by Pat Barrow
I don’t know whether I actually ever considered whether I wanted to be a doctor, somehow I’d gone along with the idea – because it was Dad’s I just accepted it and didn’t really consider any alternatives. I knew I’d got the brains to do it and I reckoned it would guarantee that Dad would love me. How naïve and stupid was I to think that I could win and then hold onto my dad’s love? It wasn’t real love, unconditional, dependable love but then as a teenager, I had thought that it was all I really wanted or needed. I remember telling Mum in a letter that I intended to realise my long-held ambition and pursue a medical career. Her response surprised me. Whilst she was delighted if I could truthfully say that was what I wanted to do, but she asked me to consider carefully and to be sure it was really what I wanted and I wasn’t just trying to please my dad. I’d responded angrily to her suggesting she was having a go at Dad but I realise now she knew me, she knew my game that I believed that I could win him over, I could please him so he’d love me after all she’d done the same for years. ‘If it is for your dad’ she had written, ‘then, Het, you need to think carefully. It’s a big commitment. You’ll never be truly happy and eventually you may resent your dad’. Why was she trying to crush my ambition – how mean was that? But I couldn’t completely ignore that irritating little voice – ‘it’s true, Hetty – you’re trying to buy your dad. Being a doctor isn’t what you really, truly want, you’re kidding yourself’. I batted the thoughts away and refused to listen. I was going to be a doctor.
At the end of the first year of sixth form, Dad relented and allowed me to catch the train myself from Shrewsbury up to Newcastle via Manchester. Mum met me at the station and I was surprised to see how fit and well she looked as she waved madly from the platform. We ran and hugged each other and I felt a warmth spreading through my whole body. “Oh, Mum.”
“Oh, Het.” We chorused together. We sat and talked for much of those few days and I remember sitting by the sea, looking across to St Mary’s Island.
“Het, I’m worried about you,” she told me. “I’ve always been worried about you, but you’re going to do yourself long term damage if you carry on depriving yourself of food. You’re so thin and pale and you just haven’t got the life and vitality that you should have. Where’s your zest for life, your curiosity, your excitement? You seem so sad and never seem to do anything exciting like other girls of your age. It’s not just about work you know, just follow your dreams and do what you want to do. Don’t trap yourself in something that you’re not really going to be happy in.” Surprisingly, I wasn’t angry with Mum but nevertheless, I had to bat off those niggly thoughts which insisted that she was right and what I was planning wasn’t for me. I didn’t really want to be a doctor but I was going to do it because I wanted my dad to be proud of me and to love me, just like I’d always wanted, even when I’d been a little girl. I’d always done everything to be liked, wanted and loved by him and that meant I’d always denied any real ambitions that I might have. In spite of that, I hadn’t got the guts to argue with her so I reassured her that it really was what I wanted and the conversation moved on to what else besides good A level grades I needed to do to get into medical school. Mum suggested community work of some sort, that maybe working with the elderly or people with learning disabilities would stand me in good stead. I promised I’d think about it and convinced her – well, I’d like to think I did – that I’d eat sensibly. I knew I wouldn’t – couldn’t – and that I needed that denial of food just like a junkie needs heroin.
However, when I went back to Cardiff, I summoned up enough enthusiasm to go along to the local riding school and offer to help with the well-established Riding for the Disabled group which rode each week. They were delighted to have me especially when they realised I could ride and knew about horses. It wasn’t too taxing, or too exhausting and it meant that I’d got a genuine reason, an excuse really, for not doing all the exciting things that the girls at school were enjoying. I didn’t want to go out drinking and clubbing on Friday and Saturday nights. I was scared to drink alcohol. I was terrified of losing control. The bit of control that I did have in my life was solely derived from denying myself food and I clung on to that. I couldn’t afford to lose control in any other areas of my life. I knew the girls at school considered me to be a bit of a goody two shoes as my mum would have said. But I did have one vice – I took up smoking unbeknown to my dad; well, I assumed he didn’t know, he never said anything but maybe that was easier for him seeing as he smoked. I found it helped to depress my appetite, so black coffee and cigarettes became my staples, they kept me awake during the long nights as I wrote essays, solved scientific problems and studied hard, always ensuring my grades were top.
