Free Don’t Tell Mummy by Toni Maguire Page A

come running when she called. Greedily, their beaks would dip into the warm sweet liquid time and again. Lifting their heads from the bowls they would shake them, their little beady eyes gleaming as the liquid trickled down their throats.
    Frogs would be rescued from the well’s bucket and twigs collected for kindling. But my favourite time was when my mother baked. Scones and soda bread were removed from the griddle and, once cooled, placed into tin containers, because food had to be protected from the army of mice that took shelter with us during the winter months.
    Sugary-smelling cakes and biscuits were placed onto racks and, if my mother was in a good mood, I would be rewarded with the bowl to lick out, my fingers sliding around its cream and white sides, scrupulously gathering up the last drop of the buttery mixture. I would suck them clean, under the gaze of Judy’s and Sally’s bright and hopeful eyes.
    Those were the days when flashes of the old warmth that kept my love fuelled sprung up between my mother and me. For if her mind was firmly locked on the memory of the handsome auburn-haired Irishman in that dance hall, the man who waited for her at the docks, a man generous with his hugs and unfulfilled promises, mine was for ever locked on the smiling loving mother from my early childhood.
    From the money that I’d stolen, I bought myself a torch and batteries. These I hid in my room and at night I would smuggle up a book. Tucked up in bed with the blankets pulled high I would strain my eyes every night as I shone the weak light of the torch onto the print. The rustling and scurrying sounds of the insects and small animals that lived in the thatch receded once I lost myself in the pages. Then for a short time I was able to forget the days when my father took me for the ‘drives’.
    Each time he picked up his car keys and announced that it was time for my treat I silently implored my mother to say no, to tell him she needed me for an errand, to collect the eggs, fish the frogs out of the well water, even bringing in the water for washing from the rain butts, but she never did.
    ‘Run along with Daddy, darling, while I make tea,’ would be her weekly refrain as he drove me to the wooden shed and I learnt to separate my feelings from reality.
    On our return sandwiches would have been prepared and a homemade cake, cut into thick slices, would be arranged on a lace doily, which covered a silver-plated platter.
    ‘Wash your hands, Antoinette,’ she would instruct me before we sat down to our Sunday afternoon tea.
    She never asked me about the drives, never asked where we had been or what we had seen.
    Visits to Coleraine, once taken for granted, now became longed-for treats. I missed my large family there, the warmth I always felt in my grandparents’ house and the companionship of my cousins.
    On the rare occasions my father decided that a visit was due, the tin bath would be filled in a curtained-off part of the kitchen the night before. Here I would sit in the shallow soapy water, scrubbing myself clean and washing my hair. My mother would towel dry me, wrap an old dressing gown of hers around my skinny frame and seat me in front of the range. Taking up her silver-backed hairbrush she would run its bristles through my dark brown hair until it shone. The next morning my best outfit would come out, and my father would polish my shoes while my mother supervised my dressing. My hair would be swept back and held in place with a black velvet band. Looking in the mirror I saw a different reflection to the one my peers saw at the village school. Gone was the unkempt child in crumpled clothes; in her place stood a child who looked cared for, a child who was neatly dressed, a child with loving parents.
    This was the start of the second game, a game all three of us took part in, the game of happy families. It was a game directed by my mother, a game of acting out her dream, the dream of a happy marriage, a handsome