Seconds to Snap

by Tina McGuff

  But the next day, when I went to the corner shop to get my penny toffees, the shop owner stopped me.

  ‘Have you seen the paper today?’ he asked.

  ‘No, I don’t read the papers,’ I told him.

  ‘You might want to have a look at today’s.’

  And so, out of curiosity, and because of the reporter’s visit, I bought that day’s Daily Record and ran home with it under my arm.

  Once safe inside the house, I opened it and right there on the inside page was the headline: Unkindest Cut – Beautiful Wife Attacks Husband With Knife. Underneath was a photo of my mum, smiling, her hair flicked back around her fine features, Farrah Fawcett style. It was an old photo Dad had of her – he must have given it to the reporters. It looked so odd, her gorgeous and glamorous picture under such a stark and brutal headline.

  I didn’t read any more – I just threw down the paper and ran crying to my room. I felt so sick, I didn’t know what to do. From the way my dad had been moving and the headline, I put two and two together: Mum had attacked Dad in the private parts. It was horrible. HORRIBLE! I didn’t want to know anything more. What was happening to my family? We used to be ordinary people, happy people; now we were appearing in the papers like we were public property and my mum was in jail. Our neighbours would read about Mum and Dad over their morning cups of tea and they would judge and condemn us. They don’t know us! I was filled with rage. They don’t know anything about our family and our happy years together! And yet, all that happiness already seemed so far behind us now. How had our lives unravelled so quickly? I didn’t understand it at all – nothing made any sense.

  I loved my mum, dad and sisters so much but now our home, our lives and my heart were all broken. At night, while my sisters slept, I cried for hours. It felt like an ocean of tears flooding from my eyes. I wanted so much for all this to be a bad dream but every morning I woke with the same sense of despair and desolation. Why was this happening to us?

  Chapter 3

  A New Reality

  After a few days, Dad sent us all back to school, and now things took a turn for the worse. I was aware of curious eyes sliding over me as I walked into the playground and whispers behind my back in the corridors. One lad who obviously thought he was being funny and brave accosted me in the lunch queue.

  ‘So you’re the one whose Mum chopped your Dad’s cock off!’ he brayed loudly, loud enough for all the kids around us to hear. There were titters behind hands and muffled snorts of laughter.

  I couldn’t speak. I was so mortified, my face flamed red and I could feel tears welling up behind my eyes. My lip started to quiver and I just put my tray down, turned and walked out of the dining room. The laughter was still ringing in my ears as I slammed into the toilets and bolted the door so I could cry on my own.

  By the time lunch was over, I’d more or less pulled myself together but the taunts went on all day long – the sideways glances, the sniggers and the pointing fingers. I’d not been in the school long enough to make any close friends so there was nobody I could confide in, and the teachers didn’t make any special effort to talk to me. There was nothing else for it – I just had to pretend everything was okay and push on through.

  But inside I was numb. I walked around in a daze, unable to focus on the lessons, the fear of humiliation gripping me tight. My head span, my stomach churned and shame engulfed me like a black cloud. Eventually, in the middle of a maths class, I passed out and was sent home to recover. As my parents weren’t around, Maria and Alfonso picked me up to take me home.

  There, life was equally bad. Mum still wasn’t home and there was nobody to talk to. Dad was now grumpy most of the time, hiding out in the living room, unwilling to communicate or deal with us. It was Gran, his mum, who came over to help out with us girls – but for the most part the parenting now fell to me. I played with the younger ones, got them up and dressed in the morning, took them to school and put them to bed each night with a kiss.

  And I missed my mum so much it hurt. I missed the feel of her hugs, the warmth of her exotic scent, the calming, tender voice she used with us children. All the comfort of my home had disappeared and, instead, there was nothing – a terrible emptiness where all the love had once been. Each night, my sisters asked me when Mum was coming home and, automatically, I told them that it was soon, soon, and they weren’t to worry. But what did I know? If Mum was found guilty of trying to kill Dad, we might never see her again. She could be locked away for a very long time.

