The Girl in the Painted Caravan (15 page)

Aunt Vera had a client in Wisbech who was a good knitter and Vera asked her to knit an outfit for a dolly that she had bought for Daisy. She had also bought one for me and given it to Mummy.
Just before Christmas, the lady brought the outfit down and Mummy said to her, ‘I’d love one of those outfits for Eva’s doll. Could you please make me one?’ The woman agreed
and, on Christmas Eve, she brought it to our vardo and discreetly handed it over.

The next day, at the foot of our beds, were these beautiful dolls in their lovely outfits. They were the same, except for the fact that Daisy’s was pink and mine was bright red. We were
walking around the site with our dollies, thinking of names for them, when I decided I wanted to go to the toilet. There was a nice clean toilet outside the pub in the yard, one of the reasons, in
fact, that we used to stay there. I asked Daisy to hold my dolly while I went in and she agreed. But when I came out, my doll was lying in a pool of muddy water.

‘I’m so sorry, Eva, I just dropped it,’ exclaimed Daisy. ‘I didn’t mean to!’ My beautiful doll was ruined. I picked her up, the tears rolling down my
face.

‘Don’t worry, it will wash off and be good as new,’ Daisy said, trying to comfort me.

Aunt Vera took the doll from my hands and brightly said, ‘It looks like your baby likes playing in the mud, just like you used to.’ That coaxed a watery laugh out of me. ‘Come
with me and watch me clean her up. And I’ve got some sweeties in my vardo.’

When we were in our twenties, Daisy took me to one side and admitted she’d deliberately dropped my doll in the mud because she was jealous of the red outfit. She had obviously had this on
her conscience for a long time!

SIXTEEN

We had mainly travelled around Lincolnshire in the first couple of years after my father’s return and Mummy was desperate to get back to Spalding to be near the family
again. But in 1948 my father wanted to see what other parts of the country were like. So, with Mummy’s feelings pushed to one side for my father’s, we made our way to the Midlands and
found ourselves in Coventry, the city of the three spires. It must have been a beautiful place before the bombings. There were still elegant buildings, but few of them were whole. Mostly, they
draped like torn fabric, ragged and blackened at the edges. Great gaping holes torn by the bombs gave the city a toothless smile.

Some of the travellers had told my parents that there was a piece of ground, known as the bombsite, where they were allowed to pull in. The ruins of the bombed buildings had been cleared away
and levelled off and a few travelling people had discovered this to be a useful caravan park. The city council let them stay there, which was common sense, as the ravaged land was not much use for
anything else.

Over on the other side of the bombsite, away from the vardos, there were lots of bushes, plants and flowers, including lupins of a glorious pinky-purple colour and rosebay willowherb, which was
nicknamed bombweed in those days, as it seemed to be the first plant to return to the bombsites. There were also raspberry bushes, from which we would later gather the fruit to make jam. There must
have originally been a concreted area, because there was a lot of broken concrete and long grass, as well as a huge hole in the ground which was now a pond and had obviously been made by a bomb.
There were also hundreds of frogs and grasshoppers in the long grass – horrible little things. They were everywhere. All you could hear all day and night was that buzzing noise they make. The
main sights I remember were the ladybirds and the large number of beautiful butterflies. There must have been about ten different varieties, including Red Admirals, Painted Ladies and Clouded
Yellows. Their velvet-like wings had beautiful colours and patterns, and I would watch them fluttering about for hours. Nathan would catch the grasshoppers and put them in a jar, but, however much
I hated them, I would insist that he let them out. We would have terrible fights about this because he wanted to take them back to the caravan, which neither Mummy nor I approved of.

I was nine years old and had no idea that my mother was about to give birth, or even that she was pregnant! Pregnancy was not something Romany women would discuss openly, and certainly not with
children. Apparently, the plan had been that we would travel to Skegness to be near the family for ‘the event’, but she could feel that her time was near and that she wouldn’t be
able to make the journey. So the bomb-site it was!

There was a couple living in a vardo quite near us. He was a businessman, she was an ex-dancer. From an early age, my mother had taught me to tap dance. Every day we would practise the steps she
had taught me and work out various routines. One day the lady saw me practising on a tap board outside our caravan. ‘She’s not bad,’ she remarked to Mummy. ‘My name is
Ellen. I used to be a dancer in shows in London. Why don’t I put her through her paces?’

