by Louise Allen
Around October time she would say to me, ‘This is the chilblain time of the year,’ and would put butter on my feet, and two pairs of socks. She would then put a hot-water bottle on them at night and they hurt terribly; they were itchy, swollen and sore. As a consequence, I would have to wear her maroon old-lady slippers to school. My feet were so bloated and wrapped up I could hardly walk. I was humiliated and bullied: ‘What has the Evil One done to you now?’ Or, ‘She’s really ugly and you’re really ugly – look at your ugly feet.’
Barbara would keep me off school for weeks at a time, telling them I had flu when it was actually the chilblains crippling me. When I put proper shoes on I screamed with pain. It was horrendous, and meanwhile my feet were getting worse and worse. Then one day, when I was off from school with either the ‘flu’ or the ‘chilblains’, Barbara made me walk with her and the dog to the local Co-op. It was agony but I was desperate to get out of the house, so I didn’t mind. I hobbled along and into the shop, trailing behind her. I had on two pairs of socks, as always, and my feet hurt like hell. I was wearing the usual maroon slippers and I felt terribly aware of people staring at me – I must have looked a real sight for a child.
Next stop was the chemist. We went in and the chemist said, ‘Oh, dear, not feeling well today?’ to me. Before I could say anything, Barbara piped up, ‘Yes, she’s got the flu. I’m keeping her off to stop her being infectious.’
I knew this was rubbish, but I played along. I hung back and looked longingly at the things that were on a carousel of products: lovely coloured hairbands and clips. I was never allowed to grow my hair, and I was dying to have a long, swishy ponytail with pretty things in it. I wanted to look like the girl on the BBC test card, with a hairband. Just then I noticed another woman at the counter asking the chemist about the treatment for chilblains, as she had them herself and said she was in awful pain. I was dreaming about having a mauve comb and wide white hairband when I heard Barbara turn to the woman and say, ‘Oh, the best thing for chilblains is fresh air. You need to keep your feet cold, stand on a cold floor and let your feet breathe.’
I was amazed and shocked. This was the complete opposite of what Barbara told me all the time. She told me I had to keep my feet very warm, and even heat them up. The woman said to her, ‘Yes, I’ve heard they can really spread if you keep your feet too hot and have changes of temperature from hot to cold.’
‘Yes,’ said Barbara, all knowledgeable. ‘They spread in the heat. You must keep your feet cool and clean.’
I thought about the butter on my feet, that I hadn’t been allowed to wash them for a week, about the two pairs of socks, the slippers, the hot-water bottle. And then I knew – she was making me have chilblains. She was actively growing them. I felt very scared standing there eavesdropping as I looked at the sparkly ponytail clips – she was keeping me home by making my feet bad on purpose. How could I trust her about anything at all? She was trying to hurt me all the time!
I suddenly remembered another time when she said my knee was deformed and I couldn’t walk on it. I was off school for about a month. The strange thing was I did have a lot of aches and pains in my joints (which my teacher had called ‘growing pains’), but I also had a lot of bruises and cuts from beatings – from Barbara’s own hands, or from Kevin’s. No wonder I was in pain. I was often kept off because I looked battered and bruised. So I ended up missing school and I could never seem to catch up, which made me feel very miserable and stupid. I hated being behind all the time, and I hated being in the remedial class – it was so boring. But even though I hated school, I didn’t want to stay home all the time, pretending I was ill.
As we left the shop, and I hobbled down the road on my tortured feet, I realised I would have to be very clever indeed to help myself. I would have to do what I thought was best, and not believe Barbara at all from now on. I would have to cool my feet down, and yet make her feel I was doing what she wanted – keeping them warm. I would have to really outwit her. I didn’t understand why she wanted to hurt me all the time and damage my health – like boiling my feet when they needed to be cold to get better – but I knew I had to use my head to keep myself safe from now on or I would surely die.
