Barbara Lloyd

“Come on Issy don’t play up today please!”

I could scream. But that won’t help will it?

Issy is my daughter, that’s short for Isabel. Sorry that was a bit obvious sorry! Sorry – I keep apologising, it’s a really bad habit. I seem to spend my entire life apologising to someone for something or other….. For being late into work, as I am sure to be this morning! For picking up Issy late again from her nursery, the staff holding her out to me with those fixed smiles that are at odds with the messages in their eyes that tell me they have lives too, which should have begun ten minutes ago thank you very much. Sorry! Sorry! Sorry for everything. Sorry Issy for just having me.  Sorry Issy for not being a better mum! But sorry or not life goes on…………..

Issy is a two year old monster in the guise of a curly headed toddler with a disarming small toothed smile that can actually melt hearts. This morning she has completely lost the ability to bend her arms at the elbows making it impossible to stretch her coat sleeves into position.   I try to distract her with some small toy juggling tricks I recently learned through dire necessity – it sometimes works, if  I‘m lucky. She reaches out momentarily and I thrust her arms down her sleeves and have her buttoned up and strapped into her buggy before she has the chance to decapitate her furry victim of choice. Ignoring the screams I make a final inventory check before slamming the door shut behind us, bumping Issy down the stairs, through the hall and out through the front door and on to the pavement. Every day begins and ends in exactly the same way. Come to think of it every day has exactly the same middle too.

I live, now, at the very end of Clarence Avenue, on the top floor of an old house that must once have been quite nice. We overlook the cemetery in one direction and neighbouring narrow back gardens in the other. It’s okay.  We moved here five months before Issy was born, we moved out of my father’s house, which was once warm and cosy with a wonderful safe garden, perfect for a little girl to grow up in. But it turned out to be the sort of place where no one would want their daughter to live.

I had lived in that house for all of my life. It was my home and I had thought that it would always be so. When I was a little girl it had everything I could ever want or need. My friends came to play and to stay and were envious. They often had to share their parents and their possessions with brothers and sisters but I was the centre of my world. My teenage years were uneventful. I had no need to rebel, whatever I asked for usually appeared and all I had to do in return was work hard at school and pass my exams. Which I did. When I went away to university I returned every summer and it still felt like home, I slipped back into the homely routine very easily, my mum would cook and clean, my dad would tell me what I should do with my life, everything was as it should be. I got my degree and I found a good job fairly easily. Life was good. I had a few boyfriends, nothing serious and none of them good enough, according to my dad.

Then I met Dan. Dan was different. He worked in my office building, but he was much higher up than me in the management hierarchy and literally floors above me too. We met in the lift. How about that?  Rom com stuff eh? What can I say? We dated a few times. Dad loved him, just the right sort - husband material and someone he could trust to take over hs role. Mum was so pleased, he was good looking and polite. He said all the right things, brought flowers and complimented my mum’s cooking. He was a mother-in-law’s dream! His parents seemed to like me too. My friends were envious, again. Everyone was in love with Dan, even me I think!

Then, stupidly, I was pregnant. How could an intelligent modern woman with a university degree have fallen into the oldest trap in the world? What a fool! But Dan was one of the good guys. He proposed. He said he would have anyway, he could see where we were going. He wanted a wife and family, and sooner rather than later was fine with him. Dad was actually pleased with this outcome, mum was in a hurry…….‘a wedding before the bump becomes too obvious please dear!’ 

But I couldn’t do it, I didn’t know why.  I had done as I was told all my life and now I just couldn’t! The fall out was terrible. Dan was patient for a while, until he and my parents eventually realised that I wasn’t nervous or suffering with my hormones, I just didn’t want to marry him. Then he left! The family he had wanted obviously wasn’t mine. My father was shocked, then just disappointed, in me I should add. But he had a contingency plan, it wasn’t too late for an abortion. This was, after all, the only course of action left now that respectability in the shape of a husband had been rejected and luckily hardly anyone knew about the pregnancy as yet. My mother was sorry but she just had to agree, it was for the best.

So I moved to another town. Away from my home that had seemed so safe and loving, away from my job which was just a job, away from my friends who couldn’t believe I had been so stupid, away from Dan who put up no fight at all and away from my life as I had known it.

