by Irene Kelly
I was twelve when, fed up with freezer food, I started to teach myself to cook. At first, I made a lot of stuff from packets and tins, but thanks to my chef’s assistant job I learned a decent number of recipes and started cooking proper meals like curries, pasta bakes, risotto and stir-fried noodles. I even tried to encourage my parents to eat with me, but neither seemed that interested. Mum occasionally tasted my food and sometimes she even managed half a bowl of curry, but she didn’t have normal eating times so I started to freeze meals for her so she could eat whenever she was hungry.
Some days, it felt like I was the parent. Once upon a time they had both worked and I barely saw them because they had jobs – now, at fifteen years old, I was the only one working in our house, making the meals and trying to encourage my parents to eat. I wouldn’t have minded so much but the stillness, the quietness of the house, got to me. At one time I longed for a baby brother or sister to play with. Each year they bought me a new board game for Christmas and every time my heart sank as I read the instructions on the side of the box: For 2 or more players. Gradually, I realized it wasn’t going to happen and, when I turned thirteen, Mum confirmed that she couldn’t have any more children. It just wasn’t possible.
I turned down the pathway that led between the houses on the main road. Large railings on either side instantly muffled the roar of the traffic. I wondered if it would be another quiet night tonight or if they’d be arguing again. Over the years, Mum and Dad had perfected the art of rowing and on more than one occasion I’d come home to find Mum’s bags packed and ready at the door. A sense of glum resignation settled over me now as I emerged from the pathway and onto the quiet backstreet, turning left towards our cul-de-sac. I could see our end-of-terrace semi now, with its neat front garden and perfectly mown lawn.
One time Mum had actually left. It was funny because she hadn’t said anything beforehand – there hadn’t even been a big row.
‘I’m going to see my friend Ellen today,’ she’d told me casually that morning as I’d hurriedly wolfed down my breakfast before school.
‘Mmm, that’s nice . . .’ I’d mumbled.
‘I’ll be back in time for tea.’
But Mum wasn’t there when I got home after school and teatime came and went without any sign of her. By 7 p.m. she still wasn’t home and I started to worry. I asked Dad if he knew where she was. He just shrugged in response. So I went upstairs and, rifling through Mum’s drawers, I discovered she’d taken half her clothes and her suitcase. Alarmed, I called my brothers and sister in Ireland but none of them had seen her. Anna seemed really panicked when I told her Mum had disappeared but Philip, who had always been closest to our mum, was calm and reassuring on the phone: ‘Look, she knows what she’s doing and if she needs to get away, she needs to get away. Just relax – she’ll be back when she’s ready.’
‘Dad, aren’t you worried?’ I asked him that night. ‘Mum’s gone! She’s taken off!’
‘Ah, she’ll be home soon,’ he frowned, flicking the channels with the remote control. ‘Don’t worry about it.’
But of course I worried about it. Mum had never left home before and certainly not without a warning. His indifference was baffling. She was a missing person, surely! What if something had happened to her? What if she was in trouble and needed our help? Days went by and, despite the fact Dad didn’t seem worried, I felt increasingly panicked and upset.
Finally, three days after she disappeared, the phone rang. ‘It’s me,’ she said. ‘Look, I just had to get away for a few days. I’m in Liverpool staying with a friend. Don’t worry. It’s not because of you and I’m going to come home soon. I promise.’
It was weird frankly that Mum even had a friend in Liverpool! She only ever talked about her one friend in Manchester; other than that she never saw or spoke about anyone. But I had to accept what she told me and she was as good as her word. A week after she disappeared she came home but she didn’t say anything. Both she and my dad acted like nothing had happened. It was maddening, as usual! I wanted to ask them what it was all about but I knew they’d just fob me off with something meaningless. On top of that, I was still worried about Mum’s behaviour. The way she had acted was just so strange and out of the blue. I knew nothing about mental illness at the time but I guess I felt deep inside that something wasn’t right with her.
