I think I was about 10 years old when I discovered my mother was a sex worker. I arrived home one afternoon from school and caught her at work. Hearing sounds I vaguely associated with sex, I let myself in, then quietly straight back out again. I wasn’t actually sure what I knew for quite a while. Eventually, I put it together: an unusually high level of phone calls, whispered conversations in the hall and a too-young viewing of the film Pretty Baby meant I eventually realised what her new business was. She certainly wasn’t a secretary any more, as I had always believed her to be. She was in her mid-40s, and maybe she had long ago found other ways to support us. I am unsure of much of my personal history – where one lie ends, and another begins.
Afterwards, I wasn’t sure she knew that I knew. I had opened the front door, heard all I needed to, and closed it again. Did she know I’d heard her with that man? Did she realise everything between us had changed? At that moment, I was thrust into a world of secrecy and shame. I didn’t have to be told to say nothing. I knew to tell no one what my mam did now.
