by Lisa James
At about seven o’clock the tears would start as I kissed Nanny goodbye. I’d lay my head against her chest and remember the times I used to fall asleep listening to her heart in the rocking chair when I was small. I revelled in her familiar warmth. I clung to her, not wanting to say goodbye because I never knew when I would see her again. It might be tomorrow or the day after, but Dad kept changing the rules and sometimes I wouldn’t be allowed to visit for weeks.
‘Now, now, pet,’ she said. ‘Don’t you cry. We’ll see you again soon and you can help me make a cake.’
With a last kiss, Jenny led me back over the road. She would wait outside our block until I ran upstairs and waved to her out of Davie’s bedroom window to let her know I was safe. Except I never was, really. Not with Dad around.
Chapter Five
After a few weeks without Mummy bringing in a salary, the tension in the flat rose to pressure-cooker levels. At first Dad had relished having her at his beck and call twenty-four hours a day, but soon the reality of life without a steady income began to bite. He seemed stuck in permanent Mr Hyde mode because he could no longer indulge quite so freely in his three main hobbies of smoking, drinking and gambling.
Dad was obsessed with horseracing. He studied the form in The Sun and The Sporting Life and made sure to watch every televised race meeting. The only problem was that he wasn’t very good at picking winners.
At the start of every race he’d perch on the edge of the sofa, restlessly shifting from side to side just like the horses that jostled for position behind the starting line. If he had placed a bet he would hold the ticket in front of him and begin to murmur under his breath. The small blue betting-shop pen would be lodged firmly behind one ear, a spare fag behind the other. As the horses galloped closer and closer to the finishing line, Dad would slide down onto his knees and edge closer and closer to the television, thrashing an imaginary whip and roaring encouragement: ‘Come on, my son. That’s it, come on, you bastard.’
I’d hold my breath and cross my fingers and toes as I willed his horse to win. But my heart would sink and I’d start thinking of somewhere to hide as Dad’s horse was overtaken in the final furlong, and his exhilaration gave way to bitter disappointment as it dawned on him that he’d just thrown more money down the drain.
‘That’s fucking bollocks, that is! Bastard fucking animal.’ He’d rip the betting slip to shreds and let it flutter to the floor. ‘You’re fucking jinxed, you lot,’ he’d yell and whoever was closest would be lucky to escape without a whack round the head.
One day he kicked the television over when the pundit in the pork-pie hat came on to heap praise on the winning horse. It made a loud bang, and smoke came out. We weren’t without a television for long, though. Somehow, even though he didn’t have a job, Dad always managed to get hold of things he wanted. Nobody knew exactly how, but it always seemed to be that he had a mate, who knew some bloke, who was friends with some geezer down the pub, and in exchange for a ‘ton’ or ‘pony’ Dad could get hold of anything.
I asked Davie if Dad had a real pony and he laughed, ‘It’s rhyming slang for twenty-five quid, stupid.’
So we might not have the basics like food and loo paper, but sometimes Dad would manage to get hold of things he needed, like cigarettes or, once, a case of ouzo, which Mummy said was like drinking ‘fucking paint stripper’. The new telly he got was bigger and better than the last one, and it was colour, too. Me and Davie were so excited. When Dad was out or in an unusually good mood, we would watch our favourite cartoons on it. It was a whole different experience.
Meanwhile, the swearing, shouting and violence gathered pace and Dad was often heard threatening to leave Mummy for someone younger who didn’t have such a ‘baggy fanny’. I wondered long and hard about what that was but couldn’t work it out. All I knew was that it didn’t sound very nice and Mummy got upset whenever he said it.
It wasn’t unusual to see the remnants of Dad’s dinner sliding down the front room wall where he would aim his plate, frisbee-style. I would duck out of the way and Mummy would quickly try to salvage the food before the dog got to it, saying ‘Oh, Frank, what you done that for?’ as if gently chiding a tantrum-prone child who could never really do any wrong in her eyes. This attitude was the complete opposite to the way she would shriek at me if ever I dropped something by accident. ‘For Christ’s sake, Lisa. Why are you so bleedin’ clumsy?’
