My Story

by Jo Malone

  I must have been four, all innocent-faced and blonde hair. Mum had submitted a photo to the Bonnie Kids Agency, and I ended up filming my audition reel at a studio somewhere on the outskirts of London. I vividly remember sitting on the edge of a sofa, surrounded by blinding lights and feeling painfully shy in my tartan skirt and a furry, white jumper while a man seated about fifteen feet away asked me to speak into the camera above his head.

  Behind him stood Mum, a silhouette caught in the haze of lights. I squinted, wanting to make sure she was close. She wasn’t hard to pick out in her black, three-quarter-length leather coat – a treat from Dad (or rather, a treat he’d won at a poker game). In fact, he had returned home with an entire rail of leather coats that he went on to sell after Mum kept one for herself. As commanding as she looked in her new garment, I could see she was more nervous about this audition than me. The general idea of the audition, she had explained on the train, was to get across how much I loved Heinz. I was a fussy eater as a toddler and the only thing Mum and Dad could get me to eat was Heinz tomato soup or Heinz baked beans on toast.

  ‘It’s going to be great,’ she said, trying to drum some excitement into me. ‘You know how much you love baked beans? Just tell them!’

  When the cameras were rolling, it didn’t prove as straightforward as that. I totally clammed up, to the extent that the man sitting beneath the camera tossed me cuddly toys, presumably to help me feel relaxed and playful. His ploy had limited success. ‘Go on, Jo, go on . . .’ said Mum, urging me from the sidelines. But I sat there, swinging my legs, head down, completely forgetting what I was meant to say.

  ‘Can you say, “Beanz meanz Heinz”, Jo?’ asked the man. Actually, I was meant to sing that line but the first challenge was getting me to utter the three syllables at all, when what I wanted to do was go and sit with Mum.

  He mouthed the words for me. ‘Beeeeenz. Meeeeenz. Hyyyyynz.’

  Mum stepped into full view, clearly sharing the collective frustration. ‘Joanne. Just say, “Beanz . . . meanz . . . Heinz!”’ she said. Whenever she called me ‘Joanne’, I knew I was in trouble or she wanted me to do something serious. And so, like a horse feeling a whip on its hide, I blurted out the required line, probably a little overeagerly. ‘BEANZMEANZHEINZ!’

  I blurted it out several more times, too, trying to slow my delivery, but I soon grew bored with saying the same thing over and over again. As we walked away from the studio, I could tell by Mum’s silence that she was disappointed. That upset me. I hated disappointing her, which was why my bottom lip started to quiver.

  Mum saw the tears in my eyes. ‘Don’t worry, Jo – you did your best,’ she said, crouching down so her eyes were level with mine. ‘I’ll tell you what, why don’t we go have a nice cup of tea and a pastry?’

  Mum’s idea of a treat, whenever we had the time and extra money, was to go to the antiquated J. Lyons tea house on The Strand, opposite Charing Cross railway station, which is where we headed to catch the train back to Kent. For Mum, the tearoom was a throwback to the war years, with its 1940s background music, elaborate decor and famous ‘nippies’, or waitresses, dressed in black with white pinnies, who treated everyone like royalty. Lyons was a posh and luxurious establishment, which was probably what appealed to Mum. My eyes were only ever interested in the speciality products – the cakes, pastries, and chocolates – but I also liked going there because it was a special place only Mum and I went. For a snatched half an hour or so, I had her all to myself. That time felt precious because, in the coming years, such occasions would prove rare.

  I soon forgot about the fluffed TV audition when a giant Danish pastry was placed in front of me. Mum smiled as I shoved too much of it in my mouth, which was a relief because that smile told me I remained in her good books. I’m not sure what happened to that Heinz reel but, suffice it to say, I was never again put forward for an audition by the Bonnie Kids Agency.

  As a toddler, I had no idea that even two cups of tea and a pastry were a stretch for my parents but these financial pressures would become harder to hide as I got older, especially when we didn’t have enough money for the electricity meter. When that happened, we depended on heat from both the coal fire and the oven, turned on and left open. Dad was obsessed with trapping the heat in the living room. Whenever we nipped upstairs to the bathroom, he’d feel the blast of cold air from the hallway. ‘Close the bloody door!’ he’d shout, hurrying to put the draught excluder back.

