All of Me (6 page)

Before I started school I was passed around all sorts of sitters. With Mum and Dad so busy, I kept going to them on and off for years, in holidays, after school or at weekends. Sometimes it was other families. One more to look after didn’t make a difference. Other times it was just neighbours. I remember one. There was a bloke who lived near us who used to sit on his front step dipping bread in milk and whisky. Looking back, nothing about him makes you think ‘perfect childminder material’. Even then I remember being disappointed whenever I was dragged round there. People without their own kids don’t have any toys for you to play with. Most likely you’re just going to mess up their place. ‘Don’t touch that’, ‘Put that down’ – that’s all I ever heard. You wonder what’s in it for them. My only real memory of being at this bloke’s is waking up in his bed in the afternoons. I don’t recall being put down for a nap or any of the build-up. I don’t recall anything apart from his cups of bread and whisky and then waking up in his smelly bed every time I stayed.

I never went to America but Nan and I did go down to Bognor to stay for a week during the holidays. This was when Mum and Dad were working. Then once a year, in summer, we’d all go down to the Butlin’s holiday camp nearby as well. Dad, Mum, Lorraine and me. I always had fun but the days used to whizz by. A week felt like a day. I loved the amusement arcade but Lorraine preferred the swimming pool. I often used to go along with her but never made it in. I’d pack my costume, grab my towel and go along to the baths but never get in. Not once. I remember wandering back to the chalet the first time and Mum asking if we’d enjoyed it.

I said, ‘I didn’t go in in the end.’

‘Don’t listen to her,’ Lorraine piped up. ‘She was in there longer than me.’

‘You liar! I wasn’t.’

‘Were so.’

And so it went on. I thought,
Why on earth would my sister make up something like that?

It wasn’t the first time and it wouldn’t be the last. My life was full of stupid arguments like that. For me it was normal.

Like so many things.

CHAPTER THREE

Where am I now?

Katie skipped into the room, her head full of possibilities for adventure. With so many people around, the potential for games was endless. Any three-year-old knew that. She bashed around the adults’ legs for a while, ignoring the random hands tousling her hair absent-mindedly as they carried on their conversations above her head. On the other side of the room she saw her older sister, Lorraine. Lorraine was usually nice to her. Apart from the times she told her to go away. Katie decided to run over and say, ‘Hi.’

‘And where do you think you’re going?’ a voice said.

Katie felt herself being scooped up and lifted aloft. Like a trophy on display.

All eyes in the room were on her. People were cooing, family, friends and neighbours equally impressed by her pretty dress and neat hair. She didn’t know the occasion but everyone seemed so happy. Just as she had been until a few seconds ago.

A camera flash went off. She felt like she was flying. Any other time she would be whooping for joy. What toddler didn’t enjoy that sensation?

The flying stopped. She was being brought closer for a hug.

Don’t touch me,
she thought.
Don’t touch me.

But what could she do? She was a child. She was three. And she
always did what she was asked. Those were the rules. Obey, obey, obey. However much it hurt.

The strong arms holding Katie aloft wrapped around her and various ‘oohs’ and ‘ahs’ peppered the friendly hubbub of the room. Katie didn’t care. Her hands remained rigidly at her side until she was able to fold her arms. That would put a barrier between them. Her face stayed turned away. There was no way she was hugging back. Too many memories of that other person. She wouldn’t kiss. Not again. Not after last time.

L
ife was getting more confusing by the day. Did I tell anyone? Of course not. You assume everyone else is going through the same things as you. No one thinks they’re different from the rest, do they? I’m as normal as you. I still believe that. But I couldn’t deny that odd things were happening more and more often.

Schoolwork wasn’t breaking any records but I had friends there and Mum let me enrol at Brownies and Girls Brigade. I was even allowed to go on a camping trip. The tents were already in place when we arrived but we still had to cook, wash up and generally get by in the great outdoors. I only remember staying two nights but it was probably longer. It seemed too far to go if not.

Christian Endeavour was another group I was allowed to join although this one didn’t have the happiest ending. Maybe it was because their standards were higher, but we were in the church hall one night and there was a noise from the window. Twenty pairs of eyes swung over to look. A group of boys were jumping up to see in, all calling, ‘Give us a wave!’

We all started giggling at the sight.

‘Friends of yours?’ the CE leader asked.

‘Me?’ I was shocked. ‘No, I’ve never seen them before.’

It was the truth. They were wearing our school uniform so I suppose I’d seen them around, but I certainly wouldn’t say I ‘knew’ them.

‘Well they seem to know you,’ she said.

The group leader went outside and chased the lads away. The giggling in the hall took longer to quell. Afterwards she pulled me aside.

‘We don’t encourage that sort of behaviour with boys,’ she said. ‘And we don’t welcome liars either. Perhaps it would be better for everyone if you spent your Friday nights elsewhere.’

‘But …’

‘I think it would be best for everyone.’

Thrown out – by Christians! And I had no idea what for.

Our road and the surrounding area were comfortable places in the 1970s for kids to play. No one worried about strangers or traffic. The only rule was being back for mealtimes. You went out after school and came in for your tea. At weekends you’d disappear after breakfast and pop back for lunch and dinner.

Ding-dong ditch was a popular game, although it was rarely risked on your own street. The last thing we needed was some old bag complaining to Mum and Dad. Sometimes men would come haring out of their front doors and try to get you with a bucket of water or lads would chase you round the block waving a belt. One day a woman flung the door open before I’d even left her porch. She must have been waiting for us. I turned on my heels as quick as lightning and I was in such a panic I convinced myself she yelled, ‘I’ll be telling your mother! I know where you live, Kim Noble!’

I must have misheard. I’d never seen her before in my life. People were always bluffing like that.

