Daisy Darker(48)

Nancy pushed through the crowds and headed straight up the escalator to the children’s department in Debenhams, where she quickly chose two new dresses for Rose and Lily. I had to run to keep up with her walk, but I remember the navy blue velvet dresses with white collars, and how much I wanted one of my own. My mother always liked to dress my sisters in matching clothes – as though they were twins – but I rarely had anything new to wear.

We went up another floor to women’s fashion, so that Nancy could buy a little something for herself. My mother always walked up the escalator in her hurry to find a bargain. The moving steps were very big, and seven-year-old me found it difficult to keep up. I’ve been scared of escalators ever since. I always felt as though I was going to slip, or trip, or fall through the cracks. I had to jump when we reached the end, to avoid the gap and certain death.

On arrival in women’s fashion, Nancy started to browse the reduced-price clothes like it was a sport. I remember the ugly sound of hangers screeching across the metal rails. If other shoppers dared to get in her way, Nancy would tut until they moved. My feet started to ache in my second-hand shoes, which were pretty but too small. So, while I waited for Nancy to find the things she thought would make her happy, I sat down and collected the coat hanger size cubes that had fallen to the floor. There were different colours for each size in those days: orange for 10, green for 12, blue for 14. Nancy has almost always been a size 10, and I wonder if that’s why I hate the colour orange.

Everything was fine until we got to the changing room. My mother had taken in the maximum number of dresses to try on, but started to get upset almost right away because the first dress didn’t seem to fit.

‘Just pull the zip up,’ she said, glaring at me in the mirror as I tried, and failed, to help.

‘It won’t budge,’ I replied, tugging on the zipper, and she tutted and shook her head at me as though it was my fault.

‘There must be something wrong with the sizing of this dress,’ Nancy said, pulling it off over her head and dumping it on the floor. But the next dress, another size 10, didn’t fit either. Nor did the next one. That’s when Nancy started to cry.

‘Having children ruined my body. Ruined it. The sacrifices I have made for you . . .’

‘I think you look beautiful,’ I said, shoving my hands into my pockets, not really knowing what to say or do. ‘I could just go and get you a bigger size?’

I was so scared by the look my mother gave me then, I ran out of the changing room without waiting for a reply. Some of the size cubes I had picked up earlier were still in my pockets. Feeling them gave me an idea. I found the dress my mother liked the most out on the shop floor, went on tiptoe to select it in a size 12, then changed the green size cube on the hanger for an orange size 10. I ran back to the changing room.

‘I already tried that one,’ Nancy snapped, staring at the dress as though it had offended her.

‘But maybe this one will fit?’ I said, holding it out in both hands like a fabric peace offering. ‘It did look very pretty on you.’

She snatched the dress and started to pull it on. When I helped zip it all the way up at the back, she smiled at herself in the mirror. Then she smiled at me.

I don’t know whether Nancy ever looked at the size label sewn into the inside of the dress she bought for herself that day. All my mother ever really cared about was what was on the outside, what other people saw and how they viewed her. I still think it’s a very sad way to live. But we stopped off in the children’s department again before we left Debenhams that afternoon, and my mother bought me the same dress she had bought for my sisters. It was the first and only time she dressed me the same way as them. Sometimes the things that make one person sad are the same things that can make another person happy.

Nancy sang along to the radio again as we drove home. There were big bags full of half-price dresses in the boot of her little red Mini. All of them with the wrong size on the hangers. I never told her what I did because sometimes keeping secrets is the kindest thing to do. I still remember how happy she was, until we saw a boy walking alone along the coastal path near Seaglass. I guess Conor would have been thirteen at the time. That awkward stage where he still looked like a boy but was starting to think and behave like a man. He was limping. My mother pulled up beside him and gasped when she saw his face. He had a black eye and a bloody lip.

‘Stay here,’ she ordered, yanking the handbrake as though it were to blame.

She got out of the car and rushed over to Conor.

‘Did your dad do this to you?’ Nancy asked.

Our whole family knew about Conor’s dad, and my parents did not approve of Nana getting involved. They viewed spending what they saw as their inheritance on Conor’s father’s rehab as a waste of time and money. My mother had been waiting for the moment when she would be proved right. Conor looked away and stared at Blacksand Bay down below the cliffs. Nancy tried again, softening the edges of her words.

‘You don’t need to say it out loud if you don’t want to, but I do need to know what happened, Conor. Did your father do this to you? Nod or shake your head.’

Conor stared at her, but he didn’t move his head or even blink.

‘Jump in the back seat,’ she said, and he did as he was told, sliding in beside me. He stank of blood and sweat.

My mother was more than capable of hurting her own children behind closed doors – albeit only with words – but she could not tolerate the thought of any other child coming to harm. The car’s brakes squealed as we pulled up outside Conor’s dad’s cottage, the one Nana had lovingly renovated a couple of years earlier. Sadly, people can be harder to restore than places.