The trigger for Dad losing his temper could be something as trivial as finding a lump in his gravy or the mere mention of Nanny’s and Jenny’s names, but more often than not the root cause always involved one of three things: his irrational jealousy, alcohol, or having backed the wrong horse at Kempton Park. Without money to keep him in booze, fags and betting slips, the arguments just kept getting worse.
Mummy started looking for a new job, but every classified ad she circled in the paper would meet with Dad’s disapproval. He didn’t want her working in an office because she might meet men and have an affair just like the slags on the TV. He certainly didn’t want her doing bar work again for much the same reason. Dad suggested cleaning, which was ironic because our flat was always in such a state. Mummy agreed to everything he said, even though I heard her tell Diane that it wasn’t something she wanted to do–‘but at least it’s cash in hand’. So that’s why she started cleaning private houses for posh people in the West End.
While she was out at work, Dad and I got to spend more time together and he came up with a new job for me, which was scrubbing his back for him when he had a bath.
‘You’ve got a lighter touch than your mother,’ he said. ‘She’s like a fucking navvy.’
He used to like me to use my hands instead of a flannel. ‘Get a good lather going,’ he said. ‘You could make a fortune in one of those massage parlours.’
I wasn’t sure what a massage parlour was, but I was glad I seemed to be doing something right at last. One time he had pinched my thigh because I was ‘doing it crap’.
I thought of Nanny and Jenny, and wondered what they would say if they knew Dad made me do things like this? They were both very careful not to let me see them undressed, and if anything rude ever came on the television while I was visiting, they would quickly turn it over. Once when Jenny took me up the high street to buy a Saturday morning custard tart, we saw a tramp in a shop doorway. His flies were undone and he was peeing in a big arc. Jenny was horrified and covered my eyes.
I didn’t like seeing Dad naked but I was getting used to it because he was always parading round the place with no clothes on and even wiggling his privates in my face for a joke. Once he tried to make me believe his ding-a-ling was alive, like some sort of pet. ‘Go on, give it a little stroke,’ he urged.
I ran away and hid but I could hear him and Mummy laughing about it. She seemed to think it was all quite funny. She obviously didn’t see anything odd in what he was doing.
‘She probably thought it was a baby mouse,’ Mummy joked.
‘Watch it!’ Dad said.
‘Watch it? I can hardly fucking see it?’ chuckled Mummy.
So if she thought it was OK, I supposed it must be. Maybe Nanny and Jenny were just too old-fashioned. That must be it.
One morning soon after Mummy started work, I woke up feeling sick. It was as if my stomach was full of butterflies desperate for a way out. I knew I wasn’t ill in the true sense; it was just that the thought of having to go to school and sit opposite a girl called Susan Jackson was playing havoc with my insides. She had been moved into our class mid-term because she had been bullying a boy called William, who had a stutter. Finally his mother had marched into the head-mistress’s office and demanded action so she’d been shifted from William’s class into ours.
I had once seen Susan in the playground surrounded by a cackling gang of supporters, pressing her mean face into William’s and making him cry. Her nastiness reminded me of Dad so I ran as quickly as I could and told the playground assistant what was happening.
Susan saw me pointing her out, so it was of little surprise that when she joined our class she swiftly targeted me as her new victim. Within a very short space of time she managed to convince my small circle of friends not to play with me any more because I was ‘smelly’ and a ‘dirty tramp’ and if they liked me, then they must be one, too. I wasn’t frightened of Susan physically. Compared to the slaps, kicks and punches that were a way of life at home, her sly pinches and pokes barely made me flinch. Far worse, though, was her relentless teasing. I knew for a fact that sometimes names could hurt just as much as sticks and stones. I told our teacher about it but she rolled her eyes and said ‘Just ignore her, Lisa.’
The day before, Susan had told everyone on our table that her mum didn’t want her anywhere near the ‘stinky one’ in case she got nits. Everyone screamed in mock horror and screeched their chairs across the floor to get as far away from me as possible. Even Claire Sullivan, who only a few weeks before had linked pinkies with me and sworn we’d be best friends forever, was sucked into the vendetta.
