A Pocketful of Holes and Dreams (14 page)

Reassured, though, by seeing her, that she was doing well, we tiptoed out of the ward. Sheila, June and I went to sit in the waiting room while Barry and Dad went to see the surgeon who had operated on Mum. After some fifteen minutes they emerged, faces as white and as drawn as the sheets that Mum had been lying on. Realizing that something was desperately wrong, we followed them out to the car, again without saying a word. The silence was almost too much to bear; it was worse than all the waiting we had gone through that day.

‘What did he say?’ I asked Dad. I had to know.

Dad, who was driving, said nothing. Barry turned towards me and looked down at June’s hand clasped in mine. After a moment’s silence he looked back at me. ‘I’ll tell you later,’ he said.

As soon as we got home, Sheila tucked June up in bed then hurried to the front room, where we were all waiting. The atmosphere was heavy with tension.

‘Mum is very ill …’ Dad started to speak but was unable to continue, so Barry picked up where he had left off.

‘They have removed all of her bowel,’ he explained, ‘and fitted a colostomy bag. But the cancer has spread and there is nothing else that they can do.’ Tears streaming down his face, he lowered his head into his hands. ‘They have only given her three months to live.’

Sheila let out a cry as if she was in pain. I had to get out of the room, out of the house; I couldn’t breathe and needed fresh air. I walked the whole way down Princess Drive as if in a trance, oblivious to the passing people and traffic and to the chilliness of the April evening. It could have been snowing for all I cared; Mum was dying and there was nothing I could do to prevent it. She was only fifty-three, too young to die. I thought she’d live forever. And poor June? She was only eleven! Far too young to be without her Mum. In fact, we all were.

Lesley came home for a few weeks to take care of Mum once she came out of hospital, and having her back with us all made such a difference. Mum, however, couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. She acted as if nothing was wrong: as if there had been some terrible mistake and she had been misdiagnosed; in her eyes, the doctor had no idea what he was talking about. It was hard for her children to know how to respond, and we found ourselves fussing around her, treating each day as if it was her last, which really annoyed her. ‘Just you wait and see, I am soon going to be as fit as a fiddle,’ was her response, and she’d tell us to pull ourselves together. She insisted that Barry, Sheila and I stopped acting as if something was wrong.

The impact on Dad was phenomenal. He began spending far more time at home, particularly with Mum. And as she started to regain her strength, he took her for days out in the car. June was too young to know what was going on and was simply happy that Mum was back home where she belonged.

It was a very difficult time for us all, particularly for Mum, as she was being so strong and, like always, a tower of strength. She even encouraged Barry and I to go off on our travels around Europe, but there was no way we were going to leave England. So with her blessing, Barry and I went off to spend some time with some good friends of ours, Mick, Tommy and Danny, who were working at Butlin’s Holiday Camp in Clacton-on-Sea. It was only a few hours’ drive away, which meant that we could come home at weekends. After the worry of the last few months, it was great to see them all again. As we sat around enjoying a pint, they told us about their new jobs working as chefs.

‘Chefs!’ Barry and I nearly fell off our chairs laughing.

‘OK, cooks,’ admitted Mick.

‘Cooks?’ I said. ‘What can you lot cook?’

‘Anything,’ Danny answered. ‘It easy, it’s all mass-produced, and what’s more, it’s one of the best-paid jobs on the camp.’

They said they were short-staffed in the kitchen, and if we wanted, it would be easy for us to get jobs working there as well. But Barry and I were having none of it.

‘You can’t be serious,’ Barry said. ‘Neither of us can cook.’

Nevertheless, by six o’clock the following morning, Barry and I were dressed and looking every inch the professionals in our blue and white checked trousers and chef’s whites. To top it all off, we wore tall white chef’s hats which sat stiffly on our heads, as starched as our white jackets. If ever there was a situation when appearances were misleading, this was it.

