No One Wants You

by Celine Roberts

  All this dancing and staying out late at night had to be done within certain rules. One of the greatest constraints to our dancing enjoyment was the fact that the nurses’ home had a curfew of 12 pm. This curfew was enforced by a mature home sister, who took pleasure in making sure we followed it. We had to become increasingly innovative to maintain our late-night dancing schedule without getting caught.

  We used to call this home sister, ‘Creeping Jesus’, as you could never hear her walking about. She was in charge of locking all the doors and entrances. She also had to check the fire escapes and windows for security. We used to wait until she had done her rounds and then leave for the dance. Before we left we would make sure that at least one fire escape could be opened from the outside, by jamming a piece of cardboard in it. It must have been some sight to see seven or eight young nurses climbing up to the fourth floor on the external fire escape, each one carrying their shoes in their hands, so as not to make a racket on the metal stairs. As we did not drink any form of alcohol in those days, we always remembered the designated opened door.

  There was one nurse who used to fall foul of our system but because of her seniority we were unable to interfere. This particular assistant matron used to regularly ask us on a Friday night which fire escape door would be left open for the latecomers. Then later, with the eyes popping out of our heads, we would watch her returning home, well inebriated and much the worse for alcoholic wear. Invariably she would stagger up the fire escape, forget which door she was meant to use, and create so much noise trying every door, that the home sister would wake up with the racket. She used to get a telling-off each time but was so oblivious to the message, it fell on deaf ears. She never did get much respect on the wards afterwards. We always held the knowledge of her drunken escapades as ammunition against her, if she ever tried to overstep the line at work.

  Although we played hard, we always felt that we had our priorities right. Come Sunday, we never missed mass. We never dreamed of staying in bed on a Sunday morning. If we were working on a late duty, we would go early in the morning. If we were on split duties, we would rush to make the 12 o’clock mass and go back to bed afterwards, depending on how the legs were feeling and what was planned for later that night.

  I never had any trouble sleeping but then the girl, whose room was next to mine, decided to learn to play the tin whistle. She used to practise her scales as a method of unwinding after coming off a night duty at 8 am. The sound of her playing was torturous. Waking up in the morning to her rendition of ‘The Soldier’s Song’ guaranteed my early arrival on the ward for work. Apart from that, I never had time to feel sorry for myself and that suited me perfectly.

  One topic of conversation among us trainee nurses, that always held my attention, was astrology. I was fascinated by it. As my past life had always been dismal, I eagerly wanted to know what the future held for me. I would have investigated any method of being able to predict the future.

  Most of the markets around London had at least one fortune teller. They would read your palm, read the cards or search in their crystal ball to predict your future. The visits usually cost a few pounds, but unfortunately for me they did not seem to have any accuracy attached to them.

  I had a patient on the ward around this time that could read tea leaves. I drank a lot of tea during her stay in hospital and got her to read every cup that I drank. I also told my friends about her talents. That lady got so much attention from the nurses. As soon as she woke up in the morning, I would have a line of four or five nurses ready and waiting to have their tea leaves read.

  This went on until I heard ‘on the grapevine’ of a fortune teller who lived in a suburb of Kilburn. It was said that she was in a class above her market colleagues. Rumour had it that she was expensive but very accurate with her predictions. My friend Lucy said she would come with me, so we set off one Saturday afternoon. When we eventually found the house, a large black woman of Caribbean origin welcomed us. We were invited into a room decorated with lots of chains and multi-coloured ribbons. Diaphanous scarves were hanging everywhere and haunting music was playing in the background. She told me that I had to cross her palm with 30 shillings of silver. She took 30 shillings from each of us.

  As soon as she had stashed the cash away safely on her ample person, she held both of my hands lightly and began to chant a mantra. After about three minutes of humming, she stopped and told me that she knew that I had endured a hard life. She said that my future life would be much easier, but that my health would give me trouble in the future. I was beginning to think she knew what she was talking about, but then she said that I would have two sons. Then she said, ‘In two days’ time you will meet the love of your life.’ I didn’t believe her. I was sure I’d wasted my money.