I was taking biology, maths and chemistry A levels and each subject was demanding. Any spare weekend time was spent at the riding stables, I loved it there – the children from three years to fifteen had a variety of challenging physical and emotional difficulties. Watching them master riding techniques was so rewarding with their squeals of delight and their ability to bond with the ponies they rode. It was the one part of my life that I loved. Dad didn’t really bother about me at all, he rarely commented about my appearance and just seemed to accept that I would be at home or at the stables. Occasionally, he remarked, “It’s good that you don’t go gadding around the town like so many of the girls of your age do. I’m glad you’re sensible, Het.” And I was delighted to have his approval. Being sensible was easy I couldn’t allow myself to be anything else, I really had no choice.
And so, my childhood and my adolescence slowly slipped away without me even noticing. Looking back, I can see I never got a chance to have fun and freedom or to discover myself. I was crushed and squeezed into the mould my dad created for me. I was his possession, his prisoner and the consequences of escape were too awful to consider.
Chapter 39
The following autumn, I joined the hundreds of other would be hopeful medical students as I did the usual around of possible universities. I don’t know what made me pick Leeds, but I set my heart on going to the medical school there. I got a conditional place after a fairly challenging interview. Surprisingly, Dad had been quite happy to drive me to Leeds; he didn’t seem to mind about the distance or the prospect of me being so far away. He was basking in the glory of his daughter being on the road to becoming a doctor.
I worked incredibly hard determined that I would get the three A*s demanded by Leeds and predicted by my tutors. And I did. As I stood with the other girls on that results day, I knew before I ripped open the envelope that I’d get what I’d wanted. After all, study had dominated my life and if I’m honest, I’d been totally driven by the prospect of pleasing my dad and gosh, was he over the moon! He insisted that he took Jonty and me out for a slap-up meal and of course, Amy came too, although her mumbled congratulations were through gritted teeth. I wasn’t really sure about their relationship, I very rarely saw her and Jonty reckoned that she was probably seeing other fellas but that Dad didn’t mind. I don’t know, maybe he was seeing other women too. Managing my persistent denial of food and the exhaustion I constantly experienced meant there was very little time for me to think about anything. I even managed to blot out Mum for much of the time. Yes, her letters came most weeks and I saw her occasionally in Shrewsbury or Welshpool and each summer in Whitley Bay but often Suzie would come down and stay with us in Cardiff, so I didn’t get to Shropshire as often as I had.
That last year, I had gone up during the summer holidays but somehow Mum and I had seemed distant from each other. She didn’t mention my weight or how skinny I was but I saw her looking at me sometimes, a sort of wistful look. We kept conversation impersonal, about books and films and politics and religion but not about real emotional stuff which mattered and never about my dad. I think both of us realised that it was all just too painful so best to ignore it and superficially have a good time together. But it was there and it got in the way of us being really honest with each other and to tell the truth, it fe
lt like I was putting on a bit of an act when I was with Mum. It was sad because we’d always been so close.
I was lucky I could stay in halls that first year so there wasn’t the added pressure of finding somewhere to live. I remember travelling up at the end of September. Dad hired a small van so he could take all my stuff and Jonty came too, I’d been surprised he wanted to. He’d done pretty well in his GCSEs and was going into the sixth form, but we weren’t as close as we’d been in the past. He had his own friends and his own interests and he wasn’t really around a lot of the time. He rarely bothered about Mum and she left him to it.
It is etched in my memory how ecstatically happy Dad looked that day when we unlocked my room in Leeds. Of course, I realise now it was never really about me, but he was reliving his own unfulfilled dreams. “You work hard, Het. I know I can depend on you. I’m so, so proud of you,” he beamed. “And you’ll meet all these fantastic people, people like you, you never know you might meet a nice fella, just think – two doctors in the family. Think of the money you’ll have.” That was the trouble with my dad, it was always all about money, status, power and material possessions. Things which, as I’d got older, I’d realised weren’t a priority for me. I just wanted to make a mark on life but in an ordinary way and to sink into the background, not to be in the limelight. I cringed at the thought of being showy like him.
