Friends for Life

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‘But that’s not fair.’

The next thing I knew she had whacked me hard across the head.

‘That’s what fair is,’ she said. ‘Life isn’t fair.’

The irony was that I walked down to the florist and spent all my pocket money on flowers for her. I knew my father would take it out on me if my mother stayed upset. So I did what was necessary to keep the peace.

Eventually, however, I snapped. I was about sixteen and Dad and I had had an argument about something. He wouldn’t let me put my side, insisting: ‘This is the way it is in my house.’ I was so upset.

There was no getting through to them. I couldn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel. So that night I waited for the house to go dark, and I picked up my teddy, quietly put Shane on his lead and slipped out of the house. London was shrouded in darkness. It was a cold, drizzly night and the streets were empty. I was wearing jeans, a t-shirt and a heavy brown cardigan, which was getting heavier with each step from the drizzle. For a while I didn’t know where I was going. I just walked towards Fulham Palace Road, Shane by my side, clutching my teddy tight. By the time I reached there the idea had formed in my head that I was going to see David, the one person in the world I really loved at that particular moment.

I crossed the Thames at Putney Bridge, continuing along the edge of Wimbledon Common and down into Wimbledon where Ron and Anne were now living. I remember I arrived at their doorstep, sopping wet, at four in the morning. I had walked something like five miles.

Ron was just getting up. He was working with my dad at Blue Circle, the cement company near Wandsworth Bridge. As it happened my dad was also on an early that day. Ron told him I was at his house and he jumped straight into his lorry to collect me.

The drive back from south London was one of the worst journeys I’ve ever made. My father and I sat there in silence, my mind filled with thoughts of what my mother would do to me when I got back. ‘I’m in for it now,’ I told myself.

But when we got home, we discovered the house still dark.

My father bundled me in, telling me to keep quiet. ‘Thank God for that,’ he said. ‘Your mother’s not awake yet.’ It was still 7 or 8 a.m. He just said: ‘Don’t you ever tell her,’ before leaving me and going back to work.

When Mum got up I pretended that nothing had happened. She never knew I had run away.

It would have upset her. And, of course, she mustn’t be upset at any cost.

It had been clear early on that my schooling was intended to prepare me for a job. I was a girl, after all. What else did I think I was going to do?

Apart from conspiring to separate me from my cousin Les, my parents had taken next to no interest in my education. I recall one year my school report was so bad I ripped up the report book and discarded it in a dustbin on the way home. It would never have occurred to my parents to ask whether I had received a report.

When I went back to school and was eventually asked where the book was, I just said: ‘My mum’s still got it.’ The school wasn’t much more interested in my education than my parents, truth be told. The fact that the report book had failed to materialize was quickly forgotten. I can’t even remember getting another report.

The only time my parents intervened was to prevent me from doing the things I had set my heart on. I wanted to do art, for instance. But they wouldn’t let me. I had to do cookery, ‘because that will be more use’.

So it was little surprise that when I left school, I wasn’t fit for much.

My first job was at the Post Office Savings Bank. I didn’t like it so I applied for a job at Barber’s on North End Road between Fulham Broadway and Lillie Road. It was very much like Are You Being Served. I worked on scarves and handkerchiefs.

One evening I came home from work to find my father there, a sheepish look on his face.

He soon spat out what was on his mind.

‘We’ve found a new flat,’ he said. ‘Your mother likes it.’

I had known Mum didn’t like the people in the flat beneath us; she thought they were common. For Mum to moan about where she lived was nothing unusual so I didn’t take much notice.

‘Fine,’ I said. To be honest, I was more interested in taking Shane out for his evening walk. By then Shane was all that mattered to me. I certainly didn’t care about a new flat.

Then Dad delivered the bombshell.

‘We won’t be able to take Shane,’ he said, staring at the floor as he spoke. I looked at my dad in disbelief. He couldn’t look me in the eye.

Moments later my mother arrived back from work. She, of course, expected me to be delighted. She took umbrage when I suggested I wouldn’t go without Shane.

‘We can’t take him there,’ she said. ‘And we need a bigger place, because you need your own bedroom.’

I was too traumatized to speak. ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ I said before heading off to bed. I didn’t sleep a wink that night. I was in a state of shock.