadcaster was the
BBC, but sometimes in the evenings it was possible to pick up Radio Luxembourg, which
floated erratically over the airwaves across from Europe. They played much more music all the new records from America and the UK - but transmissions were prone to fading
away into a hiss of static or a babble of incomprehensible voices from some unknown
broadcaster with a more powerful transmitter. Still, it kept me in touch with the latest
sounds.

It is hard to convey how important music became. It was not entertainment, and much
more than pleasure. It connected with my soul, became part of me, echoing in my head,
long after the radio was switched off and I dragged myself upstairs to bed. My mind was
like one of those radio stations, with every song I had ever heard stored faithfully away,
ready for instant replay.

There were ballads, sung by Connie Francis and Perry Como, and Rock n Roll was
becoming hugely popular, with amazing records from the likes of Little Richard, Brenda
Lee, Chuck Berry and, of course, Elvis Presley. British artists, like Tommy Steel, Joe
Brown, Marty Wilde and Lonnie Donegan, were preparing the way for an enormous
record industry, of which I was later to become a part. I learnt all the words, and danced
around the house to the exciting beat. The whole essence of the new music seemed to be
that life could be fun. Well, mine wasn't exactly fun, but music lifted my spirits and gave
me a little push every day to get through the drudgery.

And though life was hard, I was still happy. In a perverse way, I enjoyed looking after
Gran; it was as though I had been given a way to repay her for all she had given me
through my childhood. And, even when she became bad-tempered, or forgot who I was, I
still loved her.

Gran died on the twenty fourth of April, nineteen sixty; I was thirteen years old and
completely alone. I sat at her bedside, holding her cold, limp hand. Her breakfast tray lay
on the floor where I had dropped it when I entered the room and realised she had gone,
the contents strewn - her tea spilt, her toast scattered.

She had always been there for me when I was a small child, but when it was my turn to
care for her, I couldn't save her. I straightened the sheet that covered her, brushed her hair
from her face with with my fingers, then sat and talked to her, reliving the years we had
spent together.

After a while, I gathered myself and stood up. I had responsibilities - someone must be
notified. I rang Inspector Randal, and he came at once. He contacted Gran's doctor, to
write a Death Certificate, and contacted uncle Ernest - yes, that Ernest, Gran's eldest son,
who hated me - the feeling was mutual.

Ernie turned up two days later. At first I was pleased to see him, as he began to make
the arrangements for the funeral, but his attitude to me had not changed, and he treated me
like a slave. For the week leading up to the funeral, I had to cook for him and wash the
dishes, wash and iron his clothes and run errands for him, and all this while still grieving
for Gran; at least there were no guests to cater for. I did not go back to school.

On the day of the funeral, as I was getting ready to go with him to the church, he came
into my room.
"Don't bother to get dressed up," he growled. "You're not going. I want you to pack your
things and get out of this house. You had better not be here when I come back, or you will
feel the back of my hand."
I was dumbfounded, and he had turned and marched out before I gathered myself
enough to fully grasp the import of his words. I heard the front door slam, and sat on the
edge of my bed, my head reeling from the shock of what was happening. With tears in my
eyes, I looked around my little room. "What am I going to do?" I said aloud.
The house was empty and silent, not the lively home of my childhood. Memories
paraded before me: guests singing in the lounge, Gran cooking, tea in the garden on a
summer's afternoon. For a moment I was there again - I felt the warmth of the sun on my
skin, heard the bees as they worked the honeysuckle and lavender bushes, saw Gran as
she had been before her illness: plump, pink, busy, smiling.
Somehow, with the memories filling my senses, I was not surprised to hear her voice
calling my name.
Belinda!
“Gran
,” I thought, “
I miss you so much
.”
In the empty, silent house, she answered me: “
I will always be with you, my love
.”
“Help me, Gran, I don't know what to do
.”
“You must do as Ernest says. I am angry at what he is doing, but I cannot change his
mind. Belinda, go into my bedroom
.”
I did as she told me. I stood in the doorway of the room that held such a mixture of
memories of my dear Gran. Once, it had been warm, with the smell of her perfume. This
was where, as a toddler, I had tiptoed in the night for comfort from her loving arms when
bad dreams frightened me, and where we had stood side-by-side at the window on the
night of the flood. Now it echoed cold and empty, stark with images of the last few years
when she had laid in that bed, slowly dying.
“Stop those thoughts
,” she said, sharply. “
That was not me, I had already left my body.
Now, you have to act and I want to help you. Go to my wardrobe and get the little case
out
.”
I did as she said, and found a small, light suitcase at the bottom of her wardrobe. I stood
with it in my hand and looked around the room.
“Good. Now go to my jewellery box, on my dressing table
.”
I knew that box. When she was dressing for a special occasion, she used to unlock it and
draw out her beautiful emerald necklace and earrings, her wedding ring and a simple, yet
elegant, silver brooch in the shape of a bird, set with glittering stones. But when I looked
in the drawer for the key, it was gone, and when I tried the lid of the box, it opened easily.
“The little tyke!”
she exclaimed in my head. “
He's already taken all my best pieces!”
All that remained were a few trinkets - some small gold earrings, a plain silver necklace,
a few old coins.
“Take the box, Belinda, put it in the case, then get your clothes together before he
returns
.”
Back in my room (my room no longer) I gathered together what few clothes I owned,
and stuffed them into the suitcase; they didn't even fill it. On an impulse, I returned to
Gran's room and threw in the silver photo frame with a faded picture of her and my
granddad, all I would ever have of her. Time was passing and I was afraid that Ernie
would return and find me still there, so I clicked the case closed and, with a final look
around the little house that had been my home for thirteen years, I stepped out of the front
door into an uncertain future.

I stood alone at the end of Trafalgar Road with my little suitcase at my feet, watching
the family return from the funeral. I couldn't believe I had nowhere to live; it seemed
impossible. I half expected someone, an uncle or aunt, to come and take me back, but noone did. I doubt that they knew I existed; they had never visited Gran in all my childhood.

It was the last day of April, 1960. In just under two weeks I would be fourteen years old.
But there would be no party, no hugs from Gran, no smiles from my show-business
friends, no presents. I was completely dispossessed.

In the daylight, I could see that the suitcase Gran had told me to take was old and
battered. It was made of some kind of cardboard, painted brown to make it look like
leather, but the coating was flaking off where it had received knocks over the years. Still,
it didn't weigh much - hardly any more when full than when it was empty - my life in one
suitcase, eighteen inches by twelve by eight. I owned nothing of any value, but I was glad
I to have Gran's jewellery - perhaps it would give me a bit of security.