I felt completely out of my depth during Fresher’s Week. It just seemed to be one mad party after the other and copious drinking and staying out till the small hours. However, I made friends with another student who seemed to be more like me. Parveen wasn’t keen on socialising and drinking night after night. It was easier for us to opt out together. True, we joined a few societies and really had no choice but to go to the Freshers’ do, but I’d felt like a fish out of water. Everybody seemed so sophisticated and so much more worldly than I was. I was relieved when Parveen and I could slip off back to the sanctuary of our rooms. She didn’t pressurise me about food nor about my family but I guess she gleaned Mum and Dad weren’t together and how tricky that was.
I longed for lectures to start so I could immerse myself in study but then I was somewhat daunted by the amount of work we would be expected to get through. The years of studying for exams spread before me endlessly and although I batted the thoughts away, there were several times when I wondered, Gosh, Hetty, is this really what you want? Of course it was, I convinced myself. And so, I got down to it and worked incredibly hard. Parveen was equally committed and ambitious; we went out occasionally to a film or debate but I didn’t have the mad experience that seemed to be an essential part of most student’s lives.
I hadn’t really had any experience of boys, prior to now I’d avoided them. To be truthful, I’d been wrapped up in school work and helping at the riding school, so it had been easy to convince myself that that was all I wanted. I can see now I’d been scared, scared of relationships, scared of anyone seeing my scrawny body and desperately scared of rejection. We’d been at uni a couple of weeks when Tony, a second-year medical student, sauntered over to Parveen and me as we sat outside one unseasonably warm lunch time, my initial panic surprisingly soon abated as he straddled across the chair opposite us, looking relaxed with his warm, engaging smile. Conversation just flowed, he was so charming and easy to talk to and he seemed genuinely interested in us. Before I knew it, we were exchanging mobile numbers and as he wandered off, Parveen laughingly told me that he fancied me. I shrugged her off, “No, of course not, it’s you he fancies.” But secretly, I wondered, hoped. Did a bloke really want me? Sure enough, a text later on that day suggesting a drink that evening convinced me that he did. I wasn’t used to drinking alcohol, I was too scared of losing control but with a bit of gentle persuasion from Parveen, I plucked up the courage and met Tony in the crowded students’ bar. Panic set in immediately. Oh gosh, why have I come? I felt hopelessly out of my depth. But then, Tony welcomed me with a smile just for me and then he made it so easy, his arm casually around my shoulders and a pint in his free hand, laughing and joking with the group surrounding him. He was a popular bloke. Gorgeous too. I sipped my half pint of lager knowing I wouldn’t drink it, and hoping nobody would notice if I pushed it amongst the pile of empty glasses on the table, I could hardly believe that it was me he wanted and a warm glow spread throughout my body. Later on in the Ladies, a couple of girls from my course smiled and then Fiona casually remarked, “Be careful, Hetty, Tony’s got a reputation, just watch your back, don’t get hurt.” I could feel myself colouring up.
“I’m fine,” I retorted, “don’t worry about me, but thanks.” I batted her words away – of course, he wants me.
It was late when Tony and I left the bar; he followed me up to my door. Did I really think he’d say goodnight and just go? How could I do anything other than invite him in? He sort of expected it. My mind’s a blur but afterwards when Tony had crept out, I lay there in the dark hating myself. I’d never intended the first time to be like that, rough and wham, wham, all over. I’d fantasised a beautiful romance, but that wasn’t for me, I wasn’t worth that and now, well I was just a cheap slag, free for anyone to use or abuse. He hadn’t forced me, but desperate for someone to care about me, I hadn’t said no even though that little voice had screamed in my head ‘stop it, Hetty, stop it!’ Oh yes, I wanted him. ‘No’ my little voice hammered ‘all you want is to be wanted’. Sleep eventually overcame me but I woke that next morning feeling wretched and scared.
Of course, I wasn’t really surprised later when Tony did no more than give me a cursory nod as he sauntered across to a different group of girls. I watched as he embraced a tall, leggy blonde; my heart was lurching and pounding in my chest, I could feel every pulse in my body and a wave of nausea washing over me, a griping pain in my guts and sweat trickling down my spine. I knew I had to get out before I screamed, I felt overwhelmed by this terrible, terrible sense of loss, an unbearable, indescribable aching pain which racked my whole body and left me trembling and shaking.