  Upstairs was Arctic in the winter. Ice on the inside of the windows was as common as ice on the pavements, meaning that I’d often wear layers and socks in bed. Bedtime could sometimes feel like camping indoors. I couldn’t wait to get up the next morning and sit in front of the living-room fire, legs tucked to chest, eating my toast.

  Every birthday, I would sit in front of that fire and open my cards and presents. The year I turned five, I opened a card from Aunty Winnie, my granddad’s adorable sister, and several shillings fell out. It was the first time I’d been given coins of my own so I tucked them in my pocket, not wanting to let them go.

  Later that afternoon while out with Mum, she nipped into the local shop. ‘Joanne, can I borrow your money? I’ll give you it back later.’ But she never did, and it wouldn’t be the last birthday cash she’d ‘borrow’ to top up the kitty.

  What didn’t help my parents’ cause was the fact they were hardly the prudent type; if anything, they lived beyond their means. They were proud, proud people who shared a fierce desire to live in a league higher than the one in which they found themselves. Mum and Dad didn’t believe in limitations – they aspired to grow and achieve life-transforming success. They had chased pots of gold at the ends of rainbows for as long as I can remember. Their determination would leave its positive mark, but I never understood why, if our finances were stretched, Mum would still buy expensive new clothes, and order taxis everywhere. Or how Dad could afford to stay out late so often.

  My parents’ ambitious lifestyle could be glimpsed in the smallest ways, from Mum’s fashionable wardrobe to Dad’s top-of-the-range suits, from her gold bracelets to his fancy cufflinks, and from the bone china tea set to Mum’s pride and joy – her three crystal, colourless glass decanters with stoppers, set in a wooden, antique chest that was only ever opened on special occasions for Dad’s not-so-cheap brandy and whisky, which he referred to as ‘a wee dram’.

  That’s not to say that they didn’t do their damnedest to make ends meet, put food on the table and keep a roof over our heads. Somehow, they scrimped and scraped and balanced it all. Dad adopted the ‘you only live once’ mindset, not believing in giving in to struggle; he would far rather embrace the self-seward of spending hard-earned cash. Another pay day – from work or poker – was around the next corner. In that regard, he was a true gambler, unafraid of taking risks, focused only on what he could gain, not what he could lose.

  In fact, he approached much of life as though it were a poker game: luck and fortunes were capable of changing at a moment’s notice. Each pack of cards contains four kings and four aces waiting to be dealt, he said, but luck finds people, we don’t make our own. Hence why he was superstitious, to the extent that if he saw one magpie (for sorrow), he’d need to spot a second (for joy), otherwise he wouldn’t play poker that night. Another bad omen was if he spotted three nuns in the street – a terrible sign in his book. Conversely, when he spotted three 7s on a car registration, that was a sign that he should definitely be ‘dealt in’ at cards.

  He soon had a little bit more money to play with when he landed a new job at a small architects’ firm in London. I don’t know what his precise role was, but he started catching the train to Charing Cross, and I heard him tell Mum that he had his own drawing board in an office. Mum hadn’t returned to the gas board, choosing to devote herself to being a full-time mum for my first four years, although she did take a part-time job as an usherette at the local cinema, working weekends and the odd midweek evening. On those occasions, my chief babys
itter was Jenette, the teenage daughter of the wonderful Aunty Maureen, one of Mum’s closest friends who lived down the road. I grew up calling all Mum’s friends ‘Aunty’ – that’s what most kids in our neighbourhood did back then. There was Aunty Sheila next door, Aunty May over the road, Aunty Beryl at the top of the street, and Aunty Shani who made the best curries and lived opposite Aunty Maureen. (I don’t remember friends of Dad ever coming to the house, hence why you won’t find me referring to any ‘uncles’.) Out of everyone, Maureen, with her big blonde bun, bright pink lipstick, and salt-of-the-earth personality, was a mainstay in our lives. Whenever there was a crisis, an argument between my parents, or a last-minute panic to find someone to look after me, she was always there.

  I liked going to her house because we’d often bake and everywhere was so neat, tidy, and clean – forever-smelling-of-Jif clean. I doubt there was a speck of dust on the carpet, let alone the mantlepiece above the fire.

