The History of Us

by Jonathan Harvey

  She is white. She has privilege. In fact, she reeks of it. She may come across all bleeding-heart, but it wouldn’t surprise me if that blood ran blue. I picture her in a nursery. I picture her as the little girl in Mary Poppins. Edwardian parents and a flying nanny. What a happy childhood she must have had. And then I remember mine. And Ruby. The heavy footsteps on the stairs. The fat legs. The dry skin in her elbows. The nylon housecoats. The ever-present Bible. The priest dropping by, treated like royalty, treated like family should have been treated. Cherished, loved. She showed him more respect than she ever showed me. The slippers. How could I forget the slippers?

  And the constant knowledge that something wasn’t right.

  And the big sister who ran away, when she wasn’t really my sister at all.

  Ruby was strict and ran our house with a rod of iron, sometimes literally. I remember her once taking the poker from the fire and striking Jocelyn with it when she back-chatted her. Thank God the fire wasn’t lit, and the iron was cold. It wasn’t long after that that Jocelyn moved out.

  I can picture her being hit with the poker. Clear as day. The way Jocelyn shrank away, hands raised to her head to protect herself.

  And then sometimes I have to remind myself that I was too young to remember. And it’s possible I wasn’t even there. But maybe I did see it. Or maybe, and it’s more than likely, I just have a very vivid imagination.

  I was brought up in a terraced house on Alderson Road, but left not long after my twelfth birthday. I was a measured, quiet, diligent child who wouldn’t have been out of place in a Dickens novel. Oh, not your ragamuffin delinquent, sleeping rough and picking a pocket or two. No, your well-behaved swot, sent away to the country for his health. If I’d seen a goose I wouldn’t have said boo to it. I was the model child.

  Maybe, looking back, what I actually was was scared.

  Ruby always expected the best of her children – Jocelyn, the twins Princess and Daphne, and me. She expected us to achieve, to become something, even if all she had become was worn out. But she wanted better for all of us. Me and the twins seemed destined to do well. Jocelyn, on the other hand, was a different kettle of fish. She was the sly one, the fly one, the one whose soul was dancing. Behind her eyes, her mischief crackled through like flames behind a fireguard.

  Again, this is what my sisters told me.

  Trouble, that’s what she was. It was a confident cock of the head, a raise of the palm, a saunter from a room once a bomb had been dropped. She wasn’t going to be told what to do, she’d been told enough and wouldn’t take any more. Ruby used to say she had the devil in her.

  Sometimes Ruby hit the devil out of her. Sometimes she said she was going to ‘smack the black’ out of her. Though much as she’d try, she never succeeded.

  I only know all this because of the twins. I was a toddler when Jocelyn left. But I felt her absence keenly. She had brought colour to the house, warmth. And I missed that when it vanished overnight. But the stories they told me, I cherished them. Here was someone who had found a way out of this freezing cold landscape.

  I learned to get by on my own, be self-sufficient, rely on myself for company, live in my head, my dreams. When austerity surrounds you, it’s very easy to retreat.

  Ruby had many beliefs and convictions that she clung to and drummed into us at any given opportunity. These included:

  Jesus was our friend, our father and saw everything, even when we were on the toilet ‘doing dirties’. (Though the twins were always quick to point out that she’d only really ‘found God’ after Jocelyn had left.)

  Sierra Leone was the most beautiful country in the world, and it was our duty to be great ambassadors for it at every given moment.

  Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, was one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

  Although we lived in a four-bedroom house, one of the bedrooms was always taken up with ‘stuff for home’. This basically meant that Ruby stockpiled things that she would pack into suitcases and take back with her on her twice-yearly trips to the motherland. These bits could be anything from pairs of tights to multipacks of crisps. She claimed she walked around the poorer parts of Freetown, handing them out to the poverty-stricken.

  (It was our belief that she actually went home and sold the articles for the highest price she could get. She always returned home and rigged herself out in all the latest fashions, as befitted a Sierra Leonean living in Liverpool.)

