SUSAN

When I dressed Mary in her school uniform on her first day at school it took everything I had not to take it off her again and keep her at home with me. How could she be old enough for school? She wasn’t even five yet. In my heart, though, I knew she was ready. She was growing up fast.

Mary was a chatty kid and never more so that on that day. She had so many questions. Would she like school? Would she like her teacher? What would she learn? She asked all these and a hundred others. She’d woken up way before normal and had wanted to get dressed in her uniform almost as soon as she was up. She was so excited and, despite everything, so was I.

She was still chatting away as I washed her face and helped her to brush her teeth, and she was still at it as she wriggled into the uniform that I had taken such care to iron the night before. Then, there was just time for the finishing touches. I gently pulled the brush through her long, blonde hair over and over until it was as smooth as silk and was so glossy that it almost shone. I got quite emotional doing it, even though I’d brushed her hair thousands of times before. How different her hair was to mine at her age. I was on auto-pilot as I brushed and my mind started to wander until a four-year-old saying, ‘Plait, Mummy, plait,’ brought me back to the here and now. I looked at her in the mirror and saw that she was looking at me.

I loved the times that I brushed Mary’s hair, it was so intimate and I always felt so close to her. In response to her impatience I separated her hair into three strands and set about forming the hairstyle that my daughter preferred. I’d bought some satin ribbon in the same shade of green as her school cardigan and I secured the plait in place with an elastic band before covering it with the ribbon tied in a bow. She looked perfect.

She was ready for her first day at school.

I had a lot of time to think that day. It was the first time since the day that I’d left home that I’d had the whole day just to myself and I wasn’t sure what to do. I set about making a chocolate cake when I got home from the school and as that was baking I cleaned the living room and made the beds. I thought about scrubbing the kitchen floor and maybe the bathroom too but if I did those now, what would I have to occupy myself with the next day? So, after the cake was cooled and iced and the living room was sparkling, I had nothing else to do but sit in a chair and watch the clock hands move round until it was time to collect Mary.

Back then there wasn’t a lot in the way of daytime television so I picked up my book and tried to read but I couldn’t concentrate and after a while I stopped trying. In the end there was nothing else to do but give in to the thoughts that my mind was trying to have.

My mind went to where it had wanted to go that morning when I was brushing Mary’s hair, back to my first day at school. Had my mum felt the way I had? Somehow I had my doubts, but who knew? Had she felt the sense of loss that I was feeling now? My daughter’s baby days were behind her and, while I was excited that she was starting a new adventure, I couldn’t help grieving for the babyhood that she was leaving behind.

Look, I know I’m not making any sense, but anyone who has had a child that they have had to send off to school will know how I am feeling. I hadn’t been the only one at the school gates that morning with a tear in their eye. Had mum had a tear in her eye on my first day at school?

Had Mum ever had a tear in her eye for me?

I was, and am, immensely proud of my daughter. It wasn’t an easy life and I won’t pretend it was. We didn’t have a lot of money for treats, or even the necessities sometimes, but we managed and we did it together, just the two of us. But that morning I’d noticed that not many of the new starters were there with just one parent: most had two and some even had grandparents as well. The first day of school was a family occasion but I was all the family Mary had ever known. Her only other real points of reference were Mandy and Jade who were a family just like us. I don’t think she knew at that point what an aunt or an uncle was – they weren’t words she had ever had to use – but how long would it be before children that she met at school mentioned aunts, uncles and all the rest? She’d already asked a couple of questions about daddies when the kids at nursery had made Father’s Day cards. She wanted to know who she was supposed to give her card to. Where was her daddy? Did she even have one? I’ve always tried to be honest with Mary and told her that yes she did have a daddy but he was a long way away and we couldn’t send him the card right then. Children have a way of taking in the information they want and dismissing the rest so I was relieved when she said that she would keep the card until she could send it to him. She probably did keep the card, for a while at least, but I doubt she still has it now.

I silently thanked God when the clock had moved around to quarter to three and it was time to go and fetch Mary. The thinking was on hold, at least for a while.

Mandy gave me a hug when we met at the school gates. ‘It’ll get easier,’ she told me and asked me what I had done to fill the time. I told her about the cake and the cleaning but left out the bit about the hours sitting in the chair thinking and reminiscing.

