Seconds to Snap

by Tina McGuff

  I was shocked but at the same time determined he wasn’t going to get away with it so, after he stormed out, I grabbed all of his records and hid them. Then I ran off out of the house and sat in the park until late at night, too scared to go home. Until that moment, I’d never talked back to my parents but now everything was in turmoil and I was terrified of what he’d do when I got home. So I sat there in the dark, looking out over the park lit up with the streetlights, and feeling very, very lonely. I went back eventually and Mum was there. When I told her about the fight, she just hugged me and told me to go to bed, saying everything would be okay.

  But it only seemed to get worse. Before we left the house for good, Mum was offered a flat in a homeless unit. We walked for miles to see it and when we arrived, I wished we hadn’t bothered. The depressing tower block was covered in graffiti; windows were blocked with metal sheets and drunk, scary-looking men hung out at the entrance. I grabbed Mum’s hand as we walked in and my nostrils were immediately filled with the unmistakable stench of urine. Inside the dark stone corridor, it was freezing, cold and damp. What was that on the walls? I wondered as we took the staircase, two steps at a time. It looked like shit. But it couldn’t be, could it?

  Mum’s steps sped up, her breathing grew heavier, and by the time we reached the right floor, she practically ran inside the flat, pulling us all in with such force. If it were possible, the flat was even worse on the inside. The carpets, where there were any, were filthy, the wallpaper was peeling off the walls, exposing bare brick, and the whole place smelled rotten and disgusting. Mum started to cry and we all ran to hug her. This was a nightmare, a real nightmare.

  Chapter 4

  The Truth

  Mum gazed out of the window and let out a deep sigh. She was curled up on the sofa under a thick tartan blanket and smoke from her lit cigarette snaked delicately up towards the ceiling. In the twilight, her face was a mask of misery. I hated to see her like this.

  In the end, she refused to take the homeless unit – it was just too horrible – and instead, we moved to a tiny council one-bedroom flat; but with the debts and the loss of the business, money was now a serious problem. We had no money to run the electric so, as night time crept in earlier and earlier, we got used to living in darkness. Not only were there times when we had no electric, but we could never afford to put the hot water on and had to wash in freezing water. Shampoo was a luxury we could barely afford and would either use a bar of soap or washing up liquid to wash our hair, which became matted. Toilet roll was also something that was classed as a luxury and we often had to use newspaper. We were so ashamed of the way our lives had become and felt very degraded and small. It was depressing enough but occasionally Mum would mutter to herself: ‘Where is he now? I bet your dad is out having fun. And look at us, sat here with nothing!’

  The worst thing was, she was right. On the rare occasions we did see Dad, he was full of beans, thrilled at his newfound freedom. He’d tell us about the nights he’d go out clubbing, meeting new women, hooking up with old friends. It was lovely to see him so happy but it ate me up inside, knowing he was putting us through this.

  The one good thing in my life was that shortly after the move, Mum got me into Whitfield High School, where my friend Diane was a pupil. I started swimming again and did dance and gymnastics classes, which made me feel alive. At Whitfield, I slotted easily into Diane’s circle of friends and for the first time in a long while, I felt happy and accepted among my peers. Of course, it didn’t stop the whispers in the corridor or the intrusive stares, but at least now I had friends I could have fun with.

  In truth, everyone in my group was in the same boat. Most were from broken homes, and many lived on the breadline. We didn’t talk about it because there didn’t seem much point, but going home each night was torture.

  Some days there wasn’t enough for food so us girls were sent to the shop to buy chips with the bottles we had saved up. Each empty bottle was worth a few pence – we scavenged in the bins behind people’s houses and though it was humiliating, walking up to the shop with all our bottles clanking around, it was better than going hungry. The kids who hung round there would snigger at us and I’d hide my face with embarrassment. I didn’t see the funny side at all.

