Secrets My Mother Kept Read Online Free PDF Page A

side of the room. I looked at the toys on the shelves, the assortment of teddy bears on her bed and at the rows of books neatly stacked on a tiny bookcase, and thought that she must be the luckiest little girl in the whole world.
    After lunch we walked to the shoe shop. My eyes fell on a pair of shoes that sparkled. They were covered in glitter and sequins. I crunched up my eyes and wished with all my might, but at the same time was too timid to make my preferences known to the grown ups.
    ‘I think these ones will look best next to the green’ said Carol’s Mum picking up a pair of dull cream satin shoes that had a small bow on the front, but Carol said ‘Oh no please Mummy, the sparkly ones are the nicest, please, please, please.’ The adults exchanged looks and smiled. Julie picked up the sparkling shoes and said ‘Do you know Carol I think you’re right, the sparkly ones are definitely the best, do you like them Kathleen?’ I nodded so vigorously that my head almost left my shoulders and I couldn’t stop myself from smiling broadly.
    I knew then that wishes could come true. With my new green satin dress, sparkling starlight shoes, shiny flicked up hair and green feather headband, I would look like a princess and this time when people looked at me, they would be thinking I looked beautiful.

5
    Michael
    From the end of the Second World War to the early 60s, all young men were conscripted into the armed forces, as long as they passed a medical examination. My oldest brother Michael was no exception. He was called up for National Service when I was about three so I don’t really remember him much before he was in the army. It would not be the first time he had been away from home. In fact, as I later discovered, he was already a veteran at living apart from our family.
    As the second oldest in the family, he had been born just before the outbreak of war. He was a very beautiful baby with golden curls and a chubby face, but did not have a particularly happy childhood. Mum had already given birth to Sheila a year before, so they were very close in age. Mum and Ron Coates, their dad, had a house around the corner from Granny and Granddad. It was still on the Becontree Estate but was a bit smaller than mum’s childhood home. Things started to go badly wrong. They were both quite young, still in their twenties when Mum became pregnant for the third time. War broke out and Ron was working long hours at Ford, and Mum was lonely.
    Aunty told us many years later that Ron Coates was a ‘womaniser’, but we never knew if that was true. It was while Mum was pregnant with their fourth child, Josie, that they finally separated. Michael was five at the time. Today the idea of a single parent bringing up children alone doesn’t surprise, shock or horrify anyone, but in 1942 in a Catholic community Mum was stigmatised.
     
    After Michael’s ten weeks basic training for National Service, he was shipped over to Gibraltar – ‘the Rock’, as it was known then. He was just over nineteen years old and had already been bringing a wage home. He was trying to help to keep the ever-growing family’s head above water. Now all that had changed and he wasn’t sure what chaos and calamity he would come back to. Despite his worries about Mum and us, he loved army life and soon metamorphosed from a chubby, shy, anxious teenager into a tall, slim, confident young man. After he had been in Gibraltar for about two years his letters home started mentioning a Spanish girl named Isobel. He sent us photos of her. She was so beautiful; with her dark hair and smouldering eyes, she was the most exotic looking person we had ever seen. Then another letter from him arrived.
    ‘Your brother’s getting married,’ I overheard Mum telling Pat and Josie. They were in their late teens and had been working since they left school at fifteen.
    I was so excited but wasn’t sure exactly what it meant.
    ‘Is our brother really getting married?’ I asked