Secrets My Mother Kept (12 page)

‘Well, can we have it now? Only we need to get the money back into our savings,’ he said firmly.

Mum turned to give him a withering look. ‘Don’t you speak to me like that,’ she spat.

Mary started to cry. ‘Mum, please; you know we need it for the wedding,’ she pleaded.

‘I know that, but you’ll have to wait,’ she said, turning to leave the room again. As she reached the door she stopped and looked them both in the face. ‘And if you’re not very careful there won’t be any wedding,’ and with that she flounced up the stairs.

Dave stood there and watched her go, muttering under his breath, ‘Bloody hell.’ When Mary started to cry again, he put his arm around her and led her out of the front door.

Aunty was in a bad mood all of the time and there wasn’t anything to look forward to any more. We still had four weeks of the summer holiday to go but I knew that at the end of that time I was going to have to brave the new world of secondary school. I was becoming more self-aware and self-conscious. Puberty was just around the corner, and things were happening to my body that felt different and strange.

Mary had felt it her duty to tell me about periods. No one had ever told her and she was determined that I wasn’t going to be as afraid as she was when she had thought she was bleeding to death! I was only about nine when she told me, and I had been so impressed with this knowledge that I had decided to pretend that I had one. She had shown me where she kept her Dr. Whites towels and told me that I could take one when the time came. I helped myself, and proudly told Josie that my period had started.

Josie looked shocked. ‘How do you know about periods?’

When I said that Mary had told me she looked annoyed.

‘You’re too young for all that,’ she said, but not unkindly. ‘Show me the towel.’

I blanched; of course there was really nothing to show, but I went up into the toilet and, feeling a sense of panic, tried as hard as I could to scratch my finger. Finally managing to extract a pinprick of blood and blotting it onto the towel I proudly called down to Josie, ‘You can come up now!’

When she saw the towel she smiled. ‘Oh okay,’ she said, going along with my deceit, ‘but I think you might not have another one for quite a while.’

‘No,’ I agreed, ‘I don’t think I will.’ Scratching my finger until it bled was not something I wanted to repeat any time soon.

By the end of that summer I was more self-conscious than ever. I had put on some weight, and I was beginning to get spots! I was not looking forward to the start of term.

Mum called me in from the garden about a week before school started.

‘We need to get your uniform,’ she said. ‘Come on, we have to go to Lucilla’s in Green Lane; that’s the only place that stocks it.’

I knew that the uniform was maroon because my sister Marge had been transferred to the school for her last year of secondary education when it was first built. Marge’s uniform was long gone, as she was seven years older than me. By the time it came for me to start at the Sacred Heart, she was almost eighteen and had started going out with Ron.

It had been strange how she and Ron had met. He was the young man who drove the baker’s delivery van, and delivered bread and cakes all around where we lived. Mum had taken to having a loaf delivered every other day as it saved her going across to the baker’s, and didn’t cost any more. On this particular day Ron knocked as usual, although he was about half an hour later than normal.

‘One sliced loaf,’ he said passing the bread to Mum.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked. ‘You look very white,’ at which Ron started to sniff.

‘I’ve had a bit of an accident,’ he said. ‘As I was turning at the top of Martin’s Corner, this bloody great Rolls Royce went into the van.’

Mum put her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh you poor thing!’ Then she started to laugh. ‘Fancy that, a Rolls Royce in Valence Avenue! Come in and I’ll make you a cup of hot sweet tea.’

Mum led Ron into the kitchen where Margaret and I sat on the floor, our play suspended in disbelief. People didn’t get invited into our house. Mum gestured towards the settee, and Ron sat himself down, feeling the cushion slip as he did so, and noticing the pile of newspapers beginning to slide out from underneath. As he tried to push them back under, we began to giggle.

‘What are you two laughing at?’ he said with a cheeky smile. He seemed very tall to us, and had thick bushy black hair but his eyes looked kind. Mum came back in from the scullery with a large, teaming mug of very hot, very sweet tea.

