by Lisa James
Mum would simply tut and roll her eyes and say ‘What a fucking life!’ She obviously blamed me for starting him off on one. ‘You always do it, don’t you?’ she’d mutter through gritted teeth.
But I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong. It was just Dad and his moods. My whole life became characterised by his hot and cold treatment. I never knew what to expect from one moment to the next.
Sometimes his punishments would be psychological. He would call me names, or ban me from using all rooms except my bedroom and the bathroom, just as he had done with Davie. In the past I’d felt relieved when I was on his exclusion list, but it didn’t bring any real freedom. I couldn’t slam the front door behind me and go off to the park for an hour or two, because Dad was watching my every move. I’d occupy myself in my room, maybe reading a book, but then he would seem to get extra mad and change tack. Sometimes he’d make me sit me on the floor in front of him with my hands on my head for ages. If I moved a muscle before he told me I could, I’d get a swift kick and obscenities would be screamed in my face.
The mental suffering was even harder than the physical. Only an hour or a day before, he would have been lavishing me with positive attention and praise, so the sudden reappearance of Mr Hyde was confusing and upsetting on many different levels. I felt lost and lonelier than ever, but at the same time unable to help myself by breaking free and occupying myself with friends or outside activities. I may have been excluded, but my every moment was accounted for. Eventually, after hours or maybe days of relentless mental and physical bullying, he’d look over at my swollen, tear-stained face and say ‘Oi you! Come over here!’
As I shuffled towards him on my knees, I realised I was behaving just as Eddie used to do after he’d taken a few days of continual beatings. I was grateful my master was giving me another chance. As I knelt before him, Dad would take a few moments to blow smoke rings before saying, ‘Give us a kiss, you silly little fucker.’
Relief would flood through me as I flung myself against him. I’d sob onto his chest and he’d rub his hands up and down my back and pull me tight in between his parted legs. I would sob and cry as if a dam had burst, all the pain and hurt flooding out.
‘I’m sorry, Dad, I didn’t mean it,’ I’d say, unable to remember what it was I had done in the first place.
If Mum saw me crying, even though she knew what I’d been through, she’d say ‘She’s not boo-hooing again, is she?’
Dad would make a fuss of me for a short while afterwards, being extra nice, and I’d begin to dread the time he’d change again. Every time he put a bet on, I’d do a silent prayer and ask God to let him win so he wouldn’t turn on me. And if I saw Mum polishing his best glass, filling the ice bucket and chopping lemons, which meant that Dad was starting on the gin and tonic, I’d get a pain in the tummy and have to rush to the toilet urgently, a stress reaction he often provoked in me. Whenever he sent Mum over to the shop for a couple of bottles of brandy we all knew it meant the next few days would be hell. Even Mum said that brandy made him vicious.
By now I was convinced Mum hated me. My very existence seemed to annoy her. She never talked to me directly any more, only speaking over my head to say something derogatory to Dad about me. I knew she loved Kat, because she was very loving towards her, always cuddling her and smiling and playing with her, and even though she had turned her back on Diane, Cheryl and Davie to please Dad, I felt intuitively that deep down she loved them in a way she had never loved me. One day, something happened that proved this to me without a shadow of a doubt.
Dad found a photograph of Diane hidden in the back of a kitchen cupboard and he went absolutely ballistic. It was an official confirmation photograph taken when Diane must have been about seven or eight years old. He held it up and I could see how cute she looked in her little white dress and matching shoes.
‘What do you want this shit for?’ shouted Dad, ripping the picture to shreds as he had done with all the others.
Mum fell to her knees and started crying. ‘No, not my Diane. You bastard!’
Tears were streaming down her face and I could see Dad was momentarily taken aback by her dramatic reaction. I was too. It was the first time I had ever seen Mum cry over something like that. Usually she didn’t show much emotion over anything to do with the family. She seemed to be able to sweep up the torn fragments of her past life and consign them to the rubbish bin without a backwards glance. She had been able to turn her back on everyone but Dad. But this time I was confused. She obviously valued that photo of Diane, and I got a glimpse for the first time of just what a huge sacrifice Mum was willing to pay to keep Dad happy. It didn’t even occur to me that she might secretly keep in touch with the others. Surely there was no way she’d dare go behind Dad’s back.
