by Louise Allen
After this visit, I was allowed to go back to visiting Sean. It had been about a month, but it felt like a year. The next time I wanted to hear ‘Hello, girlie’, I went racing out the kitchen door, down the garden and through the hedge and stuck to him like glue. I couldn’t get enough of him then, as I felt I had been severely punished for spending time with my one and only friend in the whole world: dear, kind Irish Sean. However, even he wouldn’t be able to save me from what was to happen next.
9
Under Attack
I was now eight going on nine. Kevin was thirteen going on fourteen and was getting more boisterous and threatening. As well as punching and kicking me, he started coming up close to me and leaning over me and putting his face right up to mine. I didn’t like it. I felt very scared. He smelt bad, for a start, of body odour. He was very pongy, and smelling him towering over me would make me want to be sick. I would retch. He smelt greasy, musky, like an old dog, and his breath was terrible. I avoided him as much as possible, but he took delight in cornering me in the kitchen or in the bathroom, or pushing past me on the stairs or in a corridor. He would try to lean his body against me and I wanted to scream, but I looked down and held my breath until he gave up and went away. I knew better than to make a fuss, as Barbara would always take his side and call me a rude name or two.
Then one day I was on the bed in my room – which still had the partition down the middle – when the door burst open and in came Kevin with his friend Mark behind him. They both looked funny. Their eyes were shining, and both had red cheeks. The hairs stood up on the back of my neck and I pulled my knees up to my chin, feeling frightened. I thought if I sat still and looked down, they would go away.
But they didn’t. Instead, Kevin strode up to the bed and shoved me down, hurting me. I was winded for a moment. Then both of his hands were on my shoulders and suddenly I was lying down with him pressing me hard into the bed. His red stinky face was close to mine. I was so horrified that I stopped breathing for a moment. Then I realised that Mark had hold of my ankles and was pulling my legs apart.
Kevin looked back at Mark over my body and then lifted up my gingham dress. I started struggling and wriggling as much as I could. I was quite strong but these boys were much older than me, and Kevin turned back to me and pushed me hard back on the bed with his hand flat on my chest. I wanted to scream, I needed to shout, but I didn’t. I certainly didn’t want Barbara to come up and see what was happening – I didn’t think she would rescue me; she’d be more likely to tell me off.
So I kept kicking my legs, but Mark had now caught them. Suddenly I felt my knickers being pulled down. I tried to kick and wriggle and twist my body sideways, but there was an iron grip around each ankle. I couldn’t see anything except the back of Kevin’s greasy head. He now had his full weight on top of my chest, and both boys were looking down at my bare private parts. I was horrified. I tried to move this way and that and attempted to sit up to bite Kevin’s back, but Mark had my legs and Kevin was still leaning his whole weight on me. Then, suddenly, as if on signal, they were gone. I lay on the bed, panting. My dress was up under my armpits and my knickers were round my ankles. I sat up slowly, feeling shocked and afraid. They had looked at my bare body, my private parts. I felt sick, my heart was racing, my mind was swimming and I wanted to cry. I didn’t know what had happened but I knew it was bad. But there was no one to tell – I couldn’t even tell Sean. I felt too ashamed. I just pulled my knickers up, smoothed down my dress and started counting in my head. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four.
Barbara was always talking about sex. And men. ‘Men will use you because they always use girls like you,’ she would say to me. Or, ‘Men just want what they can get.’ She often called me a whore and said I was ‘Like your mother, only fit for breeding.’ She told me, ‘You ruined people’s lives by being born – look what you did to your mother, look what you did to me!’ I was worthless, unloveable, ugly. I was born to be used. Plus I was a ‘stupid bitch’ and an ‘oily Jew’, so I wasn’t worth anything at all. She was hardly going to help me fight against Kevin and Mark, as I was ‘a wicked little girl’.
When I had been at my lovely first primary school, we had been taught some very basic things about mummies, daddies and babies, and the birds and the bees. They had begun to teach us where babies came from. Barbara had got wind of this and had gone ballistic.
‘Those teachers are perverted,’ she screamed. ‘They’ve got a stupid American attitude,’ she ranted. She had grabbed me by the shoulders and said, ‘When you’re older you’ll kiss a man and you’ll get feelings and then you’ll get pregnant – and you’ll be out on your ear, d’you hear?’ I heard, but I didn’t understand. What were these ‘feelings’ that would make me get thrown out?
