They Stole My Innocence

by Madeleine Vibert

  I think it was the same summer that that child had had his accident that builders descended on the grounds of Haut de la Garenne. A rich benefactor had decided that we would benefit from a swimming pool. There was a buzz of excitement around the home when we learnt why a large section of the grounds was being dug up.

  When it was completed and filled with water, our benefactor and his wife arrived. Swimsuits were given to the girls, trunks to the boys. Speeches were made and photographs taken of happy children splashing in the water. Those were the pictures that the man took away.

  We should have remembered what happened to our Christmas presents, and what we were told when we asked why they had gone. And this was the biggest present ever given to the home. The pool gave the wardens power, and Morag Jordan took full advantage of it.

  ‘Not today,’ she would say, when the sun was high in the sky and we could almost feel that cool water on our hot skin. ‘You didn’t make your bed properly. We have to have some discipline here.’ Her list of reasons for stopping us enjoying the pool was endless. ‘You were talking too loudly in the corridors’ or ‘I asked you to fetch coffee for us and you spilt some in the saucer.’ No, ‘our’ pool was too good for the likes of us.

  The wardens now had another recreational activity. They hosted parties to which they invited their friends, and the pool was full of tipsy adults, monopolising our present.

  Then, on a particularly hot afternoon, the Jordans appeared to have a change of heart. ‘You kids can go in,’ they told us. It was an invitation I viewed with some suspicion and I moved as far away from them as I could. I had too many memories of the underground pool and what had been allowed to take place there ever to trust them.

  ‘Hey,’ a warden said to a pretty girl of around thirteen, ‘you weren’t here when the costumes were handed out,’ and tossed one to her.

  I watched the pretty girl, Jill, and the others who had jumped in, splashing about and wondered why the wardens had suddenly appeared so considerate. It was not until they called everyone to come and get a cold drink that I understood what they had been up to. They were all watching the pretty girl. Half smiling, she had pulled herself out and was trustingly walking towards them. Laughter rang out and the girl looked around to see what was so funny and realised they were laughing at her. She looked down at herself and her eyes widened. The water had made her swimsuit completely transparent. There was not even a towel nearby that she could cover herself with.

  Jill was in the home because her mother was ill, with cancer. She had other family in Ireland. Once her mother died, and Jill understood it would happen soon, she was going to them. That she had a large family kept her safe from sexual abuse, but not from humiliation.

  I guessed who had been behind that plan. It had Morag and Anthony Jordan’s signature all over it.

  That was the last time I saw children in the pool. I saw them near it, though: they were cleaning up after a party.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  He was a boy, although his muscular body belied his age, an angry boy who enjoyed inflicting pain. I would see him in the grounds, totally absorbed in his workout regime. First the warm up, stretching, bending and running on the spot, then press-ups. From somewhere he had acquired weights, and I saw the tendons on his neck bulge as he lifted them, his vest soaked with sweat.

  He took no notice of us watching him; he was far too focused on building his muscles. None of us dared tease him and even the wardens left him alone. Not that they had always done so. When his body was slight and his face smooth, he had been one of the boys taken on to the boats, the magnificent yachts owned by smiling rich men in white flannels and navy blazers. Excited little boys were promised a day out at sea, but came back changed for ever.

  He was aware that I had seen him on the day he returned from his first maritime experience. He was crying, knuckles pressed hard into to his eyes to stop the tears. I had moved forwards to comfort him, for I had seen the telltale streak of blood on the back of his shorts that told me, as much as the tears did, what had taken place out there on the yacht. He brushed off my hand angrily and walked away. He never spoke to me again.

  ‘I ain’t no fucking poof,’ he spat, when a man who visited the home, as many did for only one purpose, glanced in his direction.

  ‘Faggot, fucking queer,’ he snarled, towards the departing back. ‘No one’s going to touch me.’

  I think he hoped that someone would try to lay a hand on his shoulder, whisper an unambiguous suggestion, thereby allowing that rage to escape so that he could justify his fists hammering his would-be seducer. But no one did.

