by John Nicholl
There I go again, straying from the point. I’ll try to concentrate on one thing at a time. I didn’t tell you Mrs Martin’s name. But there you go, I’ve done it. Mrs Mary Martin: White Haven Women’s Prison counsellor, wife, mother and countless other things of which I’m unaware, no doubt. That’s the way of the world these days. Multitasking. Not having a minute to yourself, would be a more accurate description. Maybe it’s a male conspiracy, a cynical corruption of the right to equality. If you’re female, you may have suspected as much.
I called Mrs Martin ‘Mary’, once, when I thought I’d morphed from patient to friend, but she didn’t appreciate my familiarity one little bit. I realised my mistake as soon as I’d uttered the words. She visibly stiffened. It’s been Mrs Martin ever since. It seems best.
What does Mrs Martin actually do? Is that what you’re wondering? Well, we just sat and talked until recently. Sometimes I did most of the talking, and sometimes she did. That surprised me at first—her talking about herself, I mean. Perhaps she thought a caring, sharing approach would convey liking, and encourage me to be honest about my life. And I have been. So I guess it worked. Well, to a degree, anyway. I haven’t been entirely frank. I’ve held a lot back. I think she tried what methods she could, and then realised that talking alone wasn’t sufficient to illicit total honesty in my case. Who knows? I’m very probably making assumptions I’m not qualified to make.
Last week, for whatever reason, she suddenly changed her approach. That’s why I’ve put pen to paper in the first place. Mrs Martin sat opposite me in her small magnolia office, and suggested I write this journal. If I sound surprised, that’s because it did surprise me at the time. Although, I’ve since begun to appreciate the potential benefits. I’ll try and remember exactly what she said to win me over, or at least recount her words as accurately as I can manage, now that a few days have passed and the memory has begun to fade.
‘Put down your thoughts on paper, Cynthia.’ That’s how she began. I’m fairly certain of that. ‘Talking can often help, but it’s sometimes easier to write things down. It can prove both freeing and purgative. I think it’s probably time for us to adopt that approach. Effective therapy is a bit like shaking a bottle of champagne and pulling the cork out… whoosh! The contents explode all over the place at first, but then what’s left settles down very nicely. And that’s what will happen to you. Your emotions will eventually settle. It will take time, of course. It won’t be an easy process. There will be rocky ground along the way. But we will get there in the end. It will be worthwhile. I promise! Writing a journal will help you come to terms with your past, and to adapt to and accept the unwelcome changes in your life. Are you prepared to give it a try?’
I wasn’t hugely impressed by the idea up to that point, to be honest, and my reticence must have shown on my face, because she qualified her proposition with genuine passion. ‘I implore you to keep a journal, Cynthia. Write down your secret thoughts. The things you have never dared vocalise. Explore them on paper, as if telling the world. As if engaging in conversation with a million imaginary friends, all of whom are desperate to understand and help you.’
A little New Age alternative for my tastes, perhaps, but I shouldn’t laugh. I think Mrs Martin may well be a bit of a sixties’ hippy chick at heart. But, I have to admit I was intrigued. The idea began to resonate with me for reasons I still can’t fully explain. Maybe it was her enthusiasm, maybe her apparent desire to help, or possibly both.
‘It will help you make sense of events, Cynthia. You can bring the journal along with you each week. It will inform our work together. It will help address the invasive thoughts, the nightmares, the flashbacks, the mood swings and the occasional temper tantrums. You won’t be entirely free of them. Not totally. The psychological scars will still be there, but writing it all down, taking the cork out and subjecting the contents to the light, will eventually help them fade.’
I would decline to swear on oath that those were her exact words, but it’s pretty damn close to what was said. If I’ve misrepresented Mrs Martin in any way, I can only apologise. It won’t be for want of trying. And anyway, any such error would be of no particular consequence. Now that I’ve had the opportunity to think it through, I think I almost certainly responded to her refreshing honesty and enthusiasm, rather than being persuaded by her argument.
Anyway, whatever the reason for my eventual accord, I agreed to give it a try. Maybe in the end, I’d have bared my soul anyway. Who knows? Writing won’t undo the past, of course. I fully appreciate that. Mrs Martin didn’t pretend that it would, in fairness to her. Writing can’t facilitate my physical freedom, or bring the lost back to life. Not in this life, not in this world! But, if the process is in any way cathartic, it will have served its purpose and I’ll be grateful for that.
I fully intend to give this my best. I’m fully committed to the process. And perhaps, when I’m finished, I’ll try and have it published. Not for the money, but as a cautionary message. A red flag screaming, be careful who you trust. Be very careful who you trust. I’ve got all the time in the world, and very little, if anything, to lose.
2
Are you sitting comfortably children? Then I’ll begin.
If you’re not of a certain age, you may think I’ve lost the plot at this point. The phrase resonates from my childhood, but may mean nothing to you. If that is the case, not to worry, it really isn’t important. I was simply trying to delay the inevitable. I had absolutely no idea just how terrifying a blank sheet of white paper has the potential to be. I’ll get a grip and make a start.
