I Did Tell, I Did (3 page)

I was exhausted, my face tear-stained and eyes swollen with crying, when she finally walked in the door. Dad leapt to his feet straight away, full of apologies. ‘I’m sorry, love, I don’t know what I was thinking of. Are you all right? Can I get you anything?’

‘Sorry, Mum,’ I ventured timidly.

‘Go to your room,’ she snapped, pointing her finger, and I scurried off to the bedroom.

I couldn’t sleep, though. I lay awake wondering why I always managed to upset Mum so badly. It must be my fault, because Tom never made her cross like that and I don’t remember her ever raising her voice with my sisters. I tried my hardest to please her but nothing I did was good enough. No matter what I did, I couldn’t make her love me the way she loved them. There must be something wrong with me, something horrible deep inside me that I couldn’t change.

I was very shy and withdrawn in company and tried to keep myself to myself. That way, I reckoned, I wouldn’t say the wrong thing and bring Mum’s wrath down on my head—but
it never worked. When Mum’s friends came round and I hid in the corner, she would berate me for being rude and unsociable.

‘You’ll have to apologise next time they come round. I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life!’ she would scold. ‘Why do you always have to show me up?’

The harder I tried, it seemed, the less I got it right. Nothing I did would ever please Mum and, kind as he was, I couldn’t rely on Dad to protect me because he wouldn’t dare stand up to her.

The only respite came when Mum went into hospital for a while and Dad looked after us. She suffered from ‘women’s problems’ and had to have several operations while I was young. She would leave orders and a strict regime for Dad to follow and he would always promise to obey to the letter, not wanting to upset her before she went into hospital. But once she was gone, the regime relaxed because he could never be as hard on me as she was.

I loved the mushy chips Dad made. He let the fat get so hot that the chips became all light and fluffy and delicious, and Tom and I both loved them. When Mum was back home recuperating, he made chips like this for her once and she was angry that they were mushy, so it became a special way that he made chips for us only when she was in hospital.

He also burned the milk accidentally when he was making custard once and I loved the flavour that way, so from then on he’d make burnt custard just for me—but only when Mum was in hospital.

On those days, he used to chat to Tom and me and ask us how we were, then he’d tuck us up in bed at night and give us
a hug. Something my mother never did for me. Something that made me feel loved and safe. These were happy times. There weren’t many of them. I thought of them as the ‘in-between’ times, when I felt safe and protected. Whenever Mum wasn’t there.

The other happy thing in my life was my dancing. The dance school was a big deal in our area and I went twice a week, along with the girl next door. I absolutely loved the ballet teacher, Una, who was slim and elegant, and always wore her hair up in a French pleat at the back. One time I remember her unpleating it after class and I was astonished to see how long her hair was—right down to her waist.

I was never shy about performing in concerts because on stage I could pretend to be someone else—someone lovable, someone whose mother wanted her. Of course, Mum never came to my shows. Uncle Bill would turn up at the end to give me a lift home on the bike, and he’d shower me with praise and give me lots of cuddles but I’m not sure that he ever watched much of the show—or if he did, I never saw him. I would be looking out for Mum, and would always be disappointed when she wasn’t there, so I suppose I stopped looking for anyone else.

Once, I was doing the Dance of the Cygnets in
Swan Lake
, which is very tricky to perform as you have to move sideways in a line exactly in time with the dancers next to you. At the end, Una came up to me and asked if my mother was there. I said no, she couldn’t make it, so Una said she would come round the house to talk to her the next day.

Mum seemed surprised when Una turned up but led her into the front room. Dad and I trooped in as well and I sat on the floor by Dad’s feet.

‘You should have seen Cassie dancing last night,’ Una began. ‘She’s very talented and I’m sure you’d have been proud of her.’

No, she wouldn’t, I thought to myself.

‘Anyway,’ Una continued, ‘I wondered if you would consider sending her to ballet school? I’m sure she would get a scholarship because she’s got a very special gift. It would mean living away from home, of course…’ Her voice tailed off at the look on Mum’s face.

‘That’s ridiculous! She can’t possibly be good enough,’ Mum snapped.

‘I assure you she is,’ Una maintained.

