I stand one last time in the doorway of the garage, peering into the dim space, aware of the odor of sawdust and grease drifting out past me, happily released into the fresh air, but my mind focuses on the light blue metallic body of the car. I momentarily envision my dad meticulously working under the hood, keeping the engine in good shape, so it could uphold its duty of driving the family around town.
I have fond memories of Dad and his car. When I was a child, it was usual for the family to go for a Sunday drive in the country. My mind flashes back to one Sunday in particular. My dad had retired from the navy and was working for a small engineering company.
It is early morning, and the owner of the company Dad now works for has organized a treasure hunt by car for his employees. We all meet in teams of two in a remote location on the top of a hill in the middle of the Hampshire countryside somewhere north of Portsmouth. Each team is given a map of the local area showing various villages and places of interest, together with two lists: one is a list of anagrams which are the jumbled names of local villages, and the other list is of things to be found in the villages. We have to drive to the villages and look for either the name of a publican, which is typically found above the doorway to a pub, or a telephone number from a public phone box, a name on a gravestone, the name of a cottage, and a few other random things. One item will be found in each village. So we are to unscramble the names of the villages where we will find the items, identify which item is in which village, and then end our trip at a designated country pub for lunch. The key is that whoever found all the items in the villages and got to the final destination, the pub, in as few miles as possible is the winner. Dad’s boss records the odometer reading of each car, and off we go.
It doesn’t take long for Dad and me to unscramble the village names, find the villages on the map, and determine what we think will be the shortest route to all of the villages and then to the pub for lunch. The tiny village hamlets and country roads are in for a surprise as almost two dozen cars and teams unleash their competitive streak on what should be a quiet Sunday morning.
We all make a funny sight, like something out of an old British comedy. Cars driving madly into unsuspecting villages where they have barely stopped before people jump out and begin running across the village square to the door of the village pub to see if the publican’s name matches that on the list. Other team members are falling over each other trying to squeeze into the small space of a public telephone box to find out what the telephone number is and if it is the one on the list. Other people are running around the square looking at the quaint names of the cottages and trying to match the names to the one on the list. Dad and I are caught running up and down the aisles of a village graveyard trying to find a name on a gravestone just as people begin coming out of the Sunday service at the village church, no doubt wondering what these crazy people are doing running around a graveyard on a Sunday morning.
Cars drive up and down narrow country lanes. At one point, Dad and I see another team’s car coming down the other side of the road. Both cars stop abruptly, each team looking at the other and wondering why the other team is going in the opposite direction and does the other team know something we don’t? More than a few times we see cars driving backward along the lanes or through the villages, the team trying to minimize their mileage by driving in reverse.
Dad and I complete the treasure hunt and find our way to the pub for lunch. We are not the winners but that doesn’t matter as the morning event was a fantastic way to do something with my dad as a team and to have some fun. Dad and I spend little time together these days, so it is great we had this one Sunday together. The teams sit in the country pub, having lunch and exchanging stories of the crazy morning and the reactions by the unsuspecting villagers to the bombardment of their normally sleepy hamlets and the desecration of their Sunday mornings. The moment and memory stays forefront in my mind for days as I share our silly Sunday antics with friends and family.
The smell of dust and oil pull my mind back to the present. I run my hand along the roof of the car, stroking its smooth surface as if it was a family pet, and not without deserving a little love. I reach down and slowly open the passenger side door which is the closest to me and, looking into the shadowy inside, immediately notice my dad’s blue woolen hat sitting innocently on the passenger seat, left there the last time Dad had driven the car, waiting expectantly for the next outing—which never came. Bending forward, almost in deference, I pick up the hat and hold it close to my face so I can see it in the dim light. I study it intently. My fingers play with the woolen knit, feeling its softness in my hands. Dad had left the hat on the seat ready for the next time he drove out into the cold spring air. It is now evidence of a life interrupted midstride. It is a symbol of how our presence can give inanimate objects personalities. It is a personification of my father, and now, left alone in this dark mausoleum, it conveys his recent story. Dad hadn’t known that the last time he parked his car in the garage, it was truly the last time. I clutch the woolen hat to my chest. Tears well in my eyes. My chest tightens with the hurt.
CHAPTER
EIGHT
Mum is pregnant. And at her age! She’s in her midthirties! I’ve been an only child for thirteen years, and everything has been just fine as far as I can tell. I am sitting cross-legged on my bed, back against the wall, arms crossed, and my mind in a sulk. Why do my parents want a new baby? Why am I not enough anymore? What’s wrong with me that makes them want another child? I know I get into trouble a lot, but I work hard at school and try to make them proud of me. I look across the room at my trophies and other awards won in dancing competitions taking pride of place on my dressing table. I tell myself that I am good at things. Why do they want another child after all this time?
And surely my mum is too old? I shudder with discomfort and my nose wrinkles at the thought of sex and babies. My face muscles contract farther as I add a frown and pursed lips to my expression. I internally shout, “Yuck!” as my thoughts expand to Mum and Dad, and sex and babies. I cover my face with my hands, embarrassed that my mum is having a baby and at her late age.