Mummy agreed, and I had a whale of a time learning new steps and routines with her, things like the sailor’s hornpipe that I’d never even heard of before.

As it got nearer to Mummy’s time to have the baby, Ellen said, ‘Shall I come and do some cleaning for you? I love cleaning.’

My mother gratefully agreed and took her on, but insisted that she pay her. The next morning Ellen turned up and Mummy, Nathan and I left her to it and went off into town to buy Nathan and
myself a new pair of shoes each. Mummy bought me a beautiful pair of red tap shoes and I couldn’t wait to get home to try them out.

When we got back to the vardo, everything was absolutely gleaming, but the reek of paraffin was overwhelming. Dumbfounded, Mummy questioned Ellen about the smell.

‘Paraffin’s the best cleaner in the world,’ Ellen said.

We could barely step inside the vardo without holding our hands over our noses. That evening, with all the windows and doors open, we spent almost the entire night cleaning the wagon all over
again, trying to get rid of the smell. After that, Ellen’s nickname became Madam Paraffin and she was only allowed to give me tap lessons. No more cleaning!

Mummy hadn’t seen a doctor throughout her pregnancy, so didn’t have a date around which she expected to deliver the baby. About three weeks after the paraffin incident her
contractions began, at 9 p.m. on the evening of 22 May. She grabbed my arm and said very quietly but firmly, ‘Go to the pub on the corner immediately, gal, and get your father.’

I knew from Mummy’s tone that something important was happening, and I have never run so fast in my whole life. When my father came back, there were hushed conversations. I suppose Mummy
must have known that her labour was in the early stages. The next morning my father took us off for Sunday lunch at the house of Mr and Mrs Lyons, who he’d met in the pub. I certainly
didn’t want to go, and neither did Nathan. This was most unusual and we really didn’t have a clue what was actually going on.

When we got there, Mrs Lyons had prepared the most disgusting food and her house was dirty. How could Mummy let me come here? I thought. And why were Nathan and I being sent here alone?

Mrs Lyons, a fat and matronly looking woman, dipped a comb into a bowl in the sink which had potatoes and cabbage in it, scooped it through the dirty water and then combed her long, greasy grey
hair with it. Oh my God, this woman was going to make us eat the food which she had just infected with her dirty comb! I watched as long grey hairs floated to the top of the bowl and my stomach
turned over.

How could my parents send us here? I would rather have cooked for us at home. When Daddy came back to pick us up, it had seemed like days rather than hours. He drove us home in silence, but all
the time with a wry smile on his face. When we arrived, the wagon was dark and quiet and all of the curtains had been shut.

‘Now listen, you two,’ whispered Daddy. ‘Mummy hasn’t been feeling very well. The doctor has been and said it’s because she needs another baby. He brought two
babies for you to choose from. Which one do you want?’

All of a sudden, a wail came from next to Mummy. I rushed over to see two little bundles, swaddled in white flannelette sheets.

‘Oh Mummy,’ I said. I could feel the tears welling up. I loved babies and couldn’t believe my eyes. ‘However are we supposed to choose?’

Little did I know that my mother had been expecting a baby for nine months. Little did my mother know that what she thought was only one baby was in fact two! My sister Anne was born around
lunchtime on this warm May day and two hours later, to Mummy’s and the midwife’s surprise, out came Eddie, feet first!

‘Come on, choose then, Eva,’ demanded Daddy. I looked at the two small bundles and my heart melted. I was overcome with emotion and the love poured out of me for them both. How could
I ever choose between them? It was all too much. I ran out of the wagon sobbing and threw myself on the ground. It was too cruel to have to make this decision.

I heard movement at the vardo door and picked myself up. I was hysterical. ‘You’re not taking them! You’re not taking them!’

My mother managed to lift herself out of the bed. ‘Enough, Eddie, stop teasing the girl. Can’t you see she’s upset? This game has gone on long enough.’

Mummy came over to me and gathered me up in her arms. She walked me back into the vardo and gently pushed me down onto the bed, next to the two babies. She placed the little boy in my arms and
whispered gently, ‘Daddy’s just joking. They’re both ours. Do you want to help me look after them?’

