On the rare occasions she took me out shopping, Mum chatted to her neighbours with such a haughty air that those conversations never lasted long.
‘Oh the children are doing so well, all of them,’ she’d boast. ‘Private education, it’s so important. Don’t you think? I have Susy down for Oxford and John is hoping to get into Cambridge.’
‘Och aye.’
‘And little Dawn does the most charming drawings at school. She’s really quite a talent,’ Mum went on, hardly noticing the hostile tone of her companion.
But I heard it. I wondered if Mum never noticed because her prim Edinburgh accent was so different from the broad Glaswegian that everyone else spoke in our neighbourhood.
Where Mum was thin and sour, my dad Duncan was round and soft. He never shouted at me, only laughed. He seemed happy for me to be in his company and I was always an appreciative audience for his incredible stories of travelling in faraway places, peopled by exotic and unusual characters. Ten years older than my mother, my dad had led a wild youth, filled with as much adventure and excitement as the life of Indiana Jones himself. My dad had done all those things in the movies – and more! He had eaten snakes, goat’s eyes, cockroaches, alligator and monkey brains, nearly lost his life in numerous crashes and scrapes and found his way into the most fascinating lands in the world. He was a true adventurer and loved to show off the culinary skills he had picked up on his travels. He loved all food, it seemed, as much as he loved his vodka and whisky.
To me, he was always a huge man with a big fat belly, gnawing on bones and sucking marrow from the inside. His glasses perched on his nose, so dirty with grease and fingerprints that it was a wonder he could see through them at all. His teeth were no longer white, but yellow and chipped from crunching on small poultry and shellfish. His hair was thinning and dull grey, his once piercing green eyes were now watery and bloodshot from too much drink and lack of sleep, and he stank of stale beer and raw spirits.
It was a far cry from the slim war hero I saw in old black-and-white photos. Dad had been a radio operator flying in Lancaster bombers during the Second World War. It was, by his own words, the making of him.
‘The Scots, we’re the bravest men in the world,’ he’d tell me, thumping his chest proudly. ‘You know what they called us: the Ladies from Hell. The Germans thought it was an insult because the Black Watch wear kilts but let me tell you, it’s no insult. The Scots are so tough, we can cross-dress and still be shining examples of fighting manhood! Us and the Gurkhas, we’re the brave ones, the ones who put our lives on the line.
‘Unlike the weak and cowardly English. The snooty-nosed officer class who never left their barracks, or if they did it was only to play a bloody game of cricket! Us Scots, we’re warriors, just like the Gurkhas . . .’
And with that he’d start to well up. Overcome with the emotion of the memory, he’d let big fat tears plop down onto the kitchen counter.
‘Because we’re working class, you see, we’re the peasants. We fought and we died side by side . . . in our thousands. So many brave, heroic men cut down in their prime . . .’ and then he would stop, pull out a large, spotted handkerchief and clasp it to his nose, unable to speak about the many friends he had lost in battle. Eventually, when he’d composed himself and blown his nose, he’d look me straight in the eye and say: ‘That’s your heritage, Dawn. That’s the kind of people we are – tough, strong and proud. That’s who you are. Never forget it.’
After the war, Dad had a few jobs before he finally ended up in France. He loved working for a Glasgow-based importer best of all.
‘They needed a man they could send anywhere, anywhere at all,’ he’d say. ‘So they chose me. You see, I was happy to rough it, sleep on park benches, in railway stations. I didn’t care. I didn’t need posh, five-star hotels. No, I was always far happier on the ground, mingling with the locals, being one of them. To me, there is no higher honour than being invited into an Indian’s home for a home-cooked dinner, a touch of moonshine or the simple pleasure of eating the flesh of a ripe coconut. That, to me, is the high life!’
This always struck me as quite funny, especially as my mother had such opposite tastes. After all, she was the one who loved the thought of sipping champagne and Bellinis on hotel balconies, dining at the finest restaurants and wearing couture clothes. How the two of them ever found each other I’ll never know!
Dad’s storytelling was always enhanced by the many accents he could put on and his ability to talk in Urdu or Hindi. He could even take off my mother’s Morningside accent and a second later return to broad Glaswegian.
Mum found it baffling.
‘Why do you do that?’ she asked him one day as he slipped out of Received Pronunciation into an Indian accent and back to broad Scots.
‘I’ll nae get far if I speak like you,’ he joked, ‘we’ll hae nae customers!’
Dad may have been lazy and, certainly, he paid no mind to us kids for the most part, but he was a keen musician and he often let me sit with him as he knocked out Bing Crosby’s ‘Swinging on a Star’ on the piano in our playroom. He loved listening to old jazz and blues records by Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Louis Armstrong. We watched all the black-and-white movies from the forties and fifties, sang along to the musicals, especially The Jungle Book, and then late at night, when I couldn’t sleep, we would watch gory horror films on STV.
Dad was my hero, my idol. But then he was good to me and Susy and he never raised his voice or hands to either of us.
I couldn’t say the same for John. In fact, they couldn’t be in the same room without a fight breaking out.
One of my earliest memories was of standing in my cot as I watched my mother peel my brother away from my dad, sobbing and crying: ‘Leave him alone, Duncan! Just leave him alone!’
‘I’ll teach that boy!’ my dad roared, making a grab for my twelve-year-old brother. ‘I’ll beat him black and bloody blue!’
‘NO, Duncan! NO! Get out!’
It hadn’t got any better since then. Why did he hate him so much?
