by Louise Allen
As I watched, a whole scene unfolded of a family life I knew nothing about. I felt like an alien who had landed on the lawn and been taken in and given a sausage roll. I couldn’t eat it. I just sat and wanted to cry. Eventually the man who was with Julie came and sat next to me.
‘Hi, Louise,’ he said. ‘How are you doing? I’m Brian.’
I couldn’t say anything. I just burst into tears. After a bit he went away and I just sat by myself in silence, digging my nails into my palms, willing myself to disappear. I waited all afternoon for her to take me aside and say, ‘Hi, I’m your real mum’ or ‘Tell me all about yourself’, but instead she just kept saying, ‘Call me Julie,’ and doing her high-pitched giggle. I watched her shaking her bracelets, tossing her hair, flirting with all the men. Nobody knew who I was or why I was there. Nobody cared, and definitely nobody wanted me.
Barbara arrived in the early evening and we made our awkward goodbyes. We drove in silence most of the way back. I realised that Barbara had somehow found out there was to be a party at Julie’s house and had taken it upon herself to get there – she had crashed the party on a whim. I shut my eyes and a vision of Julie in pink floated up. Was she a ‘slut’ and a ‘whore’ as I had been told my whole life? Barbara made no attempt to explain anything, and I was too crushed and distressed to ask. I just looked out at the sky and watched the clouds change shape and disappear behind trees, houses and hoardings.
Why had Barbara told Julie I wanted to see her? There was I thinking that Julie wanted to see me when she so obviously didn’t. I longed to see Sean so I could tell him what had happened and try and make sense of it all. If this was my real mother, did she want me? It didn’t feel like it. She hadn’t told anyone who I was, so no one welcomed me into the family. Was that going to happen later? Who were all those people? Was Brian my father? Were they Jewish? I was none the wiser, and much more confused than I’d ever been before we went. It seemed I really was nobody’s child. So nobody would help me with what was to come.
14
From Bad to Worse
Things got worse after this trip to Julie’s house. I didn’t dare ask Barbara anything about her or what would happen next. I really wanted to know – would I see her again? Would I become part of her family? Would we visit or would she come and see us? In my memory the colourful party assumed the status of a dream, and Julie’s world was one of laughter and smiling people, nice clothes and plentiful food. I decided that she had been so surprised to see me that she wasn’t quite ready to welcome me into her life, but that would surely happen sometime soon.
In the meantime, Barbara was in a fury, stomping about, banging doors, snapping at everyone. She picked up her air gun once or twice and aimed at pigeons in the garden – I hid in the shed until it was over. Then her new game became darts and she bought a dartboard, which she hung on the end of the airing cupboard on the landing outside my room. If the mood took her she would come up to the landing and throw the darts from one end to the other, and they would land with a thud on the board. If I was in my room I had to hang back until she had finished. I didn’t dare go out and get caught in the crossfire. Barbara wouldn’t stop for me to come out and go down the stairs; she’d made that clear. She would make an animal-like grunting sound as she threw the dart, and she had a lot of strength for a small wiry woman.
One day I really wanted the toilet and I started coming upstairs from the hall. Barbara was on the landing playing darts and I waited for her to throw them all. I asked politely, as always, if I could come up and go to the toilet.
‘Have you finished the washing up?’ is all she said in reply, as she pulled the darts off the board. I answered yes, and then started walking past her, to the toilet. I didn’t make eye contact with her, as I knew it was safer to keep my head down and look at the floor. Making eye contact could lead to accusations of ‘rude bitch’ or ‘what are you looking at me like that for?’ So I kept my head down and scuttled past. However, just as I got to the door to turn the handle, I felt a sharp pain in my back. I shrieked and turned around. Barbara was standing at the top of the stairs, two darts still in her hand. Suddenly a dart dropped out of my back and fell at my heels.
‘Pick it up,’ she snapped at me. ‘Give it to me.’
