by Pip Granger
‘The swine could not make up his mind, until in the end, in a fit of sanity, I made it up for him,’ she explained to me much later. ‘I realized that I couldn’t put up with his womanizing, his endless toing and froing, and his lying any more.’ Mother spoke with a faraway look in her lovely eyes, and deep sadness etched on her face. She could never have been called a pretty woman, because prettiness suggests a rather saccharine lack of character. Mother’s face never lacked character. Pictures of her taken when she was young remind me of Ingrid Bergman with a Roman nose. She could be described as handsome, striking and, indeed, beautiful, but never pretty.
‘God! Your father was such a liar,’ she went on. ‘Still is, as far as I know, but that’s Gaby’s lookout – I’m delighted to say.’ She did not look even remotely delighted as she said it, though, just sad. ‘When we were together, if he told me it was raining, I learned that it was always in my best interests to stick my head out of the window to check.’ She laughed bitterly. ‘When I found out about the singer, I was livid. All that cobblers he’d been telling me, about how I was really the only woman for him, that all he had to do was get shot of Gaby, and we’d be a happy family once again.’ She paused, her eyes glittering with unshed tears. ‘The thing is, we were never a happy family, not really. We had our moments, especially at the beginning, but that’s all they were, moments. So, I finally crossed my legs firmly, and for good, and began divorce proceedings. Even then, the bastard begged me not to divorce him, said that if I did, he’d be forced to marry Gaby and he really didn’t want to. I honestly don’t know why he did marry her. He always regretted it, or so he said. But then, your father wasn’t really the marrying kind. He would have been happy to have his very own harem – the man had stamina, I’ll give him that.’
I learned, over the years, that my mother was right about my father being a compulsive liar. On the other hand, Mother always told the truth as she saw it: at least, I never caught her out in a deliberate lie. If Mother did not want you to know the truth about something, she simply kept her mouth shut, or dodged the issue, or stated baldly that she didn’t wish to discuss it, but she did not lie. Therefore, I believe she was telling the truth about Father’s indecisiveness over his women. I think he did to and fro between them, and that a swift knee-trembler was probably what he had in mind on the day that he saw Peter running wild around the neighbourhood. But on that occasion he didn’t get very far, because the telephone rang into the ominous silence that always followed their angry words, and often preceded violence.
‘Hello,’ Mother said into the mouthpiece, then listened for a while. ‘Yes he is. Hang on, I’ll get him.’ She put the receiver down on the hall table with a clatter and yelled loudly, happy in the knowledge that the caller could hear every word, ‘Douglas, get your trousers on. It’s one of your tramps on the line.’ She picked up the receiver again. ‘He’ll be here in a minute. He’s just got to find his underpants and pull his trousers up.’
‘What’d you say that for?’ Father demanded as he reappeared in the hallway to take his call.
‘Because you did have to find your pants and pull your trousers up,’ Mother answered, all sweet reason.
‘But I was in the khazi! God, you’re a bitch, do you know that?’ Father picked up the receiver, then had to wait for the operator to reconnect him, because his caller had hung up.
Mother didn’t bother to answer the charge. ‘She’s crying, says that you two have had a row. I suppose that’s why you’re here.’ Her voice sounded so desolate and weary that I almost rushed down the stairs to comfort her, but caution made me stay put, out of sight.
‘You’d better piss off back to her now, Doug, because you’ll get nothing here. And watch what you say on my telephone. It’s a party line, remember. I don’t want the whole neighbourhood to know about you and your trollops.’ It seems she had forgotten that she had just told any would-be eavesdroppers that he was busy betraying his mistress with his wife.
Father gave the number and waited to be connected. It didn’t take long. His voice was cold as he spoke into the mouthpiece. ‘Didn’t I tell you not to ring me here? What do you want?’ He listened for what felt like a long time. I was getting cramp huddled up in the shadows of the upstairs landing.
‘For Christ’s sake, you fucking idiot, she’s getting you at it. Of course I have my trousers on. We were arguing about Pots. She’s letting him run wild. She’s getting her own back – that’s all.’ There was another silence, then he laughed bitterly. ‘That’s all we need.’ He sighed heavily. ‘All right, I’ll set out now.’
