My Secret Sister: Jenny Lucas and Helen Edwards' Family Story (31 page)

Every day when I came home from my shifts at the hospital I had to continue with the almost unbearable situation at home: the fact that there were three people in my marriage. My mother lived in our house, ruled our roost, sat on her throne in our living room. It was difficult, at best. We were not able to have a private conversation in our own home because she was always there, always listening, hoping for some drama. She loved being the centre of a good drama. If we wanted to have an argument, or discuss something serious, we had go outside and stand in the garden shed, or sit in the car as we had done for years.

Whenever she could, she would listen to our private conversations. Occasionally she couldn’t resist butting in. For example, if I was complaining about some slight from Simon she would interrupt and take his side against me. ‘He didn’t say that. I was there. You are completely wrong, Helen, and very unfair to poor Simon.’

Or she would bide her time until a chance arose for her to pour salt on existing niggles or instigate new ones. ‘Simon, I thought Helen was very rude to you this morning,’ or, ‘Helen, did you notice Simon was late home tonight? What do you think he’s up to?’ The glint in her eye when she was stirring up such mischief reminded me of the many times she had goaded my father into his rages. Mostly, she couldn’t endure her curiosity and would came straight out with direct questions we couldn’t answer. ‘You were talking about me in the shed this morning, weren’t you?’ She must have crept up outside the door to know that.

That’s no way to carry on a marriage, is it? We hardly spent much time with each other as it was; we didn’t really have a proper husband-wife relationship – and it took a terrible toll on us both. I was sad and angry about all these things. It didn’t seem fair. But I suppose we both reached the point when you think: this is the way it is; just get on with it. We had to. That’s how we thought at the time, anyway, oppressed by all those years of servitude and forbearance.

I was working at the Newcastle Nuffield Hospital as a theatre nurse at this time, mostly supporting surgeons operating on orthopaedic or gastro-intestinal patients. David Stainsby, the Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon there who specialized in sports injuries, especially spinal injuries, always used to request me as his theatre nurse and I enjoyed working with him. We did many operations together. But the long hours and my own worsening back problems ground me down.

As our children approached their teenage years, we realized we needed more space – physical space so that the children could have separate rooms. We had a three-bedroom house, but, because of my mother, they had to share, which we thought wasn’t right at their ages – Scott was thirteen and Donna was ten or eleven. You know what it’s like when teenagers get to be teenagers. They needed their privacy.

One day, I mentioned it to my mother.

For her the solution was simple: ‘If that’s the case, you’ll have to buy a bigger house, won’t you?’

‘Well, no. We can’t really afford to do that.’

‘It’s the only answer. You’ll just have to buy a four-bedroomed house.’

When I told Simon later, he said, ‘We can’t continue like this. It’s terrible.’

We made a decision. It had taken us long enough, I know. Simon was right. It could not go on any longer.

I chose my moment with care and broached the subject.

‘It would be nice for you to have your own home, wouldn’t it?’ I suggested. A pause. I could see I’d caught her by surprise. ‘We could find you a comfortable flat, a place of your own, with your own front door.’

She looked at me as if she’d swallowed a lemon, several lemons. ‘You’re pushing me out. Is that all I’m worth to you, after all these years of mothering the bairns?’

I thought: here we go again.

She pushed on: ‘You want to take me away from ma bairns? To throw me out?’

‘It’s not like that,’ I soothed.

‘That’s what it looks like to me.’

‘I think it would be nice for you to develop your own independence, now that the children are older.’ I smiled. ‘To have your own place and your own friends. You’ve been widowed so long. Don’t you think it would be good, to have your own life again?’

‘I have my own life here,’ she scowled. ‘You just want to take me away from
my
bairns. How ungrateful can you be?’

‘No. You’ve got it completely wrong.’

She sulked and said nothing.

‘Well, just have a think about it,’ I suggested.

‘I will not!’ She fixed the sharpened steel of her eyes on me. ‘I will not think about it at all.’

