I Did Tell, I Did

by Cassie Harte

  When Uncle Bill came to visit Mum at the house, I was often sent out into the garden to play for a while because they said they had grown-up business to discuss, but after they’d finished, Bill sometimes took me out. We’d have picnics together in the park, or he’d take me for a drive on his motorbike. He and Dad were both motorbike enthusiasts and our families would all meet up at rallies. Bill was married to a woman called Gwen, who was always nice to me when I saw her although I don’t think she and Mum got on. I can’t remember Gwen coming to the rallies very often, but when she did she would usually stand with my dad, or with her four sons, who were just a bit older than me.

  One time Bill and I won a competition at a rally, where he was riding on his bike and I was sitting on the petrol tank holding an egg and spoon. It was the first thing I had ever won in my life and I was over the moon about it. The judges gave Uncle Bill a silver cup that gleamed in the sunshine and he handed it to me.

  ‘I’ve got lots of cups at home, Cassie,’ he smiled. ‘You keep this one.’

  It was quite heavy and I could hardly hold it, but I was so ecstatic to have this little bit of treasure that I struggled to keep it in my grasp. Then Mum saw it.

  ‘Give that back straight away,’ she hissed. ‘You’re not bringing that home. It’s Bill’s cup, not yours. You don’t deserve it.’

  And so I had no choice but to hand it over to Uncle Bill, all the while struggling to hold back my tears.

  Every child needs to feel special to someone, and I knew I was special to Uncle Bill. He’s the only person who ever hugged me as a child, or who told me that he loved me. He brought me presents—little things like new socks, my favourite sweetie cigarettes or a tiny bar of chocolate—and he took an interest in me. He kept telling me how clever I was, and what a great dancer, and he was always asking me to walk across the room on tippy-toes for him, or he’d put the radio on and ask me to do a little dance.

  He was my godfather, my special uncle, and he paid attention to me rather than Tom or Ellen or Rosie. I felt proud when we rode off down the road on his bike with me balanced on the petrol tank. Proud that at least I had someone who cared about me, someone whose life I hadn’t ruined by being born.

  Chapter Two

  When I was about four years old Ellen and Rosie went off to board in a Sunshine School. These were special schools for children who had suffered physical or emotional trauma during the war, and I assume they were sent there because of the trauma they’d experienced when Mum’s house had been bombed. It was in a large naval port and had been hit twice, the second hit completely destroying it.

  Although the age difference was too great for us to have been close, I really missed my sisters once they were gone. It was just Tom and me left in the house with Mum: Tom the favourite, and me the unloved, unwanted child. Dad came home from work late, and once Tom started school it was just Mum and me in the house during the day, and she hated that with a passion. It seemed I was always under her feet, no matter how hard I tried not to annoy her.

  Every morning Mum used to make me sit and brush my hair a hundred times on each side. Of course, I couldn’t count to a hundred in those days but I knew it was a big number and that I had to keep on brushing for ages until she said I could stop. One morning Mum had gone into the back garden and I could hear her chatting over the fence to Mrs Rogers, our neighbour. I sat in front of the electric bar heater, brushing and brushing, trying to make my hair gleam in the hope that Mum would be pleased with me.

  Suddenly I heard a crackling noise and when I looked up into the mirror I saw flames shooting out from the side of my head. I rushed out into the garden screaming as loud as I could, ‘Mum! Help!’

  The flames flared up into a big bright mass as I reached the two women. Mrs Rogers had been hanging out her laundry and she quickly grabbed a wet towel from her basket and threw it over my head, putting the fire out. There was a sizzling noise and a strong smell of burning.

  When Mum pulled the towel off, I was horrified to see that huge clumps of my hair were still in it, having come away from my scalp.

  ‘You stupid girl!’ Mum yelled, smacking me hard across the back of the head. ‘You were sitting too close to the heater, weren’t you?’ She slapped my face. ‘Look what you’ve done.’ Mrs Rogers was more sympathetic. ‘Poor thing, you must have got such a fright.’