Later, Parveen discovered me sobbing on my bed, my eyes red and puffy and my pillow soaked with tears. My reaction to Tony’s rejection had been so unexpected to me, so disproportionate. I couldn’t make sense of it. At first I pushed Parveen away. “No, no, I’m fine.” But she insisted.
“Hetty, listen my love. Your pain isn’t just about Tony, it’s so much deeper; he’s the catalyst, he’s released the pain lurking deep within you, but it’s for you to work out what it’s really about. But my guess is that your dad is at the bottom of this.” I knew she was right but I couldn’t face the truth. I couldn’t live without my dad, I needed my dad, I was utterly dependent upon him. Oh yes, I knew that he controlled me, managed me ’cos he’d done that all my life, but I adored him. It was then that the realisation came that in return I was forfeiting my freedom, my free will. I had to face the truth that my grief wasn’t because I’d lost Tony or my virginity but I was mourning my lost childhood, the family that I thought was mine, my damaged relationship with my mum and perhaps even more the loss of my right to be me, to blossom and grow into what I wanted in life. I knew that my dad had stolen so much, but still I didn’t know how to break free, I was like a tiny fly trapped in a spider’s web and as fast as I struggled to break free, another sticky thread pulled me back, holding me fast and squeezing the life out of me.
How I managed to keep going those next few weeks I shall never know, I felt so utterly wretched but I was on autopilot and I just put my head down and filled the days and nights with work. I continued to achieve the high grades that I demanded of myself but my mood plummeted and I sank into a pit of desperate sadness and despair. Even Parveen struggled to relate to me. Somehow, in my weekly phone calls to Dad, I managed to sound upbeat and cheerful and of course he went on and on about how proud he was and how wonderful it was that I was achieving what I’d always wanted to do. Ha-ha! What he’d always wanted me to do. He didn’t want to know how I felt because as far as he was concerned, my feeling
s were merely projections of his own – it would never have crossed his mind that I was an emotional wreck or anything other than the budding doctor he dreamt of.
I was cruising on autopilot and then, I don’t know how or when exactly but the crunch came and my world suddenly crashed down upon me. I knew I couldn’t go on – I couldn’t think, I couldn’t function. Frightened and desperate, I confided in Parveen and sobbed and shook as I told her a bit about how it really was with Dad and with Mum; how Dad just assumed, no demanded, I did what he wanted in return for his love. Parveen listened, sensing how hard it was for me, she hugged me tight and said, “Well Het, maybe your mum was right, you’re never going to be happy if you’re doing something you haven’t really got your heart totally committed to. Maybe being a doctor isn’t right for you. Be brave enough to be honest, Het, don’t let your dad wreck your life.”
“I don’t know what I want,” I whispered. “I just feel a complete failure. I can’t get anything right.”
“Of course you’re not a failure,” she said, “of course you’re not. You’ve got so much to offer, you’re one of the brainiest people I know but there’s so much more to you it’s just that somehow that’s all hidden, Hetty. I think you have the strength to break free but it will take guts, real guts and if you don’t, then you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”
I mulled over what she’d said long after she’d gone off to her next lecture and agonised over my relationships with Dad, Mum and Jonty. I don’t know how I got there but as dawn broke, I knew that Parveen was right. My mum had been right. I really didn’t want to be a doctor. I was shaking with emotion but then a surge of energy shot through me and before I could change my mind, I texted my tutor to arrange to meet him. He must have sensed my panic and agreed to a 9.30 am meeting that day. I was scared but somehow I was able to talk frankly to him. I anticipated resistance, but no, he had a level of understanding previously unknown to me. Maybe he had sussed the truth about me. Of course he didn’t want me to leave, I was probably their most able student. But surprisingly to me, he didn’t try to convince me to stay and his wise words clarified my thinking. “Being a doctor isn’t just about being clever enough to do it; it’s about having the right mind set of really wanting to commit yourself. It’s a way of life, Het, and if that’s not what you want, your mum’s right, you’re never going to be happy and neither will you make a good doctor. So it’s up to you if you want to walk out and leave, then do so and hold your head up high.”