‘Oh dear, pet, I’m getting too old for this,’ she’d say, shaking her head.
Once we were both snuggled down in Nanny’s soft bed, she’d tell me a story. I’d lie there, inhaling the sweet scent of her face cream, and listen transfixed. She would tell me about growing up in a little village near Durham where the fields were full of schoolbook-eating goats, and elves and fairies too. I can’t remember the end of any of these stories because what with the comforts of my dummy, picky bit and Nanny’s soft lilting voice, it wouldn’t be long before I was in the land of nod.
When I was three and a half, I started going to the local nursery school every morning. Nanny would walk me there, waddling from side to side. We’d often have to stop for a few minutes because her legs were aching but she was always cheerful and we’d sing a song or two on the way. I didn’t like nursery at first and would sob and cling to Nanny, at which point she’d let out a little cry and say ‘Mind me legs, pet.’ But it didn’t take long before I started to enjoy it. There were so many toys to play with, so many things to do. I was in my element–up to my elbows in the sandpit or water-play tank, painting, drawing, gluing, sticking, and making friends. Just before home time we’d sing songs such as ‘I’m a little teapot’ and ‘If you’re happy and you know it’. The teacher, Mrs Paterson, would stand in front of us doing the actions. Then we’d gather up our things and spill out into the little playground to wait for whoever was collecting us.
Normally Nanny was one of the first to arrive. I’d often spot her from quite a way off as I recognised the way she walked. I’d jump up and down and wave, and when she managed to pick me out from all the other children, she’d wave back. We had a ritual in which once she reached the diamond-wire fence I’d run up to her and she’d bend down positioning her cheek for a kiss through the wire. I’d rush out through the school gate and thrust a painting or maybe a glitter-studded egg box at her. No matter how awful my offerings, Nanny always lavished praise on my artistic talents before reaching into her pocket and producing a little packet of my favourite Love Hearts sweeties.
Then one day I was waiting in the playground as usual, but Nanny didn’t appear. I looked down the road but couldn’t see her. Gradually the playground cleared of all the other boys and girls until there was only me and Mrs Paterson left. She stood shielding her eyes from the sun as she peered down the empty road.
‘Oh dear, Lisa, Nan’s a bit late today. Never mind. Come back inside and look at a book until she gets here.’
I sat on the blue square carpet in the reading corner, my legs crossed in front of me. The bright sun streamed in through the window, burning the top of my head. I shuffled over a bit into the shade, but found myself sitting in front of a huge cast-iron radiator which scorched my back through my coat. I was hot and hungry. Where was Nanny? Why hadn’t she come?
I shrugged off my yellow plastic raincoat and pulled a book from the shelf in front of me. Mrs Paterson sat at the other end
of the classroom with a paperback in one hand, a sandwich in the other. Her eyes remained firmly on her book and I wondered if she had forgotten about me. After a while the door opened. My heart lifted for a moment, but sank with my spirits when I saw it was only another teacher bringing a cup of tea for Mrs Paterson. They murmured together and the other teacher, someone I didn’t recognise, looked over and said, ‘Don’t worry, love.’
I could hear the sound of the older children playing outside in the Junior playground. Some girls were playing a skipping game, the rope whacking the ground in regular beats as they sang about apples and pears. There was stinging behind my eyes, and soon the picture book on my lap was speckled with tear drops. I gave a loud sniff and wiped my nose on the sleeve of my jumper. Mrs Paterson turned to me. ‘Don’t worry, Lisa. It’s all under control.’ I didn’t know what she meant.
The bell rang to start lunchtime lessons. I had been waiting for over an hour but it felt like days. I needed to use the loo, but didn’t want to risk going in case I missed Nanny when she finally arrived. It was at times like this I needed my dummy and picky bit the most. Just when I felt a fresh wave of tears threatening to flow, Uncle Jimmy bustled in through the classroom door. A lady I recognised from the school office was with him. He looked out of breath and red in the face, as if he’d been running. He spoke to Mrs Paterson for a few minutes, both their faces very glum. I couldn’t hear everything they were saying but at one point Mrs Paterson raised her eyebrows and said, ‘Hospital?’ Uncle Jimmy nodded and then shrugged his shoulders. I was still sitting on the carpet in the
reading corner. I saw Mrs Paterson point over to me and Uncle Jimmy caught my eye and said ‘Get your coat on, Lisa.’
