Читать книгу Chloe Sims - The Only Way is Up - My Story - Chloe Sims - Страница 8

One of my first memories is the day I woke up and realised I was in the house alone.

I was only three years old. One morning, I got out of my bed and went downstairs to get my breakfast. Dad had gone to work – he worked at Billingsgate Market and used to get up at 3am, so I knew he wouldn’t be about. I don’t remember exactly what happened, but I am guessing I must have gone round the house looking for my dad or next door neighbour Auntie Sylv – she wasn’t my real auntie, we just used to call all our neighbours on the estate ‘auntie’ and ‘uncle’, but she used to look after me when Dad was at work. I remember going down into the kitchen where our pet dogs were kept in a cage and letting them out.

A few weeks prior to this first memory, my mum had left me with Auntie Sylv and never returned. I cannot really remember what happened, but I know the facts. My mum and dad had split up, and I had stayed on in the house we lived in with my mum. Sylv would often babysit me, and one day Mum dropped me off at hers and never came back to collect me. Poor Auntie Sylv – looking back now, she must have been beside herself with worry, wondering what the hell was going on, but she didn’t let on to me. She just looked after me and made me feel safe.

A few days passed and still nothing. My dad came to the house to see me as usual – I think he came to visit at least twice a week – and to his horror no one was home. He knocked at Sylv’s to see if she knew anything, and she explained that my mum had disappeared.

My dad immediately moved back into the house and took care of me. Auntie Sylv was always on hand to babysit. Back then Dad used to leave for work at 3am and at first Sylv would come in and get me shortly after and take care of me until he got back. Sylv lived next to us and because it was terraced and the walls so thin, she could hear if anything was going on, plus she had keys.

My memory of the whole thing is really hazy.

Actually, I have so few memories of Mum, too, that I can barely even remember her face. I’ll never know why she left and we’ve never seen her since.

Sometimes it feels like I’m looking down on someone else’s life, but actually it’s my life. I mean, who does that? What sort of woman just walks out and leaves her child? However bad things get, I don’t understand how a mother could do that to her daughter.

I have found it hard being a mum to Mady but, no matter how bad things have got, I would never have walked out and left her. I don’t think it will ever sink in what happened that day. Why Mum left me, I guess I’ll never know. As far as I’m concerned, I will never meet her.

Things seemed pretty normal when I first came into the world. I was born at King George Hospital in Newbury Park, Essex, on 2 November 1981. My mum and my dad were both very young at the time – she was 19 and he was 20, and I think that has a lot to do with what happened over the next few years.

My dad’s best friend had met a girl and asked Dad if he would go on a double date with her and one of her friends – and her friend turned out to be my mum. Apparently, she was wearing a really wacky outfit so maybe I get my unconventional dress sense from her! They hadn’t been dating long when Mum fell pregnant. Dad, being the honourable man that he is, asked her to marry him and they had a shotgun wedding.

At the time, my mum, who was originally from Dagenham, was working in an office and my dad had been working at the fish market for a couple of years. Dad was an east London boy, through and through – he had grown up in Bethnal Green but, when he left home, he moved to Essex.

When they married, they got a council house in a place called Clayhall, near Ilford. My mum had been brought up by her nan and granddad, after her own mum and dad left her, and I often wonder if that, too, had something to do with the events of my childhood.

I know I used to see her nan and granddad before my mum left because my family have told me, but I don’t remember them. I’ve met her dad a couple of times, too, and I know he was a hippie, but I don’t remember him either. I know very little about her family. In fact, I don’t even know if she had any brothers or sisters.

My Nanny Linda – my dad’s mum – has a few photo albums with pictures of my mum and dad. There are some from before I was born, including their wedding photos, and others of me when I was a baby, so I know what my mum used to look like. But, honestly, I think, if I hadn’t seen those pictures, I wouldn’t know what she looked like.

Over the years, my dad has told me a few stories about my mum, and one that sticks in my mind is that Dad was a skinhead at the time and having a skinhead was the height of fashion back then. Anyway, one day my mum decided she wanted to be a skinhead as well and had her head shaved like Britney Spears! Dad tried to point out to her that it was only meant to be the men that shaved their heads, but she was having none of it. I guess she was pretty wacky!

I only really have a few memories of that house in Clayhall – the first one was when I must have been about three. I remember sitting on the stairs, crying because my mum and dad were having a Chinese takeaway and I was meant to be in bed, but I wanted to stay up and try some. Mum had said no, so I was crying because I didn’t want to go to bed. Eventually, my dad gave in and let me stay up and have some sweet and sour chicken and a prawn cracker. I was so pleased – I felt really grown up!

