Escape From Evil - Cathy Wilson [7]
Half a dozen four-year-olds singing ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ while attempting a loose interpretation of the tune is not everyone’s cup of tea, but the mayor, bless him, led the whooping and clapping like it was the Last Night of the Proms.
The fun didn’t stop there. Of the six, I was then asked if I’d mind having my picture taken for the local rag down on the beach. ‘Of course,’ I replied, convinced my musical prowess had set me apart, and off we went. Sadly, there was no glockenspiel this time. Instead I was handed a chunky plastic airport, aimed at cashing in on the new craze of foreign holidays, and asked to play with it in the sand for a few minutes while photographers snapped away. Mum or Granny kept a clipping from the newspaper, which I found in my box of memories.
It’s not bad as earliest reminiscences go, is it? Quite memorable, in fact. Pictures in the local press and hobnobbing with do-gooders and dignitaries. Unfortunately, that wasn’t my daily routine. Away from the spotlight, life was very different.
I don’t know if they were running away from their problems, following my father’s work or just trying to prove that they didn’t need anyone else, but shortly after their wedding my parents moved up to Stockport. Years later, I would let myself be persuaded to do something similar. For me, it was a disaster; for Mum, it wouldn’t turn out well either. But right then, at the start, they had me and they had each other. I’m sure they thought they could take on the world. Then reality caught up with them.
At first it was the perfect set-up: Dad worked and Mum looked after me. As the weeks turned into months, however, being cut off from her friends and family began to take its toll. The new home that had been an escape from the nagging of their families now became a prison. The more she was left on her own, the more trapped Jenny felt.
As if it wasn’t bad enough that Mum had had a baby at fifteen followed by a shotgun wedding, breaking it to my grandparents that she and my father were going to separate didn’t exactly get the bunting hung in the streets. As far as they were concerned, things were going from bad to worse. At least Jenny being so far away spared them the initial public embarrassment.
Even so, I know that Mum only had to ask and they would have welcomed her back to live with them. Even with a toddler in tow. But she was too proud to ask and Grandpa was too stubborn to suggest it. He wanted her to admit she’d made mistakes. Mum refused. What had happened, had happened. To confess to mistakes was to admit she was unhappy with the way her life had turned out. It would have been an insult to her beautiful baby. To me.
I’m sure, however, that if Mum had gone cap in hand to Grandpa he would have helped out financially. As disappointed and angry as he was, she was still his daughter. She was still the mother of his granddaughter. All Mum had to do was ask and he would have put his hand in his pocket. But that was the last thing she would have done. That would be like admitting defeat. During the adoption discussions, she had argued that she would be able to take care of her own baby. Now she had to prove it.
But talk about the blind leading the blind! Jenny Beavis was eighteen years old when her husband packed his bags. No one had told her how to be a mum. It wasn’t that long ago that she was still playing with her own dolls. Yet there she was, alone in a flat in Stockport with a two-year-old, trying to put food on the table on a non-existent income and wondering when her luck was going to change.
And while she was confined to chasing a toddler around, her friends down south were out partying, working or going on to