The kitchen was as huge as a football pitch, but with everything that was going on in it, and the noise, the smells and the heat of the cookers, it seemed claustrophobic. Steam rose up from the tops of the largest saucepans, so big they were more like vats. Two cooks were stirring huge amounts of porridge, while another two were grilling hundreds of kippers, all laid out in neat lines, their fishy odour dominating that area of the kitchen. There was so much going on it was almost impossible to take in. Barry and I just stood there, totally at a loss what to do.

The head chef soon told us. ‘Eggs for you two. You’re doing boiled,’ he instructed Barry, while I was told that I was doing fried. ‘Understood?’

‘Yes, Chef!’ Barry kept his reply short.

‘Any questions?’ Chef asked, looking at us both.

‘How many, Chef?’ I asked.

Referring to a piece of paper on his clipboard, he said, ‘Three thousand fried. Full quota today.’

He had to be joking.

Danny showed me what to do. I broke the first dozen, and the hot oil spat out and burned my fingertips countless times, but in the end I got the hang of it. After a while I was quite proud of myself, lining up my eggs in professional-looking rows then scooping the cooked results on to the large metal serving trays.

The following morning, when the alarm sounded at 5.30, we both staggered out of bed and back into our whites. We were on time and starting to cook as the clock turned six. I felt sorry for my brother: it was his turn to fry three thousand eggs, while I learnt the art of making porridge.

We ended up staying at the camp, working hard and playing hard, enjoying each others’ company and having a good laugh. Every other night we would phone Mum, telling her about the funny things that had happened in the kitchen that day, and every weekend either Barry or I would return home, to spend precious time with her.

Mum, Dad and June even came down for a week, and we pulled as many strings as possible to make their stay perfect. Mum was as proud as Punch of us in our whites, and we were able to cut back on our shifts so we could spend more time with them. We cooked Mum breakfast for the first time ever, too, which gave us both a real sense of pride, as she had been feeding us all our lives.

The night before they left, Mum phoned home to speak to Sheila, who had been unable to get time off work. After the phone call she was very excited and couldn’t wait to tell us that Sheila was engaged to be married to a chap from Wales, Keith Jones, who she had met the previous year while on holiday. At the end of the week, although Mum was a little sad to be leaving, she was also looking forward to getting back home and helping Sheila with the preparations for her wedding, which was only a few months away.

When the season ended, Barry and I returned to Liverpool, picking up where we had left off with our TV aerials business. It was now mid-September, and with the evenings getting longer and the weather getting colder, business was once again on the up. Mum continued to help us with the bookings. She seemed to thrive on constant activity, defying the predictions made by her doctor earlier that year. We all of us almost believed that she really would go on for ever.

Sheila and Keith were married on 4 November. The wedding was held at the church just across from our house and was really lovely. Although it was only a small family affair, it was certainly one to remember. Mum, wearing a glamorous big hat, posed with Sheila and Keith outside the church for the photos, Dad standing beside her and June looking pretty in her bridesmaid’s dress.

The year drew to a close, and Christmas was upon us. Somehow, we all knew that it was to be the last of its kind, although nothing was ever said. Presents were stacked high, and the kitchen filled with goodies to eat. If there was a time to eat, drink and be merry, this was truly it.

Lesley and her husband, Roy, with their small son David, together with Sheila and Keith, spent New Year’s Eve with us. The house was full to overflowing, and as the clock struck midnight, we all held hands and joined in singing ‘Auld Lang Syne’. Mum had so far defied the odds; she was a walking miracle, and it was as if our prayers had been answered. I clearly remember her sitting in her favourite armchair with her first grandson on her lap. David had a mop of ginger hair and was the spitting image of me when I was that age. With their heads bent together, as Mum told him familiar stories, it took me back to my own childhood. It’s an image I will never forget.

In the spring of that year, 1974, I officially became a man. Mum had established a family tradition, giving each of her children a gold ring of their choice as a twenty-first-birthday present. And as I sit here writing this story more than thirty years later, it rests beside me on my desk.

That summer, Barry and I returned to Butlin’s in Clacton-on-Sea, once again working in the kitchens. I went home for a weekend at the beginning of July – the first weekend, to be precise – and I remember it as clearly today as if it had only just taken place.

