Mummy Knew

by Lisa James

  Later, I found out Nanny had been rushed to hospital after a fall. My aunts Jenny and Freda took me to visit her after dinner. Nanny looked her usual self, lying on a bed. I knew she had fresh bandages on her legs because they were bright white, not like the old yellow ones she had at home. I noticed she had a tube going into her arm and water was dripping into it from a bag hooked up beside her bed. It made it hard for her to give me a cuddle, but Freda lifted me up and I sat on the edge of the bed and began picking the blanket, running the wool through my fingers. Nanny stroked my hair for a minute and said sorry she hadn’t been able to collect me from school but she was nearly better now and soon we’d be able to get back to normal.

  ‘No, Mum,’ said Freda. ‘It’s too much for you running up and down after a kid all day. The doctor reckons you need rest.’

  ‘I’ll talk to Donna,’ said Jenny. ‘It’s about time she started taking responsibility. After all, she is her mother.’

  Nanny stayed in hospital that night, and Jenny, Freda and Jimmy had a bit of an argument about who had time to take me to nursery in the morning. In the end, it was decided that Uncle Jimmy would do it. ‘But I better not miss me bus,’ he said, exhaling a big smoky cloud as he spoke.

  It was dark when we set off the next morning and Uncle Jimmy kept snapping at me to keep up, while looking at his watch and muttering rude words under his breath. When we arrived the main school gate was padlocked shut. We were too early.

  ‘Gordon Bennett!’ he cried, smacking his hands on top of his head and pulling at his wiry black hair. ‘What am I meant to do now? I’m definitely gonna miss me bleedin’ bus!’ He started rattling the gates and shouting ‘Oi, Oi!’ at the top of his voice. ‘They’re in there. Look–I can see ’em drinking bloody tea. Oi! Oi!’

  I could just about make out Mrs Paterson and another teacher moving around in the classroom. The windows were brightly lit against the dark drizzly morning and I could see their shapes through the frosted glass. They were totally oblivious to Uncle Jimmy, who continued shouting and waving as he desperately tried to get their attention. Suddenly he stopped as if a thought had occurred to him. He began to smile as he examined the padlock. I watched as he dug deep into one pocket and then the other, his smile momentarily fading until he found what he was looking for. He pulled out a small metal pin, which he wiggled in the lock, saying ‘This should do it.’ After a moment or two, the padlock clicked open, and Uncle Jimmy let out a roar of triumphant laughter.

  I laughed too, pleased to see him happy. ‘Is that magic?’ I asked.

  ‘You could say that,’ he chuckled, ushering me through the gate. He watched me walk halfway across the playground and then called after me, ‘And tell them two deaf-aids in there to wash their bleedin’ ears out.’ With a final wave he sprinted off round the corner to catch his bus.

  As I entered the classroom, I made Mrs Paterson jump in surprise and she dropped a pot of pencils. ‘Lisa!’ she cried. ‘How on earth did you get through a locked gate?’

  ‘My uncle let me in,’ I replied, hanging my coat on a peg as my face burned bright red. Drawing on all my three-and-a-half-year-old’s wisdom, I decided not to mention the ear-cleaning business.

  Chapter Two

  When I was four, my life changed drastically. Nanny’s painfully ulcerated legs and deteriorating health meant she was housebound for much of the time. On good days, she could still get out to the local shops and do the cooking and cleaning she enjoyed so much, but she was totally ill-equipped to keep up with the energetic needs of a young child. So it was decided I should live with my mother from now on. Although Nanny did her best to make it all seem like a huge exciting adventure, carefully mopping up both our tears with a sweet-scented hankie, I was bewildered as she started to pack a battered red suitcase with my things.

  ‘Don’t cry, pet,’ she sobbed over the jumpers she’d knitted for me. ‘You’ll always be my special little lamb.’

  ‘But why do I have to go?’ I asked. ‘Why can’t I stay here with you?’

  ‘You know how poorly Nanny’s legs are,’ she explained, clicking the case shut. ‘I just can’t look after you properly any more, pet. It breaks my heart, but I’ll see you all the time. And don’t forget you’ll have your mummy. You like her, don’t you, pet?’

  I popped my dummy in for comfort, as fresh tears ran down my cheeks.

