Understanding Mum: Sometimes, the secrets we keep come to life when we die
Helen Garlick’s mother had always been an enigmatic woman. But the revelations that emerged after her death made Helen reassess her childhood
It was when my mum, Monica, went into a care home in December 2017, aged 86, that I stumbled upon an envelope that tilted my world on its axis. Written on it were the words: ‘I am and will always be not the same, but different’.
My mother was, indeed, unlike anyone else. A reserved woman, she preferred her own company, always retreating into a book or the garden of our Yorkshire home. There wasn’t a lot of touching or hugging, but I felt close to Mum. Without exchanging words, we knew things about each other intuitively. If I had a headache, she’d know, and I could often tell what she was thinking by the way her lips would tighten. I learnt to read her silences.
Which makes it all the more incredible that I didn’t know her biggest secret.
My parents met in 1954 when my mum got a job as a typist at my grandfather’s furniture shop. Dad would pop in to revise when he was studying law at Cambridge. Within a year, they were married. My dad, Geoffrey, was a solicitor and president of the Yorkshire Union of Law Societies. He and Mum were something of a power couple locally.
They loved a party and when they hosted friends, Mum, a Cordon Bleu cook, always put on an amazing spread. Frequent visitors included our family friend, Gwen and her partner, Maud. She made me laugh with her dry sense of humour.
My brother, David, was two years younger than me and as we became older, we were allowed to stay up for these parties. My mother’s beauty was mesmerising, with high cheekbones, corn-gold hair and piercing blue eyes. Maybe a little aloof ? She was an observant host who made sure everyone had a drink.
At these gatherings, it was clear there was a strong bond between Gwen and Mum. They were in cahoots, in on each other’s jokes, while my father would tell stories that brought raucous laughter.
However, away from the parties, storms simmered when my parents were
together. They wouldn’t row, but there’d be brooding silences and I’d take David out to play when the atmosphere got tense.
My parents never hugged or held hands. They were never affectionate, unless there was a camera. A glamorous couple, they loved to go out together, to the theatre or on holidays. But at home, their relationship wasn’t happy.
I was desperate to leave home and, after studying law at Bristol University, I never went back. Once I’d got my degree, I went travelling in America, only for tragedy to strike when David took his own life aged 20.
After that, my griefstricken parents became very dependent on me and I visited frequently. Meeting my first husband at 27, we married in 1989 and settled in London, having three children who my parents adored.
Dad passed away in 2014. Then in December 2017, just eight days after going into care, Mum died too. By this point, I’d divorced and had visited Mum with my new partner, Tim, only the day before.
We’d stayed for lunch. Her last words to me that day were, ‘Thank you so much for everything you’ve done.’
I’d spotted the envelope among a pile of papers as I helped Mum move into the care home, and after I cleared her room, I read it. There, I discovered her secret. ‘I don’t understand why I’m different,’ she’d written. ‘It’s not a talked about subject…’ As I read on, I realised. My mother was gay. In an instant, my world changed.
My first instinct was to show it to Tim – and our initial shock dissolved into giggles. We’d no inkling. I couldn’t believe it. Or could I? The more I thought about it…
Her secretiveness. The years before she married my father, which had never been explained.
At first, I felt upset she’d never told me. And now she was gone, I had no idea how to process this revelation.
I called my children, Unity, now 30, Will, 27, and Lilly, 22, to share the news. ‘That’s so cool,’ came their response. My mother hadn’t loved many people in her life, but she was a devoted grandmother – and they adored her in return.
Poor Granny, it must’ve been really hard for her,’ said Will, while Unity said, ‘Granny did love secrets.’ My children’s generation don’t care about sexuality – it’s the person inside that matters.
For me, there was a certain amount of denial. Mum had had dementia and I wasn’t sure I could trust her confession. But when I reached out to Gwen, she told me she’d been waiting for my phone call.
Gwen told me that, four years before my parents met, she had, in fact, been my mother’s lover. They’d even moved to London, found work and rented a flat until my grandmother had ordered Mum home.
As Gwen shared the facts it was a shock, but I was grateful for her honesty.
More revelations were to come. Meeting up with Evelyn, another of my parents’ friends, I discovered Mum had had female lovers after her marriage, and had even encouraged her husband – my father – to have a relationship with
Evelyn. She also hinted Dad may have known Mum was gay.
I could barely comprehend what I was hearing. No wonder there’d been tension between my parents. Realising just how much they had been playing make-believe left me reeling. Luckily, I’ve had endless support from Tim.
It’s now three years since Mum died. In that time, through piecing together her story, I feel I finally know and understand her. She was an extraordinary woman. I wish she could’ve known how easy for us her coming out would be. But then again, I can’t begin to understand how difficult she must have believed it was.
In those days it was a very closeted world, and Gwen told me Mum had wanted the lifestyle, the position in society and the children that marriage afforded her. My own children’s hoots of joy at having a gay granny remind me that things would have been different for Gwen and Mum, if they’d been young in modern times. Because ultimately, love is love.
And I love her all the more now I can see who she really was.
‘Through piecing together her story, I feel I finally know her’
l Helen Garlick’s memoir, No Place to Lie, is published by whitefox, £9.99.