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Authors: Margaret Leroy
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it,
and he read about it in the papers during the inquiry. But nobody knows all of it, except those of us who were there.
I was thirteen when I went there. My mother couldn’t cope with me — or so she told the social worker, as I lurked behind the
bead curtain in the squalid kitchen of our tiny flat, which I’d tried to clean up, knowing the social worker was coming, hearing
everything. “I need a break,” said my mother. “Just for a month or two. To get myself together.”
The social worker said she admired my mother’s honesty and it probably was for the best. She asked if there was anyone I could
go to. “No,” said my mother. “We only have each other.” The social worker said not to worry, she was pretty sure that there
was a place at The Poplars. And I wouldn’t even need to change schools, so really it didn’t have to be too disruptive.
My mother was drinking three bottles of sherry a day. It had crept up on us gradually, through the years of living in rented
flats, or in rooms at the top of pubs where she worked behind the bar. I knew the story of how we came to be in this predicament
— or, at least, the part of it she chose to tell. Her family had been reasonably well-off —her father was a cabinetmaker —
but they’d been Plymouth Brethren, very strict and excluding. She’d always chafed against it — the beliefs, the extreme restrictions.
She’d truanted a lot, left school to travel round Europe with an unemployed actor, ten years older than she was, who smoked
a lot of dope. Her family had rejected her totally — wouldn’t see her again. In the Vondelpark in Amsterdam, the man had drifted
off. She’d wandered back to London, existed for a while on the edge of some rather bohemian group, people who squatted, who
liked to call themselves anarchists, who had artistic pretensions. She wore cheesecloth blouses, worked as a waitress. It
was the pinnacle of her life, the time to which she always yearned to return. She was still only nineteen when she met my
father. She fell pregnant almost immediately. He went off with somebody else when I was six months old; my mother was just
twenty. She never talked about him, except to say that she wasn’t going to talk about that bastard. I only knew he’d been
part of that arty group and that his name was Christopher.
It was OK when I was younger. She had standards then; she was quite particular. She talked a lot about manners, and she always
laid the table properly for tea. We were happy, I think, happy enough, though there was never much money, and often she left
me alone in the evenings, even when I was young. I remember how as a little girl I’d sit on the bed and watch her getting
ready, perhaps for her evening shift behind the bar, or maybe for a night out on the town with one of her long succession
of temporary men. She’d be all sheeny and glossy, with high heels and a gold chain round her ankle, her skin a sun-kissed
brown from her weekly session at the Fake It tanning studio, with the smell that was then so comforting, so familiar, of Marlboros
and Avon Lily of the Valley. I’d sit on the bed amid the heaps of her clothes and accessories, her belts and bangles and gloves
and floaty scarves. She had a particular passion for gloves, in pastel cotton or silk, with little pearl buttons or ruched
wrists. It was eccentric, perhaps, giving her an air of spurious formality, but she liked to hide her hands, which were always
rough and reddened from the work she did, all the washing of glasses in the sink at the bar. I’d watch how she’d choose from
her glittery sticks of cosmetics, how she’d do her mouth, first drawing the outline with lip pencil, making her narrow lips
a little more generous, then the lipstick, coral bright, eased on straight from the stick. She’d press her lips together to
spread the color out. I thought she was so beautiful. Yet my pleasure in these moments was
and he read about it in the papers during the inquiry. But nobody knows all of it, except those of us who were there.
I was thirteen when I went there. My mother couldn’t cope with me — or so she told the social worker, as I lurked behind the
bead curtain in the squalid kitchen of our tiny flat, which I’d tried to clean up, knowing the social worker was coming, hearing
everything. “I need a break,” said my mother. “Just for a month or two. To get myself together.”
The social worker said she admired my mother’s honesty and it probably was for the best. She asked if there was anyone I could
go to. “No,” said my mother. “We only have each other.” The social worker said not to worry, she was pretty sure that there
was a place at The Poplars. And I wouldn’t even need to change schools, so really it didn’t have to be too disruptive.
My mother was drinking three bottles of sherry a day. It had crept up on us gradually, through the years of living in rented
flats, or in rooms at the top of pubs where she worked behind the bar. I knew the story of how we came to be in this predicament
— or, at least, the part of it she chose to tell. Her family had been reasonably well-off —her father was a cabinetmaker —
but they’d been Plymouth Brethren, very strict and excluding. She’d always chafed against it — the beliefs, the extreme restrictions.
She’d truanted a lot, left school to travel round Europe with an unemployed actor, ten years older than she was, who smoked
a lot of dope. Her family had rejected her totally — wouldn’t see her again. In the Vondelpark in Amsterdam, the man had drifted
off. She’d wandered back to London, existed for a while on the edge of some rather bohemian group, people who squatted, who
liked to call themselves anarchists, who had artistic pretensions. She wore cheesecloth blouses, worked as a waitress. It
was the pinnacle of her life, the time to which she always yearned to return. She was still only nineteen when she met my
father. She fell pregnant almost immediately. He went off with somebody else when I was six months old; my mother was just
twenty. She never talked about him, except to say that she wasn’t going to talk about that bastard. I only knew he’d been
part of that arty group and that his name was Christopher.
It was OK when I was younger. She had standards then; she was quite particular. She talked a lot about manners, and she always
laid the table properly for tea. We were happy, I think, happy enough, though there was never much money, and often she left
me alone in the evenings, even when I was young. I remember how as a little girl I’d sit on the bed and watch her getting
ready, perhaps for her evening shift behind the bar, or maybe for a night out on the town with one of her long succession
of temporary men. She’d be all sheeny and glossy, with high heels and a gold chain round her ankle, her skin a sun-kissed
brown from her weekly session at the Fake It tanning studio, with the smell that was then so comforting, so familiar, of Marlboros
and Avon Lily of the Valley. I’d sit on the bed amid the heaps of her clothes and accessories, her belts and bangles and gloves
and floaty scarves. She had a particular passion for gloves, in pastel cotton or silk, with little pearl buttons or ruched
wrists. It was eccentric, perhaps, giving her an air of spurious formality, but she liked to hide her hands, which were always
rough and reddened from the work she did, all the washing of glasses in the sink at the bar. I’d watch how she’d choose from
her glittery sticks of cosmetics, how she’d do her mouth, first drawing the outline with lip pencil, making her narrow lips
a little more generous, then the lipstick, coral bright, eased on straight from the stick. She’d press her lips together to
spread the color out. I thought she was so beautiful. Yet my pleasure in these moments was
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