  Some days I simply refused food just to make sure my sisters had something on their plates. At school we got free lunch tickets that were a lifesaver because sometimes it was our only meal of the day. But as time went on and I started to smoke and rebel, I’d sell my tickets for cash to buy cigarettes or a Diet Pepsi. Mum was in her own world of depression and slept a lot when she was not working. She had no energy to challenge us four at all.

  On top of that, I had huge holes in the bottom and sides of my shoes and we could not afford new ones. I’d stand with my feet together just so no one would see. I hated living like this, as did my sisters. By now they were completely out of control. Mum was so absent most of the time – either sleeping or working one of her part-time bar jobs to try to make ends meet – that Katie and Sophie ran wild with their friends, smashing windows, pulling washing off lines, smoking and generally getting up to no good. There were times I came to blows with Katie because she had such a temper. She was full of anger. Sophie was much quieter, but equally out of control. Celine was too young to be doing anything so she was always in the house. I would just sit with her when I could and hug her. I knew how I felt – God only knows how they coped!

  Life went on in this way for the next two years – a desperate struggle to survive in a dark and cold world. I began to feel numb. The only love I felt was for my sisters. I felt completely cut off from my mum and dad.

  I slipped deeper into a state of crushing misery. All the positivity in my head was now replaced by bleakness and negative thoughts. The happy, bubbly, loving girl I’d once been was gone. It was as if a stranger had moved into my head and that stranger did not like me at all. The new person in my head wanted to be alone, fearful no one would want to be in my company anyway. Why would they? It sneered meanly. After all, you are stupid, ugly, smelly, poor and retarded!

  The only thing that made me feel good about myself was exercise – it made me feel special in a strange way. I could not talk to anyone about my feelings and even though my mum tried to make us feel comfortable about being open, we were reticent children. None of us talked about the divorce or our descent into poverty, we were all so deeply ashamed of what had happened. We didn’t talk about the friends who weren’t allowed to play at our house because their parents thought my mum was a monster, or the people who stared at us, or joked at our expense.

  One night, I’d finally had enough. After the years of silence, I wanted to know the truth – I was tired of being angry with my parents, tired of keeping all my questions to myself. So that evening, after the others had gone to bed, I sat down next to Mum in our tiny lounge and, summoning all my strength, I asked her: ‘Why did you hurt Dad?’

  Her blue eyes fell on me then as if seeing me for the first time. She took a drag of her cigarette and said: ‘I wondered when you were going to ask.’

  There was a silence then and I waited. Mum sighed heavily, pulled the rug up around her knees and looked down at her hands. I waited to hear the truth.

  ‘You know before it happened we went to your grandma’s house in England?’ she started. I nodded. ‘You remember Dad stayed here because he had to work? Well, something happened in those two weeks – he met a woman. It was nothing in particular that gave it away and yet to me, I knew instantly there was something wrong. There was the time I called the house and he wasn’t there. A time he really should have been home. Another time I called and he was talking strangely so I just knew, I knew something wasn’t right.

  ‘I confronted him when we got back and your father, well, he didn’t deny it – quite the opposite, in fact!’ She laughed bitterly. ‘He told me everything in graphic detail, didn’t leave anything out. He’d met this young woman – young and hot, he’d called her – an
d she’d flirted with him. He lapped it up and they started seeing each other – dinners, long walks, romantic trysts. It was a fling, yes, but the way he talked about her – his eyes lit up, he was so excited!

  ‘Of course, I was devastated, hurt beyond belief. Tina, I had no idea there was anything wrong with our marriage. I didn’t know he was unhappy. As far as I was concerned, we had a happy, strong marriage, a wonderful home, great businesses. It never even occurred to me he’d do anything so destructive.’

  Now Mum was crying silently and she let the tears fall into her lap.

  ‘I was hysterical; I couldn’t cope. Dad was upset, too – he didn’t want the marriage to end. He loved me, he said, he knew he’d fucked up big time with his selfish actions, ruined our lives. But I don’t think he understood just how much he’d hurt me. It was unbearable.’