Suddenly the schoolyard was full of children and I looked for Mary. There were children everywhere but I saw her when she was still halfway across the yard. She ran the last few yards and I opened my arms up and caught her when she jumped.

As soon as Jade appeared a couple of minutes later, the four of us walked away from the school together. I watched Mary and Jade holding hands skipping along just a couple of feet in front of Mandy and me and in my mind I was ten years old going home from school with Maggie. We had skipped home from school and we had been happy. Mary looked happy.

Once we had left Mandy and Jade at their front gate, Mary and I walked the rest of the way home holding hands together and Mary couldn’t help having the occasional skip. She was so happy, and I was happy for her, not to mention a little relieved that her first day seemed to have gone so well. I asked her to tell me about her day and it was like a tap being opened. She told me about Mrs Riley, her teacher, and the story that she had read to them that afternoon. She told me about Molly, the girl that she sat next to in class, and then she told me anything else she could remember. It came in no particular order, just as it popped into her mind.

She was still talking about her day as we sat together at the kitchen table eating the cake that I had made. She talked all of the time and got excited when she remembered something new. She only stopped when she went to bed because she was asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.

That night, as I sat in the living room of the home that I’d made for us I couldn’t help but start thinking again. I told myself that there was no point dwelling on things but I couldn’t help myself. It was as if Mum and the past were all that my mind wanted to turn to. I reminded myself yet again of what my mum would say and that was that I had made my bed so I would have to lie in it. That saying only strikes me as funny now, right at this moment as I’m talking to you, because Mum would always remake my bed again after I had done it. Don’t know why I’ve never thought of that before … the mind is a funny thing.

Anyway, to get back to the bed that I had made, I didn’t mind lying in it, most of the time anyway. I’ve said before that I did get lonely sometimes, especially at that part of the day when Mary was in bed and I only had myself for company. I didn’t mind most of the time but, now and again, it would have been nice to have someone to share my life or even just an evening with.

Mandy said that I needed a boyfriend.

Mandy had another boyfriend by that point. There’d been a few so I can’t remember which one exactly. Sometimes, if she was going to be out overnight, Jade would stay with us, otherwise Mandy’s neighbour would babysit. I’d only had the one date since Mary had been born, since Tim really, and well remembered how that had ended. I wasn’t in a rush to put myself through that again. Was this what my life was going to be like for ever?

The television did not make good company so I went to bed early. That night, before I went to sleep, I decided I should give Julie a ring again, though I didn’t really know what I was going to say.

The next morning Mary was already awake when I went into her bedroom. She was sitting up in bed, chatting away to her teddy, telling him that she had to go out today but she’d be back later to tell him about her day. She was so adorable.

I did ring Julie that day but there was no answer. Instead there was a machine saying that they weren’t there but if I’d like to leave a name and number they would get back to me.

Answer machines were pretty new back then and I hadn’t spoke to one much so I was a bit thrown. Not that I’ve ever got used to them and I still hate talking to them now. But anyway, I said who it was and that I hoped everyone was all right and that Mary had started school the day before and that she liked it. I also told Julie that I was sorry that I hadn’t been in touch for a while but I’d call again soon.

Maybe I would.

Mary soon settled into the way of going to school and I developed a new routine of my own. I cleaned the house every day but to be honest it didn’t need it most days and I sometimes used to find myself polishing things that already sparkled. Mum would have been proud of the way I kept the house. I had developed her habits of having a day for every job without even realising it. It was a good way of working.

Mary had been at school for about six months when I met Miriam in the High Street. Do you remember Miriam? She was Mandy’s next door neighbour when we lived in Palmer’s Court. Well, she was just coming out of the butcher’s when I was on my way to the Post Office.

‘Well, I’ll be blowed,’ she said. ‘If it isn’t Susan Thompson.’

I hadn’t seen her at first, her face was hidden under a big red head scarf, but I recognised her voice as soon as I heard it. ‘Miriam,’ I said, ‘how are you?’ I hadn’t seen her since we’d moved houses.

‘Not so bad, love, not so bad,’ she said, but I wasn’t sure I believed her. ‘Just the usual, you know, bloody arthritis.’

