On Saturday mornings Jenny would take me for a walk up to the High Street where we’d do some shopping. The Generation Game with Bruce Forsyth was on the television at the time and I’d make her laugh by doing an impression of Brucie’s pose and saying ‘Nice to see you, to see you nice.’
Nanny would be sitting out on the balcony when we got back. She was virtually housebound now, and the only fresh air she got was when she sat out on the balcony tending her geraniums and watching the world pass by. I’d go out and sit beside her. Sometimes we’d see Mummy and Dad walking in or out of our block but they didn’t wave, and nor did we.
Sunday would start off nicely enough. Jenny was always trying to lose weight and had bought a yoga book so we’d clear a space in the front room and practise the Plough and the Cobra, the Bridge and the Bow. Usually we’d be in fits of giggles because neither of us could balance and we’d end up in all sorts of tangles, as if we were playing a game of Twister.
Sunday lunch would be delicious. Sometimes Davie and Cheryl would turn up to pile their plates with Nanny’s special roast potatoes. But as the day wore on, my stomach would start to do little flips as I realised it would soon be time to go home. Home to the dirt, the disorganisation, the empty food cupboards, but worst of all, home to Mummy and Dad. Mummy who seemed to look straight through me most of the time when she wasn’t complaining that I was in her way and driving her crazy, and Dad, who alternated between his special brand of hot and cold treatment–friendly one minute, hostile and violent the next.
At about seven o’clock the tears would start as I kissed Nanny goodbye. I’d lay my head against her chest and remember the times I used to fall asleep listening to her heart in the rocking chair when I was small. I revelled in her familiar warmth. I clung to her, not wanting to say goodbye because I never knew when I would see her again. It might be tomorrow or the day after, but Dad kept changing the rules and sometimes I wouldn’t be allowed to visit for weeks.
‘Now, now, pet,’ she said. ‘Don’t you cry. We’ll see you again soon and you can help me make a cake.’
With a last kiss, Jenny led me back over the road. She would wait outside our block until I ran upstairs and waved to her out of Davie’s bedroom window to let her know I was safe. Except I never was, really. Not with Dad around.
After a few weeks without Mummy bringing in a salary, the tension in the flat rose to pressure-cooker levels. At first Dad had relished having her at his beck and call twenty-four hours a day, but soon the reality of life without a steady income began to bite. He seemed stuck in permanent Mr Hyde mode because he could no longer indulge quite so freely in his three main hobbies of smoking, drinking and gambling.
Dad was obsessed with horseracing. He studied the form in The Sun and The Sporting Life and made sure to watch every televised race meeting. The only problem was that he wasn’t very good at picking winners.
At the start of every race he’d perch on the edge of the sofa, restlessly shifting from side to side just like the horses that jostled for position behind the starting line. If he had placed a bet he would hold the ticket in front of him and begin to murmur under his breath. The small blue betting-shop pen would be lodged firmly behind one ear, a spare fag behind the other. As the horses galloped closer and closer to the finishing line, Dad would slide down onto his knees and edge closer and closer to the television, thrashing an imaginary whip and roaring encouragement: ‘Come on, my son. That’s it, come on, you bastard.’
I’d hold my breath and cross my fingers and toes as I willed his horse to win. But my heart would sink and I’d start thinking of somewhere to hide as Dad’s horse was overtaken in the final furlong, and his exhilaration gave way to bitter disappointment as it dawned on him that he’d just thrown more money down the drain.
‘That’s fucking bollocks, that is! Bastard fucking animal.’ He’d rip the betting slip to shreds and let it flutter to the floor. ‘You’re fucking jinxed, you lot,’ he’d yell and whoever was closest would be lucky to escape without a whack round the head.
One day he kicked the television over when the pundit in the pork-pie hat came on to heap praise on the winning horse. It made a loud bang, and smoke came out. We weren’t without a television for long, though. Somehow, even though he didn’t have a job, Dad always managed to get hold of things he wanted. Nobody knew exactly how, but it always seemed to be that he had a mate, who knew some bloke, who was friends with some geezer down the pub, and in exchange for a ‘ton’ or ‘pony’ Dad could get hold of anything.
I asked Davie if Dad had a real pony and he laughed, ‘It’s rhyming slang for twenty-five quid, stupid.’
So we might not have the basics like food and loo paper, but sometimes Dad would manage to get hold of things he needed, like cigarettes or, once, a case of ouzo, which Mummy said was like drinking ‘fucking paint stripper’. The new telly he got was bigger and better than the last one, and it was colour, too. Me and Davie were so excited. When Dad was out or in an unusually good mood, we would watch our favourite cartoons on it. It was a whole different experience.
Meanwhile, the swearing, shouting and violence gathered pace and Dad was often heard threatening to leave Mummy for someone younger who didn’t have such a ‘baggy fanny’. I wondered long and hard about what that was but couldn’t work it out. All I knew was that it didn’t sound very nice and Mummy got upset whenever he said it.
It wasn’t unusual to see the remnants of Dad’s dinner sliding down the front room wall where he would aim his plate, frisbee-style. I would duck out of the way and Mummy would quickly try to salvage the food before the dog got to it, saying ‘Oh, Frank, what you done that for?’ as if gently chiding a tantrum-prone child who could never really do any wrong in her eyes. This attitude was the complete opposite to the way she would shriek at me if ever I dropped something by accident. ‘For Christ’s sake, Lisa. Why are you so bleedin’ clumsy?’
The trigger for Dad losing his temper could be something as trivial as finding a lump in his gravy or the mere mention of Nanny’s and Jenny’s names, but more often than not the root cause always involved one of three things: his irrational jealousy, alcohol, or having backed the wrong horse at Kempton Park. Without money to keep him in booze, fags and betting slips, the arguments just kept getting worse.
Mummy started looking for a new job, but every classified ad she circled in the paper would meet with Dad’s disapproval. He didn’t want her working in an office because she might meet men and have an affair just like the slags on the TV. He certainly didn’t want her doing bar work again for much the same reason. Dad suggested cleaning, which was ironic because our flat was always in such a state. Mummy agreed to everything he said, even though I heard her tell Diane that it wasn’t something she wanted to do–‘but at least it’s cash in hand’. So that’s why she started cleaning private houses for posh people in the West End.
While she was out at work, Dad and I got to spend more time together and he came up with a new job for me, which was scrubbing his back for him when he had a bath.
‘You’ve got a lighter touch than your mother,’ he said. ‘She’s like a fucking navvy.’
He used to like me to use my hands instead of a flannel. ‘Get a good lather going,’ he said. ‘You could make a fortune in one of those massage parlours.’
I wasn’t sure what a massage parlour was, but I was glad I seemed to be doing something right at last. One time he had pinched my thigh because I was ‘doing it crap’.
I thought of Nanny and Jenny, and wondered what they would