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

by Godley, Janey

  ‘Maybe Sean would like to say something?’ the cancer announcer intoned.

  Sean looked at me and silently shook his head.

  ‘He just shook his head at me,’ I told Harry. ‘That means I have to tell you he is not going to speak. He even gets me to communicate with other people for him.’

  I sat back smugly now. Sean just looked at me. He slowly took off his glasses and put them on his knee and rubbed his eyes with his thumbs. I thought he was going to explode.

  ‘Maybe you should stop speaking for him.’ The patronising cardigan-wearing Catholic smiled at me. ‘Maybe you overwhelm Sean; don’t you think that may be a possibility?’

  Sean leaned forward and looked Harry straight in the eyes.

  ‘Actually, everything she says is right. I am a bastard. I make her sad and fuck up her life and maybe the best thing is to accept I did a lot of things wrong here?’

  ‘Well, this is a good start,’ said Harry. He was happy he had two puppets to play with now. He nodded and smiled and started to write stuff down in his wee book. This really annoyed me because he had never written down anything I said!

  Then our appointment was over.

  Sean and I walked straight out into the cold dark night.

  ‘Fucking hell,’ Sean laughed as he took my hand and walked me to the car park. ‘That was weird, Janey. He was nutty, eh?’

  ‘Sean, I meant all that stuff: you are so hard to live with an’ I get scared you will just lose your temper and kill me.’ I kept looking down at my feet as I walked; I was scared to break the spell. Sean was being so co-operative and honest.

  ‘Janey, I would never kill you. I don’t know why you think this.’ He pulled me towards him and lifted my chin up as he spoke.

  ‘My Mammy was killed,’ I said. ‘Killed by a man who frightened her, so it can happen, Sean.’ I felt tears choking in my throat.

  ‘Janey, I’m not him; I can’t believe you think I would really hurt you. I don’t mean to scare you like that; if you scream at me I don’t get scared, so just laugh at me when you feel I am scaring you: it’s your fault for letting me mean that much to you and getting into your head.’ He cocked his head to the side and smiled.

  ‘My fucking fault? It’s my fucking fault you scare me? I let you scare me?’ I was now shouting at him in the cathedral car park. ‘How the fuck did that happen, Sean? I let you scare me? Fuck you, ya arse! Take yer holy fucking Catholic weird therapy and your blame theory and stick it up yer retarded arse!’ I stomped off into the dark. I started to run. Now I remembered why I always wore flat shoes: it was because I could run faster in them. I ran all the way down to the side of the Clyde. MY fault? Everything MY fault? Thoughts and anger just ran out of control inside my head. I must be stupid and shite at everything … I let him scare me … I did all this. I was out of breath and my breathing was clouding up in front of me in the cold air, as I walked fast along the grass verge that ran alongside the wall that stopped people from falling into the river. Wee drunk men sat on the ornate benches that were built for tourists back in the City of Culture year. I was muttering under my breath, swearing and grinding my teeth.

  A voice shouted out: ‘Men are all cunts!’

  I looked round. An old drunk man wearing a black coat over at least three jackets, smiled at me and held up his can of lager. His smile was wide; he had teeth that looked like a row of condemned buildings.

  I smiled back and shouted: ‘Yeah, they’re bastards and fucking cunts!’

  Sean was at the end of the walkway. I ignored him, continued towards the car and took my place in the front seat. I wanted to go home. He got into the driver’s seat and tried to hold my hand; I just gripped my fingers into a ball and made him hold the stump of a fist.

  * * *

  After this episode at the cathedral, Sean decided to consider my opinions more.

  ‘I am sorry I never asked you if you wanted to be a barmaid, Janey,’ he said. ‘No one asked me if I wanted to be a barman, you know. Anyway I think we should buy the whole business. It will be security for Ashley in the future – and for us. What do you think?’

  ‘What do you want me to think? If you think this is the best way to spend and invest our savings then I agree.’ I smiled blankly at him. I was planning to run away when Ashley was 16. I didn’t really care what he did.

