Handstands In The Dark: A True Story of Growing Up and Survival

by Godley, Janey

  Ann was pacing up and down her living-room carpet, sobbing. When she saw me, she opened her arms and pulled me to her.

  ‘Janey! Janey!’ was all she could say as we hugged.

  Ann had tried hard all her life to lock the memories away inside her head. When we were grown up, we had never spoken of the abuse, in fact we never even spoke David Percy’s name. Now we held hands and sat in silence.

  Ann had been through a difficult marriage and divorce, she was happily remarried and had just given birth to the second of her two youngest daughters when I had brought all this back to hurt her. She had suffered severe depression all her adult life as a result of the abuse. She hardly ever let her kids out of her sight; she was fearful and weepy around them; her relationships had suffered; and she had never had much self-confidence. I felt horribly hurt for her.

  We sat together that night and chatted and chatted about everything except the details of the abuse itself. We spoke about Mammy, we shared stories of her. She was everywhere: laughing as she dragged on a cigarette; dancing on the cold lino in the hall in her bare feet, her long toenails clicking and clattering as she skittered around; carrying all our school dinners up from the school dinner hall –she had paid for them but we all had measles that week and could not attend so she went and collected them; doling out dry mince and sloppy puddings to us on the familiar blue plastic plates from our school. Mammy was passed back and forth like a curious wee broken doll that we smiled over, told an anecdote about, then passed back to the other. Mammy was a storytellers’ pass the parcel. Each tale involved peeling a layer off and looking at what was left. It was good to finally talk about her that night; Ann and I adjusted to a new truth we shared, the new version of Mammy, the honest memories of our past.

  Ann and I managed to put something of our past into a perspective that we could both almost deal with. I was horrified to know how much damage our own Uncle had inflicted on her. It made me start to think about how I had dealt with my own demons. That night, I decided my Dad had to be told. I knew Ann would not be ready but, if I could tell him on both our behalves, then he might be able to get a handle on what had actually happened to his own daughters. I also felt it was time for him to take his share of the blame ‘cake’. I knew he had been an alcoholic when we were abused, I knew he was unaware, but I felt he now needed to know that, while he was drinking in The Waverley, that bastard of an Uncle had been hurting us. By telling him, I would be getting some of the anger off my own chest.

  As a mother I had watched Ashley grow, I had questioned every nuance of her behaviour in case she began pulling out her hair or biting her nails till they bled or getting the nickname ‘Shakey Cakey’ because she trembled so much – as I had. My parents had never questioned anything when I had been a child.

  Sean called Dad and asked him to come over to our flat.

  He arrived with my stepmum Mary.

  Sean took Mary into the kitchen.

  Dad came into the living room with me.

  I sat at one end of the room. Dad sat at the other.

  An expanse of brown carpet and a wooden table separated us. He looked at me with concern in his eyes.

  ‘What’s wrong, Janey?’

  I just could not bring myself to say it. Every time I tried, my mouth felt like someone had shoved damp dough into my cheeks and it had stuck my tongue to the roof of my mouth.

  ‘Janey, what is it?’ His eyes were clouded and his brow came down. It was the look that had made my heart lurch as a child. The look that said I don’t like this.

  ‘Dad, when Ann and I were small, David Percy sexually abused us …’ I stammered out the whole story, I never stopped, I was scared to stop talking, I kept going on and on and on talking, I kept my eyes on the floor and started to see tiny wee white, brown and blue twists of wool in the brown carpet that I had never seen before. If you actually stared carefully at it, it wasn’t actually brown at all; you could start to see how the brown broke down and the colours combined. I felt like I was getting smaller and smaller and crawling deeper into the fibre of the carpet. I did not want to look up. I did not want to see the pain that I knew would be in his eyes. I was saying things that would hurt my father for the rest of his life. I was speaking words that would change his dreams, change his past, change his feelings towards his dead wife. Me, I was doing it.