  He was seventeen when he raped me. I knew he was dangerous. Other girls had told me. He had attacked my friend Rachael. She cried and cried when she described how he had forced himself on her. He had pushed her to the ground, torn off her panties and brutally entered her. His grunts seemed more of anger than enjoyment.

  ‘Why does he hate us so much?’ she asked plaintively.

  I didn’t say: ‘Because of, what was done to him.’ I didn’t want to offer an excuse for the person he had become because of his childhood. Instead I said I didn’t know. I helped her into the bath, scooped up water and let it run down the places she couldn’t reach while she scrubbed away the stink of him. Afterwards I smeared cream on to the numerous scratches and bites on her body. ‘We must tell the head,’ I said. ‘He should be got rid of for this. He’s old enough. Anyone can see what he’s turned into.’

  There had been rapes ever since I had been at Haut de la Garenne, but this one was different. This had not been the act of a man who enjoyed seeing fear on a child’s face, or one who used status to make a frightened teenager submit. Neither was it an act of bravado in which a fellow inmate saw rape as an initiation into manhood. It had been a brutal act of hatred, not desire. He had hit Rachael so hard she had nearly blacked out. There were bruises on her face, neck and thighs. Her breasts bore the marks of his teeth and her lips were swollen because he had bitten them.

  ‘The head would call the police if I were to take you to him,’ I said.

  Rachael protested. She was scared of what would happen. ‘If he isn’t sent away and finds out that I reported him, what might he do?’ she asked. More to the point, she clearly didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t expect to be shown any compassion if she did. The home closed ranks against any scandal leaking into the world outside and the police saw us as an underclass. So we kept quiet, and prayed he would leave us alone now. We hoped he might be frightened that we would make a complaint. Perhaps he would vent his anger on his workouts and concentrate on building up his body, ready for the fights he would undoubtedly get into once he left the home.

  That was what I hoped, and over the next few weeks I came to believe that he was keeping his head down and marking off the days to when he could walk out through Haut de la Garenne’s doors.

  That hope died the day he raped me.

  At sixteen I weighed just under eight stone and the self-defence moves Frank had taught me were useless against the boy in a man’s body who came up behind me. His arm was round my throat before I was even aware of his presence. He was squeezing it so hard I was unable to breathe, let alone scream. His knee pushed hard into the small of my back and I went down so hard that the air whooshed out of my lungs. He turned me over and I looked into his unblinking eyes. There’s no one in there, I thought, moments before his fist crashed down on the side of my head and the world began to turn black. I used every little bit of willpower to stay conscious. His chest was hovering over mine, so there was no room for me to swing my arms and thump him, though I doubt he would have felt it if I had. I could only push against something that felt like a wall of steel. I begged him to stop but it made no difference to his determination. When he entered me his hands gripped my legs so hard I felt the bruises form. He bit my breasts, covered my mouth with his, not to kiss me but to block out my screams. I had been forced to have sex many times with different men but this wa
s worse. He wanted to hurt me. It was as though every thrust was an act of revenge for what had been done to him.

  It was when the blackness returned and I felt myself losing consciousness again that he climbed off me. The sound of his footsteps walking down the cold granite corridor told me that my ordeal was over, but still I couldn’t move. I wanted to, but my limbs would not obey me.

  Morag Jordan found me. She didn’t need to ask what had happened. Instead she helped me to my feet, put my arm around her shoulders so I could lean on her for support, then led me to her office. I heard her telling someone to fetch hot water, Dettol and antiseptic cream.

  ‘Go and make some tea,’ she told another. ‘Put in plenty of sugar and she’d better have a brandy as well.’ I sipped the tea, too shocked to wonder why she, of all people, was helping me. Morag swabbed the bites on my breasts with disinfectant making me gasp with pain. ‘Have to do this, Madeleine,’ she said firmly. ‘The human bite carries more bacteria than any other and we don’t want you in hospital with septicaemia, do we?’

