I silently thanked God when the clock had moved around to quarter to three and it was time to go and fetch Mary. The thinking was on hold, at least for a while.
Mandy gave me a hug when we met at the school gates. ‘It’ll get easier,’ she told me and asked me what I had done to fill the time. I told her about the cake and the cleaning but left out the bit about the hours sitting in the chair thinking and reminiscing.
Suddenly the schoolyard was full of children and I looked for Mary. There were children everywhere but I saw her when she was still halfway across the yard. She ran the last few yards and I opened my arms up and caught her when she jumped.
As soon as Jade appeared a couple of minutes later, the four of us walked away from the school together. I watched Mary and Jade holding hands skipping along just a couple of feet in front of Mandy and me and in my mind I was ten years old going home from school with Maggie. We had skipped home from school and we had been happy. Mary looked happy.
Once we had left Mandy and Jade at their front gate, Mary and I walked the rest of the way home holding hands together and Mary couldn’t help having the occasional skip. She was so happy, and I was happy for her, not to mention a little relieved that her first day seemed to have gone so well. I asked her to tell me about her day and it was like a tap being opened. She told me about Mrs Riley, her teacher, and the story that she had read to them that afternoon. She told me about Molly, the girl that she sat next to in class, and then she told me anything else she could remember. It came in no particular order, just as it popped into her mind.
She was still talking about her day as we sat together at the kitchen table eating the cake that I had made. She talked all of the time and got excited when she remembered something new. She only stopped when she went to bed because she was asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.
That night, as I sat in the living room of the home that I’d made for us I couldn’t help but start thinking again. I told myself that there was no point dwelling on things but I couldn’t help myself. It was as if Mum and the past were all that my mind wanted to turn to. I reminded myself yet again of what my mum would say and that was that I had made my bed so I would have to lie in it. That saying only strikes me as funny now, right at this moment as I’m talking to you, because Mum would always remake my bed again after I had done it. Don’t know why I’ve never thought of that before … the mind is a funny thing.
Anyway, to get back to the bed that I had made, I didn’t mind lying in it, most of the time anyway. I’ve said before that I did get lonely sometimes, especially at that part of the day when Mary was in bed and I only had myself for company. I didn’t mind most of the time but, now and again, it would have been nice to have someone to share my life or even just an evening with.
Mandy said that I needed a boyfriend.
Mandy had another boyfriend by that point. There’d been a few so I can’t remember which one exactly. Sometimes, if she was going to be out overnight, Jade would stay with us, otherwise Mandy’s neighbour would babysit. I’d only had the one date since Mary had been born, since Tim really, and well remembered how that had ended. I wasn’t in a rush to put myself through that again. Was this what my life was going to be like for ever?
The television did not make good company so I went to bed early. That night, before I went to sleep, I decided I should give Julie a ring again, though I didn’t really know what I was going to say.
The next morning Mary was already awake when I went into her bedroom. She was sitting up in bed, chatting away to her teddy, telling him that she had to go out today but she’d be back later to tell him about her day. She was so adorable.
I did ring Julie that day but there was no answer. Instead there was a machine saying that they weren’t there but if I’d like to leave a name and number they would get back to me.
Answer machines were pretty new back then and I hadn’t spoke to one much so I was a bit thrown. Not that I’ve ever got used to them and I still hate talking to them now. But anyway, I said who it was and that I hoped everyone was all right and that Mary had started school the day before and that she liked it. I also told Julie that I was sorry that I hadn’t been in touch for a while but I’d call again soon.
Maybe I would.
Mary soon settled into the way of going to school and I developed a new routine of my own. I cleaned the house every day but to be honest it didn’t need it most days and I sometimes used to find myself polishing things that already sparkled. Mum would have been proud of the way I kept the house. I had developed her habits of having a day for every job without even realising it. It was a good way of working.
Mary had been at school for about six months when I met Miriam in the High Street. Do you remember Miriam? She was Mandy’s next door neighbour when we lived in Palmer’s Court. Well, she was just coming out of the butcher’s when I was on my way to the Post Office.
‘Well, I’ll be blowed,’ she said. ‘If it isn’t Susan Thompson.’
I hadn’t seen her at first, her face was hidden under a big red head scarf, but I recognised her voice as soon as I heard it. ‘Miriam,’ I said, ‘how are you?’ I hadn’t seen her since we’d moved houses.
‘Not so bad, love, not so bad,’ she said, but I wasn’t sure I believed her. ‘Just the usual, you know, bloody arthritis.’
It was so good to see her. I thought about her and the other people that had lived in the flats a lot. Once upon a time they had been like family to me. Yet another family that I had lost touch with. Miriam asked me if I’d like to go for a cuppa and a catch up and I jumped at the chance.
We went to a café over the road from the Post Office where she must have been a regular because she shouted her order to the girl behind the counter who called Miriam by name. Miriam had asked for her ‘usual for two’ and the girl said she would bring it over.