  That was it – The End! The consultation was over and we were ushered out the door. We were flabbergasted. I felt cheated that I had not got value for money. I was angry all the way home and vowed never to visit another fortune teller.

  Two days later, I met ‘the love of my life’. His name was George.

  A bunch of us young nurses regularly went to the Monday night dance at the Gresham Ballroom, on Holloway Road. One of the fellows who asked me to dance that night was a particularly good dancer. He looked very smart and was good looking. He asked if I would keep dancing with him for the rest of the evening. He had lovely manners and was polite, so I agreed. I found out that George was about 30 years old and from Wexford. He was a bus driver and was living with his cousin in Willesden. He was Catholic but his father was a Protestant. In a strange coincidence we later discovered that his first cousin, Dolores, who had been a boarder at the school attached to the orphanage, had actually been the one who wrote my letter to Sister Bernadette when I asked to meet my mother. We were having some soft drinks together at the end of the evening, when he asked if he could see me again. He seemed gentle and attentive, so I eagerly said yes.

  This first meeting resulted in a series of magical dates. For me, they were the start of what was to become the closest thing to love that I was ever to experience. We went everywhere together, dances, theatre, walking in parks and musical concerts. They all became part of a relationship with George that was completely new to me. Even the simple act of walking in a park was new to me. I had never been in a park before. On one date I nearly got us arrested. I picked a bunch of flowers in a beautiful small park near Harley Street. The park warden chased after us and warned me, ‘You can’t pick the flowers here, Miss. I’ll let you off this time but don’t do it again.’ George was mortified.

  We went to the seaside one Sunday and to the Royal Albert Hall one night. When everyone stood up for the standing ovation, I blessed myself by mistake. I was so embarrassed.

  We held hands and kissed lightly on the lips as he took me home at night. George never made any sexual advances towards me, but as time went on and my feelings for him grew, I think I would have agreed, if he had said anything. After about six months I tried to tell him that I loved him but while I did feel something for George, I was unsure what those feelings were. I had no tangible experience of the word ‘love’, so while I said the words I wasn’t entirely sure what they meant.

  One thing I was sure of was that I did not feel loved by George. I did not feel that I deserved to be loved by him or anybody else. Also, as a form of self-protection, I could not allow myself to be loved by anyone. The risk would be too great. I could not allow anyone to get that close to me. If I committed to someone so completely and they then rejected me, I would be destroyed. It was not an option. I could not allow anyone to love me.

  As it turned out, I did not get the opportunity. About a year into our relationship, George received news that he had inherited a large farm in Ireland, from a close relative who died. He said that he would be expected to go home to Ireland and work his inheritance as a business. I’ll never know for sure, but he may have been close to asking me to marry him and to go back to Ireland with him as his wife.
/>   If he was going to ask me, I pre-empted his request. I told him that I was illegitimate. While he may have been a carefree bus driver in London, George was from staunch conservative Anglo-Irish Protestant stock. When I told him I could immediately see the disappointment in his eyes. He muttered something about how his parents would never approve of me. I knew then that I had lost him. He returned to Ireland to claim his inheritance. I was devastated when he went back. We wrote three or four letters each week to each other. He promised to return to London to be with me. I believed him and I would not go out dancing at night with the others. They had pestered me to go dancing every other night but I declined each time, saying that I was George’s girlfriend. I was staying true to him until he returned.

  As time went on, the letters became fewer and less frequent. It took me about three months to realise that George, ‘the love of my life’, was not coming back.

  I became sick with all the stress and matron helped me to organise a holiday in Ireland. I was to stay with Kit and Tony. I went to see George and met his parents. I’ll always remember that George’s mother kissed me when we first met. It was a lovely feeling. She even used to make me presents afterwards, little pieces of crochet. I still have some of them. But it was obvious to me that George felt uncomfortable and I only stayed one night. He gave me a jewellery box at the train station when he was seeing me off, saying that he’d write, but I never heard from him again. He had let me down.

