Olga - A Daughter's Tale (20 page)

******

Dear Diary

The Convent
: Marie is in boarding school now at Our Lady’s Convent in Dartford and is very nice and lots of posh people’s children go there. Matron thought I was her nanny when we arrived and didn’t hide her surprise when I said I was Marie’s mother.

While we talked Marie was crying because she didn’t want to leave me. I gave her a white lace handkerchief to wipe her tears and she was wiping her little face with it saying

“
Don’t go Mummy, please don’t go”. It upset me.

“
Never mind, when you are gone and she sees the other children she’ll be alright” Matron said. In bed that night I cried my eyes out because I didn’t have Marie with me..

I know this will be good for her because she will be taught how to become a lady and to speak nicely. The sisters say she will settle down and make new friends and not to worry about her. Poor Madeline is missing Marie a lot.

Mrs Hammell is worried because Madeline is not as strong as other children she might get hurt at school, so she prefers to employ a private tutor for her at home. I think Madeline would be fine at school. Mrs H is over protective of her.

******

Dear Diary

Madeline and I are getting very excited because Marie is coming home for the holidays.

Then Mrs Hammell said it wasn’t really convenient for Marie to come home during half term and would I mind asking the nuns if she could stay in the convent instead.

So Marie stayed in the convent again and I haven’t seen her for such a long time.

Will have to give both girls lots of special treats.

******

Dear Diary

At last Marie is home for the holidays but there is a change in Mrs H’s attitude to me. She is off-hand with me.

“
Have I done something wrong?”

She said she was unhappy with my work and thinks I am more interested in Marie than in looking after Madeline. That’s unfair, and it’s not true, and I told her I go out of my way to pay Madeline more attention than Marie. I took the girls to the Zoo and when we got back home, Madeline came up and hugged me and gave me a kiss to say thank you.

In the evening Madeline likes to come to our room to play with Marie rather than be with her mother. If I tell her she must stay with her Mummy she gets upset and thinks I don’t want her.

I think Mrs H is jealous because Madeline is very fond of Marie and me..

Mrs H and I have had a little talk.

“
I apologise if I was wrong” she said.

“
But, really, Carmen, no mother can look after another person’s child and neglect her own”.

She said she thinks it would be better if I leave.

Oh dear, I don’t want to, but I suppose she’s right.

******

Dear Diary

Back to the kitchen
: Now Marie is in boarding school I have a better choice of jobs. I’m working for Googie Withers, the film actress, and her husband, John McCallum, as an assistant housekeeper in their London home. I keep their house clean and on their cook’s day off, I do the cooking. I really like it. They are both very sweet and kind to me. They have all sorts of interesting people to dinner, other actors and writers, and they’re not demanding. Mr McCallum is so handsome he makes me swoon. He’s like the hero in some of Ruby’s stories.

The only problem is Marie can’t come home for the holidays. I didn’t tell them about her because otherwise I wouldn’t have got the job. I know Sister Bernadette is getting cross with me because she thinks I am neglecting Marie. I promised Marie I would go to the sports day. She was running in the egg and spoon race but I had to miss it. I feel simply dreadful and I miss her terribly.

She wrote me a letter and said she was very upset and crying.

“
All the other Mummies came to sports day but not my Mummy”.

It’s no good, even though I like this job a lot, I will have to find another one before Christmas so I can have Marie in the holidays.

Falling behind on my savings.

******

Olga’s Diary

Dear Diary

I had a letter from my friend Moores today. I wrote to her to ask her to lend me some money because I have to pay Marie’s school fees. I hated doing it. She’s so kind Moores, she always was to me – and she sent me more money than I asked for. She said she was still in touch with Ethel who was married and has two children. But Moores isn’t married. She said she hadn’t found the right bloke.

Moores still kept in touch with some of the other nursing students we worked with and she’d heard that John Edward, Marie’s father, had died in December 1949. He’d married an American girl and moved to New York and was working as a doctor in one of the hospitals there. He was standing on the subway platform and just fell forward onto the railway lines and was hit by an incoming train and killed outright. Witnesses said he just toppled forward. Moores said there was a mystery surrounding his death. An autopsy had revealed nothing unusual and so the medical examiner concluded that he probably had an accidental fall. But some of his colleagues were sure he’d committed suicide. Apparently he suffered from depression quite a lot.

Moores asked me if I had worked Obeah on him for what he did to me. Honestly, how could Moores think I’d do that! Of course, I didn’t, but if any of my family knew what he had done to me, they would certainly have worked obeah on him.

******

Dear Diary

The worst present in the world
: It’s my birthday today and God has given me a terrible birthday present. Jamaica has been hit by a savage hurricane with winds over 125 mph. Kingston suffered badly and so far 154 people have died and 50,000 are homeless.

Please God, let my family be safe, please, please. How can I find out how they are?

There isn’t very much in the newspapers about it. Perhaps the newspapers here will print the names of the people that died, like the Daily Gleaner does. If not, I’ll have to go and see Aunt Martha; she will be in touch with the family.

