Maud sighed. ‘I’m just tired, Audrey. Tired. My joints hurt, my rheumatism hasn’t got any better you know. Look at my hands . . . and my knees are not far behind. But yes, I suppose something did happen. The new assistant housekeeper doesn’t like me much. She’s told me off a few times, says I keep forgetting to put things away or that I’m taking too long with the Hoover when others need it. And I s’pose it’s been grinding me down. She’s always having a go, but never when anyone else is around, until pay day, when she shouted at me in front of everyone.’
‘How dare she? I’ll go up there and give her a piece of my mind!’ Audrey was indignant on her aunt’s behalf.
‘No, no,’ Maud patted Audrey’s hand. ‘It’s alright, love, some of the other bedders had a word with her after she shouted at me. We were all queuing for our wages and when she called me over she near screamed at me, said I’d left a window open and that it was irresponsible. Said there could of been an intruder come in or anything. But I don’t remember leaving it open, Audrey, really I don’t.’ She shook her head slowly.
‘You probably didn’t, Maud, she sounds like a right bully.’ ‘That’s what the other bedders told her, “Don’t bully Maud, how do you know it was her left the window open?” they asked, and she went quiet then.’
‘Right,’ Audrey tried to sound decisive, ‘you’re going to have to stand up to her.’ But she knew that was impossible for Maud, who she’d never seen argue with anyone. Audrey had had only ever seen her lose her temper once before, and that was when she was defending ‘her boys’ against a woman at the hairdresser’s who said all the students were on drugs. Audrey knew that she would never stand up to this woman.
‘Thanks, love,’ Maud said, as if Audrey had helped in some way. ‘Best if I leave though. I’ll be alright, I can sleep in, can’t I, if I quit work? Maybe I’ll start going to the caravan more. I’ll have time on me hands and I might like it.’
Audrey reached across the table and pushed Maud’s head up so that she could see her eyes, which were fixed on the floor. ‘Are you really sure, Maud? You love your boys. What about Simon?’
‘He’s gone, love, left to go to America, he said. Anyway, it’s too late. On my way home Friday I stopped at the pay phone and called the housekeeper and said I wouldn’t be in again, so not to expect me. Maybe I should have left a long time ago. But Audrey, I need you to write a letter for me, to explain like.’
In all the time that she’d known her, Audrey had never seen Maud write anything longer or more difficult than a shopping list. ‘Yes, of course I will.’
She fetched a writing pad and pen. ‘We’ll just tell them you’re not well and explain that you’ll be back in a couple of weeks, maybe get the doctor to write a note too, shall we?’
Maud burst into tears.
‘Oh Maud, it’s alright you know, you’re gonna be alright.’ Audrey felt like crying too.
Maud shook her head and it was a few minutes before she could say, ‘I’ve bottled it up for so long. I think I’m just relieved to be gone from there, there are too many reminders for me lately. I’ve had enough of pretending, Audrey.’
After asking what she meant, over the next hour Audrey heard the story of Maud’s life and all about Hugh. Audrey wasn’t shocked by the revelation about him, and in fact she had known for a couple of years about his being a ‘poofter’. She had heard it was a long-standing joke at the Post Office that workers on the late shifts should be careful out walking near the public loos as they might get mistaken for an Ingram; they all knew what he was up to.
Maud continued to explain how after Hugh had died she started to feel guilty, that she should have taken him to hospital that morning and they might have saved his life. She also told Audrey about Trevor from the college and how she had made a mistake in giving him Hugh’s clothes. ‘He wore them every day after I left them there, to torment me I think. Not when he was working, though. When I was clocking in he would be clocking out and there he would stand at the gate wearing Hugh’s hat or his jacket, something anyway, there was always something of his, and it’d give me a fright sometimes seeing him in the mist, looking just like my Hugh, and him not saying a word.
