My Mother My Mirror Page 17

  When digesting the milk was not so easy she would make little effortful noises: bleats and snorts and grunts, but she seemed to try hard not to cry. Her face would reflect what was going on: her tongue going in and out, one eye shut, a little frown and a quivering lip... Then in the end the inevitable result in her nappy, and time for her to be changed. This was not something she was keen on, but I found if I kept things warm and slow we could get through without too much fuss.

  It also helped if I entertained her, and this was my first experience of Judy bringing me out of myself with her extroverted nature. I had to forget my serious thoughts and be fun! I made funny faces and funny noises, and found she was easily amused. After a while she made a game out of it: she would anticipate the tearing sound of her nappy tapes being released with half-closed eyes and her head on one side, then as soon as her bottom was bare she opened her eyes wide, her legs sprang apart and she would start kicking madly, arching her back in excitement. One night I dreamed I went to change Judy’s nappy and found a tiny baby in it, complete with umbilical cord... No wonder she had been fretting and wriggling!

  I was still having vivid dreams. I watched a TV program about birth, in which some of the babies came from deprived or polluted backgrounds and were skinny and ugly, whilst others were taken from their mothers as soon as they were born for medical tests. Their cries made me cry, as I never would have done before. Then I dreamed about adults that still looked like those babies: large, scabby bald heads and skinny limbs. And I woke wondering how many thousands of souls are walking around crippled by birth scars of one sort or another.

  I began to think about all the fear, pain and baggage in my family, passed down from mother to daughter, generation after generation; and I found myself praying that it would stop here: that Judy wouldn’t have to suffer as I had suffered, or my mother or her mother before her. I suddenly saw how every new life is a chance to get it right, and how the world could become transformed in just one generation – and yet time and time again we pass on our pain, and nothing changes.

  I had some wonderful, deep, lavender-scented baths which helped restore my body to normal. Sometimes when the water had cooled down I would dip Judy in, or sometimes she bathed in her own little plastic bath. Although she had been surrounded by fluid in the womb, being able to feel it on the outside was another experience altogether and she had a great time floating and kicking, all wide-eyed and excited. She didn’t find being dried such fun, but I soon discovered that she loved it if I used the hairdryer. Her arms and legs would spring apart, then she would half close her eyes and adopt a look of serious concentration as she soaked up the warmth.

  It was so wonderful to be genuinely needed. It felt as if the rest of my life had just been pretending: finding people to need me, when really they didn’t. It had been good practice, but this was the real thing. Now everything I had learnt could be put to good use: my organizational skills, tolerance, understanding of psychology, stoicism, flowicism... But most of all I could give Judy all the love I had been given, and all the love I hadn’t. And everything she drew out of me – the praise, the humour, the affection – was as nourishing for me as it was for her.

  She did sometimes cry, but there was usually a good reason for it, such as having to change a messy nappy after a deep sleep when all she wanted was some milk. There was a little pout, then the square mouth, pink face, a shout, a quivering bottom lip and finally a series of great trembling wails. But she was never inconsolable: often she just wanted to be close, so I would have her snuggle up, squirrel-like, between us in the night; and carry her around with me whenever I could in the day.

  I loved to lie on my back with Judy on top of me, her tiny toes just reaching between my legs. I would breathe long and slow, and often she would just fall asleep. It’s one of the most intimate things I have ever experienced: as if someone else was right there, in my own inner world. Of course if she was restless it was a different matter: she would root around like a piglet, banging her head up and down in her ardent search for ninny, sucking everything she could find with great big kissy noises, from a ruck in my T-shirt to her own fist.

  The one downside of this intimate, milk-orientated relationship was of course that Judy soon identified me as the source of food, and as such my very presence could be enough to make her restless and needy. As Sam pointed out, I was a bit like an ice-cream van: and when you hear that jolly jingle you don’t just admire the van, you immediately imagine the goods and how great they would feel in your mouth. So there were times when she had really had enough, and I had had enough, and I was grateful to hand her over to Sam, who had no associations with milk, was calm and patient, and spent many hours rocking the pram or holding her to his shoulder for winding or snoozing.

  26

  Mother Mary

  After all the magic and utter innocence of the beginning, the next magic was the dawning awareness of the world around her, and who she was in relation to everything else. On the one hand it happened slowly, like sunrise... on the other hand it was phenomenally fast: nearly every day brought some incremental change. One of her sweetest expressions was that of wonder when she opened her eyes wide and looked around; and at other times she would glance more quickly from one thing to another, trying to work out how they all fitted together.

  Her smiles began slowly: first just traces of private satisfaction after a good feed, then as she began to look into my eyes they became broader and more to do with communication. Still sometimes she didn’t quite pull it off: she would open her mouth wide but forget to curl the edges, or just forget to do it altogether. But as time passed her smiles became more immediate, and how exciting it was to inspire that look of eager joy.

  Then there was laughing. To begin with she made a sound like “gnu,” as if there was something welling up inside her but that’s as far as it got. I tried gently tickling her when she was lying on the changing mat, but I had to be careful because there was a fine line between joy and fear: sometimes it seemed as if she was going to be overwhelmed by the new feeling, and it would all become too much.