Several weeks and many conversations later, to our immense relief, she came round to the idea of having a place of her own. I put her name down with several housing associations, and one of them came up with something.

The lady from Social Services explained. ‘You’re actually overcrowded. We have allocated a flat for your mother.’

She had nothing to take to her new home, so we bought all her furniture, appliances, carpets, pots and pans, cutlery, crockery, bedding and everything down to a soap dish. All of it brand new. It cost us what her generation used to call a tidy sum, leaving us nearly penniless, but we rejoiced the day we moved her in. We did it all – carried the furniture and boxes up to her flat on the third floor. I vividly remember Simon struggling up the three flights of stairs with her carpet as if he was wrestling a monster. We settled her in, then went home exhausted but elated. Finally, we had made the break!

When we got back, Scott and Donna had already rearranged their furniture how they wanted it, each in their own rooms. We ordered a pizza and ate it, just the four of us, watching TV together. Simon and I couldn’t stop smiling. We were a normal family at last. I did give my mother a fleeting thought at one point, wondering how she was. I didn’t want her to be unhappy, but it was wonderful to have our home to ourselves at last, to relax however we wanted and not have to worry about pleasing anyone else.

Waking up the next morning was bliss, knowing we didn’t have to rush to get up. It seemed almost wicked to stay in bed as long as we liked and there wasn’t a sound from the children’s rooms. Eventually I got up and went downstairs to make Simon and me a cup of tea to have in bed. As the kettle came to the boil, I heard the key turn in the lock. I felt that familiar, heavy feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach.

‘Hello, Mam,’ I sighed, trying to hide my consternation.

‘I caught the bus to get here,’ she said triumphantly. ‘I thought you might need me.’

I got another cup out for her. ‘Did you enjoy your first night in your new home?’ I asked.

‘It was all right, I suppose,’ she grunted and hung up her coat.

From then on, this was her routine. She caught the bus every morning and spent the whole day in our house in her customary role, until either Simon or I drove her home late afternoon. She’d have stayed longer if we hadn’t taken her back.

After several weeks of this, I raised it with her.

‘It’s very kind of you to come so early and stay all day to help us out. But really, it’s not necessary now that the children are older and more independent.’

‘You’re trying to take my bairns away from me!’ she wailed.

So we felt we had no alternative if we wanted to keep the peace, and life continued in this vein for a few more years, with my mother in our house every day. During our annual holidays and on bank holidays when we just wanted to lie in, she would arrive early in the morning and wake us up.

We felt defeated. She was still sucking the life out of us.

CHAPTER 28

Jenny

All Change

My long golfing career and the international travelling that went with it meant I was rarely home in Northumberland for more than a few days. My focus was always on the next tournament. For some time now, these challenges had successfully hidden a fundamental hole in my life. Richard and I had enjoyed a strong relationship for about fifteen years. We had developed a lifestyle that suited us both – together yet independent. He still came to join me on US or European tours in his holidays. We went out and spent time together whenever we could, sometimes with friends when I was home. It was all working fine and it felt very easy and comfortable.

But that was the problem.

It was an easygoing, contented partnership. We talked a lot whenever we spent time together. We laughed and we chatted. But I had begun to realize that we always spoke about superficial things. Somehow we never resolved the more important issue of joint aspirations, family, children. I suppose I assumed we would get married one day, and I had intended for a while to raise my concerns about marriage and children, but somehow the time had never been right, or Richard had perhaps seen it coming and the subject had been sidestepped. I’m not sure now that I ever really believed we would marry. I was aware that some relationships can meander calmly along for ever. But it had only occurred to me recently that maybe we had fallen into that rut.

I was in my mid-thirties and becoming more and more aware of the years passing and the need for something more. I had learned to be adept at hiding things away, not just from others but from myself. I suppose I continued to do that, and the more the months slipped by, the deeper the longing became inside, eating away at me. I saw friends with their children, families in shops, on the beaches, everywhere; wherever I went I saw parents with their children. I wanted to be like them. To be a mother. My adoptive family, though wonderful, were borrowed, not really mine, and I’d been rejected by my birth family. Now I wanted a family of my own. But I began to fear I’d missed out, that maybe I’d left it too late.