  Each day that went by, I fell further and further into a pit of despair – how could I cope with this? All I wanted was to fall asleep and never wake up again. In desperation, I skipped school one day to go into town, where I bought a strip of aspirin from Boots. I didn’t think too hard about dying – I just wanted to end the misery that was engulfing my life. So I gulped down all the eight tablets from the strip and walked to the phone box in the main area of town.

  ‘Hello – the Samaritans,’ came the kind voice over the phone. At first, I was too choked to speak, but after a long pause, I cleared my throat and began: ‘Hello – I’ve never done this before but I’m feeling really bad and I don’t want to live any more.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ the voice said. It belonged to a woman, and her calm, caring tone reminded me of my mother. I missed her so much at that moment I wanted to scream out. The woman waited a little and then she went on: ‘My name is Sonya and I’m here for when you feel able to talk.’

  After swallowing hard, I told the lady that I had just taken some aspirin and I wanted to die.

  ‘Everything has gone wrong at home and I don’t think I can cope,’ I told her as I wiped the tears from my cheeks. I burbled on, telling her about my mum hurting my dad and Mum being in jail. I poured out my feelings to the stranger on the other end of the phone. It was such a relief to tell someone what was going on and all my fears and thoughts about being a bad daughter and how I blamed myself.

  ‘Tina, none of this is your fault and though I know you are going through a very hard time right now, things will get better,’ Sonya said. ‘There isn’t anything in life worth ending your own life for.’

  Her words made me feel a little better and after I got everything off my chest I realised I didn’t want to die any more. So I went back along to Boots and asked if they had a sick bay – by now I was feeling woozy and my head was spinning again. I was frightened I might actually die but I lay down on their little bed and slept. It was a great sleep with no worries. They woke me up at five as the shop was closing and I walked home. Once inside, I went straight to bed. Dad didn’t even seem to notice that I was back. Thankfully, I hadn’t taken enough aspirin to do me any harm.

  I waited, day after day, but nothing seemed to get any better and knowing now that I didn’t want to die, I felt I had to at least get out of the house. So I found the number of our local orphanage in the phone book and called them.

  ‘Hello – my name is Tina and I need to come in,’ I told them frankly. ‘I’m very unhappy at home – a lot of terrible things have happened recently and I need somewhere safe to live.’

  Even as I was speaking the guilt at leaving behind my three sisters to cope alone weighed heavily on my shoulders. But right now I just needed to escape. The reaction was not what I was expecting. A harsh little chortle echoed down the line.

  ‘Don’t be so ridiculous, Tina!’ the woman admonished sternly. ‘You can’t just come in because you’re feeling a bit low – it doesn’t work like that! Stay at home and sort things out with your family. We can’t help. Goodbye.’

  The line at the other end went dead and, for a moment, I just stood there, staring dumbly at the receiver. The woman had been so callous and uncaring. I had reached out to somebody, I had asked for help, and yet I was turned away with a laugh. It made me feel even smaller and more insignificant than I did already.

  So the overwhelming sense of sadness simply stayed with me while I carried out my duties at home with increasing letharg
y. After four weeks, I came home from school one day and immediately sensed a change. Dad looked agitated and tense, but I could smell the familiar scent of Cinnabar: Mum!

  I ran through to the kitchen and there, seated opposite the door at the cream Formica breakfast bar was my mum, her delicate hands wrapped around a cup of tea. It was wonderful to see her and I fell into her arms, cherishing the first hug in a whole month. But as I pulled away, I saw a very strange look in her eye. Gone was the bright, easy smile, the carefree glamour – now I saw a woman overcome with shock, shame and misery. She was wearing the blue wrap-around dress that flattered her tall, curvy figure, but there was something missing from her face. Even as my sisters covered her in hugs and kisses, I saw her expression was flat and vacant.

  ‘How did court go?’ I asked her, breathless with the excitement at her return.

