Mummy
Knew
LISA JAMES

A terrifying step-father. A mother who refused to listen.

A little girl desperate to escape.

Dedication

To the little girl I used to be, and the many others like her.

Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Acknowledgments

Further information

Copyright

About the Publisher

Prologue

The lady with the long black hair was coming to visit. Nanny said it would be nice to draw her a picture so she could take it away and stick it on her wall. ‘You can show her what a clever girl you are,’ she said.

She pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and I clambered up then she handed me my tin of crayons and a piece of grey cardboard from the back of a cornflakes box.

I drew a rainbow first, and Nanny suggested I draw a picture of the lady underneath it. I tried to remember what she looked like, but all I could manage was the straight curtain of black hair and a cigarette with an orange end clamped between her stick-like fingers. I didn’t know what colour to make her eyes until Nanny handed me the brown. I added loads of thick black lines for the lashes and Nanny said they looked like spider legs. I was good at those. Finally, I rummaged through my tin and found a bit of red for the mouth. Nanny laughed a little and said I’d drawn it upside down. I watched as she took the tiny stub of crayon from me and turned the lady’s mouth into a thick, upturned clown’s smile instead.

‘That’s better, pet,’ she said. ‘Let’s cheer her up a bit.’

Finally I drew a giant multicoloured flower, a few tufts of grass and a triangular yellow sun in the corner. Nanny said it was a work of art and took my hand in hers to write some words at the top in blue.

‘To Mummy Love Lisa xxx.’

Nanny put the picture in pride of place on the mantelpiece and said I could give it to Mummy when she popped in at teatime. I was so excited I actually had a mummy, like all the other children at nursery, that I didn’t want to go for my usual afternoon nap. I found my dummy and climbed onto Nanny’s lap in the rocking chair instead. She held me close against her chest and I sucked my dummy in time to the beating of her heart as she sang nursery rhymes into my hair until I grew sleepy. Back and forth she rocked me. Images of Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary and Pretty Maids All In a Row with long black hair just like Mummy’s filled my dreams.

When I woke up later that afternoon, I was in Nanny’s bed. I reached for my dummy, which lay on the pillow beside me, and popped it into my mouth. It was then I heard a low, gravelly voice. Mummy had arrived and was sitting in the front room next door.

I kicked off the covers and opened the bedroom door to see Mummy sitting on the small brown sofa with Nanny opposite in her favourite armchair. They were both sipping tea from Nanny’s best china tea-set. Mummy’s black hair was a little bit longer than I remembered it and now she had a heavy fringe, and her eyes had big black circles drawn round them. She wore an orange dress with large hooped earrings and a long string of wooden beads.

‘Here she is!’ said Nanny, turning round in her chair to look at me before heaving herself up with a ‘One, two, three…oop laa!’ to reach for the picture I’d drawn earlier. She handed it to me and nodded towards the lady: ‘Go on, give it to Mummy.’

I felt shy in front of Mummy because I’d only seen her a few times, but I was filled with pride as I walked towards her with my drawing held out in front of me. I thought she would be pleased.

‘Bleedin’ hell,’ said the lady, making me jump. ‘She’s a bit too old for a dummy, ain’t she, Mum? What is she – three? Four?’

‘Don’t you know how old your own child is, Donna?’ said Nanny sharply as she plonked herself back down into her armchair.

Mummy snorted and snatched the picture from my hands. ‘Christ! Is that meant to be me?’ I noticed her mouth was turned down unhappily, just as I’d drawn it the first time. ‘Makes me look like fucking Quasimodo.’ She put it on the coffee table beside her.

‘Mind your language,’ said Nanny under her breath, and then ‘Aren’t you going give Mummy a kiss, Lisa?’

I looked at her, unsure what to do.

She rolled her eyes and said, ‘How can she when she’s got that bloody thing in her gob? Give us it here.’ She snatched the dummy away, pointed at her cheek with a long pink fingernail and said, ‘Come on, then. I haven’t got all bleedin’ day.’

Her long nails had scratched my lip as she snatched the dummy away and I stepped towards her with tears in my eyes. Instinctively I moved to wrap my arms around her neck, just as I did when I kissed Nanny, but Mummy pushed me away angrily and said, ‘Mind me make-up, Lisa. Jesus Christ Almighty.’

