My Mother My Mirror

by Andrea Kitt

  A week or so after we got home it was Simon’s birthday and I made him a cake with a Greek theme: a marzipan boy swimming in a white sea with a yellow rubber ring, a blue and white Greek flag and a dark red watermelon.

  Two years later, when Simon was twelve, we went to Norway. I have always felt a connection with this beautiful country and its tall, blond people; and it felt extra adventurous to be visiting the mountains of the north rather than the traditional holiday resorts of the south.

  The trip to Hertfordshire took six hours, with me driving and Simon navigating. Here we stayed the night with Andrew Strange, and early the following morning he took us to Stanstead Airport. How lucky I was to have such an excellent companion on these journeys, and how glad I am that I made them happen, leaving both Simon and I with memories to last a lifetime. Looking back now, I could so easily not have made the effort, and we would both have been so much poorer for it. Not that it was always easy. Even then, sleep was an issue; and the anxiousness of being in a new place could be very challenging.

  After travelling in car, plane, bus and boat, we arrived that evening at Bergen Youth Hostel, where I spent the night in a hellish sort of panic, surrounded by hordes of zipping, rustling, door-banging strangers – plus Simon wriggling on the bunk above me. I wished I had brought sleeping pills; I worried that our money wouldn’t last, having witnessed the price of a bread roll and a bottle of water... But I breathed and prayed and breathed deeper, and did get a little sleep after all, and the next morning we were off again to explore the fjords and mountains.

  I think Simon would agree that there were two main highlights to this holiday. There was the day when we trekked up a mountain overlooking the town of Sogendal, towards the end of our ten day stay. It was just so fantastically panoramic up there – such amazing vistas of fold upon fold of snowcapped mountains, forests, valleys, lakes and fjords. It really was like being on top of the world.

  But the other highlight was the best of all, because this was a real adventure. We were staying in the youth hostel in Flam, which was a huge improvement on Bergen. It was a spacious Scandinavian-style chalet, surrounded by trees, with room to spread ourselves around, and just the cooking area to share with other people.

  The first day we explored the local area and got to know the lie of the land. Then after two nights in the hostel we checked out, dragged our luggage down the road and hid it in bin-bags in a small cave in the woods, so that we could climb the mountain unencumbered. We had a good local map, and we were aiming for a hut five miles away, where we would be able to spend the night.

  The path was steep as stairs. We wove our way up, through trees and rocks, stopping every now and then for sustenance, or just to get our breath back. On and on we went - up and up – until at last, several hours later, the trees began to thin out and the way became a little less steep. Small streams crossed the path from time to time, gushing down to join the nearby river. We splashed our faces and took great gulps of the wonderful water.

  To our right was a steep slope leading down to the river, then up the other side to a meadow in which there were two huts. For a moment we wondered if we had reached our destination, but the geography was all wrong and it was obviously too soon, so we trekked on upwards, with now the occasional piece of level ground, or even one or two tiny downward slopes.

  The trees petered out and soon we were in a broad marshy valley in which the river was no longer contained but meandered in dozens of different rivulets, some wide and gushing, some just little trickles. It was crystal clear and surrounded by exquisite ferns, flowers and mosses, but we were becoming weary and couldn’t appreciate them as we should. We leapt over the water and negotiated around it, aiming for a gap between two hills that seemed to be where all the river came from... But would that horizon just lead to another horizon, equally promising but equally not the end of the journey?

  Our feet were getting wet, and we were very tired. My legs were wobbling, Simon’s were aching. The spoonfuls of honey that revived him earlier in the day now had no effect. We had been going for six hours; there was still another three hours until sunset, but it was no fun anymore. Five miles was all very well on the flat, but on this terrain it was a completely different matter. We stopped and took stock, and in the end regretfully agreed that we were defeated: we would have to turn round and go back. We both shed a few exhausted tears, then began the blessed relief of the downward slope.

