Street Kid Fights On: She thought the nightmare was over. Judy Westwater

the collar of my blouse. A few minutes later we got off in Wythenshawe. Without saying a word, Roger turned down a street and I followed obediently. He stopped outside a brick council house and stubbed out his cigarette.

      ‘Right,’ he said, taking me by the hand.

      I had no idea what I was walking into.

      Inside, his whole family was assembled for a meal. The room was chock-a-block. My life so far had been almost entirely solitary and I couldn’t have imagined so many people living together in such close quarters. All nine of his siblings were there that day. Roger’s mother, a tiny woman with lively eyes, invited me in.

      ‘Hello Judy,’ she said, looking me up and down. ‘Roger has told us all about you.’

      Roger stared at his feet and I suddenly worried that I might not measure up. I wished I had had a chance to prepare. Then his father came over. He was a beanpole of a man and must have towered at least a foot over his wife.

      ‘Hello, Mr Lethbridge. Nice to meet you,’ I shook his hand.

      There were kids everywhere in that house. It was a lot to take in all at once, especially with all the noise going on. Everyone talked at the same time. The younger ones were playing on the floor and a squabble had broken out which Mrs Lethbridge silenced with one fiery glance.

      ‘I’ll never remember all these names,’ I panicked and just kept smiling. I’d never been to a family dinner before and had no idea what was expected of me. Was I supposed to initiate conversation by asking polite questions? Shyly, I decided that I would just speak when spoken to.

      Peter, one of Roger’s brothers, asked which act I was in.

      ‘The Australian Air Aces,’ I began, enthusiastically.

      ‘I fancy Roger’s job,’ Peter interrupted.

      ‘You’ll get a proper job when the time comes,’ Mr Lethbridge spat at him. It was clear they had had this conversation before.

      ‘My job is a proper job, Dad,’ Roger objected. ‘The pay is good. You can’t earn a weekly paypacket like mine down the factory.’

      But Mr Lethbridge clearly didn’t approve of his son’s choices or want another of his children involved in the amusement park.

      ‘So, Judy, where are your family?’ Mrs Lethbridge asked as we sat down at the table.

      ‘Judy’s a dark horse. She won’t tell me anything about them,’ Roger butted in.

      The truth was that I didn’t know what I could possibly say. Roger had asked me about my family several times but I had spent my whole life keeping silent about the things that had gone on in my childhood. Saying anything would have meant opening up emotionally in a way that I just wasn’t capable of doing.

      ‘I don’t have much family,’ I started. I suppose I should have thought up some kind of cover story, but I’d never been any good at lying. I noticed a couple of the younger girls staring at me – not having family must have seemed peculiar to them. Mrs Lethbridge looked at me for a second and then started to serve the food. I felt her eyes on me right through the meal and I knew what she was thinking. What kind of a girl runs away to the fair and doesn’t have a family? It didn’t seem respectable.

      I was never at ease in that house but at the time I blamed myself. It was nice of Roger to bring me home with him and I was fascinated by the normality of it all. Was this what family life was really about? Mr Lethbridge being tough on Peter while Mrs Lethbridge ruled the roost with the younger kids. I didn’t have anything real to compare it with though the atmosphere was certainly worlds away from my childhood fantasies of happy family life.

      That summer Roger’s sister Jean turned nineteen and I was invited along to the celebration dinner in a restaurant. Jean was glamorous and confident, and it was strange to think that she and I were almost the same age (I had turned eighteen now) because in every other way we were poles apart. I felt self-conscious throughout the meal and didn’t utter a single word all night. There was such a crowd of them and I desperately wanted to feel comfortable enough to join in, but I couldn’t. I’d had to learn how to survive for the whole of my life, alone. I was very streetwise and canny, but emotionally I was nothing more than a naïve child.

      One night at the Globe, after we had taken our bows and the audience was leaving, Roger caught my hand briefly.

      ‘Judy,’ he started. ‘You shouldn’t have to work like this.’

      I was puzzled. I loved working.

      ‘It’s dangerous,’ he continued. ‘You risk your life every time you get on stage. I don’t want that for you. I want to look after you,’ he said. ‘I want you to be with me.’

      This was all very odd. Roger fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a little diamond ring. It flashed in the lights. ‘Will you marry me?’ he asked.

      I was stunned. Roger wanted to be married to me. I slowly ran through everything I thought that meant. I imagined our home. I pictured a place full of love and security like those I had seen in the movies. For me, this was a dream greater than any other. Roger wanted to live with me.

      ‘You want us to have a home together?’

      He nodded. ‘Think about it,’ he said. ‘We can talk about it later.’

      After the final show we went for a meal. There was a restaurant down the road that was open late. As we walked in I suddenly felt very special. Roger ordered for both of us – some ham and potatoes. I could see he was nervous. I had no nerves at all – I just felt excited. Was this really happening to me? To little, skinny Judy with the scruffy hair? Judy whom no one had ever loved? Judy with no family and no proper home?

      ‘Did you have a think about it?’ Roger asked.

      I hesitated, shyly.

      ‘I want you to be mine,’ he said. ‘That’s what it is. I love you, Judy.’

      I looked up at him. There were tears in my eyes. His words sent floods of emotions coursing through me that I couldn’t understand. I just wanted to feel like this forever and to give him my whole soul.

      ‘Yes. I’ll marry you,’ I said.

      And we were both laughing all of a sudden.

      ‘Mrs Roger Lethbridge. I’m going to be Mrs Roger Lethbridge,’ I thought to myself as if in a dream.

      Roger was twenty-one the following month and when he told his family that we were getting married his mother insisted on organizing the wedding. She had already made a booking for his birthday party and the whole wedding celebration just became an extension of that. Speedy had organized a lot of touring for us during that month and I came back from a few days away to find that the wedding flowers had been organized, the invitations sent out and a few dresses set aside for me to try. It was like being carried along on a tidal wave.

      Normally the bride’s father pays for weddings but, given the circumstances with my family, Mrs Lethbridge was paying for everything. I wondered whether I should invite my Mum and sisters, but I didn’t like to add to the cost of everything and I couldn’t imagine how I would have introduced them. Anyway, I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t have come.

      Sometimes, late at night as I lay down to sleep on the bus, I did wonder if this was right for me but I had no way of telling and no one I could turn to for advice. I couldn’t talk to Bobby or Vicky because I didn’t know how to put into words what I was feeling, and didn’t want to be disloyal to Roger. Besides, the wedding was his 21st birthday celebration and I couldn’t spoil that for him. I had doubts nipping at my heels – just little things. Sometimes he would interrupt or undermine me in public in a way that felt quite rude to me. Sometimes he was critical and made me feel inferior, but I had no way of knowing that these things weren’t part of a normal loving relationship so I tried to kick my doubts away. I liked Roger. Everyone was being so kind. ‘It’ll all work out,’ I told myself.

      One day a minister