Secrets My Mother Kept (11 page)

No breath of wind, no gleam of sun,

Still the white snow whirls softly down

which I matched to the tune of ‘Greensleeves’.

‘Guess what?’ Margaret said, flying to meet me as Mum opened the door. ‘We’re going on holiday!’

‘What?’

‘We’re going on holiday!’ she repeated louder this time in case I hadn’t heard.

I dropped my school bag on the floor. ‘Are we, Mum?’ I asked, afraid to believe it. We had never been on holiday before – well, not in my memory. I had seen photos of myself holding hands with Pat and Josie as I tottered between them on a sandy beach when I must have been about a year old, but of course I didn’t remember that. Something bad must have happened there because Mum never wanted to talk about it; I was only ever shown that photo furtively, when Mum wasn’t around.

Now, nearly ten years later, here was Margaret telling me that we were going on holiday and Mum was nodding and smiling to confirm it.

‘Where are we going? When are we going? Who’s coming?’ The questions came spilling out. Mum came and sat down in the kitchen on her chair and lit a cigarette, ‘We are going at the end of July, which is in a few weeks, and we are going to a place called Ilfracombe.’ That sounded like a funny name to us but it also sounded exotic and exciting. We started giggling. We were a pair of gigglers, at least that was what Mum called us. Usually it seemed to annoy her, but the more she told us off the more we giggled; it must have driven her mad. But not today; today she was in one of her good moods.

‘We will all be going and Mary is staying here with Aunty to look after the cat.’

‘Are we taking Pongo with us?’ I asked worriedly. Pongo was supposed to be my dog. Old Pongo had died, but it wasn’t long before Mum had brought home a new puppy. This one was black and white and I loved her. She was Pat’s and mine, and I took my responsibility very seriously. That dog loved us back, and would always sit on Pat’s lap when she was home from work, and I would squeeze next to them on the same chair. I was a bit too big to do that now, but I still adored playing with Pongo and she would rush to meet me when I got home from school.

‘Yes, Pongo is coming with us,’ Mum reassured me as she stroked the dog’s head. ‘We will get the train to London and then a coach all the way to Ilfracombe.’ Margaret and I counted the days, desperate for the holiday to arrive. We talked endlessly about going and longed for time to pass until we got on the train. When we saw some battered old suitcases appear it began to feel more real.

On the Friday evening before we were due to leave, Marge, Marion, Pat and Josie had all arrived home from work. Margaret and I were beside ourselves with excitement, although mine was tempered by the dread that always accompanied anything new. Would people on the coach look at us? Would they say something to Mum?

We left for the station bright and early. Mum had arranged with Mary that she would leave her family allowance and benefits book with her so Mary could draw it out for the fortnight we were going to be away. Mary had agreed to ‘loan’ Mum the money in advance from her and Dave’s savings so that we would have some money to take with us. Off we left for the station, dragging our heavy suitcases onto the 62 bus to Chadwell Heath station.

As we boarded the train I turned and looked around me. Something had to go wrong. This was all just too wonderful and exciting for words! ‘I bet the train will break down,’ I thought, ‘or maybe it will crash and we won’t get to the coach in time,’ but it didn’t and we did. The journey seemed very long. The coach was warm and stuffy, and when it stopped for people to take a ‘comfort’ break and have a cup of tea we stayed on board. There was no point in going into the café as we couldn’t afford to buy refreshments. Mum had made Spam sandwiches and had filled bottles with orange squash for us while the older ones had tea from a flask. As the journey was so long and the coach was so hot, the sandwiches were sweaty and the juice was warm. My head begin to throb and I felt a wave of nausea. I started to feel panicked. What would I do if I needed to be sick? Everyone on the coach would see. For the rest of the journey I was in misery, my head banging furiously. I was trying desperately not to be sick. In the end I managed to make it, but Pongo wasn’t so lucky. She vomited, but luckily Pat managed to catch it in her sunhat! I don’t think the other passengers on the coach were very impressed and the smell was awful.

