Dad climbed into the cab.
‘A bitch.’ He shut the door. ‘Never told me it was a bitch.’
‘What’s wrong with a bitch?’
‘Too temperamental. Moody, like, when they’re in heat.’ He inserted the key. ‘Have half the neighbourhood sniffing round our door.’ Then he turned. ‘How’s Heth, then? He filled your teeth?’
‘Just one. He said I’d been looking after them very well.’
‘That’s my girl,’ he said vaguely, patting my knee.
The drill had hurt. I so wanted to be comforted. Sandra and Gwen would have been.
‘I had an injection, but it still hurt.’ That was the wrong thing to say, because his voice softened.
‘Poor old Heth . . . Hurt a lot?’
‘Not really,’ I lied, willing him to start the engine.
‘Poor old Heatherbell . . .’ His hand was rubbing my knee. ‘Poor old mouth.’ He pushed back the hair from my face.
‘Up, down, up, down!’ yelled the lady.
‘Poor old mouthy,’ he said again. His face came close, his breath warm. ‘Daddy kiss it better.’
I drew back. ‘They’ll see.’ I raised my eyebrows, jerking my head towards the bungalow. ‘Your mate will.’ Then I said, ‘And my friend Sandra’s in that field.’
A silence. His hand remained heavily on my knee. I’d said it aloud: I’d spoken about what we were doing.
Stunned by my words, I couldn’t move either. I remember counting the wires against the streaked sky. I didn’t dare look at anything closer. At that moment I was apart from my Dad, because I had spoken about us. And that made us terribly together. I felt so old.
He reversed the van, abruptly, and turned it round. We drove up towards the main road. I’ve been trying to pin-point the stages, telling you how I was losing my innocence. This was one moment. And – see, he wasn’t even touching me. But as I said, it happens when you least expect it . . . lying in the bath, and then sitting in the cab. My body had been violated before then, oh yes, but not my spirit. And, please take it from me, it’s the spirit that matters.
I watched Sandra as we drove past. She held herself so straight and proud; her hair floating up and down.
On the way home he pulled into a lay-by. The sun had set; the passing lorries had already switched on their headlights. He turned off the engine. There is nowhere on earth as lonely as a lay-by. In my heart I’d wanted him to stop; I knew, now, that this was all the consolation that I deserved. It was the only comfort we could give each other.
A field stretched to the far motorway, with its raised arc lights. We were under the flight-path; in the field stood beacons, too tall for their surroundings, dwarfing the bushes. They were as tall as telegraph poles, with lights on top. As he drew my head on to his shoulder, as I knew he would, I was thinking that they must be put there in some pattern, a lit grid that made sense to planes in the sky, but that down here they were just big stupid poles.
‘I’ve been a bad boy,’ he mumbled into my hair. ‘That’s what you said . . . I’ve been a bad, bad boy.’
He meant it, but he was also working himself up. I knew both those things, now. ‘Will my Heatherbell forgive me?’
I didn’t nod, but I didn’t move away either.
His voice thickened. ‘Does she know how much I need her?’
I nodded then. I did know.
‘How lonely I am . . . how blooming lonely?’ He rubbed his nose up and down in my hair. He paused. It took him some time to speak. ‘Both of us is that, aren’t we?’
He rested his head against mine. ‘Ever so lonely.’ We sat quite still. ‘Whatever’s going to become of us, Piglet?’
I couldn’t answer this.
‘I’d do anything in the world’, he said, ‘to stop you being harmed . . . never want you hurt, in all your life . . . You know that, don’t you . . .’ He pushed back my hair, strand by strand, and then he kissed my ear. ‘You’re so precious, that’s why. My precious . . .’ His voice grew thicker. ‘Even if I’m a bit of a naughty boy . . .’
His hand moved inside my blouse. His hand was big, and dry, and so warm. ‘They know it too, don’t they . . . so soft . . .’ His voice was almost inaudible now. ‘They’re wanting me to give them a kiss . . . so they’re knowing for sure . . .’
His mouth closed over my skin; his moustache tickled. His mouth was very soft; he was never, ever rough. You must believe me. He paused, and murmured,
‘Your little heart’s beating . . . beating like a bird, a wild, wee bird, trapped in there . . .’
