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Chapter 8

I have a clear memory of my first day at St Peter’s primary school in Bentley Heath, aged five. Dad dropped me off at the classroom and gave me a kiss goodbye, telling me to ‘be a good girl’. I slunk inside, desperately trying to fade into the background and avoid being noticed. I had no social skills whatsoever. I didn’t know how to talk to other children, or how to play with them, and I used to hide from grown-ups I didn’t know. After a slow start, my speech was still less fluent than that of my contemporaries and I often had trouble expressing myself.

Nigel had already been at St Peter’s for a year but he hadn’t talked about it much so I had no idea what to expect. One thing worried me in particular. I’d heard that you had to put your hand up if you wanted to go to the toilet and then wait for the teacher to give you permission. What if the teacher didn’t see me? Or I couldn’t hold it in long enough? I was petrified that I might wet myself at school and all the children and teachers would be able to see what a baby I was.

Of course, it happened frequently in the early days because I was too frightened to put my hand up and ask. Mum was incensed when she got a phone call from the school asking if she could drop off some spare pairs of pants for me to change into. I got a severe beating for that.

I was still quite a stocky child, with reddish chubby cheeks and light brown hair that I wore in bunches – certainly not cute or angelic-looking. I totally believed Mum when she told me that I was fat and ugly and no one would ever love me because I was unloveable. Rather than risk rejection by my peers, I kept well away; but still some cruel classmates would tease me from time to time, shouting ‘Wee-wee face, smelly girl, dirty girl!’

Nigel was more confident than me and had a little crowd of friends of his own, but we would always eat lunch together, and we’d walk to and from school together along a gully that led straight up to our back garden. Breaktimes in the playground were difficult and I stood on my own near the door back into the school. It was a kind of defence mechanism. I felt safer being near a door because it meant I could escape, although I hated having my back to the door because I had no idea who might be sneaking up on me.

I found the lessons hard that first year at school. It took me a long time to understand that letters formed words that you could read, and I had especial trouble understanding that some words that sounded the same could have more than one spelling and more than one meaning – for example, to, two and too. I grew to like sums, though. There was something satisfyingly controllable about numbers that appealed to me. I understood how they worked. They didn’t have different meanings and outcomes; two plus two was always four.

Probably part of my timidity at school was due to a fear of anyone finding out what a bad girl I was. Mum had impressed on me very strongly that I had to prevent teachers or other children seeing any cane marks or bruises on my skin when we got changed for PE, and if anyone commented on a cut or a bruise I was to say that I fell over playing in the garden. She drummed into me over and over again that if they found out how horrible I was at home then they would all hate me, and I really believed that was true. I was a hateful person. I tried not to be but I was. I yearned for love and friendship, to be able to join the games of skipping and the groups huddled giggling in the corner. But if I let anyone close, they might find out the secret about how evil I really was.

There was a positive side to being at school all day, though, in that I wasn’t spending so many hours in Mum’s company, so I didn’t get on her nerves quite as much. I think she got back some of her former social life and was able to meet friends once we were out of the house during the day. At any rate, I wasn’t getting punished so frequently and this made me hopeful that I could at last make her love me.

* * *

On Mother’s Day, just after my sixth birthday, we were embroidering tray cloths to take home as presents for our mums. Our sewing skills were very limited but I attacked mine with a determination to make it the most beautiful cloth ever so I could show Mum how much I loved her. Sewing was her great skill and surely she would be proud of me if I was good at it as well? A nice teacher saw the effort I was making and helped me with it, and the end result was very pretty. It said Happy Mother’s Day in the middle (the teacher did that bit) and there were little bows and flowers and kisses all around and curly decorative corners. I took it home that day, apprehensive but sure that Mum would be pleased with such a lovely present.

‘Mum, I made you something,’ I said as I handed it over.

She peered at it. ‘What kind of a mess is that?’ she demanded, pointing to a bit at the edge where I’d sucked the material, causing it to fray; the teacher had cut it at an angle to try to disguise it. ‘These stitches are all uneven,’ Mum continued, ‘and I don’t know why you chose those colours.’ She flipped up the lid of the kitchen wastebin and threw it in. ‘Absolute rubbish,’ she said. ‘What would I want with that?’

It was a huge blow but the little defiant core in me was not going to give up on something I’d worked so hard at. As soon as Mum left the kitchen, I sneaked that tray cloth out of the bin and hid it in my knickers. I was nervous as I ate tea, knowing that I would get into trouble if she found out. If Mum decided to cane me for anything and I had to pull my pants down, she’d see straight away. Fortunately she didn’t cane me that day and as I got undressed at bedtime I managed to sneak the tray cloth into a secret hiding place in my bedroom. There was a gap underneath my wardrobe at a point where the shelves came down, hidden behind a little plinth. I put the tray cloth in there and next time Dad took me to Nan Casey’s I brought it along and presented it to her instead.

‘Vanessa, it’s beautiful. I can’t believe you did such a lovely piece of work as this. Are you sure it’s for me? Thank you so much, darling.’ She covered me with hugs and kisses as any normal mother might have done.

* * *

The Caseys were great animal lovers, who kept two dogs – a red setter called Rusty and a dachshund called Fritz. I’d been begging Dad to let me have a pet but Mum had vetoed it, saying she would be the one who would have to clear up after it. Towards the end of my first year at school, though, Dad came home one night saying he had a surprise for me, and he produced a cute little white bunny rabbit with a twitchy nose and dark, sensitive eyes. I loved it on sight. It was the best present I’d ever had.

‘I’m going to build a hutch in the garden,’ Dad explained, ‘and it will be your responsibility to keep it clean, and to bring out food and fresh water every day. Do you think you can manage that?’

‘Yes, yes!’ I cried.

‘What are you going to call him?’ he asked.

I thought for a moment and said ‘Whirly.’ I’ve got no idea why – it was just a word that came into my head, but Whirly he became.

I was assiduous at looking after Whirly. Dad brought me bags of straw and sawdust and rabbit food every weekend and Mrs Plant would let me have carrot tops and vegetable peelings to feed him. I would sit for hours on end talking to Whirly, stroking and playing with him, telling him all about my life. I felt calm and content out there by the rabbit hutch. It was one of the few places in my life where I did.