  ‘Fright? I’ll give her a fright!’ Mum commented before saying to me, ‘Get back inside and I’ll deal with you in a minute.’ She turned to our neighbour again. ‘She’s the blight of my life, that one. You’ve got no idea what I have to put up with from her.’

  Back inside, she sat me on the tall kitchen stool and started roughly chopping the rest of my hair off with a big pair of scissors. I cried quietly to myself as she yanked my head to one side then the other, muttering the whole time: ‘Stupid girl. Can’t even be trusted to brush her own hair without causing trouble.’

  Fortunately the flames hadn’t burned my scalp, but my hair was so badly singed that Mum had to crop it close all over and I looked like a boy when she’d finished. When I peered in the mirror, I didn’t recognise myself at first, and I was sad because Uncle Bill always told me I had such lovely hair. He wouldn’t be saying that now. I was definitely Plain Jane.

  Dad seemed really shocked when he got home. ‘Did you need to cut it back so far, Kath?’ he asked sadly.

  ‘You didn’t see the state of her!’ Mum cried. ‘She could have had the whole house up in flames.’

  He backed down straight away. It was never worth his while getting into conflict with her because he couldn’t win no matter what he said. Once, only once, do I remember Dad criticising Mum for the way she treated me.

  ‘She’s just a child,’ he said. ‘Why are you always picking on her?’

  Mum was so shocked at this intervention that she was speechless for a minute, then she started screaming: ‘How can you speak to me like that? You’ve got no idea what I have to put up with from her. You’re out at work all day so you don’t see the way she’s always under my feet, always being a nuisance, constantly getting on my nerves. I turn round and there she is, in the way again. If I speak harshly to her sometimes, I’m only doing it for her own good. She needs to learn.’

  Dad opened his mouth to speak up in my defence again, when Mum suddenly collapsed dramatically on the floor with a crash.

  ‘Kath, Kath my sweet, talk to me! Can you hear me?’ Dad knelt down beside her but she remained still, her eyes closed.

  I was overcome with guilt. It was my fault she had collapsed, because I was such a nuisance. I tried not to be, but somehow I couldn’t help it. What if she died? It would be all because of me and I would go to Hell, which I had learned about at Sunday school.

  ‘Help me get her to the bedroom, Cassie,’ Dad said. ‘You take her feet.’

  Between us we managed to carry her through and lay her on the bed, and she began to murmur incoherently.

  ‘I’m sorry, love, I didn’t mean it,’ Dad said. ‘It was wrong of me to question your judgement. Of course you know best when it comes to the children.’

  I was crying by this stage, petrified about what I had done. ‘I’m sorry I made you ill, Mum. I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m really, really sorry.’

  She opened her eyes and pulled herself up in the bed a little bit, and I could swear she was half-smiling, as if pleased with herself. ‘Could you get me a cup of tea, love?’ she asked Dad in a weak voice, and he scurried off to obey. She looked at me coldly. ‘That’ll teach you,’ she remarked. ‘Now get out of my sight, and stay out.’

  Another time when I had upset Mum and Dad dared to speak up in my defence, she actually disappeared and was missing for hours. Dad and I walked the streets, me in tears, asking everyone we met if they had seen her but no one had. Eventually we went home when it got dark and I was terrified that she had left us for good. She may not have loved me or been kind to me but she was the only mother I had and I needed her. Who else would look after me?
After all, I was unlovable, wasn’t I?

  I was exhausted, my face tear-stained and eyes swollen with crying, when she finally walked in the door. Dad leapt to his feet straight away, full of apologies. ‘I’m sorry, love, I don’t know what I was thinking of. Are you all right? Can I get you anything?’

  ‘Sorry, Mum,’ I ventured timidly.

  ‘Go to your room,’ she snapped, pointing her finger, and I scurried off to the bedroom.

  I couldn’t sleep, though. I lay awake wondering why I always managed to upset Mum so badly. It must be my fault, because Tom never made her cross like that and I don’t remember her ever raising her voice with my sisters. I tried my hardest to please her but nothing I did was good enough. No matter what I did, I couldn’t make her love me the way she loved them. There must be something wrong with me, something horrible deep inside me that I couldn’t change.