  Sean and Old George decided to draw up a contract through which Sean and I would buy the building and flats above. We had proved we could run it successfully. We already owned our flat so we just had to buy the other eight and the pub. So, one day soon afterwards, Sean sat with Old George and the Storrie family lawyer Mr Bovey making plans and working out prices. I, of course, made tea for the men. After a long day of paper shuffling and teacups it was all settled – Sean and I would be buying the whole place. I was not told the total price nor the method of payment. I don’t think any of Sean’s brothers were told we were buying the building; that was the Storrie way – nobody should know anything unless they had to.

  We celebrated by going to an upmarket hotel for the night. Ashley stayed with my Dad. Sean and I were booked into the same suite Michael Jackson had stayed in a year before. The bedroom was huge with a big four-poster in the middle; the bathroom housed a huge Victorian bath with claw feet which took up most of the white-tiled room. We had a great time, dinner was fantastic and we went to bed and booked breakfast in our room for the next morning. As I lay there that night and watched Sean’s face, I wished I could sleep that peacefully. I still had my nightmares most nights. Dark corners in my head, evil demons chasing me, sniggering at my attempts to wake myself up to escape their pointy-nailed clutches. Wake up, Janey! Wake up, Janey! I would whisper like a mantra in my head as I ran naked, slipping on blood-drenched cobblestones along streets I had never seen before, unsure of who was chasing me but knowing I had to keep running. Cold winds would slap my exposed breasts as I tried to cover my lower body with my hands and blood flowed through the gaps between my fingers. I can’t see where I am bleeding from, but pain sears through my head and sweat drips from my body as I fight with cotton sheets in a struggle to tell the difference between sleep and real life.

  Sean lay there, his dark lashes resting on his cheeks, brown hair flopping on the white cotton pillow and his mouth reminding me of Ashley when she had her cheeky face on. I got up out of bed and walked to the bathroom, filled the huge bathtub with hot, steaming water and a luxurious bubble bath. The smell and steam relaxed me. I lay there in the depths of warmth, listening to Hall and Oates and Prince on my Sony Walkman, being careful not to get the headphones wet.

  I loved it when Sean treated me like this and, lying there in that bath, I half believed he would look after me like this for ever. Maybe. If things got better I would not have to leave him when Ashley was 16. Maybe by then it would all be OK. I lay and wondered how the Weavers would look in ten years’ time. Would I still be there? Would Sean still be chasing me barefoot?

  Later that morning, just after breakfast, Sean and I sat and read the newspapers. I opened up the Glasgow Herald and read an article about a woman who had been sexually abused as a child; she had her face blanked out in the newspaper to protect her identity, but she told of how her family and neighbours were angry at her for speaking out. I was enraged. Why was her face blacked out? What had she done wrong? This kind of article annoyed me because it reinforced all those beliefs that to be abused means you should be ashamed. I called the journalist, Maggie Barry, at the Glasgow Evening Times (sister paper to the Herald) and told her how I was angry at the whole piece, that people should not black out their face as if they had to be ashamed of their past. It was not them who should be ashamed but the abusers. She listened to me, then suggested that I help her write my story with my face exposed and tell how I felt about the issue of the ‘shame’ of sex abuse. I stopped for a second and thought about what I was actually doing, then agreed she could come and meet me. I was ready to talk about it openly and be damned anyone who was not ready to tal
k about it. Sean and Ashley were supportive. Ashley was just a child but her feelings were important as well.

  Maggie Barry came to meet me and brought along as her photographer Ray Beltrami, my old mate who used to drink at the Weavers.

  ‘Janey, Ray can sit in the kitchen and you can tell me everything,’ Maggie explained.

  ‘No way,’ said Ray, clutching his camera and sitting down. ‘Why did you no’ tell me, Janey? I never knew all this happened to you. I want to sit here with you.’

  I told Maggie everything I could – the whole story. She explained that I could not name my Uncle because he had not been charged with the offence but, if I charged him, I could mention him by name.

  ‘But it’s too late to charge him now, that’s the problem,’ I said.

