CHELSEA, 1990
In the summer of 1990, when I had just turned thirteen, I came upon my mother one afternoon on the landing. She was placing piles of clean bedding in the airing cupboard. Once upon a time we’d had our laundry taken away once a week in a small van with gold lettering on the side and then returned to us a few days later in immaculate bales wrapped in ribbon or hanging from wooden hangers under plastic sheets.
‘What happened to the laundry service?’ I asked.
‘What laundry service?’
Her hair had grown long. She had not, as far as I was aware, had it cut in the two years since the other people had moved in with us. Birdie wore her hair long, and so did Sally. My mother had worn her hair in a bob. Now it was past her shoulder blades and parted in the middle. I wondered if she was trying to be like the other women, in the same way that I was trying to be like Phin.
‘Remember? That old man who came in the white van to collect our laundry, and he was so tiny you used to worry that he wouldn’t be able to carry it all?’
My mother’s gaze panned slowly to the left, as though remembering a dream, and she said, ‘Oh yes. I forgot about him.’
‘How come he doesn’t come any more?’
She rubbed her fingertips together, and I looked at her with alarm. I knew what the gesture meant, and it was something I’d long suspected, but this was the first time I’d had it confirmed to me. We were poor.
‘But what happened to all Dad’s money?’
‘Shhh.’
‘But I don’t understand.’
‘Shhh!’ she said again. And then she pulled me gently by the arm into her bedroom and sat me on her bed. She held my hand in hers and she stared hard at me. I noticed she wasn’t wearing any eye make-up and wondered when that had stopped. So many things had changed so slowly over such a long period of time that it was hard sometimes to spot the joins.
‘You have to promise, promise, promise,’ she said, ‘not to talk to anyone else about this. Not your sister. Not the other children. Not the grown-ups. Nobody, OK?’
I nodded hard.
‘And I’m only telling you because I trust you. Because you’re sensible. So don’t let me down, OK?’
I nodded even harder.
‘Dad’s money ran out a long time ago.’
I gulped.
‘What, like, all of it?’
‘Basically.’
‘So, what are we living on?’
‘Dad’s been selling stocks and shares. There’s still a couple of savings accounts. If we can live on thirty pounds a week we’ll be OK for at least a couple of years.’
‘Thirty pounds a week?’ My eyes bulged. My mother used to spend thirty pound a week on fresh flowers alone. ‘But that’s impossible!’
‘It’s not. David’s sat down with us and worked it all out.’
‘David? But what does David know about money? He doesn’t even have a house!’
‘Shhh.’ She put her finger to her lips and glanced warily at the bedroom door. ‘You’ll have to trust us, Henry. We’re the grown-ups and you’re just going to have to trust us. Birdie’s bringing money in with her fiddle lessons. David’s bringing money in with his exercise classes. Justin’s making loads of money.’
‘Yes, but they’re not giving any to us, are they?’
‘Well, yes. Everyone is contributing. We’re making it work.’
And that was when it hit me. Hard and clear.