Mothers and Daughters

by Fleming, Leah

  By the time she hit the six-stone mark everyone kept looking at her but no one dared say anything. Auntie Ana and Mummy were worried, and Connie was furious with her for being so devious.

  ‘You are making yourself ill not eating your dinner,’ Mummy accused. ‘People will think we can’t afford decent meals. Put a potato on your plate to please me. Please, darling, just the one.’

  Joy sighed and plonked the smallest one on her plate to oblige, but when Mummy went to the phone she whisked it into her gymslip pocket.

  ‘There,’ she said smiling, pretending to swallow on her return. ‘I’ve eaten it all and now I’m full.’

  Rosa kept shoving sweets in her hand but it was as if every mouthful was a battle and she was not going to fail. For the first time in her life she was the strongest and the toughest of the Silkies. Even if she was hungry every waking moment, Joy was determined to win this battle, come what may. But she sensed the frightened looks around her. They were ganging up to make her eat and that scared her so much she wanted to run away.

  When she looked in the mirror now she saw only podgy thighs and belly as well as the bones of her ribs sticking out. Connie said she looked like one of the starving children of China in the posters, and pleaded with her not to be so daft.

  She might have kept it up for ever, slowly shrinking away, but one morning she fell over on the studio floor, flat on her back, the room spinning.

  ‘This has gone far enough, Joy Winstanley,’ said Miss Liptrot, the dancing teacher, standing over her. ‘I don’t have skeletons in my class with bones clanking every time they move. Get up – I am taking you home this minute. Whatever is your mother thinking of, letting you out in this state? It’s about time someone took you to the doctor before it’s too late!’

  By now even Joy hadn’t the energy to put up a protest.

  6

  Esme

  ‘I don’t know what Susan was thinking of, letting Joy get into that state,’ said Esme from the saddle of her very high horse.

  They were on their third pot of tea, putting the world to rights as Joy lay asleep in the spare bedroom of the bungalow at Sutter’s Fold. Everyone was in a flap, and the peace and quiet of Esme’s orderly retirement was suddenly interrupted by this unexpected development.

  ‘Don’t be hard on her,’ said Ana, ‘and we don’t want her to hear us. Girls of that age are a law unto themselves.’ She was giving Connie the eye as if it was her fault that Joy had got herself in such a pickle.

  ‘I don’t care if she hears me or not. It’s only what any sensible grandmother should say to such a silly child. Fancy, starving herself into a bag of bones! Why was I not told until the damage was done?’ Esme continued, sipping the strong brew and biting into her second Eccles cake, the flaky pastry sticking to her lips. ‘How long has it been going on?’

  Everyone was looking at Connie again as if she knew something they didn’t. Who was to blame for the pitiful sight of that young girl hardly able to stagger up the bungalow steps, holding on to her mother, looking like something out of Belsen death camp, her cheeks sunken and her eyes dull and lifeless? For a moment Connie had seriously thought she was at death’s door.

  ‘Long enough to weaken her system,’ Ana sighed. ‘Dr Friedmann says anorexia is a cry for help. I think she must be a very unhappy girl to do this to herself. You are kind to take her in. A good rest and fresh air will do her good.’

  Esme was not convinced. ‘A good talking-to is what she needs right now, worrying her mother half to death, and us besides. You don’t feed up your bairns just to watch them turn their nose up at everything you offer them; finding bits of dinner stuffed in coat pockets and behind the wardrobe. What a carry-on! She’s living off broth and lemon barley water now. How’s that going to build up her constitution again?’

  Would she have a skeleton on her hands? Everyone was expecting her to sort it all out as some sort of expert, and what with poor Lily – Lee, she liked to be called now – on bed rest for the umpteenth time. She hoped this baby would stick. No one must worry her with such awful news.

  It was all right for Dr Friedmann to say his piece. He was a nice enough chap, for a foreigner, bit of a garden gnome in looks, but he meant well. Anorexia. What kind of disease was that?

  ‘It’s a good job one of you has brought up a sensible girl.’ She nodded towards Connie, who looked as if she wanted to sink into the carpet. ‘I hear you’ve been getting good grades in Latin and Ancient Greek. Still, it’s only to be expected with your background.’