Bad eggs was another favourite, or there was hopscotch, or just sitting on walls eating sweets and talking. Boys had one area and girls another. We were very segregated at that age.

Being a kid on the streets, especially in summer, was a bit like working shifts in a factory. As the smells of cooking began to waft from each house, we all knew playtime was nearly over. When the first mum stood on the front step and summoned her little one that was the cue for the rest of us to traipse home. That was our whistle telling us to clock out and clear off for another day.

The streets emptied as quickly as they filled and as usual it was just me, last girl standing again. Home since Dad had returned was not the haven it had once been. Individually my parents were exactly the same towards me and Lorraine. No change in their behaviour there at all. Towards each other, though, they could be evil.

Mum’s heart had been broken when Dad walked out. That was his fault. That was damage he caused. She had been over the moon when he’d come back, beaten and bruised, tail between his legs, begging for one more chance.

‘I don’t know what I was thinking, Doll,’ he said. ‘She led me on and I was weak.’

It was the wrong decision for everyone. They were forever at each other’s throat. Arguments replaced all conversation. Mum loved Dad but I don’t think she ever got over his betrayal. Despite Dad’s best efforts, she couldn’t find it in herself to wipe the slate clean. He couldn’t leave the house without being accused of having another affair.

‘I know where you’re going, Jim Noble!’

Of course he always denied it. ‘Look, I won’t go out if that’s how you feel.’ But by then it was too late. The seed was sown, a row was brewing, and ten minutes later he’d be storming out again. We’d hear his car start up, heavy on the accelerator, then screech off up the road. And, in his defence, the more Mum accused him of everything under the sun, the more Dad started to go out to escape her nagging, which of course just gave her more ammunition.

It was a poisonous atmosphere really.

Mum really struggled to hold it together sometimes. I remember arguing with Lorraine in the lounge – business as usual as far as we were concerned – when there was this crash from the kitchen. Next, Mum flew past us and stomped up the stairs. When I looked in the kitchen I saw she’d been halfway through preparing dinner. Everything was strewn over the worktop. A few minutes later she appeared downstairs again clutching an overnight bag.

‘Satisfied?’ she said coldly.

‘What’s going on?’ I asked.

‘I’ve had enough. I’m going.’

‘Mum, don’t leave us!’ we both chorused together. But she wasn’t listening. She opened the front door and without even looking back, stepped out. I dived onto her coat to drag her back but she just smacked me away. Then the front door slammed shut behind her.

‘Where’s she going?’ I asked Lorraine.

‘Dunno,’ she said. ‘But it looks like she’s running away.’

She came back a few hours later and refused to discuss it. But it happened quite a few times over the years. Usually, we discovered, she was just hiding next door. Who knows what our neighbour thought when Mum pitched up with a suitcase?

Small things seemed to set Mum’s temper off. She wasn’t a passionate person and didn’t like to get involved in conversations on ‘big’ subjects. Every so often, though, she’d just explode. Once during a row with Dad she put her fist through a glass window. She literally just punched it, then stared at the blood pouring from her wrist. We rushed around getting bandages and sweeping glass and trying not to scream but it was terrifying.

I suppose it all stemmed from her problems with Dad but Lorraine and I didn’t know that. It wasn’t in their nature to keep us informed of things. They’d never even officially told us that Dad had left. He was often out after I went to bed. Not seeing him in the evenings wasn’t out of the ordinary. In the end we pieced together bits and pieces. All we knew for sure was that the less time they spent in each other’s company, the better.

There were other impacts on our lives. Mum announced one day we were going on holiday to Jersey. It became clear that Dad wouldn’t be going. I could look forward to a week without them tearing strips off each other.
That will be nice.

But it didn’t work out that way.

We all got in the car for the short journey to the station. Dad got the luggage out of the boot and we all said goodbye. Then Dad climbed back into the driver’s seat and said, ‘Well, it’s just us two now.’

I wasn’t going.

I had no idea why I wasn’t invited. I think it was the school holidays so that wasn’t an issue. I just know I had to watch while Mum and Lorraine packed their bags, all excited like they were the sisters, and not me. The things they were going to do, the places they were going to see, the fun they were going to have.

Without me.

It got worse. Dad obviously had to work so to give Nan a break I was farmed out for the odd day to the usual babysitters. Some I liked, some I didn’t. I think these days families think twice about letting certain people look after their young ones. That wasn’t such a consideration back then. On the positive side I didn’t seem to be anywhere long. Sometimes I wouldn’t even remember going, just waking up and then being collected by Dad or Nan. Still, that was normal.

Strangers though they were around the house, Mum and Dad did manage to put their differences aside when they needed to. When I was ten, we all went on a family holiday to Yugoslavia. I think this was quite unusual in 1971. Cheap foreign flights hadn’t really come in then but it must have been a package deal. I really can’t imagine why else we would have done it.

For some reason Lorraine’s boyfriend, Bob, was allowed to come as well. He was quite young, with a skinhead haircut, but that actually helped him because the rest of us caught nits. All I remember of that holiday is scratching my head. But then so much of my childhood left me scratching my head …

A five-year gap between sisters is fun when you’re young and great when you’re older. But for a few years in the middle it can be hellish. No fifteen-year-old wants her kid sister sniffing around. Lorraine preferred to spend her time with her boyfriend so the last thing she wanted was being shackled with me. Mum sometimes asked her to babysit me, especially on a Saturday when she liked to go out with friends for a drink. That always caused a fight.

Sometimes Mum and Dad would go out for the night together or more usually they went out separately at the same time. Once or twice they even stayed away overnight. When Nan was around it didn’t matter. Everything changed when she was away. I remember Lorraine getting a finger pointed at her and made to promise not to have any parties.