Mummy, Make It Stop

by Fox, Louise

  Paul was standing in the doorway. He looked up and said, ‘Mum wants you home, NOW.’ Reluctantly, I followed him out of the door. I turned back and saw Amber’s dad smiling at me from the doorway. He waved before he closed the door.

  All my excitement and happiness evaporated as I followed Paul back across the park in silence. I tried not to think about what was waiting for me back at home, but my eyes started to fill with tears as I begged Paul to tell me what Mum had said to him. He just kept quiet the whole way, which only confirmed that I was in serious trouble.

  Paul didn’t come in with me. He left me at the door and turned to go. He looked over his shoulder at me as he rounded the corner. I could see in his eyes that he felt for me. None of us ever liked seeing one of the others punished. We had all been there too often.

  I opened the front door as quietly as I could, and tiptoed into the house, hoping that by some miracle everything had been forgotten and I wouldn’t be punished. I could see Mum sitting in her chair, eyes fixed on the television screen. She turned and saw me, and got up, her face thunderous.

  ‘How dare you defy me? This will be the last time you disobey me, you little cow.’ Her voice didn’t sound like it normally did when we were in trouble; it was calmer. George was standing just behind her, his face expressionless, staring at me.

  ‘Upstairs,’ he barked.

  He marched past me and straight upstairs as I looked pleadingly at Mum, wishing she would help me. She looked at me coldly and nodded towards the stairs. ‘Go on,’ she said. Then she walked back to her chair and sat down.

  Tears began to roll down my cheeks and I couldn’t move my feet. Fifteen minutes earlier I had never felt so happy. Now I was petrified, and I knew there was nothing I could do to avoid what was coming.

  Slowly, I made my way upstairs. George was waiting in the doorway to the boys’ room. As I reached the landing, he grabbed hold of my arm and dragged me to the bottom bunk-bed. He pushed me face down on the bed, pulling my skirt up and ripping my knickers down. I could hear him flexing his belt as he stood there above me.

  ‘I’ll make sure you can’t go anywhere for a week,’ he snarled.

  Four powerful lashes later, he was gone, leaving me crying on the floor, my bottom raw and bleeding and my knickers still round my ankles. I lay there for a long time, in too much pain and shock to even cry.

  Eventually, I managed to drag myself into my room, where I crawled onto my bed. I lay there thinking about the party and how much fun everyone would be having. I imagined the games they would all be playing, and Amber’s mum, with her kind face, smiling, and the delicious food I never got to taste. I cuddled my teddy bear and cried into his soft fur.

  On Monday morning, back at school, I was treated just as I had always been. No-one spoke to me, and I retreated silently to the wall in the playground. I watched Amber and her friends playing, but she didn’t even look at me. Was she angry that I had left? Or had she simply forgotten all about me? I guessed that was it. It was as though I had never been to her party, or had that precious glimpse into her life.

  But I never forgot a single moment of it. After that day, I used to lie in bed, thinking of Amber’s lovely home, and pretty room, and kind parents. Now I knew that those things existed, even if I couldn’t have them. And I dreamed that one day I might live in a world like Amber Smith’s.

  Chapter Three

  Soon after my sixth birthday, which was a complete non-event in our house, my class teacher announced that she wanted fifteen children to take part in a May Day dance performed for the parents.

  The hairs on my arms stood on end as she explained that the lucky fifteen would be dancing around a maypole. As soon as she asked for volunteers, my arm shot up as high as I could hold it. While most of the time I tried hard not to be noticed or picked for anything, dancing was different. I loved dancing more than anything. Tanya and I sometimes practised little dance routines in our room, but that was all I’d ever done. Now there was a chance to do some proper dancing at school, and my shyness fell away in my eagerness to be included.

  I looked around the room. Almost everyone had their hands up as well. What chance did I have? I was sure I wouldn’t be picked because I had been chosen for a school performance before and I’d had to drop out, after I missed too many rehearsals what with George keeping us at home all the time. I’d also been chosen as an angel in the nativity play the previous Christmas, and I was even given a few lines to say. But again I missed so many rehearsals that they had to drop the lines and just let me appear in the background.