  Egg custard was the work of the devil, and wasn’t allowed in the house.

  Rustie Lee’s laugh brought shame on all black people, and if she appeared on the television it had to be switched off.

  Television was occasionally the work of the devil. Except for Blankety Blank, which she loved. And Songs of Praise, though to her mind the hymns were not catchy enough most of the time.

  Hymns should be sung at full throttle, so that the knick-knacks rattled.

  Heating in a house was a waste of money. If you were cold, wrap up.

  White working-class people – who we were surrounded by, of course – were common. We were a cut above. Exceptions could be made for God-fearing white working-class people. White middle-class people could be given the benefit of the doubt.

  Actually, the list was pretty much endless.

  Ours was a quiet house. Just the ticking of the grandfather clock and the hum of some sample teasmades. And every now and then, an explosion of noise when Ruby lost her temper.

  Of course, I did not call her Ruby back then. Oh no! Mother or Mummy. She never liked Mum, she felt it vulgar. But the twins said Jocelyn often pointed out that the number of gentlemen callers she had from the church was vulgar. But Ruby claimed they were just friends, and she should wash her mouth out with carbolic. I was only really interested in what the twins had to say when they were talking about our errant older one. The one that got away.

  But as I grew up, I began to realize that maybe Ruby was right.

  I will never forget the time I went in to school and a boy in my class thrust a copy of the Sun in front of me. It was open at Page Three, and there was a woman with her breasts out. We would never have anything as common as the Sun in our house, so this racy concept was new to me. Plus I was only about seven.

  ‘That’s your sister!’ he screeched. ‘With her fucking tits out!’

  ‘Dirty bitch!’ shouted another lad.

  ‘Your sister’s got massive knockers!’ yelled another.

  And that was how I found out my sister had become a glamour model – or, as Ruby called it, ‘a dirty, dirty lady’. Though her pronunciation was more like ‘dutty, dutty ledder’.

  Was Ruby right? Did Jocelyn have the devil in her? All I knew was it was wrong, and horrible, to see your big sister naked as the day she was born.

  I remember reading the words underneath.

  Juicy Jocelyn from London loves nothing more than rock-climbing and walks in the fresh air. And boy, does she have a spring in her buxom step. Hitch ’em high, Jocelyn! That’s quite some valley!

  The ‘hitch ’em high’ bit must have been about the braces that were partly hidden by her breasts and holding her hiking shorts up. She was posing next to some stones. I think it was meant to look like she was on a nature trek, but I was pretty sure the background of cloudy sky looked a bit painted. And why had they said she was from London? She was from Liverpool.

  Still, at least I had learned one thing about her. She was very much into rambling and hiking.

  What a sap I was.

  And then there was her singing career, which seemed to end just as soon as it began. I remember huddling round the twins’ boogie box in their bedroom when Ruby was out, and listening to the song.

  ‘She sounds poorly,’ I said, because she did. She seemed to be gasping for breath, like she had run 400 metres. I always got out of breath when I ran 400 metres. ‘Is she asthmatic?’

  I knew all about asthmatics. A teacher at school was one. She was always sticking an inhaler in her mouth. It fasc
inated me.

  ‘She’s pretending to have sex, you idiot,’ said a twin. I forget which one.

  ‘Sex?’ I was horrified. ‘No. Maybe she’s out of breath because she’s been out on one of her big hikes,’ I suggested, and the twins folded their arms in unison and shot me the most patronizing look possible. They were good at those.

  Ruby definitely was right. Our big sister had the devil in her. I didn’t really like the sound of Jocelyn.

  It put me off hiking for life.

  I was glad she had left to explore the countryside and long walks in the fresh air. She could do her dirty stuff elsewhere, and leave us to get on with it. Whatever it was. Things pretty much stayed on an even keel then, for the rest of my days at Alderson Road.

  But little did I know they were going to be short-lived. Ah, the naivety of youth!

  Looking back, I suppose the day I learned that Ruby was not my mother was the day it all started to go wrong for me. It’s pretty big news to get. And it’s pretty big news to get in your local sweet shop.

