Escape From Evil - Cathy Wilson [51]
Granny, on the other hand, had her own way of getting through such a difficult time. Whenever the subject of my father came up, she couldn’t help but be scathing about him. At first I thought it was because he hadn’t taken a role in my upbringing. Then I realized her anger went deeper. He was the one, in her eyes, who had got her daughter pregnant and then abandoned mother and child. He was the one who’d walked away and let her fall into the clutches of those wicked men. By not being there, he’d let her die.
In her eyes, he was to blame for everything.
I never dared ask about my dad for that reason. Not that I cared anyway. He was just a name to me. Other kids had dads – I didn’t. That’s how it was. One more thing that was normal to me. I never gave it a moment’s thought.
Reviewing my relationship with my mother today, it’s obvious that our roles had been reversed. For so much of the time I was the carer and she the dependant. I was the one worrying about laundry, about getting food on the table. I never questioned it. That’s just how we lived. Moving in with my grandparents obviously flipped the adult/child dynamic back to normal – but not entirely. While they provided for me far better than Mum had ever managed, emotionally they seemed to need pepping up. They were the ones moping about Mum’s death, long after I’d stopped. They were the ones who couldn’t get through a meal without one of them mentioning it and Granny breaking down and Grandpa sitting there in silence, tears not far from his eyes. Of course I missed her more than anything and I would spend hours dwelling on how she’d died from cold, wondering what I could have done to save her. But I suppose I adapted to the new situation faster than my grandparents did.
Going back to school probably helped. When you have a routine, it’s easier to stop your mind wandering back to dark thoughts. The trouble was, when I left the house Granny and Grandpa had nothing to do all day except dwell on everything that had happened. They’d still be doing it when I came home. I thought I was coping so well. It seemed a point of pride that I just had to get on with things. That’s what I’d always done, whatever life had thrown at me.
I’m a coper. I’m in control.
Then, one day at school, I realized I wasn’t in control of anything.
Everyone else in my class could read and write whereas, after a few months, I could still barely scribble my own name. I’d just never been taught how. But I’d picked up some basic reading skills at Telscombe Cliffs. I could sound out short words and names and I was getting better every day. It wasn’t a thirst for knowledge that drove me on, though. I just hated the idea that everyone else in the class could do something better than me. I’d been Miss Independent for so long that being at the back of the queue for anything cut me deeply. So, not only was I a coper and in control, I was a winner too.
In those early days at my new school in Saltdean, I would stare at anything that looked like it had words on and try to decipher the strange hieroglyphics. Initially I didn’t get very far, but I persevered. Add ‘fighter’ to the list.
I’d been there a month or two when the teacher said we were going to do art. I knew the drill, so when everyone else went to a cupboard and got out old newspapers to cover the tables with, I did the same. Unlike everyone else, though, I was more interested in trying to work out what the headlines said than what I was meant to be painting. Most of it was impenetrable to me, but there were also a lot of words written in really large type that I could translate. Even some of the smaller print was manageable. And two words in particular virtually leapt out.
‘Jennifer Wilson’.
I checked and double-checked the spelling. That’s definitely what it said.
Mum? Why was she in a newspaper? Suddenly my painting was over. I stared at those two words. What are they saying about Mum? My brain