  The teacher began calling the names of the girls and boys she wanted. She called so many out that I thought that must be it. But then she looked at me, smiled and called out ‘Louise’. I was so happy I thought I would burst.

  We had two weeks before the performance and would be having rehearsals over five lunch breaks. Each of us was given a letter to take home, explaining that we had been selected for this event, what we would need to wear and when the final performance was to be. The parents of the dancers were to be given front-row seats.

  My heart was jumping for the rest of the day, and by the time the bell went for home time my face had began to ache from smiling. I was determined that I would be at school for the rehearsals and the performance. This time I would make it.

  I ran all the way home with the letter grasped tightly in my hand. Mum wouldn’t be back for a couple of hours, so I decided to keep quiet till she arrived, rather than give it to George. He would throw it straight into the bin and tell me I could forget it. At least with Mum I would have a chance of making it.

  As soon as she came in I ran up to her with the letter. She didn’t look in a good mood at all.

  ‘What now?’ she scowled. I hesitated, and then decided to tell her all about it, hoping she would be happy when she heard.

  ‘I’ve been picked for the May Day dance,’ I explained excitedly. Her expression didn’t change. She took the letter and walked off into the living room, where George and Jamie were watching television.

  I followed her. ‘I need you to sign it for me to take back into school,’ I said. ‘We’re going to be rehearsing in the lunch breaks.’ But Mum ignored me, and I knew better than to push it. To my relief, she put the letter on the side. At least it wasn’t in the bin.

  George kept me off school the next day. He was smirking when he told me, at breakfast, that I wouldn’t be going. He had heard me telling Mum about the dance, and I was sure he did it on purpose, thinking I would miss out on the rehearsals and be dropped. I begged to go, but a chilling look from George soon silenced me. It seemed he wanted to teach me a lesson for being happy; it always seemed to annoy him and Mum if I was excited or looking forward to something.

  As Tanya, Jamie and Paul left for school and Mum went off to work, I sat on the sofa, praying that he would change his mind and let me go, but he didn’t. The door slammed and I sat in silence, wondering why it was just me he had kept at home. Until then, he’d always kept Tanya and Jamie as well. He used to try to keep Paul at home too, but Paul started refusing to stay. He defied George and walked out of the door. He knew he’d get a beating, but he was hit so often that he seemed not to care any more. It was almost as though he was able to switch off the pain, or at least ignore it. That often made things worse for him, because Mum and George would try even harder to hurt him and make him cry. On many occasions they beat him with sticks and pieces of wood, attacking his legs and body.

  The others had been gone for only a few minutes when I heard George call for me to go upstairs. Slowly, I got to my feet and made my way towards the stairs, dreading what was coming.

  When I got to the landing, George wasn’t waiting for me in his usual place. I looked around for him and saw the light was on in the bedroom he and Mum shared.

  ‘In here.’ His voice came from inside the room.

  I walked, as slowly as I dared, towards the door.

  George was standing next to the bed, naked except
for a pair of socks. His eyes bored into me. I felt very scared. Something different was happening. But what?

  ‘Take your clothes off and lie down on the bed,’ he said.

  I knew that if I asked why it would make him angry and he would hurt me even more.

  I took off my t-shirt, skirt and knickers and left them on the floor. I looked over to the bed. There were pictures and magazines laid out on it, all with naked women on them. They looked like the women in the films George showed us.

  George made me lie on the bed, next to the pictures. As I did, he began to rub his penis, while his eyes darted from one picture to another and then back to me.

  I had never felt so scared in my whole life, but I couldn’t make a noise. My heart was beating so fast and hard that I thought my chest was going to explode.

  George came towards me and put his penis in my mouth, grabbing my hair as he did so, dragging my head back and forth slowly, and then fast, and then slow again.