  If I had not been so dazed and in pain I might have realised that she didn’t want me to end up in hospital for various reasons. Doctors are not known for covering up crimes and would be bound to report it to the police.

  As she ministered to me I believed that, for the first time since I’d met her, she was being kind. This was an illusion that was quickly shattered by her next words. ‘I think you and he just went too far,’ I heard her say.

  ‘He raped me,’ I protested incredulously.

  ‘Don’t be silly, Madeleine. I know what you teenage girls are like. Always sniffing around the boys, especially the ones who are like grown men. Oh, you might look innocent, but just how many have you had, hey?’

  I glared at through the one eye that wasn’t swollen shut. ‘I’m not the only one he’s done it to, either.’

  ‘Well, you’re the first to complain.’

  ‘I want to report him to the head and to the police. He’s got to be stopped. He could kill someone,’ I said desperately. I wanted her – everyone – to believe me. That vicious rape was just too much for me to keep quiet about.

  ‘Well, you’d better think carefully before you do that, Madeleine,’ she said.

  ‘Let me explain something to you about what happens when a girl, especially one like you, tells the police she was raped. First, they look sceptical and act as though they don’t believe her.’

  ‘But you can see my bruises, the bite marks,’ I interrupted angrily.

  ‘They’ll just say you like a bit of rough and now perhaps the boy’s no longer interested in you. Happens lots of times when they get what they want. Not very nice, I know, but not against the law. The police will hint you’re being vindictive because of it.’

  ‘What happens if I tell them I want to lay charges and refuse to go away?’

  ‘Well, it will most probably end up in court, and if you think the police can be harsh, just wait until you meet the defence barrister. He’s not, I can tell you, interested in upholding the law. He just wants to win his case. Whatever he thinks deep down, he’ll act as though he sees you as a cunning little slut who’ll do anything to cause trouble for the boy and discredit Haut de la Garenne. He’ll insinuate that you hate being a ward of court and you think this could be your escape. Not difficult when you’ve run away. That’s something the police have on record. The defence barrister will have dug out every bit of dirt on you that he can find. Then, while you have to stand in that witness box, he’ll tear you to shreds, as he shares his version of what happened with everyone there. You won’t be able to hold your own against an educated, clever man such as he will be. The fact that you were not a virgin when it happened will come out. That boy’s friends will stand up and say they’ve had you too. They’ll describe in nice, colourful detail how you enticed them to have sex with you. How you twitched and moaned as you climaxed. You’ll be accused of liking rough sex and the court will be told that you begged the boy to hit you. That’s what will happen, Madeleine. Now is that really something you want to put yourself through? Or your mother? She’ll be sitting there hearing all about her tart of a daughter.’

  ‘But it’s not true. I’ve never been near any of his friends. I never wanted to have sex with anyone. I was forced, you know by who.’

  She stopped me then, before I could name names. ‘So you say, Madeleine. Do you think anyone is going to believe that? I mean, and let’s be honest here, have you ever made a formal complaint?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you tell the nuns?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Any of your social workers?’

  ‘And what about your mother? . . . I thought not,’ she said triumphantly, when I made no reply. ‘Why was that?’

  Because I was scared I wouldn’t be believed. Because I was threatened with what would happen if I did. Because I would be blamed.

  ‘But you know what’s gone on here. You could speak up for me.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Madeleine. I have no intention of risking my job by helping you with your complaints. So, think long and hard about what I’ve just told you.’

  That night I fought off tears. For the first time since I had met Morag I believed she and the others who ran that home had won. My spirit was finally shattered.

  I did not report the rape.

  * * *

  I cannot name the boy: to do so would make him more real, more human than my memories want to allow. He’s dead now, a drug overdose. He didn’t even make it to his twenty-first. He left the home and, as others before and after him, found other lost souls. Oblivion from his demons came in the form of pills and needles.