‘Here you are.’ She offered him the mug, and as he took it I saw an interesting new look cross Mum’s face. Ron stayed and chatted for a while, and Mum told him she had twin seventeen-year-old daughters. When he came to collect the bread money on Saturday, it just so happened that the door was opened by Marge. Mum had taken Pat and Marion to Green Lane with her and left Marge looking after us two. Josie was up in bed as usual. Ron took Marge to the pictures that night and they had been together ever since.

Ron called Mum ‘Mrs Lady’. He was so kind to us. Looking back, I don’t know how he put up with it really. Marge and he rarely got to go out on their own; most of the time they had to take either Mum or Margaret or me with them, and sometimes all three of us! We went stock car racing, and saw the cars smashing into each other – that was one of Mum’s favourite outings. We also sometimes went to the Chinese restaurant in Ilford near to Plessey’s where Marge had now joined Pat, Josie and Aunty working there. There we tasted new kinds of food that tickled our taste buds. My favourite were the fried banana fritters with syrup that were included in the price of the ‘Set Menu’. Sometimes Ron just took us for a drive on a Sunday afternoon. Mum thought the world of him and I think he was also very fond of her, even though in later years she sometimes turned into the mother-in-law from hell!

Margaret and I also loved Ron. He was infinitely patient with us, and we must have cost him a fortune. One Saturday we started the Black Cat Café. I wrote out the menu:

egg on toast 6d,

beans on toast 6d,

bacon sandwich 9d,

tea 2d etc.

and then drew a big black cat at the bottom.

When Ron arrived at lunchtime I sidled over.

‘This is the menu,’ I said thrusting the carefully written list into his hand. He smiled at Marge, who raised her eyes to heaven. Mum was sitting in her usual chair, and Aunty was in the front garden. Poor Ron knew he didn’t stand a chance.

‘Okay then,’ he said defeated. ‘I’ll have a bacon sandwich and a cup of tea please.’ I bustled out to the scullery and prepared his meal for him. He duly paid his bill and was then allowed to take Marge out for the afternoon. The Black Cat Café was opened most weekends that year, and we extended our clientele to serve the rest of my sisters who were around on Saturday. It was a lucrative business for me the cook and Margaret my washer-upper, and kept us in sweets for quite some time.

16

Getting Ready for Big School

I was excited at the prospect of getting a new school uniform. We didn’t have many new clothes and often wore things that had been passed down from our sisters or given to us by other people.

Pat and Josie had been saving money from their wages so that I could have the proper uniform. They were so kind. They hardly had any money left over after they had paid their fare and given Mum keep money, but they had carefully put by what little they could in preparation for this day.

The smell of Lucilla’s made my eyes water. It was a strong, unpleasant chemical odour that permeated the whole shop. The smell reminded me of the dry cleaner’s that my Aunty Maggie worked in. I had occasionally been allowed to help her, and she had given me a few pennies pocket money. I remember feeling very grown-up writing out the collection tickets for the customers until Aunty Maggie had told me off for not being neat enough, and for spelling things wrongly!

The sales assistant at Lucilla’s ushered Mum and me into one corner and told me to take off my clothes. I really didn’t want to as my underclothes left a lot to be desired and I was very aware that I was starting to grow ‘bumps’ on my chest. Mum just bundled me out of my things and I stood exposed to anyone who walked in. The lady looked me up and down.

‘Hmm, what size do you want her to try?’

Mum looked at me and said, ‘Big enough for her to grow into.’ I knew what this meant; out from the rack of skirts came an enormous maroon box-pleated skirt with a strange sort of sliding zip that enabled you to tighten or loosen the waistband to fit.

‘Try this,’ she said, so dutifully I put it on. It was gigantic! Not only was the waist massive but it was so long that the hem almost touched the floor. I tried to protest, but I was shushed by Mum.

‘No, that will be fine,’ she said, and started to role the waist up to make the skirt fall just below my knee. I think I would have needed to grow to 6ft for it to ever fit properly! We also had to buy a special pair of PE knickers in the same colour, a stripy maroon and gold tie and a white blouse.