And am I sorry about that? No - I am glad!

Our home, our top floor is warm and cosy and safe for my little girl to grow up in.

Let me introduce myself. Miss Nesta Roberts. You’ll probably call me Nesta, it seems to be the modern way. Mrs Dawkins started right off calling me Nesta even though I’m a good deal older than her and, as I often have to point out, am indeed paying her wages. I made a point of calling her Mrs Dawkins, emphasising the Mrs very clearly. It made no difference. She has once or twice called me Ness but I put a stop to that, insisting most emphatically that that should cease immediately. But she’s such a cheerful soul, relentlessly so….

Three times a week she comes, bustling in with her talk of ‘our Jim’ and ‘our Stacey’ and ‘our Kelly’ and seemingly countless others who she insists are ‘ours’ even though I’ve not once set eyes on any of them. Oh her heart’s in the right place I suppose. She does her best and let’s face it I’m in no real position to complain, it isn’t as if I have people queuing up to be my domestic help. I’m sure it used to be easier, at least it seemed so when mother was alive. Our domestics were so different, quiet for one thing. Unless we spoke to them they didn’t utter a word and when they did they certainly didn’t talk about themselves. Come to think of it I don’t think I knew anything about any of them. It might have been interesting to find out perhaps. Goodness though, how father would have scolded if he’d found me being too friendly with the servants. How times have changed.

Some people thought father a bit of a parvenu, an upstart, a snob! He certainly had very strong ideas about behaviour especially for ladies and girls. I was never in any doubt about what was acceptable behaviour and if I ever behaved in a way that caused my father pain he had only to raise an eyebrow and I would wave the white flag and quickly adjust my demeanor to his notion of respectability. He wanted his ladies to be an asset to him and he enjoyed parading mother and me before his friends and associates.

He was in Africa during the Boer War, a captain in the Welsh Fusiliers. He had not begun his career as an officer but through industry and pertinacity had quickly risen from the ranks. He was injured but not as badly as some and as luck would have it he made some very good business contacts during his convalescence in South Africa. When he came home he was able to purchase this house which was terrifically modern, it was essential to have a bathroom you see because of the nature of his injury. We were never told exacltly what that was and we certainly didn’t pry.

Less than a year later my father had courted and then married my mother. She was young and beautiful but above all, respectable and well connected. Within a short space of time my sister Mabel was born and I’m certain my parents expected this birth to be followed by several more at regular intervals. They weren’t disappointed. There were numerous pregnancies and several births but they were all closely followed by deaths and subsequent funerals. Those sisters and brothers all lie in the graveyard at the end of our avenue, marked by tiny marble headstones carved with their names and an assortment of angels. Not once did I hear my mother or father talk about my siblings but I visited them on the rare occasions when I was allowed to take walks by myself.

By the time I was born Mabel was already fifteen years old and my mother was of an age where she must have surely begun to think her child bearing days were past. My mother told me often that my birth caused much happiness and celebration. My parents could hardly believe their luck, a beautiful and more importantly, healthy baby girl born into the evening of their lives. At first it appeared the household revolved around my care and the slightest upward curve of my lips would cause family and servants alike to dissolve into sighs of adoration or when I frowned slightly they would launch into discussions of how observant and intelligent I obviously was. Mabel especially loved me. She too had waited a very long time for a sister.

I would like to say that I can remember that atmosphere of happiness but something happened that changed my world and the people who were left, with me, in it.

When I was four years old Mabel found herself a beau. Until that time the young men who had attempted to court her, and there had been many as Mabel was both beautiful and intelligent, had either bored her or had not been to her taste. This one was different. He wasn’t at all like us, father and mother knew nothing about him or his family. Mabel had met him while out walking. Needless to say he was most unsuitable.

Father gave Mabel an ultimatum, she must cease all contact with the fellow or she would be cut off and out of the family. I am sure that knowing father as I did Mabel would have been certain that he meant every word. Still Mabel chose her man. And as my other brothers and sisters were dead so, suddenly was Mabel.