  ‘Fine,’ she replied. ‘I won.’ And that was all I needed to hear – I’d been so frightened that Mum would go to jail for ever and we’d never see her again. At last, the fear I’d been carrying round all these weeks disappeared in an instant. But to my surprise, instead of the happiness I was expecting, I was suddenly consumed with anger. White, hot burning rage – at her, my mother!

  A voice inside my head erupted and the words I heard were so vicious and nasty, I felt utter shame for thinking them: It’s all her fault! She’s caused all of this. She hurt your dad, she went to prison, she split up your family, she caused you all nothing but misery and now look at her, just sitting here, not saying anything! She hasn’t even said sorry! She’s not sorry. All she cares about is herself. She doesn’t care about any of us or she wouldn’t have done it to start with!

  The feelings were sudden, ferocious and made me instantly guilty. I couldn’t look at my mum then; I could barely speak to her. It was horrible to hate her so much but, at that moment, it was all I could feel. I wanted her to reach out to all of us and apologise and promise to make it right; I wanted her to love Dad again. But without us realising, Dad had slipped out of the house during our reunion with Mum. And he didn’t come back. For the next few days, we were off school to spend time with Mum but something definitely wasn’t right: she didn’t laugh any more, she didn’t even smile. Her skin and eyes were dull.

  On top of that, our whole routine had gone. There were no more family dinners, sat round the table together, talking and catching up on the day. No more delicious pasta dishes or roast lunches followed by Mum’s legendary baked Alaska. Now she just knocked up something quick and cheap for tea – like fish fingers and chips – and left it on the table for us to have when we wanted. Then she’d go through to the living room to watch TV or even disappear into her bedroom, where she shut the door.

  A week later, I was back at school but as miserable and paranoid as before. It felt like everyone was looking at me and laughing – I couldn’t concentrate in my lessons so there didn’t seem to be any point being there any more. On the third day back, I bunked off. I would never have thought of doing something like this before but now it seemed the only solution to my anxiety. I sat in the park on my own and watched the mothers chasing their toddlers across the playground. They seemed happy.

  My school absence didn’t seem to matter – at home, Mum had stopped bothering to check our homework or read with us. Katie and Sophie just watched TV or fought. Mum didn’t even notice when they were punching lumps out of each other. The screaming and yelling washed right over her and she put herself to bed earlier and earlier each night. In the mornings, she didn’t bother getting up either, leaving us all to sort out our own breakfast and get our school uniforms on.

  I was in the Wellgate shopping centre one day, bunking off school, when I bumped into Diane, my good friend from Africa. I could not believe it. She told me when her family left Africa, they came back to Dundee and her school had a swimming pool – and that was it for me! Well, I was sold – I missed swimming more than anything else. We spent the next hour in the Wellgate with her friends, who were all lovely and I felt like I just fitted in with them. It gave me a happy feeling seeing Diane again and I rushed home to tell Mum I wanted to go to Diane’s school. I thought it would be the answer to my prayers: swimming would make me happy again and perhaps I could get back to dancing, especially ballet and gymnastics, which I also loved.

  Mum said she would sort it out for me then walked back to her room, smoking. She had always smoked but, before, she held herself so well it looked elegant and grown-up. Now she sucked greedily on each cigarette with long draws and her hunched shoulders and absent expression made her look sad and desperate. She said Dad had gone to live somewhere else but he would see us all again soon and a couple of weeks later she announced that he would meet all us girls in the Wellgate shopping centre.

  We were excited to see him again – we were lacking any parenting at all right then and needed his safe, secure arms. But as the hours slid slowly by and Dad failed to arrive at our prearranged meeting spot on the bench, my heart swelled with sadness. Where was he? Didn’t he care about us either? Week after week, we went to our spot in the Wellgate and, more often than not, waited alone and pointlessly for our dad, who didn’t show up. I wanted to feel sorry for him; after all, he was the one who had been hurt. But it was hard to understand why he didn’t come and see us.

  One night after school, he surprised us by turning up at the house after tea. He and Mum gave each other a hard stare then Mum beckoned me into the living room while the others finished off their tea of Findus Crispy Pancakes. I’d already rejected mine – I hated them!

