OUT OF THE FRYING PAN INTO THE FIRE PART 1

Martina McBride - Concrete Angel (Grammy's)

[via FoxyTunes / Martina McBride]

OUT OF THE FRYING PAN INTO THE FIRE PART 1

I remember telling all my friends that I had a job and I was leaving for Spain to work as an aupair. It was now 1979 we were looking forward to leaving my god-forsaken life behind. I was 16 and when I look back through my childhood I didn’t have many friends for a number of reasons. I was moved from School to School from the age of 11 and had now been to 4 different High Schools. I had also had whooping cough at 15 and been hospitalised with suspected TB and spent a couple of months in isolation ward in the LGI which had left me with a weak chest.

I missed loads of school because of the whooping Cough and with the bullying too I didn’t really want to go to school. I remember the truant officer coming to the house once mum was at work and I had to sit down and explain because of my illness I couldn’t go to school in-between barking like a dog most of the time and the upset of my family life and the fear that those two girls would be waiting for me every night was all too much. I never told my mum about the girls but my sisters knew not that they cared I would go to the point of saying my step monster of a sister and my other sister were actually friends with these girls and never tried to ask them to stop. As long as it wasn’t them then it was ok. Sisterly love has brought another new meaning to me and it definitely didn’t exist in my family. More like dog eat dog and look after number one. Have my sisters hated me all my life maybe yes because my mum was never there I suppose I became the mother figure and they maybe resented me for it. I suppose I used to take it out on them for the life I had. Never being aloud out to play, I can never remember having a friend in the house, I can never remember having a birthday party and I can never remember being loved.

I remember my exams coming up before I left school and was really scared I was going to leave school with no exams at all. I decided I was going to try so I bought a second hand tape recorder and about a dozen tapes from my baby-sitting money.

I then borrowed girl’s books from school that she had had for the past two years and sat in my bedroom at night alone and read the books into the microphone. At night I used to play these tapes over and over again this is how I learned my schoolwork. I would lie in bed and sometimes fall asleep with the headphones playing. From listening to the tapes I started to love history I listened all about the first and Second World War, the Crimean war and the Tudors. I loved history. English literature I read books into tapes and would listen to them I now knew to kill a mocking bird off by heart and I got hold of a copy of Under milk wood by Dylan Thomas and used to listen to Richard Burtons Welsh accent tell a wonderful story.

Because I wasn’t aloud out much I didn’t really mix with other kids so when I wasn’t working on my school work I read books I read Gulliver’s travels, Little women, Jayne Eyre, All of the James Herriot books. I used to read most days and tried to get my hands on any book I could. I was happy to be alone in my bedroom reading most of the time. The scary books were James Herbert’s the rats and the lair I used to go under the covers with a torch and scare my self that much I used to pull the covers tightly over my head so I could hardly breath and occasionally had to come out for air only to quickly go back under the covers because I thought someone was going to get me.

I am quiet shocked to say my mum actually had a leaving party for me in a local pub and remember getting absolutely pissed out of my head on Vodka and Orange and Larger and black and shall I say I have never drunk any of them again. I was that drunk I vomited pink vomit and it put me off for life. I know 16 underage drinking but I was leaving my life and I deserved a little fun. I had mixed emotions. One was I was free, another I was scared, and another what would now happen to my next sister down would she have to take over where I left off. Being the Mother because the real mother was working all day and going out every night. Its funny I remember her screaming at me one night saying she had to go out because she had me at 16 and then the other kids been in two bad marriages and it was now her turn to have a life.


I remember going to the airport I was flying to Barcelona where my new family would meet me. The woman was English and called Jaquiline the husband was called Mario and he was half Spanish and half Italian they had been married two years and she had just had a baby boy called Alexandra and they lived with Mario’s mother Senora Maria who was about 87. Jacqueline was 27 and actually from Hull her father was a captain of a ship and that’s why I had gone to hull for the interview she had come to England to have the baby so it had an English passport and to find an English speaking aupair. The idea was the I would speak to the baby in English, Jacqueline would speak to the baby in Catalan, Mario would speak to the baby in Italian and Senora Maria would speak to the baby in Spanish she was from Valencia so it was the Old Spanish dialect. I remember thinking this child would speak 5 languages and would it work how could a baby understand all this but who was I. I was employed to clean the house and look after the baby with senora Maria while Jacqueline and Mario went out to work. I found it confusing because Mario was a millionaire an Italian Furniture designer. They had six houses, a yaught, 2 Porsches a jeep for the beach and a seat, which is a little Spanish car to do the shopping in when we were in Barcelona.