‘But I never said a word to him, neither. Then, one day out of the blue, about five years ago, I was off work with the flu that had been going round the college and the next day Bertha Mizen came round with a letter from him. She said Trevor had hung himself at home, and he left that note addressed to me. Bertha hadn’t opened it, she just handed it to me and told me what had happened. I asked her not to tell anyone about the letter and trusted her: I still do. For a week or so everyone at the college was told that Trevor was off sick, but after the inquest, it was hard to hide what had happened. They were all talking about him committing suicide saying he couldn’t live with being a poof. No mention of Hugh though, thank God. I’ve still got that letter, Audrey, I kept it hidden in my sewing basket, and never opened it.’ At that Maud buried her face in her hands and wept.
‘It’s alright, Maud, you’re going to be alright,’ Audrey tried to soothe her, ‘just burn that letter, or better still let me burn it, it’s been years that you’ve been carrying it around. What’s it going to tell you that you don’t already know? Hey?’
Maud nodded and felt a surge of something that seemed like a release. She continued to cry as Audrey cradled her in her arms, holding back her own tears.
The college accepted Maud’s resignation and sent her flowers and cards from the staff and students. Audrey read a letter to her from the college explaining that she would always be welcome back and to expect invitations to the staff Christmas dinners. Audrey also told her, ‘They said you can go on the trip to Great Yarmouth in the summer if you want.’
‘I won’t bother,’ Maud smiled, ‘but that’s nice of them ain’t it? They have been good to me I s’pose.’
Two days later Maud visited a doctor who told her she had suffered a nervous breakdown, and their remedy was that she take ‘a little holiday’. Audrey wished it had been a real break, away somewhere in the sun, perhaps. Maud never wanted to go far from home, but it still didn’t seem fair to Audrey that her aunt was prescribed pills and took her ‘rest’, as she called it, at the psychiatric hospital in Fulbourn. It wasn’t to be her last ‘holiday’ there, though.
ANN
Cambridge 1962 onwards
The first few years after the arrival of a fourth child in the Adams house made everyone happy. The girls loved having a little brother and Fred was besotted with his son. He wanted to take him to watch Cambridge United play football at the Abbey Stadium before Kenneth was three weeks old, but sense prevailed (and it took at least six months until he became a United supporter). The family’s sense of contentment was upset however, when Shirley’s bump on the head from a swing turned out to have horrible after-effects. It didn’t happen immediately after the accident, but several months later Shirley suffered a small fit unlike anything that Ann had ever seen before. She didn’t fall to the floor shaking and twitching, but her eyes glazed over and she slumped in the kitchen chair she was sitting on and, although she looked awake, she couldn’t speak to answer her mum, who kept asking what was wrong.
‘It was as if she’d become a waxwork,’ as Ann tried to explain it to Fred, ‘for about three minutes it was like there was no one in her body.’ Which was how Ann explained it to the doctor after it happened again, a week later. He sent them to the hospital, where Shirley spent a whole day being looked at, prodded, questioned and examined. When finally they were allowed to leave, Ann told Fred, ‘They said she might keep having small seizures – “petty mal” they called it – or she might not. They’re not able to say. We should’ve taken her straight to the doctors after the accident, they said.’
Fred felt terrible and Ann tried to share the guilt for not taking the accident more seriously. It soon became clear that Shirley would have a seizure at least once a month and although they were not that bad, her parents had to make sure she wa
s not left alone for too long, in case she had a fit and fell, hitting her head.
Her school were told and they tried to make sure Shirley was watched as much as possible. Glenis was instructed to look after her when she could, too, which meant that she missed a lot of after-school sports activities which she had really taken to, in order to get Shirley home at the end of the day. After a while everyone accepted that Shirley would have a ‘petty mal’, go quiet and feel exhausted for a couple of hours after it, so needed a lot of rest. Her schooling suffered, and she was moved into a small class with children who were having difficulty keeping up with the others. Soon enough the Adams family adapted to the new kind of normal life in which their Shirl sometimes went ‘funny’. They coped well enough and never complained.
Early in the new decade though, the family were devastated by another illness that affected the youngest Adams child. It had been an ordinary Saturday afternoon, and the by now thirteen-year-old Glenis was seated at the kitchen table when Ann came into the kitchen carrying a limp-looking Kenneth, who had the measles, in her arms. She put his almost lifeless body on the table and said, ‘Call an ambulance, Glen, Kenny’s not good.’ Ann’s voice remained calm but Glenis could see the panic in every movement her mum made, as she frantically started to pat his whole body with a towel that she’d wet under the tap. It didn’t seem to lower the heat radiating from his body, though.