  ‘It’s not too late. There’s no limitation. If you and your sister go speak to the police then they can decide if there’s enough evidence to bring charges.’

  I was stunned. It had never entered my head I could still report it.

  I read Maggie’s article before it went to press and it was ambiguous about who the abuser was. I was worried that my lovely old Uncle John would be suspected as the culprit, because he never married and was childless. He was very ill in the Royal Infirmary at the time, so I made sure Maggie Barry added in that my abuser had children and was married. I also mentioned in the article that when I told my Uncle John about my abuse he was horrified, which would further clear his name.

  On the day before the article was to be printed, I was at the Glasgow Evening Times building checking over my picture and discussing the piece when I suddenly felt this overwhelming need to go to the hospital and see Uncle John. I ran out of the building. The Royal Infirmary was only minutes away on foot, but I spotted an old mate of mine in his car. I ran across, opened his door and shouted above his music:

  ‘Thomas, can you drive me up to the Royal?’

  ‘No worries, Janey!’ he shouted, then turned his Irish rebel songs down to a minimum and drove up the hill towards the hospital.

  I ran through the main building and up the red staircase; I knew Uncle John’s ward was on the third floor; I had a terrible feeling of impending doom; I had to get there now! I was breathless when I finally reached his bedside. The curtains were pulled right around the bed and my heart lurched.

  ‘Don’t be too long with him – he is very tired,’ a nurse said, swishing the flowery curtain back to reveal an old man looking very small and childlike with a white sheet tucked under his chin. I was shocked. He looked very ill and slightly dazed. My Uncle John had been a big man with a sparkly character; he was famous for his witty asides and funny anecdotes. The man in the bed had a skinny wee body with parchment skin and scared eyes. When did he get this ill? Did I not visit him enough? Immediately I felt guilty and selfish.

  ‘It’s me, Uncle John – Janey,’ I whispered near his face. ‘I am getting the article published about Uncle David Percy tomorrow.’

  ‘Nail him, Janey,’ he said. His voice was weak. ‘Don’t let him get away with it and make sure the papers know how I feel about that bastard, though I might no’ be here to read it, hen.’

  I sat and watched him for a while. He was shivering; I leaned over and tucked the covers around him. His pale face turned to me; his big brown eyes followed me as I walked around the bed and patted the covers over his bony body. Uncle John was never one for hugs or affection, but I did love him so much. He had always been there in my life when I was a wee kid and would visit often when I had the Weavers. I reached over and held his hand. He let me do this without any fuss.

  ‘I am scared, Janey,’ was all he said.

  I felt my throat choke as a lump of emotion suffocated my words: ‘I love you, Uncle John.’

  ‘That’s good, hen,’ he replied.

  ‘You have to leave now,’ the nurse’s voice interrupted. ‘He is due a test.’

  ‘I will see you soon, eh?’ I tried to smile to him.

  ‘You keep your head up, hen, an’ never let anyone get ye doon. Yer a Currie, remember?’ He smiled as he let my hand go.

  I looked back at him and, as I walked towards the door, he smiled and lifted his bony hand up to wave at me. That was the last time I saw him: he died later that day when my brother Vid was visiting him.

  Before I even got time to deal with his death, the newspaper article was published. There, for all to see, was a big colour picture of me wearing a smile and a pink jumper declaring my abuse to the world. My immediate family already knew the whole truth; now everyone else would. I felt terrible about losing my Uncle John and Dad was in a terrible state about his death. He didn’t care about the article. He had always told me:

  ‘If ye want to dae anything, Janey, just dae it.’

  I had to carry on working in the Weavers as usual. That afternoon brought in my regular old men who sat in the corner, drank their drinks and went home at teatime, just like normal. But this day was different. One old man, Jack, who normally mumbled his order and shouted at me if I played the jukebox too loud, actually leaned over the bar, took my hand and smiled at me.

  ‘Ye were very brave to talk about your past. Lots of us just keep oor heeds doon and get on wi’ life. Good on ye, hen.’ His old hand trembled with emotion as he held onto mine. Jack had eyelids that were so slack you could see the red rims at the bottom of each milky eyeball; the smell of drink and piss on him had often appalled me, yet never once did I think he might have been a small boy who had been sexually abused. I always forgot men were abused as well as girls.