‘How can she be better than my other children? I’m not having her offered an opportunity that they never had. I won’t hear of it!’

Una tried to argue but Mum had made up her mind and that was that.

I was bitterly disappointed. The thought of getting away from home, away from Mum’s anger, was like a dream to me—but it wasn’t to be. I would go to the local primary school where Tom was already a pupil and that was that. End of story.

In fact, I went to three different schools at the age of five because we moved home twice that year. I spent two terms in the local primary near the bungalow and, despite being shy, I loved it straight away. I made friends easily because I worked
hard at getting people to like me. I was so keen to have friends that I went along with whatever games they wanted to play, just delighted to be allowed to be one of the crowd.

Then one evening when Tom and I got home from school, Dad came through to us.

‘Do you hear that noise?’ he asked. ‘What do you think it is?’

We both listened and I heard a tiny, high-pitched wail.

‘Is it a cat?’ Tom asked, and Dad laughed.

‘No, it’s not a cat. It’s a baby. A little baby girl. Do you want to come and see her?’

Mum was in bed and the baby was lying in a cot beside her. I fell in love the first time I looked at her little screwed-up face and her tiny hands, only slightly bigger than my doll’s hands.

‘She’s called Anne,’ Dad told us. ‘Say hello to your new sister.’

I had always liked playing with dolls. I had a black doll of my own, called Suzie, and sometimes I would be allowed to play with my big sisters’ dolls when they weren’t around. But now I had a living, breathing doll to look after, and I thought that would be the best thing of all.

I couldn’t stop looking at her and I’d creep into the room to watch her sleeping in her cot for ages, until Mum saw me.

‘What do you think you’re doing? Get away from her,’ she’d snap. ‘That’s the last thing I need, you wakening her.’

Sometimes I’d ask timidly if I could pick her up or just touch her tiny fingers but Mum told me to keep my hands off her. Still, I’d risk her anger to sneak in and watch little Anne whenever I got the chance.

The bungalow was too small for all of us now. Shortly after Anne was born everything was packed up in boxes and we moved in with Nana B. It was a real crush. Tom and I slept on the floor and Anne had to sleep in a drawer because there wasn’t any room for her cot. I had a few weeks at a school there that I didn’t like very much at all—I suppose I never had a chance to get settled—then one night Mum and Nana B had a huge row. I don’t know what it was about, but Mum bundled us all up and out into the streets, pushing baby Anne in her pram. Dad wasn’t there that night. We walked for miles until we reached the beach.

‘We’ll have to sleep here,’ Mum said.

‘We can’t,’ Tom complained. ‘It’s dark and cold and I don’t want to.’

‘Just huddle up and we’ll be fine,’ Mum said.

A police car drew up at that point and a policeman jumped out. Mum burst into tears and complained that she didn’t know what to do because her heartless mother-in-law had thrown her out on the streets with nowhere to go. I thought that was very odd, because I couldn’t imagine Nana B throwing us out of her house. She’d always been very nice to Tom and me.

Anyway, the policeman found us a room in a big house where a kind lady brought us all hot chocolate to warm us up, then the next day we moved into a house on a council estate—a proper house, bigger than our bungalow, with an upstairs and a downstairs. I was quickly enrolled to start at the nearest primary school.

On the very first day there, I got chatting to a girl called Claire, a skinny girl with blonde curly hair who soon became my bestest friend in the world. We liked playing hopscotch and skipping together and we got on like a house on fire from the word go. It was the end of the school year shortly after I started and there was a school show, in which we both got parts. Claire was a Summer Fairy, dressed all in pink. I played a Red Goblin and then I had to do a quick change and be a fairy, and I remember I didn’t have time to take my Red Goblin boots off so I went on in my fairy costume with these big clumpy boots and everyone laughed. I’d had to give up dancing classes when we moved from the bungalow, but being in a show like that made up for it a little bit.

Claire lived just round the corner from me so before long she took me home and introduced me to her mum and dad, who were the nicest people I’d ever met. Straight away they treated me like another member of their family. Whenever they were going on a family outing, I would be invited along with them. Sometimes Mum wouldn’t let me go, just because she didn’t want me to be having fun, but most of the time she agreed because, she said, she wanted to get me out from under her feet.

