My Secret Sister: Jenny Lucas and Helen Edwards' Family Story (7 page)

CHAPTER 6

Helen

Ginger Wine

I thought it was normal for everybody to live with a constant feeling of tension. There was always the imminent threat of violence hanging over us, and the suspense that went with it. I spent my childhood with this voice inside saying, ‘Don’t put a foot wrong,’ but somehow something always happened to set things off. George was the one person at home who cheered me up, when he wasn’t out or staying over with his mates. He had left school as soon as he was fifteen and was now working down the mine, so he earned a bit of money, most of which he had to give my father.

One day he bought me a little grey rabbit and we built a hutch together. Well, he built it and I helped. I called my rabbit Smoky and he was a joy to me. George showed me how to look after him and I did everything I could to care for him every day.

It was winter time, I remember – a hard winter, bitterly cold. One Sunday morning I got up before anyone else and went outside to feed Smoky. To my horror, I found him lying on his straw . . . frozen completely stiff. I wailed, distraught. I so loved Smoky. I took him inside and cradled his rigid body gently in my arms, holding him close, trying to warm him up again. Of course it was no use.

When my parents came downstairs, first one, then the other, took one look at Smoky and broke into laughter, goading each other on into waves of hysteria. I couldn’t believe it. He was my beloved pet and yet the more I cried, they more they laughed.

‘Smoky’s dead,’ I blurted. ‘Can’t you see that he’s dead?’

They couldn’t speak for laughing. Couldn’t they see how upset I was?

‘Forget it,’ spluttered my father between howls of laughter. ‘It was just a rabbit. Plenty of them about.’

At that moment, George came in from his night shift. He straightaway took in this bizarre scene and understood. With a nod of his head in my direction, he acknowledged my grief, walked across and enveloped me in one of his big bear-hugs. He took me straight outside, found a spade in Tommy’s workshop and somehow dug a hole in the frozen ground. When the grave was ready, we found a ragged old scarf, soft to the feel, and one of George’s own handkerchiefs. With all the reverence we could muster, we gently wrapped Smoky in his shroud and lowered him into the ground, and I helped George to fill in the grave. Then we found two old lolly sticks and made them into a cross, which we stuck into a crack in the earth. Standing back together, our breath misting in the air, we said a prayer over his grave.

As we came back inside, George wiped a tear from my cheek. ‘I’ll take you to buy a new rabbit next Saturday. How would that be?’

All week I had to wait. On Friday night, I hardly slept, I was so excited about going with George to choose a new rabbit, and on Saturday morning, George strode and I skipped along beside him to the pet shop, pushed open the door and went straight over to the place where they kept the rabbits. My smile froze as I looked into the empty hutch. Not a rabbit in sight. But the shopkeeper pointed to a wooden box next to it, and when we peeped through its glass front, there was a litter of the sweetest, furriest guinea pigs I’d ever seen. We asked the pet-shop owner how to look after them and he explained what they ate, how to groom them and care for them and let me stroke them.

I chose the one I liked best, George paid, and I became the proud owner of Squeaky, named for the high-pitched noises he made. He was white with tricolours of dark brown and ginger – the most beautiful animal I had ever seen – and it was such joy caring for a cute little animal again. I loved the funny squeaks he made, especially when he heard my voice.

Everything was right again with the world until the day I came home from school and, running over to the hutch to greet him, didn’t hear him squeak when I approached. I couldn’t see him in the open part, so I checked inside the sleeping area. I couldn’t believe it. He wasn’t there. I checked again, in case he was hiding under a pile of straw, but the hutch was empty. Where was he? I ran to the scullery and asked my mother.

‘Mam, where’s Squeaky? He’s not in his hutch.’

‘Your guinea pig? It’s dead,’ she shrugged. ‘Your dad put it in the bin.’

I gasped. I couldn’t believe what she said. ‘He was all right when I went to school this morning.’

‘Well, it’s not all right now!’ she smirked.

It wasn’t very cold, so I didn’t understand what could have happened to him. I ran and looked in the bin.

‘You won’t find it in there. The bins were emptied today.’

I sat on the step and sobbed. How had this happened? He had been fine earlier. Now he was gone, with not even a body to bury and no explanation. It never occurred to me to question her any further. But I do wonder now.