I felt jealous of the strength of Mum’s feelings for Diane. Instinctively I knew she wouldn’t ever weep over a torn photo of me. More and more she treated me with a kind of disdain, as though I was a waste of space, and I couldn’t work out what I had done to deserve that. What had I done wrong? What was it about me?
The only visitors who ever came to the house were members of Dad’s family. We used to see his sister Lesley because she worked for Mum and Dad as a cleaner, but sometimes she and Dad would have a row and we wouldn’t see her again for months. Lesley had a son called Charlie who was about fourteen years old and he used to come over to ours at Christmas. Dad would make us both blush by teasing Charlie relentlessly about having a crush on me. A few times my stomach tied itself in knots when I saw a dangerous glint in Dad’s eye. I could tell he didn’t want Charlie anywhere near me, and neither did I. I wasn’t interested in boys.
We also saw Dad’s elder brother, Keith, and his family once a year. Keith had a daughter who was only a year younger than me. We used to play together in a way I wasn’t allowed to do most of the rest of the year, because Dad wouldn’t let me out to play with friends. We had lots of fun, and I’d be sad when it was time for them to go home and I knew I wouldn’t see them again for another year.
Dad behaved like a normal dad when his brother was around. I once heard him telling Keith how he wanted to adopt me.
‘I love her like me own daughter, Keith,’ he said. ‘I’d adopt her if I could.’
‘I’ve always said, it takes more to be a dad than a quick bunk-up,’ Keith replied. ‘It’s the love you show ’em every day, ain’t it? You don’t need a bit of paper to tell you she’s one of your own.’
‘You’re right there,’ agreed Dad.
I knew that Keith was aware of Dad’s temper. In the past he’d had words with him for the way he’d knocked Mum about. I looked at him and wondered what he’d say if he knew I got knocked about as well, and always had a fresh bruise somewhere on my body? If that was an example of the love Dad showed me every day, I’d be happy to do without it. I didn’t want him to adopt me. I couldn’t wait to grow up and leave home, as my brother and sisters had done. Then I’d never have to see Dad ever again.
Chapter Eight
I’d started at a new school when we moved to Nunhead and I really liked it. There were no bullies in the class, I’d made some good friends and my attendance had been much better. But whenever Dad winked and said, ‘Why don’t you stay off and we can watch telly?’ I didn’t feel I had a choice. It was more of a command than a suggestion. I didn’t want to fall behind in my school work, especially now we were doing fractions, but there was also a part of me that was elated that Dad wanted to be friends. The thought of making him angry by refusing to stay at home was too big a price to pay.
Once, I made the mistake of being honest with him. Dad had suggested I stay at home again.
‘Come on, we can have a wrestle,’ he said.
I refused, because we were doing the high jump in P.E. that day and, despite the fact I had never had any sporting prowess, I seemed to be really good at it. I had reached the final and might actually win something for the first time in my life. But the moment I started to explain t
his to Dad, I realised I had made a huge mistake. His face darkened and the smile slid off his face to be replaced by his distinctive snarl. It was as if he had morphed into a demon.
‘Go on then, you cunt, fuck off with your mates.’ He coughed up a ball of phlegm and spat it in my face. I knew what was coming next, but I didn’t have time to brace myself before he landed a slap round the back of my head then grabbed me and forced my face down into the sofa.
In the end I didn’t go to school that day. When Mum came in at lunchtime she was annoyed to find me at home.
‘She’s not off school again, is she?’ she said, forgetting that she herself had kept me off school countless times whenever she needed an extra pair of hands cleaning. ‘I’ve been up since four o’clock this morning. The least she could have done is the washing-up from last night.’
‘I dunno what we’re gonna do with her,’ smirked Dad, over the top of page three of The Sun.
I wanted to tell her that I hadn’t wanted to stay off at all. I was hoping to have come third or fourth in the high jump by now. I could have told her that I wasn’t able to do the washing-up because Dad had made me sit in front of the telly with his legs draped over me, pinning me to the sofa, but of course I stayed silent. If ever I went to Mum for comfort, she’d mock me for crying. ‘Oh my gawd, she’s boo-hooing again. Someone turn the waterworks off.’