I flipped up the latch on our wrought-iron garden gate and pulled it shut behind me before walking up the pathway towards our green front door. I wondered what lay behind this door today. Quietness, crying or shouting? Was Dad awake? Was Mum dressed yet? Had anyone bothered to make tea? I pulled out my front door key and fitted it in the keyhole. Then I turned it till it clicked and, hefting my shoulder against it, pushed the door open.
2
JENNIFER
The Call
‘I have to go to Dublin – would you like to come?’ Mum was standing in the kitchen with her back to me when I came in, her hands busy in a sudsy bowl of washing-up, her voice low and steady.
I was taken aback. It was good to see Mum up and about again – I noticed she’d showered and changed out of her pyjamas into a cream jumper over dark blue jeans. This was a good sign. But there was a tenseness to the shape of her shoulders and a taut, brittle quality to her voice.
‘Sure!’ I replied, picking out an apple from the fruit bowl. I was always starving when I came home from school. ‘What’s the occasion?’
I imagined it might be a funeral or a special birthday of one of the many cousins I’d never met before – perhaps it was a wedding or a communion? I put my bag down in the living room and shrugged off my coat, before returning to the kitchen doorway, munching on my apple, waiting for Mum to reply. When she didn’t say anything I threw the core in the bin and opened the fridge, poking around half-heartedly, wondering what I might be able to cook for my dinner. Still, Mum didn’t reply. She was slowly pouring the dirty water from the washing-up bowl and rinsing it out. I watched her well-practised movements as she wiped round the grey plastic bowl with the J-cloth then along the edge of the sink and, lastly, across the head of the taps. Then she carefully rinsed the cloth, squeezed out the remaining water, swiped round the sink once more then laid it along the tap to dry and turned the bowl upside down in the sink. The routine was the same every time and she expected the same fastidiousness from me when I did the washing-up. Once or twice I’d forgotten to wipe the sink and she’d been so angry when she’d noticed the water marks. She gave the tap handles one last turn, just to double check they were completely off and, finally, she turned to face me.
‘Jen, a lot of things happened to me in my childhood,’ she said in a calm, measured way. ‘These things need to be put to rest. I need to go over there to sort it out.’
‘Oh right,’ I nodded. I didn’t really understand at all, but I knew there was no point asking her to explain. Nobody ever really explained anything in our house. Still, I was happy to have the opportunity to go over to Dublin to see my brothers and sister and their families.
Mum said we were due to go over in a fortnight for four days – it would just be us two since Dad was staying at home to mind the fish. Hah! That was just an excuse and I knew it. Dad didn’t like going back to Dublin. I wanted to ask him why – after all, all his family were there – but it was pointless asking him directly. I knew he wouldn’t tell me. There was so much of his past that was a complete mystery to me and even asking him about it felt like I was breaking some unspoken rule. In the past when I had asked him questions he would dismiss my enquiries in an offhand way: ‘Oh, you don’t need to know that – it was all a long time ago.’ And then he never said another word. So I learned to keep my mouth shut.
‘Why is Mum going back to Dublin?’ I asked my older sister Anna, who was now twenty-four and had three children of her own. She had moved to Ireland like my brothers to be closer to their dad. Despite the age gap we had always got on well, and as we got older our relationship became even better. Anna was sometimes mor
e like a mother to me than a sister and I felt I could talk to her about my problems. Now, we tried to catch up regularly on the phone but it wasn’t always easy with her kids and my school schedule.
Anna was quiet for a moment and then she replied, ‘What’s she told you?’
‘She said it’s to do with her childhood and she needs to sort it out.’
‘Right,’ she replied. ‘Well, it’s a commission, erm, like a big investigation for all the kids who were in care in Ireland, just like Mum was. Some bad stuff happened to them while they were in the orphanage and she has to tell them about it.’
‘Tell them what? Do you know what happened to her there?’
‘No, she hasn’t told any of us. But you know, this is quite a big thing over here. There are lots of children who were sent to orphanages in Ireland and some of the things they’re saying now about what happened to them . . . Well, they’re pretty terrible.’
