8 #3
‘Please don’t worry about that,’ Lyssa said, with her best professional smile.
‘All we’re going to do is chat about the old times.
Don’t worry about trying to think of anything important to say – just say what you can remember.
A biography is only a way of telling the everyday story of the life and times of someone, so believe me, simply talking to someone who knew Amelia Montrose is a treat.
And it’ll be up to me to pick and choose what I want to write about. Is that OK?’
Janet gave a brief smile and sat down, wincing a little as she did so, making Lyssa think that her theory about her having a bad back was probably right. ‘Oh, I think I can manage that all right. Just so long as you don’t expect anything fancy.’
‘Nothing fancy – tick,’ Lyssa said, miming ticking off something on the blank page of her notebook.
Janet smiled and slowly leaned back. ‘So – where do you want to start?’
‘Well, perhaps you can tell me how you came to learn about Monty and her charity in the first place? I know you were a young girl with a baby imminent, is that right? Did someone in social services give you their details?’
Janet shook her head, a wry smile causing the wrinkles in her face to deepen.
‘Don’t make me laugh! No, social services in them days was all about trying to get you to agree to having your kid given up for adoption.
And I was never going to agree to that. No, it was some woman in a café who gave me the nod.
She could see what a state I was in, and she said she’d seen a flyer somewhere about the YMT, and luckily for me remembered the name.
It was good of her to take the trouble – most didn’t.
They saw a young woman “in trouble”, as they said in those days, and they took it for granted you were no good and wouldn’t be seen dead talking to you.
Everyone goes on about the Swinging 60s and how liberated we all were, but that didn’t come until much later – the Summer of Love and all that.
Back in the early 60s, believe me, everybody judged you, and didn’t bother to hide it, neither. ’
Lyssa shook her head gently. ‘That must have been very hard on you. Society rejecting you like that.’
‘Yeah, well, they weren’t the only ones. My mum and dad chucked me out the moment I started to show. At first, Dad threatened to beat up whoever was responsible and make him marry me. Don’t make me laugh – he was married already. When I refused to name him – that were it. Out!’
‘It must have been tough. What did you do?’
‘Yeah, it was scary. I hitchhiked my way out of town and worked temp jobs until I was too big to do even that. That was when I had that stroke of luck in the café.’
‘And that led you to the Young Mothers’ Trust,’ Lyssa mused. ‘Sounds as if they might have been your last resort. Tell me, what did you make of them?’
Janet shrugged. ‘To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much.
Call me cynical if you like – at the age of sixteen I felt older than I do now!
I went along to this little office above a shoe shop and met up with the manager of the whole shebang first, and when I learned that the money behind the outfit was some posh bird with a rich daddy, I thought I was in for it.
I was expecting some la-di-da woman in pearls and twinset to come over all lady bountiful on me and lecture me about morals and clean livin’ and all the rest of it. ’
Janet’s grin grew suddenly wide. ‘You could’a knocked me down with a feather when I finally met Monty, and realised she was living with the lead singer of the Lucky Cuckoos!
Talk about your mind boggling! What a day that was.
The big house, the garden, the staff. And him – in the flesh.
Glen Bannister. What a hunk! I must have stood there like a guppy, with my mouth openin’ and closing and nothing coming out. ’
‘You actually met her at her house? Evergreen?’ Lyssa put in, a little surprised.
‘Sure did. I took the bus, and walked down this country lane and there it was. A big country house with a swimming pool and everything. They were sitting out in the garden – this beautiful blonde girl and Glen Bannister, sitting at a table and drinking. Just like normal folk. The maid took me to them – a maid! I’d never seen a maid until then – not a real one, in one of those black outfits and white pinny.
It was so funny. Like I said, I just stood there gaping at them, with my big-as-a-barrel belly, and then I just gasped and said, “You’re Glen Bannister.
”’ She gave a little gurgle of laughter.
Lyssa nodded, smiling widely herself now. ‘I can just picture it. So what happened then?’
‘Well, he looked back at me and said that he was, the last time he checked, then he got up and kissed the top of the blonde bird’s head and said he’d leave us to it.
He smiled at me as he passed by – it was a really nice smile too.
He was wearing shorts and a white sleeveless vest. Bloody gorgeous he was!