It was so good to see her. I thought about her and the other people that had lived in the flats a lot. Once upon a time they had been like family to me. Yet another family that I had lost touch with. Miriam asked me if I’d like to go for a cuppa and a catch up and I jumped at the chance.

We went to a café over the road from the Post Office where she must have been a regular because she shouted her order to the girl behind the counter who called Miriam by name. Miriam had asked for her ‘usual for two’ and the girl said she would bring it over.

It was lovely to see her but I couldn’t help noticing how she had aged in the couple of years since I had seen her last. How old was Miriam? I had no idea but I couldn’t think of anyone I’d ever seen who looked older.

She asked how Mary was and said she didn’t believe it when I told her that she had started school. She asked how I liked where I was living now and I said it was fine. I told her that Mary liked having her own room and a little garden to play in. She asked me how Mandy and Jade were and I told her that Jade was in the class above Mary and that Mandy had a new boyfriend. All just general chit chat, until Miriam said:

‘And what about your mum?’

‘What about her?’

‘Have you still not spoken to her?’

She made it sound like a bad thing and truth be told, I knew that it was, I hadn’t spoken to my mother in over five years.

‘No. I’ve spoken to my sister a couple of times though. In fact, I rang her the other day.’

‘How are things at home?’

‘I don’t know,’ I admitted, ‘she wasn’t in. I just left a message on her answer machine.’

We sat in silence for a few moments as the waitress brought over our drinks. There was a piece of Bakewell tart for each of us too.

‘Can’t have tea without a bit of cake,’ Miriam said as she spooned sugar into her drink and stirred it slowly. ‘It’s a treat for me now ’cause of my diabetes, but when my littl’uns were growing up there was always a cake in the tin.’

Littl’uns? What did she mean?

‘Surprises you, does it,’ she said, looking up from her cup, ‘that I have children?’

‘I’ve never heard you talk about them before. I just assumed that you didn’t have any,’ I said.

‘Might as well not have for all I see of them.’ She didn’t try to hide the sadness from her voice.

I didn’t know what to say so I waited for her to speak again.

‘I have a son, Thomas.’

I couldn’t help but see the tears that were forming as she added:

‘He lives in New Zealand. He was in the navy and met a lass from over there and married her. They’ve got a couple of kids but I’ve never seen them. And then I have a daughter, Brenda, and God knows where she is.’

Silence.

‘We had a falling out, you see, about her choice of boyfriend. She was all for this lad who was into drinking – and drugs as well, probably – and said that she was going to marry him. I said over my dead body she would and the next thing I knew she’d run off with him.’

I could only sit and watch her as she looked at me.

‘But do you know what, Susan? There’s not a day goes by that I don’t think of them, especially Brenda. At least I know that Thomas is settled, well I think he is, but I don’t know anything about Brenda. I don’t know where she is or how she is.’ She reached across the table and took hold of my hand, ‘And your mum will be the same love.’ I shook my head and Miriam shook my hand. ‘Yes she will, Susan. Trust me, I know.’

‘My mum wanted to hide me away in the country until my baby was born so that I could give the baby away and no one would ever know about it, about her, about Mary.’

‘Mary didn’t exist to your mum,’ Miriam said. ‘Only you existed; you, her daughter. Now I don’t know your mother but I think we’ve all got something in common and that’s that at the end of the day we want what’s best for our children. We want them to be better than we were.’ She squeezed my hand again, ‘Your mother just had a funny way of showing it.’

I shook my head. ‘No, she’s not like that.’

Something happened to me that day and I finally opened up to someone. ‘She never wanted me you know,’ I told her. ‘I walked in on my sisters talking one day and they said that mum had never wanted me. She didn’t pay me any attention when I was growing up; I was always in the way. She never sat me down and combed my hair until it shone and then tied it up with pretty ribbons. She ignored me most of the time; I was just in the way. And then when I got pregnant, she told me that I’d brought shame on the family, that’s why she wanted me to give my baby away. My baby, my Mary, was a dirty little secret that needed to be hidden from the neighbours.’