  I was very shy and withdrawn in company and tried to keep myself to myself. That way, I reckoned, I wouldn’t say the wrong thing and bring Mum’s wrath down on my head—but it never worked. When Mum’s friends came round and I hid in the corner, she would berate me for being rude and unsociable.

  ‘You’ll have to apologise next time they come round. I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life!’ she would scold. ‘Why do you always have to show me up?’

  The harder I tried, it seemed, the less I got it right. Nothing I did would ever please Mum and, kind as he was, I couldn’t rely on Dad to protect me because he wouldn’t dare stand up to her.

  The only respite came when Mum went into hospital for a while and Dad looked after us. She suffered from ‘women’s problems’ and had to have several operations while I was young. She would leave orders and a strict regime for Dad to follow and he would always promise to obey to the letter, not wanting to upset her before she went into hospital. But once she was gone, the regime relaxed because he could never be as hard on me as she was.

  I loved the mushy chips Dad made. He let the fat get so hot that the chips became all light and fluffy and delicious, and Tom and I both loved them. When Mum was back home recuperating, he made chips like this for her once and she was angry that they were mushy, so it became a special way that he made chips for us only when she was in hospital.

  He also burned the milk accidentally when he was making custard once and I loved the flavour that way, so from then on he’d make burnt custard just for me—but only when Mum was in hospital.

  On those days, he used to chat to Tom and me and ask us how we were, then he’d tuck us up in bed at night and give us a hug. Something my mother never did for me. Something that made me feel loved and safe. These were happy times. There weren’t many of them. I thought of them as the ‘in-between’ times, when I felt safe and protected. Whenever Mum wasn’t there.

  The other happy thing in my life was my dancing. The dance school was a big deal in our area and I went twice a week, along with the girl next door. I absolutely loved the ballet teacher, Una, who was slim and elegant, and always wore her hair up in a French pleat at the back. One time I remember her unpleating it after class and I was astonished to see how long her hair was—right down to her waist.

  I was never shy about performing in concerts because on stage I could pretend to be someone else—someone lovable, someone whose mother wanted her. Of course, Mum never came to my shows. Uncle Bill would turn up at the end to give me a lift home on the bike, and he’d shower me with praise and give me lots of cuddles but I’m not sure that he ever watched much of the show—or if he did, I never saw him. I would be looking out for Mum, and would always be disappointed when she wasn’t there, so I suppose I stopped looking for anyone else.

  Once, I was doing the Dance of the Cygnets in Swan Lake, which is very tricky to perform as you have to move sideways in a line exactly in time with the dancers next to you. At the end, Una came up to me and asked if my mother was there. I said no, she couldn’t make it, so Una said she would come round the house to talk to her the next day.

  Mum seemed surprised when Una turned up but led her into the front room. Dad and I trooped in as well and I sat on the floor by Dad’s feet.

  ‘You should have seen Cassie dancing last night,’ Una began. ‘She’s very talented and I’m sure you’d have been proud of her.’

  No, she wouldn’t, I thought to myself.

  ‘Anyway,’ Una continued, ‘I wondered if you would consider sending her to ballet school? I’m sure she would get a scholarship because she’s got a very special gift. It would mean living away from home, of course…’ Her voice tailed off at the look on Mum’s face.

  ‘That’s ridiculous! She can’t possibly be good enough,’ Mum snapped.

  ‘I assure you she is,’ Una maintained.

  ‘How can she be better than my other children? I’m not having her offered an opportunity that they never had. I won’t hear of it!’

  Una tried to argue but Mum had made up her mind and that was that.

  I was bitterly disappointed. The thought of getting away from home, away from Mum’s anger, was like a dream to me—but it wasn’t to be. I would go to the local primary school where Tom was already a pupil and that was that. End of story.

  In fact, I went to three different schools at the age of five because we moved home twice that year. I spent two terms in the local primary near the bungalow and, despite being shy, I loved it straight away. I made friends easily because I worked hard at getting people to like me. I was so keen to have friends that I went along with whatever games they wanted to play, just delighted to be allowed to be one of the crowd.

