by Caryn Walker
I started to get those flashes of freedom, perhaps even of happiness, more and more often. Then, on New Year’s Eve 2011, a complete miracle came into my life when I found out that I was pregnant. After being told it would never happen, and desperately trying to pull the money together for IVF, this was the most wonderful thing that could happen to us. I felt complete, and pure happiness washed over me as I looked at the positive pregnancy test. An early scan ruled out any threat of it being ectopic, and I started to feel that maybe, just maybe, everything was fine.
‘Perhaps I can actually do this!’ I said to Elroy, delirious with the possibility of being a mum again.
‘Of course you can, you can do anything,’ he told me, grinning with delight.
‘Maybe this was life’s plan for me all along,’ I replied. ‘I just needed to wait until I was ready to raise a child free from the terror of perpetrators – just maybe. I couldn’t face it before, but maybe now after court and everything, I’m healed enough. Do you think that’s what it is?’
He smiled, happy enough to indulge me in whatever reason I came up with, happy to see the pure joy shining from me. I started to look forward, to think I had a fresh start; but sadly, at the three-month scan we discovered that our baby had died. We were devastated. How could life be so cruel? This was my one-in-a-million chance to prove that I could be a healthy, free parent; it felt like life gave me a miracle but then cruelly snatched it away again. I spent two days at home waiting to go into hospital. I still felt pregnant and I was told my body was holding on to the pregnancy. I was finally admitted to Liverpool Women’s Hospital, for a six-hour procedure; I ended up being in there for five days as, after five attempts with medication failed, I had to go to theatre.
The next few months were difficult and I felt as though it was me, it was something I’d brought on myself. I wondered if I deserved to be happy. I’d figured that taking Norman to court would be like a magic switch, that I would feel normal for the first time and that it would all be behind me. That the moment of sheer freedom I’d had in the car would be how my life would feel now. I was wrong. Although I was definitely clearer on some things and had closure with Norman, my turmoil continued. It wasn’t a magic bullet. I still felt black and foggy and incomplete and unlovable; recovery was a long road.
As time went on, I realised I was struggling to feel emotionally healthy and that there was no magic switch. I still saw Norman everywhere and I still had awful nightmares. In a recurring one I go ‘home’ to my house, but instead of finding Elroy there, my mother and Norman are waiting. She is always angry and he sits on the sofa, having got out of prison. He’s waiting for me and he grins, then follows me to my room and takes his ‘revenge’ on me for sending him to prison.
I’m working out that a lot of things done to me as a child were designed to humiliate me, keep me isolated from people who may have been a support to me, and to destroy my self-esteem. Telling me that my grandparents hated me, that other family members had no time for us and considered me the instigator of our family problems, destroyed any self-confidence in me and made me sure I was a bad person. Mum telling me that Grandma was an abuser and that Grandpa tried to rape her were also surefire ways to make it impossible for me to ever trust them completely. Norman would say, ‘If you tell your mum, she’ll die. She’s too ill for this.’
Even though I’ve come a long way, I still feel largely unlovable and I wrestle with my rational side and my irrational side. The struggle is still there. If someone seems to like me, I usually feel I have deceived them in some way and that they just can’t see the ‘real darkness’ me just yet. I feel often people ‘must’ criticise things that I do. I feel that I still grieve for a lost innocence and childhood freedom that is every child’s right.
Having said and felt all of this, I know I am recognising wrong thoughts and feelings of ‘truth’ and starting to challenge them. My determination to feel normal and for closure will overcome all this eventually. I am looking at some things differently now and I recognise the damage done to me by my parents; and it’s going to disappear as my truth and become a lie told by bad people. I’ve been emotionally damaged by people all my life and for it still to be happening – enough is enough. My fight starts here.
When I decided to write this book, I did so for two reasons – I wanted Jenny to finally be acknowledged and I wanted someone else, anyone, to get from it the strength to take their abuser to court. I wanted them to see that it could be done, and that there was hope. After thirty years, without real evidence other than my own voice, my father went to prison for sixteen years.
However, the process has been harder than I could ever have imagined. When you read a book like this, you want it to be straightforward – this happened, then this, then this. And you want a happy ending. I haven’t been able to do that, not in any sort of traditional way, because life doesn’t work out as easily. I don’t have memories from the day I was born – who does? I don’t have Jenny to tell me her story. I have had to piece together so much, and my memories are slippery things that, finally, make up no more than a jagged patchwork of my life.
So, the memories all flood in sometimes, they refuse to come at other times, they repeat and they replay. The one about the Michael Jackson poster is there often, I think because it’s so bizarre, and I constantly think back to parts of it such as using my dressing gown and coats to cover every inch of the inside of my bedroom door so Norman couldn’t spy on me at night. I think about the time Mum put the lock on. I remember being forced into sleeping all night in their bed when she was in hospital, when I was twelve. I remember him taking every single opportunity to get to me, to corner me in the kitchen and put his hands inside my clothes, not stopping even if my brother walked in. The bathroom, any bedroom, the hallways – he followed my every move and I moved around only when I thought it would be ‘safe’. That was my life, every day.
