Conversation With My Younger Self

 I remembered the gothic entrance and the huge black door that always creaked on its hinges, but once inside, I didn’t recognise anything at all. It was the annual Infant School open day and this was my first visit to my former primary school in over fifty years. Small rooms and narrow corridors had disappeared, creating a feeling of lightness and space, despite the building being early Victorian. I remembered the harsh stone floors, now smartly tiled in olive green and enhanced by brightly coloured children’s paintings displayed on pale ochre walls. There was still the recess opposite the reception class where our daily milk, not yet snatched by Mrs Thatcher, had been heated in tiny bottles to an insipid warmness, on blue-flamed gas burners. I once spit some out on my chair because I found it hard to swallow and told my teacher that another child had done it; a dishonest thing to do, but the culprit was never found!

  I crossed the Hall where we once sang hymns or played with hoops and skipping ropes and came to the old Junior Corridor and the top year classroom at the end. It hadn’t changed much. Mr Boyes had been my teacher there and I had loved him. That was the year I took my eleven plus, but in those days, we called it the Scholarship. Today the whole building housed infants only, so the grouped tables in shiny melamine, were infant-size, unlike the aged oak desks I remembered.

  I took a coffee from a staff member serving drinks and sat down at one of the mini tables opposite a girl who looked older than the little ones trailing round with their parents. I said ‘hello’ and sipped my coffee then couldn’t help briefly staring. I recognised the shiny straight fringe, her dark hair pulled back into a ponytail, and when she opened her lips to sip her orange squash, I caught sight of her two quite large, front teeth, so familiar. I knew I was facing my eleven-year-old self who tentatively smiled at me. I smiled too and asked how she was, and she looked uncertain. Was she wondering who this stranger was or did she feel a familiarity too?   She could not know I was who she would become.

  She was wearing my favourite seersucker blouse, the one made by Auntie Joan; the white one with a Peter Pan collar and scattered blue spots. I noticed the little gilt brooch hiding her top button, the one with the capital ‘J’ in gold lettering on a black jet background; it dangled from the glossy framework. Should I refer to my younger self as ‘I’ or ‘She’? I wondered.

‘I love your pretty brooch,’ I said ‘What does the ‘J’ stand for?

‘My name’s Jennifer, but my mum was going to call me Christine; then she heard the name Jennifer on a programme on the wireless; you know, ‘Ray’s a Laugh.’

I did, and I remembered mum telling that tale. ‘I prefer the name Jennifer,’ I said, ‘And what a funny coincidence, my name’s Jennifer too, but I’m always called Jennie.’

‘That’s nice but I get called Kitty all the time; you see, my surname is Kitt. We have the shop down Riverhead called Kitt’s. We sell everything. It’s my mum’s shop.’

‘Is your mum here today?’ I asked and suddenly felt incredibly nervous; mum had died forty years ago and the thought of seeing her now was unimaginable.

‘No, mum has to be in the shop. I’m in the Juniors but have just been helping the infant teachers on the open day; washing up mugs and glasses, but we’re finished now; most mums and dads and children have had their drinks.

‘What about your dad, is he here today?’ I didn’t need to ask but wanted to hear her reply.

‘My dad? He never comes to anything; he goes to Hull on a Saturday.

‘How is your dad?’

‘Why, do you know him?’

‘I’m not sure, I might.’ I said.

‘Well, he didn’t like me coming to school today; you see, he thinks I should be helping mum in the shop, but mum didn’t mind me coming.’

‘Well, if he’s gone out for the day, why shouldn’t you?’

Jennifer shrugged her shoulders and looked blank and a little bit puzzled then said, ‘I’ve just got my scholarship and I’m going to Bridlington High School.’

‘You’re a clever girl then?’

‘Not really; my dad doesn’t know I’m going yet.’

Jennifer looked slightly anxious and I knew exactly how she felt, because she was me, the young me, and I knew her so well.

‘How do you mean?’ I tried to bring her out.

‘I daren’t tell him; he thinks school is a waste of time. Mum wants me to go to Brid High School but the uniform costs loads, and dad never pays for anything.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘If you go to the high school and pass your exams, you might become a teacher or a doctor and earn a lot of money; can’t you tell your dad that?’

‘I can’t tell him much.’

‘Perhaps you should tell him you don’t want to be a shopgirl.’

‘He’ll go into one of his black moods and won’t speak for days; it’s awful for mum.’

‘Can he be nice?’ Jennifer scowled and I absolutely knew why.

‘He’s kind sometimes; he bought one of my paintings once; it was of a tiger. Mostly, I don’t like him much, my heart sinks when he comes up the path’

Jennifer looked anxious and I reached out and took her hand.

‘What is it? ‘

She was very quiet, then she said, ‘He’s always touching me.’

‘Oh, ‘I said, ‘Can’t you tell mum?’ I knew I never had done.

Jennifer shook her head and drank her squash. My heart ached for my younger self. I felt her pain.

‘You must tell your mum; a dad shouldn’t do things like that.’ I thought of Childline; a life-line for young people; there was nothing like it when I was eleven.

‘Well, it’s not just him, it’s Uncle Cyril when he brings Grandma Kitt and comes to stay.’

‘Don’t you like Uncle Cyril?’

She gave a definite ‘No! He’s my dad’s brother and he creeps into my room at night and wakes me up. I hate it but am scared to tell my mum.’

I shuddered and remembered.

‘Oh my dear Jennifer, he really shouldn’t do that. Does he hurt you?’

She started to cry a little. ‘Not really; he touches my feet through the covers and then he tries to hold me, but …’

Jennifer didn’t need to finish; I knew it all; the same every time. ’There is so much ugliness in the world,’ he would say, ’I just want to hold something beautiful.’

Jennifer looked distressed as she realised she was confiding in a stranger. She would never understand who I was.  She finished her drink and pushed her chair back. ‘I’ve got to tell Miss Hairsine I’m going; mum will need me in the shop over teatime.’ She didn’t say goodbye, just spoke to the teacher and sped from the classroom. It was all over in a moment and there was so much more I wanted to ask.

And what more should I have said? Could I have changed the course of my life? Persuaded my young self to tell mum? Before mum died, I did tell her of my fear of Uncle Cyril, and she confided she used to dread Cyril coming too. He used to trap her in a corner, she said, and be indecent. She had never told dad or anyone.  

I eventually, told my husband of dad’s predatory behaviour, and later, one or two close friends. If I had spoken out, the course of my life might have changed, but in a strange way, I had loved my dad and could not have born his humiliation, nor my mother’s.

I read a quotation by E.F. Benson, a British writer from the late nineteenth century. It reflects my feelings:

‘The fear that takes hold in bright sunlight can be the deepest of all.’