From the archives of The North...
This month, we have retrieved from the archive some prose by Gerard Benson. This was one of a series of articles by Gerard, with this part titled 'The Very Early Years' and first appearing in North 32.
THE VERY EARLY YEARS
Sometimes I think I remember Gordon. He’s an elusive presence on the edge of memory. A blond head, a whiff of excrement. A child in a cot. A cream coloured shirt with large buttons. But thinking again and remembering a photo of myself at this time, perhaps it is my shirt that I am remembering. Or maybe we both wore it. Or were there two of these shirts?
Gordon was another Smith nurse-child. His parents were mysteriously distant. In India. They didn’t come over when he was dying. Or when he died. He was three years old. How old was I? A little younger, I think, so it’s entirely possible that I don’t remember
him at all. But something in my brain tells me I do. A photograph behind glass in a small topless frame that stood on the front room mantelpiece: that I remember. Going to tend his grave. The cemetery was quite near the house. We put new flowers in the metal vase (there was water in a standpipe), cleared away leaves, pulled out weeds. In the cemetery you did not run.
I’ve no idea what disease took him away but his going was saintly. He languished in his cot (I was told this often) and he was sinking fast. They asked him what he wanted. He could have anything he wanted.
‘Two sugar mice,’ Gordon said.
‘Just two sugar mice?’
‘Two sugar mice.’
Someone ran to the sweet shop and brought back two sugar mice – one pink, one white. These were moulded, very sweet sweets – life-size, with perky ears; you could hold them by the little bit of string which formed their tails. I never liked them.
Gordon lay in his cot. They gave him the sweets. He handed them back: ‘One for Mummy and one for Daddy.’ Shortly afterwards he passed away into the arms of Jesus.
This was a tale often told, usually in the same words. Gradually this example of infant selflessness sickened me. The story was trotted out whenever I or another child was selfish or fractious. ‘And he looked up into my eyes and said, “One for Mummy and one for Daddy”’. By degrees my feelings toward this no doubt blameless child, who might well have developed into a boy like other boys, hardened into an active dislike. He was a perfect anti-role-model.
As it happened, I, too, had curly hair. But at least it wasn’t blond.
My dislike of Gordon was, however, accompanied by a feeling of unworthiness. It was sad. If only he had been there to hit. He couldn’t help dying young. And it was a nice gesture he made. It was wrong of me not to admire him and try to emulate him. But I couldn’t. My behaviour at his graveside, though, was exemplary. From time to time I even used to wash the curious convex greenglass flower-holder that was put at the bottom of the vase. But also, in secret I rehearsed death scenes of my own, in which I out-Gordoned him in both generosity and general saintliness, just in case I too should be wanted above and carried off by an illness.
_____
Then came Wendy, a tiny baby with a little red face and minute hands with pink fingernails. Fifty years later I read a letter from Mrs Smith to Miss Doyle, my Aunty Eileen. Wendy had been conceived to fill the terrible emotional gap left by the death of Gordon, though that’s not quite how she put it. Wendy was my little sister. When she got older she didn’t go to my school but to a private school. This wasn’t a school building but a big dwelling house in another part of Ealing. She was never beaten. She may occasionally have been smacked but never thrashed. No sticks. No canes. When she stopped being a baby she had short straight reddish hair which came down in a bob and covered her ears. She and I got on astonishingly well. I don’t remember ever resenting the difference in treatment between us. Perhaps I did. Perhaps I thought girls were different. In fact I knew there was a difference but couldn’t quite work out what it was. At one stage I thought it might be that they didn’t have ears. And of course they wore different clothes.
As to the private school (or rather Private School), well, ‘We thought it more suitable for her.’ I thought she missed out; and I still think so. The big house with its painted gate and its small classrooms was no substitute for the schoolness of Lionel Road School. The rather nice girls and boys who went there had nothing on my friends and enemies. Their weedy little garden was nothing like as good as our big playground with lines painted on it for various games. And we had metal railings, outside which a nasty man with his hand in his pocket who liked to watch us play was on the third day taken away by a policeman. They had nothing but an ordinary garden wall. As to the beatings, why should I wish beatings on anybody else, especially my little sister? My big sister was different. About nine or ten when I was born and a teenager at the time I’m worrying at now, she always seemed to me to be a grown-up. Once she was taking me out somewhere, and dissatisfied with my appearance (the first of many) she ironed the collar of my shirt while I was still wearing it. I got a nasty burn on the back of my neck which she rubbed butter on. This incident had to be kept secret but I feel I can mention it now. I adored Audrey. She was spirited. On holiday at St Ives she caused great scandal and dissension by wearing a twopiece bathing costume. The two pieces were discretely enough cut, so as not to show the navel, or the tops of the legs, or anything else much. But they gave a fair view of the rib cage, and were the cause of much comment and outrage. I think she was sixteen – really old. She had brought a friend with her and they both wore these daring costumes. A photo shows me at this time in a one-piece that covered the whole torso, with straps over the shoulders. If even boys had to cover their chests, Audrey’s flamboyant gear must have excited much attention, and caused many a lubricious glances.
_____
There were certain practices that were forbidden. They included the drinking of alcohol (except a sip of wine at Meeting and a glass of sherry on Christmas day), smoking, cosmetics, theatre, cinema. We danced ‘Hands Knees and Boompsadaisy’ at parties in the house and even on Sunday School Treats; otherwise dancing was forbidden. Oh, and the cosmetics. Well, ladies might not paint their faces but they could wear powder which prevented their noses from shining. And there were parts of the body you must never touch, except when you had to. And of course there was language, which you must never use.
So it was a remarkable afternoon, during the school holidays, when Audrey, by this time working at a florists, left to look after me for the afternoon took me to the pictures. The pictures! I imagine she used to go quite often, but always secretly. She swore me to absolute secrecy. We were to tell lies, too. We would say that we’d spent the afternoon at Mavis’s house and that I’d played with Mavis’s little brother Bob. I said I’d say we played with his magic set. She said, No, that was too complicated. We’d played with his soldiers. I sulked for a bit. I wanted to imagine his conjuring tricks. But soldiers it was.
In the wicked cinema we watched a story about a nurse. She thought patriotism was not enough. She nursed Germans as well as English wounded. They shot her in the end. Audrey cried. I thought they should never have shot her – but it was a bit odd, her treating those Jerries as well. It was all very confusing. The film had a profound effect on me. Perhaps part of its power resided in the guilt of our visit.
We walked home together from the magical palace where huge photographs moved and talked and told you stories. When we got to the first park gates Audrey said, ‘From now on we are going to talk as if we’ve been to Mavis’s, so as not to be caught out. What did you play?’ This refinement to normal lying I found very interesting.
‘Oh, we played Battle of Waterloo. I had the French because they were Bob’s soldiers.’
‘Did you get on with Bob?’
‘Yes. He’s all right.’
‘Why did you have two pieces of cake?’ ‘Why did you have three?’
‘Don’t you say that when we get home. Don’t you dare!’ ‘Can I say you spilt tea on the table cloth?’ She clipped my ear, nice and friendly. ‘Yes, all right.’ ‘We’ll say Mavis’s Mum put a saucer under it.’ ‘No. Mavis’s Mum wasn’t there.’
‘Okay. Mavis did.’
‘Okay.’ She ruffled my hair.
We went in through the back door. Nobody asked us anything. I was disappointed. I liked making things up. We got away with it unscathed. And anyway we didn’t tell any lies because nobody asked us. I’ve never forgotten Edith Cavel.
– Gerard Benson, from North 32
The Poetry Business receives financial assistance from Arts Council England.