I remember him coming into the bathroom, ordering me to lie on the floor. I refused, so he threatened to take all his clothes off so someone would see. I was so scared that I did what he said, confused, wondering whether I should risk the shame of someone seeing but also hopeful that might stop it. I remember him sometimes calling me Netty, my aunt’s name, when he was raping me. I remember always having to work out when I could do my many chores, as I couldn’t go upstairs to clean if no one else was up there. I had to plan it all out, and he was always getting angry with me for outsmarting him.
Every time I get upset about things – whether inconsequential or not – the other memories rush back; it’s as if my mind is looking for an excuse to upset me, never giving me peace. It’s as if they’re shouting at me, telling me not to forget, telling me that this all matters. I remember, I remember, I remember. I remember being made to polish in their bedroom. As soon as my mother went out, he came straight in, pushed me onto the bed and raised his fist to hit me when I protested. I think he would have battered me senseless if I hadn’t let him do what he wanted.
I remember that he held me against the wall on the landing by my throat when I tried to stop him. I remember being scared all the time, with my whole life revolving around avoiding him. I remember going to the toilet only when it was safe, or using a plastic Tupperware bowl in my room because I knew that he was quietly waiting for me to have to leave my room. I felt disgusting, ashamed, frightened. I remember living with a knot in my stomach, afraid to go home. I remember being completely alone.
And that, that is what you live with when you’re an abuse survivor. Your mind races with memories all the time, your dreams are filled with terrors. You never know when it will hit you, because it has filled your formative years.
As I finished writing the book, I knew there was one person I had to talk to about it all. I’ve always been close to my eldest brother, Ian, but I knew he had his own demons. Although I was trying to process mine, and he had said he would be there for me, I did wonder how all of this was affecting him. By telling my story, I was opening up ever
ything about my family, and I knew from the start that there would be repercussions. I desperately hoped Ian and I would still be strong together, still love each other, when this part of that story was over.
We Skyped each other and he told me he would be by my side for as long as I needed him, that he would stand by everything we both knew was true, and that – for the first time ever – he would let me read his witness statement, which he sent through to me. Although Norman was not Ian’s biological father, he had been there for most of his childhood – and had left his mark. As I absorbed the words that he had said to the police I realised, yet again, just how much damage had been done to so many people by the toxic pair I called my parents.
The statement reads:
I am the above named person and I live at an address known to Merseyside Police. I make this statement in relation to an allegation of sexual abuse made by my sister Karen Walker against my stepfather Norman Yeo.
Unfortunately, I cannot access most of my childhood memories. I’ve always believed this was due to something that must have happened when I was a kid because, when I try to, I get very uncomfortable and it is almost like there is a pain in my head.
The following is an account of the few things I am able to access and an overall picture of my stepfather.
Fear. That is what I mostly remember about Norman. Me always being in fear of Norman coming home. I knew I would be getting a beating but didn’t know what he would use this time or how severe it would be. I do remember he always knocked my glasses off first and then he would use his hands, fists and other implements such as my cricket bat or the metal soup ladle. I’m told that he would usually pull out clumps of my hair.
On one occasion, when I must have been about 15, he was hitting me and taunting me to hit him back, telling me to ‘be a man’. I was a 15 year old, about 5’ 4” of scrawniness and he was the fear-inspiring father figure of over 6 foot. That one time, though, I finally tried and was beaten so badly that it has become a blank after me hitting him back.
He never really needed a reason for his beatings and, after growing up, I assumed it was just a problem he had or he hated the fact that I wasn’t naturally his. This left me as a timid child who rarely played out unless forced to by my mum.
As a kid I ran away from home twice. Once when I was very young and once as a teen. On the first occasion, I took Jennifer with me and all I remember about it is that we left through the living room window and were in fear of something. The second occasion is a little clearer. Jennifer wasn’t living with us but I took Karen and, again, we were in fear of something (presumably Norman). We ended up at the back of an abandoned house and I’m told that I left a note saying we were going to kill ourselves. Apparently the Police were informed and broadcasts were made on the local radio.
I honestly do not know if I knew what was going on with Karen and Jennifer but it seems I was trying to protect them from something and I do recall that as we were getting older, I noticed Karen becoming more withdrawn and nervous, especially around Norman.
I’ve often tried to pierce through whatever the block is in my memory and I’ve wondered if it was sexual abuse for me as well. I’ve told myself that I don’t care if it was, that I care more about the fact that it happened to Karen and Jenny but would just like to know if that was the reason. The only clues I have to it being a possibility (apart from the block itself) are fuzzy memories. One is of being in the bathroom with Norman whilst he was naked in the shower and another where I was, for some reason, showing my naked backside in the living room and Norman and his friend were there. I also recall when, as a teen, I found Norman’s stash of pornography. Most of it was the usual girlie magazine stuff except for one magazine, which was all naked men. Needless to say, that stuck in my memory.
