Secrets My Mother Kept (21 page)

As we arrived at the offices, Mum turned and said, ‘You two wait there while I go in first and I’ll call you when we’re ready for you to come in.’ Margaret duly sat and waited for the call and the process was concluded. This was a scene that was repeated prior to each of our weddings and it wasn’t until after she’d died that we discovered what happened. Unbeknownst to us, she’d go in and claim that the bride’s father died in Canada – a fairy-tale designed to explain our multiple names.

Margaret and Tony had a big Catholic white wedding but soon after she started to slip into a deep depression. It was this that prompted her to apply to become a trainee State Enrolled Nurse at Southend Hospital, which was to have a profound effect on the rest of her life, transforming her from a timid, compliant, shy young girl into a highly skilled and qualified nurse and a confident young woman.

29

New Opportunities

At the same time that Margaret was applying to become a nurse, I was getting restless and dissatisfied with my office job. I had lots of friends, a steady boyfriend, and a bit more money now, but I was bored. I decided I wanted to be a teacher without the slightest idea of what it would entail. I suppose I had always been the big sister to Margaret, always felt responsible for her, for calming things, keeping situations under control, but now that she was married it was as though a burden had been lifted and I wanted to spread my own wings. I had a friend at work that I often confided in and when I shared my thoughts she encouraged me.

‘I think it’s a great idea,’ she said enthusiastically. ‘You’d be a great teacher, I reckon.’ I felt buoyed up by her confidence in me and when she came in to work a few days later with the name and address of a teacher training college that her cousin had gone to, I decided to take the plunge. It was called Digby Stuart and was in Roehampton, West London. It had the added advantage that it was only for women, as although I liked male attention I had gone to an all-girls convent school, so wasn’t used to co-ed.

Patrick was sceptical. ‘Why do you want to go all the way over there?’ he asked. ‘It’ll take you at least an hour to get there each day.’

‘I’m not going to live at home,’ I told him. ‘I’m going to stay at the college in the week.’ That was not met with any enthusiasm from him, so when I found out shortly after applying that I was an O-level short of the admission requirements, he couldn’t hide his pleasure.

‘Oh well,’ he said, ‘it’s probably for the best.’ I was so angry inside – it might be best for him but it wasn’t best for me! I decided then and there that whatever it took I was going to get into that college one day.

The following spring I applied to take my O-level Art as an external candidate at a local secondary school. It felt strange to be walking back into a school after all this time. When I arrived to sit the first paper, I had done no preparation whatsoever. It was art, wasn’t it? And I had always been good at art. The lady in the office pointed me in the right direction and I walked into a big classroom with tables set up. I was wearing my white cheesecloth tunic top over my jeans and my blonde-streaked hair was hanging loose, so I walked in feeling nervous but suitably arty. There were examples of the pupils’ work everywhere, paint pots laying around and a general buzz of creativity, and in the middle of it all stood a young man probably no more than four or five years older than me. He had long dark hair, kind eyes and stubble on his chin. To my surprise he was wearing a T-shirt and jeans. The teachers that I knew from my school days had been mostly nuns, and those that weren’t were usually mature and sensibly dressed older women. We certainly were never taught by men, let alone attractive young men!

His eyes lit up when he saw me. ‘Hi,’ he said hurrying over to where I stood. ‘Can I help?’

‘I’m here to take the exam.’

With a broad smile he led me over to a vacant table. He was kindness itself and by the end of that first day I was beginning to feel more confident. There were three ‘papers’ to sit in all, arranged over three days. At the end of the third day, as I was about to leave, the young art teacher handed me a letter.

