My Secret Sister: Jenny Lucas and Helen Edwards' Family Story (13 page)

‘Is that so, Mr High-and-Mighty? Well, she’s my sister-in-law.’

‘You’re nothing to me. What I say goes. Get out of my house,
now
.’ As he said that, he manhandled her, protesting, out of the door and to the top of the stairs. ‘Good riddance to bad rubbish.’

It seems this scene didn’t deter Annie from coming round again, but it was always when Tommy was out. She and my mother slipped into an uneasy sort of friendship. Mercia had no friends really, so I thought this was a good thing until one day when my mother made the mistake of blurting it out to Tommy when he came home.

‘Annie was round here for tea,’ she began.

‘I
told
you she must never come round again,’ he shouted.

‘I didn’t want her to,’ said Mercia. ‘When she’d gone, I found out what she’s really like. She found some dust on the sideboard and wrote in it.’

‘What did she write?’

‘Slut.’

‘Well, she’s not wrong there.’

‘You brute,’ said Mercia. ‘I thought you’d stick up for me.’

‘I’ll stick up for you, all right,’ he taunted. ‘Like this.’ He slapped her across the face. ‘That’s for being a slut.’ He did it again on the other side, with even greater force. ‘And that’s for disobeying my orders.’ Then he gave her a punch in the eye. As Mercia reeled and fell to her knees, her hands to her face, he had one last outburst. ‘I’m master of this house and that bloody women is not coming back over my threshold. She’s just a useless fishwife. That’s all she is. She’s as bad as her brother, that bastard you married before me. Scum. They’re all scum, the lot of them.’

He stormed out of the flat, down the stairs and round to Annie’s next door. I didn’t hear much of the raucous altercation that followed, but that was the last time we ever spoke to her or any of her family.

My father worked shifts on the buses, while my mother worked shifts in the laundry. I came home from school each day to an empty flat. It was my job to clean the grate and light the fire, and I became proficient at this, aged ten. Next I peeled the vegetables and cooked the dinner. By the time my mother came home, the flat was always warm and tea was nearly ready. When Tommy came home I put the meal out on the table.

As we ate, he watched the six o’clock news on the BBC. No talking was allowed. When we had finished, my father clicked his fingers at me, pointed towards the kitchen and said, ‘Dishes. Now!’ While they relaxed in the living room and watched television, I washed up and put away in the kitchen, in silence. This was the routine every day. Finally, I was allowed to sit down for an hour to do my homework, then it was off to bed.

It was always the same. Whatever Tommy said, I had to jump to attention. There was one day, when I was sitting at the dining table doing a jigsaw puzzle, when I was just a moment too slow.

‘Get a bucket of coal for the fire.’

Engrossed in my jigsaw, I hesitated for a second.

‘
NOW!
’ he bellowed.

I ran down the back stairs and out to the yard behind the house, where I filled a bucket with coal as quickly as I could. I dragged it to the back door and up the step, then struggled up the concrete stairs with it, one by one, trying not to spill any on the way. When I got back to the living room and went to put some coal on the fire, I was horrified to see my jigsaw in pieces burning brightly on the embers in the grate.

‘When I tell you to do something, madam, you will do it immediately.’

I had to hide my tears and bite my lips shut. I knew any emotion would fuel his anger.

At around this time, things really started to fall apart. I arrived home from school one day to find my mother sitting in the lounge with a padded bandage swathed round her leg.

‘Something happened at work,’ she said. ‘It was an accident. I gashed my leg on a machine.’ She paused for effect. She never missed an opportunity to build up the drama. ‘They took me to hospital to have my wound stitched.’

‘Is it bad?’

‘Quite bad,’ she pouted. ‘The doctor said it was a soft-tissue wound.’

When my father came in, he flew into a temper. After a great deal of bluster, he decided to make the most of the situation. ‘I’m going to sue that laundry for negligence.’

I don’t know how long this case took to be scheduled for the court, but eventually the laundry settled for £200 compensation, which was a great deal of money in 1961. My mother was delighted. My father was triumphant.

The next day they took the day off and went on a spending spree. They both bought themselves new clothes and shoes, together with a few other things for the flat. I remember that day so well. I arrived home from school to a C&A bag lying on a chair.

