Black British (19 page)

Allowing enough silence to fill the air so she was sure of our full attention, my mother explained. “Look,” she said, “all your father's female relations behave the same way towards me. His mother was no different. They like to remind me of my humble origins. They want me to know that
they
know my father was not as wealthy as they are. That's all. Nothing else.”

When none of us commented she added with irritation not bitterness: “So I let them. If it keeps them happy I let them remind me. But that's all it is. Nothing more. Nothing less.” She shrugged her shoulders. She was indifferent to their intent.

“But don't you find it hard?”

“Look,” she said again, exasperated at our slow uptake. “My parents had seven children. It takes money to rear seven children so there were no superfluous funds. I would've liked piano lessons but there wasn't the money. I'd liked to have finished school but they couldn't afford the exam fees. So I learnt shorthand and went to work. So did Elsie and Tilly. We were lucky to get secretarial jobs and didn't have to work in a factory as many girls did during the War. My brothers went into the Services like lots of other young men.”

Giving us a few moments to digest her words she continued: “We were better off than many but not as well off as a few. We lived in big houses but not as big as this,” nodding towards our dear old home. “The real difference was that my father worked for the Telegraphs and the company supplied accommodation. I had six dresses when I married your father. I had never seen silk stockings. But many people were in the same boat so I had lots of friends and plenty of fun. I led teams of Girl Guides. I played hockey. I had a wonderful life. I don't feel deprived. It's other people who want to believe that I was!”

We had always known about our mother's origins and weren't concerned so why was it an issue for our aunts?

“Aunt Betty, Moira, Iris – they're all the same. Actually, it's Moira who makes the bullets and gets her aunt and cousin to fire them.
But
– and this is a big ‘but' – they're
your
father's family and therefore your family too. If they want to have digs at me, I let them. I could retaliate but I'm damned if I'll lower my standards. I remain the outsider. I cope.”

Then seeing the bewilderment in our faces she went further. “It was hard at first. As a young bride I was intimidated and humiliated.” She paused, looking into the distance and we knew her focus was on the lost years.

“I was already overwhelmed by this pile of bricks.” She made a disparaging movement of her head to indicate the manor house behind her. “Who wouldn't be? And they did nothing to help. My confidence took a real battering so I tried harder and harder to run an efficient home. I was trying to prove myself worthy of your father. Of course the harder I tried, the more they criticised. Withholding approval is an effective way of controlling someone.”

Lorraine, Lily and I looked at each other. It made sense to our maturing minds. The best way to control someone is to
constantly
criticise them, constantly put them down and make them feel bad about themselves, make them feel inferior. The key word here is constantly; occasional jibes run the risk of minimal impact.

The more subtle the criticism the better. It's unanswerable. It attacks the way a person feels. It sits in the subconscious and forms part of an overhanging black cloud, one that obliterates light and impedes coherent thought; it hinders positive action; it maintains the status quo. People in powerful positions have been using this tactic for centuries. It preserves their power.

“I was lonely,” our mother continued. “I had no friends. Your father was away at the mill all day.”

In my mind's eye I saw a young girl a few years older than I, dressed in the fashions of the early fifties, those belted frocks with a shaped skirt that fell to just below the knee. She wandered aimlessly through room after room of our house, rooms that I recognised well – oh-so well – but I knew were unfamiliar to her; rooms that were filled to overflowing with other people's histories, other people's memories.

I saw her lift her head as though listening for something, but all she heard was the echo of emptiness, the resonant sound of silence. I heard her sing a few lines from a popular song and knew she was trying out her voice. She hadn't spoken to anyone all day and wondered if disuse would lose her the gift of speech altogether.

“Who is that girl?” I asked myself, terrified of the answer. She felt like an older version of myself.

She was my mother.

“The other way to diminish someone is to ignore them,” my mother went on. “To ignore someone while they're in the same room as you makes them feel invisible, as though they no longer exist. Soon they'll
believe
they're not worth existing.” Long-forgotten memories were obviously flooding back.

“But by then I had a little ally, and two years later another and then, yet another. You were such funny children that I learnt to laugh again. And truly, what more can a woman want?” Her expression was bathed in love, her eyes filled with pictures that had nothing to do with the present.

We had always known our mother didn't like living in Kanpur. She missed the opportunities and entertainment available in a big city. She was lonely without her sisters and friends and loneliness will often exacerbate despondency into desperation.

We also knew our mother had been ill before Lorraine was born. We had seen the black-and-white photographs where she had deep hollows under her eyes and her face was thin, all angles and shadows. There had always been something mysterious about that illness, but with the selfishness of youth where we remained convinced that the universe revolved solely for our benefit, we had never spared the matter an idle thought.

We had never before understood how hard it had been for my mother during her early years in Kanpur. She was labelled
neurotic
,
nervous
,
highly strung
, because it's easier to blame the victim than look unpalatable truths in the eye and make necessary changes.

“They leave Kitty alone because she's a teacher,” she continued. “If I'd had an education or money they'd respect me.” But we knew they left Aunt Kitty alone because Uncle Claude did their dirty work for them. Looking at our mother that winter's day, it was difficult to believe what she had been through. She was all matter-of-fact common sense, brisk efficiency.