My tears spilled over then and I demanded my dummy back. I looked to Nanny for help but she was staring into her teacup and shaking her head as if I had done something wrong. I cried harder then.

‘Fucking hell, Mum,’ said Mummy. ‘I don’t know how you put up with it. Does she ever stop fucking whingeing?’

Mummy left shortly after. She didn’t say goodbye. Nanny sighed and put my drawing back on the mantelpiece. It now it had a tea ring at the end of the rainbow.

I crept over to Nanny, my eyes still red with tears. ‘Come here, pet,’ she said and we snuggled up together on the sofa. Nanny put her arms around me. ‘Don’t you worry about Mummy,’ she soothed, ‘You’ve always got me.’ I felt warm and secure and totally protected. I always did with Nanny. I had no idea that my life was about to change. It never occurred to me that we would be separated and I would never feel safe again.

Chapter One

Nanny and I lived in London’s New Cross, an area just south of Tower Bridge, with my aunts Jenny and Freda and my Uncle Jimmy. Freda was the oldest of Nanny’s eight children, and Jenny and Jimmy the two youngest. The family were very close, and the council flat was always filled with visiting relatives. I remember Nanny standing in the middle of the small steamy kitchen, one hand on the hip of her patterned apron, the other on her head as she said ‘We’ll have to put in for a transfer. We can’t swing a cat in here.’

Uncle Jimmy, who was busy stuffing a cigarette paper with tobacco, said ‘That’s because it’s like Piccadilly bleedin’ Circus in here, what with all her kids in and out all the time. Bloody disgrace she is, that Donna. Always has been.’ He bent down to me and added, ‘You’re a bleedin’ nuisance, aren’t you?’ His face loomed large above mine and I immediately burst into tears.

Nanny quickly stepped forward to scoop me up in her soft comforting arms. ‘He doesn’t mean it, pet. He’s only playing with you.’

I knew that Mummy, the lady with long black hair, lived somewhere nearby with my two sisters and my brother. They popped in and out regularly because Nanny looked after them while Mummy was at work, but I was much younger than them and they didn’t pay any attention to me. By the time I was born on Nanny’s kitchen floor in December 1966, Diane was eleven, Cheryl was nine, and my brother Davie was six. Their father had gone for a quick pint at the pub a few weeks before Davie was born and had never come back. Instead he got the boat back to Ireland and was never heard from again. After waiting years in the hope he would return, my mother was granted a divorce on the grounds of his desertion.

Six years later, at the age of thirty-four, she found herself in another unfortunate situation with my arrival on the scene. I never found out who my father was–my birth certificate lists him as ‘Unknown’–although I did once overhear Nanny and Jenny saying I came from a quick five minutes round the back of a pub rather than an actual relationship. The arrival of a fourth baby must have made life very difficult for my mother at a time when divorce itself carried a huge stigma. Now she had an illegitimate child on her hands as well. Perhaps this is why I was left in the care of Nanny. Quite simply I was an accident–unplanned and definitely unwanted.

My Durham-born Nanny, on the other hand, adored me. I was her ‘bonny lass’. Uncle Jimmy may have seen me as a bit of a nuisance, but he was largely indifferent–unless, that is, I got my toddler hands on his precious tobacco tin and emptied the contents down the loo, as was my habit for a time, and then he would get a bit cross. My aunts Jenny and Freda also made a huge fuss of me, as did my numerous other aunties and uncles. I couldn’t have been in better hands. These early years were my best, a time when I was safe, loved and protected.

Jenny, Freda and Uncle Jimmy were out at work during the day, so it was just Nanny and me. In the mornings we’d sometimes get the bus along to Peckham High Street and do the rounds at the greengrocer’s, the butcher’s and the baker’s, or else we’d walk to the park and I’d go on the swings. But these trips became less frequent because Nanny wasn’t in the best of health. She was overweight and found it difficult to walk very far. Her thighs were covered in bulging purple veins, while her calves and ankles were swollen with open ulcers. Walking was painful, and she rocked from side to side with an exaggerated limp. It was Jenny’s job to bathe the crusty red and yellow sores with warm salty water every evening, applying cream and a stretchy bandage to the wounds.

