by Lisa James
She must have been sick with worry when she went back across the road to report to Nanny what she had seen but they were powerless, especially now that Mum was married to Dad. There was nothing they could do.
For the first few weeks after Mum brought Katrina home from the hospital, the atmosphere in the flat was calmer. Dad seemed to curb his drinking and gambling, and the fits and rages that I had grown so used to became less frequent. However, the violence was replaced with psychological cruelty. He would use Katrina as a weapon. Sometimes Cheryl and I would be allowed to hold her, and at other times he yelled at us to ‘Fuck off away from her.’ It was sad to see Katrina’s gummy smiles turn into startled cries as we hastily pulled our fingers from her tiny grasp.
When Mum and Dad wanted to go to bed in the afternoon, Katrina would be left with whoever was around and more often than not it was me. I’d sit on the floor beside her in front of the television, constantly bouncing the baby chair to stop her from crying. Occasionally Cheryl and I were allowed to take her out in the pram, but more often than not there would be a massive row when we got back as Dad accused us of having taken the baby ‘over the road to them cunts’. He was determined that none of Mum’s family would ever meet her fifth child. But Nanny and Jenny were desperate to see the baby, so one day when we were sure Dad had gone out and wouldn’t be back for a while, we sneaked Katrina over the road so they could give her a cuddle.
My heart was drumming because I imagined Dad would find out and break the door down any minute.
‘Oh, look at her,’ cooed Nanny tearfully. ‘What an absolute angel.’
That was the only time Nanny saw her because we didn’t dare risk it again.
By the time Kat, as everyone called her, was a few months old, Mum and Dad had secured the cleaning contracts for various media companies in the West End. Mum was out at all hours and run off her feet as she tried to juggle all the different jobs. She worked in the evenings, the early hours of the morning, and sometimes during the day as well when she had a special job in a private house. Dad brought in his older sister, Lesley, and a couple of other people he had rounded up from the pub to help out in return for a bit of cash in hand. Sometimes he would come along to check they were doing a good job, but mostly he stayed at home to watch the horseracing on the telly and look after the baby.
Whenever Dad had a win on the horses, he’d usually do two things: number one, he’d take care of his first priority which was to stock up on gin, brandy and Special Brew; then, after studying the form for at least an hour, he’d put the rest of his winnings straight back onto a ‘dead cert’ at the bookies.
His wins were rare enough, and two in a row were unheard of. Everyone seemed to know this but Dad. So when the horse he’d picked so carefully fell at the first fence, or limped in last with the stragglers, he would be apoplectic with rage. For the next few hours he would storm about the flat fuelled by copious amounts of alcohol, trying to find people and things to blame for his bad luck. I’d try my best to hide with the dog.
His violence had almost become a way of life, but the thing that frightened me the most was how crude and lewd he would become after he’d exhausted himself smashing the place up. It was always the same pattern–violence first, crudity second. Maybe it was the drink, but he didn’t seem to care I was in the room, and neither did Mum.
‘Do you fancy it up the arse tonight, Donna?’ he’d ask with a leer, as casually as if he were asking if she wanted a cup of tea.
Mum would laugh. I wasn’t sure whether this was because she found it funny, or simply because she was relieved he had stopped his violent rampage. But sometimes he did things so repugnant that she seemed just as shocked as me.
One summer evening after Dad had been on a losing bender, Coronation Street was on the television. I was sitting with the dog on the floor by Dad’s feet listening to him chomp and belch his way through a stack of egg and bacon sandwiches. He was drunker than I’d seen him in a long time, swaying from side to side. He was eating and smoking at the same time, as if he hadn’t had food or cigarettes in a week and was making up for lost time. Egg yolk, ketchup and grease were smeared all over his face and vest, and bits of food littered his lap and the surrounding sofa. The dog, always desperate to supplement his meagre and haphazard rations, inched ever closer, long strands of drool hanging like jelly from his mouth.
‘That dog’s gonna have that in a minute,’ said Mum from her armchair. ‘Push him away, Lisa, don’t just fucking sit there.’
No matter how hard I tried to move the dog, he wouldn’t budge. Normally he stayed well away from Dad, so I knew he must have been desperately hungry.