  ‘It’s not that easy, Granny. There’re girls so clever who never do a stroke of prep but still come out above me, no matter how hard I try. Can I go in and see Joy now?’ she added.

  ‘The doctor says no visitors for the moment. How could you not tell us she was in this state? All this dieting nonsense: did you ever hear the like at your age!’

  There was Susan beside herself with worry, hovering over her daughter, trying to force-feed her but getting nowhere. ‘I have tried everything, Daw Esme, but still she defies me. What have I done to make her want to starve herself? Now the doctor says she must go into hospital to build up her strength … I am so afraid.’ And that was how she was landed with the task of coaxing the silly girl to eat, but how? If that didn’t work she’d have to go into a mental hospital. No Winstanley ever went in one of those places!

  ‘That Milburn’s brought Susan to visit in his Morris Traveller every day. I hope she’s more sense than to be taken in by a commercial traveller,’ Esme sniffed. ‘They’re all the same: old goats with moustaches, side partings slicked with Brylcreem, flashy suits and a woman tucked away in every town to give comfort after a long day on the road.’ It helped thinking about something else rather than the problem next door.

  ‘Don’t be a snob, Mother,’ Ana replied, not taking the bait. ‘It’s kind of him to go out of his way. I’m glad Jacob Friedmann is coming back. He will know what to do.’

  Susan came every day, more for sympathy and support than to see Joy lying in bed. Only yesterday she’d been a bag of nerves.

  ‘What is wrong with me, Daw Esme? I can’t reach my own child. I told her to think about the starving children in China and Africa,’ she’d moaned. ‘I’ve seen true starvation on the trek out of Burma. The people were trying to save themselves. I know they teach the girls about Belsen … I don’t understand her doing this to us. Now she cannot go to school and do lessons. How will she pass examinations with no lessons?’

  ‘It’ll be only a few weeks,’ Esme had lied. Even she knew this was going to take months to sort itself out.

  ‘If I get my hands on that Neville …’ Susan had added. ‘I hear he’s been stuffing her head full of bananas. Joy hates bananas. This’s all his fault!’

  ‘That’s not fair,’ Connie had interrupted. ‘He was only trying to help. None of us thought she’d be so daft as to starve herself. He’d tried to talk sense to her but she won’t listen to us or anyone.’

  ‘How can she do this to us?’ Susan had been crying by then.

  ‘Children are good at getting to us. I can remember Travis not taking to the breast and spitting out his food. I was that worried. It became personal and I always reckon it was his faddy eating that did for him in the end,’ said Esme.

  ‘You think this will kill her? What will people think of me that I did not notice until she collapsed?’ Su cried.

  ‘Stop this, Su,’ Ana ordered. ‘Don’t be so dramatic. Something turned the girl’s head. She’s done this to herself. No one made her do it. We just have to get to the bottom of it.’

  ‘But she will miss her lessons. I want her to go to college like Connie will, and not end up like Rosa, skipping school,’ Su replied.

  ‘What you want for her may not be what she wants at the moment,’ Ana had argued.

  Those two would still argue black was white to each other, Esme mused. This was a time for pulling together, not pulling apart. Susan was ambitious and hardworking, and keen to make t
he business work. Perhaps she thought Joy would be just like herself one day, but Joy was now a jigsaw puzzle in pieces all over the floor.

  Esme sighed! ‘Your children are not your own, they’re only borrowed. They come and go their own gait, as they say. Look how different Levi and Freddie turned out, not a bit like Redvers or me. Then there’s our Lily and all that travelling malarkey. Now she’s trying to hold a bairn inside her at thirty-odd. I don’t understand any of it, but they are family, flesh and blood, so we go along with what makes them happy.’

  Connie was sitting biting her nails, looking sheepish. ‘I’m sorry, perhaps if I had been nicer to Joy she might not have gone on this dieting lark. Only it wasn’t a lark, it was deadly serious. She won’t die, will she?’

