Oh, there’s one more thing I want to tell you about. Mam’s dresser, the place where me, Mam and Agnes pampered ourselves. It was voluptuous, Stephan, made with sections of varnished mahogany that slotted together like a Chinese puzzle. On it were rows and rows of creams and tonics and lacquers and oils. Tiny hinged boxes filled with scented powders. Perfumes in etched glass bottles. All kinds of secret compartments. Occasionally, during our beauty sessions, I’d glimpse the book Mam kept in one of the drawers, tucked away with her frillies. The bookworm inside me started wriggling, so one Saturday night while Mam and Dad were down the Labour Club, and Nana snored her head off downstairs, I snuck in and grabbed it. The book was called ‘Beguiling Femininity.’ Opening it at random, I read:
“A mother can become an artist, and an artist a mother; but a woman who is artist alone exhibits to an empty gallery.”
I went through the whole thing cover to cover and had it back in the drawer before my folks got home. I showed it to Una once, too. You’ll see what she thought of it next time.
Right. I know this is crackers, but I think I might have another bath. My fingers are un-pruning. Unacceptable!
Jean x
7/8/1991
Dear Stephan,
Sorry this has taken so long, but I’ve been ill. I won’t bore you with the details, but it boiled down to swapping white tablets for yellow capsules. I’m necking so many pills these days, most of them just to counteract the side effects of other pills again. It’s a balancing act. It’s Buckaroo! Me and Alan used to play that for hours when he was a bairn. I think it’s still in the loft somewhere.
But staying positive is half the battle, so to that end I got Alan to bring home some brochures from the travel agents. I want to go somewhere while I still have the strength. There are so many places I’d love to see: the Taj Mahal, the Golden Gate Bridge, Machu Pichu, the Northern Lights…but deep down I know they’re all too far away and too expensive. But somewhere closer to home could be possible. The Amalfi coast looks lovely, and I’ve never been to Paris. My only trip abroad was Majorca the week Elvis died. ‘Love Me Tender’ on every radio. Still the only Spanish I know: El Rey es muerto.
Back in the 1960s, Australia wanted British people to emigrate, and I always thought that sounded like an adventure. I’d seen Australia in books. Ayres Rock, maroon at sunset, looked magical.
Una didn’t agree. ‘I want to go to places that aren’t in books,’ she said.
‘Like where?’
‘Dunno. They aren’t in the books.’
I was on the floor, painting my toenails. Una bent over my dresser, fingering my bottles and creams.
‘But Australia’s as far from England as you can go,’ I said. ‘It’s tomorrow there already, and water goes down the plughole backwards.’
Una sniffed my bottle of Aqua Manda. ‘All you’d be doing is swapping this grey drudgery for their sweaty one.’ She grabbed ‘Beguiling Femininity’ from my bookcase (Mam had recently given it to me, obviously thinking me ready for its teachings), brandished it like a Bible and she a priest at an exorcism. ‘They’ll have this shite down there n’all. Her what wrote it’s fucked in the head.’
I’ve never been a fan of the f-word. I said, ‘What’s wrong with keeping house and looking nice for your husband? He has his duties too, you know. Marriage is a partnership.’
Una flopped face down onto the bed. ‘I’d rather top myself.’
‘For a family to function, it’s important that men and women know their duties.’
Blankets muffled her voice. ‘Twice you’ve used that word.’
‘Because if they don’t, the children will–’
‘Grow up rotten?’
‘That’s not what I was going to say.’
She rolled onto her back. ‘People think I’m the weird one for seeing this place for what it is.’
‘My parents like it here.’
‘Do you?’
