All of Me (5 page)

It’s hard to appreciate while your joints are pulsing like Belisha beacons, but knowing you’re being punished for nothing is almost worse than the punishment itself. Physical pain heals eventually but mental torture stays with you. You can’t relax. You can’t afford to let yourself believe for one moment that everything is all right. Not when a teacher can haul you out of your seat with zero provocation.

I remember occasionally looking at other kids misbehaving and thinking,
They’ll be lucky to get away with that.
Usually the teacher was on the same wavelength and it would end in the familiar way –
whack!
The teachers always seemed to have a reason for dishing out the clips round the ear on the others. I couldn’t get my head around it. They didn’t lash out randomly with anyone else. Just me.

Like the punishment itself, if something occurs regularly enough it becomes the norm. My default position, if you like, was to be told off. Even to myself I sounded like a stuck record sometimes. ‘It’s not fair, it wasn’t me. It’s not fair, it wasn’t me.’ I went for days when that’s all I remembered saying. But I truly believed it. I was innocent. I hadn’t done anything.

Even when I wasn’t being punished, I always seemed to be being made to do things I didn’t want to. On the day I’d got covered in black paint, I’d been sent to the head and shouted at. Then I was despatched to the staff office to get some fresh clothes from the ‘lost and found’ basket. Usually it was only kids who’d wet themselves who were sent there.

I trotted along to the office and knocked on the door. A teacher took one look at me and knew why I was there.

‘Come on then, get those things off,’ she said kindly, and began rooting through the supplies.

I didn’t move.

When she turned round holding a new blouse and skirt she was surprised to see me standing in the same place.

‘Quick sticks,’ she chivvied. ‘You need to get back to class.’

Still I didn’t budge.

‘Okay,’ she sighed, ‘I’ll help,’ and she leant forward to undo my button. Still not moving, I folded my arms tightly so her fingers couldn’t get in. In a flash, her good mood vanished.

‘Stop messing around!’ she barked and tore my arms away.

I tried desperately to knock her hand away, screaming, ‘Get off!’

I honestly don’t know what came over me. All I knew is I could not let that woman undress me. I couldn’t explain it. She was a stranger. It was wrong. I couldn’t let her do it.

Then things got worse. Another grown-up came over and she literally grabbed my arms from behind to restrain me, then forced me to the floor. Now I couldn’t even kick out. The other woman scrabbled around at my buttons, then stripped off my skirt as well. Both of them were shouting at me to behave but I couldn’t stop myself. The urge to fight them off was too strong.

‘Leave me alone! Don’t touch me!’

‘Nearly there,’ one of them said through gritted teeth. Then with an oversized but clean skirt fastened around my wriggling waist she said, ‘Right, done – now get back to your classroom!’

I scrambled up and flew out the door, heart racing with every stride. Mrs Baldwin glared as I entered the classroom but all thoughts of the black paint had disappeared. Even the telling off from the headmaster was forgotten. There was only one thought in my head:
They mustn’t touch me. I don’t want them to touch me.

*

Discipline-wise, life at home was much more straightforward. If anything, my sister bore the thick end of the attention there. I remember Lorraine doing her 11+ but when she decided not to go on to A-Levels Dad went apoplectic. Really, absolutely ballistic. It didn’t bother me in the slightest. Maybe it should have, but I was an outsider. That’s exactly how I felt, anyway.

Lorraine rarely did anything wrong. I remember a few occasions when she got into trouble for mischief we’d both got up to, or sometimes she’d even get a telling off for something I’d cooked up on my own, but she never complained. Maybe that’s the advantage of an older sister. That just made me think she looked guilty because I always blabbed, ‘It wasn’t me!’ when I hadn’t done something. Not that it ever did me any good.

It was horrible being around Mum and Dad when they argued but sometimes you couldn’t avoid it. Occasionally it was so bad that I’d burst into tears. I just felt so scared that they were being mean to each other and I was so young I didn’t know what to do. That normally quietened them down and then they’d both call out, ‘Come here, come to me’ and I’d be frozen with worry, not knowing which of them to go to. I remember Lorraine saw that once and rushed over and cuddled me herself. Then she turned to Mum and Dad and let them have both barrels for upsetting me.

Every so often I would get found out for some mischief or other. Whereas at school I’d have received the ruler or perhaps even the slipper on the backside, Dad preferred to turn a blind eye whenever possible. Mum too. With her it was an all-or-nothing response. Sometimes she’d barely acknowledge my naughtiness. On other occasions she would fly at me with a rolling pin or rolled-up newspaper so I’d dart upstairs. She’d begin following, then stop, with me skulking inside my room safe in the knowledge Mum would already be turned around and wandering back down. She never made it to the top. You knew you were safe up there.

Mum was happy enough pulling us into line but she refused to get involved in any outside quarrels. You know what kids are like. One minute you’re best friends with someone, then they’ve said something or borrowed something and you’ve fallen out like it’s World War Three and you’re on different sides. I remember being hit by a little girl on our street and went flying in to tell Mum – who couldn’t have been less interested.

‘You’ll have to sort it out yourselves,’ she said, barely looking up from her newspaper.

‘But she hit me!’

Mum sighed. ‘What do you want me to do about it?’

‘Tell her off!’ It was all I could think of. That’s what she’d do if it were me or Lorraine.

‘I’m not telling anyone off,’ she said flatly. ‘There’s no point. You’ll have made up in two minutes.’

She was always like that. Never wanted to get involved with kids’ business. Nan, on the other hand, was my champion. She must have been out this day, otherwise I would have gone straight to her. Nan didn’t think twice about tearing up the path and grabbing the first child she met by the scruff of their neck. It didn’t matter if it was the right one or not, they were getting a piece of her mind. No one messed with Nan’s little girls.