‘Go, go to phone box, take some pennies from the jar. Go on Glen, go.’
Glenis did as instructed, ran to the phone box on the corner, dialled 999 and asked for an ambulance – then she redialled but received no answer at the other end and so rushed back to the house almost in tears. ‘You’ve got to call the doctor they said,’ Glenis blurted as soon as she opened the kitchen door, ‘they won’t come unless the doctor says so.’
‘Did you try Dr Silverstein at the surgery?’ Ann was still trying to stay calm.
‘I did but there’s no answer. What do I do now, Mum?’ she begged
Being a Saturday, Fred had taken Shirley and Dot to the football thinking that Kenny only had the measles and would be alright. Glenis stood at the door looking on in shock at how ill her little brother was, and waited for further instructions.
‘Try again, just keep trying until someone answers,’ Ann told her. Glenis ran back to the phone box and after several more attempts finally got through to the doctor and begged for him to come and see her brother. Finally, the doctor arrived, took one look at Kenny and told them both, ‘We haven’t got time to wait for an ambulance. I’ll take him in my car.’
For months, six-year-old Kenny lay in intensive care at Brookfields Hospital. He had contracted meningitis. During that time Fred seemed lost, and Ann was in bits and hardly said a word to any of them. There was an unusual sense of calmness and quiet about the house. What was most unusual for the girls was their parents not speaking to each other. They were used to their mum and dad’s closeness, which was never expressed in shows of physical affection in front of the children, but rather in their sharing household jobs such as washing up together, tidying up, and always talking about things together. They would be in the garden together gardening or tending the vegetables and they’d be chatting away. It was sweet to watch, but now they were rarely seen in the same room together. Thankfully, Grace and Jack came in every day to cook for them and help Glenis get Dorothy and Shirley off to school. ‘This will change them, whatever the outcome,’ Nana Pilcher told Glenis one morning before school. It already has, thought Glenis.
When he was allowed to return home, Kenny was no longer the sweet little boy who loved to kick a football around with his dad, or the little brother who followed his sisters around everywhere; he was permanently brain damaged and had severe epilepsy. His condition meant that the family had to adjust in many ways, and the house became uncomfortable; Ken had to have his own room and special bed, which meant that they needed another bedroom. Fred, who had changed his employment from bricklayer to binman after Kenny was born, applied to the council for a larger house, and was rewarded with one pretty quickly, sited a half mile from Queen’s Meadow, in Fisher’s Lane.
It didn’t take long for the family to settle into their new house, but they found it much harder to settle into the kind of contented unit that they had been before Kenny’s illness. Brain damage had altered his behaviour and loosened his self-control. Fred had decorated the house before they’d moved in, but Kenny soon redecorated it by writing ‘open’ and ‘close’ on every door, window and drawer, as well as on his toys and the walls. As soon as Ann had put something away he got it out again. He had become grumpy and inconsolable, was restless and uncontrollable by anyone, Fred included. The adults’ relationship suffered badly and they argued over the best way to deal with their son.
One Sunday afternoon, Glenis sat on the stairs listening to Fred and Ann arguing. Their voices grew louder and Fred began to shout. When she heard the sound of things being thrown about Glenis became genuinely scared, so she ran to the phone box in order to call the police. They came to the house but Ann told them it was nothing, ‘Just a domestic.’ They left and Ann warned Glenis never, ever to do that again. ‘We keep it in the family, you understand?’
Finally, in 1963 Ann made the decision to send Kenny to a day school in Cambridge for handicapped children, the Lady Adrian in Courtney Way. She also arranged for Shirley, who was now ten years old, to be schooled there. ‘It makes perfect sense,’ she told her. ‘You can travel with Kenny on the bus. Me or Glen will walk you both to the top of the road for the special bus that’ll take you there. When you’re there you can keep an eye on him. You know, make sure he comes to no harm. We don’t want him to feel like he’s being sent away.’