We were not allowed to mention her name, if the servants were ever heard muttering about her they were instantly dismissed. My parents’ lives now revolved around me and I was so carefully tended, never alone and certainly rarely out of the sight of one or the other. All of father’s hopes for the family’s future were settled on me but whereas before the future had been a promising place it now became one fraught with danger. Former friends became suspects, never good enough for me and boys, then later, men were especial threats. My life which started out so optimistically had become one of virtual imprisonment.

I never saw Mabel again. I suppose you might ask why I didn’t look for her after my parents died. I might reply, “Why didn’t she look for me?” After all she knew where to look.

Oh my goodness just look at the time, whatever must you think of me? You must consider me very rude, may I invite you to share a pot of tea? I think I have some cakes, shop bought I’m afraid, Mrs Dawkins doesn’t bake.  She shops for me, buys my groceries but she says tea leaves aren’t easy to find anymore. She buys boxes full of small packages which supposedly contain tea. It’s such a nuisance, snipping the corners off to pour into my caddy and I find they contain mostly tea dust and the taste is dreadful. So I do apologise, it’s the best I can do.

Milk or a slice of lemon?

She was always there. Faint and glazed behind the grimy glass. Her face hovering above the windowsill and occasionally a disembodied hand would flutter about pulling strands of grey hair from where they shouldn’t be to where she thought they should. Her expression never changed, neither stern nor cheerful, not angry or worried, sullen or welcoming. She looked - she just looked!

Number 31, Clarence Avenue. Once a smart Edwardian villa in a smart Edwardian part of town, the sort of house to have had servants at the beck and call of the professional, newly rich and respectable  people living there. The exterior was now tired and worn, the sash windows had long since forgotten how to open and the narrow front door was warped and weather beaten, the archway above was slightly skewed. The mostly intact carvings above the impressive square bays were intricate and delicate, belying the fact that they were solidly made of portland stone. Moss and clumps of dandelions edged the curving path to the door, bisecting a dusty enclosure of dull green and brown herbage. It stood alone, surrounded by houses that were similar yet different, exactly at the midpoint of the avenue. From the sitting room window the whole sweep of the avenue could be viewed. Anyone entering or leaving, pottering about in their front gardens, cleaning their cars, taking delivery of Tesco or Sainbury’s groceries, chatting or arguing over dividing walls were all on show at any time of the day or night, providing a constantly changing peepshow for anyone who cared to watch.

The houses in the avenue were now mostly student flats or filled with illegal immigrants who changed constantly, one group leaving with heads down as another arrived, bodies tumbling out of beaten up cars onto the pavement with their shoddy belongings tumbling after them. Some were divided into flats and bedsits where newly divorced dads waited for weekends and single mums struggled to make a reasonable home for their demanding infants.

Gentrification had not yet arrived in the Avenue although there were a small number of families living there who were obviously hoping that it soon would. These houses were easy to spot and stood alone like bright beacons in a sea of drearyness. These were the ones whose doors, original if possible - reproduction if not, were painted in period colours from the Dulux heritage range. Brass door knockers and letter boxes were polished to a dazzling sheen. The windows were replaced when absolutely necessary by authentic period copies and only then following carefully the teachings of Kevin McCloud, even though their designs were perhaps not quite so grand.

The families were uniformly the correct size, mother, father and 1.8 children - one of school age and absolutely not attending the local school where they could come into contact with the wrong sort of child and one toddler, taken to a reputable day nursery where they would be flash carded and challenged and stimulated daily until they too were old enough to attend the same ‘very good school we’ve found’.

The avenue was neither busy nor quiet. Brandishing briefcases and giant bags full of essential child equipment, the families climbed into and out of their people carriers which they parked outside their houses, Edwardians having had no need for garages. Groups of students lolled on their walls smoking and emptying cans, their shouts and laughs intended only for themselves. Foreigners in this suddenly foreign land moved silently, acknowledging noone. Occasionally a runner, with ubiquitous earplugs and watch checking, pounded his way down the pavement and then back up again. Dog walkers looped the avenue like extras from the Truman Show.

I lived at the very end of the avenue, not a student, not an illegal immigrant and certainly not one of those mothers. I walked the length of the avenue twice a day, first away to my business and then much later back again. I walked neither quickly nor slowly, my pace comfortable and unhurried.

And there she was, hand aloft. I often wanted to wave at that hand but something always stopped me.