REFLECTIONS ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MY MOTHER
AND
MYSELF – PART I
Up until the age of four I was very
happy. My mother told me that I
was a happy, gurgling baby. She
used to be stopped in the street by passers-by who wanted to praise her ‘beautiful’
baby. We were very close, we were
bonded together, just the two of us.
I knew nothing else, I did not need anything else, nor did I want
anything else. We were complete.
My
mother made me beautiful little smocked dresses, with puffed sleeves; she made me a winter coat and a bonnet
edged with fur. She was a
comforting, warm presence in my life.
I used to tell her how much I loved her: deeper than the sea, higher than the sky, wider than the
universe. I would stretch my arms up high and wide to illustrate.
We
lived first in Nice for about three years, then we moved to l’Abbaye, a
convent/pension by the sea in northern Brittany. My mother told me how I used to have long conversations with
a beautiful Being, dressed in beautiful clothes. He kept telling me that ‘everything would be all right in
the end’ and I would repeat this to my mother. Again, we had a very pleasant life. I had plenty of small friends to play
with; my mother made her own
friends, kept busy with her sewing and reading and social life We were relaxed and happy.
All
this changed when I was four and my mother lost all her money in the
Depression. My mother now had to
earn her living and I was left with the nuns at the Abbaye where we were
staying. They promised my mother that they would look after me. I do not know what explanations were
given to me, or how I responded and I have absolutely no memories of that time
or of any distress. I began to
live my life with the nuns.
I
remember the sister who looked after me, Sister Yvonne. She was quite young, apple cheeked and
cheerful. She did all the cooking
at the Abbaye and I would spend hours in the kitchen, watching her roasting
meat, making puddings, white meringues in custard (floating island), serving up
ice cream in small, shell shaped
glass dishes.
I
remember Sister Marie who helped Joseph in the garden. She was tiny, with graying ginger hair
and a striped apron tied round her black skirt. She was always smiling and kind.
Sister
Marguerite I was afraid of. She
was ugly, with a sallow complexion and a large mole on her chin, with black
hairs sticking out of it. She was
the one who bathed me in my combinations in the tin bath once a week. She would bend over me and I would
gaze, captive and fascinated, at her mole.
Mademoiselle
Abilly, the Mother Superior, was another formidable figure. Very upright and stately in her long
black skirts, she always looked quite severe. I was in awe of her.
On one occasion my mother had sent me a parcel and I had to go and see
her. She removed a beautiful dress
in royal blue cotton and told me that I would not be able to wear it, as it had
a divided skirt, and little girls should not wear trousers. I saw it disappear again inside its
wrappings, with a feeling of helplessness and dismay.
The
other thing that disappeared was my beautiful, china doll with blue eyes that
opened and shut; she had long,
black lashes. I searched for it
everywhere, but the nuns remained mute.
I believe they removed it because it had no clothes.
I
have no memory of any unkindness on the part of the nuns. I know Sister Yvonne was devoted to
me. It was a strange life for a
small child. I remember pacing
around the garden with the nuns, telling my beads. I had been given a beautiful, small rosary of my own. I do know that I picked up some very
strange ideas about the body.
There
were no other children to interact with and I became very withdrawn and reliant
upon myself. Perhaps I was still
having conversations with the beautiful Being.
When I was five I started going to the village
school. We were given pleated
overalls made from black serge. I
had to walk up the hill past the Curé’s house to the school, a two roomed
building with a playground opposite the church. My main memory is of being rapped on the knuckles by the
teacher who was trying to teach me to write with my right hand. I am still left handed in everything
else. Nothing was known in those
days of the damage this can do to the child.
So when my mother took me away from the convent at the
age of seven, I was a very different little girl to the one she had left
behind. I was withdrawn, very
suspicious, passive, showing little emotion and very, very shy. I spent all my time reading. I think I had become pathologically shy
and very afraid of people in general.
How did my mother cope with this strange, new
child. She was always telling
people how nervous I was, and this stayed with me as I grew up. My mother and I were alone in the
world. My mother still had one
friend, the ever faithful Walter Tuck.
How much did she confide in him, I wonder? On my eighth birthday he gave me a copy of The Water Babies,
which I read through and through, even the most difficult words. I believe he
tried to make friends with me, but I remained aloof.
My mother’s situation was very different now. She was working hard and was very often
tired. She must have been worried
about the future, about money, about my education. She had always been slightly deaf, due to her contracting
measles as an adult, and this was now getting worse.
We were now living in Jersey and my mother was working
as a cook housekeeper for a large family with three growing boys, of whom I was
terrified. My mother was no longer
the easy relaxed woman she had been, and I was no longer the trusting,
confiding child. Nonetheless, I clung to my mother throughout my
childhood. Even though our
relationship had so changed, she was still my bulwark against the world. I was like a small animal, staying
close to her and burrowing into her side.
I can only pay homage to my mother, to her strength of
character, to the love she gave me, in spite of everything. As I grew older, our relationship
inevitably changed and we grew still further apart.
(to be continued)