My mother, Connie, made things worse.

‘When are you and Richard going to get married? When are you going to have children? I want to be a grandmother. Isn’t it time you gave me a grandchild? You’re not young any more.’

‘Thanks, Mother!’

‘You mustn’t leave it too late.’

I didn’t know what to say.

Finally I talked about it with Richard, but nothing was resolved and we continued to drift along, but rather half-heartedly now, as my golf commitments took me away from home more frequently and we began to see each other less.

The years 1981 to 1982 were the most successful of my career, but by this time my body had taken years of stress. A series of surgical operations followed over the next couple of years to remedy serious back problems and foot injuries. I had the best orthopaedic surgeon, David Stainsby, renowned across the north-east, and he operated on me in the Newcastle Nuffield Hospital, with a wonderful operating team. Of course I didn’t see much of them as, after an initial smile and some brief conversation, they knocked me out pretty quickly. But I always felt safe in their hands.

Eventually I had to give in to the inevitable. I couldn’t continue with my professional career, so I played my last tournament in 1984. I found it enormously sad, as I’d derived such enjoyment out of the game and would miss the camaraderie of all my friends. Nearly everyone I knew was part of my golfing life. I thought that was all over now.

However, a new door opened with the offer of a job as teaching professional at the very golf centre where I began my playing career. They knew me and my reputation, and I brought in a lot of new business for them – clients came from far away for lessons. It suited me well for a while – I didn’t have to travel, nor did I have to give up golf completely. I had more time to spend with my mother – and of course with Richard, but our relationship didn’t alter now that I was at home all the time, and despite a few attempts by me to talk things through, we still evaded the silent questions, the unspoken truths.

One harsh Northumberland winter’s day, I saw an ad in the paper. It was about a new golf development just about to start up in Tenerife, and it was advertising properties for sale. It looked quite exciting, and the thought of some all-year-round sunshine gave me a bright idea. I called the number in the advert and asked to speak to the manager.

One week later, I flew out to Tenerife to join the team at Golf del Sur. The idea was that I’d welcome potential clients, talk to them about golf and maybe play a trial round with them to give them some hints and tips. In return I’d have my own apartment and use of the course whenever I wanted.

On my first morning I got to the car park at 9 o’clock, as agreed, to meet Maurice, the manager of the complex, but he wasn’t there. I waited and strolled about, but still nobody came. I was wondering what to do when a tall, good-looking man walked over to me.

‘Are you Jenny?’ He didn’t wait for a reply. ‘My name is Sam Lucas.’ He smiled.

I thought he was rather brash. ‘What about Maurice?’ I asked.

‘Oh, Maurice can’t come. He asked me to look after you for the weekend. I’m playing golf today. Would you like to come and play?’

‘Well actually I’ve just made plans to go and take some pictures.’ His confidence that I would join him slightly irritated me, and anyway it was true – I had become an avid photographer and had my camera with me.

‘What are you doing tonight?’ he persisted. ‘I’ve got some friends here. Would you like to join us for a drink?’

‘Yes, that will be fine.’

So that was it. We met that evening and quickly got chatting, only to find we had both lived in the north-east. He told me about his background and about being a Sunderland supporter. I think he was quite interested when he learned a bit about my golf career, but he was far more impressed that I was a Newcastle United supporter. We talked and talked, and when we started to compare notes about our childhoods, there were an amazing number of similarities. We couldn’t believe it when we found we had both been at the same Saturday afternoon cinema on the same day. That was spooky.

Sam and I arranged to play golf the next morning, and in the evening went out for a meal with some more of his friends. We played golf again on the Sunday, enjoying each other’s company and talking endlessly. We had a good game of golf and were just walking down the eighteenth fairway when the green-keeper hurried over with an agitated expression.