Invisible Child

by Mary Hayward

  He was furious with her. I told him at the time she would let him down, but he didn’t believe me: he did now. Experience: the greatest teacher.

  I got a phone call from Highlands Hospital: my father was suddenly taken ill with a suspected heart attack. I was still in Chase Farm Hospital at the time, and it was difficult for me to see either Lindsay or my father. Mike was looking after Lindsay, and doing all the things a mother did. It was a dreadfully distressing time for all of us.

  Mike bought a dress and modified it to let the tube come out of the side, leading to a bag strapped to my thigh, with the cooperation of the nurse on the ward. The consultant, Mr Harlow, would check the X-ray each week, and if that showed some progress, then I was allowed home for the weekend. Mike took me up to Highlands Hospital to visit Dad. He was totally irresponsible as a father and I asked myself why I cared. But he had no one. I couldn’t let him suffer, in spite of the way he had treated me.

  When I first saw him in the ward, I was so shocked! I found it difficult to hold back the tears. It was as if I had just visited an inmate in Belson. He said he wanted to go to the toilet. I waited patiently for him to return, but it was a long time. I took the opportunity to discuss his condition with the doctors. Dad couldn’t eat—they said he had a carcinoma in his liver, although I didn’t fully understand what that meant. I was told his time was measured in weeks.

  Thirty minutes had passed before Dad returned from the toilet, and I began to understand what suffering he might have been going through. I turned and walked back down the ward to let him know what I had discovered. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

  Mike spoke to him as kindly as he could. Dad really wanted to know what was wrong with him, and although he suspected, he wanted it confirmed. It was the hardest thing I had to do. I didn’t hate my dad, and I didn’t wish him dead.

  It gave me the time to say goodbye—to give him a chance to make his peace with me, and at the same time I felt I could come to terms with my own thoughts and feelings about my life. I asked him about the difficult times, the food, the poverty, the hardship which I had to endure. He told me he was sorry. That was my dad; drink was his untreated illness, and it had finally done for him.

  I always felt so different from Mum and Jane. He told me he knew.

  “Even as a child,” he said, “Jane was always jealous of you.” He started coughing.

  I found him a tissue and let him carry on. I just listened.

  “Some people can’t stand the sight of beauty,” he said.

  “Dad, you loved us both, didn’t you?”

  He looked up at me, smiled.

  “Yes, of course I did, it’s just that you were always so pretty.” He gave me a lopsided grin.

  It was his way.

  “Your mum has got to Jane, moulded her to hate men, passed on her bitterness; there’s nothing yer can do about it now, but I know what happens. You don’t have to tell me about it, I have always known it was that way.”

  “Was it my fault?”

  He reached out to hold my hand.

  “It’s nothing you do,” he said, patting my wrist, “it’s just the way things have turned out. I’m sorry, love—I’ve let you down.”

  “I understand,” I said. “I’m arranging for a place for you with St Joseph’s Hospice.”

  “I don’t want to go there.” He looked like a little child lost.

  “There’s a bar there, Dad,” I said. “You can have your drinks.”

  His face brightened.

  “Really? I’ll go then.”

  That’s the last time I saw him.

  I contacted his social worker who said she would organise it. We rang the day he died, but before I had a chance to tell her about his death, she told me he wasn’t ill enough yet. I couldn’t say anything: the words stuck in my throat. I passed the phone to Mike. He asked how ill she thought someone would have to get? Then he told her he had died that morning. It was his sixty-seventh birthday.

  Mother refused to help. I arranged the funeral from my hospital bed. I contacted his sister Hilda, his other siblings, Alice, and Bobby. Mike modified a handbag so the drain tube could be hidden in it. When I got to the crematorium, Hilda tried to help me and take my bag. I managed to stop her just in time; it was attached to a plastic bag strapped to my leg.

  He was cremated at Enfield Crematorium, the same crematorium where I had been thirteen years earlier with Joyce. It didn’t register at the time; perhaps so much was going on in my life. Hilda organised everything at her house—tea and sandwiches for everyone. She was a lovely woman.