It was lovely to see her but I couldn’t help noticing how she had aged in the couple of years since I had seen her last. How old was Miriam? I had no idea but I couldn’t think of anyone I’d ever seen who looked older.
She asked how Mary was and said she didn’t believe it when I told her that she had started school. She asked how I liked where I was living now and I said it was fine. I told her that Mary liked having her own room and a little garden to play in. She asked me how Mandy and Jade were and I told her that Jade was in the class above Mary and that Mandy had a new boyfriend. All just general chit chat, until Miriam said:
‘And what about your mum?’
‘What about her?’
‘Have you still not spoken to her?’
She made it sound like a bad thing and truth be told, I knew that it was, I hadn’t spoken to my mother in over five years.
‘No. I’ve spoken to my sister a couple of times though. In fact, I rang her the other day.’
‘How are things at home?’
‘I don’t know,’ I admitted, ‘she wasn’t in. I just left a message on her answer machine.’
We sat in silence for a few moments as the waitress brought over our drinks. There was a piece of Bakewell tart for each of us too.
‘Can’t have tea without a bit of cake,’ Miriam said as she spooned sugar into her drink and stirred it slowly. ‘It’s a treat for me now ’cause of my diabetes, but when my littl’uns were growing up there was always a cake in the tin.’
Littl’uns? What did she mean?
‘Surprises you, does it,’ she said, looking up from her cup, ‘that I have children?’
‘I’ve never heard you talk about them before. I just assumed that you didn’t have any,’ I said.
‘Might as well not have for all I see of them.’ She didn’t try to hide the sadness from her voice.
I didn’t know what to say so I waited for her to speak again.
‘I have a son, Thomas.’
I couldn’t help but see the tears that were forming as she added:
‘He lives in New Zealand. He was in the navy and met a lass from over ther
e and married her. They’ve got a couple of kids but I’ve never seen them. And then I have a daughter, Brenda, and God knows where she is.’
Silence.
‘We had a falling out, you see, about her choice of boyfriend. She was all for this lad who was into drinking – and drugs as well, probably – and said that she was going to marry him. I said over my dead body she would and the next thing I knew she’d run off with him.’
I could only sit and watch her as she looked at me.
‘But do you know what, Susan? There’s not a day goes by that I don’t think of them, especially Brenda. At least I know that Thomas is settled, well I think he is, but I don’t know anything about Brenda. I don’t know where she is or how she is.’ She reached across the table and took hold of my hand, ‘And your mum will be the same love.’ I shook my head and Miriam shook my hand. ‘Yes she will, Susan. Trust me, I know.’
‘My mum wanted to hide me away in the country until my baby was born so that I could give the baby away and no one would ever know about it, about her, about Mary.’
‘Mary didn’t exist to your mum,’ Miriam said. ‘Only you existed; you, her daughter. Now I don’t know your mother but I think we’ve all got something in common and that’s that at the end of the day we want what’s best for our children. We want them to be better than we were.’ She squeezed my hand again, ‘Your mother just had a funny way of showing it.’
I shook my head. ‘No, she’s not like that.’
Something happened to me that day and I finally opened up to someone. ‘She never wanted me you know,’ I told her. ‘I walked in on my sisters talking one day and they said that mum had never wanted me. She didn’t pay me any attention when I was growing up; I was always in the way. She never sat me down and combed my hair until it shone and then tied it up with pretty ribbons. She ignored me most of the time; I was just in the way. And then when I got pregnant, she told me that I’d brought shame on the family, that’s why she wanted me to give my baby away. My baby, my Mary, was a dirty little secret that needed to be hidden from the neighbours.’
Two more cups of tea arrived without me even realising that Miriam had ordered them. She started to add sugar to her fresh cup. ‘Like I’ve told you before, love,’ she said, ‘for your mum, Mary did not exist as a person. If she met her now, she would see what a sweetheart she is and she would love her.’
‘I can’t go back now. How would she explain it to the neighbours? According to Julie she’s told them that I enjoyed Scarborough so much that I decided to stay there.’
‘Yes, well, if she came up with something to explain your disappearance I’m sure she’d find another reason for your return.’
‘And Mary’s?’
‘Look, it’s your decision, but if you want a bit of advice from a very old woman give your mum a second chance … before it’s too late.’
I said I’d think about it. And I did think about it; I thought about it long and hard and, after I had, I was torn. Like I’ve said a million times, I loved my mother and all I ever wanted was to be loved in return but could I risk being rejected again? And, more than that, could I risk Mary being rejected? Did my mother think about me every day as Miriam said she did her own children? Miriam said that all mothers had something in common so, being one myself, I tried to put myself in my mother’s position. How would I react? Was Miriam right about Mum only wanting to do what was best for me? I’ve said before that I believed making the problem disappear was probably the only way out she could see. One thing was certain, though. I knew for a fact that, if I was in her situation and regardless of what had happened between us, I would always love Mary and want to know how she was.