Two more cups of tea arrived without me even realising that Miriam had ordered them. She started to add sugar to her fresh cup. ‘Like I’ve told you before, love,’ she said, ‘for your mum, Mary did not exist as a person. If she met her now, she would see what a sweetheart she is and she would love her.’

‘I can’t go back now. How would she explain it to the neighbours? According to Julie she’s told them that I enjoyed Scarborough so much that I decided to stay there.’

‘Yes, well, if she came up with something to explain your disappearance I’m sure she’d find another reason for your return.’

‘And Mary’s?’

‘Look, it’s your decision, but if you want a bit of advice from a very old woman give your mum a second chance … before it’s too late.’

I said I’d think about it. And I did think about it; I thought about it long and hard and, after I had, I was torn. Like I’ve said a million times, I loved my mother and all I ever wanted was to be loved in return but could I risk being rejected again? And, more than that, could I risk Mary being rejected? Did my mother think about me every day as Miriam said she did her own children? Miriam said that all mothers had something in common so, being one myself, I tried to put myself in my mother’s position. How would I react? Was Miriam right about Mum only wanting to do what was best for me? I’ve said before that I believed making the problem disappear was probably the only way out she could see. One thing was certain, though. I knew for a fact that, if I was in her situation and regardless of what had happened between us, I would always love Mary and want to know how she was.

I don’t think I slept a wink that night, I just lay awake thinking about what Miriam had said and the things that had occurred to me since that conversation. A lot of things made sense now, especially the way that Miriam had treated both Mandy and me. We’d just thought it was because she was a nice old lady who was kind to us, but now I realised she was compensating for the family of her own that she couldn’t see. Somehow I couldn’t see my mum behaving the same way to make up for Mary and me not being there, but who knew? What if she was missing me? That thought had never occurred to me. What if she was sorry that things had turned out the way they had? Would that make any difference? I needed to give it a lot more thought.

Three days later my world was blown apart.

I was standing at the school gates waiting for Mary to come out of school when Mandy appeared beside me. She was red-faced and out of breath as though she had been running.

‘You’re not going to believe it,’ she said in between breaths.

‘What’s wrong?’ I had no idea what was going on and I couldn’t help being worried. Mandy was usually calm and cocky.

‘I saw Dan and Louise in town,’ she said when she had got her breath back, ‘you know the ones that live next door to Bob at Palmer’s Court. You’ll never guess what they told me.’

‘That’s funny,’ I said, ‘I saw Miriam the other day. We haven’t seen any of them in years and then both of us in the same week.’

She had a funny look on her face. ‘You never said you saw Miriam. How was she?’

‘She seemed fine, said her arthritis was playing her up.’ ‘Yes, well, Bob found her dead on the kitchen floor this morning.’

‘What?’

Mandy explained that Bob had been walking along the landing and happened to glance through the kitchen window of Miriam’s flat and saw her lying face down on the floor in her dressing gown. He rang for an ambulance but by the time the police broke the door down she was dead. Louise said that the paramedic reckoned she’d been there all night.

I don’t know if I went white but I knew that I felt sick. ‘I don’t believe it,’ I said and I had to struggle to control my breathing. I didn’t want to break down at the school gates.

‘I know. Poor old Miriam.’ She stroked my arm.

‘I just saw her the other day,’ I said, again. ‘We were talking just the other day. She said th–’

I stopped mid-sentence when I remembered what she had said. I blew out my cheeks and looked straight into Mandy’s eyes. ‘She said that’ – I could hear my voice shaking – ‘she thought I should contact my mum…’ I paused before the last bit, ‘…before it’s too late.’

I told Mandy about Miriam’s children, about the son that she hadn’t seen for years and the daughter who could be anywhere. I told her how Miriam reckoned that my mother would be thinking about me every day, wondering where I was and how I was doing.

‘Bloody hell,’ Mandy said as the sound of children running got louder.

When I caught sight of Mary running towards me I forced a smile onto my face.

The following week Mandy and I went to Miriam’s funeral. We’d gone to the library to read what Mum used to call the hatched matched and dispatched report in the local paper and read her obituary there. Mum always said that you could tell a lot by what was written in the paper after you died. Miriam’s didn’t say much at all. It gave her name, that she was a mother and grandmother and the details of her funeral. No ‘much loved’ this or ‘beloved’ that; just the bare details.

