Escaping the Darkness

by Sarah Preston

  Bess wrote notes as we talked, scribbling away in a small ring-bound, tattered dark blue notebook; each word was formed in a spidery, pencil-woven scroll. I wondered which bits she thought were important and which she was leaving out. She paused each time I paused, asking if I was okay to continue talking about things that have, and have had, such a huge impact on my life.

  ‘At first,’ I continued, ‘it was just making sandwiches, then it was helping get the shopping for the things to make the sandwiches, then he took me to his flat.’ My voice started to wobble and then tears pricked and stung the backs of my eyelids, desperately trying to stay there without falling into their normal escape route down my hot flushed cheeks. A second later they succeeded. I was unable to stop myself crying uncontrollably. Bess moved across, taking my hand in hers, slowly stroking the back of it in that familiar, motherly way that seems to be so natural for women of her age.

  ‘I think we’ll leave it there Sarah,’ she told me. ‘This is obviously getting harder and harder for you and I know you haven’t even touched the surface yet.’

  I nodded to her, still trying desperately to control the heaving within me, caused by the pain of the memories that are still far too real.

  ‘Before I go I’d like to leave you with some books that you may find helpful,’ she said. ‘They’re children’s books but the stories in them are ones which I think will help you. Have a look at them and let me know what you think when I call next time.’

  I hadn’t realised that there would be more meetings in the pipeline. Obviously when I look back on that period of my life, I knew that my therapy sessions with Bess would need time, lots of time, and one session would never have been enough. Bess arranged to visit at the same time the following week and we would continue then. Before she left, she asked if I was all right and left me her card with her telephone number on it in case I needed to contact her to chat before she was due to see me next week.

  Once Bess had left, I noticed that she had been here almost an hour-and-a-half, and it was now five to twelve. I quickly ran upstairs, plucked Timothy from his cot and laid the sleepy baby in his pram, dragged my jacket off the chair, splashed my face with cold water over the kitchen sink, and then left the house, quickly heading up the hill to collect William from playgroup.

  It had become a lovely day. The sun felt warm and the faint breeze was refreshing on my face. As I walked, each ray of sunshine worked a small miracle, the way it had many times before. I began to feel renewed and free; for a few seconds anyhow.

  Chapter Seven

  AS THE REMAINDER of the week unfolded, the memories of those locked-away days returned thick and fast. I struggled to keep my feelings hidden while I carried on with day-to-day life. The boys kept me busy and I was grateful of every distraction that came my way, no matter how small or trivial. Sam worked hard that week, not getting home until after six most nights. I missed him terribly in the daytime as I longed for some adult conversation – any chatter that wasn’t centred on children’s characters from books or television would have done.

  Don’t get me wrong – I loved my boys dearly – it was just that I had quite a lot more than my fair quota of ‘child talk’ for that week. My world had always revolved around my sons from my first born until my last. All five of them had given me joy each day we were together. I was privileged to be with them, sharing each memorable part of their growing up. I was so fortunate to have such an amazing family and I felt I always had far more than I ever deserved.

  I kept much of how I felt about my past hidden away as I didn’t want to upset Sam or give him cause for concern. He was a wonderful man, caring and sensitive, but I knew if he realised or found out how distraught I had felt that week, he would have been hurt, too. Each night when I should have been sleeping, I had dreams similar to those that had haunted most of my childhood. I dreamed of the past, the days with Bill, and all the awful, appalling, sick things he had done to me were slowly brought back to life with even more startling clarity than ever before. I tried to relax, hoping the sleep that had deserted me would find me soon, but still in my waking moments the dreams attacked me, bearing down on me like a rock-filled eiderdown that was covering my already limp body. I twisted and turned tensely. I felt these involuntary movements of restlessness were controlling my whole body. I woke regularly in the night, each time slowly getting up, dragging my heavy, worry-laden frame from the bed as quietly as I could in the hope of not disturbing Sam’s sleep.

  As I looked across to his side of the bed, even though I couldn’t see him clearly in the darkened room, I heard the slow restful breaths of his slumber as they drifted towards me, each breath warming the cold air that surrounded him. When I was sure I hadn’t disturbed him, I slowly crept from the room, tiptoeing down the stairs to make a cup of tea and a slice of toast – an activity that was becoming more and more of a habit than I wanted it to be.

  I spent the next hour alone in the lounge, thinking through everything that Bess had said to me earlier that week. Her words had been reassuring although she hadn’t really spoken much at all on her last visit. I took down her books from the shelf and started to edge my way through the pages, working slowly through the text on each one. I read, I thought, I understood. It was as if they were all individually moulded from my experiences of childhood. Each child in this book was me.

  They all related to me.

  I was frightened to think that so many others were going through, or had been through, what I had. As I closed the book after the first few chapters, my eyes began to feel heavy again. I looked at the clock and found it was almost five am. Sleep was overtaking me and my head was once more ready for the rest it so desperately needed. As I went back up the stairs, I stopped and listened at each of the bedroom doors, waiting to hear the familiar sounds of the boys sleeping. Once I was assured that they were all fine, I slowly entered the bedroom and slipped back into bed beside Sam. A few minutes later, although it felt like forever, I fell once more into the troubled, restless sleep I thought I had left behind when I had woken earlier that night, a sleep that only lasted one hour more.

