Girl With Dove: A Life Built By Books. Sally Bayley

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      Preface

       The Reader’s Backstory

      All stories have backstories, at least all stories worth knowing about, and all readers want to pry into those unlit spaces. We read to get back to those dark and dusty corners, to scrape back to old patterns: the strange symbol beneath the damp plaster, the squiggles on the crumbling wall. Reading is a strong torch shining through the dark.

      As a child I was terrified of the story of Sleeping Beauty and the jealous old fairy who stalks the palace grounds. The fairy is furious that someone so enchanting should live, so she casts a spell on Beauty. Soon after, Beauty pricks her finger on a spindle; the needle is so sharp, and cuts so deep, that everyone is sure Beauty will bleed to death.

      But another, kinder, fairy turns back the spell so that Beauty will not die, but instead sleeps for a hundred years. Everyone agrees that this is better than nothing: sleeping is better than dying. But from that day on, the king and queen begin to watch their daughter and worry. Not a day goes by that they don’t think of that sharp needle cutting through their fair daughter’s skin.

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      Reading is a form of escape, and an avid reader is an escape artist. I began my escape the moment I started to read. Aged four, I already had sentences stored up; I knew some words and I could put them together in a line.

      But Mum didn’t have enough time to help me. She was managing babies and nappies; she was turning dingy cotton nappies from grey to white. Back from grey to white, sparkling white.

      But white is very hard to get back once it’s been ruined. Mum used that word a lot. To ruin something was to turn it from white to grey. Nappies were never completely ruined, because you could boil them and bring them back to life. Nappies could always start again, as long as you kept them on the boil for long enough and didn’t mind the steam.

      Mum hated plastic on babies’ bottoms. She preferred cotton, and cotton needed cooking to make it clean.

      Every day Mummy boiled the nappies inside a large grey saucepan that sat on the hob. I climbed on a stool and peered down into the grey water. I stirred the nappies with a wooden spoon, and I was the Nappy Witch.

      Mummy took out the nappies and hung them on the backline. They flapped in the breeze. I ran underneath them, and when they touched my scalp I screamed. Nappies were hard and scratchy. I asked Mummy why nappies weren’t soft, and she said they had to be strong so they could take all that scalding hot water.

      ‘But why do you boil them so much, Mummy? You’re making them hard.’

      ‘You can’t have those nasty plastic things so close to a baby’s bottom. Cotton is what you should put next to a baby’s bottom, nice strong cotton.’

      Strong cotton, strong cotton, strong cotton. Strong cotton. I sat beneath Strong Cotton and I felt my brother’s fingers and toes. Strong cotton kept out the sky, strong cotton kept the wind away. Strong cotton kept babies nice and safe.

      I made a tent from strong cotton and put my baby brother David in it. David was Baby Jesus and I was Mary, which, by the way, is my middle name.

      ‘Where on earth have you put the baby?’ Mummy asked. ‘Stop playing silly devils.’ Her face was hot and red and the clouds were poking up from behind.

      ‘He’s here, Mummy. He’s asleep, beneath the strong cotton.’

      ‘I can see that, young lady, I’m not blind. Stop playing silly devils with the baby. Leave him there under the tree, near the roses, where I told you. I want him out where I can see him.’

      Mummy stuck her nose in the air and went back into the kitchen.

      Then one day David went missing. I couldn’t find him anywhere. He was no longer beneath the roses when I went out after lunch. I put my hand inside his cot and felt soft white cotton on my hands, bare white cotton, warm cotton, and I yelled,

      ‘Mummy, Mummy, David’s not here! Mummy, Mummy, David’s not here! Mummy, Mummy, where is David, Mummy, where is David?’

      Sometime in the summer of 1976, the very hot summer, the summer we were all dripping-hot and cross, the Nappy Witch came and took David away, and Mummy went to bed for a very long time. She went for two hundred sleeps, maybe more. Soon after, the Lady Upstairs moved in and Mummy fell under a thick, dark spell. She didn’t wake for years.