My back was throbbing. I gave her the dart, shaking, and then scurried to the toilet. Afterwards, in the bathroom, I took off my top and I could see blood oozing out of a hole beneath my right shoulder blade. It was painful and sore, but what hurt more was the cold, calculating way she threw the dart to hit me in the back. When I left the bathroom she was gone. I hung around for a while, not knowing what to do. Then, when I went downstairs, she was in the kitchen crashing about and nothing was mentioned about the dart. She didn’t even look at me, pretending that nothing had actually happened. I knew better than to say anything. Inside I was quivering with fear and worried what she might do to me next. The next day, Kevin and Mark were playing darts on the landing and I heard her say, ‘Be careful, or you will hurt someone – I don’t want to be driving up the hospital.’ I, on the other hand, was fair game for target practice.
I was soon going to move up from middle school to secondary school, which I felt very nervous about. I had enjoyed quite a lot about middle school, although I was still way behind in my education. Barbara had kept me home for so many days and weeks that I was forever trying to catch up. I had huge holes in my knowledge, especially of maths, geography, history, science and English, as I was always dipping in and out of class, and not able to follow what was going on.
Art was still my favourite lesson, and I longed for the hours in the week where I was free to make lovely pictures on clean white paper with charcoal or pencils, ink or paint. I was good with my hands and loved making collages or cutting out shapes, or sewing or using clay or even plasticine – anything where I had to use all sorts of materials and let my imagination roam free. I loved colour, and the paint and materials brought a huge amount of joy and happiness into my life – which seemed to be mainly grey and beige the rest of the time.
The only really nice times outside of school were when I was sitting in Sean’s caravan eating some lovely crunchy bread or a Ruffle bar, with him telling me colourful stories about his life working as a navvy on the railways around Oxford or on building sites. He always had stories to tell, and he might put on some Irish music on his little radio or get out his tin whistle and play. I would sit with him and imagine things as he unravelled his memories. I would look at his cloth caps hanging in a row on the caravan wall, or his crotched cushions in rainbow colours. He loved to laugh and he would tell stories and roar with laughter, and I would laugh too. I didn’t always understand the whole story, but it felt warm and safe in the caravan and I loved just to sit with him as he opened a bottle of Guinness and supped.
He would give me a little sip, saying, ‘This’ll do yer good, girlie, loads of iron in this.’ I would take a gulp of the dark brown liquid that tasted like earth, but I liked the fact he shared it with me. He would sing, ‘I’ll take you home again, Kathleen’ in his deep, fruity voice and a tear would come to his eye. But he would smile again after and say, ‘ ’T’is lovely,’ or ‘ ’T’is life,’ and I felt calm with him.
I never once felt unsafe with Sean. He would hug me or pat my head and feed me and make me laugh. But I felt a new strange experience with him: respect, care and love. I just dreaded tiptoeing back to the house afterwards and creeping upstairs to my bleak, lonely bedroom.
One day I had a brainwave. If Julie knew I had won the art competition, would she love me then? Would she come and get me? So I wrote to her using the address in Barbara’s kitchen notebook.
‘Mum does not no abut [sic] this letter – it is secret. I’m not happy… you never come to see me… I can’t get on with Mum, can you help me?’
I stole stamps from Barbara’s purse, posted the letter and waited. I then wrote to my social worker, also telling her I was unhappy at home. I waited and waited, but in vai
n. What I found out much later was that Brian, Julie’s husband, had already written to the social workers to say that they didn’t want anything further to do with me. I didn’t know this; all I knew was that my pleas for help were falling on deaf ears.
After this I would spend hours throwing a ball up on the garage roof and waiting for it to roll down so I could catch it – over and over and over. I would be shouted at in the end by Barbara, who would tell me to get on and do something useful. I would go upstairs to my room and watch other people going about their lives, observing my neighbours in the garden with their children, and listening to the sound of children playing or singing, or lawnmowers in action. I would see a mother walking down the road holding hands with her child, chatting. I loved to see this. I wondered what it was like. I tried to push the idea of Julie out of my mind. But I would go back to the summer’s day, the garden, the chatting, the people, and wonder what they were doing. What did they think of me? Would I ever call her ‘Mum’? Meanwhile, I had to work out how to live with the one I had – who was forever shouting, kicking, hitting, being grumpy and treating me harshly.