I don’t think I slept a wink that night, I just lay awake thinking about what Miriam had said and the things that had occurred to me since that conversation. A lot of things made sense now, especially the way that Miriam had treated both Mandy and me. We’d just thought it was because she was a nice old lady who was kind to us, but now I realised she was compensating for the family of her own that she couldn’t see. Somehow I couldn’t see my mum behaving the same way to make up for Mary and me not being there, but who knew? What if she was missing me? That thought had never occurred to me. What if she was sorry that things had turned out the way they had? Would that make any difference? I needed to give it a lot more thought.
Three days later my world was blown apart.
I was standing at the school gates waiting for Mary to come out of school when Mandy appeared beside me. She was red-faced and out of breath as though she had been running.
‘You’re not going to believe it,’ she said in between breaths.
‘What’s wrong?’ I had no idea what was going on and I couldn’t help being worried. Mandy was usually calm and cocky.
‘I saw Dan and Louise in town,’ she said when she had got her breath back, ‘you know the ones that live next door to Bob at Palmer’s Court. You’ll never guess what they told me.’
‘That’s funny,’ I said, ‘I saw Miriam the other day. We haven’t seen any of them in years and then both of us in the same week.’
She had a funny look on her face. ‘You never said you saw Miriam. How was she?’
‘She seemed fine, said her arthritis was playing her up.’ ‘Yes, well, Bob found her dead on the kitchen floor this morning.’
‘What?’
Mandy explained that Bob had been walking along the landing and happened to glance through the kitchen window of Miriam’s flat and saw her lying face down on the floor in her dressing gown. He rang for an ambulance but by the time the police broke the door down she was dead. Louise said that the paramedic reckoned she’d been there all night.
I don’t know if I went white but I knew that I felt sick. ‘I don’t believe it,’ I said and I had to struggle to control my breathing. I didn’t want to break down at the school gates.
‘I know. Poor old Miriam.’ She stroked my arm.
‘I just saw her the other day,’ I said, again. ‘We were talking just the other day. She said th–’
I stopped mid-sentence when I remembered what she had said. I blew out my cheeks and looked straight into Mandy’s eyes. ‘She said that’ – I could hear my voice shaking – ‘she thought I should contact my mum…’ I paused before the last bit, ‘…before it’s too late.’
I told Mandy about Miriam’s children, about the son that she hadn’t seen for years and the daughter who could be anywhere. I told her how Miriam reckoned that my mother would be thinking about me every day, wondering where I was and how I was doing.
‘Bloody hell,’ Mandy said as the sound of children running got louder.
When I caught sight of Mary running towards me I forced a smile onto my face.
The following week Mandy and I went to Miriam’s funeral. We’d gone to the library to read what Mum used to call the hatched matched and dispatched report in the local paper and read her obituary there. Mum always said that you could tell a lot by what was written in the paper after you died. Miriam’s didn’t say much at all. It gave her name, that she was a mother and grandmother and the details of her funeral. No ‘much loved’ this or ‘beloved’ that; just the bare details.
On the morning of the funeral, Mary had asked me why I was wearing the clothes that I was. I was wearing a black skirt with a white blouse under a black cardigan. Mary had probably never seen me in a skirt before. I told her that I was going to say goodbye to a friend of mine who was going away and I thanked God when she didn’t ask me where my friend was going.
The funeral was at 10 o’clock on a Friday morning and Mandy and I went straight to the crematorium after we’d dropped the girls off at school. I’d never been to a funeral before so I didn’t know quite what to expect, but I had thought there’d be more of a turnout. There were just her neighbours from Palmer’s Court and three old ladies who turned out to be the friends that she used to go to bingo with on a Tuesday afternoon.
Louise and Dan stood with Bob at one
side of the open double door and the ladies at the other. We smiled at the ladies but went to stand with our former neighbours.
Louise gave us both a hug. ‘I’m glad you’ve both come,’ she said, ‘Miriam would have liked you to come.’
‘Aye,’ Dan chipped in. ‘Haven’t seen you in ages and then Lou happens to bump into Mandy and tell her about the old lass. They say God works in mysterious ways.’
‘I saw her just the other week,’ I told them. ‘She seemed fine – well as fine as she ever did.’
‘She said that she’d seen you and that you’d gone for a cup of tea together and had a catch up.’ Louise looked at me and then Mandy. ‘Miriam was very fond of you girls you know.’
‘And we were fond of her.’ I knew that I could speak for both of us.
Just then there was the sound of tyres on gravel as the hearse pulled up. I looked for another car, the one with her family in it, but it wasn’t there. There was just the hearse. Miriam’s family was nowhere in sight and huge, hot, wet tears formed in my eyes. How could they not be here? Louise put her arm round my shoulder and squeezed it.
Ribbons in Her Hair Page 15