I heard the receiver go down. ‘I’ve got to go,’ he said to my mother. ‘The silly cow’s got her knickers in some sort of twist, no thanks to you. Sorry I won’t have time to see the kids. Better not tell them that I was here. What they don’t know, won’t hurt them.’
‘Oh, I think you hurt them a long time ago, Doug. What’s the matter with Gaby? Apart from you, that is.’
He sighed. ‘She says she’s been to see the doctor; she says she thinks she’s gone and got herself pregnant.’
‘Wishful thinking, I expect,’ Mother observed. ‘If she can produce a kid, she probably thinks she stands more chance of keeping you out of your singer’s drawers and out of mine. Fat chance. Having two kids didn’t stop you from scraping her up out of the gutter, did it?’
‘God, you never let anything go, do you?’
‘On the contrary, I am letting you go. Go on, back to your slut and leave me in peace. I hope you’re right about her condition. What’ll become of the kids you already have if you start a family with that baggage?’ I could tell by the sound of Mother’s voice that the idea worried her a lot. ‘And perhaps it’s time you knew where babies come from, Doug. It takes two to make ’em, and I don’t suppose for one second that Gaby “got herself pregnant” without any assistance from you’ – Mother paused for a heartbeat – ‘or some other man who doesn’t mind shagging stick insects.’
‘Yes, well …’Father began, then thought better of it. ‘I’d better get going. Here, take this and buy the kids something from me.’
I heard the crackle of money changing hands. After another minute or two, the front door opened and closed, and then there was silence again for two or three minutes. Something heavy hit the wall and shattered.
Then, suddenly, Mother screamed with rage. ‘That fucking man!’ she roared. In a way, never a truer word was spoken, although, I have to say, I did not understand that at the time. I didn’t know that the word ‘fucking’ actually meant something. I just thought it was a word my parents used – a lot – to show that they were angry. They were allowed to use it, but Peter and I were not, because children were not allowed to be cross.
Mother made the first move towards divorce proceedings while she was still seething with rage. She called a solicitor and made an appointment for the following Monday, at 4.30, straight after school. According to what she told me later, the pending divorce did not stop Father trying to seduce her now and then. Divorces took years in those days, even if there was a guilty party living in blatant sin with the co-respondent, so he had plenty of time to try to wear down Mother’s resistance, but she managed to keep her new-found resolve and she never allowed Father into her bed, or her underwear, again.
*
It was around this time that I became aware that Mother was taking lovers of her own. Whether it was a case of what was good for the cock was good for the hen, I really couldn’t say. Mother was a lonely, highly sexed woman, and if Father was no longer servicing her, it was probably inevitable that she would look elsewhere for the attention that she needed. She usually found it in the pub. Mother’s drinking was getting worse, and her self-respect took even more of a battering as she kept waking up to thumping hangovers and strange men in her bed. It was an awful period for us all – and one that I find deeply painful to write about, even now. Sadly, alcoholism can and does rob the sufferer of their self-esteem and their morality, so that they w
ind up doing things that, if they were sober, would shock and disgust them to the core. It is so hard for children to watch someone they love being diminished inch by painful inch, and it is even harder for them to understand why. Like any other child in that position, I blamed myself. If only I could have been a good enough daughter, I believed, Mother’s disintegration would have stopped.
Gaby’s pregnancy was a false alarm on that occasion, but it was not too long before she did indeed become pregnant. I know because she told me. I can’t have been very old when she did, seven or eight maybe. It was on one of our first trips to the South of France. Father drove us there, and Gaby was in an ugly mood. It was hot and stuffy in the car, and the drive was long. As usual, it was difficult to get Father to stop for enough food and loo breaks, and we were all tired, thirsty and irritable by the time we arrived at Madame Belardinelli’s, the pension in Nice where we usually stayed.