Most of the time Nanny and I stayed at home. I would ride my red tricycle up and down on the balcony that ran the length of our block while Nanny sat in a deckchair and dozed, with a scarf covering her white curls. She gave me a little silver Noddy bell for my trike and I used to drive the neighbours crazy, ringing it continuously until someone leaned out of a window and yelled at me to ‘Pack it in!’

Another of my favourite games was ‘fly away Peter, fly away Paul’. I’d sit on Nanny’s lap as she fluttered torn strips of newspaper on her index fingers, making Peter fly away as Paul came back, over and over again, until I decided I wanted her to play ‘little piggies’ on my toes instead.

Despite Nanny’s problems with her legs, she always kept the flat spick and span. Every day she tied an apron over her clothes and pottered about dusting and polishing with an old rag. She cleaned the kitchen window with newspaper and a bottle of vinegar so the room smelled like a fish and chip shop. She liked to keep the front step polished with red lacquer but one day, after getting down on all fours, she couldn’t get up again. I had to knock on a neighbour’s door, and between him and the man who came to read the electric meter, they managed to pull Nanny back to her feet. After that she didn’t do the front step herself any more.

Every day after lunch, Nanny and I had a nap, but first we had to make sure I had a dummy and a ‘picky bit’, two items I was unable to sleep without. I liked to unpick anything woolly, and run the fibres through my fingers. After Jenny and Freda got fed up with finding several of their best jumpers ruined, Nanny had knitted me a drawer full of special multicoloured woollen squares, and these became my picky bits. She had broken my round-the-clock dummy habit with dire warnings of growing up with buck teeth, but I took to hiding dummies for safe-keeping, just in case she was ever tempted to take Uncle Jimmy’s advice and ‘chuck the filthy things away’. The problem was, I could never remember where I’d put them, so before our nap we’d have to go on a dummy hunt. Usually I’d give up after the first minute or so, full of tears and convinced we’d never find one. Nanny would continue the search accompanied by my background wailing until she finally caught a glimpse of pink plastic peeping up from the bottom of the coal bucket or somewhere obscure like that. The only time she’d get exasperated would be when, after searching for a good ten minutes, I’d realise I’d had one in my pocket all along.

‘Oh dear, pet, I’m getting too old for this,’ she’d say, shaking her head.

Once we were both snuggled down in Nanny’s soft bed, she’d tell me a story. I’d lie there, inhaling the sweet scent of her face cream, and listen transfixed. She would tell me about growing up in a little village near Durham where the fields were full of schoolbook-eating goats, and elves and fairies too. I can’t remember the end of any of these stories because what with the comforts of my dummy, picky bit and Nanny’s soft lilting voice, it wouldn’t be long before I was in the land of nod.

When I was three and a half, I started going to the local nursery school every morning. Nanny would walk me there, waddling from side to side. We’d often have to stop for a few minutes because her legs were aching but she was always cheerful and we’d sing a song or two on the way. I didn’t like nursery at first and would sob and cling to Nanny, at which point she’d let out a little cry and say ‘Mind me legs, pet.’ But it didn’t take long before I started to enjoy it. There were so many toys to play with, so many things to do. I was in my element–up to my elbows in the sandpit or water-play tank, painting, drawing, gluing, sticking, and making friends. Just before home time we’d sing songs such as ‘I’m a little teapot’ and ‘If you’re happy and you know it’. The teacher, Mrs Paterson, would stand in front of us doing the actions. Then we’d gather up our things and spill out into the little playground to wait for whoever was collecting us.

Normally Nanny was one of the first to arrive. I’d often spot her from quite a way off as I recognised the way she walked. I’d jump up and down and wave, and when she managed to pick me out from all the other children, she’d wave back. We had a ritual in which once she reached the diamond-wire fence I’d run up to her and she’d bend down positioning her cheek for a kiss through the wire. I’d rush out through the school gate and thrust a painting or maybe a glitter-studded egg box at her. No matter how awful my offerings, Nanny always lavished praise on my artistic talents before reaching into her pocket and producing a little packet of my favourite Love Hearts sweeties.

Then one day I was waiting in the playground as usual, but Nanny didn’t appear. I looked down the road but couldn’t see her. Gradually the playground cleared of all the other boys and girls until there was only me and Mrs Paterson left. She stood shielding her eyes from the sun as she peered down the empty road.

‘Oh dear, Lisa, Nan’s a bit late today. Never mind. Come back inside and look at a book until she gets here.’

