We Could Have Been Friends

Who is this little girl in all her finery?  She was my Mother-in-Law. Her name was P. The expression on her face in this photo is one I came to know so very well.

You see, she never became close to me despite all my best efforts.  I welcomed her with open arms, I wanted to be her friend and have a second "Mum".  But it was not to be.  She had a very strong liking for Mike's first wife.  It did not matter that this wife was unfaithful or that she hurt Mike, P liked her and that was that.  I could never compete.

What had made her the way she was?  I can never know all the answers.  Maybe it was the fact that her Mother abandoned her at the age of one year to run off with another man. However, then why would she condone my beloved's first wife doing the same thing!!!!!

It is a hard thing for a daughter to be left by her mother but P did not suffer because of it.  She had a loving father who was a policeman and was brought up by his family.  They were wealthy, owning a large shop in Kent so P. wanted for nothing as you can see from her attire in the photo.  She was spoiled to make up for the "loss" of her mother. 

It is not as though she never saw her Mother again.  Many years later, her mother, who had then gone on to another man and settled in Canada, contacted her and visited.  Despite everything they settled their differences. They saw each other as often as circumstances would allow.

However, P had a chip on her shoulder about something. She loved money above everything and was used to getting everything.

I think her liking for Mike's first wife stemmed from the fact they had something in common.  You see (and I have Mike's permission to tell you this), Mike's father was already a married man with two daughters when P came into his life. So Mike has two half-sisters (if they are still living) with whom he has no contact.  Mike' father was a master baker as were many of his family and he owned a shop in London.  P went to work for him and......one thing lead to another.  An affair started.  His wife would not agree to a divorce so he just left her and London and came to settle in this part of the country where he opened several shops and business flourished.  His fleet of delivery vans was a familiar sight around here.  P came with him.  They set up home together.  She, once again, had the finest.  She was one of the very first women to have her own car in this neck of the woods, they lived in some of the best houses.  At one time they employed servants. They went to Masonic dinners and she was the leading light.  Mike came into the world.  Still his father was married to someone else.  Mike is sure that his mother had him deliberately to force the issue as she was never a lover of children.  He tells me that he never remembered any love or cuddles from her.  He was taken into the shop and left in the corner from morning until night. He grew up without her love and thus could never love her in return.  Life can be very sad.

Eventually there was a divorce. It could be no other way. P had won. She got her own way which she usually did.  So life went on and she lived like the lady of the manor. In fact, at one time they did live in a Manor house.  Mike had his own pony and went to the best local private school. If things had not taken a different turn, Mike and I could have been very wealthy indeed.  The Manor house was on the market a few years back for nearly two million pounds!!!!!

However, life turned sour and maybe this is why P turned sour as well.  For reasons that nobody really understood, Mike's father decided to get out of the bakery business. Maybe it was the coming of the supermarkets and he saw the red light.  So he sold up and invested everything in a different type of business , one of which he had little knowledge.  It was a disaster.  It failed. He could not face P. with the news so he did something which, to her, was devastating.  It was a nasty thing to do I suppose but I think P had always ruled his life from day one and he did not want to face her wrath.  So, one day when she was out, he took her jewellery, her fur coats, her car etc. etc. and sold the lot to help pay the debts.  She was mortified as you can imagine.  She never forgave him.

So, from being "the lady" all her life, she was reduced to living in an upstairs flat (apartment), he had to take a mundane job and she had to go out to work herself.

I remember well the first time I met them.  Mike and I had been going out for a while and I was invited to Sunday tea. It was all very stiff apart from Mike's dad who was a real sweetie and made me so welcome. Imagine my shock then when I realised they did not talk to each other.  "Michael, ask your father if he wants some ham" says P.  His Dad came back "tell her, yes please!"  So it went on.  I was so embarrassed and so was Mike.  I learned to accept it. Not that it was to last for long. Thirteen months after Mike and I married, his father died.

The day before, P. had been to see him in the hospital.  He had requested her help to go to the toilet.  He was unsteady on his feet and she yelled at him for not walking properly and making things "difficult" for her.  I think those were the last words she ever spoke to him.

I got the telephone call at 6a.m. the following morning to say that he had gone.  I still remain thankful that I insisted Mike visit him the night before and they spent quality time together.  I contacted Mike at work and he came straight home and, leaving baby Becky with my mother, we went to tell P.  Mike could not face her.  I had to do it.  It was the only time I ever saw her cry but it did not last long. I thought that might have brought us closer but it made no difference. I think the tears she cried were of guilt at the way she had treated him.