  ‘Janey!’ He was there at my knee. I realised I had clenched myself into a wee round ball as I talked. My arms had wriggled their way round my knees and they were in turn brought up to my forehead. I was a ball of pain and shame. ‘I am so sorry, Janey. I am so sorry, I wish I could go back, hen, and fix it all. I am so sorry.’ He hugged me and sat on the floor with me. ‘I should have been there. If I had been a better father, this wouldn’t have happened.’ He said it. He took some blame. He told me over and over how he should have watched more, how he should have asked more, how he should have loved me more. My Dad was saving me now. He was here and he was telling me how much he wished he could have been there.

  It was a huge weight off my shoulders finally telling Dad but I knew that the rest of my family would have to know as well.

  Mij arrived late on a Saturday night, just as we were shutting the pub. ‘Janey, whit’s up?’ he asked, wrapping his big grey woolly coat around his bony shoulders; he looked like my Mum now that he was thin and scraggy from heroin. I took him upstairs to the flat so we could have some privacy. The kitchen was cosy; Ashley was fast asleep in her own room; lying there she was oblivious to any pain in anyone’s childhood, surrounded by teddy bears, panda bear, parental protection and love. I looked through the wee wooden window that linked the kitchen to her bedroom. Her face was cherub-like, her wee chubby hands resting under her cheek, her bed strewn with books and Whisky our new cat, fluffy and ginger, wrapped around her bare ankles which peeped out from under the blue duvet. I turned to Mij, sitting there at the wooden table beside the windows which overlooked the dark, windy London Road.

  ‘Mij, I need to tell you this.’

  His eyes were bloodshot. He looked like shit and I was about to give him ten hundred more reasons to take heroin. Again I fumbled over the words; again I fiddled with my buttons on my cardigan.

  ‘Percy abused Ann and me when we were weans …’ I blurted it all out. Mij stood up quickly and leaned against the kitchen unit. His back was against the cupboard; he raised his eyes and held his face in his hands then slowly slid down onto the floor. He crouched against the laminate wood; his sobs were frightening.

  ‘Ah … am … gonnae … kill … that … big … Orange … bastard,’ he hissed. ‘I fucked up, I beat my own Mammy, I let you get abused, I am a fucking shite brother.’ He sobbed and gulped into his sleeves.

  ‘Mij, for fuck’s sake, this is not about you,’ I shouted. I looked quickly into Ashley’s bedroom to check she was still asleep.

  ‘I know, Janey,’ Mij told me. ‘But I failed everyone. I always thought he was up to something, I know I knew something but I cannae remember whit it was, I’m sorry. I love you. I’ll do anything fur you. I know I wis a big bastard, I shouldnae huv hit my Mammy or you. I abused ye as well, being violent and no’ helping.’ He started bawling on the floor. I could see he was really hurt; he had been a big bully when I was younger; I had really wanted to hate him; but I had always felt sorry for him. Now he stood up and put his arms around me and just held me for ages. ‘My two wee sisters abused by that sick fucking pervert!’ Mij stared at the floor. ‘I will get him fucking killed!’

  ‘Don’t talk shit,’ I told him. ‘If I need him dead I will knife the fucker myself; I just need you to be strong for Ann and me and no dramatics. Dad knows now and Ann is telling Vid this week, so no more secrets.’ I hugged him and put on some tea for us all.

  ‘Sean will kill him,’ Mij muttered to me. ‘Sean Storrie will pull that fucker’s heart out.’

  ‘No, Mij, he won’t, coz Sean told me that he does not have to avenge me, coz Percy took nothing from me that belonged to Sean. He
says I am a whole person who has to deal with this on my own terms.’

  ‘Well, he should kill him!’ Mij stood looking at me as if Sean had let us all down.

  ‘Why, Mij? So you don’t have to go back to Shettleston and defend your sister’s honour? Are ye worried the Orange Walk freaks will hate ye for hitting a Protestant? I don’t want anyone fighting him. I will deal with this myself, OK?’

  That night, as I lay in bed and relayed the whole conversation to Sean, I started to get mad myself. Maybe I should kill Percy?

  ‘Sean,’ I asked, staring into the darkness, ‘would you kill him if I asked you to?’

  ‘Do you want him dead? Could you live knowing that because of you he was dead?’

  I paused.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good, then you are a good person. You just need to work out how you want to deal with all this and I think you are doing well. I love you and am very proud of you, Janey.’ He held me tight.