Mum and Dad tell me the news in a matter-of-fact way as we are all in the kitchen getting ready for tea. I am washing my hands in the sink when Dad mentions that Mum is having a baby, as if it was common information inserted into an everyday conversation. Not believing what I am hearing, I turn to stare at my dad, then at Mum, ignoring the running tap behind me, and the waterdrops falling from my hands onto the kitchen floor. Are they talking to me? They are looking at me, so I assume the news is for my benefit. I stand motionless, saying nothing, my mind in a whirl as it is suddenly clobbered with images of babies and nappies, and baby bottles, and crying, and this baby belonging to my parents, and actually coming to live in this house.
Mum and Dad look at each other and smile. “You’ll have to help out more around the house,” my dad says. “The ship is off abroad in a couple of months. I won’t be around when the baby arrives, so you’ll have to help Mum.”
And that is that. No explanation as to why this baby is necessary. No interest in whether I have any questions, or how I feel about the news. My input is not required. My feelings are irrelevant. It is a done deal and apparently no concern is given as to how this will impact me.
Going up to the refuge of my bedroom and sitting on my bed, I sigh dramatically, and keel over sideways so I am now lying on my bed staring up at the ceiling. I feel deflated, like the news has pummeled every ounce of air out of my body. A new baby in the house will create a lot of changes. The idea of change worries me; it gnaws at my mind as I fret about what a new baby is going to mean to my home, and my life.
I look at the four walls of my room. This is my domain; this room will still be mine; nothing will change in here. The baby can interrupt life outside of my bedroom, in every other area of the house, but my bedroom is my sanctuary. When the baby comes, I will simply live in my bedroom. Thinking of this drastic and monumen
tal alteration in my life makes my mind flash with every synonym I can think of for change and interruption: upheaval, mayhem, intrusion, disturbance. I think, cataclysmic. That’s it! That’s the perfect word to describe this unprecedented event. I then focus on how to best deal with this incident that is going to change my entire life, rewrite my entire future. After giving it much thought, I rationalize that I will have to take this new wrinkle in my life day by day and see what happens.
Over the next days and weeks, Mum and Dad’s focus is on each other and the impending new addition to the family. All they talk about is the baby, names for the baby, doing up the spare bedroom as a nursery for the baby, telling everyone they know about the new baby.
Of course everyone we meet—from family and friends to neighbors and acquaintances—says to me, “Oh you must be so excited about having a little baby brother or sister!”
I’m not excited but dutifully reply with as much enthusiasm as I can muster, “Oh, yes. Very excited.” All followed by a wan smile and a desire to immediately escape this confined bastion of new baby-ism.
My parents seem to have momentarily forgotten I exist. They don’t seem to notice whether I am in the same room as them or not, so I leave them to their plans and make myself at home in my bedroom away from the pending baby doom. A new baby is coming into the house as I am preparing to leave. Such is life!
As I am not the center of my parents’ attention, I turn my focus inward and preoccupy myself with what I am going to do. I am growing up and it is time to start planning my near future. I will be old enough to get a job in just over a year, shortly after the baby arrives. I look forward to earning my own money and being able to buy my own things and not relying on whether I am getting pocket money or not. Then I have to study for and take my General Certificates of Education, or GCEs, and then it will be time to try and get into a college and decide the career path I want to take. I ignore the other occupants of the house, distancing myself from them. I focus instead on my own end goal, my plan to leave home and travel the world.
The discomfort I feel at the thought of a new baby in the family diminishes as I rationalize “what does it matter?” My plan is to leave home as soon as possible and another child will not make a difference if I am not here. I slowly adapt to the impending baby atmosphere now permeating the house.
Mum has been extra moody lately. I try and help out around the house the best I can—do the shopping, do whatever she needs. But it seems I can’t do anything right. I could be a million miles away and if something goes wrong, it is my fault. The yolk of her egg is runny. It is my fault. The bus didn’t come on time, so it is my fault. I get home from school and Mum yells at me because for some unfathomable reason, and even though I was sitting in a classroom all day, it is my fault the milkman only brought one pint of milk instead of two. It must be her pregnancy, I justify, not liking this woman called Pregnant Mum. If this is what having a baby does to a person, I am never having children!
A week before the baby is due, I am sent to stay with Mum’s friend Betty and Betty’s daughters, Heather and Nancy, until after the baby is born. I think this is to give Mum some peace and quiet and to get everything ready for the baby’s arrival without having me underfoot. Dad is away at sea. We will send him a telegram when the baby is born.
I am at Betty’s house, sitting on the living room floor playing a card game with Heather and Nancy, when we get the news by phone that Mum is in the hospital, giving birth. Betty, Heather, and Nancy start twittering excitedly about the baby and if it will be a boy or girl. The card game is abandoned, replaced by gender speculation. I feel a little odd. My heart is racing. I am surprised to think that perhaps I am feeling excited at the impending event. Perhaps I am simply being influenced by others around me, and their months and months of excited and incessant chatter about the new baby. Like them I wonder if I will have a little brother or sister, and not knowing what to expect piques my interest.