The only good thing in life was school. I loved it. But the downside was that both William and I not only smelt rotten, we also looked ragged in our second-hand, ripped and torn clothes. William nearly always had cuts and bruises on his face, arms and legs, which were really visible, and he was silent and withdrawn most of the time. He was also very small, as he had not grown very much, and he got picked on a lot and was called a little dwarf by the other children. I felt protective of him, although I was two years younger than him. I wanted to look after him.
Neither of us could read or write yet, and William couldn’t sit down for very long and was always running all over the place like a wild thing. He was often in trouble with the teachers and I worried he would get us both into trouble, so I kept my head down and played being a ‘good girl’, just like I did at home. We were both put in the ‘backward’ class along with children who couldn’t sit up, or who had strangely shaped bodies, or couldn’t see, hear or talk properly.
For me, one of the most humiliating things was being made to wear Barbara’s hand-me-down clothes. She would take one of her old skirts or blouses or dresses and roughly pin or sew it. I looked like a little granny. I felt shy and embarrassed as the other children stared at me and sniggered or whispered. I looked at the other little girls, with clean blonde curls or freckles and brown plaits, who had neat pastel-coloured dresses with Peter Pan collars, and frilly white socks and new shoes. I knew we both looked odd. William and I both looked grimy and stank, too – we had smelly armpits and often smelt of wee from the night regime. I was so ashamed.
Despite this, the most wonderful thing at Vernon Lane Primary for me was the freedom. I was now six and William was eight. Barbara hated the school, of course, because it was nice for us (she hated a lot of things). She nearly always got us there late in the mornings (there was no real reason for this as we lived nearby – it was just another way of making us stick out). I was so embarrassed to arrive at an empty playground and have to tiptoe in. All eyes would turn on me and I would have to go to the form teacher as she marked ‘Late’ in the school register. Then I would hear more sniggers and comments.
At the end of the day, when the parents came to collect the children, Barbara would separate herself from them. She would sit by an internal door, away from the other parents, ignoring everyone, looking sour. I used to edge my way round the room and down the corridor towards her, hoping other people didn’t see how odd she looked in her horrible grey anorak. She refused to talk to the other parents.
As she pushed me along through the playground she would snap, ‘This school is disgusting.’ I had no idea why or what she meant. ‘Too much freedom by half,’ she would snip. ‘No bloody discipline – they don’t know what they’re doing. The Head is mad.’
She would say this loudly as we passed the nice head teacher, Mr James, who would smile at us warmly. I would smile shyly back up at him, but Barbara would put her nose in the air and yank me past, with Topsy being towed roughly behind.
I still loved being with the teachers and Miss Nickerson, though. They let us choose what to do: we could sit on the blue carpet and read a book, play musical instruments or sing songs, do painting or make something out of cardboard. There were paper, pens, plasticine, egg boxes, glue, shiny coloured paper, wool and scissors, and we could just be creative and express ourselves. It was heaven on earth. I found all of this wonderful.
After school one day Miss Nickerson tried to show Barbara my painting work. She took Barbara to one of my paintings drying on an easel.
‘What’s all this then?’ snarled Barbara.
‘Well,’ started Miss Nickerson, smiling first at me, and then at Barbara, although I could see she was quite nervous with Barbara, ‘I think you have a very talented girl. She really is a talented
little artist.’
I felt my chest open and I filled with pride. Really? Me? This was so wonderful, Miss Nickerson saying something like this to my mother.
‘I’d like to put her work into a competition – she would do the school proud.’ I could feel my timid confidence blooming.
Barbara’s face tightened. ‘No,’ she said bluntly. ‘No, she’s stolen some paintings from the other children, brought them home and copied them. How does that make her an artist? She’s a little cheat!’
Miss Nickerson’s face was, indeed, a picture. She looked like a bomb had dropped. She didn’t know what to say. I felt tears prick my eyes and I wanted the floor to open up and let me drop in. My growing confidence popped like a balloon. I felt my knees tremble. How could she talk to my lovely Miss Nickerson this way? We had all copied some American pop artists, so Miss Nickerson tried to change tack.
‘Er, well, yes, the children do copy paintings… but look here, Louise’s is the best by far in the class.’