It was one of those days of terrible rows. As usual, it began as they say on the news – ‘scuffles broke out’. It always made me think of that phrase. Scuffles broke out in the kitchen . . . in the living room . . . On this day the scuffle started with our big old Hoover. My father would not allow the vacuum cleaner or the washing machine to be used when he was in the house. On this particular day, Mercia turned on the Hoover and started to swish it to and fro across the living-room floor.

Without a word, Tommy got up and switched it off, then sat down again.

My mother turned it back on.

He turned it off.

I could see the daring look on Mercia’s face as she turned it on again.

This time, Tommy stomped over to the electric point and, with a triumphant glare, pulled the plug out, then backhanded my mother round the face, knocking her to the floor. He picked up the vacuum cleaner, marched it out of the door, lifted it to shoulder height and hurled it into the garden. I was amazed at his strength. But I was also frozen with fear. What would happen now?

When Tommy came back into the room, my mother had picked herself up. Now she faced up to him.

‘That was clever, wasn’t it?’ she taunted. ‘Now you’ll have to buy me another vacuum cleaner.’

‘I will not. I don’t want that noisy thing in the house. It’s
my
house. What I say, goes.’

‘It’s not your house. It’s Minnie’s.’

Even at my age, I had the feeling this wasn’t a good thing to say to my father. I wondered if I could get out of the room without them noticing, but I was too far from the door. I made myself as small as I could and waited in stunned silence to see what would happen next.

I was surprised that my father, fuming inwardly, didn’t answer immediately. Meanwhile, my mother calmly went to retrieve the Hoover from the garden, trundled it back into the living room and plugged it back in. She stood up with a smug expression on her face.

This was the moment Tommy erupted into one of his blind furies. His face turned first red, then white. He clenched and unclenched his fists several times and his eyes began to bulge. He pulled the vacuum cleaner away from her and away from the wall so violently that the plug flew through the air and caught me a stinging blow on the forehead. Then he stormed over to the door and smashed the Hoover with his full force into the concrete path, causing bits to come off it in all directions.

‘
What do you think you’re doing?
’ screamed my mother.

‘I told you, I will not have that thing on while I’m in the house, you stupid woman!’ shouted Tommy. ‘Did you not hear me?’

‘Go on then, see what other insults you can think of. See if I care.’ She picked up an ashtray and threw it at him.

He took hold of her wrists and shook her with great force, so that she lost her footing again. ‘You’re just a stupid and ignorant pit-yacker!’ He paused. ‘Remember who’s boss around here. You will do as I tell you.’

‘Oh aye, there you go again. You reckon you’re so scary? I’m terrified!’ she taunted him, then pulled one hand free and lashed out at his face with her fingernails, drawing blood.

My father grabbed Mercia’s arm, marched her into the hall, pulled her coat off the hook, then pushed her and the coat out of the front door, which sent her sprawling across the path. As she lay there moaning, he slammed the door and turned the key.

Now he switched his attention to me. At first I thought he would attack me in his rage, but he seemed to hesitate for a moment. Perhaps he saw the blood trickling down my face from the wound on my forehead. I don’t know.

‘Get out of here!’ he roared. ‘Get upstairs before I give you a hiding.’

I ran up as fast as I could, faster than my feet could keep up with, stumbling on the upper steps and nearly falling backwards. I had to get away before he attacked me. I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong that day, but that wouldn’t save me.

I was lucky on this particular day – Tommy stomped out of the chaos and left. I heard his car roar away and suddenly it was quiet again. I slumped, the tears poured down my cheeks, and my whole body was still shaking from the fear of witnessing yet another episode of domestic turmoil – almost a daily event.

I tiptoed downstairs to find George arriving home, opening the front door and helping Mercia limp through into the scullery. She sat down and he bathed her wounds. She gave him a weak smile; she often smiled at him. But she ignored me, as usual.

He looked over in my direction and we made silent eye contact. The warmth of that bond between us helped to gradually dispel the misery of our situation. I could read in George’s face the anger he felt that his little sister should have to witness such things.

But it wasn’t quite over. Mercia raged on in anger.

‘That bloody man. He’s a monster, an animal. He’s a no-good loser. I wish I’d never met him. He makes ma life a nightmare.’