I also remember we had two dogs: they were English bull terriers called Brook and Sims, and one of them had had pups, so my dad had put a cage in the kitchen for them. By now Mum had left, and, with Dad out at work, it was just the dogs and me. I don’t know how long I sat with them as they jumped round, yelping and barking – I thought it was quite good fun! Our next-door neighbour, Auntie Sylv, heard the commotion from the dogs and, using the spare key she had, let herself in to check that I was OK.

I still had my pyjamas on and I had wet the bed, so I was soaking and stinking of wee. I told Auntie Sylv there was no one at home, just me. She took me back to her house next door and got me cleaned up and washed my pyjamas – I remember them drying on the washing line.

Again, my memory of the exact event is hazy, but, sometime shortly after my dad decided that I should live with Auntie Sylv because of the strange hours he was working. He felt this would give me more stability. So, I moved in with Auntie Sylv, where I stayed for the next nine years. She was just the nicest person you could meet; she was about 20 stone and found it difficult to walk, but nothing was too much trouble.

Her house was always pretty chaotic. Bless her, she didn’t have much and material things just didn’t matter to her – some of the rooms didn’t have carpet, and I remember jumping over the gripper rods so I didn’t prick my feet – but she had a heart of gold and she took me on. She looked after me like a daughter and she’s an angel inside.

Auntie Sylv became my mum – she was the one who walked me to school, she cooked me my tea and looked after me. My dad was working long hours at the market and he just couldn’t care for me on his own, so I lived with Auntie Sylv in the week and then I saw him every weekend.

Auntie Sylv and her husband, Uncle Gordon, already had a 16-year-old daughter called Kelly. They only had a two-bedroom house, so I had to share a room with her. She never complained, and I used to really look up to her. She would be getting ready to go out clubbing with her friends and she would be there, putting on her make-up, listening to music. I would sit for hours watching her transform her face. I think it was those days of watching Kelly that gave me my first taste of make-up and getting dressed up – I used to want to go out with her!

Kelly was really good to me and I loved her like a sister. When she left school, she got a job in McDonald’s and she used to bring home the Happy Meal toys for me. They would change the toys every week or so and she would bring me the new one every time. I’d line them up, like they were teddies.

Auntie Sylv was a proper mum – she was a great cook and was always baking cakes. She taught me to bake from an early age. She and Uncle Gordon literally had nothing – there was no carpet in the front room and the electricity meter was always running out.

Gordon was a gardener and plumber and, although they hardly had any money, I never went without. Obviously, my dad used to buy me things and help out, but Auntie Sylv always saved up so she could buy me nice birthday presents. She was so kind.

At Christmas, we used to decorate the tree together and get really excited. Auntie Sylv ordered things from the catalogue, which she could pay off over the year, so she could treat me. She was so generous and always found the money, somehow. Her house was my home, and I often used to forget that I had actually lived next door because all I could really remember was living with Auntie Sylv.

When I was five, I started at the local school, Parkhill Primary, and the first friend I made was a girl called Sangeeta. Auntie Sylv could never remember her name so she used to call her Leccy Meter, which would really annoy me! Then, just as I was settling in at school, my dad dropped a bombshell: we were going to America.

His dad George – my granddad – lived over there and we were going to stay with him. I had never met my granddad before because he had split with Nanny Linda a long time before that. He had then moved to Chicago and had remarried to a woman called Marilyn. When my dad told me we were going over there for a visit, I was really excited because it would be just the two of us. I was also looking forward to meeting my granddad because, up until then, I hadn’t had a proper granddad.

For some reason, I remember the plane journey over there really clearly. The plane seemed massive and the airhostesses were fussing around me, giving me games to play with. I can still picture one game, this box that you could fold out and make into things. My dad and me played with it the whole way to America.

Dad has so much patience – he loves kids and can play games for hours. When the airhostesses kept coming back and forward, bringing us food and drinks, I felt like a princess! I remember getting off the big plane and changing on to a smaller one. I guess there weren’t any direct flights to Chicago back then.

Granddad picked us up from the airport in his car and I just lay down across the back seat and pretended to be asleep. It was funny meeting my granddad for the first time. He looked just like my dad – he wasn’t a typical granddad at all. Tall and dark, he was handsome and still looked young.