  Once again, I was not fit to be accepted by anyone.

  NINE

  Uninvited Guests

  I DID MY best to move on and to try to forget about George. It was made a bit easier by how busy I was. When I wasn’t working and socialising, I was studying. I studied hard and eventually I got the better of the difficult medical terminology. I did well in all my exams and was over the moon when I qualified as a nurse, in February 1972. It was only a few weeks later when I met my husband-to-be, in March 1972. Harry Roberts was a member of my branch of the Legion of Mary and of the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association. Both of these organisations are run in close association with the Catholic Church. I was aware of him as an associate member, but until March 1972, I had never been interested in going out with him, or being linked with him in a romantic way. Then everything changed.

  I was at the hospital one Sunday. I was working on-call duty, in accident and emergency theatre, on the night shift. Being on-call meant that if there was no surgery actually taking place in the theatre, I was free to amuse myself. I could pass the time in whatever way I chose, as long as I was immediately available to attend an emergency surgery. Accident and emergency is usually a quiet enough spot on a Sunday evening.

  There was an assembly hall attached to the hospital. This hall was used for all sort of occasions connected with the hospital: conferences, department meetings and any larger gathering of hospital personnel. When it was not in use by the medical staff, it was available for use by the local community. The local branch of the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association was one of the organisations that used the hall, for its meetings and social get-togethers.

  On this particular Sunday evening, the Association was having one of its socials, namely a dance for its members. As I was on-call and more or less confined to the hospital I found my way to the Pioneer’s dance.

  As the dance was in full swing, I went in to have a look rather than participate. I was just passing the time really. One of the first people that came over to greet me was the ever-gregarious Harry Roberts. Harry was in ebullient form. He had just returned from a pilgrimage to Lourdes, in France, as a helper with the Legion of Mary. He had enjoyed his trip immensely and was bursting at the seams to tell his friends and anyone who would listen, all the details of his busman’s holiday. Somewhere, during his story, which ranged from intricate details of people’s disabilities, to the actual witnessing of miracles by himself, he asked me to go out on a date with him. While I had never considered him in a romantic way, I thought that he might have some caring qualities, which I admired. As I was on duty that evening, I agreed to meet him later in the week.

  On the following Wednesday night we arranged to go to the cinema. As far as relationships went, I still felt the same way as I did with George. I wanted a relationship with a man on the basis that we could go out dancing or to the cinema or theatre together, and that was it. There was to be no physical intimacy.

  I had to struggle with my extremely different needs. On the one hand, I wanted a relationship without physical intimacy, while on the other hand I wanted to be married and have children. An Immaculate Conception as experienced by the Virgin Mary would have suited me fine, but even Harry Roberts, with all his ‘pull’ within the Catholic Church, could not have supplied that.

  And yet my need to have children was very strong. I just loved kids. I knew that this was a problem I could not avoid for ever.

  Over the years I had many problems with my internal reproductive system. I seemed to spend half my time visiting gynaecologists. At each visit, the result of the examination always had the one common conclusion – it would be unlikely that I would be able to have children. Those gynaecological conclusions, while very pessimistic, always left me with a tiny hope that I might be able to have a child. This hope was indeed very small. Most of the gynaecologists predicted that I would not be able to live any form of stable life, never mind have a baby. While I knew the damage to my reproductive tract was serious, deep down I kept nurturing that spark of hope, however miniscule.

  Of course, I did not mention any of this to Harry on our first date. We went to the cinema and afterwards he took me for a cup of coffee. Of course, Harry wanted to know about me. He began to ask all the usual questions that come up when two young people meet. My personal background loomed large once again. Having suffered through the pain of George’s recent rejection, I decided that I was not going to let it be an issue again. I was not going to waste my time with somebody, if I was then going to be unacceptable, when they found out the truth about my background and parenthood. Towards the end of our first date I decided to declare my parental status. I came straight out and told him, ‘I am illegitimate.’