I remember getting off the plain in Barcelona and looking around and couldn’t believe all the guards at the airport were holding what looked like machine guns Jacqueline was there to meet me with her mum and dad who had come over for a week to spend time with their new grandson and meet me. We set off for Santa Maria, which was just outside Lorret where they had a huge bungalow where we were going to stay for the summer. I remember driving down a long hill and pulled unto a bright yellow bungalow it was roasting hot and I couldn’t breathe.

Waiting for me was Mario and his mother Senora Maria boy at 16 she sure did look old and I didn’t know then her and Jacqueline were going to treat me as they did. The old lady didn’t speak a word of English and I had to respect her because she was the mamma of the family. I was shown my room I was quiet shocked it was a room I wasn’t expecting I was led into the garage and there was a set of steps up to a tiny little room. This room had a single bed a chest of drawers and a wardrobe in it. Then there was a partition where there was a toilet and a shower. The walls were painted white as were all Spanish homes just concrete no wallpaper and a few pictures on the wall

I was in shock had I jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. These people were rich and I had a room in a garage. I now realised I was basically a maid and a slave.
They asked me if I wanted to ring my mum to let her know I had got there safely I said yes I remember telling my mum on the phone it was lovely I didn’t want to tell her I was in a garage. I didn’t want to go back to my old life I thought give it a try it could be ok. I was then given instructions on what was required of me I had to get up at 6.30 every morning and put the coffee pot on it was one of those pots where you screw the top off the middle put the water in the bottom then add the coffee and put it on the stove to heat. I had to wear like a maids outfit a black tunic type thing with a white apron. My god it was like something I had read in a book was this my life now. Yes I was going to live or sort of live in beautiful homes but sleep in tiny boxes at night and be alone no friends anyone except this family.

The house was beautiful full or art and designer furniture the floors were all tiles and I remember we had a real ant problem I used to have to go out on to the veranda every morning and swill the ants off with a hose then sprinkle some stuff down to try and stop them coming in the house. I was told I was aloud one afternoon off a week to go to the beach. The beach was just down the hill and it was private for the residents of the street. I remember the first time I went I pushed Alexandra down the hill in the pram he was covered in sun cream and really protected from the sun. It was magnificent it was like a hidden cove big cliffs on each side and then the blue ocean and a beach that looked like it had been bleached was this Paradise.

Everyday I cleaned the house picked up the clothes off the floor polished and rubbed mirrors until they shinned. It was hard most of the days I was alone in the house with senora Maria she did all the cooking and had a dog it was like a sheep dog cross she used to beat that dog most every day and I wanted to cry she was so cruel to it.

Then language barrier was a problem and this is when the beating started I used to find it hard communicating with her and she used to scream at me in Spanish because I couldn’t understand her. She used to hit me with the frying pan and shout at me LA MESA, which meant the table, and then she would hit me again and say LA SILLA the chair. I was basically being treated the same as the dog. She wouldn’t try to meet me half way. I was alone in the house with this woman from 8am in the morning until 8pm at night. At night when Mario and Jacqueline came home she would start babbling in Spanish to them then they would pull me to one side and say you must respect senora Maria she is the head of the family and you must try to learn Spanish. But I was that was when I wasn’t scrubbing floors and looking after Alex. She was his grandmother but I used to love it when she went down for her afternoon nap I would sit in the nursery and play with Alex.

As time went by Alex grew very fond of me you could see he loved me he used to hold out his hands for me to pick him up. This alone caused other problems. It was now the End of summer and we were moving to the next house again, which was a penthouse right in the middle of Platha Catalonia, which is a famous square/roundabout in Barcelona. Mario had just taken a delivery of a new Porsche it was lime green and was supposed to be 4 seats but I would have called it 2 I remember getting in the back in a tight cramped space with senora Maria, she had Alex on her knee me next to her and Mario and Jackie in the front and we closed the house up and drown to Barcelona at a tremendous speed.

In Barcelona we lived on the top floor of an apartment block that had a guard on the door so no outsiders could enter the building without being unannounced. Here I was allowed out on Tuesdays and Thursdays 5pm in the afternoon until 9pm I had to be back bang on 9pm get changed quickly and then set the table for dinner. They never had their evening meal until 10pm at night then I would work until I had finished washing up after dinner which most nights was about 1am in the morning that’s after they used to sit there and I would pour the cognac into the glasses put out the cheese board and know that the meal was nearly finished. Most nights they would entertain and I would have to don my little black number that came down below my knees and looked like a black sack and my little white piny.

