My Secret Sister: Jenny Lucas and Helen Edwards' Family Story (5 page)

After tea, Grandma would say, ‘Haaway James, let’s have a tune, pet.’

The adults would stand around the organ, all smartly dressed in their Sunday best, while Uncle James played and the whole family sang rousing hymns and songs of the day. The one I remember best is ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’, a family favourite. Because I was one of the smallest, I often enjoyed the privilege of sitting on my uncle’s lap while he played. I used to pull and tug at the organ stops, which earned me a cursory slap, but I couldn’t resist. I remember the fascination of watching his huge hands as they lumbered across the keys, and feeling uplifted by the joyful singing of my uncles and aunts. Auntie Dorrie always led – she had the strongest voice. My grandma would look on with a sentimental smile as a tear or two escaped down her cheek.

Grandma always wore her best half-pinny tied around her waist on Sundays. Sometimes, while everyone was singing, I would get down from Uncle James’s knee and join the younger cousins as we crept round behind Grandma and pulled at her apron strings until her pinny fell to the floor.

‘You little devils,’ she said each time in a mock-angry voice, with a twinkle in her eyes as she tied it back on again in a direct challenge to us to repeat our wicked ways.

There was a lot of laughter on Sunday afternoons. Something would start us off laughing and we’d have to begin all over again. But always, by the end of the afternoon, there would be a suffocating tension, a sense that the atmosphere could change in a heartbeat. An innocuous joke or thoughtless remark from a family member would cut the party dead as my father stiffened, his eyes flashed and his fists clenched. That was the moment things turned. Almost every Sunday. It was like some sort of secret I would never know or understand. I was aware that my father didn’t like going to these afternoons and that he was uncomfortable with my mother’s relations, all except for Grandma, so I assumed that was what the tension was about. It didn’t matter much to me while I was surrounded by all the family. While we were there, I was OK.

Once an argument began, always started by my father, it would seem small at first, then get louder and fiercer. Then my mother would weigh in to make it worse. I was too young to work out whose argument it was, or why it had started, but it would always escalate. We’d often have to leave the party early, both my parents dark with anger, and that’s when it started to matter. When we got home George was usually out, so there was nobody to protect me from their escalating rage. I was on my own.

CHAPTER 4

Helen

A Walking Heel

Hardly a day passed without a forceful reminder of my father’s dominance. Without any reason that I could see, he would suddenly turn on my mother or me. We might be sitting at the table, eating our tea, when perhaps my mother would make some remark, or I’d drop my fork. He’d abruptly push his plate away with such force that food shot across the table and onto the floor, his face as dark as thunder and his eyes staring. A typical scene would be like this:

‘Go on, then,’ my mother would taunt him. ‘Let’s all see what a big man you are. What an animal, more like!’

‘I am master of this house,’ he would roar as he stood and pushed his chair back so hard it fell against the dresser. ‘And don’t you forget it. You will do what I say.’ He stressed the ‘I’. ‘I will not allow . . .’ Then he would turn on me and jab his finger into my chest. ‘You’ll never get away from me. Not if you want to stay alive.’

I would sit as still as I could, trying my hardest not to cry.

‘Ee, yes,’ my mother would say, adopting a sarcastic tone. ‘Let’s bow and scrape to the master.’

‘Shut up, you slut!’

‘What are you then? The big I am?’

I would shrink in my chair as he turned to hit out at her.

‘Oh aye,’ she would smirk. ‘You are the big man now, aren’t you?’

He would bend his face towards hers in a menacing pose. ‘You will be quiet,
now
!’

‘Ee, master, we’re all so scared of you . . .’

Stepping back he would take a swipe at her again, harder this time, probably on the chin.

She would throw her cup at him. It would miss and shatter against the wall, and the tea would slowly drip in tracks down the wallpaper. I would slide quietly off my chair and creep towards the door.

He would catch me and pull me back. ‘Where do you think you’re going? This is all your fault.’

‘Yes, Dad. Sorry, sorry . . .’

‘You come back here and clear up this mess.’

‘Yes, Dad.’ I would try to gather the peas or whatever they were from where they’d rolled across the floor, and clear the plates away to the sink. I was only five years old and I had to clean up after them while they carried on with their sparring. It was always a battle-ground in our house.