  There was a sweet shop, round the corner from us, just off Alderson Road, where it met Cardy Road. It was a really old-fashioned place, seemingly untouched by the twenty-first century. Dark wooden shelves bursting with glass jars of sweets in every colour of the rainbow, and although it was a popular shop and the jars were in constant use – Dorothy, the owner, had a set of matching wooden stairs that rolled around the shop on castors – every jar seemed to be coated in cobwebs.

  Or maybe that’s just how I remember it now.

  I had got a job there as a paper boy as a present for my twelfth birthday. Yes, you heard that right. Ruby was so infused with a Protestant work ethic, that hard work made you closer to Godliness, that my twelfth birthday present was her announcing to me, ‘I have secured you a paper round. You will now be earning your own money.’ Only Ruby could think this was generosity wrapped up in a shiny bow. Of course, I earned peanuts, but when I told Ruby this she said, in her braying Sierra Leonean accent, ‘Peanuts are better than no nuts. Think of all the things you can buy.’

  Oh yes, like one of your beautiful teasmades, Ruby.

  The twins argued with her that I was too young for a paper round, that legally I had to wait till I was thirteen. Ruby pointed out that the law had never bothered them before, so why should it bother them now? And anyway, the only law that really mattered was God’s law. And he said this was a wonderful idea.

  Again, Ruby, like one of your teasmades.

  I don’t remember the time Ruby first told me that I was to call her Mother. But I wish I could time-travel back to those days in my crib and see her looking down and telling me. Just to see if there was any doubt in her eyes, any sign of guilt about the lie she was telling me.

  Come to Mummy!

  Where’s your mummy?

  Mummy loves you.

  I am Mummy.

  Mummy is me.

  I actually enjoyed being a paper boy. My route took me all the way from St Brigit’s church on Lawrence Road to the east, and as far as the Bridge pub to the west. In between was a grid of streets that I pushed my way through each morning from half six till half seven. And my new boss said I was so speedy, I could ‘be in the Olympics for running, just like those other lovely coons’.

  But I forgave her. Ruby said I had to. Sometimes I did; she certainly didn’t say it with hatred. Other times, I’d take a fiver from the till when she wasn’t looking. Tough titty, Dorothy.

  Dorothy the sweet shop lady was actually very nice most of the time, but boy, was she one for the gossip. Every action she did, every scoop she made into those dusty jars was accompanied by a high-pitched piccolo flourish of garrulous Gosh-wait-till-you-hear-thises and You’ll-never-guess-whats that held little interest for me, but seemed to keep the women of the parish entertained. As I loaded my bag with the papers of the day she would witter on to anyone who’d listen about the latest salacious scandal she’d heard, usually involving someone not scrubbing their step, or scrubbing their step so much it could mean one thing and one thing only – the woman was having an affair. How she could jump to such conclusions was beyond me, even then; but jump to them she did, and at the time, I have to say, the connections she threaded together out of thin air made complete sense.

  When the shop was empty, she would pick up the phone and continue her monologue to anyone who’d listen. I used to wonder if she just picked up that receiver and jabbed in any old numbers at random and took pot luck; she hit the buttons so hard and so quickly, without even looking, and seemingly didn’t wait for the other person to pick up before getting a head start and launching into a rapid: ‘Wait till you hear what I’ve got to tell you, you’ll DIE. DIE.’

  One morning I was returning with my empty bag after delivering my round. As I came into the shop she was half whispering into the receiver, ‘And she said it hurt, and I said, “Well I’m not surprised. It’s not natural. We all know what that was designed for, and you’re talking a lot of it.”’

  At which she chuckled. A really dirty chuckle, and I wondered what it could be that hurt so much. But then she saw me, and paused, smiling awkwardly as I returned my bag to the shelf where they lived behind the counter.