  Mum was sitting patiently on the sofa when I came in and Dad was sat next to her, but they might as well have been in different rooms. The distance between them was palpable.

  ‘Tina, we have to tell you something,’ she started. ‘We need to sell the house. We’re moving and fast. The house is about to be repossessed so I need to find somewhere else quick or we will be homeless.’

  That was all she said. At this point, I was so traumatised by everything I couldn’t make sense of her words. Everything was such a mess already and now she was telling me we were going to be homeless? Dad looked down at his hands, a guilty expression on his face. Mum seemed angry – her words were tense and sparse.

  ‘When?’ I asked.

  ‘Soon,’ she responded quickly. ‘But we’ll get something else. I just want you to know that it won’t be long.’

  I got up and walked out of the room. It felt like our lives were in freefall – now our beautiful home was going. I loved our house! I loved the view over the big, grassy field, where I would dream of one day having my own horse; I loved our bedroom with all the toys and space; I loved our modern kitchen with the breakfast bar and large radiator that made it so warm, even when it was freezing cold outside. My perfect life was being scrubbed away with a dirty rag – I felt worthless.

  Half an hour later, after Dad left, Mum took me aside and, in a low, urgent whisper, the whole thing came tumbling out.

  ‘It’s your father’s fault!’ she hissed. ‘He’s in debt – right up to his ears! I thought he’d been paying the bills for the shop, the house and the business, but he hasn’t. There’s nothing left. I have to sell the shop, too. You didn’t know this but all the bills that have been coming in – well, he’s been hiding them from me. And he’s been using your sisters to hide them, too. Can you imagine? The bastard! I had no idea. No idea! There’s other stuff, too – but I won’t go into it now. Trust me, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Tina, we have to leave here because your father has been lying to us all.’

  Through all of this, I was silent – I wanted to respond but I didn’t know how. It was too much to take in.

  As preparations were made for us to leave, Dad sometimes turned up to help get rid of the stuff. It all had to be sold to help pay the debts. And it was heart-breaking, watching our lives being dismantled, piece by piece – out went the Chesterfield, the fireguards, chairs, wardrobes, wooden bureau and green chaise longue. My heart sank wheneve
r I saw him in the house, knowing that eventually the shouting would start.

  It never took long.

  ‘Go on! Take the bloody stereo, you lying bastard!’ I’d hear my mum shriek as they fought over every bit of furniture. ‘I don’t bloody care! You’ve taken everything else!’

  ‘Please, Lucy, not in front of the children …’ Dad would plead.

  ‘Oh, yes, that’s right: the children! Now you care about the children, now you give a shit about what’s best for them! You didn’t care about that before, did you? Didn’t think about our family when you were off sleeping with that …’

  ‘Lucy, stop!’

  ‘You’re a lying bastard, a cheater and a bloody loser! Look what you’ve done, you’ve destroyed us! So much for your love – you don’t love any of us! Are you happy now? Well? ARE YOU?’

  ‘For God’s sake, Lucy! I’m leaving.’

  ‘Yes, walk away, why don’t you? Walk away – that’s what you’re good at!’

  The ferocity of these outbursts was too much for me. I tried to shield my sisters from them by leading them into our bedroom to play; where we’d put on our cassettes to try to drown out the hurtful words but the shouts thudded through the walls, stabbing at our already bruised little hearts. They used to love each other so much and I couldn’t understand where all that love had gone.

  One day, Dad came round and he put his Neil Diamond record on my stereo. I guess I was angry with him now because I just walked up to the record player, took it off and replaced it with my 7-inch single of Madness’s ‘The Sun And The Rain’. I was stood in front of the record when he came through and yelled at me: ‘Get that off!’

  Turning to him defiantly, I replied: ‘No.’

  I had never spoken back to my dad before and he stormed up to me, pushed me out of the way, tore my precious record off the player and threw it out of the window. I stood there, stunned, as I watched him run over to the coffee table, pick up Mum’s beautiful teapot that she cherished and fling it against the wall, smashing it into a million little pieces.