  ‘We must take it one day at a time,’ Ana said in her calm, nursey voice. ‘Just let’s get her taking a bit of nourishment into herself. Time enough to make plans when she’s well. Together the family’ll sort her out somehow and give her a reason to start eating again.’

  Esme wanted to say that the girl had to learn the world didn’t run around her, but felt mean. ‘I’ll not be spoiling her. We’ll just have to find something to distract her from all this nonsense. She will stay in bed with books and a hot-water bottle until she gets bored. Then when we’ve talked a bit and sat a while, happen she’ll get up and doing, but only if she takes nourishment. I’ll not let her run rings round me. I’ll give you a tinkle if I need you, but rest is what she needs right now and time to think what she’s done to herself. You just have to think of her as convalescing. That’s what we must all tell anyone who asks,’ she said signalling it was time for them to go.

  ‘Thank you, Daw Esme. You are good woman. Your seat is reserved at the heavenly table,’ Susan had whispered as she rose.

  ‘Not just yet, I hope,’ Esme laughed. ‘There’s a few more miles on the engine clock yet, I reckon.’

  When Connie and Rosa turned up after school the following week, Esme made them hot Vimto and told them they could have half an hour with the patient and no more.

  ‘We’re rationing visitors. She has to earn them by eating a little more. When she is stronger then you can stay longer,’ she continued, primping up the pillows. ‘I’m glad your friends are making the effort, so you must try too. You can’t get strong on nothing, Joy.’

  Neville popped in too, carrying his plug-in record player and soon music was blaring out, Tommy Steele banging rock and roll hits. Joy sat up and took an interest on what was in the hit parade but she did look dreadful, with sunken cheeks, not like herself at all. All Connie’s mean thoughts seemed to evaporate and she just wanted her to be back to normal.

  They had told Moor Bank and Division Street that she had influenza with complications and that she was suffering from nervous exhaustion, which just about covered everything. The Winstanleys were used to covering their tracks, ‘keeping things in the family’ and away from nosy parkers. No one seemed any the wiser.

  Anorexia Nervosa was what Dr Gilchrist called her symptoms, and the three children looked it up in the medical dictionary in the reference library. They could see why it was not something Granny wanted bandying about outside the immediate family.

  Joy slept a lot and read old children’s annuals and picture books, and received a constant supply of other reading matter from Gran and Auntie Lee, who was still on bed rest.

  Joy sipped Horlicks and Ovaltine, Bengers Food and milky cocoa as if they were poison.

  ‘I told my mam, if Joy dies it will be all her fault, calling her names in public. I hate her sometimes. If only I hadn’t told Joy about that stupid diet. I never thought she’d got it in her to be so tough. It was such a shock to see her looking so ill, and for what? She looks like a wounded animal in that bed, not a million dollars,’ said Neville.

  ‘She’ll live,’ said Ana. ‘The will to keep breathing is strong but what damage she’s done to her organs only time will tell.’

  ‘What can we do?’ Connie asked, feeling out of her depth.

  ‘Give her something to look forward to,’ her mama suggested. ‘Your singing group, what happened to that?’

  ‘It’s sort of fizzled out,’ Connie replied, looking at Neville, ‘what with exams and then Joy being ill. She gave us a good beat. She’s got a good sense of rhythm. We’d be rubbish without her.’

  ‘Then tell her! Give her a rope to hold on to, get some concerts booked and make her sing again.’

  Sometimes Mama surprised her daughter with good ideas. Perhaps old people did know a few useful things after all.

  Joy was making slow progress but a week later she managed mashed potato enriched with butter and the top of the milk. As a reward she was allowed up into the sitting room to look out on the early spring sunshine on the crocus border.

  Soup was Esme’s next goal, and what went into them was an art in itself: ham bones, marrow, lentils and pearl barley, pot herbs and root vegetables. You could stand a spoon in the broth, it was that thick. The smell alone would tempt a fasting monk, although Joy pretended not to notice.

  She was sure she was hungry but some force within her needed to reject more than a few spoonfuls. It was hard for Esme not to show her disappointment and fury but nagging didn’t seem to do any good. There was a stubbornness in Joy that defied all reasoning.

