by Sophie Duffy
Bernie has taken to coming upstairs of an evening. Mother puts me to bed at some ridiculously early hour. Six o’clock! Practically the afternoon. Now it is summer, it stays light forever. I have to entertain myself in my cot until sleep eventually takes over. My favourite pastime is chewing the pink (lead) paint off the bars of my prison. I also listen to the birds. I can distinguish between a seagull, a blue tit and a wood pigeon though of course I don’t have the words for them yet. But I do know what they look like as Mother has pointed them out to me on occasions when she is feeling educationally inclined. There are seagulls everywhere in Torquay. I’ve seen them attacking pensioners on the prom, those who are a little slapdash with their chips. I once had an ice cream whipped right out of my hand. I watched my mother throw her handbag at the gull in question and I was so shocked at this act of solidarity that I didn’t make a sound.
Today the seagulls are more interested in a trawler at large in the Bay so they leave us alone. We find a patch of red sand for ourselves and Mother spreads out a tartan rug for our picnic. Hard-boiled eggs, tomatoes, cheese rolls, apples. Standard picnic fare for 1967. I am wearing a tight-fitting bathing suit. It cuts into the top of my white legs and pinches me under the arms. I am lathered in sun cream (‘because of your skin, Philippa’) and crowned with a cricket hat picked up in a jumble.
Helena is modelling a bikini. Her smooth skin is as brown as strongly brewed Typhoo from afternoons sitting out in the sun at the back of Bernie’s Lot while I play with a washing-up bowl of water and a wooden spoon. Not a stretch mark to be seen on her flat stomach. You’d never know she had a baby if it weren’t for the evidence sitting next to her on the rug. Though even that could be disputed – we hardly look like mother and daughter.
‘Fancy a dip, Philippa?’ She grabs my hand and steers me down the beach, in and out of clustered families, all on tartan rugs, eating the same food as us.
The water is warm but it stings my legs. A wave almost bowls me over but Helena reaches out and catches me in the nick of time. She is a good mother. She loves me.
Bed time again. If I could count beyond the fingers of one hand, I could work out from the bells of St Bartholomew’s that it is seven o’clock. But I am too busy concentrating on the safety pin of my nappy to worry about practising my counting. Surely I should be toilet trained by now? Despite my concentration, I can make out Bernie’s voice. And Helena’s fake giggles. I imagine Bernie as a bird. A fat preening wood pigeon. I do not like Bernie. He has a red face and smells wet. Like my nappies in the morning. I want to wear knickers like a big girl.
Success! I have finally opened the safety pin. I pull off the (dry) nappy and throw it over the side onto the floor. I am naked! What a glorious feeling! It makes me want to bounce up and down but my joy is cut short when something pricks my foot. The safety (!) pin has punctured my skin. My screams hurt my ears but nothing hurts as much as my little foot.
The door is flung open and Mother is suddenly here, leaning over the cot, her mouth open but nothing coming out of it though tears are spouting from the corners of her eyes. Another face appears beside her. I don’t want to look at that great big face but it is even worse further down where a hairy stomach presses itself against the bars. One of Bernie’s nylon shirt buttons has popped open. So I look back up at his face which is redder than usual, his Bobby Charlton comb-over out to one side as if he is standing in a wind tunnel. His mouth is moving too, like Mother’s, but I can’t hear what either of them is saying. I must be deaf. But my mother has now started to wail so loudly that she stops me in my tracks.
‘Pick her up, Helena,’ Bernie urges.
My mother is inert so Bernie bends forward with some difficulty and scoops me out. I can hear his heavy breathing as if he has been running the hundred yard dash – though it’s unlikely Bernie ever runs anywhere.
‘What’s the matter little one?’ he coos (fat pigeon), wrapping an abandoned towel around me.
I rub my nose on his orange shirt, leaving a number eleven on his shoulder. I feel better for that but my mother has spotted a drop of blood on the cot sheet and the shiny pin lying next to it and for once puts two and two together correctly.
Bernie realises what is going on too. He isn’t a hotshot-car-wheeler-dealer for nothing.
