by Caryn Walker
Mum stormed into the room behind me.
‘You can make a cup of tea for a fucking stranger, but not for your own mum!’ she screamed, desperately trying to provoke a fight.
‘Oh, I’ve had enough of this,’ shouted Graham. ‘I’m sick of you.’
‘Well, get out of my fucking house,’ she yelled back, which was her favourite saying – she used it most days.
This time, it worked. Graham left and I followed him to have a chat.
‘Get the fuck back in this house!’ bawled Mum as I walked out.
‘I will be back,’ I told her.
‘No! Now! Get back now!’ she roared. It was as if she couldn’t wait to establish her control over me; she couldn’t even stand that I would step outside for a moment to talk to my boyfriend, the father of my child. She followed us out and I was shaking like a leaf as they shouted at each other, then she went back inside, only to come flying through the door with the pram, which had Karl in it. She pushed it downhill to the gate and I ran for it and grabbed the handle while Graham went for her. I pulled him off and she tried to attack me.
‘That’s it, fuck off, get out!’ she bellowed.
So we walked away. ‘What will I do?’ I asked Graham. ‘I have nothing.’
‘Go back – get nappies and Karl’s milk, then just leave,’ he told me.
The front door was still open, and the kitchen was opposite it, so I thought I could run in, grab milk, run upstairs to get nappies and then belt out again. I was in the kitchen for only seconds before Mum came in and started punching me on the side of my head, hitting me as if her life depended on it. She was screaming a barrage of abuse about how I put Graham first, not her, and that I was never to come back. She never mentioned Karl once.
I was homeless. I spent the next five days with Karl in an empty flat that Graham knew of. He sneaked me in but there was no electricity, and he had to beg his friends for money to get more nappies and milk. He came back and forth, and worked when he could. On the fifth day, Graham rang his dad, who came from Yorkshire to get us all. I’d only met his parents twice; they were nice and they looked after Karl when I let them, but I was so nervous. I was terrified of being left alone with Graham’s dad just because I trusted no man. I had such dreadful boundaries – not just with my fear of what could happen to me, but also with the baby. I just thought everyone was out to hurt him and I had no idea what was appropriate. When I changed his nappy, I hated if anyone else was there as I didn’t want them to see his private parts. I didn’t know if you were ‘allowed’ to let babies have their nappies off to kick about on a blanket in the sunshine. Everything was messed up because of what Dad had done to me.
Graham’s parents wanted to be normal grandparents, taking Karl for walks and showing him off, but my heart was in my mouth every time my baby was away from me, so I tried to keep him with me whenever I could. Graham and his dad didn’t really get on, and I didn’t realise at that point just how violent my boyfriend was – he had actually attacked his father a few times, and I was starting to see that I wasn’t the only one who bore the brunt of his temper. He shouted at me a lot, telling me I was a slag, saying that I was wearing the ‘wrong’ clothes. There was also one occasion when he said he would kill us all by driving into a wall. His face was bright red, the veins on his forehead popping as he said it. He didn’t – but he liked that threat and I always wondered if he would follow through.
I only had one friend, Julie, who I’d met while out shopping one day. She often wanted me to go out with her. Graham would then lay out the clothes he had chosen for me. They were always horrible things, completely unfashionable, as I only bought clothes for practicality, never for pleasure. In fact there were very few nights out, either with Julie or with anyone else; when he did this he was just checking that I was willing to do everything he said.
If I put make-up on, he’d say, ‘Why are you doing that? Who are you going to be shagging, you slag?’ and I’d be in tears. One time we went for a drink together and when we got back, he immediately said, ‘Who you been sleeping with then?’ We’d been together all night and I hadn’t so much as looked at another man. He pulled out one of the kitchen drawers and brought out a piece of wood with lead wrapped round it. He hit the worktop next to me, screaming, shouting and saying, ‘This’ll be your fucking head next!’ That was just how I lived, and I thought I deserved it. It was always there in the background even when he was being reasonably calm. There was mental abuse too. ‘When I’m finished with you, you’ll be in a nuthouse. I’ll drive you crazy. Your son will hate you,’ he would hiss.
The three of us had been given a council house by this point. This was another world for me, as it had three bedrooms, a garage and driveway; the garden was beautiful, there was central heating – I was delighted. However, Graham’s dark side came much more to the fore once we had our own home. He was the kind of man who went to football matches for a fight and he liked to display his violent streak at home too. He’d hold me down and put a pillow over me while he told me how right he was about everything, pinning me to the ground. He was big, strong and relentless; he wanted sex every day irrespective of whether I wanted to. All I’d known of sex was with my dad – and, it turned out that when he had told me he was getting me ready for another man, he was right. Sex was something I hated; it was violent and unwanted. I’d pretend to be asleep, but Graham didn’t care, and I soon accepted that this was my lot. On a couple of occasions he threatened me with knives, so I came up with idea of throwing them all on the roof one day when he was out. When he discovered that, he went ballistic.
‘Never, NEVER, think that you can get the better of me,’ he snarled, holding me by the throat up against the wall. ‘You understand?’
I did. I understood very quickly.
