Silent Child Page 4

  I can’t remember much of what Lily chatted about when she visited apart from that she was only passing on the way to meet friends. No doubt that was her excuse for having doused herself in a sickly-sweet perfume and putting even more of an effort into her appearance. I was too young then to wonder why my mother and Lily were such good friends for they were certainly complete opposites. In those days Mum did not layer on the make-up or wear revealing clothes.

  On the odd afternoon when I was with her at the factory, I would watch the two of them on their tea breaks, chatting away. There they would sit, two grown women, giggling like kids at something they both spotted in a magazine, or indulging in a little gossip about some of the people who worked there. I noticed the other women giving her suspicious looks, not that they dented Lily’s confidence. She would just whisper something in Mum’s ear, which judging by the expressions on their faces was hardly complimentary. Occasionally, her son Paul was also permitted to be with her. ‘My mother could not look after him today,’ was her excuse. ‘Hospital appointment,’ she would add in a lowered voice, with a worried crease between her brows when she blagged the foreman.

  ‘All right, just this once,’ was always the answer.

  I suppose my being allowed the odd visit had to do with both my parents working there. There was never any mention of Lily having a husband or if there ever had been one, a question I had heard muttered from a couple of her workmates. Not that I was interested, I was just pleased that I had found a new playmate near my age to keep me company. Fairly soon after she became friends with Mum, Lily was accepted into our family. It had not taken her long to inveigle invitations to our family parties for herself and Paul. Being a large family, one more child around was barely noticed so he just got treated as an extra cousin. This certainly suited Lily because now whichever relative was babysitting me would happily allow her to leave her son there as well.

  Chapter 7

  The one thing I can honestly say about myself is that for a long time I was a trusting child. Grown-ups know best, my mother told me repeatedly, so I believed her. Which also means that my child’s instinct did not ring any warning bells when Lily began dropping into our house. But let’s just say that trust diminished rather on that last Saturday when my father was given the task of keeping an eye on me.

  Every few weeks in my mother’s family, husbands were placed on child-sitting duties while the three sisters went shopping, before, more importantly, meeting up for lunch. That fateful Saturday, Mum had told Dad and I on the way out that Lily was coming round with Paul: ‘We thought Emily and he could play together and you would be free to watch your sports programme,’ was all she said, shooting out the door before he could voice any objection.

  So, believe it or not, it was she who fixed that I was being left with two people who thought their secret was safe. And before the day was out, the third person in the triangle was to find out the truth of what exactly had been going on for weeks under her very nose. The story, which has been repeated more than once, goes that I caught them at it in the bedroom while they were meant to be watching both me and her son. Just as well I only have a dim memory of that! I know what happened, though.

  Remember when I said I was trusting, that I believed what adults told me? That I never questioned them? Well, that was my mistake because the lie my father told me that day was that there were books in the bedroom he wanted to show Lily and I must be good and not disturb them.

  Now I knew there were no books in the bedroom, but that didn’t stop me believing him. This is why I didn’t realise the true meaning of why they were in the bedroom when I shared his feeble excuse with Mum – I just know that when the words came out of my mouth, it was me she shook hard. That was my first lesson in life: the messenger always gets shot.

  Dad and Lily must have been looking at books for a long time, I had thought, and I was hungry and so was Paul, but we were too small to reach the biscuits on the shelves above our heads. I stretched and stretched, but it was no use. It was Paul who dared me to go into them. He used words like ‘scaredy-cat’, which made me take my courage in both hands, open the bedroom door and walk in. My mind’s a blur as to what happened next. Paul, who had allowed me as far as the doorway, told me much later that the pair of them pulled the sheets up to their chins and yelled at me to get out. I do remember though how soon after Lily flew from the room, shooting me venomous looks.

  ‘Creepy little sneak!’ she spat out, before grabbing her son by the arm and storming out. As she did so, Paul looked at me helplessly.

  Now if they hadn’t shouted so loudly and made me run from the room crying, I might not have thought to say anything. It all came out a bit later though when my mother noticed the tear streaks on my face.

  ‘What have you been crying about now, Emily?’ she asked, giving me one of her impatient shakes.

  So, I told her. And there you have it: two people yelling insults at each other, one who blamed a kid’s big mouth.

  Yes, I really had made a good job of failing in the role of relationship-fixer baby.

  Chapter 8

  I’m pretty sure now that before that double betrayal there had been other dalliances that had been ignored. But not this one; her husband sleeping with her best friend was not something my mother was going to turn a blind eye to. Very few wives would. And Mum certainly had no intention of it, especially when two young children were the only witnesses to the treachery. While I stood there shaking, I listened to the shouting and heard expressions that I had never heard before, ‘your dirty whore’ being one that remains fixed in my mind.

  Oh, he tried to say I had made it up, that Lily had been gone for ages and that he was in the bedroom on his own. None of which my mother believed.

  ‘She’s not clever enough to lie,’ was all she said.

  Another black mark for me.