  Then one evening when Tom and I got home from school, Dad came through to us.

  ‘Do you hear that noise?’ he asked. ‘What do you think it is?’

  We both listened and I heard a tiny, high-pitched wail.

  ‘Is it a cat?’ Tom asked, and Dad laughed.

  ‘No, it’s not a cat. It’s a baby. A little baby girl. Do you want to come and see her?’

  Mum was in bed and the baby was lying in a cot beside her. I fell in love the first time I looked at her little screwed-up face and her tiny hands, only slightly bigger than my doll’s hands.

  ‘She’s called Anne,’ Dad told us. ‘Say hello to your new sister.’

  I had always liked playing with dolls. I had a black doll of my own, called Suzie, and sometimes I would be allowed to play with my big sisters’ dolls when they weren’t around. But now I had a living, breathing doll to look after, and I thought that would be the best thing of all.

  I couldn’t stop looking at her and I’d creep into the room to watch her sleeping in her cot for ages, until Mum saw me.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing? Get away from her,’ she’d snap. ‘That’s the last thing I need, you wakening her.’

  Sometimes I’d ask timidly if I could pick her up or just touch her tiny fingers but Mum told me to keep my hands off her. Still, I’d risk her anger to sneak in and watch little Anne whenever I got the chance.

  The bungalow was too small for all of us now. Shortly after Anne was born everything was packed up in boxes and we moved in with Nana B. It was a real crush. Tom and I slept on the floor and Anne had to sleep in a drawer because there wasn’t any room for her cot. I had a few weeks at a school there that I didn’t like very much at all—I suppose I never had a chance to get settled—then one night Mum and Nana B had a huge row. I don’t know what it was about, but Mum bundled us all up and out into the streets, pushing baby Anne in her pram. Dad wasn’t there that night. We walked for miles until we reached the beach.

  ‘We’ll have to sleep here,’ Mum said.

  ‘We can’t,’ Tom complained. ‘It’s dark and cold and I don’t want to.’

  ‘Just huddle up and we’ll be fine,’ Mum said.

  A police car drew up at that point and a policeman jumped out. Mum burst into tears and complained that she didn’t know what to do because her heartless mother-in-law had thrown her out on the streets with nowhere to go. I thought th
at was very odd, because I couldn’t imagine Nana B throwing us out of her house. She’d always been very nice to Tom and me.

  Anyway, the policeman found us a room in a big house where a kind lady brought us all hot chocolate to warm us up, then the next day we moved into a house on a council estate—a proper house, bigger than our bungalow, with an upstairs and a downstairs. I was quickly enrolled to start at the nearest primary school.

  On the very first day there, I got chatting to a girl called Claire, a skinny girl with blonde curly hair who soon became my bestest friend in the world. We liked playing hopscotch and skipping together and we got on like a house on fire from the word go. It was the end of the school year shortly after I started and there was a school show, in which we both got parts. Claire was a Summer Fairy, dressed all in pink. I played a Red Goblin and then I had to do a quick change and be a fairy, and I remember I didn’t have time to take my Red Goblin boots off so I went on in my fairy costume with these big clumpy boots and everyone laughed. I’d had to give up dancing classes when we moved from the bungalow, but being in a show like that made up for it a little bit.

  Claire lived just round the corner from me so before long she took me home and introduced me to her mum and dad, who were the nicest people I’d ever met. Straight away they treated me like another member of their family. Whenever they were going on a family outing, I would be invited along with them. Sometimes Mum wouldn’t let me go, just because she didn’t want me to be having fun, but most of the time she agreed because, she said, she wanted to get me out from under her feet.

  One day that summer we went to a holiday camp in Bognor Regis for the day. There was a big park with giant statues of nursery rhyme characters and we had our photos taken in front of them. There was a huge cup and saucer, part of the Alice in Wonderland tea party, and Claire’s dad took a picture of the two of us sitting inside the cup. It was a lovely, magical place. I’d never been anywhere like it in my life before. After we had explored it from end to end, we went down to the beach and played ball on the sand. The whole day stands out for me as one of the best days of my entire childhood.