Memories don’t come in straight lines. My head is full of situations and stories, events I need to address in a sequential order, if I’m going to do this process any justice at all. I’ll begin with my childhood. That seems logical. Nothing very remarkable, I’m afraid. No suspense, mystery or intrigue. But that’s what makes what happened subsequently all the more shocking. The contrast—that’s what I’m talking about. The dramatic, black-and-white, Yin-and-Yang, good-and-evil contrast. I don’t think I can make it any clearer than that.
I was born in a cottage hospital, in a small Welsh seaside town built on a windy headland, surrounded by dark granite cliffs, wild green seas and pepper-pot-yellow, bucket-and-spade beaches. My parents claim it was a bright summer day with a cloudless powder-blue sky and a warm golden glow. The very best that the Welsh summertime can offer. Not a bad start in life, I’m sure you’d agree.
I continued the ‘small’ theme, and arrived prematurely, weighing in at two pounds and three ounces. My dad took a black-and-white photo of me lying next to a bag of sugar. It seemed like the right thing to do, apparently. Mum and Dad used to show the photo to anyone and everyone who was willing to look at it. Or, at least, that’s how it seemed to me as I grew up in that happy place. Mum still carries it in her handbag to this day. It’s creased and faded these days, but she still seems to cherish it. She showed it to me once during one of her infrequent visits, as if I were seeing it for the first time. Perhaps it reminds her of better times. That would make sense, wouldn’t it? There are things I’d choose to forget, if I could. I’m sure she’s not so very different.
When I was about six weeks old, I finally moved from the hospital to my new home in Tenby, with parents who loved me and a three-year-old brother, Jack, who didn’t. Or at least, not at first. I’m told he was insanely jealous for a time. He’d been the sole focus of his parents’ love, and all of a sudden, there I was invading his territory. Things improved, of course, as we became used to each other, and our relationship swung back and forth between adoring and detesting one another.
We lived in a two-bedroom terrace house, with a back yard that served as a childhood playground. I have no recollection of those early years, but I’ve seen flickering cine films, produced by my dad with his hand-held camera. We’re all smiling in those celluloid representations of the past. The sun was shining, and I was dressed in immaculate princess dresses, brightly col
oured hair bands and shiny black patent-leather shoes, that still make me smile. No wonder Mum likes to focus on the past, rather than the current reality. No wonder her eyes go blank when she sits opposite me in the visiting room. It can’t be easy for her. It certainly isn’t for me. But, as long as she keeps coming, as long as she brings my lovely girls, I’ll be satisfied with that.
When I was just four years old, we moved to a new-build three-bedroom semi, of the type much beloved by the aspiring middle classes. The house had the advantages of an extra bedroom, meaning I no longer had to share with Jack, and a back garden, where Dad cultivated prize-winning chrysanthemums, and planted vegetables, which we enjoyed with our Sunday roast. I remember the lawn being immaculate. Not a blade of grass out of place. I sometimes wonder if such things give us humans the illusion of control, until God laughs at our plans.
There I go again, letting my mind wonder. I really must discipline my intellect. My Cardiff University tutor used to say much the same thing, before my life fell apart. It seems I’m still to learn that lesson. I’ll return to the story.
It was onwards and upwards for the Jones family. I feel a resounding trumpet fanfare would be appropriate at this stage of the story, were such things possible. Dad was promoted within the county council’s planning department, and Mum was working part-time in a shoe shop for pin money, as she liked to put it.
I started school in a dark Victorian building with an external toilet block, and a canteen we’d walk to, hand in hand, each lunchtime come rain or shine. It’s an odd reality that the school which seemed so big to a young child, was actually small and compact, when I visited as an adult. To my surprise, one of my old teachers was still working there. That was a nice surprise. For me at least, but I’m not so sure about her. Maybe I reminded her how much time had passed. Ageing seems to come as a shock to us all. I very much hope they were happy years. Shall I tell you a bit about her? No? It’s not as if she’s a particularly significant part of the story.
There I go again, straying off the point. I absolutely loved it. Education. I loved it. That’s what I meant to say. As a child, not so much as an adult, with the inevitable pressures of scrutiny such things involve. I loved school as a child. What the hell’s wrong with me? Why didn’t I just say that in the first place? I have a tendency to make things so much more complex than they need be. It’s one of my many failings. Please bear with me.
I left primary school at the age of eleven, along with my fellow classmates. Some of us were to attend the local comprehensive, me included, and others, the Welsh language school, which had recently opened in our area. Both were good schools, or at least that’s what the headmaster told us. We were, he said, ‘On an exciting journey, the outcome of which would depend on how much effort we made in our new schools.’ If only it were that simple. We can try, we should always try, but there are no guarantees. It would be nice if we could determine the outcome of our lives. But of course, we can’t. Life’s not like that. I put a lot of effort in. I worked hard. But then I met him. Cruel fate or random chaos intervened, I’m not sure which. But, look where my efforts got me. If life’s a lottery, I’m one of the losers. I was an innocent growing up in a dangerous world.
The long hot summer betwixt my final day of primary school and entering the land of comparative giants, seemed a period of never-ending bliss. If only… What’s the point in saying it?