‘Please read this when you get home,’ he asked, smiling into my eyes. My heart gave a little skip and I smiled back. But as I walked out, I was painfully aware that I was wearing the solitaire diamond ring that Patrick had bought me when we had got engaged a few months before. It had been very expensive, but now that he had finished his apprenticeship money was more plentiful. We’d had a big party and my sister Pat had kissed me on the cheek for the first time ever. Patrick had been insistent that we got engaged when I told him I was determined to go to college. I suppose it was a kind of label saying ‘Don’t touch, already spoken for’ but I didn’t really mind too much. Usually I loved my ring, although it made my hand feel heavy. I liked all the gifts we had been given and being the centre of attention at the party; I even quite liked Patrick. We had got used to each other; he was kind and considerate and had accepted and been accepted by my family. His mum was a lovely, funny Irish lady, who I liked to believe was as fond of me as I was of her. Anyway Margaret had said it was about time we got engaged; after all she and Tony had already been married for over a year.

When I got back from that last exam I opened the letter.

‘Dear Kathy,’ it began. ‘When I saw you for the first time a few weeks ago, I thought an angel had walked into my classroom.’ I gulped as I continued to read. ‘You looked so beautiful standing there, so scared and vulnerable, I just wanted to pick you up and run away with you, and look after you for ever. Please meet me so that we can talk. I promise nothing too heavy, just a chance to speak to you without a class full of kids watching us. Here is my phone number – please, please, please ring me . . .’

‘What’s that?’ asked Mum, seeing me standing in the hallway with the letter in my hand.

I jumped. ‘Oh nothing,’ I said, looking guilty.

‘Let me see then,’ she continued. I held the letter downwards so she couldn’t read it.

‘No, it’s nothing. Just embarrassing.’

‘Don’t be silly, let me have a look.’ She held her hand out and I passed it to her reluctantly. She scanned the pages.

‘Hmm, what are you going to do?’

‘What do you mean? Nothing of course.’

‘Why not? Don’t you like him?’ she asked.

‘I’m engaged!’ I retorted, shocked at her attitude.

‘Yes, but you’re not married are you?’ she added, looking at me closer than she normally did.

I felt myself blushing; Mum never talked to us about this kind of thing. It felt uncomfortable and wrong but I didn’t know why. I took the letter back and ran upstairs. I re-read it a few times that night before throwing it away, but I often thought of that young man and his kind eyes and wondered what might have happened if I had rung that number.

‘I’ve got in!’ I shouted, waving the official looking letter from West London. ‘I’ve got a place for this September!’ I was so excited. Mum looked over at me, and Pat smiled.

‘That’s good,’ she said.

Mum added, ‘You’d better ring your cousin Julie and tell her; she will be so pleased.’

When I had passed my Art O-level and re-applied for a place at the college I hadn’t really thought through the implications if I was offered a place. Yes it was exciting, but the enormity of it suddenly dawned on me with a thud. I would be living away from home; I wouldn’t be earning any money; I wouldn’t know anyone; Patrick would be annoyed; but above all of these concerns was that same old doubt, that familiar feeling that I wouldn’t be the same as the other girls, that I wouldn’t be good enough.

Mum said we would need to apply for a grant, so we went together to Dagenham Town Hall at the Fiddlers to see about me getting one.

‘Tie your hair back,’ Mum said, when I came downstairs ready to go. ‘You need to look smart and tidy.’ I pulled my long blonde hair into a tight ponytail.

‘Is this okay?’ I asked, standing on my tiptoes trying to see in the mirror that hung on the kitchen wall. When Margaret and I were little, Mum, determined that we wouldn’t be vain, would tell us, ‘Don’t look in the mirror, or you’ll see the devil pop up behind you.’

It was years before I had the courage to look at my reflection, and even now, at nearly twenty, I almost expected to see horns, a hairy face and red eyes peering at me over my shoulder!

‘Yes, that’s better,’ she said as we hurried out of the front door.