I looked down and I swear he winked at me. I placed my finger in his hand. Immediately he grasped it and at that moment I felt so proud and protective of him. Mummy picked up the girl and said,
‘We’re going to call this one Anne. What do you think? The little boy is Eddie, after your father.’

Months later, I was to be a little upset that these two babies were given names straight away, as they told me I had been called ‘it’ for three weeks!

So now we were a family of six. The vardo suddenly became a very small place to live indeed, especially as Mummy had decided she wanted a big twin Silver Cross pram for her new babies, as well
as two separate cots. There was only one thing to do: it was time to buy a bigger wagon. After much searching around and head-scratching, Mummy came up with an idea. We couldn’t tow two
wagons easily, but we could buy a bigger vehicle to tow the wagon and store the prams and so on. ‘Let’s buy a bus!’

When she told my father her idea, he almost choked on the tea he was drinking. ‘A bus? Are you mad, woman?’

‘I’m very serious,’ said Mummy. ‘And Mr Blake, who’s a millionaire, has got one which he tows his wagon with. If it’s good enough for him . . .’

They’d encountered Mr Blake a few times while travelling, and Mummy must have been taken with his bus, which was painted battleship grey and had leaded windows – it looked like a
little cottage on wheels. Within a couple of days, Daddy drove up with a Leyland bus, which he proceeded to have stripped out and lined with wood and Formica. He hired a professional carpenter and
spent almost every penny they had on his new project.

Shortly after the twins were born, Mummy bought her new Silver Cross pram. It was a nice day, so she decided to take us all for a walk to try it out. When we got back to our vardo, she suddenly
said to me, ‘In that shop we passed there were some juicy-looking oranges in the window. Go and get them and we’ll sit outside and eat them.’

Nathan and I ran to the shops together. I could almost taste the juice of the delectable oranges in my mouth as we ran. I passed the money over to the lady behind the counter. ‘As many of
those oranges in the window as I can have for half a crown please.’ She went to the window with a brown paper bag and came back and handed the bag to me. Nathan and I ran back to the
vardo.

When we got back, Mummy grabbed the bag. ‘Right, outside, everybody,’ she smiled. Her beaming smile turned into a scowl when she looked into the bag.

‘What’s wrong, Mummy?’ I said.

‘These are not the oranges in the window,’ she exclaimed with surprise and a look of disappointment. ‘These are all shrivelled up. Right, come on then, let’s go back to
the shop.’

We stood in the doorway. ‘Hang on to the pram, Eva,’ she instructed me and she went into the shop. The woman behind the counter saw her coming and obviously knew what the problem
was.

‘I’m not taking them back,’ she shouted. ‘You dirty gypsies live in a caravan and you’ve been touching them!’

With that, my mother seemed to relax. She smiled and said, ‘Oh, but you
are
having them back.’ And then she started throwing the oranges. She was hitting the cans on the
shelves behind the woman and Nathan and I started to laugh. The nasty woman was ducking and diving.

When Mummy had thrown the last one, we headed back to the caravan. Mummy had tears rolling down her cheeks from laughter and said, ‘It was worth half a crown; I haven’t enjoyed
myself so much for a long time. We won’t use that shop again!’

The bread man was much nicer and Nathan and I would wait eagerly for his van to pull up on the site every morning at around ten o’clock. Mummy would always give her order to us and we
would go out and tell him what she wanted. Then we would say, ‘What cakes have you got please?’ Every morning he would go through the same routine. ‘I’ve got jam tarts,
Eccles cakes, iced buns, strawberry tarts, macaroons, chocolate cakes, custard tarts, custard slices, chocolate éclairs, doughnuts, cream meringues and lemon curd tarts.’ It was, of
course, a game with us. We knew all too well what he had, we just liked to hear him say it, and he knew this too because we always used to end up ordering the same thing: custard tarts! But he
played the game, God love him. Mummy would have killed us if she’d known that we were teasing him so badly every day.

By now my parents were beginning to run low on funds. They had only been expecting one baby, after all, and Mummy hadn’t been able to get back out to work yet with twins to look after. Add
on the cost of a pram, a bus and furnishings and it was clear that they had to start getting some more money coming in.