  Visiting the hospital each night, Mike brought me iced water and salmon sandwiches. Not once did he fail me. Studying for his Masters Degree during the evening; tiling the bathroom at night until the early hours of the morning; and cooking and cleaning the house somewhere in between. Lindsay was more than happy with Mike, and he brought her to see me, but only once because she became so frightened I was going to die.

  Patients gravitated towards me, as if they found comfort in my words; young and old sought me out, yet most of the time I just listened. That’s all they wanted, really—to be heard, as if someone who would listen, answered some sort of need in them.

  I found watching people die most distressing, yet I was thankful I had shared their last moments. What should I do, next?

  Become a Counsellor, I told myself.

  I was in hospital three months in all, until finally I got the all clear and my nightmare was over. It was another three months before I felt fully back to normal

  Mike sold his home, and I sold mine. We watched the house prices plummet. We banked our money, used the interest to pay the rent on a repossessed very large house in Goffs Oak, and there we weathered the housing crisis.

  John Major, the Prime Minister, pushed the interest rates up to fifteen percent, on black Wednesday 16th September 1992.

  It was summer, and we all went straight on holiday to Cornwall, meeting Colin on the way. We spent six weeks at Trelowarren, at the Lizard, enjoying the sunshine, sand, sea and fresh air.

  It was a lovely time, the four of us together as one united family. Colin returned home to Florrie’s after two weeks, and Lindsay, Mike and I remained for the rest of the summer break. There was no more contact from Billy, despite keeping him up to date with our changes of address.

  Many family experts argue the case for the father of the child to be in contact, but I don’t think it is always for the best. In Lindsay’s case, she settled down, was happy to call Mike dad, adjusted, and accepted life as normal.

  41

  Final Journey

  WHEN WE RETURNED FROM HOLIDAY, it was a new home, new school, and for Lindsay a fresh start for the three of us. Three years later it was time to come out of hibernation and we bought our first home together—a three-bedroom house nearby, and we registered Lindsay, now twelve-years old, into St Mary’s Church School.

  We now had a home of our own and the first stage of the plan had come together, just as Mike had predicted.

  In 1995, I graduated from the University of Hertfordshire with my Certificate in Education, and Mike his Masters Degree. It was a lovely day at St Albans Cathedral, dressed in gown and mortarboard. Mike’s parents, Eva and Charles, came to make the day complete. Finally his mother was talking to him after more that six years, with no explanation or apology. Colin and Lindsay were there, and for a moment we were all together.

  As we drove home in the car I said, “Mike, I want to work as a counsellor.”

  “Right,” he said. “Better get you on a course at the university.”

  That’s what I loved so much about him. He already knew what I was going to say.

  He made enquiries and soon I was applying for the course.

  The course was at Master’s level, and there were entry requirements to be satisfied. The major requirement was for personality reports from two independent Counsellors. The degree standard essay Mike said would be easy. I wasn’t so sure.


  One counsellor reported that I “had so much to give,” while the other thought I still had a lot to work through. At the final interview, I feared I would not be allowed to join the course, but to my delight, I was accepted.

  The course opened my eyes, not only for myself, but I found the subject fascinating. I read book after book until I was developing theories of my own. Carl Rogers (1990), a psychologist, had so much to offer, yet I found his approach too slow for me. Winnicott (1988), a psychotherapist, I found so interesting because he dealt with good enough mothering. John Bowlby (1979), a psychiatrist at the Tavistock Clinic, gave insight into the making and breaking of affectionate bonds in children. Reading these professionals left me in heaven. It unlocked something in me so empowering, it was like finding faith; faith in myself.

  The experiential sessions were what I enjoyed the most. Students would talk about their lives, and I found myself under their skin, echoing their journey in my mind. I was very flattered when some of the other students far more qualified than me, came to ask me what I thought.

  I didn’t understand. They had used all the psychobabble, the long words I couldn’t pronounce to litter their assignments, yet they came and listened to me. It sounded pretentious, yet inside I knew that I had something guiding me, unlocking the puzzles of their mind, like a blind man reading Braille.