Aunty was in the garden as usual, fork in hand. The flowers that grew across the front of our house were magnificent now. There were several rose bushes that tumbled their way towards the privet hedge, and a mixture of colourful perennials that gave the impression of a cottage garden. Aunty had cultivated this completely on her own, and over the years it had become a solace for her when she needed to escape. She had gathered the plants together over time, not by buying them, but by bartering with friends and neighbours. When we were younger we would be embarrassed when she stopped outside a garden that she noticed looked particularly pretty and called out to ask if she could have a cutting. I don’t believe anyone ever refused; in fact they would more often than not get into a deep, long-winded conversation about plants. She waved us off and turned back to her pruning.

The Town Hall was an imposing 1930s building – austere and forbidding. Mum wasn’t daunted though; she knew how to handle authority. I, on the other hand, was feeling increasingly anxious. As we approached the reception desk, Mum handed the grant application to the man behind the desk.

‘Oh yes,’ he said, hardly looking up, ‘you need to go down that corridor and take the first right through the double doors, then up the stairs and it’s first door on the left.’ He had lost me after the double doors, but Mum was sharp and led the way. When we got to the door marked ‘Maintenance Grants’, Mum turned to me.

‘Now you wait out here while I go in and I’ll call you if you need to come in.’ I was more than happy to oblige and sat on a chair near the wall. Mum was in the room for about half an hour when the door opened.

‘Come in for a moment please, Kathleen,’ a kind-looking man asked.

‘So, you are going to college to become a teacher?’ he asked as he continued to write on the form in front of him. ‘We just need you to sign this and then we can start the application process.’

As I bent to sign I noticed that the name on the form was Kathleen Stevens. I hesitated and glanced at Mum. ‘What name should I sign?’ I whispered to her. The man looked at me over the top of his glasses with his eyebrows raised.

‘Your own name of course,’ he said suspiciously.

I hesitated again, should I write Kathleen Coates or Kathleen Stevens? Mum just calmly indicated the place on the form and said quietly, ‘There, that’s where you sign, K Coates, on that line there.’ I did as I was told and we handed the man the form and left for home, buzzing with anticipation.

30

The First Step

The day I was due to start college, Patrick drove me to Barking Station to get the District Line to Hammersmith. I had packed a small suitcase that Josie had lent to me; it was covered with stickers of all the exotic places she had visited. Josie had worked her way up over the years and now had an exciting job as the manager of the Travel Office at Plessey. It was an important position that carried with it power and influence, and her salary had increased to reflect the responsibility of her role. She got flown all over the world by airlines that were keen to secure business from such a big company, and stayed in hotels that had similar motives. It must have been bizarre for her to pack her bags and leave our increasingly dilapidated and dowdy council house in Dagenham and fly off to strange and unfamiliar destinations, often travelling business or first class, and all free of charge!

When Patrick kissed me goodbye, I noticed an unfamiliar look in his eyes. ‘Are you sure you want to go?’ he asked, holding on to me tightly.

‘Yes – I think so,’ I said, but actually I was starting to think that this wasn’t such a good idea after all. I wanted to be a student, it felt like a trendy, modern thing to be, and I liked the excitement of the unknown, but as usual this was tempered with anxiety. As the train pulled out of the station I waved to Patrick, and watched as everything that was familiar and safe faded out of sight. I realised with a jolt that for the first time in my life I was going into the unknown alone.

The instructions for where to go were very easy to follow and I found my way to the bus garage in Hammersmith where I had to catch the 72 bus to Roehampton. I saw the buildings of the college and rang the bell to stop the bus, my stomach turning somersaults.

In the entrance hall of the college there were lots of young students, both male and female, milling about.

A lively young woman bustled up to me. ‘Hello there,’ she greeted me, smiling down at my case, ‘and where have you flown in from?’

I looked at her, puzzled. ‘Dagenham.’

‘Oh,’ she said, and I watched the interest leave her face. ‘You have to sign in over there.’ Pointing me in the direction of a wide table, she disappeared into the throng.

The registration process seemed endless. There were numerous queues to join, and a multitude of forms to fill in, and during that time I got chatting to some of the students around me.

‘I thought this was an all-girls college,’ I said to a girl called Gerry.