by Cassie Harte
And so, we fell in love. Young love, the first love of my entire life. We planned ahead, life was wonderful and I thought we would stay together forever. These were the happiest months of my life. Nothing and nobody could spoil them.
At the end of the first year of college, all of us nursing students were posted to a city hospital for the summer to do some practical work. We would have to board in the hospital concerned and I was dreading it, first and foremost because it would make it impossible to see Steve, but also because my bedroom at home was my sanctuary, the only place where I felt relatively safe. Bill had only tried to abuse me there once and it hadn’t worked because I screamed, so he never tried it again.
Katie was posted to the same hospital as me, which was a relief, and at least part of the time we were there was fun. We went to barbecues with some police cadets we’d met; we had coffee in a real coffee-house and mixed with proper nurses; and I met some wonderful people, both patients and staff. But the work in the wards was hard. This was the era of matrons, when the wards were ruled with rods of iron. No one spoke unless spoken to, we weren’t allowed to wear makeup and we had the most awful, unflattering nursing uniforms that had ever been seen.
My first placement was a male orthopaedic ward. Here I was subjected to what the male patients saw as a bit of harmless fun when, one by one, they asked me to hold their private parts while they used the urine bottle or to pat them dry after a blanket bath, despite the fact that they were perfectly capable of doing so themselves. This brought memories of Uncle Bill’s games flooding into my head and I found it utterly unbearable. I told the matron I couldn’t cope and she didn’t ask me why; I think she assumed that I was a little immature and perhaps something less ‘hands on’ might be better to begin with. I was moved to the physiotherapy department until they could find another ward placement for me.
There was an amazing physiotherapist working there who was totally blind. Everyone loved him because he was funny, clever and excellent at his job, so I enjoyed being in that department, but it was only a short time before I was moved again, this time to a children’s ward. Shortly after I arrived there, a twelve-year-old boy died and I sobbed my heart out. I couldn’t cope at all, and the ward sister threw me off the ward.
The following day I was summoned to the matron’s office. She was very kind but said she felt I was not cut out for nursing and asked if I had thought of another career. I tried to explain to her, between sobs, that nursing was my mother’s choice, and that I was afraid of letting her down. I couldn’t go home early, having failed again. What would she say? What would she do?
The matron said that I might make a good nurse one day, but not yet. She felt I was too immature to handle the pressures at that time, and she suggested that I ring my mother and explain. With a heavy heart I rang home. At first there was silence as I relayed the news, then the storm broke.
‘Who do you think you are, making a decision to come home? Who gives you the right to make that decision?’ Mum was angrier than I had heard her for a long time. ‘Do you enjoy hurting me? Yes, you do. You enjoy letting me down. You must, as that’s all you ever do!’
Before I had a chance to defend myself, she continued: ‘How much more of a failure are you going to be?’
I didn’t reply. What could I say?
‘If you come home early, I’ll have nothing to do with you, ever again,’ she growled down the phone. And then she hung up on me.
I was on my own, miles from home, distressed that I had failed in my course, and feeling as though I was destined always to be a failure. She didn’t have to rub it in because I was thinking all the same things myself. A normal mother might have offered comfort, might have said, ‘Don’t worry, darling. We’ll think of a solution to this problem. Just come home and we’ll sort it out.’ But the mother I had would never say anything like that. She didn’t care if I was upset, and wouldn’t dream of offering comfort.
I would have loved to phone Steve, but in those days his family didn’t have a telephone in their home. It was the thought of seeing him that helped me to get through that day, though. The only positive thing about having to leave the course was that I would be able to see him soon.
The next day I caught a train home. Mum was sitting outside in the garden and I decided to go out and see her straight away, in the vain hope that her anger would have diminished overnight.
‘Hello, I’m home!’ I called, bracing myself for a stream of invective about how selfish I was and how I had ruined her life. But no, it was to be the silent treatment. She didn’t speak to me. No one spoke to me. Ellen was just heading off to work, while Rosie and Tom were out. Anne looked up at me and mouthed ‘You’re in trouble’ then looked away.
I went up to my room and unpacked, then I decided to go and see Steve. I couldn’t wait to see him. He would understand. He would sympathise. He would look after me and tell me he loved me and that he was glad I was back home again.
I caught the bus to his house and knocked on the door. Gwen, his mother, answered.
‘Is Steve here?’ I asked, smiling brightly.
She gave me a strange look. ‘You can’t see him,’ she told me.
I hesitated for a moment, confused. What did she mean? ‘I’ve just got back from my nursing course and wanted to say hello. Is he in?’
‘I’m afraid you can’t see him any more,’ Gwen told me firmly. ‘Whatever you had between you, it’s over. You mustn’t come round here any more.’
I didn’t understand. I knew he was at home because his bike was in the front garden, so I shouted out, ‘Steve? It’s me, Cassie. What’s going on?’
There was a pause then I heard him call out: ‘Mum, let her come through.’
What happened next broke my heart. I ran to him, expecting that he would open his arms and give me a hug, but he didn’t move. I looked at his face and could see he had been crying. Whatever was wrong? Why was this kind, wonderful boy crying? Who had hurt him?