  Next she made a louder sound, an ‘Uh’, like a wave that couldn’t quite break. Then before we knew it her eyes were glistening with joy and she was giggling and laughing for all she was worth: at the antics of the dog, at tickles, and especially at peekaboo. I didn’t even have to hide and then appear again: anything to do with eyes looming in her direction she found hilarious.

  Judy loved light. If she was unhappy, we sometimes just put her close to a lamp, and she cheered up straight away. She would talk to lights, and grin at them. When I took her shopping, in complete contrast to her tendencies in later life, she would ignore the goods in the shops and gaze in wonder at the lights on the ceiling.

  Slowly she learned how to operate her limbs. She began to enjoy bashing: lying in bed and walloping my face with clumsy swipes so her fingers landed up my nose or in danger of blinding me, or in my mouth where I would suck them and kiss them, to her great delight. Often we would look at the fish mobile together. Because she still slept in our bed, I hadn’t yet put it up over the cot but had hung it in the corner of the living room: four or five tiers of brightly coloured fish spinning and swinging round in circles. I rocked her on my hip and sang songs about the fish: “Little fish, little fish, lots and lots of little fish; little fish, little fish, swimming round and round... There are red ones, there are blue ones, there are orange and then yellow fish; little fish, little fish, swimming round and round...” Soon she learned to hit the fish with her hand and make them swivel; I just had to be careful that she didn’t grab one and bring the whole thing tumbling down.

  We had a reclining baby chair that she loved to be bounced in. I set it down on the carpet and pushed it with my foot, singing songs about being on a horse, and the harder she galloped the brighter her eyes gleamed and the harder she kicked her legs and waved her hands in enthusiasm. There was also a harness suspended by sturdy elastic from the door frame in which s
he would jump up and down for ages, frisking from one side to another like a Scottish dancer, sometimes shaking a couple of maracas.

  I didn’t realize she had learned to roll until I was downstairs one day and heard this sickening thump on the bedroom floor, followed by a scream: she had rolled off the bed. She didn’t seem to have come to any harm, but after that we propped the bed base up against the wall and slept on just the mattress for a while.

  A few weeks later she began to drag herself across the floor like a wounded soldier, heading straight for all the things that caused us to say “No” such as electric sockets (rapidly filled with plastic guards), telephone, channel selector, tissues for chewing, and waste paper baskets. Then bit by bit she managed to get up on her knees, until she was racing round like a train, exploring every cupboard and corner and object she could find. Judy never really bothered with sitting, or not until after she had learned to get around: life was definitely about going places.

  I was surprised what a difference it made when she started to eat solid food. There was a new sort of restlessness as she ventured away from mothers’ milk into the exciting but dangerous world of strong tastes and different textures. She developed a squealy scream we hadn’t heard before, that sounded just faintly aggressive: the flimsiest hint of becoming a woman of the world. Her diet began with bananas, and she liked them so much we rather overdid it, so that by the end of the first day she had come out in a rash from all the sweetness. After that we rationed the bananas and gradually introduced vegetables and potatoes, until she was eating a good variety of foods; but always her favourite thing was drinking: first ninny and then her feeding cup of juice.

  One evening we took her to the village carnival where she solemnly watched the cheer-leaders with their brightly coloured pom-poms and the sparkling floats, and listened to the big brass band. It took her ages to get to sleep that night, as she digested all these new experiences, and once again I noticed just a hint more grown-upness in her eyes. She had witnessed another part of the great big world with all its pomp and show and loudness.

  Another memory of that summer comes to mind because it gave us an interesting hint of things to come. A couple from just outside the village called Sam and asked if he would come to their home and give them each a haircut. This was something he was good at: he had been taught by a woman in Hollywood, and was especially skilled at making hair look natural: tidy and nicely styled, but not as if it had obviously just been cut. He took care of my hair and the childrens’ all the time we were together.

  So we drove a little way, with Judy in her car-seat, then carried her up a flower-lined garden path with tall trees on either side, and into a house full of colourful wall hangings and spiritual artefacts. The lady who had phoned us was of Maori origin and told us she was psychic. When she saw Sam’s advertisement in the village shop she’d had a strong feeling there was more of a connection between us than just hair, and sure enough she and Sam found themselves talking long and deep about all things spiritual. I can’t remember much of the content, except that at one point she told us she had a clear vision of a golden-haired boy on Sam’s shoulders, and said that he would be an incarnation of the Christ energy. We weren’t sure what to make of this, but it was certainly a positive message and made me feel happy and hopeful about the future.

  And sure enough, when Judy was just nine months old, I became pregnant again. Sometimes I think it would have been far better for Judy if she had been the only one for a longer time, and I know she feels this to be true. It didn’t exactly happen on purpose, we just didn’t try to prevent it, and it was rather surprising since I was still breastfeeding; but I knew that I wanted my little girl to have a companion, because that was what I had missed as a child. Of course her situation was different, and she ended up with the opposite extreme to deal with, only having her parents to herself for less than a year and a half. Oh dear, it’s hard to get it right! I had so many ideals at that time, and a lot of them were soon to be well and truly shattered.