He straightened my blouse again, carefully. Outside, in the dusk, a heifer rubbed itself against one of the poles. The traffic rumbled past; nobody was stopping. He rested his head against my chest. As always I felt awkward about my plump stomach, beneath his chin, but I also knew that he shouldn’t be the one to rest his head there; my plumpness shouldn’t belong to him . . . But my lumpy growing had been under his touch.
‘There’s someone else wants to tell you too . . .’ His breathing was quickening now. ‘Someone else needs you . . . you know he does . . .’
His hand closed over mine. It stayed there a moment. The van shook as a lorry thundered past. Then he lifted my hand and carried it down to his trousers. ‘So lonely, he is . . . there’s only one person can take his loneliness away . . .’
He was undoing his buttons. I didn’t help, but I didn’t stop him. The fabric sprang back.
‘. . . just one darling girl can do that . . .’
I kept my head turned away from him; I kept my eyes on the field with its tall lights. The heifer was ambling away. My fingers, guided by his, felt skin. It was tucked away, bulging, but he was tugging at the last button. I never knew what to do with my fingers; they were useless. The trousers were open; it sprang up. It still shocked me, when it did that. It was too big and sudden.
‘See . . .’ he murmured, ‘he’s all ready . . .’
He couldn’t put it into me, not here in the cab, beside the road. I was glad about that. He was holding my hand, guiding it up and down, as if I were doing it all by myself. I was squeezing my eyes shut now, and clenching my brain. His breath was making fluttery sounds so I knew it would soon be over . . . the seat was creaking with his movements. I bit my lip and it hurt; the dentist’s numbness was wearing off.
My eyes were wet, but when he finished I kept my head turned away, as I always did, so he wouldn’t see. If he saw, he would be certain to start sobbing in that horrible way. I couldn’t bear us both to be crying.
Besides, I needed to keep something to myself . . . something of my own, that belonged to me, even if it was just my tears.
I had changed, that day. I’d become tougher. Do you know how I can tell? Because, though this sort of scene, and more, had happened several times before with my Dad, this particular evening is the first one that I can bear to describe.
Chapter Seven
IF YOU’RE WONDERING why I didn’t stop my father, for all those years, I’ll tell you the answer: if I’d stopped him, he might have stopped loving me. And nobody else would.
You might be wondering other things by now. What about my Mum? And didn’t I know the facts of life?
If you think I’m keeping my Mum out of this, you’d be right. But remember, she kept herself out of it – out of anything that went on, whether it was something she might have been sharing or not. She hadn’t run away again, but she seemed as removed in spirit, nowadays, as if she’d been out of the house. She was at work, of course, a lot of the time. But even at home she hardly spoke to my Dad, and when she did it was with that taut look on her face. Sometimes I thought this was even worse than their flare-ups. She sat tight, scattering ash.
When I was younger she had been pretty, but it was hard to believe it now. About once every six months I heard those noises through the wall; but there she was in the morning, waxy-yellow and thin-lipped as ever. Sometimes she softened with us children, especially Teddy, but most of the time she left us to o
ur own devices. She complained of aches and pains and spent more time in her bedroom with the door closed. Teddy barged in but I didn’t dare, which was probably my fault. Occasionally she took in her magazines with her, but often she didn’t even bother. It worried me terribly that she didn’t want to watch the TV; I once suggested that I brought it in but she just looked at me and said,
‘Why?’
I did try to get close to her. As I said, I think she wanted it as I grew older but by then my secrets made it impossible. She didn’t encourage it, and children don’t know how to take the initiative. ‘Shy’ sounds sweet and soft and vulnerable, but truly shy people, like my mother, they’ve long ago learnt to cover that up. Vulnerable means they can be approached, but that’s the last thing they want. So they become wary and cool, and awkward. Oonagh, who heard all Mum’s woes, probably knew more about what went on in her heart than any of us. Even Teddy, who wasn’t the sensitive type – even he, aged three, when he sang his favourite song,
Yum, yum, bubble gum,
Stick it up Heather’s bum
even he often substituted ‘Dad’ for ‘Heather’, but never, ever ‘Mum’. Even at three he knew it sounded wrong.
One good thing, by this time, was that I no longer felt entirely the cause of this. Aged thirteen I still felt responsible, but not in such a sharp way, because as I grew older I realized it was our life in general and my Dad in particular which might be more of a cause than me. You can imagine the relief. What I was doing with Dad made me feel just as bad, and in some ways worse, but at least I realized that I wasn’t the sole reason for Mum’s unhappiness. When you’re young you’re egotistical, aren’t you? You think the world revolves around your little self.