I sat on the blue square carpet in the reading corner, my legs crossed in front of me. The bright sun streamed in through the window, burning the top of my head. I shuffled over a bit into the shade, but found myself sitting in front of a huge cast-iron radiator which scorched my back through my coat. I was hot and hungry. Where was Nanny? Why hadn’t she come?

I shrugged off my yellow plastic raincoat and pulled a book from the shelf in front of me. Mrs Paterson sat at the other end of the classroom with a paperback in one hand, a sandwich in the other. Her eyes remained firmly on her book and I wondered if she had forgotten about me. After a while the door opened. My heart lifted for a moment, but sank with my spirits when I saw it was only another teacher bringing a cup of tea for Mrs Paterson. They murmured together and the other teacher, someone I didn’t recognise, looked over and said, ‘Don’t worry, love.’

I could hear the sound of the older children playing outside in the Junior playground. Some girls were playing a skipping game, the rope whacking the ground in regular beats as they sang about apples and pears. There was stinging behind my eyes, and soon the picture book on my lap was speckled with tear drops. I gave a loud sniff and wiped my nose on the sleeve of my jumper. Mrs Paterson turned to me. ‘Don’t worry, Lisa. It’s all under control.’ I didn’t know what she meant.

The bell rang to start lunchtime lessons. I had been waiting for over an hour but it felt like days. I needed to use the loo, but didn’t want to risk going in case I missed Nanny when she finally arrived. It was at times like this I needed my dummy and picky bit the most. Just when I felt a fresh wave of tears threatening to flow, Uncle Jimmy bustled in through the classroom door. A lady I recognised from the school office was with him. He looked out of breath and red in the face, as if he’d been running. He spoke to Mrs Paterson for a few minutes, both their faces very glum. I couldn’t hear everything they were saying but at one point Mrs Paterson raised her eyebrows and said, ‘Hospital?’ Uncle Jimmy nodded and then shrugged his shoulders. I was still sitting on the carpet in the reading corner. I saw Mrs Paterson point over to me and Uncle Jimmy caught my eye and said ‘Get your coat on, Lisa.’

I did as I was told, feeling more and more confused. Uncle Jimmy had never picked me up before. As Nanny had taught me, I clasped each of my sleeves with the tips of my fingers so they wouldn’t bunch up, and slipped my arms into my coat. Outside Uncle Jimmy took my hand in his own, rough and scratchy from working on building sites, and led me off towards home. ‘Where’s Nanny gone?’ I asked, but he didn’t say anything, just kept striding on, his steel-capped boots tapping on the pavement with each step.

Later, I found out Nanny had been rushed to hospital after a fall. My aunts Jenny and Freda took me to visit her after dinner. Nanny looked her usual self, lying on a bed. I knew she had fresh bandages on her legs because they were bright white, not like the old yellow ones she had at home. I noticed she had a tube going into her arm and water was dripping into it from a bag hooked up beside her bed. It made it hard for her to give me a cuddle, but Freda lifted me up and I sat on the edge of the bed and began picking the blanket, running the wool through my fingers. Nanny stroked my hair for a minute and said sorry she hadn’t been able to collect me from school but she was nearly better now and soon we’d be able to get back to normal.

‘No, Mum,’ said Freda. ‘It’s too much for you running up and down after a kid all day. The doctor reckons you need rest.’

‘I’ll talk to Donna,’ said Jenny. ‘It’s about time she started taking responsibility. After all, she is her mother.’

Nanny stayed in hospital that night, and Jenny, Freda and Jimmy had a bit of an argument about who had time to take me to nursery in the morning. In the end, it was decided that Uncle Jimmy would do it. ‘But I better not miss me bus,’ he said, exhaling a big smoky cloud as he spoke.

It was dark when we set off the next morning and Uncle Jimmy kept snapping at me to keep up, while looking at his watch and muttering rude words under his breath. When we arrived the main school gate was padlocked shut. We were too early.

‘Gordon Bennett!’ he cried, smacking his hands on top of his head and pulling at his wiry black hair. ‘What am I meant to do now? I’m definitely gonna miss me bleedin’ bus!’ He started rattling the gates and shouting ‘Oi, Oi!’ at the top of his voice. ‘They’re in there. Look–I can see ’em drinking bloody tea. Oi! Oi!’

