by Peters, Joe
In the heat and noise and excitement of the club I met a guy called Jason and he invited me to join him at his table. He and his friends welcomed me as if I was their long-lost brother and I had a really good time, forgetting all about the outside world and my past and the demons that lurked in the back of my mind just waiting for an opportunity to re-emerge. I reckoned that if I partied long enough and hard enough maybe I could keep them at bay for ever.
In the early hours of the morning things began to slow down and Jason suggested we go back to his place. I accepted eagerly, never wanting the night to end, and when we got outside the club there was a huge limousine waiting for us. This was the first clue I had that Jason was seriously loaded. The next clue was his apartment, which was enormous and beautiful. It turned out that his dad headed up some big pharmaceutical company and gave Jason whatever he wanted.
I never went back to my hotel for the rest of my stay, apart from to pick up some clean clothes or my asthma medication, because Jason’s whole family took me over and insisted that I stay with them, both at the apartment and at his father’s house. They were as open and welcoming as Sue and her family had been, although their lifestyle couldn’t have been more different. Kind, happy families were the greatest wonder in the world to me. I could hardly begin to imagine how different my life would have been if I had been born to different people.
It felt as if I was starring in my own personal movie and the idea of going back to Barry Island was beginning to lose its appeal. I confided to Jason that I never wanted to leave California and he asked his dad if they could find me a job and get me a work permit. His dad seemed to think it would be possible.
On one of my visits back to the hotel the receptionist told me that I had a phone message. It was from Michelle’s mum, who I had never even met. Unable to imagine why she might be calling me, I rang the number she had left.
‘Oh,’ she said when I got through, ‘so you’re Joe.’
‘Yes,’ I said, cautiously, ‘that’s me.’
‘Don’t you think you had better come back to Wales?’
‘Why?’
‘Because you’ve got my daughter pregnant. She’s throwing up and worried out of her mind and you’re swanning around on holiday in Disneyland.’
Although I wasn’t too thrilled by her tone, I could see why she might have been a bit fed up to find out her daughter was pregnant for the third time and looking as if she might still not have a man who would support her and help her bring up the child. I hung up and after taking a few minutes to digest the news I rang Michelle to ask her if it was true.
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘’It’s true.’
‘Are you planning to keep it?’
‘My mum doesn’t believe in abortions.’
I was pretty sure that she felt the same way but wanted it to sound like it was her mother’s decision, not hers, in case I tried to change her mind.
‘I’ve just been offered a job out here,’ I said, ‘and someone is going to fix me up with a work visa.’
‘You bastard,’ she said and hung up.
I sat staring at the phone. How could this possibly be? After a life of rejection and never being wanted by anyone, I suddenly had to choose between two amazing options. On the one hand I was being offered a job and an apparently endless supply of beautiful girls in a land of sunshine and opportunity. On the other hand there was a really beautiful and lovely girl carrying my baby back in England, a girl who I thought the world of and who would come with a ready-made family for me to be part of.
As the shock wore off, I felt a knot of excitement growing in my chest. Michelle was going to have my baby! How brilliant was that? Although now I thought about it I couldn’t be sure that Michelle would actually want me as a full-time partner; but even if she didn’t I would still be able to see her all the time because of the baby, and I would be a dad, which was one of the things I had been longing for ever since my relationship with Lisa had collapsed. I remembered what it had felt like to hold my son in my hands and the memory made me feel almost sick with excitement at the thought of being able to do the same thing again. I could tell from the few words I’d just had with her mother that Michelle’s family were unlikely to be approving of me as a suitable future son-in-law. I knew they were right too; Michelle was well out of my league, a really good, decent girl as well as a beautiful one. Why would she ever want to end up with someone as ugly and useless as me?
I picked the phone back up and redialled her number.
‘I’ll be on the next flight back,’ I told her.
The moment I saw her again all thoughts of living in California vanished from my mind. I knew I wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of my life with Michelle and the kids, but I didn’t dare to believe that she would agree to it because I knew the pain of another rejection would have been too much for me to bear. Doing some rough calculations in my head I reckoned I had about £3,000 left in my bank account, which I handed over to her as a gesture to show how determined I was to be a responsible father.
‘I wish I could give you more,’ I said, ‘but that’s all I’ve got until I can get my business going again.’
‘So how are you going to live?’ she asked, looking at the money a bit doubtfully.
‘I’m not sure,’ I admitted.
I felt a pang of sadness at the thought of having to give up my flat and go back to living in hostels or on the streets. I presumed I would have to sell my car too in order to raise a bit more money. I didn’t want Michelle and the baby to have to go without anything if it was within my power to provide it.
‘You’d better move in with me then,’ she said, and when I looked across I could see she was grinning.
‘Would you want me to?’ I asked, unable to stop a similar grin from spreading across my face too.
‘Of course I would,’ she laughed. ‘I love you, don’t I?’
Epilogue
Michelle and I were married in March 1997. Kirsty-Lea was born a few weeks early, but she was still a healthy seven pounds. As well as living with Michelle and my two brilliant stepsons, Darren and Liam, who I was eventually able to adopt, I now had my own baby girl. In the coming years she was followed by Shannon and Paige. They are five very special and beautiful children.
Michelle and I trusted one another from the first day we got together. She has worked hard to keep me on the straight and narrow, out of trouble and out of hospitals. She has kept me off the drink and drugs and away from self-harming. There have been so many things that other people would count as normal but which I have had to learn from scratch. When any of the children told me they loved me, for instance, I found it hard to accept or to know how to respond.