I’m sure she suspected nothing. I say I’m sure. I don’t want to think about this. If she had suspected it, and still left us alone together without doing anything about it, without being upset, or appalled, then the last shred of sense would have been taken away from my life.
As he grew older, the only person I had to watch was Teddy. He was a sharp kid. He had this knowing, grown-up look. At the age of three he’d pick some grass and weeds, put them into beer bottles and take them down to the main road. He’d sit on a cushion and shout at the cars to stop.
‘Five pound!’ he’d shout. ‘One pound!’
He was always up to something; no wonder he got into such trouble later. The hens were too silly to keep out of his way; he’d chase them with sticks, shooting as he ran. He’d collect twigs and bits of pipe which he called his weapons and store them in the caravan, which long ago had been the Rosy Arms. Its door had fallen off now. Once I found a tin of cracked eggs, which he’d pinched from the hen-house and forgotten about, and which he called his bombs. I’d been upset about that and slapped him, which made me feel worse.
There was even more junk around now for him to play on. Being too old to play myself, I was now old enough to feel some of Mum’s weariness about this. Nothing got moved; instead, more stuff was added. Dad was always going to repair the things, but soon the nettles grew up through the machinery, Teddy bounced up and down in his disintegrating car.
I wish you’d seen Teddy; I was proud of him, even though he was so wild. He had a crew-cut and he was really beautiful, because he didn’t know it. Despite the tough talk, from the back he never realized how young he looked, with his tender skull showing through, and his delicate neck. He’d rush about for hours, breaking things up, then he’d drop asleep, just like that – he’d drop asleep wherever he happened to be, as if he were in a fairy story. With the cats stretched out beside him, sunning themselves, they looked as if they’d been put under a spell.
But once, when Mum was out and he’d fallen asleep on the carpet, Dad started cuddling me. I moved my head and there were those two round eyes, staring at us. He was picking his nose, calm as calm.
One day, when I was fourteen, I went out shopping with him and my Mum. There was a parade of shops about a mile up the road. First you passed our car park field, then the flower-lady’s lay-by, then the pink placards. ‘Bulbs!’ they said, and ‘Manure!’ because it was autumn. Then you passed the market garden drive-in, then the Kodak laboratories, then a big brick factory called Delta Flexed Products; after that you passed the Skyscape Hotel, which had been fields when I was younger. Then you came to the big roundabout and traffic lights; if you survived the traffic you reached the shops.
I remember each detail of that day, you see. Most of the shops were called ‘Ford Spare Parts’, and ‘Cargo Shippers’, it wasn’t that neighbourly, but there was a greengrocer and a post office. I was helping Mum to carry the shopping. We went into the post office to collect our allowance. It was a Saturday, and crammed with people, but nobody talked. While Mum waited in the queue I perched Teddy on the shelf with the Biros on strings, because he was demanding it. On the blotting paper he drew a picture of Micky, our dog, and something that didn’t look much like a fire engine. Then he drew a person, one of his stick people with a big round tummy. Inside the circle he did a scribbly shape, he was a careless artist, then he announced in a loud voice,
‘This is Hevver with a egg in her tummy.’
A silence. I stayed absolutely still, leant up against him to stop him falling off. Mum was at the grill, collecting the money . . . Thump, thump, went the man, stamping her book. In a moment she was beside us.
‘Get him down!’ she hissed. She slapped Teddy’s arm. ‘You wicked boy, sitting up there. It’s not allowed.’ She turned to me, two pink spots on her cheeks. ‘You know it’s against the rules!’
‘I know.’ I lifted him down. ‘Sorry.’
‘You know it’s not allowed!’ Her eyes were bright, and looking right into me. ‘Can I trust you?’ she whispered. ‘Can I, Heather? Sometimes I wonder.’
My throat closed up, with no air getting through. ‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ I said in a low voice.
Outside the wind was blowing. Mum wheeled Teddy’s old pushchair, piled with shopping. At the lights I held his small, treacherous hand. I knew she wouldn’t mention it again. Her head, in its tightly-knotted scarf, was bowed against the wind. Teddy was chatting to me, though the traffic snatched away the words.