I could just about make out Mrs Paterson and another teacher moving around in the classroom. The windows were brightly lit against the dark drizzly morning and I could see their shapes through the frosted glass. They were totally oblivious to Uncle Jimmy, who continued shouting and waving as he desperately tried to get their attention. Suddenly he stopped as if a thought had occurred to him. He began to smile as he examined the padlock. I watched as he dug deep into one pocket and then the other, his smile momentarily fading until he found what he was looking for. He pulled out a small metal pin, which he wiggled in the lock, saying ‘This should do it.’ After a moment or two, the padlock clicked open, and Uncle Jimmy let out a roar of triumphant laughter.

I laughed too, pleased to see him happy. ‘Is that magic?’ I asked.

‘You could say that,’ he chuckled, ushering me through the gate. He watched me walk halfway across the playground and then called after me, ‘And tell them two deaf-aids in there to wash their bleedin’ ears out.’ With a final wave he sprinted off round the corner to catch his bus.

As I entered the classroom, I made Mrs Paterson jump in surprise and she dropped a pot of pencils. ‘Lisa!’ she cried. ‘How on earth did you get through a locked gate?’

‘My uncle let me in,’ I replied, hanging my coat on a peg as my face burned bright red. Drawing on all my three-and-a-half-year-old’s wisdom, I decided not to mention the ear-cleaning business.

Chapter Two

When I was four, my life changed drastically. Nanny’s painfully ulcerated legs and deteriorating health meant she was housebound for much of the time. On good days, she could still get out to the local shops and do the cooking and cleaning she enjoyed so much, but she was totally ill-equipped to keep up with the energetic needs of a young child. So it was decided I should live with my mother from now on. Although Nanny did her best to make it all seem like a huge exciting adventure, carefully mopping up both our tears with a sweet-scented hankie, I was bewildered as she started to pack a battered red suitcase with my things.

‘Don’t cry, pet,’ she sobbed over the jumpers she’d knitted for me. ‘You’ll always be my special little lamb.’

‘But why do I have to go?’ I asked. ‘Why can’t I stay here with you?’

‘You know how poorly Nanny’s legs are,’ she explained, clicking the case shut. ‘I just can’t look after you properly any more, pet. It breaks my heart, but I’ll see you all the time. And don’t forget you’ll have your mummy. You like her, don’t you, pet?’

I popped my dummy in for comfort, as fresh tears ran down my cheeks.

‘And then there’s Diane and Cheryl. It’s about time you got to know your sisters,’ Nanny went on. ‘And Davie, too.’

No matter what she said to make it better, I felt only confusion and fear. One day I was safe in the warmth and comfort of her arms, and the next I was rattling around in a strange flat with a family I hardly knew. Mummy didn’t seem to want me there at all. I could tell by the way she pushed me off whenever I tried to cuddle her, and shouted whenever I wet the bed, which I started to do every night.

‘What you pissing the bed for, you stupid girl?’ she yelled. ‘Now you’re gonna have to sleep in it tonight, ’cos I ain’t got any clean sheets.’

Mummy’s flat was just off Peckham High Street, only fifteen minutes from Nanny’s place, on the first floor of a huge red council block. I found the flat quite scary at first because it was dominated by a long dark hallway we called The Passage. There were three bedrooms. Diane and Cheryl, both teenagers now, shared one. I was put in with Davie, who was ten and long used to having a bedroom all of his own, where his little collections were arranged just so. It must have been quite a shock to find himself sharing with a whirlwind of a four-year-old sister he’d had little contact with before. This led to endless fights and squabbles. The more he warned me not to touch his ship in a bottle, the more I wanted to look at it from every angle as I wondered how it had got in there through such a small opening. His plastic English and German soldiers were carefully arranged, ready for battle, but I couldn’t help mixing them up–and the impulse to chew the ends of the rifles was impossible to resist. Davie didn’t mind me looking at his Beano comics as long as I didn’t tear, crumple or scribble on any of them. I tried my best not to but didn’t always succeed. But it was the time he caught me playing dress-up with his prized Millwall hat and scarf that finally broke the camel’s back. After that, Mummy squeezed my bed into the corner of the girls’ room. I was pleased with this arrangement for a number of reasons. One, it meant that I didn’t have to put up with a big brother who would pin me down and dribble spit into my face any more; two, I was away from the scary cupboard in his room with its resident monster; and three, Diane and Cheryl’s room had much more interesting things for me to play with, such as high-heeled platform boots, spangly tops and make-up.