  Finally, things were making sense. I could see even now my mum found it difficult to talk about this – Dad had broken her heart.

  ‘There was no going back,’ she went on. ‘He couldn’t change what he’d done. Not only that but he confessed about the debt as well. I don’t know what had happened to him. He’d got into trouble so quickly after we started the businesses but he didn’t tell me about it. If only he’d come to me, if only he’d shared his problems, we could have tried to fix it together, but it got so bad that by the time he told me, it was over. I lost the business, the house, everything! Well, after that, it was too much – the lies, the deception. It was the death of all my dreams.

  ‘I lay awake night after night, sobbing, imagining your father with this other woman. I couldn’t get the images out of my head! I felt so humiliated, Tina. And I just wanted him to be humiliated in the same way. I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, my insides ached all the time with anger and the only thing I thought would help ease it would be by hurting him back. It was the darkest time of my life and I suppose something slipped in my mind. I lost my sense and I decided he had to pay for his actions.’

  Looking back now it was strange to think of my parents utterly miserable and us completely unaware. They hid it so well, just carrying on as normal, not raising their voices or losing their tempers in front of us.

  ‘So that’s when I came up with my idea,’ she went on. ‘One night I told him I was thinking perhaps we could get back together. I asked him to come into the lounge to talk to me about it after you kids had gone to bed. I knew this was the night so I hid a sharp, black-handled knife under the rug in the lounge. We talked for about an hour – don’t ask me what we talked about; I can’t, for the life of me, remember and I was too hyped up to concentrate on what he was saying anyway. I felt scared, nervous and mad all at the same time.

  ‘Anyway, we lay on the rug together and I made him think that I was feeling amorous towards him so he let me undo his trouser buttons. Then I took the knife out and cut across the top of his penis – I cut right through so it was just hanging on with some skin, vein and sinew. He let out this blood-curdling scream of agony and at that moment I felt this strange sense of calm settle on me.

  ‘I said to him: “That’s what you get for wrecking our lives, you selfish bastard!” Then I just walked off, calm as you like. I didn’t think it would kill him – I’d done a bit of research – so I just felt very serene. He was screaming and desperately trying to get into the hallway to call for help from the phone but I was in another world by now. I walked through to the kitchen, washed my hands and made myself a cup of tea. I could hear Dad in the lounge, crying in pain, but I just left him.

  ‘I swear, Tina, I must have lost it by then because I felt so calm – it was as if I was in a dream-state. Nothing felt real but, for the first time in a fortnight, my heart was at peace. The ambulance arrived and shortly afterwards the police came and took me away in handcuffs.’

  I was stunned. The way Mum was describing it seemed she had truly lost her mind. Suddenly, something occurred to me.

  ‘The screams,’ I said, ‘why didn’t we hear the screams and wake up?’

  ‘I made sure all the doors were shut,’ she explained simply. ‘I didn’t want to disturb you girls, didn’t want you to have to suffer.’

  I nearly laughed then. She had been so careful not to frighten us and yet the whole thing had been terrifying nonetheless. I wondered if she ever thought about the impact this had had on us.

  Mum went on: ‘They charged me with attempted murder and at first I didn’t mind. I wanted to be in jail, actually – I think I needed the rest, mentally. Obviously, I had had some kind of breakdown. My mind had gone somewhere else and I wasn’t at all myself. Funnily enough, when the other women inmates found out about what I’d done, I got lots of pats on the back. Many even told me they would have done the same. I didn’t care – actually, I didn’t really notice the others too much. I just lay in the cell every day, thinking about the future and what we were going to do. I spoke to a few psychiatrists while I was there and that definitely helped.

  ‘I got a visit from Suzie and Dave and they said that you girls were doing okay and they also said Dad was out of hospital. He wasn’t interested in pressing charges, apparently, but this was a criminal matter and the decision wasn’t his to make. Fortunately, I had a wonderful lawyer – she advised me to plead guilty with diminished responsibility because of the mental breakdown, which I did. And when it went before the court, the judge said that, under the circumstances, I would be admonished of all charges, which basically meant I got off.