‘But what about my friends?’ Shirley pleaded with her mother. ‘I’m not handicapped like Kenny, Mum. I just have a few fits.’
‘Well, they said you can go and I want it that way.’
So Shirley and Ken were sent to the Lady Adrian, just as Glenis was preparing to leave school. Aged fifteen, she’d arranged a hairdressing apprenticeship at Rust’s Hairdressers but, unfortunately, the cost of getting to the job and the clothes and equipment she needed to keep it up proved too much. Instead, Glenis took a job in the offices of the Co-op where she worked for a year, until applying for and getting a job she really wanted, at Boots the chemist. By then Dorothy was working in the shoe department of a store on Burleigh Street.
Ann and Fred still had two kids to be kept in food, clothes and shoes then, and they were struggling financially. Fred kept at his day job as a binman, and he and Ann had taken to working together as night cleaners at the Pye factory. From six until nine in the evening Fred worked the heavy cleaning machinery while Ann cleaned the canteen. They were also preparing for another move. This time to Mowbray Road, which was closer to town and Bet’s house, allowing the sisters to care for each other’s children more if possible. However, although Kenny was getting good school reports and was well behaved at the Lady Adrian, who said that he enjoyed learning, he grew more and more difficult to handle when at home. So when Shirley was about to leave school and looking for work, Ann knew she would not be able to cope with Kenny’s high energy and seizures on her own. So she and Fred found a special school in Lowestoft for Kenny to board at, which would be paid for jointly by the department of education and NHS.
‘He’ll be back in the holidays and we’ll visit him at the weekends, he’s not being shut away,’ she told the family when explaining the arrangements. ‘It’s very difficult for him, you know. Every time Kenny gets excited he has a fit, you see that. We have to have an ambulance out every time he kicks a football, and every time he has a fit his brain becomes more damaged. At this school he’ll be watched all the time.’ After taking the decision, Ann suffered some sleepless nights during which she’d punish herself for doing to Kenny what her own mother had done to Joy and then Johnny. During daylight hours though, Ann reconciled her conscience with the thought that her son was much olde
r than Joy and Johnny had been when they were sent away, plus he genuinely seemed to be happier with other boys around and being constantly cared for.
When Kenny was settled in Suffolk, Ann had more time to find paid work (and hoped to lose herself in being busy), and for the first time in their long marriage, Fred told her that, ‘You can get a job now up one o’ them colleges, and maybe even take our Shirl with you.’ Which is when Ann mentioned to Rose that she’d like to get a job as a bedder.
While sounding out Rose, Ann and Fred were still finding it hard to make ends meet. Ann was loath to throw things away that she thought could be mended – often to the embarrassment of her daughters, who began to despair of ever seeing her wear anything that didn’t have patches and stitches in it. Nothing was ever done with in Ann’s home until it had been completely used up. One day Glenis entered the house and wrinkled her nose at a terrible smell of burning rubber. Poking her head into the front room she found Ann stoking the fireplace, in which a pair of old boots were smouldering. ‘What are you doing, Mum, it stinks in here!’
‘Hello, love.’ Ann smiled up at her daughter and turned back to poking the smoking boots. ‘They had a hole in ’em. Waste not want not, eh?’
Fred had discovered the benefits of other people’s discarded possessions and he often brought home some of them, regarding it as one of the perks of his job. He and his team of refuse collectors would split the ‘valuables’ from the bins they emptied. The first time Fred returned with something, he gave Ann his wage packet along with a stunning-looking brooch. ‘What do you think, Annie?’ he smiled.
‘It don’t look valuable,’ she told him, holding it up to the light, ‘but it’s pretty costume jewellery.’ She smiled and wore it pinned to her pinafore that night as they cleaned.
A month later Fred presented her with a diamond-studded cross and Ann was chuffed to get £10 for it at the pawn shop. With the money she was able to buy Glenis a record player for her birthday. ‘The things people throw away, I don’t get it. Must have money to burn,’ she never tired of saying to Fred as he handed his ‘treasure’ to her.
The Staircase Girls Page 25