Our front room was L-shaped with an open fire where we burned coal, and it had a small balcony that overlooked a grassy square outside. Unfortunately we couldn’t use the balcony because it was full of old junk, such as broken sinks and bits of wood. The kitchen was small with a narrow little window so high above the sink that nobody could see out of it. There was a separate toilet with a long metal chain that was so stiff I had to hang on to it to flush it. It was my least favourite place in the whole flat because every time I went in, the spider’s web in the corner seemed to have grown. I even saw a dead fly in it once. The bathroom smelled of mould, and was always cold and damp. It had another of the tiny windows so characteristic of the flat, high up near the ceiling, but this one was filled with rippled frosted glass. Mummy’s bedroom was closest to the front door, and smelled of a mixture of Youth Dew perfume and cigarette smoke. The flat was often untidy and furnished with an odd assortment of furniture that had seen better days, but it was homely and clean enough. I quickly settled in, and pretty soon I felt as though I’d lived there forever.

Just after I’d moved in with Mummy, the council offered Nanny and my aunts a transfer to a lovely new maisonette over the road from our place. Their block sat atop a row of shops, and their flat was right on the end above the newsagent’s. Nanny, Jenny and Freda moved in, and Uncle Jimmy stayed a while before moving in with Uncle Roy and Auntie Brenda in Essex. So although I didn’t actually live with Nanny any more, I didn’t have a chance to miss her much because her flat was like a second home. I would visit every day, often having meals there, and whenever I came in and out of our block, I could look over and see her windows. On sunny days, winter and summer, Nanny and Freda would sit out on their balcony watching the world go by so we were always waving and blowing kisses. Mummy was a barmaid at Uncle Bob’s pub, often working double shifts at lunchtime and in the evening, so having Nanny so close by was ideal for her. She never had to worry about childcare arrangements because Nanny, Jenny and Freda were always on hand, dependable as ever.

Mummy wasn’t the cuddly type like Nanny, and at first I was quite shy around her. She always seemed to be out working and if she was at home she would be too busy to stop and play or read me stories. One morning, I crept into her room to watch as she got ready for work. She was sitting on the edge of her bed, cigarette balanced in the ashtray beside her, brushing her thick and unruly black hair with hard, noisy strokes.

‘What’s that at the front of your hair?’ I asked, pointing to a triangle shape that became visible when she pulled her hair back.

‘It’s called a widow’s peak.’

I didn’t know what that was but thought it was very pretty. ‘What’s that mark on the end of your nose?’ I asked next.

‘It’s a beauty spot,’ she told me, adding that it had flown up there all on it’s own. ‘It used to be on my cheek, like Liz Taylor’s, but one night while I was asleep it flew onto my nose.’

I believed her totally, and from then on I’d always think of it as Mummy’s magic beauty spot. She laughed when she saw my wide-eyed expression and helped me check up and down my arms and legs to see if we could find any on me.

‘Is this one?’ I asked, pointing at a freckle, and she agreed that it probably was.

‘Now bugger off, I’m busy,’ she said, pushing me away as if she’d suddenly had enough of me. ‘I ain’t got time for niceynicey chit-chat.’

Mummy had the same chocolate-brown eyes and dark complexion as Diane and Davie. Cheryl and I were the opposite with our rosy complexions, blue eyes and chestnut-brown hair. I’d often wish I was dark like Mummy. I liked to watch her lining her eyes in black so they looked double the size, and then slicking on a coat of rosy brown lipstick and rubbing her lips together before turning her face this way and that as she peered at herself in the hand mirror. Every few minutes she’d reach for her cigarette, hold it to her lips and squint her eyes as she took a long deep drag. Seconds later a massive stream of smoke emerged from her mouth and nostrils. Sometimes the ash would drop on her clothes and she’d quickly rub at it until it disappeared. The brown tips left in the ashtray would be coated with rosy brown lip marks. I didn’t like the smell of the smoke, and on the rare occasion when she hugged me, I’d hold my breath until she let me go.