‘Isn’t it about time she was out of nappies, Hell?’ Bernie dares to ask.
My mother doesn’t say yes, I suppose you’re onto something there, Bernie. Instead she makes a lunge and wrestles me out of his beefy arms.
‘Don’t ever tell me how to look after my own child!’ she shrieks at him.
‘Alright, Hell, calm down, I was only saying. Our Terry and Toni were out of ’em at two and a half. Just the odd wet night but Sheila put a rubber sheet on the mattresses — ’
‘Don’t talk to me about ruddy Sheila,’ Mother snaps.
‘I was only saying.’
‘Well, don’t.’
Bernie leaves soon after that. He tries to hold my mother but she won’t have it. Bernie realises he isn’t going to get anywhere tonight and disappears back to Sheila.
For once I wish Mother had listened to Bernie. He was only looking out for me. But anyway, I never wear a nappy again. It saves Helena heaps of washing and gallons of Milton. The next day she proudly takes me shopping and buys me a pack of knickers – one for every day of the week (which helps my counting no end). And she doesn’t even have to bother with a rubber sheet – which is one in the eye for ruddy Sheila.
‘This isn’t a boarding school,’ Mother tells me as she puts me to bed. (She knows all about boarding schools having been incarcerated in one in the middle of Wales for nearly a decade.) ‘You’re not destined to be one of life’s bed-wetters.’
Oh dear. What if I let her down?
2006
I’ll probably let you down. I won’t mean to. I’ll try my hardest not to. But Life gets out of control and bulldozes best intentions.
Then there’s Adrian, the man you’re supposed to call ‘Daddy’. He and I dressed up in uncomfortable clothes and said vows in front of our raggedy collection of friends and family (those that would come) and I do believe he sincerely meant those vows on that day, in that register office. Maybe. But his good intentions flew out the window, fell by the wayside (etc, etc), when he decided I wasn’t quite enough for him. He omitted to tell me this for a while, seeing as I was cultivating varicose veins and stretch marks on your behalf. But eventually, one evening, a few weeks ago, as I was slumped at the kitchen sink, glugging down the Gaviscon, after much huffing and puffing and beating around the bush, he pointed out to me that Someone Else was more than happy to fill in the gaps, step into my boots, take over the helm (etc, etc).
Do we blame that on Life? Or on him? I’m not actually sure. All I know is I never want him back. I don’t want you to get used to him being around only to disappear one day. I know too much about disappearing acts.
Here I am. Left again. Left holding the baby, as they say.
And a lovely baby you are, you are. And a lovely baby you are.
Chapter Two: 1969
Dragon’s Den
Fast forward to a windy Monday morning in September two years later when my rickety sash window rattles me awake. Or maybe it is Mother crashing about downstairs. We have a Downstairs now as well as an Upstairs. I have my own sash window and my own bedroom. We have moved from Above Bernie’s Motors to a little two-up-two-down in a Better Area. Bernie can’t ‘pop up’ anymore after work. In fact he doesn’t visit at all. Not since Mother has become friends with Sheila.
I am wondering if it is safe to get up when I notice something on the back of my closed door: some funny clothes hanging stiffly on metal hangers. A navy blue pinafore and matching cardy. When Mother breezes into the room the hangers make a jangle that cuts right through me, ominously. This is not a normal day. No playing with a washing-up bowl of water and a wooden spoon. No trips to the beach. No buckets and spade. No ice cream.
‘Come on, Phil
ippa. Wakey wakey, rise and shine.’
Oh dear. Why the fake cheeriness? Usually Mother is silent until her third cup of coffee of the morning. And she is already dressed rather than doing her shuffling-around-in-her-dressing-gown-clutching-her-head routine. In fact she is dressed up to the nines. Her best red frock and matching red lips. She looks pretty. ‘Dynamite,’ Bernie would say. But there is only me and all I can do is stare at her as she reaches up for the funny clothes on the back of my door and I realise that the time has come to wear them.
It is my Uniform. I am going to School.
Unfortunately Mother has underestimated my waistline and there is a struggle squeezing me into the pinafore.