I threw my arms around his neck but he reached up and pulled my hands away.
‘I can’t see you any more,’ he said in a soft voice. ‘I have to break up with you. I do love you but I have to end it. I’m so sorry.’
He began sobbing and I started crying as well. I just couldn’t understand why he was saying this and I needed to know.
‘What’s wrong, Steve? I love you and you say you love me.’ I could hardly speak through my tears. ‘Please tell me what’s wrong. If you love me, why are you finishing with me?’
‘I can’t tell you. I won’t tell you,’ he said, then he pushed me away and ran from the room in tears. I tried to follow but Gwen stepped in the way and asked me to leave. It was then I noticed that she was crying as well.
I had no choice. The door was opened for me, so I stepped out and walked down the path. My world had collapsed around me and I didn’t know why. All I knew was that the best thing in my life was over.
I sat down on the pavement outside his house. I must have sat there for hours, hoping that he would come out and talk to me, that everything would be all right again. But he didn’t. Eventually, as it got dark, I realised there was no use in waiting any longer and I went home to the house where no one was speaking to me. I had nowhere else to go.
My mind was in turmoil. Nothing made sense. If he loved me, why had he finished with me? And if he wanted to finish with me, why had he seemed so upset about it?
The next few days were empty and overwhelmingly sad. I was desperate to go back to Steve’s house again to try and make him talk to me and explain what was going on, but I had no money for the bus fare. I considered walking but it was a long way and he might not have agreed to see me. Anyway, I got a sense that it would be futile. His decision, for whatever reason, was final. He was too nice a person to mess me around. It was definitely the end.
The pain I felt was physical, a harsh pain in the pit of my stomach. I curled up on my bed, hurting too much to move. There was nothing I could do. Once again I was po
werless. Once again I was the loneliest person in the world.
Chapter Thirteen
Just before the end of the summer holidays, a few weeks after Steve had finished with me, the matron of the training hospital phoned to say that my written exam results had come in and that I had done well. She suggested that I should continue my nursing course but just delay the practical side that I had found so difficult to cope with. She didn’t want me to give up entirely, she said.
I didn’t want to go back to nursing but I knew Mum would try to force me to. I felt so devastated about breaking up with Steve that I was almost beyond caring about my future, but the one thing I knew was that I couldn’t face going back to working on hospital wards again. I decided to try and have a chat with Dad about my future.
What I would really have liked to do would be to change to a journalism course at the same college. Lots of students changed direction after the first year. In fact, I had heard of one student who was allowed to change course without taking entrance exams because she had done so well in her end-of-year exams. So I thought that, as my exam results had been good, they might accept me. I mentioned this to Dad and he agreed that it sounded like a good idea, but at that point Mum came into the room.
I told her what I had decided. I told her that I didn’t think I would ever be ready to study nursing and that I was keen to study journalism. I told her that Dad agreed it was a good idea.
Mum raised herself up to her full height and screamed at me. ‘What right do you think he has to agree with you?’ She was looking at Dad with an expression that I couldn’t interpret. ‘He has no rights over you. Only I have!’
I frowned. There was that strange jibe that she had used before over the grammar school decision. ‘What do you mean, Dad has no rights? I don’t understand. Of course he has rights.’
She was seething with rage. ‘How dare you question me!’ I’d come home from my nursing course a failure and now I was trying to defy her. I don’t think she had ever been angrier with methan she was at that point. ‘Ask him!’ she screamed at me, pointing to my dad. ‘Ask him what I mean.’
I was confused. I looked at my beloved dad, and I’ll never forget the pain I saw in his eyes. He was in pieces. He looked totally distraught.
‘What does she mean, Dad?’ I asked. ‘Why is she saying such awful things? I don’t understand.’
He looked as if he was trying to hold back tears, which scared and confused me even more.
‘You have every right to help me. You’re my dad!’ I insisted.
Then came the bombshell. He spoke very quietly, as if he didn’t want me to hear the words. ‘That’s just it, love—she’s right.’ He was looking at Mum with a curious expression I’d never seen before. ‘I have no rights over you because I’m not your dad, I’m not your real father.’
I stood still, the words echoing in my ears. What did they mean? Why would he say that? If he wasn’t my dad, who was? I think I asked that, in a very small voice.
‘Bill,’ Mum screamed at me. ‘Bill is your dad!’
Uncle Bill, my godfather, the man who abused me? Could he really be my father? I felt sick and began to shake. The evil monster who raped me over and over again was my dad? But I’d told her about what he did to me and she did nothing to stop it. I refused to believe he could be my father. I wouldn’t believe it. It was bad enough that anyone could subject me to the evil that he subjected me to. But he was responsible for me being born? He was my biological father? This made his actions thousands of times worse. A father, a natural father, would never hurt me. A natural father would have protected me and kept me safe. But a natural father Bill was not.
I felt ill, and my head was hurting with a pain that scared me. How many more shocks could I take? I was still reeling from Steve breaking off our relationship. And then, yet another realisation hit me like a ton weight. The most shattering realisation of all. If it was true that Bill was my father, then the boy I had fallen in love with, who had broken my heart, was my brother.