We travelled to the Vendee for two glorious weeks in August—Saint-Jean-De-Monts, in case you’re interested. Dad drove our estate car, packed with childhood memories, and festooned with family bikes, GB stickers and yellowed headlights, from Wales to France via the Dover ferry. It must have been a very long journey, now I think about it, but such things seem unimportant when reminiscing. The journey becomes blurred, and the good times come into sharper focus. If only everything could be like that. We can only focus on the positives when life allows us that luxury.
We stayed in a caravan with all the mod cons, near to a windswept Atlantic beach, backed by sand dunes decorated with intermittent green tufts of hardy seaside grass. The site had spacious pitches with carefully positioned privacy trees and bushes, a pleasant club house with a table football game, a children’s club, which for some reason I refused to attend, a restaurant which served delicious, hot buttered crepes for breakfast, and a large swimming pool. The French seem to do campsites so much better than us Brits. Have you ever been? If you have, you’ll know what I mean. And the cakes. Oh boy, the cakes. I remember eating an eclair filled with caramel custard. Wow! What I wouldn’t give for one of those now. Maybe one day, I’ll enjoy another with a double espresso, in the company of a mysterious Frenchman who knows nothing of my dubious past. I know what you’re thinking, but it could happen. There’s an online petition against the length of my sentence. My self-indulgent homage to my happy childhood may become more than a female fantasy. One day I’ll be one of life’s winners. Or at least, I like to think so.
I’m a little out of breath after all that. Please give me a second or two to calm my breathing. Slow deep breaths, in through the nose, and out through the mouth… That’s more like it. Thank you for your patience.
Dad often used to bemoan the closure of the grammar schools, but attending a comprehensive certainly didn’t do me any harm. I made friends quickly, engaged in various extracurricular activities, represented the school at hockey, and achieved reasonably good grades. By the age of sixteen, I’d already decided I wanted to study for a Law degree, and I joined the sixth form with that aim in mind.
Mum and Dad were surprised when I achieved excellent A-level results shortly after my eighteenth birthday. But I’d worked hard, and if anything, I was disappointed not to achieve three A-grades. I hope that doesn’t sound big-headed. I wouldn’t want that. If I’m going to be honest, that has to relate to the positives as well as the negatives. God knows they’re in the minority. I passed my exams, me, I passed. Occasionally there’s still some justice in this world. But, to put my results in context, I’ve achieved very little since. I did bring my two wonderful daughters into the world. And what a dark world they entered. But the girls apart, writing this journal is probably my biggest achievement since. I hope you don’t judge my many failures too harshly when you know the full story.
My apologies for wallowing in self-pity again. My tears are beginning to smudge the ink in places and that can’t be a good thing. And, as if that isn’t bad enough, my self-indulgent, melancholic literal ramblings weren’t even an accurate record. I did go to university. I didn’t finish the course. I didn’t achieve a degree. But there were good reasons for that. I’ll tell you a little bit more about it as my story continues.
3
We were a close family back then, Mum, Dad, Jack and I, in those far-off days, and I feel compelled to tell you a little about each of them. I’ll tell you about Dad first, then Mum, and finally my big brother. That’s the order of things in my head. So here we go, Dad first. But before I start, I hope you don’t read anything into that, because it really could have been Mum first, or even Jack. I have to start somewhere, so why not Dad? It certainly wasn’t Dad who destroyed my trust in men. That came later. Much later, when I met the man I eventually married.
Dad was something of a traditionalist. Certainly not a new man, of the kind favoured by some feminist types. But I wouldn’t want to give you the impression that he didn’t pull his weight. Because he did. He maintained the house, he did the heavy lifting, he looked after the garden, he took responsibility for the rubbish, and he brought in the bulk of the money. Mum sometimes says that there is danger of confusing equal opportunity with being fundamentally the same. I never really understood what she meant when I was younger, but I’ve had a lot of time to think since. Work as a team and play to your strengths. I think that’s what she meant. They were happy with the way things were. It worked for them.
I’ve just realised that I’ve been talking about Mum and Dad as if they were a single entity, rather than focussing on
each as individual. I considered redrafting this section, but I think the blurring of the lines is inevitable given the length and strength of their relationship. They were childhood sweethearts and two had become one. They finished each other’s sentences, and read each other’s thoughts, right up to the time Dad died shortly after I was sentenced. He was a fit fifty-eight-year-old who played golf, drunk alcohol modestly, and hadn’t smoked for years. Where’s the justice in that? He died of a broken heart. Broken by Jack initially, and then by me. Mrs Martin has tried to convince me that events were beyond my control. Sometimes I believe it, and sometimes I don’t. Let’s see what conclusion you eventually come to when you know the full facts.
Mum was absolutely lovely. No! Mum is lovely. That’s how I should have put it in the first place. She’s still with us, although a part of her died along with Dad. Details can matter enormously. The trial taught me that.
My mum was an old-fashioned mum: looking after us all, transporting me to ballet, Brownies and piano lessons, baking cakes and the like. And she seemed happy. I like to think she was fulfilled. I’ve never thought about it before, to be honest. Is that selfish of me? Perhaps I’ll ask her one day, if I think she’s up to answering and I can deal with her answer.
