by Donna Ford
The smell from him was awful, as if he was decaying, and the pallor of his skin confirmed it. He swizzled the eggs around in the bowl with the spoon but didn't eat. I picked up the spoon and, filling it with egg, started to feed him. I didn't really want to – I felt sick doing it, caring for him – but I did have a feeling of obligation. What for, I have no idea.
I got him to eat a bit then I left, saying that I'd be back soon and that he'd better eat while I was gone if he wanted to get better and go home. As I walked back through the green fields of the Meadows, the tears streamed involuntarily down my cheeks. I knew I would have to go back and visit him but I really didn't want to. To see him reminded me of so many bad things in my past and I didn't want to look at those things – or at him for that matter. He was not the person I wanted for a father.
I visited my Dad in hospital on a couple of other occasions. The next time I went, I was approached by a doctor who asked me what my circumstances were, and whether or not I could look after my father at home. I was horrified! Me, look after him in my new clean home with no evidence of my horrible past? I blurted out to this young doctor, 'NO! I couldn't do that, it's completely unthinkable.' I tried to tell him that things had been terrible for me at home when I was a child and that I didn't have that kind of relationship with my Dad, but all of my words became jumbled up and I tripped over what I was trying to say. I'm sure that I must have sounded mad. The doctor could see that I was clearly distressed, so he dropped his suggestions and left me to go back and visit my father. I don't remember much more about that visit, but that conversation with the doctor had shaken me and brought many, many questions into my head about my Dad.
Over the next few days, my thoughts were in turmoil. Images of my past were tumbling over and over in my head, and I was getting increasingly angry about the role my father had played in my childhood. I just knew I had to say something to him. He was ill and worn down, maybe even ready to die, but I just had to ask him what he knew about what Helen had done to me and why, in my eyes, he had never done anything to stop it.
On my next visit to see him, I was armed with the knowledge that this was my opportunity to finally talk to him. My stomach churned and my heart raced as I sat on the number 41 bus on the trip to the hospital. My mind was full of all the questions I would ask – I even went a step further and anticipated his answers. I thought that maybe he would cry (surely he would cry?) and say he was sorry (surely he would say he was sorry?). Maybe he would say that he hated Helen for her actions towards me; maybe he would tell me something about my mother; maybe, just maybe, all the gaps would be filled. Then perhaps we could redeem something.
My optimism didn't last.
When I arrived, my Dad was sitting up in bed, leaning against a mountain of pillows. He told me that he had to sleep like this so that he could breathe. As I watched, he was breathing in and out as if blowing up a balloon. His pyjamas swam around his shrunken frame and he looked very vulnerable. Initially, we just went through some small talk. I gave him a book I had brought for him, a cowboy story. I didn't really know what he liked but I remembered that he loved the old Western movies that were often shown on Sunday afternoons. I arranged the grapes I'd brought him in the little bowl on the locker by his bed, throwing into the bin the uneaten ones from a previous visit. Then, during a lull in our awkward conversation, I just started talking. My head felt as if it was going to explode, my voice shook along with my whole body, but I just started pouring the words out.
'Dad,' I began, 'I need to ask you some things about when I was a child.' At this, he looked straight at me. His eyes seemed huge through his glasses and, as I looked at his worn, thin face, I thought that I wouldn't be able to go on with the questions – but I did. I asked him whether he knew about all the beatings Helen had given me. Did he know about me being starved and locked up? Did he know about the sexual abuse? As I spoke, he put his hand up as if to signal to me to stop and then turned his head away from me.
'Dad,' I pleaded. 'Please tell me – did you know?'
He lay there in that hospital bed with the curtain partially hiding us from the rest of the ward. I could hear the sounds of life around going on – the clip-clop of nurses walking up and down busying themselves with their patients; the sound of the tea trolley being wheeled from bed to bed and cups and saucers clinking as they went. I could hear other visitors chatting to their sick relatives as I stood there waiting for my father to answer me.
I waited and waited and waited.
I begged him over and over again: 'Dad, please tell me! Please tell me!' but he kept his face turned away from me, waving his hand to signal me to be quiet.
'Dad,' I said. 'Please! If you don't speak to me I'm going to go.'
I waited for a bit longer, watching him while the tears welled up in my eyes.
He didn't say anything; he didn't even look at me.
Finally, before I embarrassed myself by crying in front of him, I picked up my bag and left.
I walked up that ward, past all the other patients who were laughing and chatting and hugging with their visitors, and I walked through the long corridors out into the Edinburgh sunshine. I left behind my father and any hope I ever had of him saying sorry, of explaining his role, of explaining about Helen, of telling me anything about my mother.