The curtains in the dining room were drawn closed to shut out the blistering afternoon sun and keep the room cool. We ate a hasty and, by Madame Belardinelli’s standards, skimpy meal of omelettes and green salad dressed with vinaigrette, then headed for the Lido Plage, the beach we favoured on the Promenade des Anglaises.
Nice was such a different world from the housing estate in Essex, and even from Soho, which, although it had a much more continental air about it, was still grey, sooty and damp when we had left, even though it was August. Nice was basking beneath a hot sun, the Mediterranean was a tempting blue and a line of alien, but stately palm trees marched along the parched grass that ran along the centre of the Promenade des Anglaises. Some of the buildings that faced the sea looked frothy and edible, as if they had been spun out of the sugar icing that Soho’s master bakers used to make their fancy birthday cakes. Others dripped rosy or purple bougainvillaea from sturdy trellises.
The sea front itself was divided up into private beaches that you had to pay to go on. There was no sand, but decking covered the stones and these decks, in turn, were covered in jauntily striped parasols and loungers, which had thick, colourful mattresses that made them so comfortable, it was almost like being on your own bed. Elegant ladies, clad in brilliantly coloured beach wear and large sunglasses, draped themselves like exotic butterflies on the loungers and smoothed fragrant unguents on to their bronzed limbs.
Every café and restaurant had tables outside on the wide pavements. Each had its own colour scheme, with ruby red, navy blue, bottle green or amber yellow tablecloths, and parasols and awnings fluttering like flags in the light breeze. The poshest places had thick, white, starched tablecloths with discreet dark blue or dark green piping at the edges. Glittering glassware and cutlery rivalled the blue-green sea for sparkle. Waiters, smartly dressed in black trousers and waistcoats, with brilliant white shirts and aprons, weaved gracefully between the tables, laden trays held high above their heads, beautifully balanced on one well-practised hand. In England, service was nearly always grudging, but in the South of France it was elevated to an art form. I always loved to watch the waiters. I never, not once, saw one drop anything, even if an unsteady customer barged into them, or inadvertently shoved their chair back into a waiter’s passing knees.
The smell of the place was distinctive, too, made up as it was of rich French cooking laden with fish, garlic and wine, freshly ground coffee, Ambre Solaire sun cream, myriad French perfumes and sun-baked stones and pavements. In the backround were the scents of the thyme, rosemary and oregano that sprouted from terracotta pots, wooden window-boxes and old tin cans that stood on doorsteps, balconies and windowsills, whence they could be plucked to be popped into a steaming pot or a spluttering pan. Sometimes, if the wind was in the north, the heady perfume of lavender and the scent of cloves given off by acres and acres of pinks and carnations would waft in from Grasse. If I was blindfolded, I would know Nice again if I sniffed the air on a hot day, even after forty years and more.
Father disappeared off somewhere, leaving Gaby to look after Peter and me. Peter was much more independent, and soon found some French boys to play with.
‘Why can’t you find someone to play with?’ Gaby asked me. I could not find the words to explain that I was too shy to approach strangers, especially strangers who did not even speak the same language as me. ‘I want to lie down in the sun, I’m tired and I don’t feel well. Go somewhere and play,’ said Gaby imperiously.
With frightened tears threatening, I beat a hasty retreat into the shaded arches that formed the bar, dressing rooms and showers of the Lido Plage, to play as instructed. This subterranean area beneath the pavement of the Promenade is where the kindly Madame Albert, the beautifully dressed, coiffured, perfumed and dignified owner of the Lido usually sat, guarding her till. She soon noticed that I was lonely and in need of a little comfort.
‘Look what I ’ave.’ Madame Albert smiled widely. ‘Someone left these. They are English, non?’ With a flourish, like a magician whipping a rabbit out of his hat, she produced a familiar pack of cards from beneath her counter. She ordered Frances, the waiter, to join us and the three of us quietly played Happy Families while Gaby took her nap in the sun.
‘Avez-vous Monsieur Bun, le boulanger?’ Frances asked Madame Albert.
‘Non, I do not.’ Madame laughed, delighted, as she turned to me. ‘Do you, my little cabbage, ’ave Monsieur Bun the baker?’