On the morning of the funeral, Mary had asked me why I was wearing the clothes that I was. I was wearing a black skirt with a white blouse under a black cardigan. Mary had probably never seen me in a skirt before. I told her that I was going to say goodbye to a friend of mine who was going away and I thanked God when she didn’t ask me where my friend was going.

The funeral was at 10 o’clock on a Friday morning and Mandy and I went straight to the crematorium after we’d dropped the girls off at school. I’d never been to a funeral before so I didn’t know quite what to expect, but I had thought there’d be more of a turnout. There were just her neighbours from Palmer’s Court and three old ladies who turned out to be the friends that she used to go to bingo with on a Tuesday afternoon.

Louise and Dan stood with Bob at one side of the open double door and the ladies at the other. We smiled at the ladies but went to stand with our former neighbours.

Louise gave us both a hug. ‘I’m glad you’ve both come,’ she said, ‘Miriam would have liked you to come.’

‘Aye,’ Dan chipped in. ‘Haven’t seen you in ages and then Lou happens to bump into Mandy and tell her about the old lass. They say God works in mysterious ways.’

‘I saw her just the other week,’ I told them. ‘She seemed fine – well as fine as she ever did.’

‘She said that she’d seen you and that you’d gone for a cup of tea together and had a catch up.’ Louise looked at me and then Mandy. ‘Miriam was very fond of you girls you know.’

‘And we were fond of her.’ I knew that I could speak for both of us.

Just then there was the sound of tyres on gravel as the hearse pulled up. I looked for another car, the one with her family in it, but it wasn’t there. There was just the hearse. Miriam’s family was nowhere in sight and huge, hot, wet tears formed in my eyes. How could they not be here? Louise put her arm round my shoulder and squeezed it.

As we followed the coffin into the crematorium, ‘Amazing Grace’ came out of the speakers on the wall. I’d once heard Miriam singing it to Mary when she was a baby and the memory brought more tears to my eyes. They just fell down my cheeks and off the end of my chin until Louise handed me a tissue and I wiped them away.

Miriam’s coffin was placed on a stand inside an alcove at the front of the building. A man in a suit seemed to be directing proceedings and when the pall bearers had disappeared back down the aisle he turned to us and welcomed us to what he called a celebration of our ‘dear friend’s life.’ To be honest, it wasn’t much of a celebration because he’d said all he had to say in less than five minutes, the curtains had closed in front of Miriam’s coffin and a song about eternal love was coming out of the speakers. Louise did tell me who it was singing but I’d never heard of them – never heard the song before either.

The ladies from the bingo nodded their goodbyes to us and walked away. The rest of us stood around like none of us knew what to do next.

‘We should do something to remember her by,’ Dan said, ‘give her a bit of a send-off.’

In the end we decided to go to the café that she and I had visited just a couple of weeks earlier. Miriam wasn’t a drinker but she did like her tea and Louise said that she’d visited that café at least twice a week for years. It seemed appropriate.

‘Miriam’s usual for five,’ I said to the girl behind the counter and no one disagreed. We sat at the same table that Miriam and I had and I couldn’t help but wonder if that had been her usual table. I decided to believe that it was.

The tea’s came along with a portion of Bakewell tart for each of us and we all tucked into Miriam’s usual. We chatted about how we all were. They asked how we liked it over on the estate, how the girls were doing, that sort of thing. We asked how they liked their new neighbours and were they all keeping well. After another round of Miriam’s special it was time to say our goodbyes.

Dan and Bob were already out the door with Mandy close behind them when Louise grabbed at my arm to hold me back.

‘You all right?’ I asked.

She looked through the door to where the other three stood on the pavement talking before she turned back to me and took a deep breath. ‘Miriam said that I was to tell you something if I ever saw you again,’ she said.

‘Oh?’ I was very curious.

‘Just a couple of days before she died she came into my kitchen when I was making the tea and told me that if I ever saw you again I was to tell you to think on what she had said.’ I wasn’t looking at her but I could feel her eyes on me. ‘She didn’t say any more than that so do you know what she was talking about?’

Oh yes, I knew what she was talking about.