Lying in my damp, urine-soaked bed, I imagined swinging Susan around by her long ginger plait, but I knew I would never do it in reality, no matter how much I wanted to.
My mind was made up. I didn’t care if I had to take my chances at home with Dad, but there was no way I was going to school today. Mummy had been talking about having to go out on a special cleaning job and Dad had been suffering from a hangover all week after bingeing on ouzo, so I knew she would prefer not to leave me alone with him in case I got on his nerves. A plan began to form in my mind. I hadn’t been able to see Nanny for some time because she had sent Mummy a letter begging her to ‘see sense and kick that man out for everyone’s sake’. Mummy had ripped it to shreds after Dad had demanded she read it aloud, and ceremoniously burnt it in the kitchen sink as he looked on approvingly.
‘If that old bitch thinks she’s seeing the kid again, she’ll have a long fucking wait!’ Dad declared, nodding over towards me where I was sucking my thumb in the corner. And his word was Law.
I hoped that today, Mummy would realise she had no option other than to send me over the road, where I could cuddle Nanny and eat cakes and sweets all day. I began to groan and pretend to be a lot sicker than I felt.
I heard Mummy take a cup of tea into Dad, who was still in bed with a bad headache and a sick bucket by his side. She was mumbling, then I heard his voice, gravelly from sleep, shouting ‘I said no!’
Mummy emerged from the bedroom looking daggers at me. ‘Trust you to be ill today. I’ll have to take you to work with me now.’
It might not be Nanny’s, I thought, but at least it was better than going to school.
Mummy went to quite a bit of trouble that day to find me something to wear that wasn’t too badly crumpled or dirty. She also made me chew a fluffy junior aspirin she’d found at the back of the medicine cabinet. I was feeling much better now that I was no longer worrying about Susan Jackson, but I chewed the bittersweet pill in order to keep up the pretence I was ill.
Then Mummy stood behind me and attempted to sort out my rats’ tails. She dragged the brush through my knotty hair, making me squeal in pain, and yanked it back into a ponytail so tight that I developed a genuine headache and was pleased she’d given me the aspirin.
She told me to put my anorak on and took a step back to look me up and down.
‘No, you’ll have to wear the tartan,’ she said, delving into the back of the wardrobe to retrieve a coat that had already been a bit too small when she brought it back from a jumble sale the year before. I was seven now and the label inside said it was for a five-year-old. I had to take off my jumper in order to squeeze into it. Even then it was too tight and made my arms stick out stiffly to the side. It smelled funny too.
‘Why do I have to wear this, Mummy?’ I asked. ‘Why can’t I wear my anorak?’
‘Because we’re going somewhere posh and I don’t want you showing me up,’ she said, slinging her bag over her shoulder. ‘Now get a move on or we’ll miss the bus.’
We had to change buses a couple of times before we arrived in Chelsea. The street was a short walk from the King’s Road and all the houses along it were massive, set back from the road with smart cars outside.
Mummy pointed to a large white house on the corner opposite. ‘That’s it,’ she said, taking a last puff on her cigarette before grinding it into the pavement with her heel. ‘If you think you’re going to be sick, make sure it’s not on the rugs. They’re worth a fortune.’
A black limousine was parked outside with a liveried chauffeur reading a paper at the wheel. Just as we were about to open the ornate wrought-iron gate, four men emerged. Mummy pulled back and stepped to one side, slightly bowing and nodding her head as she did so. The men were dressed in long white robes and wore what looked like red-checked tea towels on their heads, just as Alan Slaven had when he’d played Joseph in our school nativity play. I guessed they must be from Jerusalem or somewhere like that. The chauffeur threw his paper aside and sprang out of the car to open the door for them, then they all got in and drove off.
Another man, this one wearing a normal suit and tie, stood inside the front door. He had a posh voice and I noticed he was wearing heavy gold cufflinks. He led us up a curved flight of marble steps to the first floor, pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket and holding it over his nose and mouth. We walked down a long hallway towards a set of double doors and as we got closer I noticed a terrible smell. The man mumbled something behind his hankie, which sounded like ‘Sorry about the mess’ and then disappeared off down the corridor again.