  But where were we going to sleep? We had checked out of the youth hostel, and the only other places in that small town would be expensive hotels. As we passed the huts on the far side of the valley, Simon suggested we go and see if there was any chance of us spending the night in one of them. I was sure they would be locked up, but at his insistence I scooted down the slope, across the wooden bridge and up the other side, leaving him on the path with the bags. The first hut was definitely impossible to get in to. The farther one had a promising outer door, but when I opened it it led to a sort of porch area with some tools and a dead bird or two. Then I went round the back and discovered – oh joy – that one of the windows was loose. It was easy to lift it up, and there was room for us to squeeze through.

  I signalled to Simon across the valley; he scurried down and up and had soon hoiked himself up, with the help of a small pile of logs, and was diving head-first through the window onto a bed piled with duvets and pillows. This was more like it! Echoes of Goldilocks and the three bears. Simon managed to find an Allen key which opened the front door, and was soon off with a bucket to fetch water from the river. I rummaged in the cupboards and found quick-cook rice and packeted soup to boil on the calor-gas stove. Together with the remains of the sandwiches, it made a fine meal.

  That was the first night I was really happy in Norway: snuggled under duvets, away from the bustle of humanity and surrounded by the magnificent stillness and silence of the ancient land. This is what I had come for. I had at last arrived.

  The next morning we tidied up and left some money and a thank you note for the owner. We think we met him on the way down: an enormously tall man with huge calf muscles, striding up the path as if he did it every morning before breakfast, talking on his mobile phone. And later on we saw him roaring up and down the road on his motorbike... a modern day Viking!

  We also took a trip, a few days later, to see a great ice-blue glacier carved by the elements into fantastic caves and curves; we did a little kayaking, lots more exploring, Simon climbed a couple of trees, we jumped in freezing cold water once or twice... All in all it was a brilliant trip, ending with a journey on the ‘Bergen Express’ which ploughed down Sonjefjord and along the coast past hundreds of little islands. I have a photo of Simon smiling enigmatically under his Viking helmet (made in China – but we had to buy one!), the wind in his hair, one hand stopping the horns from blowing away, the other clutching the pole of the Norwegian flag at the front of the boat.

  42

  Knee in the Groin

  Judy came with me to Leela for several of the festivals, and enjoyed the company of other children of her age. Sometimes they were offered workshops, with a chance to make their own video or do a live performance; more often the main thrill was to stay up late giggling in each others’ tents and run wild in the safe environment of the community grounds.

  I was looking forward to taking Simon as I knew he would love it, particularly getting together with some of the boys who were keen on music and drama. There was one summer holiday when Simon had been spending a lot of time with his dad and I’d been missing him, but reassured myself with the thought that when he came to Leela with Judy and I we would have a whole week together, even if some of it was from a distance.

  However, when I went to fetch him I was met with a brewing storm. Sam had been looking up Leela on the internet and told me that the Osho people were a dangerous cult renowned for their paedophilia – a bit rich from one who had been so deeply involved in one of the other main cults of the twentieth century, but I suppose this i
s what made him so passionately against it. And even when he was involved in Divine Light Mission he had always been on the edge, railing against the elite and trying to give the power back to the people. Perhaps he just liked a fight. Sam was the master of hypocrisy, one moment adamant in one opinion and the next moment equally fierce about its opposite. In any case, on this occasion I had a battle on my hands, and nothing I could say about my personal experience of these people at this time made any difference.

  It got nasty. I’m ashamed to say that, in my desperation to take Simon with me, there was a moment in which I was tugging him my way and Sam was tugging him his. Then we left the poor boy out of it and started on each other. I can’t remember the details, but we were out on the grass at the front of the cottage and there was much shouting and yelling, just like old times, and at one point I kneed him in the groin. Then he locked himself in the house, and in my fury I raced round the back and scrambled in the tiny kitchen window, only to find he had already rung the police, who were at the door a few minutes later.