  ‘Thanks, Jack.’ I gripped his veined hand tight and gave him my biggest smile.

  My brother Vid came to see me that same afternoon and told me that he had gone up to my dead Granda Davy Percy’s flat where he suspected my Uncle had been staying. When he went into the flat, the Glasgow Evening Times was lying spread on the floor with the picture of me staring out. The electric fire was warm but nobody was there.

  ‘It was like the Marie Celeste,’ he told me.

  My Uncle David Percy was nowhere to be found. Vid had checked around with my Uncle’s friends and it seemed he had gone down to England to ‘visit some old friends’. He had been separated from his wife by this time and had taken up with another woman, but she said she didn’t know where he was either. I decided that I wanted to get him reported to the police, so I went to see my sister.

  Ann was still a mess. She was trying hard to hold her life together. Her husband Brian was a rock to her. He was a great guy, hard working and lovable. He helped bring up Ann’s two kids from her previous marriage and the two wee baby girls they had from their own union. I knew that dragging up all this pain about our past and her having to deal with Uncle John’s death was dragging her down. She had looked after Uncle John; going over to his flat daily to cook and clean for him before he went into hospital. I knew she had been on anti-depressants for about two or three years and was getting therapy, and I was loath to add to this burden, but I wanted to report it all to the police for my own sanity and to get closure.

  ‘Janey, whit if naeone believes us?’ Ann pleaded, wringing her hands around a towel she was hanging up in her kitchen.

  ‘Well, we can only tell the truth. I want to dae this and I need to know if you do as well. I cannae talk ye intae it, Ann. It has to be your decision.’ I stood looking as her wee girl held onto her skirt. She agreed with me that we needed some closure and this was the best way to deal with it. So I called the London Road Police Office and arranged an appointment with the Female and Child Unit.

  When I arrived with Sean at the square grey concrete building, I started to shake with fear. I remembered the night I had been here with Old George when Paul had been involved in the glue-sniffing trial. I did not like the police from experience and Sean disliked them by genetics.

  ‘Janey Storrie! In here, please,’ a smartly dressed, slim policewoman commanded me. When I walked into the back office with Sean, I was taken aback that it was a male detective I was s
itting opposite. I had expected to be seen by a woman.

  ‘Hello Sean,’ the man said, ‘I am Detective Jarvis, I know yer dad well.’ He reached over and shook Sean’s hand. ‘And you must be Janey.’ He smiled, shaking my hand almost as an afterthought. ‘Tell me what’s been happening, Janey – and take your time, please.’ He looked down at a piece of paper and poised his pen above it to write his report.

  I slowly told him about my childhood, where I was born and what happened. He interjected occasionally, asking me to confirm names of brothers and uncles and who stayed where and who was in the house and what age I was at the time. The interview seemed to take forever with his constant interruptions. My brain felt ragged with the constant need for age reference and school times and where my Dad was and where my Mammy was and why had I taken so long to report this story and did I know the legal ramifications of my statement. It went on and on. He took his time, making sure he got all the facts, and pressed me to tell in detail the actual sexual nature of the attacks. I did feel very uncomfortable although he was very reassuring throughout it all. Sean would look over from time to time and hold my hand. The office was painted that typically horrible pale Police Office green though, on one wall, cheap wood panelling seemed to have taken over. I secretly wondered if Old George had sold them that very familiar fake wood panelling.

  Eventually, the detective closed the file and smiled at me: ‘The bottom line is, Janey, we now send all this to the Procurator Fiscal along with your sister’s statement and we wait to see what happens then. You did very well, Janey, this must be really hard for you.’

  He turned to Sean and asked, ‘Will this man ever get to court or will he be found dead before the trial?’ He asked the question in a jokey tone of voice but one that implied that, if it was taken seriously, that was fine too.

  Sean spoke very quietly but stony-faced: ‘Janey and her sister need to get this out of their system and my family don’t do violence.’