We were all relieved to arrive. The coach dropped us in the centre of Ilfracombe and Mum got out the letter confirming our holiday rental.

‘Right, let’s have a look now.’ She read the directions out loud.

The house where we had hired a flat was at the top of a very steep hill and the flat was at the top of a very tall house, so there was a lot of climbing involved every time we went out, but we didn’t mind.

Margaret and I were given the bunk beds, her on the bottom and me on the top. The beach was in walking distance, and we went there almost every day. On the first day we passed a seaside shop. It was glorious! Sun hats swung from its awning and buckets and spades tumbled out from its windows, along with shells, paper windmills, wind breaks and all manner of exciting objects. We were allowed to choose a bucket and spade each and a sunhat.

‘Can I have the red one?’ I pleaded with Pat, as she reached into her purse to find the money. Margaret pointed excitedly at the yellow one and we were both delighted with our acquisitions. We chose pink and blue sunhats that were cone-shaped with pretty fringes all over. My heart skipped a beat when I saw the beach stretched before us for the first time.

‘Oh look!’ I shouted to no one in particular, pointing to the endless sand and white-topped waves. We had been on day trips to Southend before, but I had never seen such golden sand, so many tempting rockpools.

‘Come on,’ I said to Margaret, ‘I’ll race you,’ and we tumbled along the sand towards the sea. The sun seemed to shine every day. We had ice creams and sticks of rock, and even had fish and chips, which we ate on the beach as we looked out at the seagulls swirling around us hungrily. We made good use of our new swimsuits and showed off the newly acquired skills that we had learnt from our weekly swimming lessons at school. In the evenings we would all go back down to the beach and play cricket. People would gather round to watch, and sometimes they would clap if one of us hit the ball a long way, or made an impressive catch. We must have looked the epitome of a big happy normal family. Looks can be deceiving.

14

Running Out of Money

The first week of our holiday whizzed past at speed, and everyone seemed to be happy for once. I had now moved to share the double bed with Marge, as I had fallen out of the top bunk on the first night we were there and had bruising all down my left side.

I had screamed my head off, but Pat said, ‘Just go for a swim in the sea. Don’t you know that salt water is healing?’

The flat we had rented for the fortnight was small, but clean and tidy. There was a table with enough chairs for us all to sit down at the same time, which was a real novelty. Mum would cook an evening meal for us after we had been at the beach all day and we were always ravenous by then. After dinner we would either play cards, snakes and ladders, draughts or sometimes Monopoly, which we had brought with us. We also went to the penny arcades a couple of times. This was a huge treat for us, and we had to decide whether to put the pennies in to see if we could get the silver balls into the right slots or whether to make the laughing policemen roar hysterically.

At night Josie told us ghost stories. She was very good at this, and could make all sorts of strange voices and noises. There is a very fine line between terror and delight and we enjoyed walking that line whenever Josie was in the mood to play with us, and would often go to bed trembling with fear and imaginings. We had watched a Punch and Judy show on the beach one day, and even at ten I remember feeling confused and unnerved by it. It was the one thing we did during that first week that I didn’t enjoy. The strange guttural voice of the puppets, and the violent smacking just didn’t seem right. Arguments, shouting, chaotic situations, violent outbursts and strange unfathomable, confusing secrets – it was just too close to the truth of my childhood, and ugly Mr Punch haunted my dreams for many years afterwards. But apart from that, I had a wonderful time; my sisters laughed and played around me and Mum was always smiling.

By the end of that first week things changed. There wasn’t much food left and the money had run out. Mum had her family allowance and benefits book with her as she had forgotten to leave them for Mary, but she couldn’t draw out the money until Tuesday. On Saturday we woke up and the sun had disappeared. Grey clouds had gathered, and with them came a change in everyone’s mood. Margaret and I picked up on this and were starting to squabble. Most of our sisters didn’t want to go to the beach because they said it was too cold and was going to rain, so we were just sitting in the small flat with nothing much to do except look out of the window hoping for sunshine.