A few hours into Mum’s labor, Betty’s phone rings, and she relays the message that Mum is having problems giving birth and there might be a problem with the baby. This news is a shock. Not once have I considered that there might be difficulties with the pregnancy, or that there could be health risks involved. No one had told me that. I’m not prepared for bad news. What are the problems? Is Mum going to be okay? Is the baby going to be okay? Betty doesn’t have the answers.
I sit myself down on the stairs next to Betty’s phone, anxiously waiting for it to ring again and hoping for more news, all while praying everything will be okay. The excitement that had made me jittery has now turned into tight knots in my stomach. I am nervous, worried about my mother and the baby. I realize with some surprise that what happens to my mum and the baby matters to me, that I really care about them. The baby is no longer some generic third person designed to disrupt my life and something to think about in the future tense. The baby is about to be a part of our family, my little brother or sister. I envision a helpless baby struggling its way into the world and I have the responsibility as a big sister to make sure everything is okay. I have always considered family to be people you can count on to be on your side when things get tough. I must live by my own beliefs. I must be someone the baby can always count on to be there when needed. I must step up and embrace the role of big sister.
The phone rings.
I watch as Betty answers it, and I listen carefully to her side of the conversation. I see the frown take over her face. She glances sideways at me with a worried look. She says, “I see,” and puts the phone down.
Betty places her hand solicitously on my shoulder and explains softly, “The umbilical cord is wrapped around the baby’s neck, and with every contraction your Mum has, the cord tightens around the baby’s neck, and it is strangling the baby. The doctor is going to do an emergency C-section to try and save the baby.” She pats my shoulder. “It’ll all be fine.”
All I hear are “strangling” and “emergency” and “try and save the baby.” The images in my mind are horrifying, and I feel ashamed and guilty because I had given little thought to my mum or the baby and now they are in trouble. Gut-wrenching knots form in my stomach. I put the palms of my hands together and do something I rarely do. I pray. “Please dear Lord. Keep Mum and the baby safe.” What if my mum doesn’t make it? What if the baby dies? Oh no! I glare at the phone daring it to ring. Please let everything be okay.
Minutes later the phone rings and Betty hastens from her living room to answer it. I grab the railings of the banister tightly, hoping for better news. Betty puts the phone down and turns to tell me with a smile. “You have a little baby sister and mum and baby are doing fine.” I am thrilled. Mum and the baby are fine. I feel the knots in my stomach unravel and the muscles in my body relax. The awful thoughts pounding away at my brain are replaced with sunshine and sheer joy, all feelings I never once thought I could feel about the new baby. A little girl. My baby sister. For the first time in my life I have a sister.
Mum said if the baby is a girl, she will be called Loretta after the actress Loretta Young. Loretta. I like that name for my new sister. Betty goes out to the post office to send Dad a telegram while I sit in the house and discuss the baby news with the other girls. The baby is all I can talk about. She is the only thing I want to talk about.
Mum and the baby arrive home from the hospital. I meet Loretta for the first time, gently taking the baby cocoon into my arms and holding her as my mother shows me. I sit down on the living room couch and stare at this little person who shares the same parentage as me. I study the soft lines of her face, her sleeping eyes, her dark eyelashes, and the shock of dark hair she has already. Mum sits next to me and shares with me that originally she wanted a playmate for me, but it took thirteen years for her to have another baby. For the first time I understand why my parents wanted another child. I look at the sleeping baby and rock her gently. She smells of baby powder and milk. She melts my heart. She won’t be a playmate, but I will take very good c
are of her, and I do.
I become Loretta’s second mother, doting on her and taking care of her. Loretta is my real-life doll, and I change her clothes, brush her hair, and dote on her as any big sister would. I take Loretta out in the pram, enjoying this new companion and dimension in my life. I talk to Loretta and play with her, and love it when she falls asleep in my lap. I am just as excited as Mum and Dad when Loretta gets her first tooth, starts crawling, and takes her first steps. I vow to be the best big sister ever and to always be there for my little Loretta.
CHAPTER
NINE
It is early morning as I walk through the thick, damp London fog, kicking moist clumps of rustling leaves beneath my feet and relishing the momentary quiet of these historic streets. I see the ghostly images of the houses standing guard along my route, and the looming shadows of trees peering out of the mist to see who deigns to pass beneath their branches before they dismissively fade back into the grayness of the early morning. I am sixteen years old and finally have left home to come to college in London.
For the first time I taste the independence I have craved for so long. But with the independence, I discover the trials and tribulations of making my own decisions and then having to live with the decisions I make. My proverbial wings begin to grow. The safety net of life my parents once offered me begins to dissipate. My world expands and once expanded, there is no going back.
My moving to London is the conclusion of a whirlwind year of life-changing decisions, decisions I routinely question during my morning walks. I am still not sure I made the right choice. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that I can have a career as a professional dancer and the next step along that path was to study at a full-time theater arts school. My expectation was to audition for a school such as Bush Davies near London. There I can learn to dance, sing, and act—learn everything that I want to do, everything that I have dreamed of doing all these years. I know many dancers who have studied at the school and gone on to be professional performers. But then my dance teachers, Paddy and Susan, add a twist to my options. I am told that I should audition for the Royal Academy of Dance in London.
Our Grand Finale Page 8