Barbara often spoke about Ian in a horrible way that made me feel very uncomfortable. She would say he stank (which he did, of stale cheese and bonfires), although I never really got that close to him, as he never gave me a hug or a cuddle. She would say he stank of wee and didn’t wipe his bottom properly (I hated to think of this). She would put his stained white underpants in buckets of soda to soak. But I also had to wash and scrub them for her with green Fairy soap. Barbara would also say frequently that Ian ‘raped’ her. I didn’t know what ‘rape’ was or what the word meant. It sounded very bad. She spat the word ‘rape’ with total venom. She also called Ian a ‘filthy, cruel, disgusting man’ to his face and behind his back. She seemed to hate him. She seemed to hate all men.
But despite hating Ian, she liked to roll around on the carpet, wrestling with Kevin, which seemed very strange indeed. If I watched them wrestling she would look up at me and say, ‘I bet you’re jealous?’ which was the total opposite of what I was feeling – I was thinking I was so glad it wasn’t me being held down on the carpet by Kevin.
So would I get pregnant if I kissed a man? And would I be raped, as all men were rapists? However, Kevin and Mark holding me down, pulling down my knickers and looking at my bare body marked the beginning of a new, dreadful phase in my life. Kevin would touch me now whenever he could. He kept looking at my chest or touching my bottom. I was left very confused about everything to do with men and sex.
Although Kevin had his horrible friend Mark to the house when he wanted to, I wasn’t allowed to have anyone round. I didn’t really have friends at school, as I was usually picked on by Spencer and his gang, or by the nasty big girls. But one day I was invited to a girl’s house after school, and for the first time I went.
Maisie was very sweet and also liked doing art. She had a lovely house with a warm friendly mummy who set a table with cakes, milk and biscuits. I thought this was wonderful. Barbara had drilled me in what I had to say: I had to be polite, and not behave like the little bitch I was. After tea, Maisie and I went up to her bedroom. It was a treasure trove – beautiful, all pink and white, with flowery wallpaper. She had a jewellery box, which was white with flowers and leaves painted on the outside. When Maisie lifted the lid, a little ballet dancer in blue silk slowly twirled around to a twinkling tune. I had never seen anything like it in my life – it was wonderful. I played with it over and over, mesmerised, opening and closing the lid, to Maisie’s amusement. We tried on all her rings and necklaces and danced around her room. She had loads of scarves, hair clips, pretty dresses, socks and shoes. Maisie was happy for me to try things on, and we both play-acted all sorts of things. It was the happiest afternoon of my life.
All too soon Barbara arrived at the front door and Maisie’s mum called up the stairs for me to go. I rushed down, afraid they would all see how strange she was. And indeed, there she was in her plain grey anorak, with her tight, wavy grey hair and pointy angry face, yanking the dog into a sitting position beside her. Seeing Maisie’s mum – who was as pretty as a picture in a long blue dress, with earrings and a necklace and lovely curly dark hair – I realised how old-fashioned and funny Barbara looked.
We marched home in silence and, when
we got back, I suddenly realised I still had one of Maisie’s rings on my finger. It was a thin silver band with a pretend green jewel on it.
‘You’re a thief!’ screamed Barbara. ‘You’re a naughty, wicked girl – go up to your room this instant.’
She pushed me in the house and up the stairs. I was crying. I hadn’t meant to take the ring. It was an accident. When Barbara had arrived, I’d rushed to get everything off (I’d had a ring on every finger), and must have missed the one on my little finger. Barbara pushed me into my room so hard I fell on the floor.
‘You are a wicked thief,’ she repeated, ‘and I’m going to call the police. You need teaching a bloody lesson.’
‘Noooooo!’ I screamed. ‘Please don’t call the police.’ But Barbara was already marching down the stairs and into the hall where the telephone table and Trimphone stood. I could hear her voice booming from the hall: ‘Hello, police? I want to report a thief. Her name is Louise Taylor. She is my adopted daughter and she is a nasty, spiteful, ungrateful, horrid little girl who lies and steals from people.’
I sobbed and sobbed as I heard this, and pulled the offending ring off my finger and put it on my bedside cabinet. It was like an unexploded bomb. I hated it.
