Wake Up, Mummy (2 page)

As a child herself, she had sat on the same wooden chair on more occasions than she could have counted, her feet dangling nearer the ground with each year that passed. She closed her eyes and imagined herself aged seven or eight years old, swinging her legs and half-listening to the pleasantly lilting voices of her mother and aunt as they drank tea from flower-patterned china cups and discussed the family issues of the day. It felt good to be back once more in the familiar security of her aunt’s kitchen.

‘We’re going to call her Judith.’ Bernadette stroked the baby’s cheek again as she spoke.

‘It’s a good name.’ Her Aunt Martha paused for a moment and smiled at her, before turning to lift the heavy, cast-iron kettle from the range cooker and pour water into a large, brown teapot that stood warming beside it.

A shadow fell across the baby’s head and Bernadette looked again towards the open back door.

‘Sarah? Is that you?’ she asked, raising a hand to shield her eyes against the brightness of the sunlight that framed the dark silhouette of a child standing in the doorway. ‘Come into the kitchen, darling, so that I can see your face.’

The child didn’t move, and as Bernadette’s eyes grew accustomed to the sharply contrasted light and darkness, she saw that her niece was holding something in her arms.

‘He won’t say anything,’ Sarah whispered. ‘He was lying on his tummy…in the stream.’

As if in confirmation of her words, large drops of water splashed on to the step at her feet.

With a gasp of sudden understanding, Bernadette sprang from the chair, startling the baby as she almost tore its mouth from her breast. But Martha had already crossed the flagstone floor and was snatching Stephen from Sarah’s grasp. Sweeping one hand across the kitchen table, she sent plates and cups crashing to the
floor as she gently laid the child on the hard, scrubbed-pine surface.

Bernadette thrust the howling baby into Sarah’s still-outstretched arms and ran to her son’s side. Her face bore an expressionless mask of apparent incomprehension as she watched Martha put her ear to Stephen’s mouth and then feel his neck with her fingertips, searching for a pulse.

A sound more animal than human rose from somewhere deep inside Bernadette. But Martha barely heard it, as she placed the heels of her hands on the little boy’s fragile chest and pressed firmly. She counted aloud, ‘One, two, three,’ and then bent down, putting her mouth over Stephen’s and blowing her own life-giving breath into his limp and unresponsive body.

Bernadette clasped her son’s hand and began to whisper, ‘Please, God. Please, God. Please, God.’

The other children had followed Sarah in from the garden and they were clustered around her, their eyes wide with fear, when Martha suddenly stood upright, her face flushed with anxiety and exertion, and looked towards them.

‘Becky!’ Martha’s tone was sharp and commanding. ‘Stop your crying now, Becky. Stephen needs your help. Run down the road to Mrs Ryan and tell her to fetch the doctor. Quick now! Go as fast as you can.’

Becky released a single sob as she fled down the pathway that wound around the house to the front garden, and the woman turned back towards the table. Once again, Martha placed her large, capable hands on Stephen’s chest, while Bernadette continued to whisper her prayer and tried in vain to block out the voice in her head that kept repeating with cruel insistency,
It’s too late. It’s too late
.

Even before they heard the sound of the doctor’s car in the lane, Bernadette knew that the voice in her head was right: God was not going to save her child.

On a warm, sunny, early-spring morning, three-year-old Stephen was pronounced dead where he lay on the kitchen table, and Bernadette thought her heart would break.

BURYING THEIR SON
was the hardest thing Bernadette and her husband Charlie had ever had to do. But not only had she lost her precious child, it seemed also as though his death had severed the bond between Bernadette and her baby daughter. Of course, she knew it wasn’t the baby’s fault that she’d been feeding her in the kitchen of her aunt’s house instead of being outside, watching her two young sons and their cousins play by the shallow stream that ran through the bottom of the garden. She knew, too, that it was neither reasonable nor rational to
blame Judith for having absorbed her attention that day. But she simply couldn’t help herself.