My mother pointed at it. ‘Look what we bought for you.’

With a feeling of dread, I opened the bag. I could not believe what I saw. It was a coat, a beige coat. Beige of all colours! It had a knitted collar and cuffs. This was already bad enough, but the real shock hit me when I lifted it out. It was lined with
foam-rubber
.
This coat was so stiff it was capable of standing up on its own!

Total humiliation. ‘Thank you,’ I mumbled, and turned away to hide my tears. I was nearly eleven years old . . . I thought: my world will surely end if my friends see me in this monstrosity. I will die of shame. I can’t wear this coat. I just can’t.

They made me wear it, of course.

The final surprise was what they spent the rest of the money on. A huge, black beast – a Rover 90 car with the softest blue leather upholstery. Its previous owner was a famous singer – David Whitfield, the crooner whose songs we had heard on the radio at Murton. The whole of Eskdale Terrace, all our neighbours, gasped and called each other to come and look when my father drove it home the first time.

‘David Whitfield used to own this car, you know,’ announced my father.

Amazement spread like an infection. The car was indeed a wonder.

Tommy took us over to Grandma’s one afternoon. He wanted to show it to her – he knew she would be impressed – so we drove over to her house and took her out for a drive in it. She was all dressed up in her Sunday best, with her scarf, coat, matching shoes and bag, topped off with her favourite straw hat, flowers strewn around the brim. She sat next to my father in the front, a permanent smile on her face.

‘Eee, lad. It’s a grand car. I feel like a grand lady.’

‘You are a grand lady,’ smiled Tommy with a mischievous look. ‘Most of the time!’

‘Haaway!’ she chuckled.

I loved the way Grandma laughed, with that twinkle in her eyes.

Tommy drove the Rover to work every day, even though he was allowed to jump on a passing bus for free. It was immediately clear to my mother that this car required a lot of petrol. It was too expensive to run. Then my father started getting home later and later. He was always on different shifts, so I didn’t really notice, but my mother did. I was often woken in the early hours by their rows – I heard the fights, the violence. One night they raged at each other right outside my bedroom door, trading insults and accusations as usual. But this night was different. I sat up. My mother seemed to be accusing Tommy of something. I couldn’t quite make it out, but it was something to do with a female bus conductor he worked with. Mercia had mentioned her name before, with disastrous results. She couldn’t stop herself. But this time she had gone too far.

‘
I’m leaving
,’ shouted my mother.

‘Go on, then,’ said Tommy.

‘You can have your trollope, for all I care.’

I heard the tussle as they bumped against my door and screeched at each other. Then there was an almighty heave as he pushed her over the top step. ‘I won’t have you accusing me, do you hear?’

She let out a piercing scream.

‘NO!’ I yelled as I jumped out of bed.

I heard her roll, thud, thud, thud, one stair at a time, all the way to the bottom. Then silence. I rushed to open my bedroom door – I knew she’d need help – and in his fury, my father picked me up and threw me down after her. I tumbled and bumped by turns, all the way to the bottom, where I landed on top of my mother.

At the head of the stairs stood my father, his eyes bulging. ‘
Get out! Get out!
’ he bellowed.

We both lay still. We couldn’t move.

After a few seconds, he raced down the stairs, jumped over us and ran out of the door to the street. As it slammed behind him, I slumped into a faint. It must have been only moments because I was roused by the sound of his thirsty Rover as it revved away into the night.

Somehow, we picked ourselves up, bruised and shaken.

‘Are you all right?’ I said.

‘Aye.’

‘Me too.’

We both picked our way gingerly upstairs and went to bed. It was the start of another long silence between us.

I don’t know where my father went. He didn’t come back for weeks. My mother didn’t speak to me – she ignored me in every way. Nothing unusual, maybe, but she frightened me this time. Tommy was gone who knows where? Would he ever come back?

It was eerily quiet. With Tommy gone and my mother almost in a trance, I was walking on shaky ground. We were in limbo. The prolonged silence and uncertainty disturbed my thoughts, especially in bed at night. I couldn’t get to sleep for worrying about it all. What would happen if Tommy didn’t come back? Would my mother ever speak to me again? How would we manage? I worried that somehow I’d caused this to happen and that now we would all suffer for it.