I watched him go until he was out of sight, then turned back, and saw this woman laughing at me.
Oh, not in a nasty way – nothing snarky or anything like that.
Just amused at me being star-struck, I suppose.
And obviously fancying her fella. But not like she was worried about it or anything – more like .
. . “Yeah, he’s really something, ain’t he?
” and she gave me this knowing smile. Anyway, she came towards me, holding out her hand, and introduced herself.
Just said, “Hello, I’m Monty,” and then asked me to sit down.
Offered me a drink – nothing alcoholic, like – and some biscuits. And we just started chatting.’
‘That must have felt a bit surreal.’
‘Huh?’
‘I mean, it must have been weird and very strange.’
Janet laughed. ‘You said it! Anyway, at first, I was still a bit wary like and asked her a lot of questions about what to expect. I told her straight off that I wasn’t interested in giving my baby up to anybody, and she said good for you.
Then she asked me if I had a permanent place to live, which I didn’t, and asked if I had a regular doctor, which I also didn’t.
She made notes and told me she could help out with both of those things.
Then she asked what kind of work I could do, and wanted to do, afterwards, to support myself and the baby.
I told her I wasn’t trained for nothing, but I was strong and not afraid of hard work.
She asked if I didn’t want to do more with my life than work as somebody’s cleaner, or waitressing or whatever, and I said sure.
Then she asked if I’d be interested in learning to type and whatnot and maybe become a secretary.
I had to laugh at that. I said sure, but working-class girls like me stood about as much chance of being a secretary in an office as becoming an astronaut and flyin’ to the moon. That made her laugh.’
Janet paused and glanced outside the window. From where Lyssa was sitting, her view was limited to a pretty flowering shrub growing outside on her nearest neighbour’s wooden veranda, but she doubted that Janet was actually seeing the plant.
‘She was a smashing girl, no matter what the papers said about her,’ Janet said quietly. ‘She treated me decent – like I was another human being. Know what I mean?’
‘I think so,’ Lyssa said softly.
‘She didn’t see me as some tart who’d got herself in the family way and was no use to anyone.
She was dressed in this gorgeous summer frock straight out of Carnaby Street, and had diamonds on her fingers; funny, really, her life and mine must have been so different, and yet .
. . somehow, she made me feel as if we were .
. . Well, not friends, exactly, we’d only just met, but as if we could become friends, you know?
In time.’ She sighed. ‘I remember feeling good about things. Myself. For the first time in ages.’
Lyssa felt a tightness in her throat and swallowed it back. ‘It sounds as if it was a significant moment in your life.’
‘Oh, it was. And not just that one lovely afternoon, neither. Like I said, I was a bit cynical about the whole thing. She had this reputation for being flaky and a dopehead and whatnot, so I wasn’t getting my hopes up.’
‘It sounded too good to be true?’ Lyssa suggested.
‘Exactly.’ Janet nodded. ‘But, turns out, she was as good as her word. She got the charity manager to find a small flat for me to live in, nothing fancy, but it was decent, and got me signed up with a gynacal . . . whatchamacallit doctor who made sure everything was all right with my Charlie, and found a midwife for me, and set up where I’d go to have him and all that.
And later on, she set me up with a tech college where I could do this shorthand and typing course later in the year.
She really came through for me,’ Janet said wistfully.
‘She was one of the few people in my life who ever did, now I come to think of it. I really dunno what would have happened to me, back then, if I hadn’t met her.
I still think about her sometimes, even to this day. ’
‘Her death must have been a real blow to you,’ Lyssa said gently.
‘Ain’t that the truth! First Glen dying, then her, all in less than a year. Bloody awful it were. ’Course, by then I’d had my Charlie, and was near to finishing the secretarial course. Never did like typing much, if I’m honest, but it got me a job. Which was just as well,’ she added darkly.
‘Oh?’
‘Yeah – once Monty was gone, so was the YMT, weren’t it? That manager saw to that.’
Lyssa shifted a little on the chair. The mood in the pleasant lounge had definitely changed, and not for the better. ‘The manager. You’ve mentioned him before.’
‘Not him – her. Deborah Simmonds.’
The name rang a bell. ‘Yes, of course. I came across her name during my research. She was Monty’s friend and co-founder of the charity, wasn’t she?’