by Diana Finley
I couldn’t go on talking because I was sobbing so much. Mummy put our sandwiches neatly back on a tea towel on the picnic rug, away from the sand. Her face seemed to be unsure whether to keep its stony look or change to a softer one. When she started speaking, her voice sounded hard and cold.
‘Well! I was hurt enough when you searched through my wardrobe, Lucy! Now you tell me you’ve had another snoop around my room – looking in my desk, in my private drawers. Do you understand the word “private”, Lucy? Would you want me to rifle through all your private possessions? How would that make you feel?
‘You certainly had a good search around my room, didn’t you? Why didn’t you think to ask me if you wanted to know what was in my desk? I was only next door. What exactly were you thinking? What are you thinking? How can you be so suspicious of me, Lucy? How can you? It’s quite ridiculous to get yourself in such a state – you’ve just let your imagination run away with you! I have to say I’m very disappointed.’
After a minute she must have seen how upset I was – and by now I was very, very upset. What was I accusing my mother of? What vile thoughts and suspicions were going through my head? I had no idea. I could hardly believe what I had done. I was horrified by what I had said, what I had hinted at. How could I un-say it, undo it? I couldn’t.
I could do nothing but cry and say, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Mummy …’
She reached for my hands, pulled me close and held me in her slightly rigid way.
‘Lucy, Lucy, Lucy,’ she said softly, ‘Surely you know who Stacy is. She’s in your own head! You imagined her yourself. I thought you’d forgotten about your little imagined friend long ago – do you remember Lucy, how you used to pretend? I don’t know what made you call her Stacy. Maybe there was a little girl called Stacy at your nursery? I suppose I kept that article because it was about someone with the same name. How silly of me, I’m so sorry it’s upset you, my darling Lucy. I don’t know what you’ve been thinking of – you’re Lucy and always have been. What has put these strange thoughts in your head, these fears?’
I’d never heard Mummy talking like this, and for so long.
‘You’re Lucy, lovely, special Lucy – my Lucy. And I love you very much. I always have and always will,’ she continued. ‘You poor girl, you’ve been worrying and worrying about this for some time, haven’t you? You’ve got yourself all worked up and unhappy – and it’s partly my fault – yes it is. I know I’m not all talkative and outgoing and lovey-dovey like Fiona or Susan. Maybe I should be. I wish I could be.
‘I know I should have talked more to you about your daddy and the times in Nottingham. But I couldn’t, you see, because it was such a sad and painful time. First losing Daddy, and then my dear mother too. Do you understand that, Lucy? I’d nearly forgotten about the red coat – until you asked me about it. Maybe I shouldn’t have kept it all those years … I … er … I don’t really know why I did. I suppose it was special … in a way. Special because your daddy bought it for me. Yes, he did. He liked red, so he bought it for my birthday. That’s why I kept it.’ She looked at me and took a deep breath.
‘But then, after you found it, I decided to get rid of it because it reminded me of all that sadness; of losing Daddy. So … so I took it to a charity shop last week – I should have done so years ago. That’s all. I don’t know why it upset you so much. I never meant to worry you. Can you forgive me?’
We were both crying and hugging now. It felt quite nice but quite scary at the same time.
‘’Course I forgive you.’
She released me from her embrace and sat back.
‘But, Lucy, I have to say, I am disappointed – and surprised – that you could ever think awful, sinister things about me. Surely you don’t really think I’m sinister, do you, Lucy? I’ve tried hard to be a good mother. It isn’t always easy to be a mother on your own …’
‘I don’t, I don’t … I’m very sorry, Mummy.’
It was a relief for both of us when the discussion was over – if it was over. We wanted to think we had somehow sorted the situation out, at least I did. I felt washed out, weak and empty after all the crying – a bit like the cleansed but limp feeling you get after being very sick. After the picnic – which neither of us could eat – Mummy and I didn’t speak about it again.
* * *
Later, Cassie asked me whether I’d managed to ask Mummy the questions I wanted to. I said some, but not all of them. I told Cassie both Mummy and I had got very upset, and she said in that case it was probably best not to talk more about it. She did look at me in a concerned way. Maybe she was a bit disappointed in me. Certainly I felt a bit of a failure myself.
She must have spoken to her mum, because Fiona took me aside and sat me on her knee, as if I was a small child, and put her arms round me. She told me that if I ever wanted to talk about sad or difficult things – in confidence – she’d be happy to discuss them with me. It felt good to think she cared about me enough to help me in that way. I thanked her, but assured her I was fine.
Mummy and I both wanted to put the episode behind us. But would that be possible? I guess sometimes we try to bury thoughts, yet maybe those thoughts don’t always want to stay buried. Maybe they can’t stay buried.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Alison
Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised by Lucy’s curiosity – I do remember asking Mother about my own background from time to time. I recall questioning her in a particularly persistent way, when I was about the same age as Lucy is now.
‘If I don’t know who my family is,’ I had asserted to her, ‘how do I know who I am?’
‘You know exactly who your family is, and you do know who you are,’ Mother had replied calmly. (She always remained calm, a characteristic that sometimes provoked further frustration on my part.)