My mother escorted me to school for my first few days at Seghill Infants. After that, I was on my own. It was a typical village school, just a short walk away. Most of my cousins had been there before me, so I soon settled in.

School became my refuge, until one lunchtime that winter when I slipped on an ‘ice-slide’ in the school yard. As I fell I heard the crack that set my ankle ablaze. I felt sick and faint as I lay on the snow, surrounded by gawping classmates. I sobbed as older children helped me to hobble back past the outside toilets to the Victorian school building.

‘Just sit down and keep it up on there!’ My teacher scowled as she slammed my foot down on a spare chair to elevate it. The pain seared up my leg and I stuffed my fist in my mouth to stifle my scream. My ankle swelled quickly and throbbed so much it was hard not to cry out. The slow afternoon dragged on around me.

At home time I tried to walk, but was unable to put any weight on my ankle. Nobody came to fetch me and the other children had run off straight after school, including my cousins in other classes who knew nothing about it, so I had to make my way home alone in the dark. I hopped on one foot, glad of the support of garden walls along the way. I tried to hurry so that I wouldn’t be in trouble for being late home, but my broken ankle jarred with every hop and it was the longest, slowest journey I’d ever made. By the time I got home my ankle was bulging and straining against the strap of my shoe.

When my mother pulled off my shoe, my ankle exploded like a suet pudding, and my mother took me for another agonizing hobble, this time with her reluctant support. She complained all the way to the village ‘bone-setter’. At least, that’s what they called him. He had no medical training and was more of a manipulator for aching muscles than anything to do with bones. But I didn’t know that.

His look of shock alarmed me. ‘There’s nothing I can do with this,’ he said. ‘It’s broken. You’ll have to take her to the hospital.’

My mother was forced to carry me back home, grumbling all the way.

‘If you hadn’t been so clumsy, you wouldn’t have hurt your ankle.’

‘Sorry, Mammy,’ I sobbed.

‘You’re much too heavy for me to carry. If you don’t keep still, I’ll have to put you down.’ She knocked my ankle with her arm.

‘Owww,’ I yelped.

‘Stop that noise . . . and stop fidgeting – you’re making my arms hurt.’

We arrived back home and my mother plonked me down on a chair while she went out to the phone box on the corner to ring my father’s workplace. Dad was out driving his lorry, so she left a message with his employers to let him know of my accident. I don’t think she told them what kind of accident it was. I found out afterwards that he drove home like a demon.

‘Your dad’s on his way. He’ll be home soon,’ she said when she got back. She made me some toast, laden with butter and jam. Normally I would have loved that, but I felt sick, so I could only nibble a corner.

‘Eat up your toast,’ she said. ‘You’ve got to eat something.’

I couldn’t eat it, and I must have made a face, trying my hardest to quell the nausea.

‘That’s the last time I do anything for you, miss. You needn’t think a broken ankle will get you any treats.’

‘Sorry, Mam. I feel sick,’ I said. I think the shock and the pain were all too much for me.

‘Well, don’t be sick in here. You’d better go up and get ready for your bed.’

I was five years old and had a broken ankle, but I had to crawl up the stairs and get undressed on my own with tears streaming down my face and pains like shards shooting through me with every movement. And on top of my pain, and the guilt I felt for upsetting my mother, I feared what my father would do. Mam had said he was coming home early. I thought it was because I had done something wrong. It was my fault I’d broken my ankle and I was sure I’d be in trouble. I realize now that probably wasn’t the reason for him rushing home like that, but I was five and I already knew that everything was my fault.

When Dad got home he came straight up to my bedroom. My mother followed him up. ‘She’s broken her ankle,’ she explained.

‘Is that all it is?’ he asked. ‘I thought it was something serious. You mean you made me leave early and race home for this? Just a broken ankle?’ They went downstairs and left me alone again.

That was it. Nobody did anything – there was no strapping, no support and no sympathy. I was left in the dark, crying through the pain. I remember how even the weight of the blankets was agony. The only thing that helped was stuffing my pillow down one side of the bed to raise them and take the weight off. I couldn’t sleep. It would have been hard to feel more lonely in the slow, dark hours before dawn.