  ‘Thank you, William,’ she said as I made my way out of the shop. ‘One sec,’ she said down the phone. She was clearly waiting for me to exit. I opened the shop door and the bell rang in the usual way, and as soon as it did she continued with her gossiping. Only, as she did, a magazine on one of the shelves by the door caught my eye. Princess Diana had not long died, and lots of the magazines had her picture on the cover. One of them had a picture of her and alongside it a picture of an Asian man with the headline HER SECRET LOVER. It was always exciting to see a black or brown face associated with anything to do with the establishment, so I lingered to have a look. But with the ringing of the bell, Dorothy obviously assumed I had left the building.

  Which was when I heard her say, ‘Sorry, it was my paper boy. The one I told you about. That family. The coons.’

  Which made me seethe.

  ‘No, it’s not their surname, you stupid cow, that’s what they are. I’ve told you about them. Grandma’s bringing him up as her own.’

  And that’s all it took. Seven words. Said so quickly. And yet they changed my life.

  Grandma’s bringing him up as her own.

  But as that stand-up comic used to say, hey. But wait. There’s more.

  ‘So he thinks his mum’s his sister. I know. Very complicated. No, he’s no idea. Yeah, she was a sweet girl really, used to hang around with our Adam, before she beggared off to the Smoke and got her tits out for five pieces of silver. He’s a good paper boy, though, so the old girl’s obviously doing something right.’

  As the world seemed to stop turning and everything went a little bit hazy, I felt like my knees were buckling and I was about to fall backwards. I steadied myself as she continued to warble on about this and that, but if I’m honest, it just became like white noise.

  White noise from a white woman.

  Grandma’s bringing him up as her own.

  He thinks his mum’s his sister.

  Sweet girl really, used to hang around with our Adam.

  Five pieces of silver.

  I grabbed the shelf behind me as I felt my heartbeat quicken, and the blood in my ears swished round so noisily I thought it could be heard from three streets away. Around my whole paper round.

  They say that, don’t they? When someone looks older than their years. Have a tough paper round, did you, lad?

  How was I going to get out? How was I going to get out of here without her realizing I’d heard what she’d said? As soon as I opened the door, she would hear me, and know I’d heard what she’d said.

  I said a prayer to Jesus.

  And Jesus saved me.

  As if by magic, a shadow appeared in the doorway and some kids came in on their stop-off to get sweets for the walk to school. As the bell rang and they came in, I slipped out be
hind them and into the blinding daylight of the street.

  I had a desire to run.

  I didn’t want to think about what she’d said.

  I wanted big open space. I wanted space. I wanted to be in space. I wanted to fly.

  So I ran. I ran so fast, in the hope that I might take off and soar into the sky. I ran into the street. Which is when I felt metal hit my leg and side, and the ground somersaulted over me.

  I had run into the path of a car.

  The next thing I knew, I was waking up in hospital. A kindly nurse who looked like an angel was smiling down at me.

  ‘Hello, William. Look. Your mother’s here.’ She stepped back. Ruby was sitting there, with a tear-sodden face.

  Crocodile tears?

  Guilty tears?

  Who knew?

  But all I remember is, I said, ‘She’s not my mother. She’s my grandmother.’

  And that’s when I knew. The rot had set in.

  That was the year, as Ruby would put it, I went off the rails. She would never be drawn on the nature of my maternity if I continued to question her about it, claiming that ‘that bump to the head has sent you funny’.

  Jocelyn had, of course, moved years before, and none of us knew where she was. Well, I knew the newspaper had said she was in London, but every time I told Ruby I wanted to get in touch with her, I was brick-walled with the usual, ‘No-one knows where she is and no-one needs to. She has the devil in her.’ In the end, I learned to just shut up and not ask.

  Another of Ruby’s rules: Don’t rock the boat.

  I let it lie, though obviously my resentment towards her and the situation was festering, and now I certainly did go off the rails.

  Because imagine how that feels. Imagine how that feels, when you learn that it wasn’t your sister who got her tits out for a living and simulated sex on records in the charts – it was your mother. The woman who gave you life. And that was a lot to play with when you’d been brought up to fear God, keep your trap shut and follow as straight a path as possible.