One day that summer we went to a holiday camp in Bognor Regis for the day. There was a big park with giant statues of nursery rhyme characters and we had our photos taken in front of them. There was a huge cup and saucer, part of the
Alice in Wonderland
tea party, and Claire’s dad took a picture of the two of us sitting inside the cup. It was a lovely, magical place. I’d never been anywhere like it in my life before. After we had
explored it from end to end, we went down to the beach and played ball on the sand. The whole day stands out for me as one of the best days of my entire childhood.

All my clothes and shoes were hand-me-downs from Ellen and Rosie, and nothing ever fitted me properly. I’d have to stuff newspaper in the toes of the shoes and pin up hems so I didn’t trip over them. Tom and the girls got new outfits whenever they needed them but Mum never bought me anything new.

One day, in our second year at primary school, Claire and I were invited to the birthday party of another friend of ours. I dressed up in the best hand-me-down frock I could find and set off to pick up Claire at her house. She answered the door holding a lovely blue flowered dress.

‘Do you like it?’ she asked, excited. ‘Do you like the colour?’

‘It’s beautiful. I love it,’ I told her.

She giggled. ‘Well, you can have it then.’

I was confused. ‘I can’t just take your dress. It’s yours.’

‘No, it’s not,’ she laughed. ‘Mum bought it for you. I have the same dress in pink!’

She led me to her room and there was another dress laid out on the bed. We hugged each other and danced round the room, excited to have brand new matching dresses, but a bit of me felt odd about it. Why should Claire’s mum buy me a new dress? Why didn’t my own mum do that?

She popped her head round the door. ‘Are you girls all right?’ she asked. ‘Do you like your new dress, Cassie?’

‘I love it. Thank you so much,’ I said, embarrassed.

‘I just thought it would be nice for you and Claire to be twins for the party,’ she said gaily. ‘Your mum must have her hands full with the new baby and she probably doesn’t have time to go shopping for you at the moment. I noticed your clothes were looking a bit worn.’

I blushed, and didn’t tell her that it wasn’t just since the new baby—that Mum had never bought me any new clothes. From then on, whenever Claire got a new dress, her mum bought a matching one for me as well. How good was that? How kind they were. I felt so lucky! I would always leave the clothes she bought for me at their house, though. If I had taken them home, I don’t think Mum would have let me keep them. It felt as though Claire and I were sisters. I often wished that we could have been, so that I could move into her house and stay there instead of having to go back to live in our house with a mother who hated me.

The more I saw of Claire’s family life, the more I realised how odd my own family was. What mother calls her daughter ‘Plain Jane’ and tells her she isn’t wanted? The times I spent with Claire and her family allowed me to daydream that I belonged there. I tried to pretend that her mum and dad were mine, that I was one of them and that they loved me. I could be happy imagining that I was part of their family, until it was time to go home and reality reared its ugly head again.

Uncle Bill still came to visit regularly once we were in the new house. Mum looked forward to him coming round and she would always fix her lipstick and clear the baby’s nappies from the rail where they were drying in front of the fire in the back
room. She seemed more cheerful when he was there and she never shouted at me in front of him—but she did plenty of shouting before he arrived.

After I’d set my hair on fire and Mum chopped it all off, it had grown back straight and this seemed to make her very cross. ‘Bill loved your curls,’ she said. ‘You always have to ruin everything!’ So before he came round, I’d have to sit having my hair curled with metal tongs that she heated in the gas flame on the cooker. Many a time she would burn my forehead or neck with them but if I screamed she would slap me, so I learned just to shut my eyes and bite my lip.

Uncle Bill would arrive and it would be all cuddles and hugs and praise and presents. At home, they were the only shows of affection I had ever received. However, he got a bit jealous once I started spending my free time over at Claire’s. He didn’t seem to like that.

‘You’re always over there now,’ he complained next time he saw me. ‘Your poor old Uncle Bill misses you.’

He grabbed me for a hug and kiss and his chin scratched my cheek. I tried to pull away but he turned the hug into a tickle. I wriggled and squirmed but he pulled me down onto the sofa and kept tickling me all over until I thought I was going to wet myself.