  ‘And then there’s Diane and Cheryl. It’s about time you got to know your sisters,’ Nanny went on. ‘And Davie, too.’

  No matter what she said to make it better, I felt only confusion and fear. One day I was safe in the warmth and comfort of her arms, and the next I was rattling around in a strange flat with a family I hardly knew. Mummy didn’t seem to want me there at all. I could tell by the way she pushed me off whenever I tried to cuddle her, and shouted whenever I wet the bed, which I started to do every night.

  ‘What you pissing the bed for, you stupid girl?’ she yelled. ‘Now you’re gonna have to sleep in it tonight, ’cos I ain’t got any clean sheets.’

  Mummy’s flat was just off Peckham High Street, only fifteen minutes from Nanny’s place, on the first floor of a huge red council block. I found the flat quite scary at first because it was dominated by a long dark hallway we called The Passage. There were three bedrooms. Diane and Cheryl, both teenagers now, shared one. I was put in with Davie, who was ten and long used to having a bedroom all of his own, where his little collections were arranged just so. It must have been quite a shock to find himself sharing with a whirlwind of a four-year-old sister he’d had little contact with before. This led to endless fights and squabbles. The more he warned me not to touch his ship in a bottle, the more I wanted to look at it from every angle as I wondered how it had got in there through such a small opening. His plastic English and German soldiers were carefully arranged, ready for battle, but I couldn’t help mixing them up–and the impulse to chew the ends of the rifles was impossible to resist. Davie didn’t mind me looking at his Beano comics as long as I didn’t tear, crumple or scribble on any of them. I tried my best not to but didn’t always succeed. But it was the time he caught me playing dress-up with his prized Millwall hat and scarf that finally broke the camel’s back. After that, Mummy squeezed my bed into the corner of the girls’ room. I was pleased with this arrangement for a number of reasons. One, it meant that I didn’t have to put up with a big brother who would pin me down and dribble spit into my face any more; two, I was away from the scary cupboard in his room with its resident monster; and three, Diane and Cheryl’s room had much more interesting things for me to play with, such as high-heeled platform boots, spangly tops and make-up.

  Our front room was L-shaped with an open fire where we burned coal, and it had a small balcony that overlooked a grassy square outside. Unfortunately we couldn’t use the balcony because it was full of old junk, such as broken sinks and bits of wood. The kitchen was small with a narrow little window so high above the sink that nobody could see out of it. There was a separate toilet with a long metal chain that was so stiff I had to hang on to it to flush it. It was my least favourite place in the whole flat because every time I went in, the spider’s web in the corner seemed to have grown. I even saw a dead fly in it once. The bathroom smelled of mould, and was always cold and damp. It had another of the tiny windows so characteristic of the flat, high up near the ceiling, but this one was filled with rippled frosted glass. Mummy’s bedroom was closest to the front door, and smelled of a mixture of Youth Dew perfume and cigarette smoke. The flat was often untidy and furnished with an odd assortment of furniture that had seen better days, but it was homely and clean enough. I quickly settled in, and pretty soon I felt as though I’d lived there forever.

  Just after I’d moved in with Mummy, the council offered Nanny and my aunts a transfer to a lovely new maisonette over the road from our place. Their block sat atop a row of shops, and their flat was right on the end above the newsagent’s. Nanny, Jenny and Freda moved in, and Uncle Jimmy stayed a while be
fore moving in with Uncle Roy and Auntie Brenda in Essex. So although I didn’t actually live with Nanny any more, I didn’t have a chance to miss her much because her flat was like a second home. I would visit every day, often having meals there, and whenever I came in and out of our block, I could look over and see her windows. On sunny days, winter and summer, Nanny and Freda would sit out on their balcony watching the world go by so we were always waving and blowing kisses. Mummy was a barmaid at Uncle Bob’s pub, often working double shifts at lunchtime and in the evening, so having Nanny so close by was ideal for her. She never had to worry about childcare arrangements because Nanny, Jenny and Freda were always on hand, dependable as ever.

  Mummy wasn’t the cuddly type like Nanny, and at first I was quite shy around her. She always seemed to be out working and if she was at home she would be too busy to stop and play or read me stories. One morning, I crept into her room to watch as she got ready for work. She was sitting on the edge of her bed, cigarette balanced in the ashtray beside her, brushing her thick and unruly black hair with hard, noisy strokes.