I walked away from him and I walked away from my past.
I never saw him again.
Chapter Twenty-six
WHAT DADDIES DO
AFTER THIS PARTICULAR STAY IN hospital, my Dad went to live in sheltered housing in the Abbeyhill area of Edinburgh with Karen. It seemed like an odd situation and living environment for such a young girl, but Karen has said that she was glad about where they ended up because it was safer and cleaner than some of the other places they had been living. Up until then they had been in a flat in Rossie Place. That flat had no lock on the front door so it was permanently open to anyone who passed by. Karen was terrified in the evenings as she was usually left there on her own while my Dad was at the pub. One evening, when she was about 10 years old, she was so worried that she ran out into the street at 11pm, crying and screaming, until a neighbour went and got my Dad from Middleton's pub.
Dad was in and out of hospital for the rest of his life. I remember his funeral but, oddly, I don't recall the date of his death, but our relationship had never been traditional.
My father, my flesh and blood, had chosen to be the prime carer for me, taking me home from Barnardo's to nothing more than a life of abuse and neglect. As far as I'm concerned, he was as accountable as Helen or any of the men who violated me because he was my Dad – and fathers are supposed to be protectors, no matter what. They are supposed to love us and nurture us, listen to us and allow us a voice. They are supposed to praise us and instil us with confidence; and they are supposed to protect us. My father didn't do any of these things.
My views of what 'real' fathers did came from a number of places – not just story books and fairy tales, but life and my experiences of it too. While I was in the children's home I had visited a family from time to time on a Saturday or Sunday. I'm not sure where this was exactly but I think it may have been fairly close to the children's home as there wasn't much travelling involved. According to the files from Barnardo's, there had been so little contact from my father at one stage that I was being considered for 'boarding out', which I think may have meant fostering or adoption. I wonder now if these visits to this family had anything to do with this; maybe they were checking to see whether I would fit in or what I was like away from the environment of the children's home.
Anyway, I remember aspects of these visits. I know there was a little girl who lived in this family; she was around my age and called Andrina. What I remember most about going to that house was the way the family all got on with each other. Andrina's Dad would pick her up and throw her in the air while she laughed and screamed with joy. He'd push us both on the swings, laughing and joking with us all the time. Andrina's Mum would
be in the background somewhere, either laughing along too, pottering in the garden or cooking the meal we would all sit down to.
This was my very, very first impression of how a Dad should be.
This is what I thought I was going home to when I clutched my own Daddy's hand the day he took me home.
Sadly, my Daddy was very different. He didn't seem to be able to interact with me the way Andrina's father did with her. I saw him play with the boys, tickle them, and even sit them on his knee. When I first returned to Edinburgh, he once or twice did the same with me but I clearly remember Helen telling him not to baby me, so any affection my Dad may have wanted to give me was soon thwarted by whatever was going on in Helen's mind.
I was a five-year-old girl who needed love, affection and reassurance. Instead, I was made to feel that I was not important. I was made to feel unloved. I used to dream about a different life and different parents, and I would cry and cry for my Mummy. I would look at my Daddy, watch him playing with the boys and wish he would see me.
I never felt that he saw me. I held on to the hope that one day he might, and that maybe he did love me as much as he loved them.
As I grew older, I discovered books that opened up to me another world of how fathers should be. One of my favourites was Little Women. When I read the chapter in which Mr March returns from the war just in time for Christmas, I wept and wept, thinking how different life must be for some families. What I would have given for a Daddy like Mr March! Why couldn't my Dad be like him? He was loving and warm to his daughters, in spite of his injuries, so why couldn't I get just a bit of love from my own Dad?
In my adult years, I've met many men whom I would class as being 'good fathers'. These men were the antithesis of my own Dad. They loved their children and showed them this by hugging and nurturing them, listening to them, providing for them, playing with and protecting them. My first important 'fatherly' relationship with a man other than my own Dad was with my first husband Robert's father. The first time Robert took me home to visit his parents, I was bowled over by that family. They were intelligent, kind, caring, smart . . . and they accepted me. I developed very good relationships with both of his parents, although initially I was scared because I didn't know what to expect, having known only my own dysfunctional family life. I was most nervous about meeting Robert's father, Bob Shipman, but I needn't have been as he made me feel comfortable in his presence from the outset.
I can honestly say that this was the single most important relationship with a man I have had in my adult years because it allowed me to shape a real role model of how fathers should be. Through him, I got the father I never really had. It was he who arranged and paid for my wedding to Robert. It was he who was the granddad to my children. He taught me to cook roast dinners; we went to the theatre and concerts; we even went shopping together. Robert and I would join Bob nearly every weekend at his holiday cottage in St Monance. This time in my life was full and rewarding because I finally had the parents and family I'd always wanted.