  I was accused of breaking and entering. Sam was terribly good at making a case for himself, and to be honest I had been out of order. Anyway, this was a last lesson in the futility of confronting him head-on; from that point I kept my distance. The police got back to me a few weeks later, but were satisfied that everything was back to normal and dropped the case. Up until this point Sam had still been admiring me and imagining the faint possibility of my return; now he became more cold and wary. And Simon, I regret to say, never came to Leela.

  But we did all sorts of other things together. A short while after this we visited Wales, exploring the feminine majesty of the rolling Breckon Beacons then travelling north to Mid-Wales where I used to stay with my family. Clambering through the steep field behind the cottage, I pointed out the old forge where Shelley had his studio, the part of the garden where I had sometimes stayed in a tent, the farm belonging to Mrs Davies who slept with her sheep, and the view down the Ystwyth valley. We climbed further and pottered around the mine workings, collecting crystals and chucking rocks down the deep shafts, then later set up camp down by the river.

  For the last part of our holiday we visited North Wales, which was beautiful in a far grander, more masculine way. I felt a sense of awe as I gazed up at the great rocky heights; and as we strode and climbed and breathed in the wonderful fresh air I was lifted out of my little self into something far more vast and ancient.

  In the meantime, it was challenging enough with Judy just to make it from one day to the next in relative peace and harmony. Before the beginning of the GCSE courses at school, we had been given a choice: whether to take the academic route or a more vocational one, which in Judy’s case would have meant doing a few basic GCSEs but spending half the week learning hairdressing or cooking or some practical skill. Being a middle-class mum, I over-rode Judy’s objections and agreed with Sam that the academic route was the way to go. I was wrong. Judy is a practical person, she loves money, and she wanted to become part of the real world, now! Everything always had to be now: she struggled with the concept of delayed gratification.

  I don’t know what would have happened had she been allowed to do a more practical course. She tells me now she was glad she ended up doing neither one, because she so much enjoyed walking out of class and having the brilliant social life that she had been denied because of living in the country. All I know is that trying to get her to do the conventional courses was a complete waste of time, and school attendance became a big issue.

  Her objections began to manifest themselves in her body. What had begun at primary school as feeling nauseous because she hated going there, and occasionally storing her breakfast in her cheeks and pretending to throw up on the way to school, had now become something more real. Often when I woke her for school in the morning she would make an effort to get ready, but would feel too sick and exhausted and would have to go back to bed. I vacillated from empathy to tyranny; and as time went on we got more and more letters from the school threatening us with fines, and even imprisonment, if she continued to fail to attend.

  Sometimes I would literally drag her out of bed and down the stairs, and force her into the car. Then she became too big and strong and I couldn’t do that anymore; and of course I could see things from her point of view, which didn’t make it easy. In the right situation, with money and support, I would have happily educated her at home – or sent her to a private school with less of a production line mentality. I even thought the discipline of boarding school might do her good, but in the end I decided that, because she was already so insecure, this could easily be seen as the ultimate betrayal.

  I began to keep a careful note in my diary of the exact times when she did make it to school, and the times when she had a genuine excuse such as her period or a cold. Then we were invited in for meetings with the headmaster and some sort of go-between counsellor, with whom Judy had a few private sessions. What they had to say boiled down to: “We will fall over ourselves to be understanding, we will compromise to a certain extent, we only want what’s best for her.... but you had better comply - OR ELSE... !” But the counsellor lady was kind and helpful and managed to use her influence to make them more lenient, and we strung them along until in the end I arranged for Judy to do a Beauty Therapy course at South Devon College, and we finally escaped the school authorities.

  I remember awful mornings when Sam had agreed to come and take her to school from my house: he would be roaring and yelling up at her bedroom window, and she would be shouting down at him to fuck off. She still went to stay with him on a regular basis, but hated it more and more. I felt bad about making her, but I needed a break. And finally there came a day when she mustered up all her young strength, put her foot down and absolutely refused.

