It was when my
mother took my twin sister and me into town that day that I realised the depth
and colour of her shame. I also learned a thing or two about my so-called
community, but you can make your own mind up about that, and them. We rode the bus; I got the window
seat, with Sarah (that’s my twin), next to me. Mam sat in front of us next to
her friend Joanne, who was often on the bus when we got on because her stop was
one before ours on that impatient road into town, and the buses weren’t so
frequent. Like Mam, Joanne didn’t have so many friends; her mother had murdered
her father one cool summer night and gone away for fifteen years. Joanne was
sixteen then, so she went into supported accommodation instead of getting
foster parents. All that hung over her like a grey gauze and it was too much
for most of the local people, who spoke sympathetically to each other about how
damaged the poor girl must be but rarely spoke to her. Rumour had it that
Joanne’s dad was a philanderer and back-handerer, so he had it coming, people
would say bravely, but who knows the truth of that. Perhaps her mam was just
crazy.
So on the bus
that day I listened to Mam and Joanne talking, just about the TV and us kids,
as though we weren’t there really. That was ok though; I just breathed on the
window and drew little dogs and cats with my finger while Sarah sat and happily
scratched up under her wig since Mam had her back to her. I thought adults did
that rather a lot: talk to each other as though kids couldn’t hear them. Almost
as if they had an ‘adult conversation’ switch that turned off our ears while
they talked about other people – the parents of our school friends, oftentimes.
I guess, in a way, the switch worked, not because I couldn’t hear them
gossiping, but because I just knew somehow that I couldn’t mention Kasey’s
dad’s drinking at school, or Anna’s mum’s maybe-affair. This was the kind of
thing Joanne would spill to Mam on the bus rides into town. I wasn’t so young
that I couldn’t pick up the gleeful edge to their words. It made me sad to hear
it.
Our town is just
two miles from another town, and after that there aren’t any other settlements
for miles around. People from my town would call those from the other ‘jams’,
since supposedly they were so poor they couldn’t afford anything but a jam
sandwich for their lunch at the coal mine, then at the steelworks and
afterwards when actually no, they couldn’t afford anything else. People from my
town referred to themselves as ‘hams’, because they could afford a ham sandwich
each day. Funny thing was, everyone in the other town used the same nicknames,
but the other way around. Hams or jams: it was supposed to be obvious which one
you’d want to be. At the time, I wasn’t so sure – I preferred jam. I get it
now, of course; maybe that was growing up. Coming to grasp a metaphor.
Hams and jams
didn’t hate each other or anything, but you do what you can to lighten the load.
Us and them: it’s better than a library or a park for community spirit.
On the long slope
down into the town centre, the bus stopped for a couple of old ladies. Mam
tapped our legs as they got on, and Sarah and I got up for the pair, who made
that cooing and clucking sound that old people make, as though they are trying
to sound stupid. They sat down, noticed Mam, and went quiet.
I knew who they
were; Mam had told me before. One was the Sunday school teacher when she’d been
a kid. But, like most people, they didn’t think too much of a nineteen year old
girl having twins by a married man, who moved out of town with his wife and
children soon after Mam’s bump started to show. His name, my father’s name, was
Ed. That was pretty much the sum total of my knowledge of him: two letters, in
reverse alphabetical order.
Mam gets a
certain look in her eye if Sarah or I ever ask about him. It’s a look like Mr
Simons gets if kids at school ever ask him if he’s gay.
We got off the
bus in the centre of town. There’s one pedestrianized street; about half way
down is a fancy shop with home ware and furniture and so on. Mam had never
taken us in there before, but it was Granny’s birthday coming up and Mam said
she deserved something nice.
We stepped softly
around the shop, as though the floor was the expensive thing. Mam held her bag
to her chest rather than letting it swing from her shoulder. She whispered,
‘Don’t touch’ to Sarah and I. Mam picked up vases and candlesticks and such
like, weighing them in her hand. I peered through the shelving at the shop
assistant, a narrow-eyed crone with gluey lipstick smeared on. She was
following our movement around the shop like a cat watches a spider move across
the floor. Mam plumped for a gilded picture frame and took it to the counter.
The shop assistant didn’t say a word as she wrapped it in tissue paper and
accepted Mam’s cash.
It was a squally
day; opening the door was an effort. Sarah came out last, and the door slammed
on her, catching her long hair and yanking the wig right off. It slid down the
frame of the rebounding door and into a puddle at the edge of the pavement.
Sarah immediately started crying hotly, thickly. I looked around and it felt
like so many eyes were on my little family: there was the shop assistant, from
the inside; the two old ladies had shown up, a couple of men, labourers, from
the housing development on the edge of town. People just stared; no one said
anything, including Mam. Sarah’s bald head, red with rashes, bobbed up and down
ludicrously. Mam bent down and picked up the sopping wig then shoved it onto
Sarah’s head, all askew. Sarah cried even harder at the cold wet mass. Then Mam
did something she’d never done before. Her hand opened up and she slapped Sarah
on the side of her face, hard enough to make Sarah buckle to her right.
There were gasps
from the onlookers. It was only much later that I reflected that they were
gasping not at the slap itself, but the audacity to do it on the street with
other people watching. In my town, discipline occurred behind closed doors. Mam
levelled a look of white hot fury at the spectators.
‘There,’ she
said, ‘another thing for you to judge me for. My daughter has alopecia. Haven’t
you ever seen a bald little girl before?’ Truth was, I suspect, they didn’t
know just what to judge her for yet; there was an embarrassment of gossip at
hand. It would be champed at on the corners, in the cafes and in the supermarket
aisles for weeks to come.
Mam set off down the
road, knowing we’d follow. We couldn’t explain ourselves any better than she
could.
Later, in the
house, Mam sat at the table long after we’d eaten staring a middle-distance
stare. I thought about this day many times, even more once Mam had gone and
Sarah had moved to Glasgow and there was just me left in this town. I could
have left too, naturally, but even this town was capable of giving second
chances.
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