Suddenly Pat jumped up and said, ‘Come on you two, let’s go for a walk with Pongo.’ I put on my shoes eagerly but Margaret wanted to stay at home with Josie who had begun to make some little dolls for her out of a couple of wooden pegs she had found in a basket under the sink. Pat and I headed off towards the beach, but the clouds were getting blacker and it was soon obvious that it was going to rain. There was a loud clap of thunder and I let out a scream, then a jagged fork of lightning seemed to bounce off the sea.

It was really scary but Pat said, ‘Oh it’s all right, it’s just God moving his furniture.’ I didn’t really believe her but it did make me feel better. By the time we got home we were both soaking wet and so was Pongo.

‘Come here Pongo and I’ll dry you,’ said Pat, as she grabbed the towel from the bathroom and started to rub the dog’s fur. Mum was sitting by the window looking out at the rain with that faraway look in her eyes. She almost changed into a different person at these times, and we would all normally instinctively know to adapt our behaviour. But today we were all irritable and hungry. We hadn’t eaten since the night before and that had just been a plate of potatoes. Josie told Marion to put the kettle on for a cup of tea but she answered back: ‘No! Why should I? It’s always me has to make the tea, it’s her turn,’ and she gestured towards Marge. It was almost five o’clock. Marge got up and went out to make the tea without any fuss.

The room was unusually quiet but I broke the silence by asking, ‘When is dinner going to be ready?’

Mum swivelled round and just looked at me crossly. ‘There isn’t any dinner.’ She turned her back on us. I looked at my sisters who were all pretending that they hadn’t heard. Margaret started to cry.

‘Stop grizzling,’ said Mum sharply, and went and got her coat. ‘I’m going out.’ With that she slammed the door behind her, stamped down the stairs and went out into the rain. Josie and Pat exchanged a look. Josie comforted Margaret, who by now was even more upset.

It was about half an hour later that Mum came back with another large bag of potatoes. ‘Here,’ she said, flinging them on to the table. ‘Twins, come and peel these, and put them on to boil.’ When they were cooked Josie brought them to the table and dished them out onto our plates. We had a good plateful each, but they didn’t look very appetising sitting in their pale glory alone on our plates, with nothing more than a shake of salt to make them taste of anything. Still, at least we weren’t going to bed hungry.

The next day was Sunday and Mum sent us to Mass at the local Catholic Church. Mum never came to Mass, even at home. When we came out she was there to meet us. ‘We’re going shopping,’ she said, and we followed her to a small grocery shop on the corner of the road that was open on a Sunday. As we went inside we saw Mum hand over her family allowance book to the man.

‘Right you are then,’ he said, ‘but only £1 worth.’ Mum asked for potatoes, sausages, eggs, baked beans, lard, loaves of bread and margarine and various other items, which the grocer duly filled her bags with. Mum looked at the sweets and asked for two lollypops and then, hesitating, asked for ten Player’s cigarettes. Mum lit up as soon as we left the shop and then we walked back up the tall hill, carrying the bag of shopping up the three flights of stairs to the little flat at the top. We were worn out by the time we got in; two days of nothing but boiled potatoes doesn’t fill you with energy.

‘Let’s have sausages and chips for Sunday dinner,’ Mum suggested, her enthusiasm returning, and we were very glad that it wasn’t to be boiled potatoes again.

On Tuesday Mum retrieved her allowance book from the grocer’s shop that also had a post office counter at the back, and drew out her money, paying the man back the money he had allowed her in advance. This didn’t leave much to last for the rest of the week, so there wasn’t any more ice cream or treats, but we still managed to have a good time and I certainly didn’t want to come back home to Dagenham, even to see the cat and Aunty.

15

The Baker Boy

When we got home Dave was at our house with Mary.

‘Mum, you forgot to leave your allowance book,’ Mary said tremulously.

‘Oh I know,’ Mum answered, not meeting Mary’s eyes but continuing to unpack the clothes ready for washing.

‘Margaret must have put it in my bag before we left,’ she said and carried the washing into the scullery. I watched Mary and Dave exchange looks, and when Mum returned it was Dave’s turn to question her.