  So now we were on our own. She would still sometimes go and see her dad and try to twist his arm for some new purchase that she absolutely must have, but the rest of the time, when she wasn’t in town she was at home with me.

  43

  Egypt

  When Simon was fourteen I decided to take him to Egypt. I had experienced tantalizing glimpses of the underwater world, and after lots of research decided that the Red Sea was the best place to go for a real snorkelling feast. For two or three months there was a lot of discussion about when to tell Dad. Sam did actually ask us not to tell him things, because it caused him anxiety, but obviously at some point he would have to know. When we told him he was dead against it, convinced that we would be kidnapped by terrorists, despite my assurances that I had booked a safe, friendly and personally recommended hotel hundreds of miles from Cairo. But we went anyway, and I’m so glad we did.

  Journeys were always fun with Simon – which is a good thing, as holidays involve a lot of travelling. Sometimes Simon would beat-box whilst I sang, or we would both sing or chat or play I-spy, between bits of navigation. One time I remember being drunk with tiredness, and having a hilarious game of shooting each other with little bits of dried grass through the heating fan on the dashboard.

  I remember the awkwardness of trying to get comfortable on the plane in a tiny, weeny space. I put my head on Simon’s lap for a while and almost drifted off to sleep, then he tried to lie on my head but found it too hard. We kept wedging coats into corners and wriggling around, swapping places, leaning this way and that, from time to time finding a mutually tolerable position and forcing ourselves to stay still until buttock, thigh or arm became just too agonizingly squashed; then easing round trying not to disturb the other person, until we finally gave up and had an enormous stretch... But the good thing was, it was all amicable, and we were in it together!

  Then there was the awfulness of the aeroplane food. The carnivorous option looked so unappetising that we asked if they had any vegetarian meals left, only to find this was even worse. The rice had disintegrated so much there was no sign of any individual grains, the cauliflower had also turned into mush... In fact the whole thing looked as if it had bee
n dead for many weeks. Then they took so long to take the tray away, allowing that extra few inches to stretch out in, that poor, tired Simon was almost reduced to tears.

  But we got there eventually, to the beautiful Bedouin Moon Hotel, with the mountains at the back and the Red Sea at the front. We had a fine room with a domed ceiling, pretty arches over the bed-heads and the mirror, dark blue covers and curtains, and a small balcony overlooking the water. Once unpacked, we explored the terraced garden, decorated with flowering shrubs and lights in terracotta pots or baskets, with steps leading up and up to a great illuminated swimming pool surrounded by sunbeds and small palms.

  The next morning at breakfast we met our first Egyptian cats, right there in the hotel dining room. These creatures were nothing like the soft moggies we are used to in England. I’m not sure if anyone owned them: more likely they had just drifted in and not been thrown out. They were large cats: long and lean with small heads and faint stripes or spots and big eyes; and in the case of the tiny kitten who became our special friend, I had never seen such enormous eyes in such a small face, with such a stringy little body. Kitty had two mummies, from both of whom she seemed to get a scanty amount of milk. To start with she hid a lot, behind the fridge or under the cupboard; but she was ravenously hungry, so after a while we were able to lure her out with food. We have a photo of her trying to get her teeth into a cocktail sausage, which with her tiny mouth looks as large as a French loaf. Often her mummies would get jealous and if we let her down onto the floor smelling of food all hell would break loose, so we had to make sure we gave them something too.

  After breakfast we explored down-town Dahab, but then I’m afraid the testing times began again, because that afternoon I began to feel sick, and it turned into a horrible tummy bug. Simon spent most of the next day in the pool, then that night I fell asleep only to be woken a couple of hours later by Simon throwing up on the floor between the beds. The following day he became feverish, so I called for the doctor, who gave us injections and pills. We had been warned to be careful about the local food, but there were so many bits of advice that I wasn’t quite sure which ones to take seriously. It now seems probable that the salad was the culprit... but perhaps it would have happened anyway.