  ‘There, I hope you’re satisfied,’ was all Dad said to me then, and feeling more tears starting up again, I shot into my bedroom as they screamed and shouted at each other some more. The row continued into the small hours until I heard the front door slam and my mother screaming, ‘Go on, go to your whore then!’

  And that, I learnt the next day, was exactly what he did.

  * * *

  It only took until the following morning for Mum to realise just what the consequences of her husband’s departure were going to mean: primarily, no money coming in. She must have woken up thinking about it for no sooner did she come down the stairs than she was on the phone. I couldn’t help but hear her shrill voice barely pausing for breath as she unburdened her woes, first into her mother’s ears and then on additional calls to both of her sisters. I guessed breakfast was not on the agenda and wondered what was going to happen next.

  I did not have long to wait.

  ‘We’re going to Gran’s,’ she told me, before dashing into her room.

  Following her, I saw that all the bedding in my parents’ room was scattered over the floor. She must have pulled it off before she had been able to face sleeping in the same bed that, just a few hours earlier, her husband and her so-called friend had sullied. She helped me get dressed before getting ready herself, then it was a quick cup of tea for her, a glass of milk for me and we were off.

  Once at Gran’s, I saw that my aunts, their eyes wide with curiosity, were already sitting around the kitchen table. Nothing like their sister almost finding her fickle husband in bed with her best friend to get them running down to Gran’s house to hear the story again first-hand.

  Almost the moment we walked into the kitchen, the tears started. Tissues appeared as though by magic, and once a wad of them was in one hand and a cup of tea in the other, my mother recounted everything that had happened for the fourth time that morning. Well, not quite everything – she downplayed the screaming row that must have kept the whole road awake until the early hours.

  I saw the aunts’ eyes open even wider when she told them how it was me who had let the cat out of the bag.


  ‘Books in the bedroom, I ask you! What were they thinking? I suppose he thought Emily would believe anything he told her.’

  That said just about everything about my parents’ level of reading.

  ‘And the worst thing,’ she added, ‘is that I can’t even go into the factory. I mean, how could I work alongside them both again? Can you imagine having to look at that whore with her smug face, cosying up to my lying husband every day?’

  Clearly, they couldn’t, though that did not stop them all agreeing with her vehemently.

  ‘He will have to pay you maintenance though, won’t he?’ said Aunt Maria.

  ‘And give you money for Emily as well,’ Aunt Lizzy added.

  ‘And just how do I make him do that? He’s tight as a tick that one . . .’

  ‘Be sensible, Betty,’ said Gran, ‘there are laws to protect you. Tom might be devious but he’s not stupid, he knows he will have to pay for his daughter so the first thing you need to do is get a solicitor to sort everything out. They will tell him how much child support he will be liable for. And he knows what would happen if he doesn’t comply – he’ll be in court pretty sharpish. No doubt the judge would insist on an attachment placed on his earnings. Doubt he’d want the company to see that.’

  ‘Attached to what, his measly little pay-packet? He hardly brings home what I would call a decent wage, does he? That’s why I had to work. And let’s face it, Mum, you can’t get blood out of a stone now, can you? Goodness knows what we’re going to live on now.’

  More sniffs, and more tissues were passed around.

  For once it was she and not me who was the centre of attention. In between gasps of disgust, shoulders were squeezed, her back rubbed, even more tea poured. Before she launched yet again into her version of the facts, Gran put her arm around me.

  ‘Let’s get you some breakfast,’ she said gently and led me out of the kitchen and into her comfortable sitting room. She told me that as a treat I could have my breakfast in there while I watched my favourite video, Sooty & Co. ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you, darling?’ she asked and I nodded a yes.

  I think I would have been content to sit with nothing in front of me – anything to get away from the conversation in that kitchen.

  Gran must have known that I had heard everything that happened in the house and that my mother had done very little to stop me being caught up in it. Not that she asked any questions. Instead, she just put the video on for me before going back in the kitchen. A few minutes later, she returned with my dish of scrambled eggs, toast and juice on a tray, which she placed on my lap. Seeing I was apparently already absorbed in the video, she patted me on the shoulder and returned to the hub of the house – her kitchen, where the family pow wows always seemed to take place.

  All I could think, while I watched Sooty’s funny antics, was that I didn’t want to go home – I wanted to stay at Gran’s, where there was no more shouting and no more tears or blame placed on me. I thought of my room upstairs, with its soft mattress and crisp sheets smelling faintly of lavender, and just hoped that Mum would ask for me to stay. Like any other child, I wanted to be tucked up, read stories and kissed goodnight and wake up to a smiling face.

  Almost as soon as the video ended, Gran was back in the room. She sat down next to me, pulling me close, and said, ‘Your mother’s just told me how angry your dad was with you, but you know, Emily, you did nothing wrong.’

  ‘They said I did,’ I whispered.