It was here things got really bad for me Jacqueline started pulling me up on the tiniest things and never stopped on at me the glass has smudges the balcony wasn’t clean the problem there was I have always been scared of heights and they used to make me go out there 12 floors up with the busy bustling road below and polish the bars. I was terrified and tried not to do it I sometimes wish I could have just thrown a bucket of water on them but being 12 floors up would have no doubt drowned someone on the path below. My Spanish was coming on and I only now occasionally got a whack with the frying pan and Alex and I were growing fonder of each other because his parents were out all day it was like he was mine. But senora Maria used to snatch him out of my arms and tell me to work and she would look after him but she was frail and got tired easily and that suited me fine.

My other problem was Jacqueline started to resent me I remember one night we were all sat in the room and Alex was crying and Jacqueline picked him up and he still kept crying he was holding his arms out for me. I could see the resentment on her face what did she expect she was never there except a couple of hours before the kid went to bed I was with him everyday all day. Mario said something to her and she passed me Alex and I grabbed him and he stopped crying. This was something else for her to hate me for. You have to remember too I was a young girl too and maybe she also felt threatened by me. Mario was a lovely man even though he was 54 he used to treat me nicely and many occasions he would pull me to one side and say try to do your jobs right and stay out of their way I have seen how they treat you but they are my family and I must stand by my family. So I knew then he had been watching and knew what was going on but he wasn’t going to help me. I know there had been some discussions about me at night I had heard shouting and my name being mentioned when I was in my room. Again this room was like a cupboard they had converted off the kitchen so I had to come out on a morning and fall straight into the kitchen so I had no release from it.

My dad used to ring me from Germany and my Mum Occasionally used to ring. I remember having the courage to tell my mum that I was unhappy on the phone once and she just said for god sake cant you just get on with it cant be that bad. But I also had to be careful because when I was on the phone one of them was always close by so I could never tell them how it really was.

When I used to go out on Tuesdays and Thursdays I used to go into a little café down near la ramblers here I met Paco a lovely boy he was 22 and from Portugal we became really good friends and then lovers I used to tell him how I was being treated and how I hated it there. He didn’t speak English either but buy now my Spanish was enough to be understood. We saw each other twice a week for the 4hours and it was really nice we went to the disco together used to walk round Barcelona holding hands and I would go to his flat and eat there with him.

Then the winter came and Jacqueline said we now move again for winter to go skiing at the weekends. The house is in the mountains in a small village called Berge not far from Montserrat That weekend we set off for the mountains away from the bustling city of Barcelona I remember the long winding roads and getting to Montserrat I have never seen anything like it. It was like a mountain with a Monastery right at the top it also had one of those trolley carts that could take you to the top.

Jacqueline explained to me that Monks built it years ago and they had used only donkeys to climb it to build the Monastery when you look at it you cant imagine how anyone got up there Apparently now it is a restaurant. We carried on driving and eventually came to the village of Berge Jacqueline then told me this was a military village and was the closest village to the house and here I would not be aloud to have any free time because it was a village full of young Spanish men. Ok I thought trapped again. We then left the village and started to climb I couldn’t believe it.

We were driving through a forest the trees were like the ones they have in Canada cant remember the names you know the ones that are about 40 foot high it looked unbelievable. The house was up the mountain on the edge of the cliff. We arrived and when I went inside it was amazing inside everything was black and white all the carpets where white and all the furniture was furniture that Mario had designed it was like black Perspex all I could think of was my god how am I going to clean that it would take me hours. The living room was on the top floor and a huge window covering the hole of the outside wall looked over the village of Berge. It was like something you would see in a movie or Brad pits house or something. The view was breathtaking.

How the rich lived I was in awe but white carpets I was petrified no shoes aloud in the house of course. No rest for the wicked as soon as we arrived Jacqueline said I had to open the windows of each room and air the rooms and then go round dusting and cleaning, which I did it took me hours and that night I collapsed into bed about 1am.
I was now 17 and exhausted I felt like I had been working for about 10years and only been with this family since June

I was trapped here until Christmas time when they said they go back to Barcelona and spend Christmas there. My life there was get up clean the house wait on them at dinner and occasionally I got to hold Alex because Jacqueline had now become very jealous of my relationship with her son she had told me that she and Senora Maria would now watch Alex and I just had to clean and be the maid.

Christmas was coming and we were not going to close the house up one because the weather gets pretty bad up there and you can get trapped in when the snow comes and two parties and dinner parties in Barcelona must have been high on their agenda. Jacqueline had told me I could go home to England for two weeks at Christmas and they would pay for the flights. It was strange I had tried to get away from home for years and now being treated basically as a slave I was glad to go home. Here was a chance to tell my mother I hated it and they were not treating me well but how could I everyone thought I was having a wonderful time. Jacqueline used to tell my mum on the phone I was fine, every time I made a phone call home she stood in the kitchen listening to what I said and I felt like a prisoner that had just got two weeks leave.