  I particularly remember that carpet because I ended up practically kissing it on one occasion.

  ‘Right, Jo,’ she said in a hushed voice, the way adults do when they are about to tell a child something that is morally questionable, ‘if anyone knocks on the door, we hit the floor, okay?’

  I nodded. It sounded like a grown-up version of Ring a Ring o’ Roses.

  ‘We don’t say a word. We don’t let anyone know we’re in,’ she added, nodding in encouragement of her own advice. ‘Don’t be frightened now. It’s all okay. Understand?’

  ‘I think so,’ I said. ‘But why, Aunty Maureen?’

  ‘Ssshh . . . remember, a knock on the door, a ring of the bell, we go down on the floor.’

  She must have been expecting a visitor because, within the hour, while I was helping her polish the telephone table and bottom of the banister in the hall, the bell sounded and we both dropped to our hands and knees, behind the front door. Maureen was also on all fours, facing me, barely moving. Ring a Ring o’ Roses had turned into musical statues. Even the curtains in the living room dared not twitch. I sensed something wasn’t quite right when the visitor drilled the bell one more time, and then started knocking. I didn’t take my eyes off Maureen. Stay still, she mouthed, as if she knew how this would pan out. Seconds later, we heard footsteps walking away. She weighed the silence, wondering if it was safe to get up.

  While suspended in that abeyance – me looking at her; her looking at me – we heard the back door open. That was when our heads turned toward the kitchen to find the council rent man standing at the far end of the living room, staring at us on our hands and knees.

  Without missing a beat, Maureen looked at me as if we were doing the most natural thing in the world. ‘Jo, can you see that shirt button?’

  She had clearly been in this situation before.

  I shook my head. She shook hers, pretending to be baffled, then jumped up, dusted herself down and walked into the kitchen, closing the door behind her. I didn’t hear much of the serious conversation that followed, but that was the day I realised someone from the council came to collect the rent. And not everyone on our estate was ready for him.

  My sister Tracey was born on 3 June 1968 and we became a family of four. I remember her imminent arrival by the smell of grass: I was alone in the front garden, darting around with an empty jam jar, collecting caterpillars and butterflies. I could easily kill an hour or two playing catch-and-release with nature, although, on this particular day, I was probably taking my mind off the fact that Mum was poorly. When I woke up that morning, Dad had explained that she’d been admitted to hospital. He said she was ‘sick’. I would later find out that she was suffering from hyperemesis gravidarum – a condition that causes severe nausea and vomiting during pregnancy, and one that I would inherit. That day, I was lying on my front, chin on the grass, peering into the jam jar, wondering how on earth caterpillars ever became fly-away butterflies, when the shrill of the telephone disturbed my peace. Dad called my name. ‘It’s Mummy!’

  She was in bed on the ward, calling from one of those portable pay phones. Mum worried when she was away from us, even when she had her head in a bowl and was hours away from going into labour. She grew anxious when away from home, fretting about whether Dad had everything under control and whether I was okay. Mum only really felt calm when we were all home and together. Before Tracey came along, I loved nothing more than snuggling on the sofa with Mum and Dad, mesmerised by the black-and-white television in the corner that flickered almost as much as the open fire to its left. They were both tactile, tender parents and all I wanted to do was sit and cuddle with them. And then our unit of three made room for one more.

  Mum gave birth to Tracey the day after calling from hospital, and I came to dote on my little sister, ‘playing mum’ by holding her whenever Mum had to make dinner, and rocking the pram in front of the fire when it was naptime.

  From the beginning, I felt a strong bond of sisterhood, even though we would have diametrically opposed personalities. I was self-sufficient, she leaned on Mum; I was more reserved, she was a gregarious tomboy; I had to work hard at everything I did, she seemed naturally talented at whatever she tried. But the biggest difference to develop over the years would be her joined-at-the-hip affinity with Mum.

  Whatever she did, Tracey mirrored; whatever she said, Tracey agreed with. And if my sister ever did something wrong or an accident happened in the house, her finger would instantly point in my direction and Mum would believe her. Like the occasion when she was a little older and daubed paint on the bathroom tiles, or tie-dyed Mum’s bed sheets in a bucket – when there are only two sets of bed sheets, that’s a big deal, and Mum rightly went berserk. But it was my fault. ‘You should have been watching her!’ became an echo of childhood.

