Secrets My Mother Kept (23 page)

‘Don’t be daft,’ she said crossly, ‘I worked for years before you were born. I was a silver-service waitress in London, you know.’

I did know, as it happened, because throughout our childhood she had conjured up an exciting life of restaurants and clubs in London, which Margaret and I would always try to persuade her to talk more about.

‘But that was years ago,’ I said more gently now, realising that I had upset her.

‘All right, we’ll see then.’

The conversation was closed.

When Pat and Josie arrived home later that evening they looked tired. I knew even then that they had given up their lives to make sure that we younger ones were safe, and to try to make sure that we had the chances that they had missed out on.

The next day I found another piece of the puzzle, although the jigsaw of my life was still far from complete.

It was Tuesday morning and my sisters had all left for work. Margaret was coming over to see me later that morning as she had a couple of days off. I knew she was really enjoying her nurses’ training, but I also knew that she had to work long hours and that it was very hard work, so wasn’t surprised to see her arrive with her pale skin looking even whiter than normal and her big brown eyes red with tiredness.

‘What’s wrong?’ I asked as I opened the door to her.

‘Something really embarrassing happened yesterday,’ she whispered as she came in to the kitchen and sat herself down. ‘Where’s Mum?’

‘You’re not going to believe this,’ I replied. ‘She’s got an interview!’

‘What?’

‘She’s got an interview!’ I repeated. ‘In London – she’s applied to be a cook for London Transport.’

Margaret just looked at me incredulously. ‘But she’s not a cook.’

‘I know,’ I said, ‘but you know what she’s like – she’ll be able to convince them, I bet.’

Margaret shook her head in disbelief. ‘But how will she manage it? All that travelling?’

‘Do you want a cup of tea?’ I went out to the scullery to put the kettle on. Margaret followed me, and stood playing with her long black hair as I switched on the gas.

‘It was awful yesterday,’ she started, chewing her lip. ‘All of us new trainees had to go the classroom together for registration; there must have been about twenty-five of us, all sitting there, when our tutor came in.’

I listened as I poured the boiling water into the old stained tin teapot that we seemed to have had forever.

‘She was going through our documents, and when she came to me she called out in a really loud voice “Margaret Butler?” And as I raised my hand she looked at me and said, “Oh yes, Margaret, can you please just explain why it is that you have two different maiden names?” Well I nearly died! I didn’t know what to say, and just stammered that I wasn’t sure – and then everyone was looking at me as if I were an idiot or something. It was so embarrassing!’

As we took our tea back into the kitchen, I was thinking hard. This was madness. We were both adults. Margaret was a married woman, for goodness’ sake! And still we didn’t know why we had different names, who our father was, and why no one ever mentioned our secret sister!

‘Right, I think it’s about time that we started asking some questions,’ I said, sounding more confident than I really felt.

‘You’re not going to ask Mum?’ said Margaret fearfully.

‘No of course not, but perhaps we can try to find out from someone else.’

‘But who?’

I paused. There had to be someone who would talk to us as adults; someone who would know the secrets. We sometimes snatched at nuggets of information from Aunty when she was in the mood, but she always stopped short of giving us complete answers. Even when we had directly asked her what she knew about our father, she had just sniffed loudly and said, ‘I can’t tell yer about your father without telling you about yer mother,’ and then walked out of the room leaving us as ignorant as before.

But as I sat sipping my tea with Margaret I suddenly realised there was someone. It was so obvious now; there was someone who might be persuaded to tell us about our past, someone whose own mum, our dear Aunty Maggie, would have certainly been in our Mum’s confidence – my godmother and cousin, Julie.

33

The Children’s Home

Mum was going to be out for the whole day because she had to go to Baker Street for her interview, so I phoned up Marion and begged her to drive us over for a visit. As usual Julie was incredibly welcoming, and made a wonderful spread for our lunch. We managed to eat, although inside my stomach was flipping around. Sitting listening to Marion and Julie catching up, I knew that if I didn’t take the plunge soon, I’d run out of time to accomplish my mission.

Julie asked me how college was.

‘Oh it’s really good. But, hard work.’

‘And are you managing okay with money?’

‘Oh yes – there’s the grant, and Pat and Jo are so kind, helping out with everything.’ I paused and then launched in. ‘I wish Pat and Jo had been able to go to college or something; they’re both miles cleverer than I am. Why do you think they didn’t? Was it just the money?’

Julie looked at me and then at Marion. ‘No, not only that,’ she replied cautiously.

‘What then?’

Julie paused, and was obviously considering whether or not she should continue, so I prompted her. ‘We really want to know about what happened when they were little. Aunty has told us some things about their dad, Coates, and how wicked he was, but we’d like to hear what you know.’

Julie looked down. ‘Hmmm, well I don’t know whether he was wicked – not really. I was only the same age as Pat so I don’t remember him much at all. But I do know what my mum told me.’

I sat still, almost afraid to move in case I broke the spell.

‘They were only little. I think Pat was about six so that would make Michael seven, Sheila eight and poor little Josie only about four.’

I watched Marion and Margaret. We were all three of us sitting on the edge of our seats. Three grown women waiting to hear about the past, hoping desperately that it would help us to understand more about ourselves.

Julie went on. ‘It was winter but probably wasn’t very late, because Mum remembers that Dad wasn’t home from work, but it was dark when the phone rang. I remember Mum talking to Dad about it once he got in. Aunty Edie had called from the phone box. She was really upset, almost hysterical.’

I was almost holding my breath. Marion lent nearer to me and put her hand on my shoulder. Margaret was sitting quite still but her big eyes were tightly fixed on Julie.