I admired her in many ways.  She continued to work and was still working in a seafront cafe well into her eighties.  She loved gardening so that was the only mutual ground we had, she and I.

Mike rarely went to see her.  He worked long hours in those times and was often away for days at a time.  She blamed me of course.  Said I was keeping her son from her.  Not true, the fact was that Mike simply did not want to go.  He had no feelings for her.  Because of her lack of love to him and the way she treated his father, he was uncomfortable in her company. Also he could never forget the torment he went through at school. P. must have told local friends that she was not married to Mike's father.  This is all a long time ago and it was a real scandal then.  So he was called a "little b.....d" by his classmates and left out of many things.  I used to have to force him so go and visit his mother.  In fact, she would not have seen him at all if it were not for me.

To make matters worse, when we first married P. became besotted with my Father and thus began disliking my mother. I think she had high hopes there.  When my mother died and Dad was left alone, she tried to push herself forward. Dad had no time for that sort of thing.  Dad died five years later so things just went on the same. I would phone her now and then to make sure she was o.k.  She was always abrupt with me. Still I invited her over every Christmas Day.  Mike could never have a drink because he had to pick her up and take her home. We bought her nice presents, tried to make the day happy for her but nothing was ever right. She complained she would rather have had something else, complained about the food, demand to go home in the middle of dinner. She drove us nuts.

She began having falls, bad ones.  The home helps reported it. As she had to go up and down a steep set of stairs to get up to her flat and also down a steep flight of wooden outside steps to get to her garden, it was feared she would fall and kill herself.  So, it was decided by the Social Services that she go into a local home.  Mike and I visited a couple of times a week as did Becky.  P. still had all her marbles and her mind was not affected in any way so no excuses for her in the fact that she then became very vindictive.  She would accuse us of stealing her money.  She would accuse us of letting her flat to someone else and pocketing the money.  The list went on and on. We always felt exhausted and depressed after the visits.

I had for a long time been telling the nursing staff that there was something seriously medically wrong with her.  For a couple of years she had found it difficult to eat and had refused to see a doctor.

One Saturday morning we were telephoned to say she had been rushed to hospital.  We waited whilst they did all the tests. We were told she was riddled with cancer and that time was very short.  We did not know  just how short.  But we reached the hospital at 11 a.m. and she died at 7 p.m. that same evening. She was just short of ninety years old.  We sat with her the whole time.  We were told because of the injections they had given her, we were not allowed to give her any water only wet her lips from time to time.  She kept demanding water.  I gently explained we could not.  She called me abitch.  So the hoursticked by.  I tried to lighten things by telling her what was going on, how, when she was better she would be able to do this and that, that we would take her out to the park which she loved.  All the time she glared at me with such a look of hatred, it remains with me to this day.  She was still glaring hatred at me right up until the time her eyes closed for the last time. Fifteen minutes later her life ended.

We could have been friends, she and I.  Things could have been so very different, yet she put up a barrier that none of us could break and blamed me for everything.  Why did she choose me as a scapegoat?  I will never know.

We had wondered, over the years, why Mike's Aunts and Uncles who had been initially close to us had gradually broken contact.  When going through her diaries and papers I found out.  She had written to them all accusing us of being thieves.  She told them that when we did visit, stuff was always missing from her flat.  It is true that things did go missing from her flat. They were taken by the occupant of the downstairs flat, a woman called Edie. P. well knew this because she had told us herself that when she went down for a cup of tea with Edie she would see her own things there!!!! Edie would deny it and swear they were her things. So, why did P accuse Mike of stealing  her money and possessions?  I read the replies from the relatives who were shocked and horrified and had sided with her and told her that she should cut us out of her life.  It was all lies.  Why she did these spiteful, hurtful things I will never understand.  It was the final indignity for Mike and I felt so sorry for him, I still do. 

I can look back on my parents with many good memories although there were bad ones as well. Mike can only look back on being unloved, his mother treating me the way she did and all the lies that split him from his relatives. They were all he had because brothers and sisters never came.

Yet P. did one strange thing.  She left a letter instructing that I was to have her beautiful diamond ring and her wedding ring. She was wearing them at the time Mike's Dad sold all her things so she was able to hold onto them. The sad thing is, I do not like to wear them.  They hold only bad memories for me and if peoples' personal things can pick up "bad vibes" then I guess you can say I am superstitious.  It was the only kind thing she ever did for me.

Poor Mike.  Poor P. because inside she must have been a deeply unhappy woman.  She could have had so much love if she had not brushed it aside. She might even have been happy if she had given herself the chance. I have no regrets, I did my best always.  We could have been friends, we should have been friends. She made that impossible.