I thought about it. Or rather, I thought about what I’d already thought about: how I quietly approved of the way Loom Street sloped gently down to Stanhope Street. How it was Michelle’s birthday in a couple of weeks, and how we Thornaby girls were going to have a pyjama party and play records and drink the bottle of peach brandy Kerry’s big sister had slipped her on the sly. I had daydreams too, which I kept deep down, about having my own home one day. Sunflower wallpaper in the living room, bugger what the council said. I’d throw my own N.Y.E. parties with my own daughter taking the coats, clicking her heels like Dorothy in the Emerald City. I thought about how, when I imagined this future home, it always had the same dimensions as my home on Loom Street.
‘This is a good place,’ I said. ‘And the people are nice. I’ve got friends here.’
‘Your posh-school friends would just love me. They’ll make me beautiful, just like you.’
‘That’s not fair. You don’t know them.’
‘And why’s that, Jean?’
We let that hang in the air. Una lolled her head upside down off the edge of the bed. ‘Your Nana’s right, you know,’ she said. ‘People aren’t supposed to live like this.’
‘When Nana was our age she didn’t have running water or central heating or inside toilets or nothing. No council to fix anything. At least now everyone has a nice home.’
Una popped her elbows.
‘Will you stop that? It’s horrible.’
Her upside-down eyes regarded me seriously. ‘Do you remember when I went into that pipe?’
I still had the bramble scar on my wrist. ‘Yes.’
‘I never told you what I saw down there, did I?’
Feigning disinterest, I finished painting my right toes and moved onto the left.
‘It was horrible, Jean.’
I started with the little one.
‘Really awful.’
‘OK, what?’ I said.
‘Seriously.’
‘WHAT?’
Una closed her inky eyes, ‘I saw…nowt, Jean. Absolutely nowt, and this whole estate is built on nowt. Is still being built.’ That year, cranes had moved onto the north-western edge of the estate and begun erecting a horseshoe of steel grids that diced the sky as far back as you could tip your head. Soon to be some of the biggest tower blocks in the country, apparently: twenty-two storeys, God knew how many flats. The papers were full of the overcrowding, the ructions, the riots of such places. They weren’t built properly, either, slotted together from pre-fabricated slabs. A gas explosion had collapsed a whole side of one in Glasgow, killing dozens. The estate was up in arms, of course – only scunners would be desperate enough to live in such places.
I said to Una, ‘Just because you’re unhappy here, doesn’t mean everyone else is.’
‘You think they’re happy?’
‘Just let me do my nails.’
She framed the air with fingers and thumbs. ‘I can see it now, Mrs Jean Sadsack. You do a smashing suet pudding, and know how to get grass stains out. Mr Sadsack knocks you up a few times and your little Sadsacks are As Good As Gold. Well done Jean! Now, all that’s left to do is kill time ’til you’re a frumpy old biddy with shopping cutting into your fingers.’ Upside down, Una’s grimace was a grin. ‘But the worst thing is, you teach your kids to reset the trap.’
I was so sick of her crassness. So sick of her. My toes doubled through my tears. ‘I’ve got homework,’ I said.
Una left without saying goodbye. There was pink nail varnish all over my little toe: Wee wee wee, all the way home.
Are they happy, my folks? I don’t know. They’re people, and people aren’t the same thing from one day to the next, though my belief now is that happiness is not virtue, but work. It’s a constant fight to keep the darkness supressed. I’m pretty sure Una knew this even back then.
Will try not to take so long with next letter.
Jean x
22/8/1991
Dear Stephan,
Remember I told you Alan had an accident when he was fifteen? Well, that was a fib. It wasn’t an accident, it was attempted murder. Some bullies played a trick on him and he almost fell down a well. Thank God he didn’t, but he damaged some important muscles in his leg and won’t ever walk right again. The poor soul still has nightmares about it and wakes up screaming. Vincent thumps on the wall when he does and I want to go to him, but I can’t. He’s twenty-two. He’d be embarrassed.
Me and Alan don’t talk about the future. It’s just too big and, in some ways, boring. But the other day, as we were watching the telly, I could feel him struggling with something.
Then out it came: ‘I’m a horrible son.’
‘Why?’
‘Because all I can think about is once you’re gone, I’m going to be left with him.’