  Once the weekend had passed, another busy week lay ahead. The routine remained the same; this Monday was the same as all the other Mondays that I’d lived before. Every Monday in every month, every Monday in every year was lived out to almost the same sequence of events. There was a schedule that had naturally unfolded in my life; a life that contained my children, my husband and a home that had to be taken care of; and as each day passed, I slipped into an almost familiar, regular routine.

  Each day I’d be up at six, lunches made and packed, breakfast set, boys woken, breakfast put out and served, boys washed and dressed and then out of the house by 8.20 am. Sam was now working flexitime and sometimes he would walk the boys to school, leaving me to do just the playgroup walk.

  The only difference between this Monday and all the others was that I was due to see Bess again. I would be continuing to tell her about Bill and how he moulded my life into what he had wanted and desired. I hated him now more than ever. He had made me feel so dirty and worthless, a feeling that never left me until I wrote my thoughts down. I remember dreading coming to terms with anything that was related to the sexual abuse that I had endured. It was a past I wanted so urgently to forget.

  Why did this sordid disaster have to be my past?

  I suppose it was just the way things turned out. If it hadn’t been for my mum’s love of bingo, then I suppose I would have been the butterfly I so fundamentally and desperately wanted to be.

  I wanted to be free; like a newly released butterfly, able to set out on its first un-cocooned adventure in the cool air of a new day. My thoughts left me feeling like I had been cheated, cheated of my dreams. Dreams I knew I deserved, dreams I knew should have been mine, but that had been lost somewhere along the path my life had been forced into taking all those lonely years ago when my childhood had been so ruthlessly stolen from me.

  Promptly at ten-thirty
, Bess knocked on the door, her cheery face smiling at me as I opened it.

  ‘Hi,’ she said.

  ‘Hi,’ I replied, as she walked into the lounge and waited for me to join her. As Bess sat down, I looked at her and smiled. I studied her face as I watched her sit on the settee, occupying the same space as she had done just seven days before. This was not the Bess I had imagined after Keith first told me about her in his surgery a few short weeks ago.

  Sitting before me was a woman who had greying, shoulder-length, thick and unruly hair. Underneath the greyness, some of her hair’s natural black colour was still evident, but looked as if it would lose its blackness soon. Her eyes were blue, a deep interesting blue, which reminded me of a deep, faraway ocean, hiding secrets deep within. Her face was quite well defined and her skin pale (considering how sunny the weather was that summer). She was just a little taller than me, probably five-foot-five, and she had a cosy cuddly figure. Her voice had a slight accent that I was unsure of but each word was tinged with warmth and friendliness and her tone was reassuring and instantly relaxing. In just the same manner as before, Bess took out her papers and her notebook. She laid a pencil on top of the papers ready for the notes she would take.

  ‘Do you want a coffee?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh that would be great as I left the office in a rush this morning, and didn’t get chance to finish mine,’ she answered.

  As I rose to go into the kitchen, Bess asked me if I’d had chance to look at the books she had left. I wasn’t quite prepared for questions yet and had to pull myself back from ‘drink making mode’ into recalling the morning I had first looked at Bess’s book. I continued heading for the kitchen as I started to answer the question. I could sense Bess knew that once again I was having difficulty talking about the events that had shadowed my life. I had to keep busy – it helped me to stay focused. As I put the kettle on, with the wall safely between us, I told her how I had found it easy to relate to the books and the characters they portrayed.

  Once the coffee was poured, I went back into the lounge and sat in Sam’s safe, comfortable chair where I could mentally feel his protecting arms around me. Bess asked me if I’d like to continue talking from where we had left off. It was hard. I tried to recollect where I had finished the week before, and a few moments later she prompted me: ‘You had been helping make sandwiches and he had just taken you to his flat for the first time.’

  As I heard the words, the tragedy that was once my childhood leapt out at me from a deeply hidden labyrinth of darkness. I sat back in the chair trying to find the right words I needed, words that wouldn’t make me sound like a cheap, child prostitute. Bess waited patiently never pressing me to go quicker. She just sat waiting for the first words, picking up her pencil as she did so.

  ‘It’s okay Sarah take your time,’ she reassured me.

  ‘I remember not going back home after he had got the shopping; he told me he had to just pop into his flat for a few minutes. I remember thinking I didn’t want to do this, but I didn’t know where I was as I watched all the unfamiliar streets go by. Bill drove for about twenty minutes and then he pulled up outside a large house that had another building at the side of it. It was a garage with large brown doors and what looked like a room above it. There was a separate front door at the side of the garage. He told me the lady in the house was noisy and that to save her asking questions he was going to say I was his niece. I wondered why he had to do this and I remember I felt awkward about the whole situation, but I didn’t know at that time what this feeling was.’

  Bess looked at me, reassuring me with her smiling eyes that it was okay to talk, to let the words flow out and be released for the first time into the welcoming air that would surround and capture each one of them. I had never spoken to anyone about what had happened. I had told Sam about my abuse but never, ever, had I told him the full story, including all the details.

