Escape From Evil - Cathy Wilson [2]
There must have been a dozen different ways to break that news to me, but it was typical of Grandpa to use the correct term. I was technically a ‘bastard’ and that was the end of it. That was him all over: Mr Correct, Mr Proper. He liked things done and said the right way – however much it hurt other people. As far as Grandpa was concerned, he was the one who’d been hurt most.
Admitting his daughter had had a child out of wedlock was still as shameful to him fourteen years later as it had been back in 1969. From Grandpa’s point of view, that wasn’t the worst part. The wedding took place on 26 May 1970 – my mother’s sixteenth birthday. I’d been born the previous November and that was the earliest she could legally marry.
Wow, I thought. Born out of wedlock to an underage mum. Not exactly the start a girl hopes for. Glancing at Grandpa, now furiously polishing his shoes, I realized it was definitely not the start he would have wanted for me.
Reginald Ralph Seaford Beavis was a proud man. He’d served as a major in the Royal Corps of Signals, the army’s intelligence division, and years after his discharge still conducted himself with a strong military bearing. He worked as a salesman for the Wills cigarette company, who made brands like Strand, Embassy and Woodbine, and enjoyed some success and the recognition of his peers without ever really rising to great heights.
Reg had met his future wife, Daphne, while still serving in the army. Granny was a hairdresser at the time and had once styled the hair of the wonderful Peggy Ashcroft, as she never tired of reminding us. Granny only worked for two years, but till the day she died she refused to let anyone else perm, dye or set her hair. ‘Why would I, when I’m a trained hairdresser?’ And so, in all the years I knew her, Granny’s hair never changed once. It was like she was stuck in a time warp.
My grandparents married in the late 1940s and moved from Bristol, where the Wills factory was based, to Peterborough. In 1950 they had their first daughter, Anne, and couldn’t have been happier. They were the perfect family unit. Grandpa was the warden at the local church, while Granny used to do the flowers. She didn’t work anymore, but his career was solid, if not amazing. They were both dependable, respectable people. Everything was just so. Everything, that is, except my mother.
Jennifer Mary Beavis was born in May 1954. By then Granny and Grandpa had settled into a nice routine with little four-year-old Anne. I’m sure they expected Mum to just fit into their schedule. From what I know of her, I doubt very much that happened. But for a while everything was fine. Church played a role in the family’s life, there were nice holidays on a beach somewhere, days out to Stonehenge, everything as it should be. Neither daughter wanted for much.
Both girls settled well into school in Peterborough. In fact, when Grandpa’s work moved the family to Saltdean, near Brighton, in 1960, he received a glowing report from Miss Franks, Mum’s headmistress. In it she said, ‘We shall be very sorry to lose Jennifer. She is one of our best scholars. Her reading is excellent. It is unusual for a child so young to be able to read so fluently.’
Reading the letter now is like reading about a stranger. Such potential . . .
Mum and Anne’s new school was Telscombe Cliffs Primary, after which they both qualified for the girls’ grammar school in Lewes, about a twenty-five-mile round trip every day. They’d catch the bus from Saltdean to Newhaven, then hop on a train to Lewes. Anne dutifully looked out for her little sister in the early years, but they were only together briefly before she left.
In short, each girl had a wonderful start to life. Most importantly, they had the same start. Same schools, same loving parents, same opportunities. So why did they take such different paths?
If Grandpa had plotted out