‘I should have splashed out on a new one,’ Mother says. ‘Toni’s a petit little thing. I should’ve known it would be too small.’
Yes, Toni. Our Toni. Bernie and Sheila’s Toni. Mother is now such good friends with Sheila that she is happy to receive hand-me-downs from her. Toni, who is now in her first year at Torquay Girls’ Grammar. Sheila has kept her school clothes all these years wrapped up in tissue paper in the attic waiting for a suitable little girl to have them. Though only four years of age, I am not little by any stretch of the imagination. What was Sheila thinking when she offered them to Mother?
Mother attends Sheila’s Coffee Mornings every week without fail. At last she has friends in Torquay. A circle of friends. Sheila’s friends. Much to Bernie’s horror.
‘What do you want to be friends with them old bags for?’
‘What’s wrong with them? They’re a nice crowd. They’ve welcomed me with open arms.’
‘What about my arms? They used to be big enough for you, Hell.’
‘It’s friends I need Bernie. Not you.’
And that was the last time Bernie was allowed upstairs. Soon after this frank exchange Mother moved us to our new house. She borrowed enough money for the deposit and a month’s rent and a small refrigerator – from somewhere or other – on the promise of her new Job which she is going to start on this historic day. She is a Free Woman now I am starting School.
School.
I don’t know if it is the tight pinafore or the boiled egg (‘you need a proper breakfast, Philippa,’) or if it is the way Mother tugs my unruly hair back into pigtails liberally applying Harmony hairspray in an effort to keep the frizz at bay or if it is the walk itself, the windy walk to School that makes me feel so sick. Nothing usually makes me feel sick. Too much cake. Too much ice cream. Too many greens. A ride in One of Bernie’s cars round Devon country lanes. Nothing.
Something is most definitely Up.
The short walk to School is over in a flash. All too soon we are heading through the gates into the playground. It is pandemonium. Screaming children everywhere you look. Barking dogs running round in circles and in an out of legs. Weeping mothers with hankies held to their noses. Mothers looking as scared as their children. Not a father to be seen. Perhaps all families are like mine after all. Perhaps the families in the books I am allowed to borrow from the library when Mother remembers my Education are the exception. The ones with the mummy and the daddy, a boy called Peter and a girl called Susan. (I have yet to see the books in my new classroom which will soon wither this blossoming hope.)
I look up at Mother. She is the only mother without a soggy hanky. Quite dry-eyed. And the prettiest, by far. It isn’t just her dress and her lipstick and her heels. It is something about the way she holds herself. The way she walks as if she was on stage. A tilt of the hips, the shoulders. The curvy but perfectly trim figure. Her youth.
All the other mothers take time away from their grief to notice her. To turn their heads away from their precious children and stare. And does Helena enjoy it? Does she even notice it at all?
Either way, Mother will come to hate the Playground. She will despise these other mothers. The idle chitchat at the gates. The gossip. The fierce maternal protectiveness and pride that they wear like essential accessories. She will prefer the company of Sheila’s cronies. Established women whose children are now at secondary, who’ve moved on from child-talk and speak instead of money and houses and husbands. (Of which Mother is still in short supply.)
Today she starts off as she means to go on. She takes me as far as the classroom door, handing me over trustingly to my new teacher, a woman neither of us has ever met before. Helena can’t wait to get out of there, leaving me as soon as possible. (Too soon Mummy! I hate it here! It smells of cabbages and dirty bottoms!) I do my best to detain her, to make her behave like the other mothers who fuss around their darlings, helping them find their seats, running a last comb through their hair. Begging makes no inroads on her so I start to howl instead. But it is no use. My misery is nothing to her.
‘You’ll soon get used to it, Philippa. Your grandparents dumped me in the back end of Wales for a decade. This is nothing. I’ll be back for you at three o’clock. It’s only six hours.’
Six hours! Mother has no idea what those slow crawling six hours will entail. She knows nothing of Christopher Bennett who licks his bogies and smells of bonfires. Nothing of Mandy Denning who cries her eyes out when I fall off my chair so that she wrestles all the attention from the teacher. She knows nothing of the humiliation of PE when we are forced to strip to our pants and vest and pretend to be as small as mice. She knows nothing of the endless dinner-time when we are chucked into the throng of the playground to be bumped and barged by really big boys and girls all of whom like calling me Fatty.