Stephan, what is a mother supposed to say to that?
It used to be different. Vincent didn’t leave Alan’s side when he was a boy. His firstborn son – nothing on Earth could have got between them, but as time passed they began to repel each other the way magnets do when you point their wrong ends together. It killed me to watch them both struggle with it: the more Alan tried to disappear, the more Vincent denied it and, at some point, his denial curdled. See, Vincent’s relationship with his own father, Trevor, had been strained enough to come to blows more than once. Trevor was one of nine men killed in the Upton Hill blast furnace explosion of 1972, and although he’s never said, I know it’s always pained Vincent that they never settled their differences. I think he worries about repeating the same mistakes with Alan, but there’s anger there, too. He can’t help but see his son’s withdrawal as a personal slight. An F-you.
At least that’s my take. Getting you men to talk about their feelings? Fat chance.
In Alan’s eyes, me and Vincent represent two entirely different things, but in my heart of hearts I just don’t know. When the police said they weren’t going to do anything to the boys who tried to murder my son, I nearly lost my mind. I wanted to kill. Wanted to throttle someone until their eyes filled with blood. The dad of one of the boys actually brought his son round here to apologise, but Vincent…well, he took it out on the dad instead. It was ugly. I knew him, the dad. He’s called Bernie, and we even courted for a while before Vincent came along. Bernie is a good man and I never thought I’d wish him harm, but that day I hated him. And as Vincent did that awful thing to him, all I remember thinking was: THIS IS WHAT YOU GET. I’ve since tried telling myself this bloodlust was just maternal instinct, but I’m not so sure.
When I told my parents that Vincent had asked me to the pictures, Dad put his foot down. ‘That lad is headed for bad things.’
I was seventeen, thought I knew stuff. ‘You don’t even know him.’
‘I know his Dad.’
‘Vincent’s not his Dad!’
‘You’re too young.’
Mam chipped in, ‘She’s the same age I was when we met. What would’ve happened to us if your dad had had his way?’
Checkmate. Dad was lacing up his boots for the nightshift at the steelworks. He’d been on nights for a while by then, and his skin was like rice paper. ‘I don’t have time for this,’ he said, and huffed out.
When he was gone, Mam took me upstairs to do my hair.
Mam is an incredible stylist. Seriously – an artist, and self-taught. On some estates back then it wasn’t considered ‘respectable’ for a woman to earn her own money. Can you imagine? But it was OK here, and she did most of Loom Street. Practical stuff mostly: short back and sides, trims, the odd Ringo or Peggy Moffitt, but for my date I really let her show her chops. We decided on a Mary Quant, who, alongside Audrey Hepburn, was a hero of mine.
While Mam worked, I asked her how she’d met Dad. Isn’t it strange how most bairns don’t know? It was during the war, she said. Dad worked on Smith Docks and couldn’t fight on account of being nearly deaf in one ear. His family lived a few streets over from hers in St Esther, the old slums, and when Dad had leave he’d pal around with Mam’s brother, my uncle Neville. That’s how she got to know Dad and fall in love. Dad was nearly ten years older, which was apparently the least of the reasons why Mam’s dad – my Granddad – was against it. Granddad died before I was born, but from what I can gather he was a hard man with a weakness for greyhounds and a hair-trigger temper. (Not long before Nana passed away, I’d asked her again how she’d got that scar on her ankle. She said he’d thrown a fire poker at her.) Between Granddad and the war, Mam and Dad didn’t see much of each other – moonlit strolls weren’t exactly advisable. Middlesbrough was one of the first places in England the Luftwaffe targeted, and at night bombs rained. It was scary, Mam said, but also exciting. She was living through something important. When the war ended, Dad was discharged and got a job at Redcar steelworks. They got married and I came along pretty soon after. When they heard about the plans to demolish St. Esther and build the Burn Estate, they put their names on the list.
Isn’t it funny how the lives of others go from A to B in a way yours never quite can?