I did as I was told, feeling more and more confused. Uncle Jimmy had never picked me up before. As Nanny had taught me, I clasped each of my sleeves with the tips of my fingers so they wouldn’t bunch up, and slipped my arms into my coat. Outside Uncle Jimmy took my hand in his own, rough and scratchy from working on building sites, and led me off towards home. ‘Where’s Nanny gone?’ I asked, but he didn’t say anything, just kept striding on, his steel-capped boots tapping on the pavement with each step.
Later, I found out Nanny had been rushed to hospital after a fall. My aunts Jenny and Freda took me to visit her after dinner. Nanny looked her usual self, lying on a bed. I knew she had fresh bandages on her legs because they were bright white, not like the old yellow ones she had at home. I noticed she had a tube going into her arm and water was dripping into it from a bag hooked up beside her bed. It made it hard for her to give me a cuddle, but Freda lifted me up and I sat on the edge of the bed and began picking the blanket, running the wool through my fingers. Nanny stroked my hair for a minute and said sorry she hadn’t been able to collect me from school but she was nearly better now and soon we’d be able to get back to normal.
‘No, Mum,’ said Freda. ‘It’s too much for you running up and down after a kid all day. The doctor reckons you need rest.’
‘I’ll talk to Donna,’ said Jenny. ‘It’s about time she started taking responsibility. After all, she
is
her mother.’
Nanny stayed in hospital that night, and Jenny, Freda and Jimmy had a bit of an argument about who had time to take me to nursery in the morning. In the end, it was decided that Uncle Jimmy would do it. ‘But I better not miss me bus,’ he said, exhaling a big smoky cloud as he spoke.
It was dark when we set off the next morning and Uncle Jimmy kept snapping at me to keep up, while looking at his watch and muttering rude words under his breath. When we arrived the main school gate was padlocked shut. We were too early.
‘Gordon Bennett!’ he cried, smacking his hands on top of his head and pulling at his wiry black hair. ‘What am I meant to do now? I’m definitely gonna miss me bleedin’ bus!’ He started rattling the gates and shouting ‘Oi, Oi!’ at the top of his voice. ‘They’re in there. Look–I can see ’em drinking bloody tea. Oi! Oi!’
I could just about make out Mrs Paterson and another teacher moving around in the classroom. The windows were brightly lit against the dark drizzly morning and I could see their shapes through the frosted glass. They were totally oblivious to Uncle Jimmy, who continued shouting and waving as he desperately tried to get their attention. Suddenly he stopped as if a thought had occurred to him. He began to smile as he examined the padlock. I watched as he dug deep into one pocket and then the other, his smile momentarily fading until he found what he was looking for. He pulled out a small metal pin, which he wiggled in the lock, saying ‘This should do it.’ After a moment or two, the padlock clicked open, and Uncle Jimmy let out a roar of triumphant laughter.
I laughed too, pleased to see him happy. ‘Is that magic?’ I asked.
‘You could say that,’ he chuckled, ushering me through the gate. He watched me walk halfway across the playground and then called after me, ‘And tell them two deaf-aids in there to wash their bleedin’ ears out.’ With a final wave he sprinted off round the corner to catch his bus.
As I entered the classroom, I made Mrs Paterson jump in surprise and she dropped a pot of pencils. ‘Lisa!’ she cried. ‘How on earth did you get through a locked gate?’
‘My uncle let me in,’ I replied, hanging my coat on a peg as my face burned bright red. Drawing on all my three-and-a-half-year-old’s wisdom, I decided not to mention the ear-cleaning business.
W
hen I was four, my life changed drastically. Nanny’s painfully ulcerated legs and deteriorating health meant she was housebound for much of the time. On good days, she could still get out to the local shops and do the cooking and cleaning she enjoyed so much, but she was totally ill-equipped to keep up with the energetic needs of a young child. So it was decided I should live with my mother from now on. Although Nanny did her best to make it all seem like a huge exciting adventure, carefully mopping up both our tears with a sweet-scented hankie, I was bewildered as she started to pack a battered red suitcase with my things.
‘Don’t cry, pet,’ she sobbed over the jumpers she’d knitted for me. ‘You’ll always be my special little lamb.’
‘But why do I have to go?’ I asked. ‘Why can’t I stay here with you?’
