Coming Clean - Living with OCD. Hayley Leitch
they were switched off and the sunlight shone in through the window, the shades would cast eerie spiderlike shadows against the wall. Even the TV was boxed away inside a big mahogany cabinet. Once the doors were shut, you wouldn’t have even known there was a TV in the room. But it was always on when we were in the house. My sister Lauren and I would sit in front of it all day with the doors flung wide open, watching old Mickey Mouse videos on Granddad’s new VHS video recorder. When we weren’t perched in front of the telly, we’d be outside picking apples from the tree to help make one of Nanny Rose’s legendary apple pies. The tree sat neatly behind the swing at the side of the house, but it was so huge that it shadowed much of the garden because it’d been there for years.
One day, Lauren and I were busy collecting apples. I glanced down at the one in my hand. It was the brightest and prettiest green I’d ever seen, exactly the same colour as freshly mown grass. I held it up to my nose to take a sniff. It smelled so delicious that I felt the urge to take a bite. Licking my lips in anticipation, I opened my mouth and allowed my teeth to crunch into it but as soon as the juice ran inside I called out in horror. My whole body shuddered as the sour acid hit my tongue with a start. It was so tart that, for a moment, I thought I’d bitten straight into a lemon. It was the worst apple I’d ever tasted! I’d made such a racket, coughing and spluttering, that Nanny Rose came dashing over to see what was wrong. As soon as she saw my screwed up face and the half-eaten apple in my hand she burst out laughing.
‘No, Hayley,’ she giggled, clutching a hand against her chest. ‘You can’t eat them like that, they’re cooking apples. They’ll give you bellyache!’
I scrunched up my nose. It didn’t make sense. They looked just like normal apples, only a little bigger.
‘But they always taste so lovely when you put them in the pie,’ I said looking suspiciously at the offending piece of fruit in my hand.
‘That’s because I put lots of sugar in when I cook them.’
Suddenly the penny dropped. I thought about all the times I’d stood on a chair at the side of the cooker helping out. She was right; Nanny Rose always added a big bowl of sugar to the mixture because sometimes she let me help pour it in. I looked back at the bitter apple. It didn’t look as nice as before – my teeth had left small crimp marks along the edge and the fluffy whiteness inside had started to turn a horrible yellowy brown. I stepped back and dropped it to the ground. The bitter juice had left a nasty taste in my mouth. Nanny Rose knelt down at the side of me and took my hand in hers.
‘Hayley, if you want something to taste nice then you have to put the effort in – you have to wait.’
Lauren appeared from the other side of the tree and started to laugh when she saw what I’d done. I felt silly. I should’ve known they were cooking apples, that’s why we only picked them when Nanny Rose was baking. I pulled a face. The taste was still there so Nana took me to get a glass of water to wash it away.
‘Better?’ She asked, taking the beaker from my hand.
I nodded and ran back to the tree. The sun was high in the sky as Lauren and I spent the next hour collecting enough fruit to fill a dozen pies. With our basket full, we headed back inside to find Nana. She was so delighted that she pulled me over into her arms to give me a big hug.
‘These are just perfect!’
I buried my head deep into her waist and wrapped my tiny arms around her; the tea towel smelled so good that I could almost taste the apple pie.
‘Right, first one to wash all their apples gets to lick the spoon from the stewing apples pan!’
I grinned and picked up some apples. I loved Nana because she always made everything so much fun.
During the holidays, Lauren and I would spend long summer days at her house. There was never a dull moment because we were always playing with the other kids who lived on the council estate. Although I was the youngest, I always got to join in with the older kids’ games. My favourite was ‘Knock Down Ginger’, where a group of us would tap on a random front door and run away as fast as we could. Sometimes I would laugh so hard, it’d make me feel sick. If there were enough of us then we’d have an impromptu game of ‘British Bulldog’, where everyone would line up and charge at one another. Somehow, someone would always end up on the floor, dirty and with scuffed knees, but it didn’t matter because there were always plenty of kids to pick them back up again. Despite our best efforts, Lauren and I were never dressed quite right for the occasion. Instead of jeans, Mum insisted we wore beautiful lace dresses with delicate lace socks and ballet pumps. She’d brush, curl and pin up my hair but it never stayed that way for long. As soon as she’d left for work, I’d be down the bottom of Nana’s garden or out in the alleyway, getting filthy, playing rough and tumble with the other kids. Some days, Lauren and I would sit quietly at the bottom of the garden near the shed but we wouldn’t do girly things. Instead, we’d sit and line up snails so we could race them along the concrete slabs next to the back gate. It was dark and damp down the bottom of the garden and we’d always find lots of snails creeping about in the hedgerow.
‘Hey, you moved your snail too far forward, move it back,’ Lauren said pointing straight at my best racer.
I huffed and rolled my eyes. Lauren was a whole year older, so she saw it as her job to be in charge. We fought like most sisters but deep down, I loved her deeply. Sometimes, when Mum or Dad called to pick us up at the end of the day we’d be absolutely filthy but our smiles said it all. It didn’t matter that our pretty dresses were muddy, our knees scraped or our ballet pumps wet from puddles because to have proper fun you had to get a little messy. We were typical kids.
During the summer months, we’d go and stay with Nanny Rose and Granddad Bert at Camber Sands, where they owned a chalet by the sea. Mum and Dad would come along too. I’ve many happy memories of playing badminton on the beach with Granddad, his trousers rolled up at the ankles, or sitting with Dad, building sandcastles on the shoreline. Only one person would be missing, Nanny Rose. She’d be back at the chalet, tucked up in the kitchen, her favourite room. In fact, she wore her famous white tea towel so much I was convinced it was actually sewn onto the front of her clothes. Even to this day, whenever I picture her, she’s still wearing that same tea towel.
Nana was the eternal cook and her legendary Sunday dinners became the cement holding our family together. We were a complete unit – a happy family – and it glowed from each and every one of us. The only thing I hated was the vegetables. To me, they just got in the way of the meat. Other nanas would’ve been stricter but not Nanny Rose. Instead, when my parents weren’t looking, she’d slyly slip a bottle of ketchup onto the table so that I could smother my peas and carrots with it. My plate was always slices of meat and huge red tomato mounds where vegetables had once been. The ketchup made them easier to swallow because at least then I didn’t have to taste them.
Nanny Rose was a strict Catholic. One afternoon, Dad strolled into her house with Uncle David. The men had been drinking down the pub and were tucking heartily into a couple of meat pies but when Nanny Rose spotted them she went mad. It was Good Friday, and she was cooking fish and chips because she believed Good Friday and Ash Wednesdays were days of abstinence, not for meat pies!
‘Get out of my house with that meat!’ she screamed, snatching the tea towel from her waistband, whipping them with it.
‘You can’t eat meat today, it’s Good Friday and we’re having fish!’
At first, they thought she was joking but Nanny Rose was furious and their laughter only served to infuriate her even more.
‘I said, get out, get out!’ she wailed like a demented banshee as she took another swipe at them. ‘And take your bloody meat pies with you!’
Dad and Uncle David ran towards the backdoor but she didn’t stop chasing them until she’d run them clean out into the back garden. She jubilantly slammed the door behind them, calmly tucked her towel back in the waistband of her skirt and went back to preparing the food.
‘Meat pies, in my house!’ She tutted as she turned towards