Instead.
She plants a rare kiss on the top of my head, grimacing at the taste of hairspray.
‘Must dash, Philippa. Mustn’t be late for work.’
And she is gone.
I am hot and squashed on the Carpet, one of a multitude trying to ‘sit on our bottoms with legs crossed nicely’, extremely tricky with plump legs like mine. I manage to dodge Christopher Bennett who is fidgeting in a Special Place at Miss Hitchcock’s feet, craftily untying the laces of her man-shoes (I caught Mother scowling at them this morning during the brief moment she was in Miss Hitchcock’s orbit). Instead, I am wedged between Mandy Denning with the blonde hair and doll-sized hands (do her eyelids click shut when she lies down?) and a quiet boy with messy hair and skin the colour and smoothness of duck eggs, who quite possibly might crack open if he falls in the playground he looks so fragile. Maybe that is why he spent Break playing on his own in a (miraculously) quiet corner, gently moving his arms up and down, side to side and round and round in some kind of balletic rain dance.
Miss Hitchcock sits on her chair reading from a book with funny pictures. It is about two children with absentee parents and I warm to it straightaway, especially when a cat sporting a rather nice hat turns up, causing mayhem. (Why isn’t this book in the library?) Just as we think things can’t possibly get any messier, the cat introduces his two friends, Thing One and Thing Two. Chaos! But not to worry: the cat tidies up before Mother gets home. All we catch of her as she opens the front door is a glimpse of red coat and high heels (and even if they do have laces like Miss Hitchcock’s shoes, I just know she is wearing lipstick like Helena).
By the time the bell rings at Hometime, I am feeling better. I’ve done it. I’ve been to school. I am a Big Girl now. We surge for the cloakroom, a riot of shuffling feet and flailing arms, freedom beckoning. So it comes as something of a shock when Miss Hitchcock’s booming voice cuts through the hullabaloo: ‘Don’t forget to bring your dinner money tomorrow, Christopher Bennett.’ We all look at each other, horrified.
Tomorrow?
‘Yes, tomorrow, Philippa.’ Helena hands me a tissue at the school gate. ‘I thought I’d explained. School is every day.’
‘Everyday?’
‘Except Saturdays and Sundays. And the school holidays.’ She buttons me into my coat. ‘But you’ve got weeks before those start,’ she adds, finding it hard to disguise the relief in her voice. Then she manoeuvres me deftly through the swarm of reunited mothers and children, and strides
off along the pavement as fast as she can in her heels, pulling me along in her wake.
How long is a week? I look up at Helena – focused straight ahead – but no further information is forthcoming. All I know for sure is the length of six hours: an eternity filled with bogies and bonfires.
Eventually we Halt at the Kerb around the corner (I am a fully-fledged Tufty Club member). ‘Look right, look left, Philippa,’ Mother commands. ‘And look right again.’ I am still not sure which is which so I watch Helena out of the corner of my eye. ‘If all clear, quick march.’ And we are off.
Helena is fervent about road safety, preparing me for later life when I will have to cross roads on my own, knowing there is little hope that cars will stop for me in the same way they stop for her (with a screech of brakes and a funny whistle). So I take it seriously too and know my Kerb Drill by heart.
Things lighten up, however, when Helena stops at a newsagents, one we have never visited before, presumably because this school route has taken us out of our usual environment. She peers with some interest at the window display of tobacco and pipes before scanning the little hand-written notices by the door. Then she smiles down at me and I notice for the first time that her face is funny: blotchy and mottled. Has she been crying?
‘Are you all right, Mummy?’ I enquire politely. But this just sets her off again.
‘Oh, Philippa,’ she says, sniffing. ‘I wish you were a boy.’
A boy? This is awful. Has she no idea?
‘But boys pick their noses, Mummy,’ I inform her, a prickle to my pride.
She laughs then, blowing her own pretty red nose before pushing me through that door into the shop, whispering the magic words: ‘Sweetie Time.’