‘Cor blimey. Something stinks,’ said Mummy, reaching for the ornate door handle.
As she opened the door, a huge room came into view. There was hardly any furniture, just a few chairs round the edges of the room.
‘What the bleedin’ hell’s all this?’ Mummy exclaimed.
The floor was covered with lots of beautiful rugs, but every square inch of them was strewn with food–mainly sticky grains of rice, but there were also chunks of meat and bones. Silver platters sat in the middle, some still piled high with food, which had rotted and was fit only for the giant bluebottles that flew from one dish to another. I pointed out what looked like a sheep’s head to Mummy and she made a face.
‘There’s been some bleedin’ party here,’ she said, wrinkling her nose.
She gave me a black bag to fill and we worked side by side all afternoon. By the time we left, the room was as clean as it was going to get without the use of an industrial-strength hose. The man in the suit was very pleased and pressed a large wad of notes into Mummy’s hand. All the way home she kept saying ‘Oh my God’ and looking into her bag to see if the money was still there.
When Dad saw how much the man had given her, he was suspicious. ‘What did you have to do to get that?’
‘They’re sheikhs, Frank. This is small change to them. And I’d still be there shovelling sheeps’ heads now if I hadn’t had her to help me.’ She jerked her thumb towards me.
Mummy thought I had done such a good job that she let me stay off school the next day too. She took me on another job in a place in Notting Hill and this time she let me polish the furniture with a yellow duster and a can of Mr Sheen.
‘Is this alright, Mummy?’ I asked, eager to please.
‘That’s it, Lisa. Give it some elbow grease,’ she urged.
I felt so happy. Not only was I away from Susan Jackson, but it seemed Mummy was actually pleased with me for once.
When we’d finished, Mummy called up a narrow dark stairway, ‘I’ll be off now.’ I had heard somebody using a typewriter up there while I’d been going around with my duster. The door opened at the top of the stairs and a man with greased-back grey hair came down. He wore baggy green corduroy trousers and a pair of small glasses hung on a cord around his neck. As he paid Mummy for the work, he looked at me and asked ‘Shouldn’t she be at school?’
‘She’s ill,’ said Mumm
y.
‘Is she now?’ he said, bending down to look at me. ‘She looks well enough to me. What’s wrong with you, sweetheart?’
I didn’t know what to say so I looked up at Mummy for help, and she nodded as if I should tell the truth. So I did. ‘Nothing’s wrong with me. Mummy needed a hand with the cleaning, that’s all.’
He seemed surprised and took Mummy off to a corner, wagging his finger at her.
I could tell she was fuming when we got out on the street.
‘What the fuck did you say that for?’ she demanded. ‘You trying to get me in trouble?’
‘No, Mummy,’ I replied, upset that I’d annoyed her.
‘Nosey old bastard. What right has he got to lecture me, the cunt? He can stuff his fucking job.’
Whenever Mummy took me cleaning I tried my best to do a good job, and hoped that she and I would get closer once we were working together like this but she never said ‘Well done’ or ‘Thanks’ or ‘Aren’t you a good girl?’ If anything, she acted as though it was a nuisance having me around. I would have done anything for a hug or a few words of praise but they were never forthcoming. She wasn’t that kind of a mother, I supposed. She wasn’t the cuddly type.
Chapter Six
By the time I was eight years old I had finally stopped wetting the bed at night but my bladder remained on a hair trigger, and sometimes when Dad was at his most threatening, he’d only need to make a sudden lunge towards me and I would wet myself before his slap had even connected. He’d been living with us for four years, almost as long as I could remember, and he was as volatile as ever. At various times, one or all of us would be ostracised. When it was your turn, you had to stay in your bedroom and nobody was allowed to talk to you while Dad was at home. Although the silent treatment had its benefits–Dad didn’t scream in your face for a start–it also carried with it a great cloud of menace, which was somehow even more frightening.