Granddad George and Marilyn lived in a one-bedroom flat, so I slept on a mattress on their bedroom floor and my dad slept on the sofa in the front room. They had a big black dog called Jet, and Marilyn was a really good cook. She cooked spicy foods that I wasn’t used to eating at Auntie Sylv’s, things like chilli and Caribbean food.

I didn’t like sleeping on their floor, though, because I was scared of the dark and used to see shapes – it still freaks me out to this day. One night, my granddad had left a hat over the top of the door and I woke up in the middle of the night and thought there was a man standing there. I screamed the place down and they couldn’t calm me, so in the end they let me sleep on the sofa with my dad and I remember feeling really happy. Being with Dad was all I wanted.

We stayed in America for three months – until our money and our visa ran out. It turned out my granddad had told my dad that he could get him a job over there but for some reason it hadn’t worked out.

I remember my dad sitting me down and telling me he had to go home and he asked if I wanted to stay. George and Marilyn had offered to look after me for him because they knew it was tough. But there was no way I was going to be parted from my dad. I didn’t want to live in a different country where people spoke in funny voices, so I said I wanted to go home with him.

I was happy with my dad and there was no way I was going to stay without him. I don’t remember anything about the flight home but, when we got back, Dad took me to stay with some distant relatives who I had never met before. Auntie Sylv was upset that he had taken me away to America and Dad was worried she’d go mad at him if he took me back. I think he wanted us to stay in America for good, but things didn’t work out. When we came back to England, I wanted to go back to Aunty Sylv’s, not stay with some random strangers, so I acted up. It worked. I was really naughty and eventually my dad came and got me and took me back to Auntie Sylv.

She was really glad to have me back, but really I just wanted to go with my dad. I worshipped him. To me, he was a superstar – he was good-looking and I honestly believed he could do anything. But, at least when I was at Aunty Sylv’s, he was always nearby.

When we came back, I started at a different local school, Gilbert Colvin Primary, and I was always wetting myself – I remember getting changed into dry clothes on several occasions. I made a new friend called Katie Alexander and she soon became my best friend. We were inseparable at school and always sat next to each other.

Katie was the opposite of me – I was blonde and a skinny little thing, but she was dark and sturdy. She had brown hair and freckles, and she was athletic. At the time, I thought she was rich because she lived in Barkingside in a nice area, while I lived on a council estate in Clayhall. We had no carpets, so anything would have seemed posh!

Katie lived in a semi-detached house and she had a garden with a tree in it that we used to climb. I would stay over at her house quite a lot, and I really liked it there. Her mum used to buy Katie little presents and she’d always buy me one too. She had the best sweet cupboard ever! We were allowed to take in a snack bag to have at break time at school and Katie’s mum made the best snack bags. It would be a clear sandwich bag, with a drink and chocolates and sweets inside. If I was staying over, she would do a snack bag for me, too, which I loved.

I haven’t seen Katie for years – we drifted apart after we left primary school – but I still drive past her old house sometimes now, and it’s funny because, all those years ago, I thought it was so big but now it looks small.

My next clear memory is of my sixth birthday because Auntie Sylv organised me a surprise party. She used to go to bingo every week and I would go along with her. Every week, they played the same music in the bingo hall and I used to skip around the chairs while the music played, with Auntie Sylv and all her friends clapping along.

On my sixth birthday, I put on a really pretty dress and Auntie Sylv told me we were going somewhere. We went to a local hall and, when we walked in, all my friends and family were there and the same music from bingo was playing. I skipped in! I was so excited – my Nanny Linda, my dad’s mum, was there and lots of the family, as well as people from my class at school.

Auntie Sylv had baked me a huge ‘My Little Pony’ cake and I loved it. I even had my first kiss at that party with a boy called Ben, who was in my class. I can’t remember his surname but I just went up to him and kissed him on the cheek. Even from a young age, I was confident around members of the opposite sex!

It was a really special party and Auntie Sylv had gone to loads of trouble. Even all these years later, I remember everything about it. It is such a special memory.

A few months after my birthday, I went to school as normal – I used to walk there by myself, even though I was only six – and, when I got there, I realised that Katie wasn’t in that day. I’d already swapped my lunch tokens but I decided I didn’t want to be at school without her so I just left again and walked back home, without saying a word to anyone.