Next she turned to me. ‘It’s all your fault. I wouldn’t have had to marry him if it wasn’t for you. I shouldn’t have kept you. You do all you can to ruin my life. I don’t know why I ever had bairns. They’re nothing but trouble. I could have been a model, you know. I could have had a glamorous life . . .’

‘Sorry, Mammy,’ I said as usual. I didn’t know why. I suppose I thought it might soothe her, make her feel better. But it never did.

Unable to calm down yet, she carried on maligning Tommy, moaning at me, smiling at George. ‘Thank goodness I’ve got you to look after me,’ she said to him.

‘Not for much longer. I’ll be off to sea soon.’

‘Must you go? I wish you wouldn’t go and leave me. How can you leave me?’

‘I have to go, Mam. It’s part of my engineering apprenticeship. Remember? I start next Monday.’

‘How could you leave me at the mercy of that brute?’ she fawned and fumed by turns. ‘If he kills me, it will be your fault. He’ll murder me one of these days. Then he’ll have to go to prison. He’ll feel at home in there, with his own kind.’ Mercia went on and on, like a terrier with a bone.

George sat at the table, solemn but seething, keeping his head down low. Suddenly, as if released from a catapult, he shot up straight in his chair and turned to our mother, his young face contorted with anger. ‘Why don’t you keep your mouth shut, Mam? You always make him worse. You know you needle him, but you still carry on. Helen and I are always the ones that suffer when you do that. Why do you have to be such a
martyr
?’

There it was – the word that epitomized my mother in every way. She was a martyr her whole life long, though few people could have been less deserving of the term.

We didn’t have many visitors in our house; neither of my parents had friends. It was just the family who came, but only when Tommy was out – my mother made sure of that. Whenever we did have any of the aunties and uncles round, it was like a theatrical show. Mercia lit up, centre-stage, as soon as visitors arrived, and the lights didn’t go down till they left again. She welcomed them in with a vivacity that mesmerized me. She was like a different person. A glamorous stranger.

On this particular visit, she hustled them in with her usual hospitality. ‘Come in. Come out of the cold. I’m glad you came. It’s lovely to see you all. Give your coats to Helen. She’ll take them upstairs.’ She turned to me. ‘Put them on the bed carefully now.’

Then she led them all into the living room with a bounce in her step. ‘I’ve put the kettle on. We’ll have some tea and I’ve made a cake.’

I struggled upstairs with an enormous pile of coats and scarves, unable to see where I was going. As I laid them across my mother’s pretty counterpane, I heard the uncles’ laughter in the living room. Someone must have cracked a joke. I went down to join the party and watch the show.

‘Dorrie, you’re in the choir,’ said my mother. ‘Will you start us off with a sing-song?’

‘Oh aye, let’s sing some hymns,’ suggested Uncle James.

‘Or what about a good old-fashioned song?’ added Auntie Gladys.

‘“Daisy, Daisy”?’ pleaded cousins Jean and Gillian.

‘Right,’ agreed Auntie Dorrie and started us off. Everyone joined in – the adults and the children. There were five of us cousins there that day: John, Jean, Gillian, Melanie and me. Halfway through the singing, some of the uncles put on funny voices, competing with each other to see who could sound the most absurd. All of us children had a fit of the giggles, which started the adults off too.

Then my mother stood up and pretended to be an opera singer, putting on all the prima-donna airs and graces, warbling at the top of her voice.

‘Ee, our Mercia, you are a scream,’ gasped Uncle Marcus, almost choking with laughter.

‘You should have been on the stage,’ shrieked Auntie Nancy.

My mother glowed with pleasure as she exaggerated her stage bows and blew kisses to her admiring audience. ‘Thank you, dahlings,’ she purred. ‘I love you all.’

I watched this performance with amazement. Who was this? Was she really my mother, the same woman who did nothing but moan and argue when it was just us in the house? The woman who rarely smiled, and never at me?

After tea and cake, it was time to go home.

‘Helen, go and get the coats.’

‘Yes, Mam.’

I piled them up and struggled back down the stairs, stumbled on the bottom step and only just held on to them.

They all took their coats and turned to my mother to thank her before stepping out into the darkness, muffled up to their chins against the cold, still chuckling and joking in the night air as they went.