  ‘What’s that at the front of your hair?’ I asked, pointing to a triangle shape that became visible when she pulled her hair back.

  ‘It’s called a widow’s peak.’

  I didn’t know what that was but thought it was very pretty. ‘What’s that mark on the end of your nose?’ I asked next.

  ‘It’s a beauty spot,’ she told me, adding that it had flown up there all on it’s own. ‘It used to be on my cheek, like Liz Taylor’s, but one night while I was asleep it flew onto my nose.’

  I believed her totally, and from then on I’d always think of it as Mummy’s magic beauty spot. She laughed when she saw my wide-eyed expression and helped me check up and down my arms and legs to see if we could find any on me.

  ‘Is this one?’ I asked, pointing at a freckle, and she agreed that it probably was.

  ‘Now bugger off, I’m busy,’ she said, pushing me away as if she’d suddenly had enough of me. ‘I ain’t got time for niceynicey chit-chat.’

  Mummy had the same chocolate-brown eyes and dark complexion as Diane and Davie. Cheryl and I were the opposite with our rosy complexions, blue eyes and chestnut-brown hair. I’d often wish I was dark like Mummy. I liked to watch her lining her eyes in black so they looked double the size, and then slicking on a coat of rosy brown lipstick and rubbing her lips together before turning her face this way and that as she peered at herself in the hand mirror. Every few minutes she’d reach for her cigarette, hold it to her lips and squint her eyes as she took a long deep drag. Seconds later a massive stream of smoke emerged from her mouth and nostrils. Sometimes the ash would drop on her clothes and she’d quickly rub at it until it disappeared. The brown tips left in the ashtray would be coated with rosy brown lip marks. I didn’t like the smell of the smoke, and on the rare occasion when she hugged me, I’d hold my breath until she let me go.

  Before leaving for work, she’d reach into her bag and pull out a bottle of perfume to squirt behind her ears. Sometimes she even squirted it up her skirt. Once I copied her with a pretend bottle and everybody laughed, except Davie who went bright red. I’d ask if I could have some of Mummy’s real perfume but most of the time she’d say, ‘No, keep your sticky mitts off it.’ One time she sprayed a bit under my chin but it made me feel sick and gave me a headache, and she said ‘There you are, I told you it wasn’t for you.’

  At the weekends I’d often sleep over at Nanny’s, but during the week it was Diane or Cheryl’s job to put me to bed while Mummy was at work. They weren’t as patient as Nanny had been when it came to the dummy hunt, and on the nights they couldn’t find one, they just let me stay up and fall asleep on the sofa in front of whatever programme they were watching.

  Mummy didn’t usually get home from work until around midnight after the pub had shut, and was often tired in the mornings, but after she’d had a cup of tea and a cigarette she’d have woken up sufficiently to help me get washed and dressed. She wasn’t as organised as Nanny when it came to doing the laundry and other household chores. It was alright for Cheryl and Diane, who were old enough to go to the launderette with their own clothes and bedding, but often Davie and I had to ask her to change our sheets or find us something clean to wear. ‘I never get any bloody time to meself,’ she’d grumble, but usually something would be done.

  I don’t recall ever going to the launderette with Mummy, but I often went on Sundays with Cheryl. One day we popped into Nanny’s on the way and Nanny mentioned that Jenny was working overtime and hadn’t been able to take their usual weekly wash. This had left Nanny and Freda a bit short ‘in the underwear department’. Cheryl volunteered to take a few things to keep them going until Jenny got a chance to do the rest in the week. When Nanny handed the blue laundry bag over, it was stuffed to the gills with what can only be described as the biggest bloomers I’d ever seen. Cheryl and I exchanged a little giggle.

  The bag was quite heavy, and as Cheryl was already carrying her own washing bag, I made an effort to be helpful. ‘You carry one handle, Cher, and I’ll have the other,’ I said, hauling my side up to my shoulder with both my hands. Of course the difference in our heights and my relative lack of strength made it very awkward, especially as we battled against a near gale force wind that day. Cheryl was around fourteen and going through a stage where she coloured beetroot red easily. I could see a group of boys up ahead leaning against the huge arch that led through to the high street. We had to pass them to get to the launderette. ‘Oh, no. It’s that Kenny Fisher,’ said Cheryl, her face beginning to flush pink. Head down, she quickened her pace, almost dragging me along behind her.