The problem for me was I longed to be loved by Barbara, for her to want me and to care for me. But all I got was punishment and hate. I was dependent on her and I needed her, yet all I got from her was violence and put-downs. Now I had met Julie, it was a huge disappointment. I’d been led to believe by Barbara that Julie wanted me. It was very clear she didn’t. While Barbara was harsh and strict, Julie seemed silly and uninterested. I found myself imagining being whisked off to a beautiful house to live happily ever after with her, while I knew, deep down, that the longer I waited for a response to my letter, the less likely this was to ever happen. There I was, with two mothers, and neither of them wanted me or cared about me.
I hoped that when I went up to secondary school the bullying would finally stop. It was as if the other kids saw ‘kick me’ written all over me when I walked into a new school. I still thought about William and wondered where he was. Did he remember me? Was he okay? Was he alive? I was still hungry all the time, still pulling out my eyelashes and still counting to get through the difficult times of the day – and night.
I was desperate to go to a school with people I already knew. There was a comprehensive nearby, which was friendly and near my middle school. I knew it did a lot of arts, drama and music, and the pupils didn’t have to wear stiff uniforms. It was famous for having a great mix of boys and girls and nice liberal teachers and parents. I wanted to go there.
However, there had been an incident with a boy that had turned Barbara dead against me being at school with boys. She was always talking rudely about men anyway, and at school I had become friends with a black boy from Africa called Ayo. He was very sweet and gentle, and he taught me African games and dances. He wasn’t mean to me and didn’t judge or bully me like the others. He smelt differently, too, which I liked. The white boys were often pongy, but he smelt nice when he was sweaty. I was curious about him: he had big brown eyes and lovely skin and he treated me like a friend. We didn’t have many black children at our school, and I made a beeline for him. He was also bullied, and we helped each other stay safe.
One day Barbara arrived to pick me up and I was still talking to Ayo. As he said, ‘Goodbye, see you tomorrow,’ he touched me on the arm. He often did that; it was friendly. Barbara saw him do it and, when I walked home with her that day, with Mimi choking on the lead, she spat out, ‘You’ll have a black baby, you dirty girl.’
Next day, Barbara went to the headteacher and Ayo was moved out of my class. ‘You will not speak to him again,’ she shouted at me that evening. ‘You are not to sit next to him in class.’
I felt terrible: he was a sweet, kind person, my only proper friend, and I had got him in trouble. I had got close to someone and Barbara had worked her usual magic and got him removed. I was back to being isolated, back to being shunned and laughed at. I would see Ayo across the playground after this and he would look at me with a sad, blank face. I couldn’t go and speak to him in case it was reported or Barbara saw. After all, he and his family had been embarrassed by Barbara and me, so I guessed he wouldn’t talk to me either. I wondered if he thought I had told on him to get him into trouble. It broke my heart.
At home, I had to be careful not to mention Ayo’s name again. Of course, Barbara never mentioned it, as she pretended that nothing had happened. However, the upshot was that I was now to be sent to a girls-only senior school. My heart sank. I wasn’t asked; I had no choice. I didn’t want to go there. Barbara filled in the forms and said, ‘Like it or lump it.’
It was a longer journey, there was a horrible grey uniform and it was strict. Strict was what Barbara liked. And the lack of boys was what she also loved. I dreaded what the future would hold.
Yet, despite not wanting me to go to a mixed school, or to talk to boys, Barbara kept dropping hints about me marrying Kevin. He was still refusing to visit his father and Barbara seemed fine with that – she wanted him for herself. I hated him. As I developed my breasts, he got more and more bold with me. He would still punch and kick me whenever he could, and we often wrestled and tussled. I got good at pushing him off, even though he was much bigger and taller than me. He was now seventeen, while I was nearly thirteen. He had a moped, and Barbara kept trying to get me to go on it with him. I didn’t want to, but I was forced to get on the back and put my arms around him while he roared off down the road. I hated every minute of it, and didn’t want to touch him. I loathed him. When we got back I ran up to my room and hid. I hated being near him. But Barbara had other plans on her mind. One day she came into my room and put a black ‘babydoll’ nightie on my pillow.