How could any child love an adult? I couldn’t even begin to understand that, maybe because I had loved Dad and he had been taken away from me. I also found it really difficult to accept simple kindnesses like birthday or Christmas presents, remembering all the teasing and bullying that my brothers put me through on my birthdays as a child. The fact that the kids would do something like that for me was too overwhelming for me to be able to cope with. I didn’t mind celebrating their birthdays but I didn’t want anyone drawing attention to mine because deep inside I remembered the pain that always led to.
Over the following years Michelle and I supported each other in everything we wanted to do. I had a lot of adjusting to do in order to be in a permanent relationship, which she helped me with patiently. Because of the way my mother had ruled my life for so long with such cruelty, I still found it hard to ever be told what to do by any woman, even someone I loved as much as Michelle, but we worked through that. I had anger management issues and at times it was hard for Michelle to cope with me.
Once she actually went to visit Mum without telling me, to try to understand better what had happened during my childhood. Mum didn’t even try to deny anything, telling her that I’d deserved everything that had happened to me, that I had enjoyed the things that the paedophiles had done
to me. Years later Michelle told me about the meeting and how she was physically sick after listening to Mum’s vile boasting and very nearly went to the police station on her way back to the train. I had been afraid she was about to give up on me at that stage because of the way I was behaving, but I remember how she hugged me when she got home that day and promised that she would stay with me until we had worked through all my problems together, without telling me why. She was like a lioness protecting her cubs from the world.
Michelle’s parents had never really made her go to school as a child, even though she was a bright girl. She was working as a nursing assistant while I stayed home to look after the kids, a role I really enjoyed, but she wanted to do more. As the children started to develop, Michelle decided she wanted to get herself an education. We both spent a lot of time discussing ways in which we could improve our lives and she decided to go back to college to do her A-levels and then started a psychology course at university, moving on to study speech and language therapy, partly because our daughter, Shannon, has had problems and we have had to learn new skills in order to help her. Now that Shannon is progressing better Michelle is moving on to midwifery. I am so proud of everything she has achieved.
I also went back to college once the kids were going to school, to study computers and expand on everything I had learned in Hereford. In 1999, using the computing skills I’d learned at college, I set up a website for the victims of child abuse, remembering how lost and alone I had felt both during the time of my abuse and afterwards when I set off into the world with virtually no life skills or self-awareness. If I could have had someone to go to through a website or by any other means, and could have felt free to talk about the things that I was afraid of and ashamed of, it would have changed my life radically.
I had told Michelle every detail of what had happened to me and she encouraged me in everything I wanted to do. Like other people I had told about my past, she also believed that my mother, my brothers, Amani and Uncle Douglas and all the men who came to Uncle Douglas’s house should not be allowed to get away with what they had done to me and to the many other children like me that they used and hurt. Like many abused children, I initially wanted to sweep everything under the carpet and to try not to think about it. If you have been intimidated and beaten and brainwashed throughout your formative years, it is very hard to find the courage to turn round and stand up to the people you fear the most, even though you also hate them the most. She wanted to go to the police with everything I had told her, but that idea terrified me, for I was sure that Mum and the others would hunt me down if they thought I was grassing on them. I knew from experience what levels of violence they were capable of. Now that I had finally found a life full of security and love and well away from them, the thought of them arriving in Wales to look for me made me feel physically sick.
In the end I compromised and agreed that she could anonymously feed all the details through to Crimestoppers, the television programme. I heard from a distant cousin that Amani was arrested with a number of other men shortly after that, but I don’t know if that was because of information we had provided or whether they were already after him.
I know I have come an amazingly long way from the terrible cellar where Mum kept me, and by using that experience to set up a website I feel some good has come out of it, but there is still so much to do and so many more children to be helped.
Acknowledgements
Dear young brother,
You have come far and grown to understand so
much, and life has been tough for you. I know things
are bad for you at the moment, but my strength and
love will carry us both in these hard times.
Loving you always,
Your big brother x
To my five heroes: Darren, Liam, Kirsty-Lea, Shannon and Paige.
You make me laugh, you make me cry and the years
have gone nowhere! You are growing into strong-
minded individuals and I am so proud of you all; I am
proud to be your Dad.
Whatever path you choose in life I will always be
here for you.
Love, Dad x
To Michelle,
The woman and soulmate who has taught me a lot
in life, who lights up my darkest moments and keeps
me on track!
I hope we have many more years of great love
together x
To Sue (my adopted mum in Penzance) and my
extended family there, Tammy, Kirsti, Lee and Sam.
Love you all always xxx
To Andy Reeve and Partner,
St Leonards Equitation Centre,
Launceston,
Thanks, Andy, for taking me on, and giving me the
chance that nobody else would.
To Police Constable Christopher Thomas and
Pontycymmer police station,
For your community support and wonderful
understanding with me and my family.
To our best and loyal friends, Mike Morgan and Sarah
Finch.
Love you both to bits – keep on writing Mike.
X
And finally to all my great readers and supporters,
You are all my close friends, thank you so much for
being there for me, sticking by me and supporting me
throughout my campaign and my ill health. You all
mean so much to me and my work.
Mr Joe Peters
[email protected]
www.crysilenttears.co.uk
Registered Charity No. 1069802
Mr Peter Saunders
Chief Executive
www.napac.org.uk
Telephone Support Line 0800 085 3330
Copyright
HarperElement
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First published by HarperElement 2009
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© Joe Peters 2009
Joe Peters asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
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EPub Edition © 2009 ISBN: 9780007325917
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Peters, Joe, B002RI919Y EBOK