I lay in bed that night as my mind replayed our conversation over and over again. There had been a lot of accusations of abuse in the news recently about Catholic-run orphanages in Ireland but I didn’t know any hard facts. All I knew was that they were run by nuns and priests and that life was hard for the kids housed in them. That was it really. I’d always known Mum had spent some time in an orphanage during her childhood because her family were poor. She had never hidden that from any of us but she’d never actually told us what it was like either. I had seen the movie Annie so I just assumed it was a bit like that – not very nice but not dreadful either – lots of scrubbing with a bit of singing thrown in for good measure. The main thing that stuck in my mind was the fact that these children had no mothers or fathers. Orphan Annie, that’s what they called her. So it seemed a bit odd that Mum was sent there, because she’d had a mother and a father when she was growing up.
‘It’s not just for kids with no mums or dads,’ Anna had explained one night. ‘Back then, there was a lot of poverty and sometimes you were put in an orphanage if your parents were struggling or if your home life was difficult.’
That was all I knew about orphanages, except occasionally Mum threatened to put me ‘into care’ when we were arguing.
One time when I was twelve it was particularly bad. Mum and Dad had stopped me seeing my friend Helen, who was in my class, because they thought she was a bad influence. Helen’s parents were both drug addicts which meant they were very lenient with her, they never minded how long she stayed out or what she was doing. In fact, she could pretty much do whatever she wanted. She seemed so much more grown up than me, and she’d tried everything: smoking, drinking, snogging. She even had an older boyfriend and she got invited to hang out with older kids at parties.
Helen’s world was so different from mine – so free and exciting – but any rebellion from me wouldn’t go unnoticed. In the few months we’d become close friends, I’d got into trouble in school a couple of times for missing lessons and instead of coming home and doing my homework straight away every night, I’d spend hours on the phone with Helen. I thought everything was fine – I really thought I was getting away with it. Little did I know Mum and Dad noticed every tiny change in me and they weren’t impressed.
One night I asked Mum if I could stay over at Helen’s house at the weekend. It was a ruse. They wouldn’t let me go to parties but I thought if Mum and Dad let me stay at Helen’s house, there was a chance I could get to a party without them knowing. But Mum didn’t even think about it – she simply barked ‘No!’ as if that was the end of the discussion.
‘Why not?’ I replied indignantly. It didn’t seem fair that she had just rejected my suggestion without even giving it a thought. I didn’t have any freedom!
Mum didn’t say a word – instead she lunged towards me, grabbed me by the ponytail and pushed me forward, smacking my forehead off the fridge.
For a second I couldn’t speak. I was dumbstruck – it hadn’t hurt that much but the shock was terrible. A moment later she picked up the phone and brandished it in front of my face.
‘Here’s the phone,’ she said in that quiet but very clear voice she used when she was really angry. She still held onto my ponytail and she pulled my head towards hers so that her lips were close to my ear. ‘If you don’t like my answer, if you don’t think I’m doing a good job, then you can put yourself into care. Hmm?’ Her voice quivered with rage.
‘You don’t have to be here, you know. I’m not forcing you to be here. Go and put yourself into care!’
I was shaking now with fear and shock. She’d really gone crazy this time! All I knew was that I had to get away from her – and quickly. So I twisted and wriggled my body until she was forced to let go of my hair. Then I ran up the stairs. But she flew up after me and by the time I had hold of my bedroom door to slam it shut, she was already half in the room, her face contorted with fury.
‘HERE’S THE PHONE, YOU UNGRATEFUL CHILD!’ she shouted. ‘HERE IT IS – RING THEM!’
I flung myself down on my bed and screamed into my hands, ‘GO AWAY! JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!’
And with that she stormed out.