There was no point going to her for support as she would always agree with Dad’s actions. She seemed to relish it when I was out of favour with him, because then he would be extra nice to her and Kat. It was just another tool to make me feel like an outsider in the household.
That’s why I would always agree to stay at home if Dad suggested it. I had learned the hard way that to reject his friendship meant paying a huge price. I was conditioned to put a happy grin on my face to mask the sinking feeling inside. I tried to look at the bright side. At least I got to eat plenty of sweets. Dad would hand me a pound note and send me round the corner to Izzie’s mouldy-smelling shop where the floor space was no more than five square feet of tattered lino. I would ask Izzie for forty fruit salads, forty blackjacks and forty toffee logs, just as Dad had instructed. Izzie would lumber off to the back shelf trailing ash from her king-size cigarette as she went. Then I’d watch and listen to the people in the queue tutting behind me as she counted out the sweets into a white paper bag with her fat arthritic fingers.
When I got back home, Dad would have queued up the programme we were going to watch on the new video recorder he had bought primarily to tape his race meetings. Then we’d settle down on the sofa together and Dad would divide the sweets, half each. He would lie down, head propped up with pillows, and I would sit in my usual place, pinned under his legs. It was the only place I was allowed to sit when we watched TV together because he liked me to stroke his bare feet. If I dared to sit in another chair or simply wanted to go up to my bedroom like any other kid, he would take umbrage and dish out punishment as he saw fit. Every time I stopped to unwrap a blackjack, he’d wiggle his foot urgently, and I’d have to rush to start stroking again, touching all his horrible cracked hard skin. The revolting cheesy smell coupled with his long yellow toenails made me feel sick. My arm used to ache because I had to keep it raised and moving for hours on end, but it was a small price to pay to keep Dad happy. Occasionally he’d give a little groan of pleasure and say, ‘Yeah, do it like that,’ and I’d be so pleased to make him happy. When he was happy he wasn’t angry or violent, so I made sure to stroke him as best I could.
‘You’ve got the lightest touch in the world,’ he’d say, just as he used to when I washed his back when I was little, and I’d swell with pride.
Dad used to like Columbo and Quincy, but occasionally when he was being nice we watched Little House on the Prairie, which was my favourite. I’d often have tears streaming down my face by the end. Invariably Pa Ingalls would have shown what an amazing dad he was, and his little Laura with the red plaits would have learned an important lesson, one that filled her father with pride and caused him to well up with emotion. I felt curiously sad, and didn’t fully understand it, except to wish I had a dad as nice and kind as Pa Ingalls.
Dad would laugh to see my tears, and usually he would open his legs and pull me up to lie on top of him on the sofa. I’d lay my head against his chest as he rocked me from side to side. Then I’d cry all the more, and wish he could be loving like this all the time. Sometimes as I lay there I would feel something hard sticking into my stomach. I wondered if it was his penis going hard like it used to back at the flat in Peckham when he used to touch himself in front of me. We’d recently had sex education lessons at school, so I knew what it meant now, and this made me feel guilty and dirty for suspecting such a thing about my own dad. I realised I must be mistaken, but much as I wanted to, I didn’t dare pull away in case he guessed what I had been thinking.
When Mum wasn’t at work, it was very rare for us all to sit together in one room and watch television. In the evenings, Mum and Kat would sit downstairs in the dining room to watch telly while Dad and I would be in the front room upstairs watching the very same programme. I can’t remember why we got into this habit, but it soon became the norm and no one commented on it.
Sometimes Kat would come upstairs and want me to play a game with her, but Dad insisted that I continued stroking his feet, and he’d shout at her and tell her to ‘go back downstairs with Mummy’.
Once while Dad went to the toilet, Kat toddled in with her tree-house toy and we started to play a game, just as we did every morning after breakfast. When Dad came back he kicked me hard in the ankle and growled, ‘Who said you could stop doing my feet?’ I leapt back into my position on the sofa, like a well-trained dog, and watched as Kat wandered off back downstairs, crying for Mum.