  This was hard, really hard, harder than I had ever imagined.

  I realised for the first time why keeping it buried had been the proper thing to do at the time. It was unpleasant, and at times, heartbreaking and unbearable. I wanted help to try to come to terms with what had happened, yet, deep inside, I wanted to push everything back into the box I kept hidden in my mind. Letting it out was like releasing a deadly bacteria into an unsuspecting, waiting world. I continued talking slowly to Bess:

  ‘Bill saw the woman coming out from her house. He got out of the car and walked over to his front door. He told me to go up the stairs to the flat and wait for him there. I don’t remember much about this flat just it seemed really strange to find a sweetshop-sized jar of toffees on one of the top stairs.’

  As I spoke, Bess nodded her head in realisation that this was how he had planned it all. He knew exactly what he was doing when he took me there that day. As I watched Bess acknowledging what I had said, I started to wonder: ‘Was this the usual behaviour of a man like him, a paedophile?’

  I sat up, changing my position in the chair, trying to find a way to feel protected from the bad memories. I moved and sat with my legs tucked under me, curling my body up on top of them, like a foetus safe in a mother’s womb. I started again, pulling the memories from deep within, remembering where I had left off:

  ‘Bill followed me up the stairs into his flat. He asked me to sit down while he went off to get something from another room. I sat waiting, looking around the room but the surroundings I don’t remember much about. I remember the sofa being an old fashioned type with a wooden frame and flowery covers, and a chair that didn’t match.

  ‘Bill came back into the room and sat beside me. He put his hand on my leg and started to rub it. I didn’t want him to touch me, it wasn’t right. I felt funny; I wanted to run away but I couldn’t, I didn’t know where I was. He offered me a handful of sweets from the jar. He opened his hand to show me the flavours he’d picked out. I refused them.

  ‘He pushed them into my hand anyway.

  But…I didn’t like those flavours…

  Bess started to speak now, asking me how I felt about all of this now and did I remember what I thought he was trying to do at that time? I believed then that he was just being a little too friendly. Now when I think about it, I feel angry, humiliated and disgraced. How could such an old, old man do the things he did to a child, young enough to be his granddaughter or even his great-granddaughter?

  My visitor and confidante sat taking notes, but the memories she was stirring were painful, striking huge blows in my mind, ripping and tearing at all the available space; space I had reserved for my good memories. The wounds were deepened the further I went back, retracing the steps of my stolen childhood and youth. I struggled to talk about them, even though, after just two meetings, I trusted Bess as if she were a friend who had always been in my life. There was just something about her that drew you in. I felt I hadn’t said much, but in the time Bess was with me the hour had flown by. We arranged another session for the same time the week after. Bess asked me to continue looking at the books she had left. I wanted to get it all over and done with today but time had deserted me. I wasn’t sure I wanted to see her again – the memories were too painful.

  I didn’t want to start another session next week; I wanted a quick fix to my problem, even though realistically I knew there wasn’t one. Bess uttered words of reassurance in the same way as she had the previous week, asking me to phone her if I felt I needed to see her before next Monday. I nodded my understanding as she closed the door, saying a cheery goodbye behind her as she left.

  Then I sat for a few minutes trying to think about how I felt.

  Was all this talking having any effect?

  Had I started to feel better about myself?

  Or was it simply too soon to tell?

  Did I feel as if I was winning the war, a war that had been banging on in my head for longer than I wished to remember, the good memories fighting the bad ones?

  The bad ones always winning.

  I looked at m
y watch and saw that it was twelve o’clock. I was glad Maria was picking up William from playgroup. At least I had a little while longer to try and work out what was really happening.

  As my mind went into overdrive, I couldn’t comprehend or imagine there ever being true freedom from the horrors I had lived with. Maybe I was just being too cynical too soon. I really had to give Bess a chance to help me put things into perspective.

  I just wanted it all to have been done by yesterday.

  My mind continued to wonder and before I knew it an hour had passed me by. I grabbed my jacket and went to collect William. As usual Maria was bursting with chatty, exuberant energy. We drank coffee and discussed the events that had been taking place around us; you know the kind, the usual daytime gossip that friends chat about over coffee.

  As I watched Maria making another coffee, I realised for the first time that I wanted to tell a friend about my past, but I knew I couldn’t. I didn’t know what she would think of me or how she would take it. I didn’t want her to stop talking to me, because what I had been through had been the worst thing imaginable for a child and, as a mother, she would want to protect her children as I had instinctively protected my own – probably even more than was necessary. Maria had been talking to me for a few minutes and had turned around to see if I was still there. I had been so wrapped up in my own thoughts that I hadn’t heard what she had said.

  ‘Hey daydreamer, do you want a sandwich for lunch? It isn’t much but I can run to a bit of cheese if you like?’

  ‘Yes thanks. I haven’t had anything yet as I wasn’t hungry earlier.’

  As her words faded into my thoughts, I decided against telling her, thinking that perhaps this wasn’t the time. As it happens, I waited a long, long time to tell her.