Before leaving for work, she’d reach into her bag and pull out a bottle of perfume to squirt behind her ears. Sometimes she even squirted it up her skirt. Once I copied her with a pretend bottle and everybody laughed, except Davie who went bright red. I’d ask if I could have some of Mummy’s real perfume but most of the time she’d say, ‘No, keep your sticky mitts off it.’ One time she sprayed a bit under my chin but it made me feel sick and gave me a headache, and she said ‘There you are, I told you it wasn’t for you.’

At the weekends I’d often sleep over at Nanny’s, but during the week it was Diane or Cheryl’s job to put me to bed while Mummy was at work. They weren’t as patient as Nanny had been when it came to the dummy hunt, and on the nights they couldn’t find one, they just let me stay up and fall asleep on the sofa in front of whatever programme they were watching.

Mummy didn’t usually get home from work until around midnight after the pub had shut, and was often tired in the mornings, but after she’d had a cup of tea and a cigarette she’d have woken up sufficiently to help me get washed and dressed. She wasn’t as organised as Nanny when it came to doing the laundry and other household chores. It was alright for Cheryl and Diane, who were old enough to go to the launderette with their own clothes and bedding, but often Davie and I had to ask her to change our sheets or find us something clean to wear. ‘I never get any bloody time to meself,’ she’d grumble, but usually something would be done.

I don’t recall ever going to the launderette with Mummy, but I often went on Sundays with Cheryl. One day we popped into Nanny’s on the way and Nanny mentioned that Jenny was working overtime and hadn’t been able to take their usual weekly wash. This had left Nanny and Freda a bit short ‘in the underwear department’. Cheryl volunteered to take a few things to keep them going until Jenny got a chance to do the rest in the week. When Nanny handed the blue laundry bag over, it was stuffed to the gills with what can only be described as the biggest bloomers I’d ever seen. Cheryl and I exchanged a little giggle.

The bag was quite heavy, and as Cheryl was already carrying her own washing bag, I made an effort to be helpful. ‘You carry one handle, Cher, and I’ll have the other,’ I said, hauling my side up to my shoulder with both my hands. Of course the difference in our heights and my relative lack of strength made it very awkward, especially as we battled against a near gale force wind that day. Cheryl was around fourteen and going through a stage where she coloured beetroot red easily. I could see a group of boys up ahead leaning against the huge arch that led through to the high street. We had to pass them to get to the launderette. ‘Oh, no. It’s that Kenny Fisher,’ said Cheryl, her face beginning to flush pink. Head down, she quickened her pace, almost dragging me along behind her.

As we drew level with the boys, a fierce gust of wind knocked me off my feet, causing me to drop my side of the bag and to Cheryl’s great embarrassment, Nanny’s underwear spilled out onto the pavement. The boys could barely contain their amusement at the sight of Nanny’s bloomers, which were now blowing along like tumbleweed.

‘Fuck me, look at the size of them drawers!’ shouted one of the boys as the wind twirled them round.

Cheryl’s face had turned puce. She was mortified. It wasn’t until later that evening that she saw the funny side. I heard her telling the story to Diane and Mummy, and they all laughed until they cried.

One morning I woke up to hear Diane and Cheryl talking. Diane was getting dressed and Cheryl was sitting up in bed, a pillow propped behind her.

‘Mum’s got some geezer in there,’ said Diane, lifting her long dark hair out of the back of her jumper. ‘Made a right racket when they came in last night.’

‘I know,’ said Cheryl, blushing.

‘What geezer?’ I asked, suddenly embarrassed and self-conscious because I’d never said the word ‘geezer’ before. I knew it was a grown-up word, but I didn’t have a clue what it meant.

Diane laughed, but Cheryl looked a bit panicked and said, ‘Shush, Lisa.’

We sat still for a few minutes, nobody speaking. Diane walked over to the window and stared down at the grass below where I could hear dogs barking. Cheryl lay back down in her bed and pulled the blankets up to her chin. Then the noises started–a squeaking and rhythmic tapping, which seemed to get faster and louder. They were coming from Mummy’s room next door. Diane’s and Cheryl’s expressions were a mirror of each other’s, with wide eyes and mouths.

‘What’s that noise, Diane?’ I asked, confused. I could hear whimpering noises now. ‘Has Mummy hurt herself?’