  In January 1997 I moved to Guernsey in the Channel Islands where Mike took a post teaching at the College of Further Education. It was a lovely little Island village, with idyllic beaches and little cafes. It was only four miles by three, with French place names everywhere. Hotels, street names, but not a signpost in sight! They were taken down in 1939 when the Germans invaded, and never replaced.

  Navigating the Island tended to be a guessing game, as we tried roads here and there that pointed in the general direction that we wanted to travel. The natives had a language of their own, called a patois. It was French as spoken in the time of King John, when the Islands were part of the Kingdom of Brittany.

  Mike bought a 30-foot yacht (Brehon) and moored it at Beaucette harbour. Although I wasn’t a sailor I quite enjoyed the trips to Herm. It was a lovely time. We lived in Cobo, thirty yards from the beach.

  I found work teaching at the Mar De Carteret School, and later at the Professional Centre for Adult Education. In 1997 I graduated as a psychodynamic and person centred counsellor, working with adults and young children.

  Quite out of the blue, Lindsay, now fourteen, asked Mike to adopt her. He was delighted for two reasons. One, she was so confident in him as a father, and secondly, that she had made the decision for herself.

  For Lindsay it set her free from Billy. She had reached a point in her life, when Mike was the only dad she had ever known. She loved him, every bit as much as any daughter loved her dad, because he had always been there for her. He treated her every bit as if she was his own.

  We had to apply to the court, and a greffe (friend of the court) was appointed to organise our case. He contacted social workers on the mainland, who traced her natural father to gain his consent to her adoption. They prepared reports on Lindsay, Mike and I, from detailed interviews with us all.

  The court then granted the adoption, and Lindsay was set free from any connection to Billy and that dreadful episode in my life.

  ♣

  When the Guernsey Education Authority realised I had a counselling qualification, the Pupil Advisory Service asked me to work counselling children. At first I refused, but I was told it was either sessions with me or sending the children to Jersey, or the mainland. I gave way and agreed to see them.

  It was at the Pupil Advisory Centre that I enjoyed working with young children the most. It was to be there that I discovered my true talent—working with vulnerable children, and those disaffected; deprived by divorce, or abuse. It was with these children I found my calling.

  I connected with them, and found I was able to reach them, in ways others found impossible. I communicated through drawings, and ideas that appealed to their minds, perhaps as I had done as a child. It was uplifting for me, to be able to turn my deprived childhood into such a positive outcome; to make the tragedy of my poverty improve the lives of the young people pushed aside, in societies’ misunderstandings.

  There was a girl who didn’t talk and hadn’t been to school in over six months. She was eleven. I spoke to her each week, yet she said nothing. Then, one sunny day, I said something wrong. “It’s not called that!” she shouted. Suddenly a dialogue opened up.

  Within six weeks she had returned to school, one day a week, then two, until she had regained trust, and confidence. Some say she just needed to be heard, but I was not so sure. There was something between us, there in the silence, unspoken. She knew I had been there, where she stood, and she understood with silent words, that she wasn’t alone.

  Perhaps I was rescuing myself, I didn’t know; but if I could give hope to others, by listening and understanding their plight, then it had all been worthwhile. I know I made a change to their lives, and that knowledge gave me my self worth. Inspiring children, never to give up, get upset, but to carry on.

  Finally I had clawed my way out of Edmonton, and through counselling, found my true vocation; helping people who wanted to break free, and saving children, and people like Joyce and myself.

  I hope I have given the gift to my children that by struggle and never giving in to all life throws at you, there will be success as your reward. When life seems black and desperate, keep looking for a way through, and it will come.

  Where are the children now in 2017? Lindsay and Colin are fully grown adults, Colin with a family of his own, and Lindsay a career girl. Both are successful in their own fields. Lindsay studied at university, obtained her BSc (Hons) Computing, and is working in Bristol, and Colin is a successful accountant working in London.

  Perhaps now I can finally throw away my wooden leg knowing that my children have been spared my legacy, leaving Mike and I to enjoy our life together.

  For more information and pictures of the time see the website:-

  http://www.maryhayward.co.uk/maryhayward-invisible-child-image-gallery

  —The End—

  * * *

  [1] Phelge’s Stones. ISBN 0-9664338-0-7

  Table of Contents

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