I asked Mam if she was happy.
The comb caught painfully in my hair. ‘What makes you ask that?’
‘No reason. Just something me and Una talked about once.’
She attacked my tangles with renewed passion. ‘That girl…I’ve been putting off saying this, but I want you to stop seeing her.’
‘Why?’
‘Jean, love, I trust you. That’s why I’m letting you go out with this Vincent boy. I’ve raised you right so I know you’ll be sensible. But Una never had that, and now she’s wild. Girls your age can get in trouble. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?’
By then I did.
But Mam needn’t have worried. I barely saw Una at all. I had other friends, I was popular and boys liked me. I even had a boyfriend of sorts – Bernie, who I’ve mentioned. Una didn’t fit into any of that. I had no idea what she did anymore, or where she did it, or who with, but that was OK with me. Her slow fade from Loom Street suited my self-centredness down to the ground.
I say all this to my shame.
Alan has never asked how I met Vincent, so I’ll tell you.
I’d just started in the typing pool at Littlefairs Confectionary when Cath Stoker’s youngest Betty went missing. Betty was six or so, and my favourite of the Stoker bairns. She had curly red hair and freckles and a gap between her front teeth you could slide a ha’penny through. We used to pin her down and blow raspberries on her belly. A lovely girl. I remember how my heart stopped twenty years later when the film ‘Annie’ came out. It was like seeing her ghost.
She just didn’t come in for tea one night. After the police searches and interviews and whatnot came to nothing, the whole estate turned out to look. Mr Johansson organised Loom Street into teams. He lived down the end and had been a captain on D-Day, or so Dad said. Everybody was there. Well, I say everybody – Talitha and George weren’t. But Una was. She’d liked Betty too. It had been a while since I’d seen my friend and she looked thinner and paler than ever. We ignored each other.
My team was sent to search the derelict waterworks. I’ve mentioned the waterworks in passing a couple of times already, but they deserve more as they are important to this story – my story – in more ways than one. Before the war, the works used to supply the old slums like St Esther, but then the Nazis bombed it and the blackened shell was left to crumble on the eastern edge of the estate. A wide expanse of waste ground surrounded the ruins – piles of rubble and nettles and weeds – the kind of place mothers warned their children to avoid, which of course made it all the more tempting. Alan was terrified of the place when he was a bairn, especially the cement water tower, because the top of it loomed over the houses from wherever you were on the estate. He’d seen ‘War of the Worlds’ and
was convinced the tower was an alien tripod just biding its time, waiting to reactivate and start death-raying all and sundry. Bless him. There was also a well at the works – the same one those horrible boys almost murdered my Alan in, and he hasn’t been the only one. For example, only a couple of years ago, some young people threw a party – a ‘rave’ I believe is the term – at the works, which ended in arson and violence, and one poor lad lying crippled at the bottom of that well. I hear the whole place is due to be knocked down and built over soon, and it’s about bloody time.
Anyway, back to Betty Stoker. Our team spread out when we got to the waterworks, and I found myself on the wasteland, in a clearing of weeds. The well was there. In those days, it still had a metal safety grille over it. I hadn’t been to the well in years, but as bairns me and Una had sometimes lain across it, our ears pushed between the bars, listening to the rising whispers from below. I thought I could still hear something, and I considered spreading myself across the drop once more but there were too many neighbours nearby, calling for Betty, so I moved on.
I’d never liked the waterworks itself. Secretly, I was half-convinced it was slowly coming out of the ground, like a tooth, rather than sinking into it. The sun had a hard time inside. Bombs had blackened the walls and left them ripe for collapsing on you, like in one of Una’s ghost stories. Rusted water valves stuck out of the floor like the taps of giants. Inside the main hall, tumble-down inner walls and bird-crapped columns held up nothing. I saw a couple of old, shrivelled johnnys on the ground where two corners of a wall came together. I called out for Betty and the sound mushroomed horribly.
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