  ‘That’s it, dust it nicely,’ he said as he grabbed hold of my legs with his other hand. He was panting as he shoved my leg to one side and then pushed his big fingers inside me. He rammed them in deeper, then began pulling them in and out. The pain was excruciating. Tears rolled down the side of my face. I knew I mustn’t cry out, but I was finding it harder and harder to stay quiet. I tried to think of something else - anything but what was actually happening to me.

  After what seemed like a long time, George closed his eyes, grunted loudly and began to fire his sticky mess into my mouth, his knees buckling against the bed.

  Then he straightened up, gathered his clothes and threw mine onto the bed, before picking up all the magazines and walking out of the room.

  ‘Get some water from the bathroom if you want,’ he called as he went downstairs.

  I lay on the bed sobbing. If this was love, then why did it hurt so much? Why did it make me feel sick and not special or loved at all?

  Wiping my tears away with my hand, I pulled my clothes back on, not sure whether I was meant to go downstairs and sit with him or stay in my bedroom.

  I crept into my room, hoping it wouldn’t make George angry. I lay on the bed cuddling my little pepper doll. She had a soft body and hard plastic arms, legs and head, and I loved her more than any other toy I’d ever had. I called her Amber, after Amber Smith at school. She smelled nice, like the real Amber. I had got her for Christmas - in a little crib with a blanket - and it had been my best Christmas ever.

  Lying on my bed, I thought about the May Day dance. ‘Please let me do it,’ I prayed. ‘Don’t let it be too late.’ I thought that if I could make it as far as the performance then Mum and George could come and they’d have a reason to be proud of me. Then maybe Mum would love me and George wouldn’t hurt me any more.

  How could I get George to let me go to school? If he knew how much I wanted to go, he would stop me. Then I had an idea. I remembered the time George had made me go to school when I had my face covered in Gentian Violet. He didn’t like me being at home if there was anything wrong with me, he didn’t want the hassle of having to take care of me. So if I wanted to go to school, then I had to make George believe I was ill.

  I thought hard about what I would have to do to convince him. I didn’t want to get it wrong. If I did, I’d miss the dance and get a hiding too.

  The day seemed to drag on. After an hour or so in my room, I went downstairs, afraid that if I was gone too long George would get angry. I sat on the sofa and stared at the TV, willing the hours to pass. When George told me to get myself something to eat, I said I wasn’t hungry. It wasn’t hard to pretend. After what George had done to me that morning, I really didn’t feel like eating.

  In the afternoon I asked if I could go and lie down, and George said yes, probably relieved to see the back of me. I waited until Mum and the other kids had come home, and then went slowly downstairs, holding my stomach and complaining that my tummy hurt and I felt sick.

  I could see the agitation on Mum’s face as she glanced towards George.

  ‘Don’t look at me,’ he scowled. ‘I’ve had to put up with the whingeing bitch all day, and I can tell you another thing: I won’t be doing it tomorrow if she’s still like this. She can go to bloody school and they can sort her out.’

  I couldn’t believe it. My plan was working. I looked towards Mum, trying to appear as pathetic as I could.

  ‘You heard your dad, now stop your bloody moaning and crying, before I give you something to cry about.’

  I turned and made my way out of the living room and back upstairs. I was glad my act had worked so well, but I couldn’t help wondering what I had done to make them both hate me so much.

  The next morning, I said I still felt ill and George couldn’t get me out of the door and off to school fast enough. Once I was out of sight of the house, I skipped the whole way.

  For the rest of the week I pleaded every day to be kept at home and George looked disgusted and ordered me to school. In the lunch breaks the teacher taught us to dance around a beautifully decorated pole, covered in ribbons. I felt like a fairy, dancing in a magical garden.

  The only problem was that I still hadn’t brought my parental consent form back. Each time the teacher asked, I said I had forgotten it and would bring it in the next day. Luckily, she just smiled at me and let it go, raising her eyebrows in a funny way. But I couldn’t ask Mum to sign it yet, as she and George thought I was still sick and would wonder how I had been dancing with an upset stomach.