It must have been terrifying; it’s bad enough when a hurricane comes during the day but this one struck at night.

******

Dear Diary

Aunt Martha:
Went to see her, but what a shock I had. It’s a been a long time since I last saw her and AM’s changed a lot.. She looks like she’s shrunk and looks so much older and her teeth were rotten – breath smelt! I wasn’t sure how she would react when she saw me at the door, but, to my surprise, she was very nice.

“
Olga, come in, how nice to see you”.

I was shocked too by the state of her flat, which was once pretty and clean, but now filthy, dark because the curtains were drawn even though it was daytime and it smelt of stale cooking fat.

“
Excuse the mess, it’s difficult to find good help these days”. I thought she was being funny, but the look on her face said she was being serious.

“
I’ve fallen on hard times, and can’t sew any more, arthritis” she said showing me her knarled hands.

After a while I asked her if she knew how Mammie and the rest of the family were after the hurricane. She said she hadn’t heard from any of them since 1946 when Sydney was in London.

“
You remember when Sydney was here that time, don’t you Olga? That was when you told him my secret, wasn’t it”?

At first I didn’t know what she was talking about. And then I remembered. She had made me promise not to tell the family that Mr Kitchen was a black man. I knew why she didn’t want the family to know. It would have shown her up to be the hypocrite she is, after all she was horrible to Mammie for ages because she had married Pops. I started to deny it but she stopped me.

“
Don’t, Olga, don’t lie. It’s not important anyway. It’s all in the past and what’s done is done”.

Aunt Martha is not normally the forgiving type. In fact, I remember Aunt Lucy saying Aunt Martha could bear a grudge longer than anybody else she knew. But, perhaps she had softened in her old age, I thought.

“
Why are you asking me about the family, Olga?”. Suddenly I was angry with myself. You fool Olga. I realised my mistake immediately – by asking about the family I was telling her I wasn’t in contact with them.

“
Why don’t you ask them yourself Olga, or is there some reason you can’t? Do you have a secret too, Olga, is that why you haven’t gone back to Jamaica?” She asked sympathetically. Then her voice got harder.

“
You don’t have to tell me your secret Olga, I already know it. I phoned St Giles a long time ago and after a bit of digging around, I discovered you’d been kicked out of the hospital because you were pregnant. You had a baby didn’t you. Mammie’s favourite little girl got herself a little bastard”.

“
Shut up” I shouted. She made me feel dirty again.

“
That’s why you won’t speak to any of the family or go home, isn’t it”? I nodded.

“
Oh, don’t worry Olga,“ she was being sympathetic again now

“
Your secret’s safe with me. I promise you I won’t mention it to any of them”.

I looked at her and there was a little smile around her mouth but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. They were cold.

I don’t think age had mellowed Aunt Martha, I think she is still a mean spirited woman.

******

Letter to Becky, 3 Tremaine Road, Kingston, Jamaica

from

Martha, 23 Chilworth Street, Paddington.

Dearest Becky

I am the bearer of some tragic news. I have today been notified by the authorities that Olga died in the winter of 1947. Apparently, at the time of her death, there was nothing to identify her, no identity card, passport, letters, nothing.

This has come to light all these years later because, by chance, I read in the local paper of a woman who was in court recently for shop lifting and gave her name as Olga Josephine Browney. I immediately went to the police and said I wanted to see this woman because she was a relative of mine, but when I saw the woman, it was not Olga.

The woman’s real name is Celeste Rodgers and according to Celeste she befriended Olga all those years ago. Olga told her she had nowhere to live. Celeste told Olga she rented a room in a boarding house and she was sure the landlady wouldn’t mind if Olga stayed there for a few days until she found somewhere suitable.

While Olga was sleeping Celeste robbed Olga, took all her possessions, including her clothes and moved out. Celeste gave the police the address and I recently visited the landlady who confirmed that over three years ago an unnamed coloured woman was found dead in bed of hypothermia in a room that had been rented to Celeste Rodgers.

Because Olga had nothing to identify her, and it pains me to have to tell you this Becky, Olga was buried in a paupers grave. Some small comfort, however, Becky, at least Olga is with Jesus now.

Your loving sister,
Martha

******

Olga’s Diary

Dear Diary

Hunters Farm
: I applied for a job with a Major and Mrs Langford. They have a farm in Pulborough and live in a big Tudor house. I arrived for the interview and rang the door bell. When Mrs Langford opened the door she looked at me in surprise, so, I told her my name was Carmen Browne and I had come for an interview.

“
But you’re coloured”

“
Oh…. yes. I’m sorry” I said.

“
Well, now you’re here, you’d better come in”.

I told her I was a widow with a young daughter at boarding school and that my husband had been a doctor and been killed when the tube station he was sheltering in had been hit by a bomb.

She explained that I would be cooking for the family and small intimate dinner parties, but no fancy food as she and her husband liked good plain cooking. I showed her my references and she read them twice. I wonder why, they’re very good.

Mrs Langford isn’t sure that I am the sort of person she wants and is going to discuss the matter with her husband and will let me know in about a week’s time. I won’t get the job.