‘Can he have the crusts, Dad?’ I asked timidly.
Dad tried to speak with his mouth full, but only managed to grunt and spray more food down his front. The dog edged nearer and when Dad raised his leg I thought he was in for a kick, but instead, Dad let off a loud fart.
‘He can have that,’ he said.
The revolting smell seemed to make Eddie more excited, and he moved closer until he was sitting between Dad’s legs and dripping drool onto his trousers. Dad started teasing him, offering a piece of bacon and pulling it away at the last minute. Eddie gave little whimpers, which Dad thought were hilarious.
‘Give him your crusts, you mean bastard,’ Mum said.
Dad stuffed more bits of sandwich into his mouth and gave the dog his fingers to lick. ‘Look at the fucking tongue on him, Donna,’ he said.
‘Now you know why he’s always licking his balls,’ Mum laughed.
‘You know what I fancy after this, Lisa?’ slurred Dad, popping open the top button of his jeans.
‘A jam tart?’ I suggested, knowing they were his favourites.
Dad considered this for a moment as he picked his teeth, and the dog hoovered the crumbs from his lap. ‘Come to think of it, that ain’t a bad idea. I could do with a fucking tart,’ he said to Mum’s whoop of laughter. ‘But what I really want is a wet, sloppy blow job.’
I glanced over at Mum, my brows knitted in a frown. I didn’t know what a blow job was but somehow it sounded rude.
Mum rolled her eyes, and gave Dad another indulgent chuckle. ‘You make me die, you do,’ she remarked.
I heard Dad unzip his flies. ‘Here, watch this.’
Mum shouted, ‘Oi, Frank! That’s enough. Not in front of her.’
I heard licking noises and did a double take as I turned back to Dad. I couldn’t believe my eyes. He had his thing out and was rubbing bits of egg yolk and bacon rind over it so that the dog would lick it off. ‘Go on, son. Get your sausage.’
‘Get out of it,’ shouted Mum, kicking the dog in the ribs so that it gave a loud yelp.
Dad’s eyes were rolling back in his head by now. ‘I was enjoying that.’
Mum was shouting ‘dirty fucking bastard’ and I didn’t know whether she meant Dad or the dog.
‘Lisa, go to your fucking room,’ she yelled, and I ran as fast as I could.
Unfortunately, the scene kept playing round and round in my head afterwards. A few days later, Mum let me visit Nanny and Jenny. Normally I didn’t talk much about Dad and his rude ways because I didn’t want to upset them, but on this occasion, I couldn’t stop myself. I thought maybe they would find it funny–but Jenny and Nanny didn’t find it funny at all.
They started asking me all sorts of questions about Dad. They asked me if he ever touched me in my private places. I said no because I didn’t know if all the games we played, such as wrestling and tickling, counted. I was beginning to get frightened so I thought it best not to mention all the other rude things Dad did, like pulling his willy about. I didn’t tell them about having to wash his back in the bath or pick whose titties were best in his magazines, or any of the other things because I thought they were probably just normal. Maybe all dads did this.
I stayed with Jenny and Nanny over the weekend and when I went home, Mum and Dad weren’t speaking to me. Dad had a big black eye, which wa
s strange to see because it was usually Mum who had those. I quite liked being ignored. It meant I could play in my room, and I didn’t have to sit near Dad any more. It was great because when he wasn’t speaking he wasn’t hitting either. If ever he walked into a room, I would slip out, trying to preserve the uneasy peace that had descended. Mum never really spoke to me much anyway, so it wasn’t much different with her. But I could tell she was angry with me about something. She wouldn’t let me go near the baby any more, and suddenly I had to go to school every day, which had both good and bad points.
A few weeks later I heard Diane and Cheryl talking. Apparently Uncle Bob, who owned the pub where Mum used to work, was so disgusted when he heard what Dad had done with the dog that he beat him up. Mum and Dad put in for a council transfer after that as they wanted to get away from the area.
One night I was sitting in the living room watching telly. Dad staggered in and before I could leave the room, he came and stood right in front of me. All I could see were the leather tassles on his brown shoes. I was too frightened to look up, although I could smell he had been drinking.