‘Put it on, Louise. Kevin would like to see you in it.’
I was horrified. I waited until she left, then I hid the outfit and hoped she would forget about it. Barbara would say things like, ‘You could do worse than Kevin. Then you could marry and look after me!’
Clearly she was already brewing a terrible idea for my future: marriage to Kevin. Kevin! The bully who had made my life hell. The boy who had held me down and tried to rip my clothes off. Barbara was aware he hadn’t had a proper girlfriend yet, and she saw me as a good training ground. He was constantly looking at me, brushing past me, touching me, leering at me, making comments. Barbara would laugh or turn her back. Ian was nowhere to be seen, as always.
One evening, before going up to the new school, I was in my room, lying on my tiny bed. I could hear the family having their tea downstairs. Kevin had his horrible friend Mark with him, as he sometimes came to tea. I avoided them both this evening and got out of the kitchen after my usual ‘baby’ tea, which had never changed. A smell of gravy, meat, potatoes and cabbage wafted up to me. I was thinking about how much I didn’t want to go to the high school. I was frightened. I was also still hungry and wondered if, later, I could sneak to the larder and get something. There might be some cold potatoes, or even just some Complan. Something, as my tummy was still rumbling.
I’m drifting off, daydreaming, when the door opens a crack. A head looks round. It’s Kevin. I sit up smartish. Before I can get up, he’s in the room, with Mark close behind him. Kevin puts his fat finger up to his lips and says, ‘Sshhh!’ forcefully. I go to get up off the bed, but Kevin is standing over me, pushing me down with his hand on my chest. I start kicking but Mark has my legs. Kevin sits down next to me on the bed, his back to me, his body lying across me, pinning me down, and Mark is at the end of the bed. Panicked, I start wriggling and kicking with all my might. I can feel Kevin’s iron grip across my chest, holding down my arms so I can’t move. He plays rugby, and it’s a tackle. Mark is pulling down my trousers, pulling down my pants, with one hand holding one ankle. I try and kick like a goat with the other ankle but they are two hulking boys. They’re not looking at me or talking to me. All this is done in whispers and silence. I can’t see Mark’s face or what they’re doing, but I can feel my body from the waist down is now naked.
I am stripped bare, and they’re looking at my private parts. They’ve done this before a couple of times, the same kind of attack. They must dream these things up between them. I’ve seen Kevin with some magazines with naked women on the front. Ow! Then I feel it. I feel something hard and cold and sharp right up against where I wee. It’s hard and cold and pushing. Ow! Ow! Ouch! It’s sharp. Real pain. I really start trying to wriggle out from under them now. I’m panicking. What are they doing? Something is really hurting; it’s agony. ‘Ow!’ I shout.
Kevin turns around, red-faced, and spits at me, furious, ‘Shut the fuck up.’ Then turns back.
‘No! Stop! Don’t,’ I scream. I’m wrenching my head off the bed, straining to sit up, twisting my body, trying to see what they’re doing to me. Mark is bent over my legs and I can see his arm moving while the other still holds my ankles. I see a flash of what looks like an empty Coke bottle in Mark’s hand. A Coke bottle! What’s that for? I scream very loudly now. At that, they both jump up and run out the door, and I’m left on the bed, dishevelled, panting. I know Barbara won’t come, as she never does when I scream or shout when I’m with Kevin. Ian doesn’t ever come either.
My trousers are round my ankles, my T-shirt is under my armpits, my private parts are exposed completely. I put my hand down, touch, and bring it up to my eyes: bright red. Blood. I sit up and look down at the mess. There is blood dribbling down my legs on the inside and onto the bed cover. I feel again, more blood on my hands. I touch below where the wee comes out, and there is torn flesh. Whatever they were doing with the bottle, it has cut me – down there. The room starts swirling, and I feel sick.