My Secret Sister: Jenny Lucas and Helen Edwards' Family Story by Helen Edwards, Jenny Lee Smith Page A

eyes, nose and mouth. I was frightened that I wouldn’t make it, but afraid that if I didn’t I would be in big trouble for not going to school.
    Halfway along the journey there was another farm where I called for my friend every day to walk the rest of the way together. It was hard to find it in this unfamiliar landscape, but somehow I made it. My friend’s mother opened the door and stared at me, her mouth wide open, horrified.
    ‘What on earth are you doing here, Helen?’
    ‘I’m on my way to school,’ I said, my voice thin with cold and weak with the struggle.
    ‘You can’t get through. We are completely snowed in. You cannot possibly have got here all that way by yourself!’
    ‘Yes I did.’
    ‘Ee well, you’ll have to go straight back home again. Don’t even try to go any further than here, pet. Go home and get warm.’
    I tried to hold back the tears as I turned and trudged the first steps homeward.
    ‘I cannot imagine what your mam was thinking, mind, sending you out this morning, alone, in this weather. It’s too dangerous.’
    This parting shot muffled in the blizzard was barely audible just a few feet away. It didn’t occur to me that maybe this woman should have told me to stay there.
    I battled all the way back, planting my feet in my earlier footsteps where I could, but the fresh snow had obliterated many of them. I finally reached our house, ice-cold and exhausted. My mother was still at work next door and I was locked out, so I had to go to the farmhouse to find her. She hurried me back and let me into the freezing house, then left me to change my clothes and sort myself out. She was gone with hardly a word. It didn’t appear to cross her mind that she’d sent me out into a blizzard in which I could have got lost and died of exposure. It took me all day to warm up.
    The years we lived at this house saw an escalation of the rows, the fights and the misery they caused. Every Sunday morning my parents’ battle flared up. They shouted and screamed, objects flew and doors slammed. If George was there, he would sit and practise on his guitar upstairs.
    My parents hurt each other more with every word and gesture. Looking back, I can see they were two immature adults, unable to resolve the issues between them. Now, of course, I know most of those issues were about me. He must have known some of her history, and didn’t like it. If he’d known it all . . .
    But Mercia guarded most of her secrets. What he did know would have been difficult enough for any man in those days. They simply took it out on each other, both of them hitting out against their demons on a daily basis. On one occasion I was sitting in a chair when they started rowing. They went on and on and on, trading insults and worse. I sat still, my hands over my ears, hoping to keep out of the way. I didn’t want to hear all this. Finally, something snapped. I held out my hand to signal a ceasefire. ‘Stop it! Stop it! Please stop it!’
    I was amazed to see them both click out of their fury as they turned to look at me.
    ‘Stop it!’ I pleaded.
    In an instant, Tommy’s hand shot out and slapped me across the head. ‘Get to your bedroom!’
    What was I thinking of? I ran for safety as they resumed their fight.
    Most Sundays at Murton I sat on the stairs, too frightened to venture all the way down. I had nothing else to do but listen to my parents as they charged around the house, spat hateful words at each other, crashed dishes, threw things and slammed doors. I quaked with fear. I knew I couldn’t escape. At some point I would be dragged into it, usually by my father.
    ‘This is all your fault,’ he’d snarl at me. ‘You’ve caused trouble again.’
    I didn’t have to do anything to cause trouble. But I was always to blame. It was many years later that I found out what he meant.
    Then he’d turn to Mercia. ‘If it wasn’t for that bloody kid, I would walk out of here.’ A tirade of malicious insults would ensue.
    The