I got home at around lunchtime and found Sheila in the kitchen. She looked worried and explained that Mum wasn’t feeling too well, so she had come home for a few days to help out. ‘She’s asleep at the moment,’ she said. ‘Go up and see her later. Just let her rest some more for now.’

I was on tenterhooks, waiting for the time to pass, longing to go and see Mum for myself to make sure she was OK. I feared the worst and wanted to spend as much time with her as I could. Eventually, I couldn’t wait any longer so I quietly went upstairs and opened her bedroom door as carefully as possible, not wanting to cause her any disturbance.

‘Who’s that?’ she asked, and her voice sounded so tired.

‘It’s me, Mum,’ I almost whispered.

‘Jeff, is that really you?’ I could hear the smile in her voice. ‘Come over here, son, and help me sit up.’ Gently, I put my arms around her, helping her lean forward so that I could rearrange the pillows, then sat her back against them. Mum had always been slender but now she was literally as light as a feather; it was as if she could be swept away by the gentlest of winds. ‘That’s better,’ she thanked me, before asking me to open the curtains to let a little light in the room. She patted the space beside her. ‘Come on, Jeff, sit down here and get comfortable. I need to talk to you – there is so much I have to say.’

As I sat at her bedside with her hand in mine, Mum told me the strangest thing. ‘You will never guess where I have been,’ she said. She was speaking to me as if she was in a dream, her voice soft and gentle. I didn’t answer, so she continued. ‘I have been to Heaven. God came down and took me with Him for a visit. It’s so lovely there. I saw my mother and father, and my brothers who were killed in the war. Everything is so clear up there, you can see it all.’

I was totally unsure of how to respond, thinking that perhaps it was the medication making her talk like this. All I could do was to sit there and listen. As she continued to tell me what she had seen, her voice was getting stronger, and there was a greater degree of urgency about her. ‘Jeff, pay attention. I’m being serious; this is important.’

‘I’m listening, Mum,’ I replied. ‘I’m listening to everything you’re saying.’

‘God is coming to take me soon, and I am going to Heaven. I know it, and I know that I will be so very happy there. I don’t want you to worry at all. Everything will be all right. I can watch over you from up there and help you every day.’

I could feel the tears stinging my eyes, and was unable to stop them from welling over and running down my cheeks. This was unbearable.

‘Jeff, my dearest son,’ she said, clasping my hand in both of hers. ‘Please stop crying, I need you to be strong for me. I need you to do what I ask. Do you promise?’

Hardly able to speak, I nodded my response. ‘I promise, Mum, I’ll do what you want.’

‘First of all, let’s talk about June. You must make sure that nobody takes her away from this house.’

‘I will, Mum,’ I told her, making my first promise.

‘As for your dad,’ she continued, ‘as soon I’m gone, he will stop drinking. He will also look after June and be a good father to her. For all his faults, I love him and I always will, and I want you to promise me that you will look after him as well.’ This was not such an easy promise to make, but I assured Mum I would take care of them both. ‘Now, all that remains is to talk about you.’ She smiled at me, squeezing my hand with hers. ‘I know that you struggle with your reading and writing, but I also know you are very clever in so many other ways. You will be very happy and successful. I have always believed in my heart that you are destined for greater things in life. You will be famous one day. Don’t ever forget that. I will always be watching over you, I promise.’

There was nothing I could say. Wrapping my arms around her, I held her closely against me, and we lay there side by side, not saying a word, for what seemed an eternity. I never wanted to let her go. She was the most important person in my life and I wanted the moment to last forever.

I spent the whole of the next day with her, talking about my childhood and all the things that had happened. We laughed at the trouble I’d got into and the accidents I’d had, the endless doctors and hospital visits, and the stupid things I’d done at school. It was a lovely time, each and every second so very precious.

Before I left that evening, I once again held her close in my arms – this woman who I loved so much and who had given me so much. Cupping my face in her hands, she looked into my eyes, reminding me of what she had said and the promises we had made to each other, before placing a kiss on my forehead. Driving back to Butlin’s, I could still feel the touch of her lips on my skin. A part of me wanted to stay with her, yet another part of me could not bear to see her go.