  I made it to four of the rehearsals. There was only one left, on the day before the performance, which was to be on a Wednesday afternoon. Even if George made me stay at home on the Tuesday, I knew the dance by heart and would be all right. But I had to have that signed letter, or I would miss the performance, and that would break my heart. And I had to persuade Mum and George to come and see me dance. I was sure that if they did, everything would get better.

  Two days before the performance, the whole thing almost went up in smoke, when Tanya blurted out over tea that I was dancing on Wednesday at school. I sank into my seat, wishing I could vanish. I couldn’t believe it. I looked up at Tanya, who immediately realised she had landed me in it. Now it was her turn to sink into her seat.

  I sat playing with the peas on my plate, waiting for an outburst from Mum or George. But there was nothing. Either neither of them had heard Tanya, or they didn’t care. I sat there, hardly daring to breathe, for the next five minutes.

  After tea was finished, I hurried up to my room and Tanya followed soon after. I explained that I needed Mum or George to sign the form, and wanted them to come along and watch me perform. I could tell just by looking at Tanya that she didn’t have much hope for me. She didn’t need to say anything - the look in her eyes was enough.

  The next day, I tried to pluck up the courage to ask Mum to sign the letter, but she was in a bad mood and I didn’t dare. I shot out of the door, grateful to be able to make it for the final rehearsal.

  On the day of the performance, I woke feeling excited, but scared too. I couldn’t leave it any longer to ask Mum. What if she said no?

  I went downstairs, careful not to look too cheerful, hoping that Mum would be in a good mood. She was in the kitchen, having a cup of coffee before work. Luckily, George was still upstairs. I went and got the letter from the mantelpiece in the living room, where it had sat all this time. Mum’s face was hard to read as I approached her and put it down in front of her on the table. I had never wanted anything as much as this.

  Mustering all my courage, my voice quavering, I said, ‘This letter needs to be in today, Mum. It’s for the May Day dance - I just need you to sign it so I can hand it in.’

  Mum looked at the letter I had put down and began looking around the room. I dived over to the drawer where I had seen George go for pens when he wanted to do the crossword in the paper. I grabbed a pen and thrust it towards her, trying not to show my excitement.

  ‘It starts at two o’clock and th
ere are special seats right at the front for the mums and dads of the children taking part,’ I announced proudly as she scribbled her name.

  I grabbed the letter and shoved it into my pocket. ‘Thanks, Mum. Please come, you’re going to love it, we were practising all last week,’ I blurted out. I stopped suddenly. Oh no! I had gone and ruined everything. Mum would realise I‘d been pretending I was sick all week and, even worse, she would tell George.

  Stricken, I waited for the explosion. But nothing happened. Mum’s face seemed distant. Perhaps she hadn’t heard me. I took a couple of steps backwards towards the door.

  ‘That it?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, thanks, Mum,’ I said, and bolted out of the door, grabbing my PE bag as I went. I was setting off much too early, and with no breakfast, but I didn’t care - I was as high as a kite on a summer day.

  I skipped all the way to school. I just couldn’t stop smiling as I bobbed down the first alleyway and onto the street across from the school. There were only a few teachers about as I approached the main entrance, along with a boy who was always early as his mum was a teacher at the school.

  ‘Hiya, Robert,’ I yelled as I made my way up the path, grinning from ear to ear. He glanced over and then back at his feet, ignoring me as usual. But for once I didn’t care. I was too happy.

  I made my way through the school and into the infants’ playground. It was strange being there all alone. I walked over to where I usually sat on the back wall, but then I realised I had the whole yard to myself. I could go anywhere. I spotted the white markings of the hopscotch area. At breaktime there were normally kids running all over it, or groups of girls hopscotching. I had never played, but I knew I could do it, as Tanya and I had practised on the street near home.

  I ran over to the start and jumped on to the first square, dancing my way up and down, up and down, spinning round, trying to go faster and faster each time. It was so much fun. I wished I could play all the time, with the other girls. Suddenly I realised someone was watching me. I turned to see my teacher, smiling from the side door into the school.