Stuff that happened to me

As I looked down at the wet cobbles, glistening in hues of greys and silver I hitched the heavy laundry bag a couple of inches off the ground and watched the bottom of my bell bottoms as the black, damp, cold dirt from the street reached higher and higher towards my knees, my hand was aching with the weight of the empty old hob kettle. I felt as though I had been delivered to another planet, the net curtains twiched and snotty nosed kids gawped at the site of my family walking down the middle of the street filled with dilapidated terraces and the odd immaculate doorstep, stiff white net curtains and painted front doors, that is how I was introduced to the  Salford street which was to become my home for many years. My Mum and dad walked behind their arms ladden with household items and clothing, my little sister walked behind her eyes wide with confussion and fear, we walked as a stragly bunch who must have seemed and odds with one another as we were spread out, no two seemingly together and yet united in being out of place.



We had left our lovely home in the very late evening, my Dad's career path meant that whilst he hadn't worked an honest day since he was a lad, he had been successful to that point in earning a living breaking the law. I don't know why we had to leave our old house, I do know that throughout my childhood we would swing from living a fairly oppulent lifestyle to one where pangs of hunger were par for the course and so it would go, never really knowing from one day to the next where we would be, where we would live and what lies we would have to tell to metaphorically sweep the sand, to hide our footprints.



Before we moved to Grosvenor street, we lived in a grand house with french windows that formed the enter wall of our kitchen, which in turn led to a garden which was equipped to be any childs dream, it had an elegant swirling, grand  staircase that led to a huge  mezzanine level, quite a few of our neighbours were well known at the time, Elsie Tanner (who my Mum almost had a physical fight with many years later, after she nearly knocked me down whilst she was having a driving lesson, my fault I may add), Roger Moore was starring in The Saint at the time, he lived around the corner, the vile Jimmy Savile was a neighbour and a loathed aquantance of my Dad, but as he (my dad) was a griffter he wasn't fussy who he conned, so was polite to him, but he warned me to stay well away from him. Vanessa Redgrave lived close by and many other stars who worked at the Granada studio in Manchester. It wasn't idylic though, even though I had nothing to compare to, it seemed so wrong and so sad that my Dad would beat my mum so badly and so often, insanely often, rarely would a night go by without violence, we (my sister Sharon and I) were never sent from the room or told not to come in when the beatings happened, it was as though we were not there, either invisible or unimportant.



My Dad was involved with a couple of businesses that gave him the fascade of being legit, having a legitimate income, amongst other businesses he owned a cosmetic factory, where I had my own little desk. Like most things in life little is Black and White, it's shades of Grey and so it was with my father, I remember him once calling for a test tube to be fetched when I was crying and he caught the tear and told me  he would create a special perfume just for me, Maria's tear.



He played bongos in a jazz club that was owned by one of the men he would commit armed robbery with, the owner Tony ? played in the jazz band along with his brother in-law Ronnie S and his younger brother Tony S. Tony's wife Josephine had an affair with my father that lasted years, she was besotted and wasn't adverse to trying to curry favour with my Dad by buying my sister and I gorgeous gifts. Anyway the blokes in the band were also my Dad's 'criminal family'. Sometimes I would go to the jazz club with my dad during the day, when it was closed and wander around the club whilst my Dad and his 'friends' would check out plans and make arrrangments to rob some business or other. So it became automatic for me not to nitch, it was ingrained within me along with my manners, just as important, I was trained to keep secrets.



My dad was also a pimp and along with my mother working for him there were often strange women coming in and our of our lives and homes, often I'd come home from school to find women I didn't know standing in our home, sometimes they'd be nice to me, try to friendly, others had a look of pure unadulterated fear, seemed frozen, I was later to learn that usually the women who were being nice were trying to get my dad to pimp for them and the women who look afraid already working for him.



Every night my Mum would style her hair in an elegant blond chignon, she'd squeeze her big breasted, tiny, curvy frame into one of  what seemed like an endless arrary of beautiful evening gowns. She was a beautiful woman and from head to foot ticked all the boxes for being sexy. She'd go out in the evening just after we had gone to bed, I would hear the door close every night and in the early hours she'd return. Some nights I'd hear my Mum begging my dad to allow her to sleep with him in his room when she had returned, but he'd talk to her as though she were dirt, say cutting cruel things and bannish her to the single bed she always slept in, in the same room my sister and I slept in, there I'd listen to her anquished, almost silent cries, sounds of deep sorrow and pain, not the sounds you first think of when you think of someone crying, more like little sounds of a soul being shredded, like the sounds I imagine a baby would make if it were possible, as it was being ripped from the womb, or so it seemed to me. She was always tired, even though my dad had an E-type jag parked outside the front door, a Capri in the garage, she would have to walk us the 2 miles to school even on the most harsh, bitter winter mornings, whilst my Dad lay tucked up warm in bed.



Straight from schools most days my Mum would take us to the afternoon sessions at the bingo hall, there we'd have to sit on the maroon carpeted stairs whilst the Bingo took place, sometimes there were other kids, but mainly it was just plan boring waiting, just my sister and I. My mother would swear me to secrecy about her bingo visits and as I'd been so well  trained and knew the violence my dad was capable of, I kept my mouth firmly shut.