He’d been an egg once, inside my Mum. Out of the corner of my eye I saw her, bowed and smaller than me, and the maroon blur of her coat. So had I, great big me. Dad had put us there. What was he putting inside me?
You probably think I knew about this long ago, what with all our animals. But for one thing I had a basically innocent mind – Teddy, as he grew up, was far more knowing about that than me. And for another, not a lot of it went on. Birth, yes; mating, no. Our dog was single; our pigs were all sows, and when the boar man visited I’d always stayed indoors because I feared him more than anyone – he was a huge, leery man with a skin infection. Sometimes our cock jumped on a hen, with some fussed fluttering, but I didn’t connect that with big, bald humans. Teddy would, but I didn’t.
No, like everyone else, I’d learnt from Yvonne. Last year she’d told all our class – her friends first and then, because she couldn’t bear to keep it from the rest, her second choices, who she grabbed with a ruthless, sudden intimacy. She was like that. I never trusted her; and, after that afternoon, I’ve never forgotten her.
‘You mean you don’t know?’ She raised her plucked eyebrows. ‘No? Honestly?’
Gwen and I shook our heads. We were sitting against the wire mesh of the playground. Thirteen, and we still thought babies came from kissing.
‘That the man puts his thingy up her bottom? Didn’t you know, Porky?’
I must have shaken my head, because she seemed satisfied. Inside I had turned to water.
‘It’s terribly painful the first time, of course,’ she said in a weary voice. ‘Absolute agony.’
‘Is it?’ asked Gwen eagerly.
‘Apparently. She has to lie on a towel,’ said Yvonne, ‘for the blood.’
Gwen swung round to me. ‘Imagine!’
‘
She’s blushing,’ said Yvonne. ‘I knew I shouldn’t have told her.’
I couldn’t speak. I thought, I didn’t have a towel, and there hadn’t been any blood. For a wild moment I thought perhaps it hadn’t been the real thing.
‘No, I shouldn’t have told her.’
Pain: yes.
‘You’re probably too young to understand, you two.’
‘We’re not!’ said Gwen. ‘Go on, please.’
‘He says he loves her, and things. And then his sperm goes in.’ She added, patiently, ‘That’s the seed.’
‘I know that’s the seed!’ said Gwen.
‘Then it goes up her tubes, and she says she loves him too.’
He hadn’t said anything. Neither had I. Then he had made that choked noise; then he had banged his head against the straw, again and again.
‘But I thought she doesn’t like it?’ Gwen’s voice came down a tunnel, far away.
‘She has to do it, doesn’t she?’
‘You mean, that’s what my parents do?’
‘Absolument vrai. Every night.’ Yvonne yawned. ‘On the dot.’
After Yvonne had gone, Gwen wanted to talk about it. I said I had to tidy my desk. I knew she thought me priggish but for once I didn’t care.
The classroom was empty. I sat at my desk, my hands damp and my heart thumping. Thank goodness nobody came in. Me, Heather: I was doing what people’s mothers did. I’d known it, of course, but it was such a shock, Yvonne telling me . . . Nobody did it at my age; nobody’s father would, in a thousand years. Nobody’s but mine. And that’s how babies were started.
The bell rang. As they all trooped in I remember one small, trailed-off thought: I wished it hadn’t been Yvonne who’d told me.
So you see, I’d had a year to live with the knowledge, though I’d suspected it before. You might think that this made a great difference to me. It did, and it didn’t. I knew we’d been doing something far too adult and terrible to think about, sanely. Nothing could make it worse, even knowing the words for it. I’d just become more confused, so I’d stopped it getting into my mind. At times I panicked, when I realized that this was how babies began. But in some curious way I still trusted my Dad. You might find this hard to believe, but it’s true. It vanished later, but when I was thirteen and fourteen there was still some left. A child’s trust has the stubbornest roots; it takes far more digging than you would expect, to pull out every little piece – it surprised me at the time, I remember, that I still relied on him. You can dig and dig, and there will still be some buried. And so I trusted him to be somehow doing it safely, in some special way he knew about, being grown-up and my Dad. I also remembered the health visitor’s words, years ago, about it being impossible. She’d just been starting to say ‘thirteen and fourteen’, hadn’t she, before she looked at her watch and hurried off?
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