‘Alright, Lisa?’ he asked, slurring slightly.
I was so shocked to hear him speak to me after what seemed like such a long time, that I crawled between his legs and ran crying into my bedroom. I leapt into bed and pulled the covers over my head. I was petrified when I heard him stomping in after me.
‘What, ain’t I good enough for you any more, you little cunt?’ he said, reaching under the blankets and finding my ankle, which he yanked violently. He pulled me out of bed so that my head cracked hard on the floor. The impact made me see stars and throw up.
Mum said it was my own fault, as Dad was only trying to be friendly. ‘I don’t know why he’s bothering to talk to you after you opened your big fucking trap and got him into trouble.’
But I was glad he’d got into trouble. It had made him think twice about being rude. I hoped he wouldn’t start again now that Uncle Bob had given him a black eye.
I was still being bullied at school and took as many days off sick as I thought I could get away with. They sent a couple of letters but Mum screwed them up and chucked them in the bin. After a while, the teachers gave up asking me for letters explaining why I had been absent. They just accepted it. On the days off, I’d go cleaning with Mum but I was under strict instructions to really lay on the sickness act if anybody asked any questions like the old man had done that time in Notting Hill. I had it all planned. I would pretend to be sick in a bin. That should do it. Even though she didn’t say it, I knew Mum liked taking me with her because I heard her telling Dad ‘She comes in well handy, and it saves paying someone else.’
At first I found it fascinating to walk around the empty offices, black bin bag in hand, and imagine them crammed full of busy people during the day, people who worked in advertising and publishing and the music and film industries. Every desk said something about the people who sat at it during the day. I could tell which ones belonged to the bosses by their big leather chairs, calculators and executive toys, with silver balls which clicked back and forth for ages when I pushed them. The creative people had magic markers and huge drawing pads, but I liked the secretaries’ desks best. Some of them had strips of photo-booth pictures on display, happy young girls laughing and poking out their tongues at the camera, and it was nice to put a face to the desk. I decided I wanted to be a secretary when I grew up, then I could fill my desk with assorted knick-knacks, make-up bags, and stuffed toys, just like theirs. They also had pots full of pens and pencils, and half-full coffee mugs with funny pictures or slogans like ‘Kiss Me’ on the side. I always knew what colour lipstick they wore because I’d have to scrub extra hard to remove the waxy imprint of their lips from the rims of the cups.
Although happy to live in squalor at home, Dad was fastidious at work. One day he arrived to do a spot-check, and found a glass I had just washed which still showed a faint red lipstick mark.
‘Are you trying to get us the fucking sack?’ he snarled, and stamped hard on my toes, making me cry out in pain. ‘You’re fucking useless, do you know that?’
I made sure I never made that mistake again.
I liked the electric typewriters in the offices. For months I resisted the urge to flick the power switch, but one day I did and nearly dropped an ashtray when it jumped to life, its loud hum shattering the silence that hung over the empty floor. It took me weeks to pluck up the courage to press a tentative finger to a key. It made a loud clacking sound and the typewriter shook a bit as the golf-ball mechanism hit and the carriage moved along a notch. After checking that nobody was around, I typed, ‘the cat sat on the mat, the mat sat on the cat’. I hadn’t thought to roll a piece of paper in and was horrified when I saw the shiny words glinting back at me from the matt black roller. I worried for days that the secretary would realise someone had been fiddling with her machine. Mum would lose the contract and, worst of all, Dad would go mad. But nothing happened, and I decided that the secretary had probably been too busy to spot my line about the cat. Besides, she looked too nice in her photo, with a Suzi Quatro hairdo and a glossy smile, to bother about getting cleaners the sack.
The novelty of being a new father seemed to wear off quite quickly, and Dad was soon back to his boozing and gambling. Mum was bringing home wads of cash every week, but no sooner had she stepped in the front door than he would pounce, write out a bet for her to take over the bookies and more often than not that would be the last we saw of that. The rest of the week would be an endless struggle with barely enough money for the basics.
Once, while Mum was at work, I ran out of milk and nappies for the baby. Dad was in a bad mood as he had just had another loss at the bookies. My stomach flipped as I realised I’d have to ask him for some money because Kat’s nappy was leaking and smelly and she was crying for a feed.
