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I looked up at her then and, with a sinking heart, recognized the anger in her face. The anger I had seen in her eyes when I had first tried to tell her about my father’s kiss had returned.
‘Why do you always have to make such a fuss?’ she asked, her voice almost a hiss. ‘Why do you always have to cause trouble? There is nothing wrong with the way you look; you always were a vain little girl.’
I knew then that any chance I had of being accepted by improving my appearance had gone, and I knew my mother well enough not to argue. Disagreeing with her would result in the one punishment I could not endure, that of being completely ignored.
Every day, as I walked to school with my hands and feet equally cold, I dreaded the day ahead – the unfriendliness of the children, the thinly veiled contempt of the teachers – and I searched my brain for a way of making them like me.
My homework was always meticulously done, my marks high, but somehow I knew that only added to my unpopularity. I noticed that on our breaks other children would have sweets, fruit pastels or sticky toffees. Sometimes these were swapped for marbles, always they were coveted as bargaining tools. Sweets I knew were something children liked, but how could I buy any with no pocket money? Then I saw my opportunity. Once a week the teacher collected the school-dinner money from both classrooms and placed it in a tin box, which she left on her desk. I hatched a plan.
I waited for the other children to leave, quickly went up to the desk, opened the box and took as much of the money as I could stuff into my baggy, elastic-legged knickers. For the rest of that day I walked cautiously around the school, feeling the coins pressing against my skin, reminding me of my guilt. I dreaded that their clinking would reveal me as the thief, but felt jubilant at the success of my plan.
Naturally, once the theft was discovered, our whole class was interrogated and our satchels were searched. Nobody, however, seemed to think of doing a strip search.
I was a very quiet child, because I was very depressed. I appeared well behaved on the surface, but nobody took any interest in how I was feeling underneath. As a result I was the last child to be suspected. When I went home that night I buried the money in the garden. A few days later I dug up a small amount of change, with which I bought a bag of sweets from the village shop on the way to school.
Sidling up to other children in the playground with an uncertain smile on my face, I stretched my arm out with the bag, offering them around. I was immediately surrounded. Hands dipped into my bag, children jostled each other as they eagerly snatched my offerings. I stood in the centre of the group, hearing them laughing and feeling for the first time that I was part of them. A wave of happiness hit me as I felt finally accepted. Then my bag was empty, the last sweet was gone. The laughter, I realized, was at me as the children melted away with whoops of glee as quickly as they had appeared.
I knew then that although they liked the sweets, they were never going to like me. After that day they liked me less for they could sense how desperately I wanted their approval and despised me for it.
I remembered then the visits to Mrs Trivett’s house and the question I would always put to her: ‘What are little girls made of?’ I remembered her reply, and thought now that I must be made of a different substance.
Iwould always be exhausted by the time I had walked home, but I still had homework to do. I would sit at the table in our kitchen, which also doubled as our sitting room, trying desperately to stay awake. The only heat came from the cooking range at the far end of the room, the only light from the oil-fuelled Tilly lamps, which gave out a dim, orangey glow.
Once my homework was finished, I would try to sit closer to the warmth of the range and read, or I would watch my mother put a griddle pan onto the stove. Onto it she poured a batter mixture, which magically turned into drop scones or soda bread. We had to be as self-sufficient as possible in those days. Bought cakes and bread were considered to be as great a luxury as red meat or fresh fruit. If it was not home grown we simply didn’t buy it.
We had our chickens, which not only provided us with a regular source of eggs but also paid in part for the groceries we bought from the twice-weekly van. Potatoes and carrots were supplied from our vegetable patch, and when I went to the neighbouring farm to collect milk I also collected the buttermilk that my mother used for baking.
Now that I was seven and a half I could read fluently and, during the time we spent at the thatched house, my love for books grew. A mobile library would come at the weekends and I could choose whichever books I wanted. Apart from my animals, books were my escape. I could disappear into other worlds of fantasy, adventure and fun. I could play detective with Enid Blyton’s ‘Famous Five’, explore the underwater world of the Water Babies and feel frightened by Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Little Women showed me how women could be independent. I dreamt of being like Jo when I grew up. Under the light of the Tilly lamps I could have secret adventures with imaginary friends and vanish with them into a life where I was beautifully dressed and where everyone liked me. As my love of reading grew, so did my father’s resentment of it.
He never read more than the sports section in the newspaper and considered my mother’s and my interest in books a waste of time. Whereas he didn’t dare criticize her, he had no qualms in venting his displeasure on me.
‘What are you doing that for?’ he’d grumble. ‘Can you not find something better to do? Does your mother not need you to help? See if there is some washing up to do.’
Another time he’d say, ‘What about your homework?’
When I replied, ‘I’ve finished it,’ he’d give a disdainful grunt. Unnerved, I would feel his resentment wash over me and pray for bedtime so that I could make my escape.
Full of resentment for anybody who might be happy or educated, my father’s rages and tempers were unpredictable. There were the times when he came home quite early, bringing my mother and me sweets and chocolates. Those were the evenings when the jovial father would appear with hugs for my mother and friendly greetings for me. In my mind I had two fathers, the nasty one and the nice one. The nasty one I was very scared of, while the nice one, whom I remembered meeting us at the docks, was the laughing, good-humoured man whom my mother loved. I was only ever allowed rare glimpses of the nice father now, but always hoped for more.
In the spring my father rented a wooden barn, which he said he could keep all his tools in, so that he could repair the car. Housing the chickens, he said, had taken up all the available sheds near the house. This would save us money, he said, since he was a qualified mechanic. Wouldn’t it be stupid to be paying other men good money for a job he could do better himself?
My mother agreed with him, which put him in a good humour and suddenly his manner towards me changed. He stopped always being cross, criticizing everything I did. From alternating between wanting me out of the way, ignoring me or shouting at me, he suddenly became friendly all the time. Remembering his hasty fumbles that time when my mother was out of the room, I viewed his overtures with suspicion, but I forced my doubts to one side because, above everything else, I had a desperate need to be loved by my parents. I should have trusted my instincts.
‘She’s done so much homework this week,’ he said to my mother one evening. ‘She’s had all those long walks to school and back, I’ll take her out for a drive in the car.’
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