  It had been difficult telling my family but, when I told Sean’s dad, it was very easy and Old George was very succinct in his remedy:

  ‘Fucking bastard! He needs his balls cut off and put in his mouth. That’s whit they used to dae to perverts when I was young.’

  ‘Well, George, I really don’t know whit I want done, to be honest.’

  That same week, I heard Granda Davy Percy had died. I never asked how, why or when. Someone told Sean, Sean told me, and my reaction was, ‘Good. That’s one more pervert in the ground.’ I was angry more than anything. I felt I should have confronted him while he was alive. I told my brothers and sister I would not go to his funeral. My Dad agreed with me and stayed away from his ex-father-in-law’s funeral. I don’t know who went or what happened. I did not ask. I had other issues to deal with. Ashley was about to start school. There was a uniform to buy, school bag to be ordered, sportswear to collect and a new part of our life was about to start.

  * * *

  She looked lovely in her wee green blazer and smart hat, all set to become a schoolgirl. Her very first day reminded me of the day I started school. Ashley – like I had done 25 years before – was sitting up at 7.00 a.m. waiting patiently, all dressed, so excited, so ready to burst down the stairs and start a new life outside her home.

  Paul, Sammy and Sarah all got up early and came down the landing stairwell to wave her off on her big day. I was as excited as Ashley. Sean was distraught: he vomited all night and was crying as he watched her run down the stairs in her outfit.

  ‘I just can’t bear to think she will be away every single day, Janey!’

  ‘Daddy, come on, we will be late!’ Ashley shouted from the bottom of the stairs.

  Sean pulled himself together for her sake and we all set off in the blue delivery van we used for the pub. Ashley sat in the back seat laughing and chattering. No nerves at all.

  ‘Play the Hoola Girls, Daddy, please?’ she pleaded, patting the wee green pinafore on her knees. Sean pressed the tape deck and Ashley sang her heart out: her head bobbed along to the music as we travelled from the decaying old tenements of the East End to the tree-lined streets of the West End.

  The school looked very imposing, a big terrace of Georgian mansions leading up to Glasgow University, as if that geographical path was a predestined choice for your own wee daughter. You start down here and you end up there. When we arrived, all the new mums and dads were negotiating the parking, getting used to the small streets, glancing at each other nervously, watching other wee girls holding on grimly to their mums’ hands, people who we would get to know so well when our daughter shared the same class. Ashley ran from our grip and dashed up the short flight of stairs. She recognised Mrs Finley, the teacher she had met at an induction day the previous month.

  ‘Hello! I am here,’ Ashley said, stretching out her tiny palm to shake hands with the tall lady.

  ‘Hello,’ replied Mrs Finley in pink, with pearls and blue skirt, kneeling down.

  ‘I am Ashley Storrie and I don’t speak slang. Nice pearls. Where is my classroom, please?’ She never even looked back at us to wave goodbye. Mrs Finley smiled to us as she led Ashley inside to hang up her blazer and start her first day. Sean and I stayed standing alone in the street, watching mothers and fathers say goodbye to sad children who did not want to be left there. We stood quietly, late autumn flowers still in bloom nodding their heads all along the railings that bordered the playground. We walked down the hill together. Sunshine beamed through rust and orange trees to give the West End of Glasgow a superior glow. Big tall town houses and massive mansions lined the back streets of Byres Road. Hippy coffee shops lined the main street next to upmarket book stores and music shops that specialised in finding the one song you thought everyone had forgotten about. This was an area where couscous and mung beans were organic, coffee was served in big steaming bowls and practically no one dressed in sportswear unless they were actually running through the park or on their way to play hockey. All I could think of that day was This is where my daughter will grow up; this is where she will meet poets and educated people and folk who don’t swear loudly and come from broken homes; this is where she will mix with people who are not like me.

  Ashley loved school immediately and seemed to make friends very easily; she was a real social butterfly. Every day she jumped from bed, ran into the living room to get ready and couldn’t get to school quickly enough. The teachers were very pleased with her progress and made encouraging comments on her behaviour and attitude. They organised a special Concert Day to bring all the new parents and children together. Each child would sing one verse from a song of her choice and we would all gather round and have tea in the school hall beforehand and enjoy meeting other parents.