I told Auntie Sylv that school wasn’t on that day and she believed me. So we caught the bus into Debden and went shopping for what she called ‘goodies’. We were gone all day. Then on the way back, I needed the toilet, so I ran from the bus stop back home to go for a wee. Auntie Sylv could only shuffle slowly so I ran ahead, and, when I got back, there were loads of people waiting and they said the police had been called because I had disappeared from school.

By the time I heard Auntie Sylv shuffling up the path, I knew I was in big trouble. She was absolutely fuming! They had been trying to contact her and everyone was really worried. They’d even had the police helicopter out looking for me! The police came to talk to me and told me that I had caused a lot of trouble and, when I went back into school the next day, the headmaster shouted at me.

Auntie Sylv didn’t stay angry for long, and the whole thing was soon forgotten and everything went back to normal, but I never did it again.

All my memories of living at Auntie Sylv’s are happy ones – even though they were poor, they always treated me. Auntie Sylv didn’t have any of her own money really because she didn’t work and Uncle Gordon only gave her a bit each week so she had to save up for anything she wanted. My dad used to give her money every week for me, though.

Uncle Gordon used to go to the pub after work and then he’d come back and would always sit in the same chair to watch the telly. When he got up, Auntie Sylv used to whisper to me to check down the sides of the chair to see if any coins had fallen out of his pockets. It was our secret way of getting a few extra quid for treats.

Sometimes Uncle Gordon would take me to the pub with him and buy me a fizzy drink, which I always thought was a real treat. Auntie Sylv was always so good to me but, looking back, I was a bit of a naughty child and didn’t do what I was told. She must have been tearing her hair out. Every night, I used to play out with the other kids from the estate and I would never come home when I was supposed to.

I got to learn pretty quickly that Auntie Sylv couldn’t walk very fast, so, when she came out to get me to come in, I would just run away from her. Even when she was shouting at me from across the street, I tried to delay going home for as long as possible.

Every house had a big concrete doorstep and I remember Auntie Sylv would give me a packet of chalks and let me colour in the doorstep to keep me busy and out of trouble. I loved doing that.

When I look back, I had a lovely childhood – I knew everyone on the estate and everyone was friendly. There was a shop in the middle and I used to run errands for Auntie Sylv when she needed things. Every summer, me and all the other kids would literally spend the whole six weeks outdoors; we were probably a nightmare for the neighbours but we had great fun. We knew where everyone lived and we got to know who was miserable. We used to torment them by playing ‘Knock Down Ginger’ (where you knock on a door, then run off and hide) for hours on end. We would also have water fights and play for hours, getting totally soaked, and other days we would have street parties on the green near our house.

When I was a bit older, Auntie Sylv got a job working at the bingo so she had a bit more money and I remember when we finally got carpet in the front room. I reckon it was about five years after I moved in, and it was a big deal. Other people took things like carpet for granted, but I still remember the feel of it under my feet. It was so nice and warm after the cold bare floors we had before!

At weekends, Dad would come and take me out and then we’d go back to his house in – I liked it there because it was just him and me. I also saw him on a Tuesday after school, when he would pick me up and take me to swimming lessons and, later, karate lessons, and then to McDonald’s for tea. I loved spending time with my dad. Often, instead of going to his house, we’d go to visit the rest of his family.

There was my dad’s mum, Nanny Linda, who lived nearby in Essex, and also his gran, Nanny Daisy, who was really my great-gran and lived in east London.

Nanny Daisy was always the head of the family. She was brilliant. A real matriarch, she kept the family together. Everyone would pile into her flat whenever there was a drama – I’ve never met anyone so caring as my Nanny Daisy.

We all used to go and get pie and mash from a shop called Kelly’s on the Roman Road near her flat and then take it back there to eat it. She had this silver cutlery we had to eat with and, because it was so old, all the silver was coming off and it used to leave a horrible taste in your mouth. Nanny Daisy died five years ago at the age of 99 and she was an amazing lady. Although she was little and frail with curly grey hair, she was a really strong woman.

Nanny Daisy was a proper old-fashioned East Ender and had a real Cockney accent, like you hear on films. She loved kids, and she always loved having us round. She always had loads of sweets and treats, which for some bizarre reason she used to keep in the freezer. The chocolate buttons would be rock-hard and we’d be nearly breaking our teeth on the boiled sweets!

Although she didn’t have loads of money, she was always giving us cash and telling us to go and treat ourselves. When I was younger, she used to give me £20 and tell me to go and buy some clothes and then come back and give her a fashion show. I’d go into her bedroom – she lived in a one-bedroom flat – and try it all on and then model it for her. She’d go: ‘Oooh, that’s nice! How much was that?’ And then she’d go on about what a bargain it was.