‘She’s been to a little girl’s house to play and she deliberately stole her ring. She is wicked.’
I was listening and crying, biting my lip and pulling my hair. I would go to prison. I would never see Sean again.
‘Yes,’ I heard Barbara continue. ‘Yes, I will certainly punish her. Ten hard slaps at the top of her legs and ten hard slaps on her bottom. Thank you so much – you’re right: she’s no longer to go to other people’s houses as she steals and she’s not to be trusted.’
I was now so scared I was frozen to the spot, as I heard Barbara put the phone down and start stomping upstairs. I wanted to wee. Barbara roared in like thunder.
‘Stand up,’ she snapped, giving me a beady stare. ‘Pull down your knickers.’
I stood up on wobbly legs; I had no choice. Barbara bent sideways and took off her Clarks K-shoe, lifted my skirt and whacked me with it across the top of my thigh. The flat leather sole smacked really hard across my skin, stinging as she bashed me as hard as she could. Her lips were thin, her eyes narrowed, as she whacked hard.
She then bent me over the bed, putting my head on it, as I faced the window. This time I had ten hard thwacks with the stinging leather sole of her shoe. When the punishment was over she said, ‘You’ll get no tea tonight. You will go to Maisie’s house tomorrow and apologise for being a nasty little thief.’
That night I was utterly miserable. I had bruises on my thighs and my bottom really hurt. I hadn’t meant to take the ring; it was a real mistake. I was so worried about being late for Barbara and being punished that I’d rushed down the stairs at Maisie’s. But I’d got punished anyway. Now I was going to lose my one and only school friend. I would never be able to go to tea again. I lay in a pool of absolute misery all night.
Next day Barbara met me from school and marched me to Maisie’s house. When we got there, Barbara stood at the end of the path with the dog, looking very grim. Then I was pushed up the path and told to ring the doorbell. When the door opened, there was Maisie’s nice mummy, who said, sounding surprised, ‘Oh, hello, Louise.’
Then she noticed Barbara who had hung back at the end of the path, looking like a grim, grey statue.
‘Oh, hello, Barbara. Would you like to come in?’
Barbara sounded very stern and huffy. ‘No, thank you – she has something to say,’ she said, meaning me. I stood blinking on the doorstep, looking up at Maisie’s mum’s kind, warm face, with her pink lipstick and sparkly eyes. I held out the ring between my thumb and index finger.
‘I’m very sorry,’ I said in a small voice (I actually wanted to cry, but was trying not to), ‘I’ve done something very bad and naughty. I stole this ring because I’m a very bad girl.’
Maisie’s mum looked very confused for a moment. She picked up the ring and looked at it. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘this is just a toy from a comic. It’s okay – we didn’t even notice it was missing.’
I could feel my cheeks were now burning. I could also feel Barbara’s hawk-like eyes boring into my back.
‘It’s not a problem. I bet you just forgot you were wearing it,’ she continued sweetly. I looked up at her warm face and still wanted to sob.
‘Come here,’ snapped Barbara. I duly turned and walked back to Barbara, who grabbed the top of my arm and dug her talons in. Without a word to Maisie’s mum, she tugged me down the street. I lifted my free hand to attempt a feeble wave.
‘Stupid bloody woman,’ Barbara was hissing under her breath. ‘Bloody hippy.’
When I got home I was sent straight to my room without tea. When Ian arrived over an hour later, I heard Barbara telling him loudly in the hall that I was a ‘thief and a liar and I was going to prison’. I lay on the bed watching the evening light fade, feeling lonelier than lonely. Suddenly the door flung open and Kevin’s head popped round it.
‘Thief! Thief! Liar, liar, pants on fire!’ he chanted childishly. ‘I ate all your food – there’s none left, nah nah!’ Then he burst into laughter and slammed the door.
A week later I was doing my Saturday chores. One of my jobs was to take an old grey Hoover round the house and vacuum everywhere. I had to take it all the way upstairs, one step at a time, and vacuum the whole house top to bottom. This did mean that I could go into rooms I didn’t usually go into – as I wasn’t usually allowed anywhere other than my bedroom, the bathroom, toilet and kitchen. This meant I actually went into Barbara and Ian’s bedroom. I had to hoover round the beds very carefully. I wasn’t allowed to open any drawers in her tallboy or dressing table, which were all in matching dark wood. I also couldn’t open the wardrobe, it was forbidden. It did mean I could hoover up any poo that had crumbled under the bed – and I always checked how things were going down there. I also had to polish the surfaces with Pledge and a yellow duster.