‘There were two of them apparently. One was a policeman the other was a woman, probably from the social, I suppose. The children didn’t want to go with them.’

‘Go with them where?’ I interjected and immediately regretted my interruption. I had learnt by now that the best way to get information was to wait for it to tumble from a person’s mouth rather than trying to pull it out forcibly.

But this wasn’t Aunty talking now, or Pat or Josie, and this wasn’t Valence Avenue, so Julie continued.

‘To the children’s home.’

‘Children’s home? But why? Where was Mum?’

‘I don’t know the answer to that. I’m sorry but all I know is what my mum told me. She just kept saying to my dad, “I should have taken them; I should have taken them,” over and over as he was trying to comfort her.

‘They were all crying – the children were all crying and clinging on to Edie,’ Mum told him. Apparently Aunty Edie swore at the policeman and at the woman. She shouted at them and tried to hang on to the children but the policeman held her arms down and kept apologising, but they were adamant that they had no choice. It was the law, they said, it was the law, as if that made it all right.

‘The policeman got upset, but it wasn’t really his fault. He couldn’t have let them stay there, you see.’

‘But why not?’ asked Marion.

‘Because their father had told them, told the social, that your mum wasn’t there, and that Aunty Edie was out at work all day and that Granny was an old woman in her seventies. She was struggling to look after them you see, five little children all under eight, it was just too much.’

She stopped and looked round at the three of us. ‘You didn’t know any of this did you?’ she asked, already guessing the answer.

We shook our heads and Marion said, ‘No – we didn’t know.’

‘Julie,’ I started warily. ‘Do you know anything about our dad?’

Julie swivelled round to meet my eyes. Did I see pity there? Or was it just kindness? She paused before answering slowly, ‘Whose dad?’

I looked at Marion and then at Margaret. ‘Our dad,’ I repeated.

‘Do you mean yours or Marion’s?’

‘Stevens,’ I replied, feeling more and more confused. Julie looked away towards the window. She had always been so close to Pat that I wonder if she felt maybe she was betraying too many secrets. She waited for a moment and then went on.

‘Well Reg Stevens was a good man according to my mum; that’s all I know. He was good to your mum, but just whose dad he was, I really can’t say.’

‘Can’t say because you don’t know or can’t say because you don’t want to tell us?’ I asked, starting to muster some courage.

‘Mum and Dad will be home any minute,’ Julie murmured. Walking into her little kitchen she put on the kettle, and we knew it was time to go. Marion had to get back for the children anyway and Julie was determined to say no more.

On the way home there was a deep silence at first as we all tried to come to terms with what we had heard. It had been a strange day and we were left with more unanswered questions than before.

By the time we got home Mum was already back from London.

‘Well, aren’t you going to ask how I got on?’

With all that had happened today, Mum’s first interview for at least twenty years had gone completely out of my mind. My hand flew to my mouth. ‘Oh yes, yes, of course I am. What happened?’

‘I am now the head cook at the Baker Street depot of London Transport,’ she said proudly, sitting herself down in her worn old chair and kicking off her shoes. Margaret and I looked at each other in disbelief.

After all these years our mum could still manage to completely shock and surprise us! And then we both started laughing, almost hysterically, as Mum looked on completely bemused.

34

The Runaway Train

I would be having a big Catholic wedding as had all my siblings before me. The church and the hall for the wedding breakfast and regulation disco in the evening were booked for July at the end of my second year at teacher training college; I would be just twenty-one. For my final year I would continue my course as a married woman and have to commute into college daily by train and bus, which would probably take at least an hour and a half each way.

When I was at college it was as though I changed into a different person, and the two halves of my life were kept firmly apart. I still went home to Dagenham almost every weekend, and would resume my role as fiancée, daughter and sister, while at college I was a producer, actor, make-up artist and most importantly of all, soon-to-be teacher. The more I learnt about children, and the impact of external forces during their most formative years, the more I started to compare this with my own childhood. I wanted to know more. I started to have trouble sleeping and began to have vivid dreams that I didn’t understand, and would wake up in a sweat, shivering.

Since our visit to Julie we’d got stuck, and hadn’t been able to find anything else out about our past. Margaret was living in Canvey Island with Tony and was concentrating on her final exams, and my life was pulled between studying and wedding preparations. I was still desperate to know more about my childhood, but just didn’t seem to have the energy or time to continue to ask the questions. Some of the memories Margaret and I shared we never spoke about and they got buried in the baggage of day-to-day living. I tried to convince myself that it was easier that way, but inside I had a gnawing hunger to know more.

As the end of my second year approached the reality of the wedding started to dawn on me. I couldn’t talk to anyone really. Margaret was desperate for me to be married like her, Anne’s boyfriend Tony was great friends with Patrick, my friends at college all thought it was terribly grown-up and exciting, and Patrick’s family were over the moon. It was only me that knew about my growing dread of being trapped. I kept remembering the first play I had read at college: Ibsen’s ‘A Doll’s House’, and how Nora’s husband treated her, the heroine, almost as a pet. I couldn’t help comparing the relationship I had with Patrick to theirs. He even had a pet name for me, ‘Boo Boo’, that made me cringe, but I tried desperately to be the girl he wanted me to be.

There was one girl called Rachael who was in the drama department too. She was slightly older than me and was considered to be very mature and intellectual. We happened to be travelling on the bus to Hammersmith station one Friday, and she started to ask me about the wedding.

‘Are you all ready now?’ she asked, making small talk. I guessed that weddings weren’t on Rachael’s agenda really, but she was a pleasant, friendly girl.

‘Yes, everything is sorted out, I think,’ I responded drearily.