  The big benefit of having a sister was that I had a summer playmate, and our favourite pastime was re-enacting the madcap BBC show It’s a Knockout in the back garden. We invented our own fun version of the games, and one memorable challenge involved tying water balloons to the low-hanging washing line. Tracey climbed into Dad’s wheelbarrow, stood up and then, on the whistle, I’d push and run as she craned her neck to burst as many balloons as possible with her teeth, soaking us in the process. Our giggles and squeals of laughter matched those that we had heard on the television.

  I got used to the sound of Tracey’s blood-curdling screams, too. That’s because she would stuff anything and everything in her mouth, requiring at least two panic-stricken dashes to A&E.

  One day, she decided to go ferreting under the kitchen sink. Dad wasn’t home, Mum was in her room, and I must have been in the living room – ‘looking after my sister’ – when Tracey’s cry brought Mum thundering down the stairs, only to stop her in her tracks at the kitchen door. The horror in her voice scared me. ‘TRACEEEEEE!’

  My sister was sitting on the black-and-white tiles, in front of an open cupboard door, with an opened bottle of bleach to one side, and a dribble of liquid coming out the corner of her mouth. Startled by Mum’s reaction, Tracey turned hysterical, especially when force-fed a carton of milk to dilute whatever quantities of bleach she had ingested. Before I knew it, this milky-mouthed infant was in Mum’s arms and out the door, leaving me to inform Dad, whenever he returned home for dinner. Mercifully, after a stomach flush and one night in hospital, Tracey quickly recovered. But no sooner had she survived that episode than she was being rushed back in after using a cousin’s Airfix kit to glue together the left side of her mouth.

  It’s not hard to see why I felt the need to look out for my young sister, who was also severely asthmatic. Mum seemed always to be calling out, ‘Watch her, Jo!’ or ‘What’s Tracey doing? Is she okay?’ I became Mum’s second pair of eyes, sensing that Tracey’s welfare was as much my responsibility as hers.

  I’ll never forget the time I arrived home from school to discover my sister was missing. Mum was out. Dad was asleep on the sofa, off sick with a bad back that had plagued him since boyhood – a rugby injury led to a steel pin b
eing inserted in his spine. I was upstairs changing out of my school clothes when I realised Tracey wasn’t in the house. She wasn’t in the garden, either.

  ‘Dad! Dad!’ I yelled, waking him. ‘Where’s Tracey?!’

  ‘Upstairs, isn’t she?’ he said, groggily.

  ‘Dad, she’s not here!’

  Bad back or no bad back, I had never seen him bolt up so fast. And then, a frantic minute or so later, there was a knock on the door. ‘Excuse me,’ said the man from down the street, ‘I think this is your daughter.’ He had his hands on the shoulders of Tracey, standing in front of him in a cardigan and red Wellington boots that she’d put on the wrong feet. The man had found her in the newsagent’s, where she had bought a pile of comics, sweets, and a plastic doll – items she now clutched to her chest as she stood there.

  Where did she find the money to buy those?

  And that was the thought that sent me racing upstairs.

  Ever since Mum had used my birthday money from Aunty Winnie, I had learned to secrete any cash gifts under some clothes in my drawer, and I had saved the handsome sum of £5. But it turned out that Mum wasn’t the one I should have been worried about. It never occurred to me that Tracey knew the whereabouts of my money, let alone that she – a four-year-old – would go out and spend it.

  Dad wasn’t bothered about this minor incident of petty theft. My £5 haul was a small price to pay for having her home safe and sound. But I couldn’t stop stewing over the injustice and I needed to exact revenge in the way that kids do. So I made my sister a sandwich. A Pedigree Chum sandwich.

  I gave three-quarters of one tin to our golden Labrador Shandy, and then served up the last quarter between two slices of bread, telling Tracey it was pate. I figured that once you’ve tasted bleach and Airfix glue, the dog’s dinner wouldn’t be all that bad. But she took two bites and spat it out. Years later, while I was washing my hair by leaning over the sink, she once stood on the toilet seat and tied my plaits to the taps before running off, so I suppose we were even.