‘You know how poorly Nanny’s legs are,’ she explained, clicking the case shut. ‘I just can’t look after you properly any more, pet. It breaks my heart, but I’ll see you all the time. And don’t forget you’ll have your mummy. You like her, don’t you, pet?’
I popped my dummy in for comfort, as fresh tears ran down my cheeks.
‘And then there’s Diane and Cheryl. It’s about time you got to know your sisters,’ Nanny went on. ‘And Davie, too.’
No matter what she said to make it better, I felt only confusion and fear. One day I was safe in the warmth and comfort of her arms, and the next I was rattling around in a strange flat with a family I hardly knew. Mummy didn’t seem to want me there at all. I could tell by the way she pushed me off whenever I tried to cuddle her, and shouted whenever I wet the bed, which I started to do every night.
‘What you pissing the bed for, you stupid girl?’ she yelled. ‘Now you’re gonna have to sleep in it tonight, ’cos I ain’t got any clean sheets.’
Mummy’s flat was just off Peckham High Street, only fifteen minutes from Nanny’s place, on the first floor of a huge red council block. I found the flat quite scary at first because it was dominated by a long dark hallway we called The Passage. There were three bedrooms. Diane and Cheryl, both teenagers now, shared one. I was put in with Davie, who was ten and long used to having a bedroom all of his own, where his little collections were arranged just so. It must have been quite a shock to find himself sharing with a whirlwind of a four-year-old sister he’d had little contact with before. This led to endless fights and squabbles. The more he warned me not to touch his ship in a bottle, the more I wanted to look at it from every angle as I wondered how it had got in there through such a small opening. His plastic English and German soldiers were carefully arranged, ready for battle, but
I couldn’t help mixing them up–and the impulse to chew the ends of the rifles was impossible to resist. Davie didn’t mind me looking at his
Beano
comics as long as I didn’t tear, crumple or scribble on any of them. I tried my best not to but didn’t always succeed. But it was the time he caught me playing dress-up with his prized Millwall hat and scarf that finally broke the camel’s back. After that, Mummy squeezed my bed into the corner of the girls’ room. I was pleased with this arrangement for a number of reasons. One, it meant that I didn’t have to put up with a big brother who would pin me down and dribble spit into my face any more; two, I was away from the scary cupboard in his room with its resident monster; and three, Diane and Cheryl’s room had much more interesting things for me to play with, such as high-heeled platform boots, spangly tops and make-up.
Our front room was L-shaped with an open fire where we burned coal, and it had a small balcony that overlooked a grassy square outside. Unfortunately we couldn’t use the balcony because it was full of old junk, such as broken sinks and bits of wood. The kitchen was small with a narrow little window so high above the sink that nobody could see out of it. There was a separate toilet with a long metal chain that was so stiff I had to hang on to it to flush it. It was my least favourite place in the whole flat because every time I went in, the spider’s web in the corner seemed to have grown. I even saw a dead fly in it once. The bathroom smelled of mould, and was always cold and damp. It had another of the tiny windows so characteristic of the flat, high up near the ceiling, but this one was filled with rippled frosted glass. Mummy’s bedroom
was closest to the front door, and smelled of a mixture of Youth Dew perfume and cigarette smoke. The flat was often untidy and furnished with an odd assortment of furniture that had seen better days, but it was homely and clean enough. I quickly settled in, and pretty soon I felt as though I’d lived there forever.
Just after I’d moved in with Mummy, the council offered Nanny and my aunts a transfer to a lovely new maisonette over the road from our place. Their block sat atop a row of shops, and their flat was right on the end above the newsagent’s. Nanny, Jenny and Freda moved in, and Uncle Jimmy stayed a while before moving in with Uncle Roy and Auntie Brenda in Essex. So although I didn’t actually live with Nanny any more, I didn’t have a chance to miss her much because her flat was like a second home. I would visit every day, often having meals there, and whenever I came in and out of our block, I could look over and see her windows. On sunny days, winter and summer, Nanny and Freda would sit out on their balcony watching the world go by so we were always waving and blowing kisses. Mummy was a barmaid at Uncle Bob’s pub, often working double shifts at lunchtime and in the evening, so having Nanny so close by was ideal for her. She never had to worry about childcare arrangements because Nanny, Jenny and Freda were always on hand, dependable as ever.