  While we were still at Reynolds Park, Sam and I began to go to spiritual meetings in the area. I’m not sure how it started; it was probably partly the influence of a lady called Pat Densham who was a wise healer and sort of networker of the alternative world, and lived on Dartmoor. I went to see her about the eczema under my arms, which drove me crazy for a year or so after my miscarriage, causing me to watch late-night TV with bags of frozen peas in my armpits because I couldn’t sleep for all the itching. She told me with great authority to give up dairy products, which I did, and I was cured. She also put us in touch with at least half a dozen like-minded souls who became good friends once we had moved further inland and closer to Dartmoor. Sam would visit her regularly, and I usually went with him. When she died in 1998 dozens of loving clients and friends thronged the little moorland church.

  Sam’s reading was leading us to a broader knowledge of spiritual things at this time. In his desperate search for a means to make money, he began to seek out books about how to think your way to wealth, or, as the Americans put it, ‘create your own reality.’ These were followed by books that spoke about the state of 20th century society and how peoples’ thinking was likely to change in the light of planetary changes... And a lot of these books were ‘channelled,’ meaning that the information came through the author from another, higher source, usually a being who no longer occupied a body. So we learned about channelling, and began to try it out for ourselves, with some success.

  Although he was becoming increasingly stressed by our financial situation, Sam found that when he contacted the Christ Spirit, also known as ‘Sananda’, a great tranquillity would come upon him and he was able to act as a channel for words of wisdom and reassurance. Still just words rather than actions, for sure, but sometimes a blessed relief from anxiety and arguments, and a better platform from which to make decisions about the future.

  From the depths of my new mummyness, I also found myself open to a higher consciousness, and after asking my Higher Self to speak through me, I then began to channel the energy of Mother Mary. I know there was some of my own personality there, but I also know that the words flowed in a free, unselfconscious stream of peaceful wisdom that was unlike anything I could have invented. Neither of us went into a trance where we were unaware of what was going on; it was more just an altered state of mind.

  So for a while we became popular at spiritual meetings in Torquay, Teignmouth, Totnes, and other more remote locations. Judy would come along too and sit on the floor playing with her toys. I usually took a small bag of raisins with me, and if she got tetchy I would hand them out one by one... How little it took in those days to keep her happy! I look back at that period as the heart of my motherhood: sitting there with my adorable baby girl at my feet and my belly swollen with another child, there was probably never a better time to tune in to the love and grace of the eternally beautiful, archetypal feminine. Not that I didn’t love being a mother for years to come, but with two children I had much less chance to sit still and appreciate the subtle energies.

  The most profound experience of channelling for me was one evening when my tummy was getting so large I had difficulty squeezing in behind the steering wheel. Maharaji was giving a program in Brighton that weekend and I very much wanted to go, but knew it was unrealistic to imagine I could drive all that way in my condition. Nevertheless, I was upset about it, and as I drove to the spiritual meeting in Totnes I could feel tears welling up and prickling the back of my eyes. I prayed extra hard for the channelling I was planning to do to lift me out of myself and release me from this crippling emotional dependence. On this occasion Judy had stayed at home with Sam, giving me a couple of hours on my own.

  Once sitting comfortably in the upstairs living room where a dozen or so people were gathered, I shut my eyes as usual and prayed out-loud to Sananda, asking Him to allow words for the highest good to come through me. I have no Christian background apart from the general British culture and to start with I was r
eluctant to ask Jesus for help, but every time that I failed to do so nothing happened, whereas every time I made this humble request I was granted access to a higher consciousness; so in time I learned to respect the Christ energy.

  On this occasion, almost at once I had a strange sensation, as if I had risen to somewhere about six inches above the top of my head. And the words came through from this place, as I have described before, in a long stream of gentle wisdom, quite unlike the conflict and turmoil I had been experiencing just moments before. Afterwards I felt completely at peace: my prayers had been answered. It was an important milestone in my separation from Maharaji: another step towards standing on my own two feet, towards knowing and speaking from the person that I am rather than deferring to an outside authority.

  27

  Little Simon

  At that Totnes meeting I met a lovely lady called Kristin. She felt like a sister, with her matching long blonde hair and gentle ways. Unlike my real sisters, who had by now all come across Sam’s abrasive side at least once and were beginning to steer clear of him, Kristin respected his words and was patient when he got carried away with a subject. She was also fond of Judy, so when I asked her if she might help us around the time our next baby was born, she was only too willing. I was so grateful: I had been worrying that there would be nobody who could put up with Sam, who was becoming increasingly critical and awkward. And she was such a sweet, graceful person: it felt as if an angel had stepped in and answered my prayers.

  I have much fewer memories of my second pregnancy, mainly because I didn’t have the time to keep diaries as I did the first time round. I remember I ate a lot of dark chocolate biscuits, and that by the time Judy was a year old and I was three months pregnant, my nipples were becoming tender and she was beginning to mess around and bite me from time to time, so I weaned her off the breast.