My childhood has left me as someone suffering from depression, someone who mostly stays in the house and no longer seeks out relationships, primarily because I always feel like a fraud, that I am play-acting being an adult when really, I’m still a frightened kid. I am able to fool people when I am out because I usually portray confidence and sociability but I can’t seem to make those feelings real nor parlay them into a proper relationship with a partner. I don’t feel sorry for myself or anything and I know I have to change but it is really difficult to find the motivation. Again, I care more about what happened to my sisters. I’ve lost Jenny and I think her self-destruction was definitely all about her childhood and what she endured at the hands of Norman. As for Karen, I am constantly amazed and awestruck at what a loving person she still is, despite what she went through. She has her problems too, of course, and they too are due to what she went through as a child and she is working on them. As for my brothers, they too have their demons to work out.
Overall, Norman was a destructive force in our lives. He was often away fishing as he rarely worked and those times were easier and lighter for us but always with the spectre of him returning as that would mean more violence and beatings, crying and punishments whether we had done anything ‘wrong’ or not.
***
Reading that statement hit me hard. So much of this I had never seen before, and it broke my heart to think Ian was pouring it all out now, still trying to help me, still being my big brother. I think mentioning the pornography in his court statement helped the jury believe me, as I’d said it was one of the early grooming tools that Norman had used against me. When he and Mum both denied having it in the house, the jury must have had to decide who to believe – our parents, or Ian and me. I also didn’t remember us writing a suicide note when we ran away. I do remember the actual running away with him though, and thinking we would live in a big old abandoned house that we found, but the suicide note was something that had been forgotten, for me, in the mists of time.
When Ian sent me that letter, I asked him if he thought he might regret it being included in the book.
‘No,’ he replied, without any pause whatsoever. ‘I don’t care what is used, because it’s the truth. If my memories help to give yours credibility, that’s only a good thing. As a child, I witnessed those two holding Jenny by each arm, at the top of the stairs, both pulling her in different directions because Lesley was trying to throw her down the stairs. I found the porn, and I was being beaten for it, but I also know Lesley had “books” that were hers, that were nothing to do with Norman. They were beyond vile, they were full of animal porn, people having sex with dogs and donkeys. How sick is that? It made me want to vomit. I think that defending Lesley came from fear – fear that came from knowing what she was really like.’
I get that. I think Ian’s protectiveness, which is sometimes very over-the-top, comes from being the oldest sibling and feeling like it was his ‘duty’. I’ve tried to tell him over and over that it wasn’t his responsibility, that he was just a little boy and that only two people were responsible, but those deep-rooted feelings won’t disappear just because his little sister tells him what she thinks is going on. Writing that testimony for me was such a brave thing to do, because by writing this book, I know I have put it all in the spotlight. Perhaps one day he will tell his story. I hope so.
When my auntie got Nanny’s diaries after her death, there was lots in there about Mum – she said she was ‘the eternal victim’ and she wondered where they had gone wrong to make her turn out the way she did. It was clear that they never knew what to do with her, that they had been at their wits’ end about her behaviour ever since she was a little girl. I know Mum kept me away from anyone who could tell me the truth, and that, when Granddad died when I was nine, things got even worse. The food he brought, the money he gave her – that all stopped, and she resented it. She would tell him that the kids were starving and he would always help out when he could; even though she fed herself first and spent the money on her own clothes and make-up, he was there, and sometimes she was calmed down a bit by the fact that she had got something. When he died, that was lost. I don’t remember her ever grieving for him, just being angry that
one of her easy options had gone.
People call it ‘historical’ abuse, but there is nothing historical about what I’m living. Every day, there is something to remind me of what was done to me, what he did to me. I know I was lucky to get a conviction, but how sick is that? How appalling is it that we use the word ‘lucky’ when an abuser gets a tiny portion of what they deserve? He got convicted, but I got a life sentence – and, Jenny, you didn’t even get the chance to live your life at all.
I know we need shorthand phrases to try to help people have some understanding, any understanding, of these horrific crimes, but I often feel as if there’s more time and effort spent on getting the words right than there is on protecting children or supporting survivors. And there’s another one right there – ‘survivors’. So many groups and individuals have fought to move away from calling us ‘victims’ – we are strong, we have got through this, we have survived; but the truth is, sometimes I don’t feel like a survivor. I feel guilty even writing that but I do, at times, wonder if there would be more sympathy or understanding if we used the word ‘victim’. You don’t survive a burglary, you don’t survive a mugging; you’re seen as a victim, so why, when the most personal thing of all has been attacked and stolen and taken, is there such pressure to label yourself as a survivor? I know the arguments behind it, I know it’s meant to be empowering, but there are so many times when I want to scream, This still affects me, this still hurts, I am still in such a lot of pain and I fear it will never end.