There was only one occasion I can think of where Mum really got herself involved in something I’d done. It was cold weather so we were allowed to wear tights at school and somehow I must have snagged the top of them on the underside of my desk. The head of a nail was sticking out from the woodwork and that must have done it. I was lucky it only ripped my tights and not my skin. Mum didn’t see it that way.

‘You can’t be trusted with anything!’

She looked particularly threatening at the time. A few days earlier Lorraine had been too ill to finish her newspaper delivery round so Mum had gone out instead. I don’t know the last time Mum had ever ridden a bike but she only managed a few houses before falling off and spraining her wrist. So now, as she gesticulated angrily at me, all I could think was how much it would hurt if her wrist plaster cast connected with me.

I explained what had happened and waited for her to say she didn’t believe me, as usual. Weirdly, she just listened, then said, ‘Right, get our coats.’

Half an hour later we were back at the school and Mum was shouting at my teacher for endangering her daughter’s health by leaving sharp nails sticking out of the furniture. I was so embarrassed. I thought,
Nothing good will come of this. I’ll have to pay somehow.

That’s how it seemed to work with teachers. They didn’t let you get away with anything.

It wasn’t the only time Mum’s behaviour had consequences. As a result of all the antibiotics pumped into me to combat the double pneumonia when I was born, my teeth had become seriously discoloured. At first Mum told me not to worry because as soon as my baby teeth dropped out, my adult ones would be as white as new. Then she spoke to a dentist and suddenly there was a change of plan. Without immediate action, she was told, there was a good chance that my baby teeth could actually infect the new teeth as they formed. In the 1960s this could be treated in one of two ways. Generally, the dentist would paint the affected teeth with a protective black coating to stop the rot spreading. To me that sounded vile. Who wants to have black teeth?

I had no idea that the other option available was even worse – but Mum did.

‘That’s the coward’s way out,’ she explained. ‘But we’re brave, aren’t we?’

I nodded, not realising the consequences.

The alternative to having your teeth blacked out was having them extracted. One by one. That was Mum’s plan. She was going to get to the root of the problem – and have them all out.

I was fine about it up to the point that my name was called. Then I stepped into the dentist’s room and saw his assistant preparing the tray of gleaming, silver tools. That’s when it dawned on me what was about to happen.

‘Mum, I don’t want to do it,’ I said quietly.

But she wasn’t interested in what I wanted. And she certainly didn’t want to be questioned in front of someone as important as a dentist. That’s not how people behaved then.

‘Don’t be such a baby,’ she hissed firmly and gave me a shove towards the chair.

Five minutes later I was absolutely sick with panic, screaming to escape.

‘Don’t let them! Mum, help!’

But she didn’t help. She smiled apologetically at the dentist as he held me firmly in place, then she left the room.

I despised her that day. While I suffered unspeakable operations, she just sat in the waiting room like she was expecting a bus. When I emerged, shaken and in tears, she said proudly, ‘You’ve no idea how hard it was to make that decision.’

Mouth distorted by empty, swollen gums, I thought,
No, I really haven’t.

Nan’s sister, Kate, had followed her GI boyfriend back to America after the war and every so often Nan would disappear for a few weeks to visit her. That meant I got the full run of our large room. That was never as much fun as I hoped. I hated sleeping alone. I was convinced people were snoring under the bed or hiding in the wardrobe or behind the curtains. I always got nightmares when I was on my own, which Mum blamed on watching too many children’s puppet shows on television. I knew it wasn’t that, though.

Sometimes Nan’s sister would visit us instead, which was always fun – for me, anyway. She always brought such brilliant gifts and took me and Lorraine out to eat at nice places. But twenty years in the USA had taken its toll. She spoke so loudly in public that Mum hated going out with her.

‘Honey, how much is this?’ she’d bellow across a crowded shop while Mum died with embarrassment.

I always looked forward to my great-aunt’s visits but other relatives and guests failed to make so much of an impression. My mum grew up on our road so we always had people popping in and out, from any of her dozens of friends to the numerous extended family members who also lived locally. She was extremely popular, well liked and welcoming, and everyone knew the key was always left in the door for you to stroll in. So it was no surprise when Mum announced one day that my dad’s brothers were coming over.

‘Who are they?’ I asked.

‘You know very well who they are,’ she snapped. ‘You’ve seen them plenty of times.’

I thought,
I haven’t. I’ve never even heard of them.

Maybe I’d just forgotten their names, I decided, and everything would fall into place when they arrived. My memory wasn’t the greatest, after all. When I heard a car pull up outside I rushed to the window expectantly – and watched as two complete strangers climbed out.

False alarm,
I thought.
They must be visiting someone else.

Then our front door bell rang and they came in.

Dad’s brothers must be coming later,
I decided.

Even as Lorraine and I were ushered into the lounge for Mum’s traditional formal welcome I was still adamant Dad’s brothers must be arriving later. I didn’t know this pair from Adam.

But they seemed to know me.

‘Hello, Kim,’ one of the men said. ‘How’s school?’

‘Fine, thank you,’ I replied, searching for any sign of familiarity in his face. But there was nothing. No clues at all.
Who are you?

My sister was gabbing away with the other one. Either Lorraine knew them or else she was bluffing well. I didn’t understand. But it wasn’t the first time I’d met strangers who seemed to know me. I never let on that I couldn’t remember them. That would be terrible manners. So I always went along with it until I could work out who people were. When your memory’s as bad as mine you learn to do these things.

When Nan was off in America or just out and about, and with Mum and Dad both working, they had to look elsewhere for help with us. Childcare options in south London in the 1960s weren’t as formal as they are today. You used whoever offered. To my young eyes some babysitters on our street seemed barely a year older than the little ones they were minding, although they must have been.