If we were staying the weekend at Nan’s, she took us to Sunday school. Once I was chatting to her as we walked home together.
‘Today we learnt a hymn called “Jesus Loves the Little Children”,’ I said.
‘Did you, sweetheart? That sounds nice.’
‘But Jesus doesn’t love me.’
Nan looked at me, frowning. ‘Why do you say that?’
‘God doesn’t love me, so Jesus doesn’t love me either,’ I said, confident of my childish logic. ‘God doesn’t love me because I’m ugly and fat and naughty.’
Nan looked horrified. ‘Vanessa, God loves all his children equally and you are a very, very special child. Never forget that.’
‘But God tells Mummy I’ve done horrible things and that I need to be punished,’ I told her. ‘He doesn’t like me at all.’
‘What do you mean she punishes you? What does she do?’
‘I can’t tell you or God will be cross with me.’
She shook her head vehemently. ‘Oh my baby, that’s not God. That’s definitely not God. God doesn’t get cross with little children. You must tell me any time if you are upset about something and I’ll sort it out for you. Will you promise to do that?’
I don’t remember being reassured by this conversation. If anything, I felt even more confused. Nan couldn’t explain it to me properly because she didn’t know the truth about what happened at home and I never told her anything like the whole story. I was too scared – of God, and of Mum.
* * *
One day I was at Nan and Granddad Casey’s house – I could not have been more than about four years old – enjoying the rare sensation of safety that I felt in their home. Mum was there but Dad must have been off playing cricket or golf. It was a sunny day and I wandered out into the garden to play. I crouched down by the fishpond to watch the fish gliding to and fro, big fish and little fish. I bent over to tickle the top of the water, as Granddad had showed me, and sure enough the fish came over to nibble my fingers, thinking they were food. I liked the nice sucking feeling.
In the background I heard a door opening and soft footsteps coming down the stairs but I was too engrossed to turn around. Next thing there was a huge shove on my back and I toppled headfirst into the water and it closed above my head. I remember the shock of the cold wetness, and struggling to get my head above the surface, but it was too deep for me to touch the bottom. Seemingly I was floating face down when Nan happened to look out the kitchen window and screamed to Granddad: ‘Thomas! The baby! Get my baby out!’
Granddad came running full tilt through the garden, jumped into the pond and yanked me out by the back of my dress. He wasn’t sure if I was still breathing at first, and then I began to gasp and splutter for air. He carried me into the kitchen where Nan grabbed me for a big hug. Then she said, ‘We’ve got to get her out of these wet things or she’ll catch her death of cold.’ There was a fluffy towel warming by the side of the Aga and she gave my hair a rub and started to unbutton the back of my dress.
‘Stop!’ Mum said, hurrying into the kitchen. ‘Let me do that.’
She grabbed the towel and pulled me away from Nan to the corner of the kitchen. I think she might have been worried about any marks Nan might notice on my little body if she was allowed to undress me herself. I was shivering compulsively now.
‘I’ll get some spare clothes,’ Nan said and left the room.
Mum stripped my wet clothes off and began to rub me roughly with the towel. ‘You stupid girl, you’re always so clumsy. Look – you’ve ruined your dress. It’ll never be the same again.’
‘But you pushed me, Mummy,’ I said.
Granddad was heating some milk on the Aga and he glanced over sharply at this.
‘Don’t be silly.’ Mum laughed, her eyes glinting fiercely at me. ‘Of course I didn’t push you. I was in the house the whole time. You must just have lost your balance.’
Nan came in with a change of clothes and I was dressed in them, then Nan sat me on her lap in the rocking chair, hugging me and saying, ‘My baby, my poor baby’ as I drank my milk. Granddad got the spinning top and set it spinning across the red tiled floor. Mum sat at the table, bored, examining her nails and glancing at the clock to see how long it would be before Dad picked us up again.
I felt safe again, in warm dry clothes, hugged tightly by Nan Casey. But I also knew that my mother had pushed me into the pond, even if she had managed to fool Granddad with her story.
She must hate me very much, I thought. I must try and make her love me. I must be a better girl.
But it was impossible to please her, no matter how hard I tried.
There could not have been more of a contrast between Dad’s loving, kind parents and Mum’s parents, Charles and Elsie Pittam. From a very young age I would seize up with dread when we set out to visit them for the afternoon, a lump constricting my throat and a knot twisting my stomach. They lived in Yardley Wood, a bus ride away, and Mum would take us on our own. Dad never came along.
‘I see you’ve brought the brats,’ Grandma Pittam would say as she opened the front door and glared down at Nigel and me. She had tightly curled grey hair, an unsmiling face and wore smart, tidy clothes in shades of grey, brown and black. I remember her as formal, upright and colourless.
The house was gloomy and austere, situated up a slight embankment. As you walked in the front door there was a musty smell, like gas. Huge pieces of dark furniture seemed to tower over us oppressively. There was a grandfather clock in the hall that chimed every quarter of an hour and I can’t say why exactly but I was always scared of that clock. The face seemed to have eyes that followed you around, and I always imagined that when it chimed a hand was going to come out of the casing and grab hold of me. The walls were covered in photographs of very old people – more eyes to watch over us – and every surface seemed to be cluttered with ornaments of little old men with gnarled faces and wizened hands.
‘You know where to go. Sit down and be quiet,’ Grandma would tell Nigel and me, and we’d troop into the front room to sit on the big, scratchy horsehair sofa, our feet sticking outwards, careful not to let our shoes touch the seat. Here we could smell the strong scent of Grandpa’s pipe tobacco and it used to catch the back of my throat and make me cough.
There were no toys in that house. Nigel and I were supposed to sit quietly, waiting while Mum chatted to her mother. I overheard snippets of conversation that referred to us sometimes. One in particular stuck in my head, although it made no sense to me at all.
‘If God had wanted you to have children, he would have given them to you,’ Grandma said. It was very obvious she didn’t like us and didn’t want us to be there, but I didn’t know why.
Of course, Nigel and I were young and found it hard to sit still for long. We’d start to fidget and one of us would giggle and Grandma would come charging through to tell us off. Children should be seen and not heard in that house. At teatime, she always served salmon and cucumber sandwiches cut into triangles. The slightest infraction of table manners was punished by a sharp rap on the knuckles with a bread knife. We would be told off for running, bumping into furniture, dropping crumbs, or virtually everything that two lively young children got up to. She seemed to have eyes in the back of her head and always caught us for any minor misdemeanours, even if we’d thought she wasn’t watching.
Some days when we arrived,