‘Look, just be quiet, Lisa!’ Diane snapped. And then, to Cheryl, ‘I can’t believe they’re at it again!’

Then the noises stopped and the momentary silence was punctuated by a loud male groan.

‘Is that Uncle Jimmy?’ I asked.

‘I should bloody well hope not!’ said Diane, making Cheryl burst into a fit of giggles that she attempted to silence by pressing her hands to her face.

It must have been the weekend because there was no school that day. Mummy was acting strangely. She remained in her bedroom for most of the day, with the door firmly shut. I could hear someone talking and laughing. It was a man. I’d seen a leather coat hanging on the back of the kitchen door with a newspaper rolled up in the pocket. It had a photo of a racehorse on the front.

Diane and Cheryl went out with their friends, and Davie went to play outside. I felt lonely and decided to knock on Mummy’s bedroom door, but before I had a chance to ask her anything, she shouted at me to go and watch telly or something. When I knocked for the third or fourth time to ask if I could go over to Nanny’s, she lost her temper.

‘For fuck’s sake, Lisa,’ she shouted through the door, ‘You know you’re not to cross the bloody road on your own. Go and play out the front if you want but stop being a bleedin’ nuisance.’

I did go and play downstairs, walking along the edge of the pavement with my arms outstretched for balance, but I didn’t stay long. A boy ran over, egged on by his friends, and pulled my knickers down to my ankles. I was so shocked that I stood there frozen for what seemed like the longest time, my arms still outstretched for balance. It was the first time in my life I felt a sense of shame. My face burned, just as Cheryl’s did sometimes. I looked up towards Nanny and Freda’s balcony and felt relieved they weren’t sitting outside that day to witness my humiliation.

The man began to visit Mummy in her bedroom regularly, but I still hadn’t actually seen him. Heard him yes, smelled him too–he was a heavy smoker, like Mummy–but I’d never set eyes on him. Everybody seemed to be creeping around the flat. Things felt different now.

One day I heard the man in the bathroom. He gave a deep rattling cough and then spat something out. I was just working out that he must have spat in the sink and not on the floor when Mummy came up behind me. Without a word she took my hand and led me into the bathroom. Suddenly frightened, I tried to pull away but she gripped my hand tighter and glared at me. Once inside the poky little room I tried to wriggle behind her legs to hide from the man who stood directly in front of her. I could see he was wearing the same leather coat I’d noticed hanging on the back of the kitchen door.

‘Say hello to Frank, there’s a good girl,’ said Mummy trying to drag me out from behind her.

I daren’t look up, overcome by shyness and, for some reason, fear. I felt the need to pee and crossed my legs to stop myself. I stared straight ahead resisting the urge to look up. My eyes were level with the man’s hands. He was holding a cigarette the same way as Uncle Jimmy did, between a yellow-stained thumb and index finger, cupped inside his palm.

‘She’s shy,’ Mummy explained, an underlying note of annoyance in her voice.

Suddenly the man sank down to my level, so his face was inches from mine. I stepped back slightly and felt a trickle of wee slide down my leg. I looked into his face for the first time and saw that he had light brown hair that hung down over his collar. Two giant strips of hair ran down in front of his ears to meet the dark stubble on his chin. He smiled at me, showing a mouthful of bunched-up teeth, and his breath smelled all smokey and horrible.

‘Hiding behind yer mum, are yer?’ he asked. Not waiting for an answer, he stood up again and said to Mummy, ‘I bet she’ll break some hearts.’

They kissed then for a moment, making sounds as if they were chewing soft sticky toffees. They left their cigarettes to burn behind each other’s backs as they wrapped arms around each other.

‘Frank’s coming to live with us,’ said Mummy with a laugh as they parted. ‘He’s gonna be your new dad.’

I couldn’t hold back any longer. I let my bladder go, and felt my red buckle shoes fill with warmth. Since I’d moved in with Mummy I’d started wetting the bed every night, but it had been ages since I’d had an accident during the day. I could tell she was very annoyed by the way she angrily threw her cigarette into the bath and yanked my arm so that I felt it click.

‘Naughty girl! It’s all in your shoes–look.’ She turned to the man. ‘Sorry, Frank, she’s not normally like this.’

The man called Frank didn’t seem to mind. He just laughed and pulled Mummy towards him for another noisy kiss.