Barbara never wore make-up or perfume, and didn’t have any jewellery like Maisie (bracelets, necklaces or beads). But she did have a little glass tree on her dressing table, which had three gold rings hanging on it. I polished the glass on the mirrors and the surface of the dressing table, and then I put down my duster and the Pledge. In my childish curiosity I slipped the rings onto my fingers and held my hand up to the mirror and put it against my face. Just like I had played with Maisie’s rings. I stared at myself in the mirror and liked what I saw – three gold rings on my little fingers. I had had a taste of jewellery now at Maisie’s and I loved the idea. Barbara hardly ever wore these rings, and I wondered if they were her wedding and engagement rings.
Just then the door flung open. There was Kevin. He saw me with the rings on my fingers. I jumped and put them back on the glass tree and felt very scared. Kevin disappeared as fast as he had appeared. I held my breath and listened. I could hear his footsteps going along the landing to his room. He wasn’t going straight down to the kitchen to tell on me, so maybe it was all right. The threat of the police was still hanging over me. I didn’t want to be whacked again with Barbara’s Cuban-heeled shoes either. So I carried on dusting and Pledging and hoped everything would be all right.
Next morning, Sunday, I was waking up and Barbara shot into my bedroom, dragged me from the bed by my arm and pulled me to standing.
‘You little thief,’ she hissed. Ian was wandering along the landing in his pyjamas, and stood in the doorway. ‘Don’t hurt her,’ he said meekly.
‘Mind your own bloody business,’ she snapped at him. ‘I’ll do as I see right!’ Then she turned back to me, dragged me out the door, past Ian, down the stairs and into the kitchen. I was shaking. I didn’t know what was wrong, or what had happened, but I knew it would be really, really bad. Barbara bent over towards me and grabbed my chin tight in her left-hand grip.
‘Now look at me, you little bitch. Tell me the truth for once – where ha
ve you put my ring?’
I felt sick. The room started turning. I began to stutter, ‘I haven’t…’ when her right hand appeared and punched me hard across the face. A tooth flew out along with a spurt of blood. My mouth was suddenly full of bitter hot liquid. She hit me again across the face, the other way.
‘Where is my ring, you little lying, thieving bitch?’
I had blood and spit dribbling down my chin and my mouth was sore. I shook my head as tears bubbled over. She punched me again in the face, not holding my chin with the other hand, and this time I went flying across the kitchen and hit the larder door.
‘Get up. Get up, you little bastard!’ She was coming for me again. I was hurting everywhere – my mouth was full of blood, my face stung, my lips swelling. I lifted myself up off the floor and she came over and stood in front of me. She bent over to face me and I could smell her hot, musty breath as she spat out her words.
‘You’re playing it like that now, are you? Go to your room this instant.’
I went out the door, up the stairs, along the landing with my heart racing, my hand clamped on my mouth. I knew I had tried on the rings, but I also knew I had put all three back. I knew I had. I’d been careful this time. I felt terrified. What was she going to do with me? Were the police coming to get me? Was I going to prison?
I spent the whole of Sunday in my room. No food. No drink. No nothing. My mouth was hurting where the tooth had come out, and I had dried blood on my lips and face. I listened to life going on downstairs and in the street. I heard Ian go out the house to the garage, doors opening and closing, hosepipes spraying, lawn mowers revving. There were car doors opening and slamming, dogs barking, and voices wafting up from the garden. I even heard Sean say, ‘Mornin’, Ma’am,’ as he did to Barbara as he passed by the house. I guessed she was out in the lane doing something.
I was very hungry and very scared. I looked out the window, over the back garden, looking for a sign of Sean. I eventually heard Kevin call to Ian, ‘Dinnertime,’ and, much later, ‘Tea’s ready.’ I wanted to go to the toilet, but I was scared – too scared to go outside. Eventually I thought I would wet myself and I opened the door a crack. On the floor was a glass of water and one slice of dry bread. I peeked my head out of the door and, seeing the landing was clear, tiptoed to the toilet. I didn’t flush, as I was scared of making a noise.