  When I heard of his demise I tried not to let the picture of another boy, the small one with tears on his cheeks and blood on his shorts, stay in my mind. It was easier to remember him with his bulging muscles and hard eyes. Sometimes I wonder what might have happened if I had defied Morag Jordan and reported him. He wasn’t eighteen so he would have been tried in a young offenders’ court. Would he have been punished if Morag had spoken out or if he had told the court what had happened to him that sunny day on the white yacht? Would he have received help?

  I had asked her the night of my rape, if she believed me.

  No, she had replied. But I knew she did.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  For the two days after Morag had found me, I crept around the home avoiding contact with anyone. I felt hollow, worthless. I believed that everything I had worked for was futile, and that that the dreams I had nurtured of being independent and successful had now turned to dust.

  I had worked hard at my school, kept myself in clothes and a few luxuries with my summer job, and never let my optimism for the future wane. But that latest attack, that brutal rape, I could not take.

  I snuck out in the grounds to smoke cigarettes, but what I really wanted was a drink. Anything to numb the pain. Alcohol, I had found, from when Colin Tilbrook had put that amber liquid into my hand, did just that.

  There would be no bright future for me, I believed. There was nothing to look forward to.

  My years at Haut de la Garenne flashed in front of me, the brutality and the humiliation. I had to escape it. I went to the small village of Gorey. I have no recollection of how I got there, just of being in a bar where a jukebox was playing loud music, competing with laughter and conversation. I had never felt so alone. I downed my first drink quickly, then the second and third.

  ‘Don’t you think you’ve had enough, dear?’ asked the barman, kindly. ‘Boyfriend trouble, is it? Never you mind, a pretty girl like you . . .’ I didn’t wait for him to tell me I would soon find another.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You’re right. I have had enough.’

  I walked along to the pier, looked down at the sea now mirroring the blackness of the night sky. I thought of Geoffrey as I climbed on to the wall and leapt in.

  Two fishermen saw me topple into the water and hauled me out.
They pressed on my chest until I gasped and vomited water tinged with alcohol. A blanket covered me as, shivering with shock and cold, I was placed on a stretcher, then lifted into an ambulance. The noise of the siren barely penetrated my consciousness.

  It was the following morning when the psychiatrist came. He sat beside my bed and asked why I had done it. The fishermen had told the ambulance driver that it was no accident: they had seen me throw myself in.

  I had no answer except that I no longer wished to live, which wasn’t the one he wanted to hear.

  One of the nurses tried to get through to me. ‘Did you not think, when you jumped, of all the things you would never experience again?’ she asked.

  Yes, I thought, willing her to be quiet. Pain and misery. That’s why I did it.

  Undeterred, she continued to list the things she thought might spark regret. ‘The warmth of the sun on your skin, walking on the beach and feeling sand between your toes would be my first two,’ I heard, before I tuned her out.

  Receiving no sign of interest from me, she took the hint and walked away.

  A children’s officer came next and tried to elicit some response from me. I had none to give. I didn’t even have the energy to pretend that, whatever the fishermen had said, it was a drunken accident so that I could leave and get it right the next time. They kept me in for another day, then transferred me to St Saviour’s Psychiatric Unit.

  That afternoon, a different doctor, in corduroy trousers and a tweed jacket, sat by my bed. ‘You’re well enough to get up, Madeleine,’ he told me. ‘Would you like a nurse to help you dress?’

  ‘No,’ I replied, clutching the sheet. The idea of leaving the safety of the bed made me feel as though my stomach had been invaded by a swarm of butterflies. ‘I want to stay here,’ I whispered.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It feels safe.’

  ‘Aren’t you feeling any better?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’

  He explained to me, in a voice that seemed far away, that there was a treatment he could put me on. He assured me that it would rid me of my depression. That the result was more or less instant and that the medication he could prescribe would take longer to work. The treatment he advocated was electric-shock therapy. There were a few side effects, he told me. It frequently caused loss of memory for a short time. That was the bit I latched on to: getting rid of my memories.