When Bob died I was devastated. I cried so hard at his funeral. Looking back, his immediate family must have wondered about the intensity of my grief, but, of course, they knew nothing about my past or just how much this man meant to me. Perhaps they will understand if they read this.
Chapter Twenty-seven
MY BOY, MY GIRLS
PAUL WAS BORN ON 26 November 1986. He arrived on the day he was due and weighed exactly 9lb. I'm not a very big person, and Robert isn't very tall either, so it was quite a surprise to give birth to such a big baby; an extremely painful surprise! I felt that Paul was the most wanted baby ever. After having suffered a miscarriage the previous year, I felt that I was doomed not to have children. Also, although I never discussed it, I was terrified that the years of sexual abuse had done untold damage.
As I sat in hospital on a very wintry day with my beautiful boy in my arms, I was overjoyed that I had been given such a gift, and terrified that I wouldn't be able to be a good mother to him. I needn't have worried, though, because I couldn't even let him out of my sight. When the nurses came to take him for his heel jab I cried pitifully. I'm sure they must have thought I was a complete lunatic, but only I really knew how very precious this baby was to me.
The first night I took Paul home he slept in a Moses basket right beside my bed and I fed him on demand. I read book after book on how to bring up children and how to stimulate them. My favourite author at the time was Penelope Leach. I bathed him and fed him, sang to him and read him the newspapers. I took him out for walks and showed him the world. At 10 months, he was walking. At a year, he could recite nursery rhymes. By the time he went to school he was reading. Although I'd initially been terrified of letting him down, I actually found motherhood very easy. There were so many rewards just sitting there as I watched him develop and grow. The reassurance that I was doing well came from Paul's happy demeanour and selfconfidence.
There have been difficult times, such as when Robert left, and times when he has had to be 'the man' of the family, but I am proud to say that he has turned out to be one of the most wellbalanced and likeable young men I have ever had the pleasure to know. Paul and I discuss most things and we have a good relationship. He is warm and kind and a gentleman.
It would have been very easy for me to have overprotected my children or been too soft with them. However, I made a decision early on in Paul's life that I would do the opposite of what happened to me as a child – I would bring them up in a fair environment where they always had a voice. They would be able to question anything I asked of them; and if they felt what I was asking was unfair then they should not be expected to comply just because I said so. I also felt it was important to give them boundaries – bedtimes, manners, respect and so forth.
I love all my children equally and differently. They are my finest achievements in life, but there is something in particular about Paul that gets to me. Perhaps it's because he's a boy and I've had to be both Mum and Dad to him. Maybe the knowledge that the way I've brought him up has paid off enormously is at the bottom of our relationship. Paul knows about my past in general but doesn't know all the details. I'm happy for it to stay that way until he chooses, if ever, to read my story.
Paul is very like his father in both physical appearance and nature, yet I see some of my characteristics in him too – his utter optimism for a start. He has a complete love of life and adventure, meeting people and travelling. There is too much in the world for Paul to see. These are a few of the things that make me very proud of him, and proud of myself for having managed to raise such a lovely boy against all the odds.
Claire was born in September 1987, and, unlike Paul, arrived three weeks early. She was 6lb 10oz and absolutely gorgeous, with big dark eyes and a shock of black hair. I was much more confident with Claire. I wasn't so worried and didn't have the anxieties I'd experienced when I first brought Paul home. Paul was so lovely with her; there was none of the sibling rivalry that I had read of and expected, even though he was only 18 months old at the time. He was loving and protective of his new little sister – whether this had something to do with the fact that I had got him his own baby doll to look after before she came home, I don't know. We'd bathe our babies together, take them out for walks and read them stories.
Claire was a happy, joyful little girl and determined, very determined. She has been a real joy to me, and has grown into a woman I am very proud of. Even though she struggled at school with dyslexia, she never let it get in her way, and has overcome any problems she may have had to finally land herself a place at university to progress to her much coveted career as a midwife.
She has known loss and rejection, as has Paul, because, sadly, the relationship between Robert and I didn't last. He left when Claire was two and a half. I still care for Robert, and I don't want to say anything about our life together that he may not want to be made public. However, when he left to go and live in Portugal with a new partner some years later, he didn't seem
to realise that it was still very important to maintain contact with his children, to reassure them of his love for them and make them feel as important as his new partner. As an adult, I could see that this was because he had wrongly assumed that the children no longer needed him now they were growing up. However, Claire's adolescent mind, rightly so, couldn't understand and saw it as rejection.