I never understood why Madame Albert thought that being called a cabbage was a term of endearment, but I answered to it anyway, and reluctantly handed over Mr Bun. Madame asked Frances for a card, then crowed with triumph and laid down the entire Bun family.
Later, Madame Albert was called away to the telephone, and Frances went to man the bar, leaving me alone again to watch a real life family playing together in the sea. Gaby came to find me. She smiled wanly as she sat down beside me. ‘Perhaps it is best if you do not tell your father that I was cross with you,’ she suggested. ‘He will be very angry with you as well, if you do.’ Gaby knew that I would do virtually anything not to make Father angry.
‘I am very upset. I am not myself. Your father has forced me to have an operation and now I feel ill and tired.’ I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing and continued to stare at the French family tossing a large, orange, inflatable beachball to one another, and shrieking when one of them missed their catch and had to swim after it.
And so I listened to my father’s unhappy lover and watched the Beachball Family, as I’d decided to call them, splashing each other, the droplets of water glittering like diamonds in the sunlight. I tried to shut out Gaby’s voice, and wondered what it would be like to belong to a family like that. Try as I might, I could not imagine it. As I watched them, I waited tensely for their laughter to dissolve into ugly shouting and their playful splashing to turn to slaps, but they played on happily, until finally, when the game was over, they all climbed out of the sea and chatted together as they took turns to dry each other’s backs.
Meanwhile, Gaby’s voice carried on and on, telling me things that I didn’t want to hear: that my father had ‘forced’ her to have an abortion, and how very deeply she regretted it. That day, under the arches at the Lido Plage, was the first time I heard about this, but it wasn’t to be the last. Gaby told me it many times over the years. Somehow, young as I was, I had become her reluctant confidante.
It was only when I was grown up that I began to wonder how a man could force a fully grown woman to lie still long enough to be given an anaesthetic and then to have an operation performed on her against her will. And whether any doctor, even an abortionist, would allow such a thing to happen. I was told that the doctor that they used was not a sleazy, backstreet type, but a Harley Street gynaecologist who would have had far too much to lose ever to consider performing operations on unwilling women. I hardly think the Harley Street man would have allowed Father to talk him into ‘forcing’ Gaby on to his operating table. ‘Forced’ was the wrong word; coerced, pressurized or persuaded were probably nearer the mark.
Bei
ng an unwed mother in 1950s England was a fate Gaby simply could not, would not face. She would have been left with only two other options: go through the pregnancy and have the baby adopted, or go for the operation. She must have chosen the operation, but in my opinion she spent the rest of her life blaming Father, Peter and me for it.
It is only as I write about it that I realize how both of Father’s wives had their abortion stories, and how very different they were, with Gaby’s the best that money could buy, while my poor mother was driven to perform a do-it-yourself job with a size eight knitting needle.
I have often wondered, as I’ve grown older, if Gaby was aware how the continuous drip-feed of her confidences was systematically destroying my relationship with my father. I still don’t know. I now think how unhappy she must have been, and how lonely and isolated she must have felt. I see more clearly now that we were both victims of my father’s alcoholism. We both loved him, no matter how unreasonable his demands or how miserable he made us feel. In the forty-odd years that I knew her, I only saw her with just one close female friend, and that poor woman died of breast cancer, when Gaby was in her late thirties.
At other times, I believe that Gaby knew exactly what she was doing. I think she saw me as a rival, and was determined to put me out of the running for Father’s affection. Keeping Father all to herself must have felt like a priority, and if his relationship with his children was a casualty, then hard luck. Her need was greater than ours – if she recognized that we had needs at all.
It seems to me now that Gaby was not able to empathize with me easily. Peter always loathed Gaby too, from the moment he first got to know her, right up until the day that he died. Sadly, as I was only five when she came into our lives, I was more impressionable, and spent decades trying in vain to please her by listening to her stories of Father’s wickedness and cruelty. It never seemed to occur to me, when I was very young, to wonder why she simply did not leave him and find herself a single man, unencumbered with an unwanted wife and children.