When I was eleven and Kat was two we both got scarlet fever and our bodies were covered with an itchy red rash. The doctor prescribed medicine and a bottle of calamine lotion to apply to the rash. I went into the bathroom, stripped off my clothes and covered my body the best I could but my back was particularly itchy and there were parts I simply couldn’t reach. I didn’t like to ask Mum but I felt I had no choice so I went into the front room where she sat smoking with Dad.
‘Can you do my back please, Mum?’ I asked, poking my head round the door, wrapped only in a towel.
‘Do I have to?’ she moaned, rolling her eyes up to the ceiling.
‘Come here,’ said Dad from his position on the sofa. ‘I’ll do it.’
Reluctantly I went and stood between his legs and watched as he filled his hand with a pool of the chalky pink lotion. I held my hair up with one hand and clasped the towel to my chest with the other as he smoothed the cooling lotion over my shoulders. Then I felt him tugging the back of the towel, so that he could reach lower. I loosened my grip just a little.
‘Let the dog see the fucking rabbit,’ he laughed, sweeping his hands down to the small of my back and skimming over the top of my buttocks.
I immediately tensed, embarrassed. Mum watched me from the other side of the room with a look of pure loathing on her face. I felt ill and wondered what I had done to upset her so.
‘There you go, all done. I won’t offer to do your fried eggs,’ he said, referring to my chest.
Despite my burning fever, I felt myself blushing and was eager to leave the room. But before I could step away, Dad pulled me down onto his lap, and placed a hand across my brow. I shifted awkwardly, attempting to adjust the towel around me.
‘Cor, she’s burning hot, Donna,’ he said.
‘Yeah, so’s Kat,’ said Mum shortly. ‘Come here, Kat, come sit with Mummy.’
‘Yeah, but you wanna feel her head, poor kid. She’s roasting,’ he said, focussing all his attention on me. ‘I’d better just take her up to bed.’
He stood up with an arm round me to support me and Mum glowered as we left the room.
He led me upstairs and waited outside the bedroom door while I slipped on a nighti
e and got into bed then he came in and knelt down beside me. As he kissed my hot forehead and held my hand, I began to drift off into a fitful sleep, vaguely aware that Dad had lain down beside me.
For a moment or two I sank into a dream before stirring into consciousness again. That’s when I became aware that Dad had his hand down the front of his trousers and was moving it back and forth vigorously. I could feel it slapping into my own hand, which he held against his groin. My first reaction was of utter shock. What on earth was Dad doing? I knew it was wrong and rude, and I felt guilty that I had woken up and became aware of it. I realised he must think I was fast asleep and that he was doing things to himself in private. It made me feel almost like a Peeping Tom. I clamped my eyes shut and hardly dared to swallow in case he heard and realised I was awake. I knew Dad had a habit of being lewd and crude, but surely even he would be mortified if he knew I was aware of what he was doing to himself. My heart pounded in my ears and it felt like an eternity passed before he released my hand from his sweaty grip, and left the room.
It didn’t even occur to me to talk to Mum about this incident and my increasing feelings of awkwardness around Dad. A lot of the time she could see for herself what was going on and the most she would do is laugh and say, ‘Oh my Gawd, Frank,’ as if it was all one big joke. She was as uninhibited as Dad when it came to things of a sexual nature. She routinely left a life-like vibrator on her bedside table beside the ashtray, and when Kat was a baby she used to pick it up and use it as a teething ring.
‘Oh my Gawd, give us it, Kat,’ she’d laugh.
Both Mum and Dad were careless or blasé about such things. Once when I had left my shoes in their bedroom, I knocked on the door and asked if I could come in to get them. When I went in, I was excruciatingly embarrassed to find them in the middle of sex. Mum was on her back with him on top, pumping away, and a sheet half covering them. As I stood frozen in the doorway, Dad continued to move back and forth. My face burned with embarrassment, but for the first time I felt a new emotion: I was angry with Mum that she could behave in such a way. I expected nothing else from Dad by now, but she was a mother, and mothers were supposed to protect their children, weren’t they?