Sue Gray wore grey skirts and gave me a grey bag in 1978. She also gave me a doll with black hair, just like hers, and she had very black nostrils, watery brown eyes and a smattering of moles. I don’t recall what words we spoke when she gave me that doll in the cold, dark disinfected basement of Hawley Court that day, but I know they were friendly and between us. I remember her laughing.
Hawley Court was the council block me and my mum had just moved into. Sue was the cleaner who was leaving, and my mum was taking over. I stood level with their knees many times as they chatted on those echoey landings with mop and bucket; grown up sounds that I can only presume were about store cupboard keys and things they had in common such as being the same age as well as each having daughters who were also the same age. They both worked very hard, and Sue used to hold down as many jobs as she had children, which was three. I was my mum’s only child so that was one place where they differed. They were also different in that Sue had a husband. She used to throw his clothes out of the window whenever he left her.
We kept in touch for a while, but as the years went by we saw less and less of Sue. Then one day, my mum had the idea to ‘pop round’ out of the blue. It was a warm afternoon and my mum knocked on the door, “Oo-oo, are you in?” she chimed. No answer, so we went round the back. That was when the neighbour popped her head out, “You’re not looking for Sue, are you?”
The neighbour told us that Sue had died just a few days ago. She took on a sombre, but isn’t-it-spooky tone, when she divulged that Sue had been behaving strangely just before she died. Without being ill or anything, she was going around asking people if they would look after Michelle if something happened to her. She then had a brain haemorrhage, went into a coma and died. That bit was sad tone, then more of the spooky tone when the neighbour said, “…and just before she died, they say a tear fell down her face.”
Tears were falling down my mum’s face as we came away. She repeated several times that they were the same age, and that that was only 33. I was aware that Michelle was my age and living through my worst fear - mum-death. Pondering how it all could have happened, my mum told me that Sue’s husband used to bang her head against the wall whenever he beat her up, so that was probably how.
More years have passed since she gave me the doll with the black hair than how many she actually lived for. I’m now older than she ever was, with her big grown up legs and grown up life being mother, wife, money earner, toy giver. How clearly I see the inconceivability of now – the child an adult, miles away, a stranger, a computer, the everyday spun into a world wide web - when considering that dank basement moment between me and Sue, for who it would remain inconceivable. How precious then, it is to remember.