  ‘Just a little is all I’m asking you. Perhaps then we can go out into the fresh air and see the first flowers in Sutter’s Wood,’ Esme bribed, knowing Joy loved exploring. She didn’t know if she was doing the right thing or not, but was past caring. A walk in the fresh air would do them both good. Everyone was trying to be patient but she had forced Susan to stay away to give her a chance to get to the bottom of this funny business. The young ones brought news of school and dancing but it was as if Joy was living in her own little world. Perhaps a walk in the fresh air might build her strength.

  It mustn’t be easy bringing up a lass single-handed. Her own husband, Redvers, had been such good support to her with the children, and a godsend when she had lost little Travis. Susan had a good friend in Ana but there were still flare-ups now and then, and jealousy over their girls. It was only natural, given their history. If only they’d got a husband between them. But not one like Horace Milburn. Esme didn’t trust him. The creases on his slacks were too crisp and he smelled of fancy Cologne.

  Years of widowhood had taught her it was lonely when she closed the door of a night with no one to chew over the day with. Having Joy here gave her company, at least. She winged up a swift prayer to the Almighty. ‘Find me the right words, Lord. I’m out of my depth here.’

  Later, Joy was dressed in her usual baggy sweater and tartan trews that hung from her bony hips, making her look like a refugee. They took the path down the side of the little housing estate and walked up into an avenue of oaks and birch trees arching overhead. The birds twittered and flapped out of their way.

  ‘Did I ever tell you about my friend Alice Chadwick?’ Esme paused. Joy shook her head. They were walking at snail’s pace, all Joy could manage. Esme never thought to see a youngster walking more slowly than she.

  ‘It was seeing you as reminded me about that time when we went to prison,’ she continued, seeing Joy pause to catch her breath and look at her wide-eyed with astonishment.

  ‘You went to prison? When?’ she asked.

  Esme nodded with satisfaction. That had got the girl interested. ‘When I were a lass not much older than you, just for a night or two.’

  ‘Why?’ Joy asked all ears.

  ‘We got caught up in a riot in Bolton when Winston Churchill came to the election hustings. Some of us jumped on his car and got arrested. I was a right tearaway then. We women wanted the Vote, and the local groups all ganged together for a bit of a lark. There was me and Alice from Grimbleton, and the vicar’s young wife, Mabel Ollenshaw, as was, which caused a stir, I can tell you. We wore sashes in white, green and purple to show we were followers of the Pankhursts. There were thousands in that riot from a
ll over. We were taken to court and then to Preston Gaol. That were a right eye-opener, I can tell you, being stripped and made to wear sackcloth and caps. To tell the truth I was glad when my dad paid the bail to get me released, but Alice stayed on and went on hunger strike with the other suffragettes. Alice was very fervent about her rights.’

  ‘Did you get into trouble?’ Joy asked.

  ‘Just an ear-wigging from Dad. He said no daughter of his would go on hunger strike and come out looking like a consumptive. It was bad for business and if I wanted the Vote I had to show I was as good as any man and go about it the proper way. Alice didn’t have any parents, just an aunt who was as committed as she was, so they went on hunger strike and when she came out of prison she looked like you do, all skin and bone, with a terrible cough. I were that shocked I cried at the sight of her – she was so weak she couldn’t swallow. They stuck tubes down her throat and pumped gruel into her stomach whether she wanted it or not.’

  ‘That’s cruel,’ declared Joy.

  ‘Not half as cruel as watching your own kith and kin starving herself for no good reason! Alice had her principles and I admired her for that, but I don’t understand why you won’t eat. It made her ill, and when the Spanish flu came after the Great War she was one of the first to pass away. She never lived to see us get the full Vote in 1928.’

  ‘What else did you do for the cause?’ Joy asked, changing the subject neatly, her face crumpling as if she were struggling with something inside.

  ‘This and that: fundraising mostly, going on marches to London with our banners. We’d set off at dawn on special train and march all day and sing all the way home. Alice could never march with us unless we had a basket chair. She was too sick, and that’s not going to happen to you, do you hear me? I want to see you wed with kiddies, and being happy. How are you going to do that in this state? Your insides won’t stand it.’