‘Oh,’ Barbara said loudly, ‘I hate bloody Americans. They’re so loud and arrogant.’ At this, Miss Nickerson looked completely at sea.
‘No, no,’ Barbara insisted loudly, ‘she’s copied some of the other children. She’s cheated. You’re a disgusting school if you encourage cheating. I will complain to the council.’
With that, Barbara snatched me away and dragged me out of the class, hissing, ‘You’re not staying here, there’s no morals. Filthy, nasty, ignorant people.’
Barbara would not stop telling me I was a cheat. She went on and on at me, whacked me across the face when we got home that day, and put me to bed at four in the afternoon, without tea.
‘You’ll never amount to anything. You’re a liar and a cheat,’ she said, slamming the door once I was tied down in the afternoon light. For punishment she took my felt-tips and green computer paper I’d got from Ian to draw on and threw them away. She also took my favourite and only toy, Tony, my black-and-white Panda. When I got it back later, he had a big slash down his front and stuffing was coming out of his belly button. I couldn’t cry any more. I didn’t understand. I just closed my eyes and kept thinking, I didn’t cheat. It’s not true. Miss Nickerson believes me.
I clung onto the image of her buttoning up my shirt, carefully and kindly, and rolling up my sleeves and encouraging me to dip my brush in the paint and make lovely colourful swirls. I saw her warm smile and her nice blonde curls and smelt her lovely perfume, and thought, You won’t hurt me. I will be happy. I will paint. Meanwhile, the tears rolled down my cheeks and I looked at the cracks in the ceiling and the blue flowers on the wallpaper, and started counting, yet again.
After this incident Barbara decided it was time for action. Something was afoot. She had to go to meetings about William at the school with the headteacher and social workers. She wasn’t happy. He was way behind and in trouble. She would come back from a meeting and furiously throw pots and pans around in the kitchen, and then open the back door and throw them all out in the garden in a heap.
‘Of course he’s in trouble; he’s an unwanted little bastard,’ Barbara spat out, reading yet another letter from the Head. ‘They have no idea what I have to deal with day in, day out. I hate the little bugger.’
I knew she hated him. He knew she hated him. We all knew. She swiped at him and kicked him and hurt him in myriad ways: he was her punchbag. She let Kevin punch and kick him whenever he wanted to and never said a word. Ian never intervened, either, opting to slope off to the garage or the shed to do woodwork, and never stopped any of Barbara’s torture. He was frightened of her himself, and kept his own head down. We were both kept home from school a lot from then on.
‘You’re staying home, you’re not well enough,’ she’d say.
But it seemed we were well enough to do the household chores. I was cutting the grass, collecting the eggs, doing the ironing, scrubbing the floors, cleaning the toilet – and all the while longing to be with Miss Nickerson, making a beautiful picture. I wanted to sit on the carpet and read books, or sing round the piano. Instead I was cleaning out the hens’ poo or scrubbing dirty shirt collars.
Two major things happened then that changed my life for ever. After the painting incident, Barbara kept me home from school for ages and ages and told me every day that I wasn’t well enough to go in. The pining for Miss Nickerson, nice Mr James and my friend with the big teeth, the milk and biscuits and all the lovely food was unbearable now. Then one morning Barbara stood over me at breakfast and said, ‘You’re going to a new school.’
I burst into tears.
‘I don’t want any backchat. You need discipline,’ was all she said.
I sobbed and sobbed uncontrollably and was sent to my room with a whack across the shoulders with the newspaper.
‘Shut up. You’ll do as you’re told. Beggars can’t be choosers.’
I didn’t even care; my heart was broken. Barbara soon gave me my new uniform, which was scratchy, grey and horrible. Of course I had second-hand clothes, nothing new.
This new primary school was much further away, near a rough estate. It was a very different kind of school: regimented, strict, unfriendly and tough. The first day there, Barbara dropped me by the back gate and I had to make my way across the playground, terrified. I was stared at by parents and children alike as I walked in with my odd hand-me-down clothes, looking dirty and dishevelled. I must have looked so out of place in my old-lady shoes. Everyone else had Kickers or plimsolls but I had proper women’s shoes, brown with a heel and buckle. They were too big and I looked really silly. Barbara knitted my grey and green tie, and I was laughed at. Always different; always sticking out like a sore thumb.