  ‘As relieved as I felt that I wouldn’t be in jail for life, it was actually a bit sad to leave all the lovely people I met in prison. Prison is a great leveller, Tina. There are many reasons people end up there – either by circumstance or choice. I don’t think anyone can ever say they won’t end up in jail – you just don’t know what’s around the corner.’

  All this time, as Mum was telling her story, I’d been sat opposite her in complete shock. It was a strange enough story for real life, let alone your own mother’s life! Of course, everything made sense now – the reason Mum had been so destroyed after she came back, Dad’s pain, the sniggers from the schoolyard. I even recalled that a few days before the event, Mum had stood over me while I was doing my biology homework and looked at the diagrams of the male reproductive system. I felt suddenly guilty that she had got her information from my books! It was too much – I really didn’t want to hear any more.

  ‘Erm, right,’ I mumbled, squirming with discomfort. ‘Well, thanks – I’m going to bed now.’

  That night, I cried for a long time into my pillow. I cried for my mum and the death of her dreams, for the violent end to their marriage, for my dad’s desperate and secret struggles with debt, and for all the years of poverty and unhappiness we had suffered up till now. But most of all, I cried for myself – I cried for the end of my childhood, the end of my innocence.

  Chapter 5

  Sliding

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ I exclaimed as the toxic fumes stung my eyes. It felt like my throat was on fire. I looked down into the bag of Evo-Stik glue from which I’d just inhaled and, for a moment, the world started to spin. Then a funny buzzing sound started up in my head and my teeth clamped together involuntarily.

  ‘Fuck me!’ I whispered to myself. All alone in the Pavilion on Baxter Park, I had decided to try glue sniffing for the first time. Usually, I hung around here with my pals but because this was my first time, I didn’t want to do it in front of the others in case I ended up making a tit of myself. But not really knowing how to do it properly, I’d emptied the whole tube into the plastic bag and inhaled a huge lungful of fumes. Ah, well, in for a penny, in for a pound, I thought. I stuck my head back in the bag and sucked up another big lungful. Then I passed out.

  The next thing I knew, I was waking up on the cold concrete floor of the Pavilion, my head pounding, hands still gripping the bag of glue. It was now pitch-black.

  Oh, my God, how long have I been unconscious for?

  I remembered coming to the park in the early ev
ening but now it looked like it was really late. I staggered to my feet and tried to walk home but I was drunk on fumes, my head was fuzzy and I felt very odd. When I touched my face, which was numb, my fingers came to rest on patches of hardened glue stuck to my cheeks. So as I swerved and stumbled back home, I tried to pick the glue off.

  It was like walking in a dream – without being able to feel my legs, I seemed to float. I just had to trust to instinct that I was actually managing to put one foot in front of the other.

  Shit! I giggled manically to myself. I’m really wasted! But the best thing of all was that I felt absolutely numb inside. No sadness, no bad thoughts; no stranger telling me I was crap and unworthy – the glue had effectively chased out all my demons. I walked into the house, went straight to bed and fell fast asleep. When I woke up the next morning, I felt terrible. There was a huge lump on my forehead, which must have happened when I passed out and fell off the bench. By the time I left for school, Mum was still in bed. Oh, well. I shrugged. She probably wouldn’t notice anyway and definitely wouldn’t care.

  Now I spent all my time with my new friends, walking around the streets of Dundee, getting drunk, smoking joints, sniffing glue and having a laugh. None of us had money, so we would put our pennies together to buy cigarettes and cheap cider. I didn’t talk about my home life to anyone – my shame silenced me and, in any case, bringing up the subject of my mum and dad invited horrible feelings that I simply didn’t want to deal with any more. No, all I wanted to do was get really, really plastered so I didn’t have to think or feel.