‘Most people buy three blouses,’ the lady said, ‘then they can wash, dry and rotate them.’ Mum said we just wanted one. Lucilla’s was very expensive, and the lady spoke with a very posh voice, but Mum could talk in the same posh voice. In fact she did it better than the lady did. Aunty Maggie had knitted a maroon cardigan for me so there I was, all kitted out and ready for big school. Why then did I still feel that I would be different from the other girls? Why was I frightened that I wouldn’t fit in?

As my first day of secondary school approached I got more and more worried. I didn’t even know where the school was. Mum told me that there would be other girls at the bus stop in the same uniform, and that I should get off at the same stop as they did and follow them as they walked to school.

That first morning I got up very early. I’d had a bath the night before and washed my hair. It was quite long and very straight and was beginning to get greasy a day or so after being washed. I had borrowed some of Josie’s foam rollers and had slept fitfully, because the plastic clips that fastened them had poked into my head throughout the night. My uniform was ready downstairs for me to put on so I crept down trying not to wake anyone. I wanted to be on my own for a while and that was always difficult in such a crowded home. Aunty had already left for work, and Mum was still asleep as I slid out of our bed. Pat and Josie always got up at 7.30 and caught the 8.20 bus so I had at least half an hour before anyone would be up. I went to the sink and splashed my face with cold water. We didn’t have a basin in the bathroom, just a toilet and a bath, so we had to wash our face and hands at the scullery sink.

Aunty would have her early morning wash at that sink, and if you got up too early, you could be greeted by the sight of her in her many vests and baggy drawers, poised at the sink, flannel and soap in hand.

Today though she had already gone off to work so I had the scullery to myself. Then I heard a sound on the stairs.

‘What are you doing?’ whispered Margaret.

‘Just having a wash,’ I answered, inwardly annoyed that she had followed me downstairs.

‘What time are you going?’ she asked, joining me on the cold stone floor. Even in September the house could still be quite cold, particularly in the early morning.

‘I don’t really know, I’ll watch out of the window about eight o’clock, I guess, and wait until some girls get to the bus stop.’

We only had one clock, and that always stood on the mantelpiece. It was an ugly 50s object but it did keep good time. Pat had bought me a watch when I was younger. She was often buying me little treats when she could afford them. When I was four I was playing in the garden, jumping over horse jumps that I had made out of bits and pieces I had found in the garden. When I stumbled and fell, dislocating my shoulder, it had been Pat that I cried for. It had been Pat that had to come home from work and taken me to the hospital to have it slotted back in, and it had been Pat who shouted at the doctors and nurses because they hadn’t given me any anaesthetic. It was also Pat who took me to London Zoo and to see the Trooping of the Colour to celebrate the Queen’s birthday as a treat for being brave. Unfortunately the watch from Pat hadn’t worked for years, so now the clock was the only way to make sure I wasn’t late for my first day at school. Pat and Josie got up at 7.30 as usual and while Pat had a cup of tea, Josie looked me up and down. ‘Come here, Kathleen,’ she said as she grabbed my arm and started to unroll my rolled up skirt.

‘Look, if you fold it rather than roll it, it will sit flat and not make you look like you’ve got a spare tyre round your waist!’ She showed me how to fold the waistband neatly.

‘There,’ she said, ‘that’s better, and what have you done to your hair? Pat, pass me my bag will you?’ She took out a comb and tried to flatten the chaotic curls that surrounded my face and seemed to turn in a hundred different directions, giving me a kind of crazy unkempt look.

I wriggled. ‘Oww!’

‘Will you keep still? I can’t do anything if you jiggle about.’ She finally managed to tame my hair into a ponytail that hung untidily down my back. I didn’t have a fringe so my broad forehead gave me the effect of having a dome-shaped head! I had practised doing my own tie up so that didn’t look too bad, but the cardigan Aunty Maggie had knitted wasn’t quite the right shape and had ‘leg of mutton’ sleeves that were extremely unflattering. The arms were also much too long and I had to roll up the cuffs so that they didn’t cover my hands. Finally Josie was reasonably content with how I looked.