I ran out of the room and up to the bathroom, where I was violently sick.
Things were beginning to make sense now. They had obviously decided to tell Steve the truth and then leave him to tell me. But he couldn’t, he was hurting too much. He had to break up with me. It had to end. I could see that now.
The only good thing out of all of this, something I was so relieved about later, was that we had never been lovers. Our love was so special, he asked nothing physical of me. Our love was pure. Our love was wonderful. But our love was wrong. And now it was over.
Lots of other things began to make sense now—if sense is the right word. Uncle Bill had often said while he was raping or abusing me that he had the right to do it, and I never knew what he meant at the time. Of course he didn’t have the right—no one has that right—but I could see now why he had said it. The jibes that I had listened to for years, in which Mum said that Dad had no rights over me, again made sense now.
To my mind, my real ‘father’ would always be the man who had brought me up and looked after me through my childhood, the man who made me a pink doll’s cot out of tomato boxes. He wasn’t the man who abused, destroyed and terrified me, leaving me feeling dirty and ashamed. A man who steals your childhood is not a father. He is evil.
I didn’t know the word ‘incest’ at the age of seventeen. I’m glad I didn’t. I was suffering enough and didn’t need another thing to feel dirty and ashamed about. But incest it was. Why on earth hadn’t Mum tried to stop me going out with Steve? I didn’t dare ask her, but all I can assume is that she wanted to cause me pain. She knew the truth would come out eventually, and she wanted me to be unhappy.
For the rest of the summer I was lost in my own heartache. It wasn’t just this revelation about my birth, but also the pain of loss, loss of the love I had had. I couldn’t get my head around what had happened. For some reason I felt ashamed of how I had hurt my half-brother. Ashamed that I had been treated so badly by Uncle Bill, the man who it now seemed was my father. What an awful person I must be to have been treated this way. It must all be my fault.
Mum had always told me that I was to blame for all the pain she and our family were suffering. This must be what she had meant. But the mistake that had caused it all wasn’t mine, surely? They were her mistakes—hers and Uncle Bill’s.
I remembered a lesson at school when the teacher was asking about our fathers’ war careers and I said that mine was out in Burma from 1943 until the end of the war in 1945.
‘That can’t be right,’ the teacher said. ‘He must have had leave during that time.’ Of course, she was thinking about the fact that I was born in November 1945. But in reality, the man I grew up calling ‘Dad’ didn’t meet me until I was six months old. It seemed Mum had been having an intense affair with Bill. Many women did have encounters, liaisons, affairs while their men were away fighting. It was a difficult time; people were afraid and lonely. These things happen. Many illegitimate children were born, and many men left their unfaithful wives when they got back from the front line. But my dad didn’t. He stayed.
You would have to know my dad to understand why he did this. He was a gentle, kind man who loved my mum to distraction. He forgave his wife and understood that she had felt lonely and afraid while he was away.
The more I thought about Mum and Bill, the sicker I felt. I thought about how giggly and flirtatious she became around him, with freshly retouched lipstick and a softer, more feminine tone of voice. I thought about that kiss I had seen in the hall the night I told her that Bill had been touching me inside my panties. I thought about all the times as a child when I was sent out to play in the garden when he came round. And a horrible suspicion began to shape in my head. Had their affair really finished the day that Dad came home from war? Or did they still get together sometimes? Was that what the fight was about when I was eleven? Had Aunt Gwen found out they were still having an affair? Surely he had stopped having sex with my mother by the time he starte
d having sex with me?
Maybe this would go some way to explain why Mum hadn’t believed me when I told her that Bill was kissing and hurting me. She just couldn’t believe it of someone who was my biological father, and her lover. That’s why she thought I was making it up. Because she couldn’t face the truth about the nasty, evil man who was her lover.
But why would she insist that I was to blame for everything that had gone wrong in the family? It seemed to me that my only ‘sin’ was being born—and there wasn’t much I could do about that. Mum said I had ruined everyone’s lives by raking up past mistakes, but they were his and her mistakes, not mine or Steves’s. We were the victims in this trauma. But I felt so wretched that I took all the guilt onto myself. I believed that I must have been a really bad person, because otherwise these things that had happened wouldn’t have happened to me. I had tried to be a good girl, I had asked God to protect me and help me. But I must be a bad person because God wasn’t listening.
A few days after the life-shattering revelation, I had a doctor’s appointment to talk about the fact that I was having very bad periods. My GP was kind to me and asked if I had any other worries, at which point I broke down. I wanted to tell him everything, wanted to pour my heart out to this health professional, who seemed to sense that something else was wrong in my life.
But I didn’t. How could I explain the horrendous abuse that had been going on for the last ten years, since I was seven years old? How could I tell him of the pain, humiliation and constant belittlement I suffered at the hands of my mother? Bill had drummed it into me that I wouldn’t be believed. He constantly reminded me that all the family knew how much he cared about me. How I willingly spent time with him. How I showed the world that I loved him.
Would this kind doctor have believed me? I was scared that he wouldn’t. So I said I was fine, just tired after the pre-nursing course and the experiences in hospital. I told him I was still getting the headaches and period pains but that otherwise I was just OK.