“Let's play a game,” she suggested to distract us and lighten the mood. “Who can tell me how many Shirley's we know?” Our games had no winners or losers but were designed to make us think, not to induce competition that is so often rife among siblings the world over. There is no point, often no need, to encourage sibling rivalry.

But Lorraine hadn't finished. “Why doesn't Dad say something? Why don't you ask him to
do
something.”

Her eyes flashed with indignation, her tone was tart as she leapt in to reply. “No Thank You! I don't need anyone to fight my battles.” Her response made us laugh inwardly as the source of our tough spirit was evident. “Besides,” she added, “the
mali
ce is directed at me so I feel it. It's not directed at your father so he doesn't notice.”

She paused to reflect so that her choice of words would clearly illustrate her point. “If I talked to your father he either wouldn't understand, or would feel he had to take up cudgels on my behalf. Either way there'd be friction. It's not worth it. Instead I prepare myself. They have their dig at me. I ignore them and it all blows over.”

Giving a weary sigh of resignation that she had to continue to discuss a subject she had put behind her a long time before, she continued, “It's much easier now. It was worse when they'd gang up on me. At least that's stopped.”

After a moment she went on. “It's not only your aunts. People the world over behave like this. Sooner or later it will happen to you when you venture out into the world. The point is to be resilient and not let it trouble you. Think it through and choose your reaction.” Leaning towards us she emphasised, “What a person says, what a person does, is a reflection of that person – not of you.”

What she didn't say but left us to work out for ourselves was why strong-minded women who had attitudes and philosophies way ahead of their times, who had made their mark on their own society and were now securely placed, still needed that boost to their self-esteem that comes from bully behaviour. Neither did she tell us how hard it is to cope. However much a person rationalises insults and chooses a reaction, it never gets easier to manage the hostile, subtle, underhand malevolence.

I realised later, when maturity and life experience were on my side, that my mother took a many-pronged approach. Minimising contact to reduce the injections of poison, she also developed selective hearing. It wasn't a case of in-one-ear-out-the-other, but a matter of hitting her eardrum and refracting off. She paid herself the ultimate compliment of mentally removing herself which gave her the power of absence.

Following this conversation with our mother, my sisters and I reacted to our aunts in various ways, depending on age and personality. Lorraine appeared bored; probably was bored. The monotony was boring, originality would have been a pleasant change.

Lily actively defended our mother with clever answers and I made myself scarce. I couldn't be trusted to keep my mouth shut. I'd been known to say out loud, “
Tuam cognoscere loco et erit gratus
, woman,” which translates into
Know thy place and be grateful
, and effect a painfully obvious wink at my mother.

“Why can't you cope?” she asked in exasperation, refusing to see my point of view, that it was unfair and wrong for grownups to hide behind their adult, supposedly mature status while they indulged in behaviour I wasn't allowed. “Your sisters cope. I do. So why not you? Besides, it's about
me
so why let it upset you?”

I gave her an impatient look that said
don't try and con me
and with maturity well beyond my fourteen years, something I usually kept hidden from everyone, even myself, I replied: “If it's about you, Mother, it's about me. I hate to state the obvious,” and here I grinned with the wickedest look I could muster, “but I am your daughter. You can't disown me. It's not believable!”

I felt smug. I was still at the age when I believed arguments were about winning and losing, about the dominance of one person's opinion over another's and therefore the dominance of one
person
over another. My flash of maturity had indeed been brief.

My mother continued to ignore the rights and wrongs of the situation and with her usual perspicacity focused on the crux of the matter. “You still need to show good manners. Just present yourself to your aunts, smile when you shake hands and bite your tongue. Then you can enjoy the party like everyone else.”

We all enjoyed Aunt Betty's parties. She had a vast supply of intriguing party games that induced ridiculous adult antics. It appeared to be an opportunity for the grownups to step out of their stiff, contained lives and caper around like skittish teenagers. It was as though they had to fit a whole year's worth of craziness into a few, short, acceptable moments.

“Hee-haw,” said my father dressed in his three-piece suit as he crawled along the floor with a garland of fishbone ferns hanging around his neck and a rag doll balanced on his back. Playing charades he was attempting to portray a donkey carrying Christ into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.

“Hee-haw. Hee-haw. Hee-haw.” With greater urgency when his efforts were met with silence.

“For God's sake! I'm a donkey. Don't you see?” Desperation made his Oxford accent more pronounced.

“Yes. Yes.” Impatiently from Aunt Moira, with eyes rolled skywards. “Everyone knows you're a donkey, but we don't understand the greenery or the doll. What's that supposed to depict?”

“He's entered his second childhood, that's what it is.” Uncle Monty snapped his fingers in mock satisfaction as though he had solved a particularly difficult puzzle.

There are times when sisters and cousins are allowed a certain licence.

As the evening wore on we gravitated towards the piano.

There is a sharp, energetic move beside me that arrests my story. My companion jerks round to face me, excitement in his tone. “You kept your heritage. You kept your heritage.”

I know what he means. Goans have a reputation for being a musical race. Literature describes unaccompanied four-part harmony sung in the fields in the fifteenth century. Though we had been away from Goa for many, many years there are some things so entrenched in one's soul, so dissolved in one's blood as to be ineradicable.

“Yes,” my voice reflects a smile. “Goans take song and dance with them wherever they go.”