‘Just remember, Alison, I am your family. Whether a family is large or small is not important. Nor do I believe family is about who gave birth to you or what the “blood ties” are. It’s about who you love and who loves you. I love you, Alison, and I hope you love me too. So you and I – just the two of us – are all the family either of us need.’
‘I do love you, of course I do. But in most families children look like their parents. At any rate, like one of their parents. I don’t look like you at all, do I? Our faces are different shapes and you have a long thin nose. Your eyes are brown and mine are blue. You have dark brown hair and I have fair hair. I’m already nearly as tall as you, so I shall certainly grow taller.’
‘None of that matters. You are my daughter and I am your mother.’
‘It matters to me …’ I had replied mulishly.
‘Dear Alison, we have something about our relationship that is much more special than most mothers and daughters.’
‘What do you mean?’
Of course I knew exactly what she meant, but I never tired of asking Mother to tell this story again and again.
‘Most mothers and daughters exist purely by chance. They may or may not get on; they may or may not like each other; they may or may not have interests in common. Always remember, I chose you specifically for yourself. I walked up and down the rows of babies’ cots in the Mother and Baby Home. I specially went to the girls’ nursery and looked at all the baby girls. As you know, I had already decided I wanted a daughter rather than a son – and not many mothers are able to choose their child in that way. I looked at each little baby girl for a long time; I really studied them. Many of them were very sweet, very pretty. Some of them even smiled at me.
‘But as soon as I saw you, I knew you were the one for me. You didn’t smile. You looked at me very solemnly. Your eyes were fixed on me, staring at me, as if you wanted to look right inside my soul. That’s how I knew you were the right one. My special little girl. That’s who you were then, and that’s who you are now.’
I loved to hear Mother reassure me in this way, and often returned to the topic over the years. I knew I cou
ld be a challenging child for her sometimes, though I never meant to be.
I found the company of other children trying. At the small private day school I attended during the infant and primary years, teachers were keen to mould me into a more conventional child. People didn’t talk about “social skills” in those days, but they did want to encourage children to “learn to share” and to feel “part of a team”. As a child, I found playing or working in pairs or groups extremely difficult and even distasteful. Other people were so slow at solving problems and completing tasks. I found it dreadfully frustrating. Why struggle to perform tasks with someone else, when it can be done far more quickly and successfully alone?
Over the years I have learned to understand other people’s expectations of me, but not then. At school I excelled at mathematics and some aspects of science. I was good at all memory and logic tasks, but none of these achievements ever seemed to be enough for the teachers. No, they were forever asking what I regarded as unnecessary and irrelevant questions, especially the “learning assistants” engaged to help me – as if I needed assistance to learn!
‘Describe this picture, Alison,’ one of them might say.
I would do my best to comply, providing the facts as I saw them, but my responses never seemed to satisfy the assistant.
‘Yes, dear … that’s all … good … but what do you think those people might be feeling? What do you think might happen next?’
They never considered that such deductions were impossible based on the flimsy evidence of an infantile drawing. My answers never seemed to please them. They were always wanting something different.
It was much the same with the other girls of my own age. They were forever preoccupied with topics that seemed to me of little interest or importance. This became even more noticeable as we progressed to the senior school.
‘Look, Alison, have you seen Charlotte? Doesn’t she look miserable?’ one child might whisper to me confidentially. ‘That’s because she’s fallen out with Sarah. Now Sarah refuses to be friends with her. What do you think? I think Sarah’s being mean, don’t you?’
‘I don’t know … I don’t know anything about Charlotte or Sarah.’
I quite liked other girls talking to me, but was never sure how to respond, so would search around for something interesting to say. Having felt I had exhausted the topic of Sarah and Charlotte, I cast around for something else on which to comment.
‘Look,’ I ventured, ‘I’ve noticed the wall over there is slanting slightly on the right-hand side. I think it needs to be reinforced, otherwise a crack may form, and it could fall down.’
‘Alison Brown, you’re so weird!’
It was a label that was frequently attached to me over those unhappy years. As time went on the other girls often saw me as a source of entertainment. They found they could tease, humiliate and torment me mercilessly and delight in the result, without any fear of sanctions from teachers. Their cruelty was predominantly verbal rather than physical. On the rare occasions that I complained to a teacher, I was told it was “harmless fun”, and that I should simply “laugh it off” or stand up for myself. I recalled many painful scenes of this apparently harmless fun at break times, with my classmates surrounding me like a pack of wolves bent on attack.
‘What’s your favourite group, Alison?’ one girl might ask.
‘Group? Group of what?’
Gales of laughter followed.
‘You know – music! Music groups.’
‘Oh. Well … I especially like Bach for the intensity and orderly patterns of his music. I also like …’
‘Oooh! Bach! Alison fancies Bach – even though he’s been dead for about five hundred years!’ they would shriek.
‘No, actually he died in 1750, so that’s two hundred and ten years ago.’
‘He’s still dead!’
‘But his music lives on.’
They groaned.
‘Which of the Everly Brothers d’you fancy – Don or Phil?
‘Umm. I don’t think I know anyone called Everly …’
Screams of laughter.
‘What about Bobby Darin or Elvis Presley, Alison?’