From day one I was picked on by a big boy called Spencer, who followed me around, taunted me and made my life a misery. He cornered me and pushed me up against the wall, wanting to see in my bag. I ducked out from under his arm but he pursued me every day. Barbara was often late coming to pick me up after school, so I would stand in the corner of the playground, waiting, back against the wall by the gate, looking out, feeling utterly lost. She might be a whole hour late. Or more. Spencer would shout across the playground, ‘Nobody wants you, then!’ and his mates would laugh.
Barbara would eventually appear in her white Ford Escort and shout through the window to ‘Get in!’ as if I’d been keeping her waiting all that time. There was never any explanation. Worse was to come. Not only was I at a new school that I didn’t like at all, but something terrible was about to happen – something of which I had no warning at all.
One morning, while getting up for breakfast, we were both told we were being kept home from school. ‘You’re ill and you’re staying,’ is all Barbara said. The usual. I hated my new school, but I hated staying home even more. I wasn’t ill, nor was William, but we were told we had to go back to our bedroom. I hated being in there all day, as there was absolutely nothing to do. We looked at each other, made a face and shrugged. We occupied ourselves by playing made-up games of ‘mums and dads’ – our favourite. Then William got bored and went to lie on the floor, kicking the wall. So I opened my bedside drawer, went over and sat next to him and showed him the dead flies in my matchbox. He always liked to look at them, so he sat up again. We seldom talked but we both knew we were willing the flies to come back to life. He looked at me and we both grinned; it was our little secret.
Then I heard a car on the gravel. The doorbell rang, followed by voices in the hall.
‘William, come here,’ was shouted up the stairs by Barbara.
He scrambled to his feet and disappeared. I sat for a moment, listening to the voices. I didn’t recognise them and couldn’t make out what they were saying. I was puzzled and scared. I didn’t know what was going on. After a few minutes I took a deep breath, checked the coast was clear, crept out onto the landing and sat huddled at the top of the stairs, my knees under my chin, my arms round my legs. I licked my knees, which was something I often did when I needed to feel better. At the
bottom of the stairs, in the hall, I could see Barbara’s navy-blue tartan travel bag. I thought she must be going away. That would be fantastic. Peace at last!
The kitchen door was shut and I could hear voices behind it – a woman’s high voice and a man’s deep voice mixed with the occasional unmistakeable sound of Barbara. But I couldn’t hear what they were saying. I knew William had been in trouble at school: he’d had to go to the headmaster’s office several times recently, and he wasn’t doing well. He could never concentrate and would get up and walk around in class, which annoyed the teachers. Maybe it was something about that?
I bit my lip. I felt I had a huge rock in my stomach, a pebble in my throat. Then the kitchen door opened and there was the top of William’s head, his red hair sticking up as always like a giant toothbrush. He was in his school blazer now but I couldn’t see his face. There was a woman in a coat standing next to him, and a man next to Barbara. No one was speaking. They all walked towards the front door and went out. The travel bag was gone.
I had a sudden panic. What was happening? I had to know. I was not allowed downstairs into the ‘best’ front room, with the red velvet curtains, but I tiptoed down as fast as I could, opened the door and crept in. It faced the drive. I snuck to the window. There was a green car parked out front, and I suddenly saw William in the back with his head down, his hands holding his face. The man and the woman were getting in the car. I wanted to scream: ‘Noooooo!’ What was happening? Where was he going? I put my hands on the window and pressed my nose up against the pane. ‘William,’ I wanted to scream. ‘William, where are you going?’ The car was turning now and the indicator was sticking out, a little orange arm, pointing to the right. What was to the right? I racked my brains. That was the way to Oxford.
I didn’t hear Barbara come in behind me, as I was crying and sobbing and tears were streaming down my face, palms stuck to the window. She grabbed me by the hair and pulled me away from the window with such violence that I fell back against the dining table and chairs, knocking one over. Whack! She slapped me round the face.