He was nice with Karl though – or, anyway, he wasn’t my dad, so I thought all the things I was uncomfortable with were down to my issues. I guess I knew his behaviour was wrong, but I still accepted it. I had also folded after a few months with regards to my mother and called her (and I had been sending her money whenever I could, even though we had so little). All my life I’ve grieved for her, grieved for the mother I wanted her to be, and I’ve been desperate to know what it would be like to have a loving mother – so, I almost begged her to let me back in her life. I had been very well trained.
She acted the victim and I had to apologise; she also told me Graham would never be welcome and that she regretted ever introducing us. I regretted it too. I adored Karl, but his father was another matter. Karl gave me strength; I’d protect him through anything. I wouldn’t have survived without him. He was fun and an absolutely lovely child. I told him I loved him all the time, scrimped and saved to buy him a rocking horse, told him stories constantly.
But he was witness to far too much, for far too long. Once, at nursery, Karl hit the other kids – it’s what he saw, it’s what he knew from home. At five, he started holding up his fist to me at home. ‘I’ll give it ya!’ he would yell, and my heart broke that my baby had seen such things. I learned to distract him, as I could never bear to tell him off. I was with Graham until Karl was six, until I really couldn’t take it any longer and I was worried about what Karl was going to turn into.
The control had been relentless, as had the violence. If I went shopping, Graham would accuse me of eyeing someone up. I was constantly accused of having affairs. I wanted a job, some independence, but when I was offered a job in a bar, it was murder. He didn’t speak to me for three weeks, but he still forced me to have sex. I felt sick every time, but couldn’t say no. I never confided in anyone; I was too ashamed, and I was pretty much isolated. I did take the job; however, every shift was a nightmare. Graham had grown up in the village and no one liked him. People couldn’t believe I was with him. He had always been a troublemaker and fighter, and it was getting too much. I’d hinted that I wasn’t happy but I was scared to push it too much. I asked for a short break and, surprisingly, he agreed – I think h
e believed that, if I left, I would see what I was missing and run back to him. The delusion of the oppressor is a strange thing.
I had made a new friend though – Gail. We had met a few years earlier, and she was an angel in my life, my first real friend. She changed me and made me see that I deserved a better life. I was shocked when Graham agreed to a break and went to his parents for a planned two weeks. He made me have sex in our living room before he left, and I just gritted my teeth, telling myself it would be over soon and planning for the two weeks to turn into a lifetime. When he realised the break wasn’t temporary he went mad and I had two years of hell. He’d break into the house, stomp about, break things, attack me – all the while, I just kept in my mind the fact that Karl needed him to go. I started to see Graham in my baby far too often.
He would just turn up out of the blue, come upstairs, check the answerphone, go through my drawers, pull my clothes apart on me and say, ‘I can have this any time I want.’ He said he had people watching me – and he did. ‘How come you went to bed at 2am?’ he’d ask, and he’d be right; that would have been when I went to bed. One time, he smashed the glass back door. I ran into the front room, where Karl was on the couch, and Graham started hitting me, my six-year-old watching the whole time, inches away from his father punching his mother in the face.
He was quiet when he saw these things.
‘Karl’s going to hate you when I’m finished with you,’ Graham would hiss. He’d say, ‘Tell your mother to fuck off, she’s a slag.’ And he would. My baby would. ‘Tell people at school that your mummy sleeps with a lot of men.’
He’d say that too, he’d repeat it back. There were court procedures and there were injunctions – all of which Graham ignored, but I stood firm. I knew that I needed to do this for Karl. I never wanted Graham back not for one second – it just wasn’t happening.
I think we both know why I thought it was normal, don’t we, Jenny? Or, not even normal, but acceptable. I only knew nastiness and abuse. I had seen it from the day I was born, inflicted on you, inflicted on me. I was trying so hard to be a good mum, but I was only one part of Karl’s life. I did love him and I never hurt him deliberately, but what damage did I do to him by staying with Graham all those years? Yes, the damage had been done to me before Karl was even born, but I so wish that I could have just broken the chains and left earlier. If Gail hadn’t come into my life, I have no idea what would have happened. Those six years of Karl’s life, watching all of that – was it really so very different to what we went through? He had me to love him, but he still witnessed so much horror. I may have deserved all I went through – at least, I thought I did – but he didn’t. He really didn’t.
When Graham turned up at Sports Day when Karl was seven, I really thought I would buckle. Thankfully, Gail was there, and when he shouted at me in front of the other mums, saying I was a slag, claiming I had destroyed his son’s life, Gail stood up and challenged him. He had a go at her too but she shut him up – she was fearless – and he left. Her husband supported me too, and to this day they would happily back me up on all those years of horror. Finally I involved the police. I was covered in bruises, my eyes so swollen I could barely see, and they charged him. He pleaded guilty and walked away with a Good Behaviour Order and an injunction. He broke it a few times but nothing happened. The only thing that gave me respite was when he finally met someone else and that relationship distracted him.