One night I woke up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night. I couldn’t breathe properly – I gasped for air. The more I tried to breathe, the less I seemed to take in. I could only take short breaths and my heart was pounding, very fast and shallow. I was terrified. What was the matter with me? When I tried to slow down and breathe deeper, I rasped, and a desperate panic rose up and blocked my throat. My lungs hurt so much I was afraid they would burst. I knew I must be very ill. I tried to sit up. A draught of fresh air from the window blew across my bare arms and shocked me into taking a breath. Would this be my last? My head spun and I fell back on the pillow, staring at the ceiling, terrified. Was I about to die? I wanted to call for help, but I couldn’t. I didn’t dare wake my mother and cause more trouble, but I might die with no one to help me. I felt abandoned in my own home and the most frightened I’ve ever been.

It seemed as if I was awake in this state for a long time, but I must have fallen asleep eventually. I woke up in the morning exhausted, but I got up as if everything was normal. I felt weak and faint when I went to school, but somehow I kept going without anyone realizing.

That night was the worst, but I continued to have these attacks for quite some time – perhaps a few months – whenever there was conflict in the house. I think I learned to deal with the attacks better, and gradually they receded.

Finally Tommy turned up again. They didn’t speak to each other, or me, for a couple of months. I was confused – relieved he was back, but scared about what might happen. At least we had money coming in again – we wouldn’t lose our home. But I found it surreal that nobody spoke for so long. If my mother made a meal at the weekend, she didn’t say it was ready. It was just plonked on the table. It went cold if I didn’t see it was there. Nobody woke me up for school in the mornings. I got myself ready and went, with no goodbyes. It was a solitary time, but at least I wasn’t in trouble for a while.

I’m not sure exactly when it happened, but at some stage my mother took to her bed. I didn’t realize at first, with us all living so separately, but at some point I noticed that she had simply stopped getting up at all. When I arrived home from school each day, she was lying down, covers up to her chin. I cooked some tea for my father to eat when he came home from work, and tried to prepare something tempting for her too. But it was no use. She refused everything.

My eleventh birthday passed by with no recognition. I did all of the laundry, I shopped, lit the fires, cleaned the house and ironed – all those bus-driver shirts! My mother didn’t speak to me, whatever I did for her. If she looked at me at all, it was with distaste, sometimes hatred. Especially when I tried to persuade her to talk, or to eat. She weakened day by day.

Eventually it struck me this was serious. I garnered the courage to speak to my father. ‘I think Mam is really ill. Can we call the doctor?’

He gave me a long look. ‘Really?’

I nodded.

‘All right. Maybe we should.’

The doctor came and examined her. I remember so well the words he uttered when he came out of the room.

‘She has malnutrition.’

‘Malnutrition?’ exclaimed my father, incredulous. ‘That’s impossible. Surely not?’

‘It really is, I’m afraid. Malnutrition. You’ll have to feed her up. You must feed her round the clock. Otherwise . . .’

Otherwise . . . That was the last word I heard. It was enough. I didn’t want to hear what followed.

They carried on talking, oblivious of me, while I crept downstairs and out of the front door. Safely outside, I strode down the road and along the seafront. It was a bracing day – the sky, the sea, everything shades of steel. The wind blustered, and the sea roared. I walked along the promenade and down the steps to a spot where nobody could see me from the road, sat on the concrete ledge, as cold as stone, and looked out across the waves. I couldn’t stop shivering. Was it the chill in the air or the turmoil in my brain?

Malnutrition? What did this mean? Surely it was a third-world condition. How could she have it? I knew, of course, that my mother had eaten hardly anything for weeks. That she’d lost a lot of weight – she was thin and gaunt. But malnutrition? It was like being hit by a pile-driver. ‘Otherwise . . .’ Did he think she would die?

How could we make her eat? I was really afraid we couldn’t help her, and that she wouldn’t recover.

The cold seeped into my bones and my world held its breath for a time. I pictured the anguish on Tommy’s face when he heard those words, the doctor’s diagnosis. For the first time in my life, my father and I were allies in a common cause. It was an uncomfortable thought, and an even more daunting prospect, but the doctor had made it clear we would have to work together. I shuddered.