I cried myself to sleep that night. The whole ugly scene had been so unexpected, brutal and unsettling. Did she really want me to go into care? What sort of a mum says that to her daughter? My body shook as I smothered my snotty sobs in the pillow, trying not to make a sound. I didn’t want to alert them to my tears. It just wasn’t the done thing in this household. Nobody showed their emotions, nobody got upset in front of anyone else. I’d been brought up to think that that sort of thing was best done in private. If Mum was crying she was always upstairs and away from the rest of us. I couldn’t remember the last time my mum or dad had put their arms round me to comfort me. We weren’t that kind of a family. None of us touched or hugged. It was all closed doors and silent tears.
When I was very little Mum or Dad used to tuck me up each night and give me a little kiss on the forehead. But all that had gradually faded away around the time I was six – 1 didn’t know why and I didn’t ask. I just accepted that they didn’t do it any more. We weren’t ones to make a fuss over anything really. Christmas was always a fairly depressing time in our house – Mum didn’t like Christmas so we didn’t do anything special – and birthdays were usually marked by little more than a card. One time Dad forgot it was my birthday and when I reminded him, he walked to the corner shop, came back with a card, wrote it out in front of me and even had to ask me how to spell my name! I was so hurt by this – I was his only child for God’s sake and he didn’t even know how to spell my name or remember my birthday! I didn’t let it show, of course – I didn’t want him to know how much he hurt me.
No, we weren’t a very demonstrative family. I had only seen my dad cry once in his life and that was a horribly awkward moment. Mostly, my dad was a blank – completely emotionless. If he was happy or sad we never knew about it – he always wore the same stern expression.
Two days after our big argument Mum and Dad sat me down in the living room and told me straight: they were banning me from seeing Helen.
‘We don’t like her,’ Dad said, fixing me with his clear blue eyes. ‘She’s a bad influence on you in school and we don’t want you going to her house any more. If she calls on you, we’re going to tell her you’re not coming out.’
I sat there stunned, an impotent rage bubbling up inside me. ‘You can’t do that!’ I exploded. ‘She’s my friend. You can’t just stop me seeing my friends. It’s not fair and it’s not up to you!’
‘Well now.’ Mum folded her hands in her lap. ‘You’re right – it’s not up to us, it’s up to you. If you decide to go behind our backs to be her friend, there’s nothing we can do about it. But you should know, she’s not welcome in this house and you’re not welcome to go to hers. If we do find out you’ve gone behind our backs then there will be serious consequences.’
‘That’s so unfair – she’s my best friend!’ I huffed, crossing my arms.
‘You’ll find other friends,
’ Dad said firmly. ‘Better friends than her.’
So I had a choice – I could carry on seeing her at school and go behind my parents’ backs, but that would mean having to sneak around and lie to them. I didn’t like that idea – it felt wrong. I’d never lied to them before and I didn’t want to start now. For one thing, if I was found out I knew they’d come down on me like a tonne of bricks. I could forget going to my after-school clubs, my weekend job, and all the small but hard-fought freedoms I had won over the years. They would snatch that all away in an instant. I just knew it. There had been times in the past when they hadn’t believed me when I’d told them I was with a friend and they’d called the parents just to make sure! It had been really humiliating and I didn’t like the idea they didn’t trust me so I tried not to lie to them. Reluctantly, I dropped Helen. It wasn’t worth it, I told myself, I’d get a new friend. And I did.
Generally I tried to be a good daughter and do what my parents told me – it really wasn’t in my nature to go against their wishes. But it was hard to live up to Mum’s exacting standards. I sometimes wondered whether her obsessive cleanliness had come from her time in the orphanage. She was militant in some ways. It took me a long time before my washing-up reached her high standards and occasionally I would do something that would send her completely bananas.
One day, I’d left a mug up in my bedroom. It wasn’t something I usually did – in fact, I kept my room really neat and tidy because I knew the consequences. This day – well, perhaps it just got overlooked in my rush to get to school that morning. But when I came home I went upstairs to do my homework as usual and was shocked to find she had dragged everything into the middle of the room. My mattress, duvet, books, clothes, make-up, jewellery – everything I owned! It was all piled up in a big heap on the floor. I just stood, dumbstruck, in the doorway while she came up the stairs behind me. She leaned over my shoulder then and looked into the room.