Over the next few years, Bernadette and her husband had three more children and loved them all. But the fact remained that every time she looked at Judith, she thought of Stephen, and every time she thought of Stephen she felt an ache in her heart so profoundly painful that sometimes, for just one guilty, fleeting moment, she wished the two children could have exchanged places.

THE YEARS PASSED
and Judith grew from restless toddler to difficult child to angry, aggressive teenager. As her siblings became strong in mind and body, she developed into a manipulative, argumentative, sneaky and vindictive liar who demanded attention, threw spectacular tantrums when she didn’t get her own way, and indulged in mood swings that were as uncontrollable as they were frightening.

Judith’s well-behaved, well-adjusted brothers and sisters all grew up to be – or to marry – successful professional people, and became the sort of adults their parents could be proud of. It was just Judith who was different. By turns depressive and wildly unpredictable, she was a constant source of embarrassment to everyone connected with her. By the time she was 13, she was playing truant from school, spending her days stealing to fund what
quickly became a serious drinking problem, and indulging in a promiscuity that was shocking even for the relatively liberal-minded 1960s.

However, although Judith’s behaviour was extreme by any standards, she somehow managed to continue to function convincingly enough for Bernadette to refuse to consider the possibility that her daughter was in a state of mental crisis.

An accomplished and determined deceiver, Judith caused trouble wherever she went. Her irrational, self-destructive, supremely self-centred behaviour resulted in repeated and often very distressing conflicts, confrontations and misunderstandings between her parents and siblings. Inevitably, she gained a reputation for being an attention-seeking troublemaker who was best avoided.

Today, someone would probably have picked up on the fact that she was suffering from a mental illness. In those days, however, there was such stigma attached to mental health problems that they were rarely discussed, and therefore most people knew little about them. So it’s unlikely that Judith’s parents suspected there was anything seriously wrong with their daughter, and that she was ill rather than ‘bad’.

Bernadette was proud, respectable and respected, a pillar of her local church community and a good woman who had suffered a terrible tragedy in the loss of her
beloved son. Appearances and conformity mattered to her, though, and she would rather have died than lay herself open to the humiliation of being judged by her friends and neighbours. She and her husband based their parenting on sound Christian principles. They were strict with their children, but had close, loving relationships with them – all of them, that is, except Judith. It was Judith alone who caused problems in the family, and although Bernadette tried to love her, Judith constantly pushed her mother away, frightening her with her irrational and explosive behaviour and creating chaos and unhappiness all around her.

As a teenager, Judith resented what she saw as her parents’ total lack of understanding and sympathy for her. Whenever they
did
try to help her, though, she flew into a rage, hurling foul abuse at them and accusing them of interfering in her life. No amount of cajoling or pleading seemed to have any effect.

And, throughout all those years, Bernadette was haunted by crushing guilt for her son’s death, and by the fear that Judith might be able to sense her struggle to love her. Sometimes, when Judith was out with her unsuitable and mostly unpleasant friends, Bernadette would wrestle with the conflict of worrying about what trouble her daughter might be getting into and gratitude for the few hours of peace and harmony that were restored in the
house whenever she wasn’t at home. It was a deeply unchristian, un-maternal thought and it filled Bernadette with remorse and shame. But she simply couldn’t help thinking it.

Then, one day, driven to the end of her tether by her daughter’s snarling aggression, Bernadette walked silently into the hallway, lifted her coat from the stand by the front door, picked up her handbag and left the house. She
had
to talk to someone. She had never hated anyone in her life, but sometimes, when she looked at her daughter…

A tear slid down the side of her nose and she wiped it away impatiently with the back of her hand. She hadn’t wanted anyone, ever, to know what went on behind the front door of her home. But Judith was single-handedly ripping the family apart, and something had to be done to try to stop her, for all their sakes. As Bernadette walked down the street with feigned brisk purpose, she decided she would talk to her priest. If only she could make Judith learn to have faith in God, she was certain her daughter would be able to turn her life around.

The priest at Bernadette’s local church was also a family friend and a regular visitor to the house. So he already knew a little of the trouble and distress that had been caused over the years by Judith’s reckless selfishness. Even so, he was shocked to see the strain and exhaustion so
clearly evident on Bernadette’s face, and he agreed readily to speak to Judith.