  ‘Well, that’s because they were upset. But these are grown-ups’ problems, not yours, and I’m sure that when your dad has had time to think a little, he will be sorry he shouted at you. Just give it a little time and you’ll see everything will work out all right.’

  A statement that I don’t think either of us believed.

  ‘Now,’ she continued, before I could ask any questions, ‘how would you like to stay here for a few days? Just so your parents can sort a few things out. Would you like that?’

  For the first time that day, I felt a smile breaking across my face.

  ‘Yes, please,’ was my answer as I snuggled into the safe softness of her body. ‘And Molly?’ I asked, thinking of the little dog she had given me only a few months earlier.

  ‘Of course you can have her here! After all, it was me who found her for you. I’ll tell your mother to bring her over.’

  Satisfied my little companion would be with me in the place where I felt loved and cared for, almost instantly I forgot about all the shouting and beamed at her.

  Molly was, I thought, my best friend, one I hated being apart from. She’ll be here in the morning was my last thought before I fell to sleep.

  She wasn’t.

  Chapter 9

  It would not take much to imagine just how upset I was the following morning when Mum returned with a bag of my clothes, but no little dog in sight.

  ‘Where is she?’ I asked pleadingly.

  ‘Your dad’s got her, said he would look after her while we’re sorting a few things out.’

  Now one thing you have to know about my mother is that she tells lies. Not that I knew that at the tender age of five, but before I was six, I had discovered it to be true.

  Lies caused by spite, to get attention and lies to avoid trouble.

  This lie, I found out later, was one of pure spite.

  But then hearing Mum’s excuse and remembering how much Dad had liked Molly – after all, it was he who took her out for walks – I believed her and tried to swallow my disappointment. Not that it stopped the tears prickling against my lids.

  ‘Oh, don’t start crying now, Emily! I’ve enough on my plate without having to cope with your sniffling. He’ll tire of that dog soon enough and bring her back for me to look after.’

  Before I could ask any more questions, she told Gran she had an appointment with the solicitors and could she lend her some money as she had to pay for the first interview straight away.

  ‘Are you sure you want to rush this, Betty?’ her mother asked, no doubt hoping for a few moments that maybe everything could be fixed or perhaps it was not as bad as she thought.

  But Mum just shook her head and no more questions were asked, most probably because I was standing next to her.

  The only thing I heard about that meeting was that he would have to pay – a sentence I heard repeated by my mother several times a day afterwards.

  Chapter 10

  Whatever Dad was due to give Mum, it could not have been enough, for after a couple of months she announced that she would have to find a job and while she was searching for one, I would have to stay most days at Gran’s, something that suited me. Being with Mum with her continuous mood swings, either crying or cursing at me, had made the family home a place I was eager to escape from even more than usual.

  Mum’s family had suggested more than once that if she was finding it hard to make ends meet that she moved in with them. ‘There’s plenty of room,’ Gran had said and she pointed out that she could look after me too. But it was an offer my mother declined. She had already made other plans, ones she did not wish to share with either her sisters or her mother – not that any of us knew what they were then. The child I had been was too young to put together the phone calls she overheard, but the adult me can.

  As my aunts once said, Mum didn’t like the word ‘Miss’ in front of her name. Or rather, she did not want to attend family get togethers without a man by her side. She might have played the sympathy card and revelled in all the attention, but pity was another thing. If her husband was living with another woman – who, let’s face it, whatever anyone said, was a real stunner – then she herself did not intend to be single for long. Obviously, finding a man too quickly would mean she would not be getting all the attention and support she still needed so discretion was needed and a loose-lipped daughter might well be a problem so she readily arranged for me to spend even more time with her family. Though not too often, or they might have thought she was a neglectful moth
er – another name she didn’t want bandied about. Not that out of earshot and sight, my mother had much time for me.

  In fact, so much of that time is still clear in my mind. I can remember that miserable feeling of loneliness dogging me when it was just the two of us in our home: she made it crystal clear in so many ways that I was an irritating thorn in her side, her words not mine, and she didn’t know what she had done to be burdened with me. But small children do not always take the hint to hide themselves away. Instead, as Mum complained, they got under her feet. I couldn’t help myself trying to get her attention. Like all small children, I wanted to believe my mother loved me. Which no doubt is why I never blamed her for her bad temper.

  Every time she snapped at me, I felt as if it was all my fault, that there was a reason she did not show me the affection my grandmother did. I knew she hated my fussiness with food, my refusal to walk on certain parts of the pavement and the way I twisted my hair and sucked my tongue for comfort. Those things I could not stop, but even so, I tried my best to be as good as possible. And all the time, I hoped I would be rewarded with a cuddle, even a smile – anything that would make me feel wanted.

  Chapter 11

  It certainly hadn’t taken my mother long to decide that burdened with me or not, her life was not going to grind to a halt. On the mornings she told us she was job-hunting, I was deposited at my gran’s. And the evenings when I was left with her family? ‘I have to have a life,’ I heard her saying. ‘Going to meet some girlfriends.’

  And what could my grandmother say to that?