Over these years, I wasn’t the only one living a hellish existence. There were lots of problems for Jenny at this time too. There was illness on the part of Donna’s foster carer, house allocation issues, lack of financial assistance … she didn’t really stand a chance. I find the sparse notes on a case report from June 1987 so sad – they note that she was up and feeding Donna cereal early, both of them ready to face the day. She was given £43 a week allowance but thought that was a fortune as she was used to living on £12 a week, so didn’t want any more help. She showed off a sunhat she had bought her daughter as well as vests for her. She had bought ‘a double pearl hair ornament’. The next day she’s bathing Donna when the social worker arrives, the flat is tidy and clean and she had borrowed milk from a neighbour when she ran out. Donna is feeding herself Weetabix and managing very well. ‘Jenny played happily with her. Donna’s father is in contact and visiting the baby’ – but the next day the social worker notes that she believes Jenny and Donna’s father have been drinking the previous evening, although Jenny is up and dressed and bathing Donna again when she goes round.
Graham was in my life by this point, and I think Mum was having to deal with controlling both of her daughters – a time-consuming task. By October 1987, Jenny was seeing someone called Brian who had two kids and was on probation – it was noted that Jenny got ‘besotted’ with various boys, and would leave Donna with Mrs H without any concern. After only a few weeks with Brian, Jenny said she wanted the three of them to move in together – she was warned she was expecting too much from such a new relationship, but she was adamant and wanted to start looking for lodgings. Not more than a week later, she found somewhere. Checks on Brian came back to show he was ‘silly with his offences. Theft of soft toy and offensive weapon was a kitchen knife for protection. No suggestion he is not suitable around small children.’ It was suggested that Jenny consider adoption for Donna but she said she was ‘hers’ and would not be ‘got rid of into care as she was’. By December 1987, it was noted that Brian had left to live with a previous girlfriend who had a child by him and was pregnant again.
In April 1988, Mum was complaining that she was worried about Donna and was being asked to look after her a lot, although no specific incidents were mentioned. A few days later, the social workers noted that Donna hadn’t been at her playschool for a few weeks, but they seemingly weren’t concerned about her care. There must have been lots of messages going back and forward at this time as, in May, Jenny denied to the health visitor that she had asked Mum to have full-time care of Donna.
As I got more involved with and controlled by Graham, and had Karl, Jenny was going through her own issues. ‘This girl has had traumas throughout her life,’ says a March 1989 letter from a solicitor to social services about my sister.
We understand from Miss Yeo that there was an incident with her mother in March when her mother attacked her and since that time there have been further minor incidents – i.e. her mother has returned photographs with abusive language written on them to our client. Having discussed this matter in great detail with our client we feel that any action on our part would only add fuel to the fire and unless there are any further incidents we do not propose to take this matter any further. Miss Yeo wishes to have no further contact with her mother. Our client is concerned to note that you have informed her that an anonymous phone call was made indicating that our client was leaving her child whilst she went out drinking and that she was cohabiting. Neither allegations are true and we understand from Miss Yeo that you have indicated to her that you are happy with her care of her child and that you are not taking any further action or becoming statutorily involved.
Jenny was an adult now, so there was less interest in her and more of a movement towards looking at Donna’s life; but, as always, there were things they never saw, things they couldn’t have seen. I saw Mum beat Jenny to the floor when she was seven months pregnant. I saw she had cut all of Jenny’s hair off, just as she had done to me at one point. As I was going through a lot back then, I don’t have a sense of all the details of what happened with Donna; I just know that I felt she was there for pretty much fourteen months – then she was gone. I know she was actually back and forward from different homes with Jenny, but she felt like mine; she felt like a little girl who stayed with us. I used to have her in my bedroom and it was lovely. All I could think of was when I did the night feeds, cuddling her when it was dark, singing to her – and trying to keep her safe. Always trying to keep her safe. Keep her away from Dad, keep her away from Mum. Protect the baby.
I would use her rocker to barricade us both in my room. How awful and pathetic is that? I was terrified that Dad would abuse her, and Mum would hurt her – I actually saw evidence of the latter, as I’ve mentioned, when Mum threw Donna on the floor when she was one, and when she force-fed her as she had done with us.
Do you remember when we would take her out together, Jenny? Those are some of the happiest memories of my life. I adored your little girl so much, and I adored the pureness of the love between us. I remember singing ‘Living Doll’ to her and any songs that were about beautiful blue eyes! I didn’t know that you were fighting so hard to keep her on your own, but when Mum said she’d had enough – or maybe when she realised she couldn’t win over your maternal love for Donna – and that you wouldn’t be back to live with us, I felt my heart would break. This, this was the worst I had ever felt, and I wondered if love would ever be straightforward for any of us.
It took me months to read the files and it took me years to put my own story together. Lives like mine, lives like Jenny’s, don’t follow a neat and tidy path of A, B, C; they zigzag all over the place. I would think, at some points, that I knew what had happened, but then I would get some new information and it would all change again. On top of that, the tendency of people who have been traumatised in childhood to have flashbacks, to lock other things away, means that it all comes out when it wants to; a lot of the time there is no sense of ‘control’ over emotions and memories. So, while some other people might like things to be tidier, life doesn’t work that way. It was only in later years that I got more of the story from Jenny, and only when I was writing this book that I started to put everything together, to see my own story as well as hers.