  When the big day came, Sean and I hung around at the back; he had never been very good at meeting new people and preferred me to do the talking as always. Most of the parents were slightly older but lovely people and nice to meet. The concert started, the girls sang sweetly and we clapped along, watching proudly. When it was Ashley’s turn to sing, she took a deep breath, started to stamp her feet, then smiled a big smile at me and belted out: ‘We don’t need no education.’

  I thought my toes were going to snap inside my shoes and my womb was going to fall out with embarrassment as she sang and sang. Ashley smiled after she finished, and announced very demurely, ‘That was from my favourite album Pink Floyd’s The Wall.’

  The room was deathly quiet. Ashley continued smiling at me. No one reacted. Then the headmistress broke the silence by laughing really loud and shouted from the back, ‘Well done, Ashley! Anarchy at five! You will make head girl!’

  She was going to be fine at this school.

  22

  A scary fairground ride

  THE WEAVERS WAS working out fine too; customers were being loyal and we tried our best to make sure they were looked after. But Sean’s health suddenly took a downturn and he started to get very weak again; I was worried he would have another brain haemorrhage. He had stopped eating and was sleeping too much during the day and never enough at night. The doctor sent him for more tests but nothing was found. He was already on constant medication from the last brain problem and his mood swings were becoming more difficult to deal with. He started shouting at me again. I would run out in the middle of the night, return in the morning, get Ashley to school and then open up the Weavers and pretend nothing had happened as Sean needed to sleep the day away and would not talk about what had happened last night.

  We could keep up this charade as long as Ashley was not affected. When we were alone, we veered from love to hate and anger, from affection to spitting in each other’s faces only to emerge smiling from the back shop to serve a customer. It was like a scary fairground ride that neither of us was willing to get off. I had married Sean when I was only 19; I had no idea how other people lived and loved. Did they scream and rage? Did real love have to be this intense? Was I addicted to the drama? I didn’t know but, even when it all went smoothly, I would pick a
t him until he exploded – I would argue with him, shout at him, remind him what a bastard he had been, how he had hit me, how he had made my life difficult, how all my dreams had had to be put aside because his dad had a pub to run – I’d pick-pick-pick until … Here we go again! He turned back into an angry polar bear and we hopped back on the fairground ride.

  I cry.

  He shouts.

  I run.

  He searches for me in the back streets around the pub.

  I return in the morning.

  He shouts.

  He sleeps.

  I open the Weavers.

  That was my marriage. I made it like this or, at the very least, I accepted it. My own family was up in arms. I seemed to have a knack for upsetting everyone. I had talked openly about the abuse. My Aunt Rita was very disturbed. I was talking about her brother. She never actually said anything to me but she did go and see my sister. Ann and Aunt Rita were very close, much closer than Ann and I were. Aunt Rita asked outright if what everyone was saying was true. It must have been hard for Ann to tell her the truth, because Aunt Rita was a very sickly woman, always in and out of hospital with breathing problems, cystic fibrosis and lung disease. Ann later told me that, when she told Aunt Rita the truth about our past, the woman was distraught. I hated hurting everyone with this scabby knowledge. It was like I held a key to everyone’s misery.

  * * *

  My brothers Mij and Vid also had to deal with the fall-out from our revelation. Both of them lived near Uncle David Percy and both had to face him either up at our dead grandfather’s house or in the local pub. It caused particular problems for Vid, who had friends in the Orange Lodge and who hung out among Rangers football fans, usually including David Percy. Vid told me he avoided and never really confronted my Uncle, which was fine by me; I realised Vid was stuck in a difficult position, caught between his friends, his Protestant culture and his sisters’ honour. Ann and I both made it clear to everyone we did not want violence or to be ‘avenged’ in any way. I told people we would deal with it in our way which, to be honest, was actually to do nothing, not even talking to each other again about what had been done to us when we were children. I felt Ann didn’t need to know the details of what I had gone through and I didn’t really need to face her story in depth. We both knew he had abused us and that was all we needed to support each other. But Ann attended a psychologist and I started group therapy.