After we left the café, Louise, Dan and Bob went one way and Mandy and I went the other. We all promised not to let it be so long next time.

‘What was all that about with Louise?’ Mandy asked

‘All what about?’ I said, trying to act dumb, but Mandy just raised an eyebrow at me as if to say you know fine what I’m talking about.

She knew me so well. ‘Miriam talked to Louise a couple of days before she died,’ I said, ‘and told her, if she ever saw me again, to tell me I had to think on what we had spoken about.’

‘But Miriam knew your story, didn’t she? She knew about your mum wanting to send you away and have Mary adopted.’

‘Yes, she knew all of that.’ We’d reached the bus stop by then; there were just the two of us there. ‘But like I’ve told you, she said that there wouldn’t be a day goes past that my mum wouldn’t think about me, wouldn’t wonder where I was, or how I was. She said that she thought of her son and daughter every day. She asked me how I would feel if it was Mary that had run away.’

Mandy isn’t often lost for words and I think that was the first time that I saw it happen, so I took advantage of it and carried on talking.

‘The thing is Mandy that I know if it was Mary I would never stop thinking about her, not for one second of one day. I would always wonder where she was, if she was safe, what she was doing. I don’t think that I could live without knowing all of those things.’

‘But that’s you and Mary.’

‘I’m still her daughter Mandy, and if Miriam was right, she really was only trying to do what was best for me, or rather, what she thought was best for me.’

‘Well she had a funny way of going about it.’

‘She was a very funny woman.’

We both laughed.

‘But do you know what, Mandy?’ It was time to admit the truth. ‘There’s hardly a day goes by that I don’t think about her too.’

***

I did think on what Miriam had said. I thought about nothing else all afternoon. I also thought about Miriam’s children. Did they even know that their mother was dead? Surely someone had contacted her son? Maybe not, because surely if they had he would have come to his own mother’s funeral, no matter what had happened between them over the years. New Zealand wasn’t the moon; there were planes. Louise had said that Miriam had organised and paid for her own funeral, it was as though she was resigned to the fact that there would be no family to take care of such things. But how could there be if they didn’t know she was dead? I was going round in circles around myself and the only thing that I knew for sure was that I could be that daughter, the one that wasn’t at their own mother’s funeral because I didn’t know they were dead. I didn’t think I wanted to be that person.

The deal was clinched that afternoon when I picked Mary up from school. She came running across the yard clutching a parcel wrapped up in pink tissue paper.

‘What’s that?’ I asked her.

‘A present for you,’ she said.

For me? Why? Of course. It would be Mother’s Day in two days’ time.

She held on to it all the way home and then put it on a shelf and told me that I couldn’t have it until Sunday. She looked at it every now and then as though making sure it was still there.

‘Have you got a present for your mummy?’ She asked later on, when we were sitting at the table eating our tea. She just came out with it, there was no warning and her question took me by surprise. What was I supposed to say to her?

I settled for: ‘No.’

She looked at me across the table with her knife and fork held upright in her tiny hands. ‘Why?’ And then, as she went back to attacking her spaghetti hoops on toast she asked, ‘Where is your mummy?’

She’d never asked about my parents before but I guess school was opening her up to lots of things, like family for instance. Oh, sod it. I took a deep breath.

‘My mummy lives in a different town and I haven’t seen her for a long time. Not since before you were born.’

She didn’t look up from her task of getting as many hoops on the fork as she could. ‘Why?’

Oh well, in for a penny and all that. ‘We fell out.’

Now she looked up. ‘You fell out?’

‘Yes.’

‘With your mummy?’ It was as though it was beyond her comprehension, which to be fair, it probably was. She stared at me with those big eyes of hers and for the first time I realised that they were my mother’s eyes. How had I never seen that before? Maybe I had just not wanted to acknowledge it. ‘You won’t ever fall out with me will you?’

I pushed myself away from the table and so did she. I fell to my knees on the carpet and let her run into my arms. ‘No, my darling,’ I said to her. ‘I will never fall out with you.’ I hugged her and felt I never wanted to let her go.

That night when she was safely tucked up in bed I got the bus timetable out of my bag and scoured it. There was one bus to my home town on Sunday and it left at eleven o’clock. I would be there on Mother’s Day. I was going home.