Finally, next morning, my mother came into my room. ‘Come on, then,’ she said. ‘We’ve got to get ready to go to the hospital. We’d better get on with it.’

She must have heard me crying in the night, but she didn’t say anything about it. Just her usual straight face, as cold as stone.

We took the bus to the General Hospital about eight miles away. Of course I wasn’t able to walk, so Mam carried me to the bus stop, and from the bus stop in Newcastle to the hospital. We were there all day.

She told everybody who would listen what a trial I had been to her.

‘Ee, I’ve carried her all the way. I know she doesn’t look much, but she’s really heavy, and – look at me – I’m only slight.’ Her put-upon look elicited some sympathetic nods.

‘Poor you. What a shame your husband couldn’t bring you,’ said the receptionist.

‘My arms really hurt from all that carrying. And it’s all been such a shock. Do you think you could make me some tea, dear, good and strong?’ She had deep, brown puppy eyes, my mother – capable of melting hearts wherever she went.

‘Thank you. It’s been awful for me. I don’t know how I managed to carry her so far. But somehow I managed and got her here.’

‘Ee, well done, pet,’ said the orderly who made the tea.

‘Very brave,’ said the young doctor, smiling kindly at my mother, who was still a good-looking woman.

‘I never slept a wink all last night, worrying about her.’ She combed her hand through her waves of auburn hair.

‘Well, young lady,’ said the nurse, turning to me for the first time. ‘I think you should thank your mother for being so devoted to you.’

‘Thank you, Mammy,’ I said, trying to hold back the tears. ‘I’m really s-sorry.’

They put me in a knee-high plaster, with a small ‘walking heel’. Then, joy of joys, I was given a ride home in an ambulance, which made me feel very important, especially at the end of our journey when it stopped in our road and all of the neighbours came out to look. For the first time all day, I was given some sympathy for myself.

‘Ee, what a terrible time I’ve had,’ complained my mother. ‘I had to carry her all the way to the hospital this morning. Nobody offered us an ambulance then. I’m worn out.’

‘I’m sorry, Mammy. Thank you for carrying me.’

This went on for weeks. She would tell everyone in Seghill, down the street, in the shops, and the family too. ‘I had a terrible time of it, carrying her all the way to the hospital, you know. Exhausting it was. And little thanks I got!’

As children do, I made a quick recovery and soon forgot the pain. Before long I learned how to race around like any healthy five-year-old, plaster or not. In fact, my plaster was a positive bonus with my friends at school, especially the ‘walking heel’. I found I could spin on the heel, ‘ski’ across wooden floors and perform all manner of tricks with this fantastic new ‘toy’.

With the inevitability of hindsight, the day came when my boisterous antics broke the plaster and I had to go back to the hospital for a new one. My father was away on a long-haul trip then, so my mother had no one at home to moan to except me, but she made up for it a few days later, after my father had returned from his trip, when I broke my plaster again. This time the hospital gave up on the plaster and put my leg in a kind of splint made out of layers of two-inch elastoplast, right up to my knee.

My father was livid when he got home.

‘Our Helen’s broken her plaster again,’ my mother told him ‘We’ve been all the way back to the hospital to have a third new plaster fitted. We called for an ambulance this time, but it took all day and they decided not to put a plaster on again, so they bandaged it tightly instead.’

My father’s face darkened as he took a look at my leg in its elastoplast binding. ‘How did you do this?’ He exploded with rage. ‘What were you doing?’

I hesitated.

‘You will answer me!’ he shouted into my face.

‘I was only playing, Daddy . . .’

‘Don’t you remember I told you
not
to walk on it?’ The fact that it was a walking heel was lost on him.

‘Y-yes,’ I whispered.

Without another word, he picked me up roughly, put me across his knee and held me down with one hand pressing on my back, while he pounded me on my bottom with the other as hard as he could, on and on and on.

I cried out. I screamed. I bawled as the tears streamed down my face. My whole back was in pain as he pummelled me till I was black and blue. He took no notice of my protests, nor of the fragile binding on my leg, which was under pressure and throbbed throughout the beating.

Finally, when he was tired, he picked me up under the arms and threw me two or three feet into a fireside chair.