‘We’ve run out of nappies and milk, Dad,’ I said, trying to soothe her cries by jiggling her up and down against my shoulder.
‘What the fuck can I do about it?’ he asked, jumping up to snatch Katrina from me and plonking her down on the sofa. ‘It’s your fucking fault.’ His face was deep red with rage as he landed an almighty slap on the side of my head. I crossed my legs in a vain attempt to stem the inevitable flow of urine, but still it trickled down onto the nylon carpet.
‘It’s you who needs a nappy, dirty little fucker,’ he jeered. I sobbed as much from humiliation as from the pain of his slap.
He went to the drawer in the sideboard where Mum saved her money-off coupons and I watched him sorting through to find a handful of ones she’d cut from packs of Paddy Pad nappies. He stuffed them into my hand and instructed me to run all the way to the chemist. I did as I was told.
The lady behind the counter looked baffled as I placed my coupons on the counter beside a pack of nappies. ‘No, dear,’ she said, frowning at my stupidity. ‘You can only use one coupon at a time. It’s ten pence off any one purchase.’
Dad was furious when I went back empty-handed. Katrina had to lie bare-bottomed on a newspaper with a bottle of weak tea until Mum came home later that day.
I noticed Mum was always cuddling Kat and cooing to her about what a pretty girl she was. I’d try to snuggle up beside them on the sofa, desperate for her to hug me as well, but all she did was stiffen and push me away. It was as if I was a stranger and she found the thought of touching me repulsive. I couldn’t remember a time when she’d ever given me a spontaneous kiss and a cuddle. The most I got was a hard peck on the cheek. We didn’t chat, laugh or hug as I had seen my friends do with their mothers. Mum was very cold towards me, no matter how hard I tried to please her, and I could never understand why. Every morning I’d do the washing-up from the previous night’s dinner then I’d wash and dress Kat and give her a jar of baby breakfast before I went to school. I’d do any chores I was asked to without quibbling, but no matter how hard I tried, I never got the affection I craved from her. Before Kat was born, I used to te
ll myself that Mum wasn’t a very cuddly person, but seeing her with the baby now, it was obvious that wasn’t true. It was just me she didn’t like to touch, at least not unless she absolutely had to, and that made me very sad.
It was great to have a baby to play with, though. I’d sit her in her bouncy chair and play ‘Round and round the garden’ on her plump little hands, and feed her a bottle or a cold jar of baby food. Mum wasn’t very good at keeping her clean, so I’d wet a cloth and clean the dirt from between her toes, tickling her so she kicked and giggled, showing two tiny bottom teeth.
When Kat was a year old, and I had just turned ten, Mum and Dad got their transfer and we moved out of the flat and into a newly renovated council house in Nunhead. I cried when we left as I didn’t want to move away from Nanny. Even though I wasn’t allowed to see her very much it was such a comfort seeing her and Jenny sitting out on their balcony.
The house was part of an Edwardian terrace and it was like a mansion compared to the flat. All the original features had been stripped out and old fireplaces boarded up and replaced with a brand new central heating system. Everything smelled of paint and wallpaper paste; the house was pristine. I couldn’t believe it was ours. It seemed so big.
On the ground floor there was a kitchen and dining room, which Dad quickly knocked through with his sledgehammer to create an uneven arch. On the first floor were the front room, the toilet and bathroom, then up another flight were three small bedrooms. Mum and Dad’s room looked out over garden, and the other two looked over the street. Katrina, Cheryl and I were in one, my brother Davie in the other. Diane never moved in there with us because she stayed with her boyfriend full-time now. In fact, we had hardly seen her since Mum and Dad got married.
The great thing was that the top of the house seemed so far away from the bottom that when Dad was shouting at Mum or smashing things up, I could run up two floors to get away from him–much further than I had been able to do in the flat.
There was a garden out the back so when Mum and Dad went upstairs for a lie-down, I could take Kat outside so we didn’t have to listen to their sex noises. The garden was full of broken glass and rocks, but when she was in a good mood one day Mum promised that we could plant some flowers and potatoes, just as I’d watched them do on Blue Peter once.