Now all Bernadette had to do was find a way to persuade her daughter to meet with the priest.

For once, though, it seemed that God heard one of Bernadette’s prayers and Judith responded to her mother’s nervous request by grunting something incomprehensible, shrugging her shoulders and muttering, ‘I s’pose.’

Judith’s family were often convinced that she hated and despised them. In reality, however, she felt as though her life was spiralling out of control. She was always quick to excuse her erratic, destructive and promiscuous behaviour and to blame everyone but herself for anything that went wrong. And she was loud in defence of her right to do whatever she pleased. But underneath the tough hostility of her facade was a child who was frightened by the power of her own emotions and who often thought she was losing her mind.

A few days after her mother’s visit to the priest, Judith slammed the front door behind her and set off from the house to walk the short distance to the rectory. Twenty minutes later, she was sitting in an ancient, overstuffed leather armchair in a room lined by equally overstuffed bookshelves, letting the words spill out of her.

The priest sat with his hands resting on the desk in front of him, his fingertips lightly touching, while
Judith talked about her fears, the chaos of her uncontrollable emotions, and how she often did things she was ashamed of simply because she didn’t know how
not
to do them.

No one knows what the priest said to Judith that day. Clearly, though, when he offered to give her a lift home in his car, she felt comfortable enough to agree. Bernadette heard the sound of its engine idling for a moment on the road outside the house and then, a few seconds later, Judith burst through the front door, flung her bag on the hall table and exploded into the kitchen, shouting, ‘That fucking bastard! Thanks, Mum, for delivering me into the hands of that lecherous old pervert.’

Bernadette’s heart began to thump. She longed to cover her ears with her hands and block out the sound of her daughter’s terrible accusations. Instead, she turned away, clutched the edge of the kitchen sink so tightly her fingers ached, and prayed, ‘Please, God, when I turn around,
please
let her be gone.’

But Judith was determined to be heard.

‘Shall I tell you what he’s really like, that saintly old man you admire so much?’ Her voice had risen to a scream. ‘I told him stuff I’ve never told anyone before, and do you know what he did? That fucking bastard brought me home in his car and tried to put his hand up my skirt. Thanks, Mum! You’ve really helped a lot.’

Breathless with fury, Judith glared at her mother’s trembling back. And then, suddenly, Bernadette spun round, took a step towards her daughter and slapped her hard across the face.

‘How dare you!’ Bernadette shouted, anger erupting from her violently shaking body. ‘How dare you tell your filthy, evil lies about that good man? Stop it, Judith! For pity’s sake, stop lying. Stop trying to make yourself important and special. Don’t you realise that trouble and hurt follow you wherever you go? Stop it – now – or I don’t know what’s going to become of you.’

For a moment, Judith stood completely still, gently touching the red mark on her cheek with her fingertips, her eyes flashing with resentment and hurt. Then she burst into tears and ran from the room.

No one ever really knew whether Judith’s story about the priest was true. It certainly became more elaborate and outrageous each time she told it, and she always blamed him for her lifelong distrust of the Church in general. Otherwise, it changed nothing in her life. She continued to be vicious, both verbally and physically, and to alienate anyone who might have been able to help her.

Sometimes, Judith’s heavy drinking was an attempt at self-medication. When she was manic, alcohol would slow the racing of her mind; and when she was depressed, it would mask her intense sadness and feelings of hopelessness
– for a while, at least. But it was also simply an addiction, too, and she would do almost anything to raise the money to buy drink.

At the age of 14, she returned to school drunk one day after lunch, hit one of her teachers and was expelled. After that, no other school in the area would take her, and her parents eventually enrolled her at a college, which at least allowed her to continue with some sort of education and gave a degree of structure to her days. Unfortunately, however, it also meant that she was mixing with older teenagers and had much more freedom than she’d had at school, and she began to drink even more determinedly, going to pubs at lunchtimes and in the evenings – which is where she met Paul.