  As we drew level with the boys, a fierce gust of wind knocked me off my feet, causing me to drop my side of the bag and to Cheryl’s great embarrassment, Nanny’s underwear spilled out onto the pavement. The boys could barely contain their amusement at the sight of Nanny’s bloomers, which were now blowing along like tumbleweed.

  ‘Fuck me, look at the size of them drawers!’ shouted one of the boys as the wind twirled them round.

  Cheryl’s face had turned puce. She was mortified. It wasn’t until later that evening that she saw the funny side. I heard her telling the story to Diane and Mummy, and they all laughed until they cried.

  One morning I woke up to hear Diane and Cheryl talking. Diane was getting dressed and Cheryl was sitting up in bed, a pillow propped behind her.

  ‘Mum’s got some geezer in there,’ said Diane, lifting her long dark hair out of the back of her jumper. ‘Made a right racket when they came in last night.’

  ‘I know,’ said Cheryl, blushing.

  ‘What geezer?’ I asked, suddenly embarrassed and self-conscious because I’d never said the word ‘geezer’ before. I knew it was a grown-up word, but I didn’t have a clue what it meant.

  Diane laughed, but Cheryl looked a bit panicked and said, ‘Shush, Lisa.’

  We sat still for a few minutes, nobody speaking. Diane walked over to the window and stared down at the grass below where I could hear dogs barking. Cheryl lay back down in her bed and pulled the blankets up to her chin. Then the noises started–a squeaking and rhythmic tapping, which seemed to get faster and louder. They were coming from Mummy’s room next door. Diane’s and Cheryl’s expressions were a mirror of each other’s, with wide eyes and mouths.

  ‘What’s that noise, Diane?’ I asked, confused. I could hear whimpering noises now. ‘Has Mummy hurt herself?’

  ‘Look, just be quiet, Lisa!’ Diane snapped. And then, to Cheryl, ‘I can’t believe they’re at it again!’

  Then the noises stopped and the momentary silence was punctuated by a loud male groan.

  ‘Is that Uncle Jimmy?’ I asked.

  ‘I should bloody well hope not!’ said Diane, making Cheryl burst into a fit of giggles that she attempted to silence by pressing her hands to her face.

  It must have been the weekend because there was no school that day. Mummy was acting strangel
y. She remained in her bedroom for most of the day, with the door firmly shut. I could hear someone talking and laughing. It was a man. I’d seen a leather coat hanging on the back of the kitchen door with a newspaper rolled up in the pocket. It had a photo of a racehorse on the front.

  Diane and Cheryl went out with their friends, and Davie went to play outside. I felt lonely and decided to knock on Mummy’s bedroom door, but before I had a chance to ask her anything, she shouted at me to go and watch telly or something. When I knocked for the third or fourth time to ask if I could go over to Nanny’s, she lost her temper.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Lisa,’ she shouted through the door, ‘You know you’re not to cross the bloody road on your own. Go and play out the front if you want but stop being a bleedin’ nuisance.’

  I did go and play downstairs, walking along the edge of the pavement with my arms outstretched for balance, but I didn’t stay long. A boy ran over, egged on by his friends, and pulled my knickers down to my ankles. I was so shocked that I stood there frozen for what seemed like the longest time, my arms still outstretched for balance. It was the first time in my life I felt a sense of shame. My face burned, just as Cheryl’s did sometimes. I looked up towards Nanny and Freda’s balcony and felt relieved they weren’t sitting outside that day to witness my humiliation.

  The man began to visit Mummy in her bedroom regularly, but I still hadn’t actually seen him. Heard him yes, smelled him too–he was a heavy smoker, like Mummy–but I’d never set eyes on him. Everybody seemed to be creeping around the flat. Things felt different now.

  One day I heard the man in the bathroom. He gave a deep rattling cough and then spat something out. I was just working out that he must have spat in the sink and not on the floor when Mummy came up behind me. Without a word she took my hand and led me into the bathroom. Suddenly frightened, I tried to pull away but she gripped my hand tighter and glared at me. Once inside the poky little room I tried to wriggle behind her legs to hide from the man who stood directly in front of her. I could see he was wearing the same leather coat I’d noticed hanging on the back of the kitchen door.