Nanny Linda is great too, just like her mum. We are really close and I still speak to her nearly every day. The relationship I have with Nanny Linda now is what I imagine you’d have with a mum: if she annoys me, I can tell her I’m pissed off (and vice versa). When I was younger, she always wore really strong perfume and big shoulder pads! I suppose it was the eighties, so that was the fashion back then.

She is one of those people who can’t stop feeding you – as soon as you walk in the door, she’s got a meal prepared and is trying to feed you up. She always buys the food she knows you like and her house is really cosy. If ever I’m upset, I go to my Nanny Linda’s because it feels like home. She’s lived in the same house since I was a little girl and it is always so welcoming. Mady loves going round there because she always buys her sweets and there’s this big toy box there, so she’s got loads of things to play with.

A lot of people think maybe she should have let me and my dad live with her after Mum left. But Nanny Linda had just brought up her own kids and she’d had a hard life and she said no. I don’t resent her for that at all. Maybe life would have turned out differently… I’ll never know.

Then there was my dad’s sister, Auntie Tina, and her husband, Uncle Donald, who lived in Bermondsey, south London. I loved Auntie Tina – she always looked glamorous and smelled of perfume. I think, when my mum left, she wanted me to go and live with her but she was only young and didn’t have kids of her own yet, and my dad felt it wasn’t fair on her because she should enjoy being young while she could.

She always made me feel really welcome and I loved being at her house. Uncle Donald used to drive over to collect me and I’d look forward to seeing them both. When I was five, Auntie Tina told me she was having a baby and I was really excited. I helped her get the nursery all ready and I just could not wait for that baby to be born. I used to sit in the nursery and think, ‘Wow, soon there will be a little baby in here, a cousin for me!’

Her pregnancy seemed to last for ages but eventually the baby came. She had a little girl and called her Francesca – Frankie – and I was over the moon she was a girl!

As much as I loved Auntie Sylv, I still never wanted to go back there after my weekends with my family and, as I grew older, I realised that my lot were quite different from Auntie Sylv and her family.

Auntie Sylv had a heart of gold and was very loving, but she never cared about material things or the way she looked. She only had one pair of shoes and, as welcoming and homely as it was, her house was far from immaculate. She really wasn’t bothered about appearances or airs and graces, but she was the salt of the earth – decent, hardworking and kind – and I can never put into words how grateful I am for what she did for me when I was a little girl. And Gordon and Kelly, too – I will always love them and have so many fond and happy memories of being there.

Over the years, Auntie Sylv was so loving towards me – she put up with all kinds. I used to wet the bed but she never complained; she would just clean me up and wash the sheets, never passing comment. She was such a great mother figure to me that I never even thought about my own mum, and she wasn’t spoken about either. Auntie Tina told me that I once told her that I lived with Auntie Sylv because my mummy didn’t love me, but I don’t remember saying it. I guess to other people it was a difficult start in life but I can honestly say that I was really happy as a child. I had a lovely childhood, thanks to Auntie Sylv and my dad and his family.

Social workers used to come and visit me once a fortnight to check that my living arrangements were going well; they would sit me down on my own and ask me questions about Auntie Sylv and Uncle Gordon and if I was happy. They used to record everything I said on a Dictaphone and then, after they had finished talking to me, they would let me play with it while they went to speak to Auntie Sylv in private.

It was only when I was a bit older that I really got to know all my family. They had fancy clothes, sleek and glossy hair and always smelled nice. And I was definitely more like them. I remember when I was about seven I refused to wear anything but party shoes! I was a proper princess. Obviously, the party shoes I wore weren’t meant to be worn all the time and weren’t hard wearing, so I was getting through a pair every few weeks and my family kept having to buy me new ones.

It was around that time that my dad met a woman called Karen and they started dating. I liked her straight away. She was a model and I thought she was beautiful. Back then, she looked like a brunette Claudia Schiffer and, together, she and my dad made a very glamorous pair. They were like something out of a film – a real Hollywood couple!

After a while, they moved in together to a one-bedroom flat in east London. It was small, and at the time Karen worked full-time in a bank, so it wasn’t practical for me to go and live with them. Then, when I was 11, Karen fell pregnant and had a little boy – my brother– and all my dreams came true.

Ever since I could remember, I had wanted to live with my dad and, finally, that wish became a reality.