‘Of course I have heard of Elvis Presley, and I believe he has rather a nice voice … if you like that sort of music.’
‘You are so peculiar, Alison Brown!’ they howled.
This sort of exchange was reproduced with many variations over the course of my school years.
* * *
Home was my refuge, although even Mother could not always protect me from the unremitting demands of an unsympathetic world. When the strains became too great, I would sometimes come home, fling my schoolbag onto the floor and myself after it, and shout and stamp and scream like a banshee (Mother’s description).
She would lead me gently upstairs to my room, switch on a soft, subdued light, close the blinds and let me pull the curtains, which she had specially made for me, around my bed. Inside this den, or cocoon, I felt safe. The harsh expectations of the day would gradually melt away. After a time, Mother would come upstairs carrying a tray, and enter the den. She would pour a cup of Earl Grey tea for each of us. We would sit quietly and companionably together drinking it, sometimes with a Rich Tea biscuit.
Occasionally, when it all became too much for me, I would have a similar collapse or “melt-down”, as my teachers inaccurately called these times, at school. I would be secreted away to the medical room, or to the head teacher’s office, for a period of reflection and calming down. It was always put down to my oddness. No one ever took the view that perhaps it was the behaviour of the other girls that needed to change.
Despite the fact that I achieved top marks in almost every assessment, my teachers seemed to feel there were issues about my development that warranted “further investigation”. Poor Mother had to trail me first to our general practitioner, and then to various specialists. I was given a range of puzzles, tests and assessments to complete, most of which I rather enjoyed.
After analysing the results, all the doctors seemed agreed that I was highly intelligent, but suffered from what was variously described as idiosyncratic quirks of development, severe anxiety, poor insight into the feelings or thought patterns of others, rigidity of personality, lack of empathy, overly concrete interpretation of language, and on and on. Neither Mother nor I found these pronouncements very helpful.
‘We’re all individuals. We’re all different,’ said Mother, ever pragmatic.
‘Why is it always me and my problems people fuss about?’ I asked. ‘Nobody takes Mary or Helen to see a doctor just because they’re no good at Maths or French.’
‘Quite right, Alison. I think you should just forget about the doctors and get on with your life. You’re doing so well at school, and soon you’ll be doing your A levels and applying to universities. There’s just no limit to what you might achieve, a clever girl like you. But do you know what I think is going to make the biggest difference to your life, and especially to your future happiness?’
‘What?’
‘Having a child of your own one day. A lovely little baby to love, and to love you back, exactly as you are. Babies love their mothers. They don’t judge their mothers or criticise them or try to change them. They just love them. Isn’t that wonderful!’
Mother mentioned this potential solution to my problems on several occasions over the years.
At the time I had no experience of babies and small children, and was not particularly drawn to them, but the thought of anyone, beside Mother, loving me without judgement or criticism seemed very attractive. I never forgot Mother’s words.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Alison
1962 Durham University
Mother ran her fingers across the top of the wardrobe and turned to show me her still-pristine hand.
‘Well, that’s a good sign. At least they’re keeping the place clean. It could do with a lick of paint, but never mind.’
‘It’s like a cell,’
I said gloomily, trying to swallow the lump in my throat, trying to control the threatened tears.
‘Now, Alison, I know it’s … compact, but you’ve got everything you need. Look, nice comfy bed, wardrobe, chest of drawers, desk, and a useful shelf for your books and knick-knacks. Once we unpack all your things and put some pictures up, put your books on the shelf, it’ll be much more homely.’
Mother was in her brisk, determined-to-be-positive mood.
‘Look, dear, blue curtains! Quite pretty – they almost match your lovely eiderdown!’ She held open one side of the drab greyish-blue curtains.
‘Ooh, come and look out of the window! It’s really lovely, Alison. You’ve got such a nice outlook onto the grounds. Don’t the trees look glorious – the leaves are just starting to turn. Look at that maple – it’s going to be deep scarlet in a week or two. Come on – come and see.’
Reluctantly, I joined her and gazed at the parkland outside. It was truly a fine view. Mother had written ahead to the principal to explain some of my vulnerabilities; that I was sensitive to noise, and needed peace. Perhaps the university staff had genuinely taken note of her request, and selected a quiet room for that reason. This thought restored some feeling of optimism in me.
The previous day, as we had finalised my packing, we’d had a long and serious talk about making the adjustment to university life – life away from home, and away from Mother. What I had to focus on, Mother had said, and I had to agree, was study. I loved to study. Everything else was secondary. I had to enjoy what I could, and gradually adjust to what was unfamiliar or difficult.
‘You’re right. It’s good to be on the quiet and leafy side of the building. Let’s unpack and get things sorted out.’
Mother’s face relaxed and she smiled.
An hour later, as I was arranging my books in alphabetical order on the bookshelf, and Mother was putting the last of my clothes in the chest of drawers, there was a knock on the door. We stood open-mouthed for a moment. The door opened and a head peered around it. The head had a mass of curly reddish hair, and a pale white face with a sprinkling of freckles over the nose, and wore a big grin. It was quickly followed by a sturdy body, dressed in blue jeans and a green jumper.