My Secret Sister: Jenny Lucas and Helen Edwards' Family Story by Helen Edwards, Jenny Lee Smith Page A
Authors: Helen Edwards, Jenny Lee Smith
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Auntie Edna lost Bobby, her budgie. He flew out of the open window, and Auntie Edna was inconsolable because Bobby wasn’t just any old budgie. He could say a lot of words. He could even say his name and address. She was so upset that all the family had to rally round, regardless of the weather – the snowdrift on our front doorstep was so deep that we had to dig our way out of the house. Local kids were sledging in the street and throwing snowballs at each other and I wanted to join in, but all the family were detailed to go out and hunt for Bobby the budgie. We went down all the local streets, calling out his name, but there was no sign of him. We asked around, but nobody had seen him. We all trudged home that night through a blizzard, tired, freezing and disappointed that we hadn’t found him.
Auntie Edna put a lost budgie notice in the Evening Chronicle the next day, but had no calls. She was devastated. It seemed hopeless. But a week later, somebody rang her doorbell. It was a family from the other side of the Town Moor, several miles away, with Bobby the budgie in a box. They had found the bedraggled bird in their garden, thin and cold, but alive and relatively well, considering his ordeal.
‘When we saw him,’ the man told Auntie Edna, ‘the budgie just kept saying, “Bobby Scott. 28 Fairfield Road”.’
CHAPTER 9
Helen
Home Alone
Schooldays were the best because I was out of the house and with other people. I loved school and made lots of friends, but they would never come back to my house. Later I discovered why – they were all terrified of my father. School holidays, therefore, were lonely. Each day Mum left early, telling me, ‘Stay in bed till I get back.’ She went off to work in the farmhouse, where she did all their domestic chores, including their laundry, hating it. She never let us forget how much she hated it.
Those mornings were long in the empty house, sitting in bed with only colouring books to keep me company till her return at lunchtime, when I was allowed to get up. I wasn’t even allowed to go down and watch the television that my father had bought when we moved to Murton village, but I suppose there would only have been black and white westerns to watch in those days.
My bedroom was an empty space. I was never allowed pictures or posters. I had no furniture, except a cardboard box for a night-table. Even my light bulb lacked a shade. I slept on an old pipe-framed hospital bed my dad had found in a scrapyard and painted white to hide the rust. It was a spring-base with a hospital mattress, full of lumps the size of tennis balls. Fortunately, it didn’t occur to me then to wonder how many people had died or were incontinent on that mattress. I was aware of the contrast between my barren bedroom with its cold lino floor and my parents’ elegant boudoir, carpeted and decked out with a ‘Swedish design’ suite and frilled soft furnishings.
Mercia never lit a fire in our house till lunchtime when she got home, so it was often bitterly cold while I waited. I spent long hours wrapped in a blanket with my nose pressed up against my bedroom window, drawing pictures in the condensation, watching the farm workers drive their tractors to and fro in the farmyard opposite our house. At least with my parents both at work there was no friction during those times. Alone was always the safest place for me.
During this period, when I was about seven or eight, my father’s practical jokes, always bizarre, developed a cruel quality. Indeed, the worse they were, the more he enjoyed them. One day, after he came home from work, he called me into the kitchen. He had a matchbox in his hand which he held up towards me.
‘Look, I cut my finger off at work today. Here it is.’ He slid open the matchbox, into which of course he had pushed his finger, covered in red paint to look like blood. I flinched in horror at the sight of it and a terrible wave of nausea welled up inside me. He collapsed with
Auntie Edna put a lost budgie notice in the Evening Chronicle the next day, but had no calls. She was devastated. It seemed hopeless. But a week later, somebody rang her doorbell. It was a family from the other side of the Town Moor, several miles away, with Bobby the budgie in a box. They had found the bedraggled bird in their garden, thin and cold, but alive and relatively well, considering his ordeal.
‘When we saw him,’ the man told Auntie Edna, ‘the budgie just kept saying, “Bobby Scott. 28 Fairfield Road”.’
CHAPTER 9
Helen
Home Alone
Schooldays were the best because I was out of the house and with other people. I loved school and made lots of friends, but they would never come back to my house. Later I discovered why – they were all terrified of my father. School holidays, therefore, were lonely. Each day Mum left early, telling me, ‘Stay in bed till I get back.’ She went off to work in the farmhouse, where she did all their domestic chores, including their laundry, hating it. She never let us forget how much she hated it.
Those mornings were long in the empty house, sitting in bed with only colouring books to keep me company till her return at lunchtime, when I was allowed to get up. I wasn’t even allowed to go down and watch the television that my father had bought when we moved to Murton village, but I suppose there would only have been black and white westerns to watch in those days.
My bedroom was an empty space. I was never allowed pictures or posters. I had no furniture, except a cardboard box for a night-table. Even my light bulb lacked a shade. I slept on an old pipe-framed hospital bed my dad had found in a scrapyard and painted white to hide the rust. It was a spring-base with a hospital mattress, full of lumps the size of tennis balls. Fortunately, it didn’t occur to me then to wonder how many people had died or were incontinent on that mattress. I was aware of the contrast between my barren bedroom with its cold lino floor and my parents’ elegant boudoir, carpeted and decked out with a ‘Swedish design’ suite and frilled soft furnishings.
Mercia never lit a fire in our house till lunchtime when she got home, so it was often bitterly cold while I waited. I spent long hours wrapped in a blanket with my nose pressed up against my bedroom window, drawing pictures in the condensation, watching the farm workers drive their tractors to and fro in the farmyard opposite our house. At least with my parents both at work there was no friction during those times. Alone was always the safest place for me.
During this period, when I was about seven or eight, my father’s practical jokes, always bizarre, developed a cruel quality. Indeed, the worse they were, the more he enjoyed them. One day, after he came home from work, he called me into the kitchen. He had a matchbox in his hand which he held up towards me.
‘Look, I cut my finger off at work today. Here it is.’ He slid open the matchbox, into which of course he had pushed his finger, covered in red paint to look like blood. I flinched in horror at the sight of it and a terrible wave of nausea welled up inside me. He collapsed with
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