  I waited for the usual response of concealed shock but none came. Looking back, I should have realised the disadvantage at which I had placed myself. But I didn’t. I gave all my power away in one small sentence. I let him know my weakness without knowing anything about him. I was to greatly regret parting with my secret so casually. But I did not realise it at the time.

  If only we all had the benefit of hindsight. If only I had had the benefit of some maternal advice or support. I was on my own. I had to make my own decisions, whatever their consequences. At the same time I could not disclose my secret to everybody; otherwise I would not be wanted. It was the nightmare scenario that I wished to avoid at all costs.

  Harry did not seem to mind. As he walked me home, he asked me to marry him. Yes, on the first date, he said, ‘Will you marry me?’ He was always joking, so I laughed it off, but afterwards I thought that it was a cheeky thing to do on a first date, particularly since I had just told him my biggest secret. I was glad though that, even knowing about my illegitimacy, he genuinely seemed keen to see me again and be with me.

  Harry worked as a security man in a city-centre bank. As we both worked shift hours, we met at all different times in the days that followed. We met two or three times a week initially. We usually went dancing or to the cinema. Neither of us drank alcohol. I was very pleased to be taken out dancing, especially by somebody to whom I felt totally acceptable. Before that I had not felt acceptable at all to anybody; Harry seemed like a knight in shining armour to me.

  We began to spend more and more of our free time together. I sometimes cooked for him at the flat that I now shared with Lucy and some other nurses. Five of us had moved out of the nurses’ home a few months earlier, as we had begun to earn a little bit more money when we qualified. We also used to work back-to-back shifts to make extra money. It wa
s worth it to get away from living under curfew!

  We may have kissed on the lips occasionally but no sexual intimacy ever took place between us. I felt unable to contemplate any sexual behaviour and Harry seemed content to have that type of relationship with me. I was quite happy to continue together on this basis and in July 1972 we became engaged to be married. None of my friends ever criticised Harry but none of them ever commented on Harry in a positive way either. Harry was just Harry. He did not offend anybody. He never antagonised anyone. Neither did he ever engage anybody in any kind of serious debate. Everything was relatively simple in Harry’s life. He had simple personal rules, which he adhered to. He knew his place in the way of things and in the world, and he was not going to rock the boat.

  Harry came from Graiguenamanagh, County Kilkenny in Ireland. His parents had a small farm and a large family. Harry was the youngest of a family of 12 children, five boys, six girls and Harry. The farm was not large enough to sustain and educate 12 children, so at 15 Harry had left school. He was sent to work in his cousin’s pub in Dublin. When we met, I didn’t know or care what formal education Harry had behind him. His aspirations and prospects as regards a career were not even an issue. Here was somebody to whom, I, an illegitimate bastard child, was acceptable. That was all I needed to know.

  We decided to get married early in the following year.

  Our relationship continued on through the summer of 1972 and into the following winter, much the same as it had begun. We went dancing quite a lot at the Irish Club, where they had many dance bands or show bands. The show bands were very popular in Ireland at the time and were very popular with the Irish crowd who went to the Galtymore Dance Hall in Kilburn, North London. The only time we touched physically was when we were dancing. The fact that we were engaged to be married changed nothing. This suited me perfectly. I do not know how I would have reacted to sexual advances from Harry at this time. I imagine that I would have rejected them. I would have used the excuse that any sexual behaviour, outside marriage, was unacceptable to me. Harry had been brought up in a strict Catholic regime, within a strict Catholic family and his moral values were those dictated by the Catholic Church. The hierarchy of the Church tolerated no deviance from the rules and Harry followed these dictates to the letter. His obedience to the laws of the Catholic Church and its God was absolute. The Catholic faith dictated that pre-marital sex was sinful and not to be engaged in. It was not allowed.