As I grew up, my mind kept turning back to John Jay, the wealthy Australian ‘boyfriend’ of my mother, and the odd thing I’d pointed out to my dad as he was making curry that day. It really did seem funny, I thought, that Mum’s friend had the same name as my brother.
Did it bother my dad, I wondered, that Mum still wore the sapphire ring John Jay had given her in her youth? Did he mind about the regular phone calls . . .
Dad didn’t seem bothered. He never expressed anything other than quiet tolerance for John Jay.
But as for his son, that was another matter . . .
Chapter 4
The Last Time
John seemed very proud of himself as he flashed the large gold watch in my direction.
‘Look what Dad gave me!’ He grinned, flipping his wrist one way and the other so that the face of the watch reflected harsh sunlight into my eight-year-old eyes.
‘What is it?’ I asked, unimpressed.
‘It’s a Rolex,’ he said. ‘Dad got me a Rolex.’
Later that day, when Mum came in from the hotel to cook tea, I asked her: ‘Mum, what’s a Rolex?’
‘A Rolex, darling, is a very expensive watch you get when you do something good.’
‘So what did John do that was good?’
‘He got into Cambridge University. He’s going to study to be a physicist.’
‘Is that good, then?’
‘Yes, it’s very good. Your dad and I are very proud of your brother.’
It was certainly a happy day for me, too, when, aged eighteen, my brother left home for his first term at Cambridge. It wasn’t even in Scotland! John would be hundreds of miles away most of the time, only coming home in the holidays.
Dad, for a change, was very pleased with John and in the run-up to his departure he and Mum lavished money on him to pay for his new books, suits and shoes, not to mention a trunk, ironing board and a host of smaller, essential item
s he said he needed. Mum looked like she would burst with pride the day he left in his smart blazer and tie, all set for his new life in England.
‘You’re going to break a few hearts,’ she teased him, picking imaginary lint off his jacket lapel. She could hardly keep her hands off him.
‘Och, leave the boy alone,’ Dad smiled, though I could tell he was equally proud. For the first time I could remember, I saw my dad hugging my brother as they exchanged their goodbyes on the platform of Glasgow train station. And was that a tear in his eye?
John was so puffed up with pride he was unbearably smug. The way he was acting, you’d think he’d won a bloody Nobel Prize! I stood behind Mum, embarrassed by the whole scene.
‘Bye John,’ I said flatly.
‘See ya, Squirt.’ He smiled, and then he winked. I could almost hear what he was thinking: You’re not going to tell anyone our little secret while I’m away, are you?
I met his gaze with a quick shake of my head. The abuse had stopped in the last six months when John got a girlfriend, and I had tried to put it behind me. No, I wouldn’t tell a soul. Not now. Not ever. His secret was safe with me.
The fact was, I was embarrassed by what John had done to me and I wanted to forget it had ever happened. So I buried those horrible memories and, thankfully, he stopped doing it after he left home. The rare times I saw him in the holidays he kept to his room, smoking pot and playing loud music.
At this time my parents moved me out of my small box-room and into the old playroom, which was a whole lot bigger. The window looked out onto the main road and I liked to lean out every morning and watch the world go by. A large holly bush partially blocked the view, which meant that I could look out from my window seat but passers-by couldn’t peer in.
I felt happy in my new room. I imagined that I had moved into a new world, a new home where the old things of the past never existed and dirty big brothers didn’t do horrible things to their scared little sisters.
Home life was certainly easier now that John was away. At school, too, I found a fresh enthusiasm for everything the world had to offer. I threw myself into art and sport. Susy and I cycled down to the public pool every morning, where we took swimming lessons from 5.30 a.m. till 7 a.m. It suited Mum because it meant we were busy while she was cooking up the breakfasts at the hotel. Afterwards, we got ourselves a hot chocolate and sweet yum yum each from the corner cafe, which slightly compensated for going into school with cold, wet hair on my back.
During the summer months we played tennis every weekend and in the winter it was field hockey. I was careful to keep my grades high as Dad constantly complained about ‘the money these bloody kids are costing us in school fees’. It was one of my parents’ regular rows, the money they had to spend on our private education. For Mum, there was never a question in her mind that it was worth the work and sacrifice. But Dad, well, he was never convinced.
‘You two had better knuckle down and work hard,’ he’d grumble on the days he dropped us off at school when the polo team had the use of the pool and we had a well-deserved lie-in.
‘If I find your grades slipping it’ll be straight to the local comp with you both and then your dad will get to enjoy himself a little more and work a little less.’
The prospect terrified me – I had seen the kids from the tough Glasgow estates who hung around the gates of the local secondary school in their tight skirts, smoking, sneering and flicking V-signs at each other. How could I survive in such a place? For there was no doubt about it, even in the small, privileged world of my private school, my friends and I were known as ‘the squares’.
Of course, we didn’t see ourselves that way; I was just into sport and art and I didn’t really know about anything else. Certainly not boys. Besides, our parents were strict with us – we weren’t allowed to wear the latest fashions from Topshop or Dolcis, we didn’t hang around in town at the weekends and we weren’t allowed to go to parties (not that we were invited to many). I didn’t have the same kind of freedom I saw other children have, the ones who got to take the bus into town on their own or hang out in the park for hours at a time. No, all my movements had to be accounted for at all times and I obeyed, without a thought, because that was the way I had been raised. If I had any free time between the swimming, tennis and homework, I was set to work helping out in the hotel kitchen or serving the guests. In the holidays I was sent off to hockey camp or tennis camp for weeks at a time and that suited me just fine.
In this way, I grew up, cosseted and shielded from the tough, grimy world on my doorstep. My long blonde hair bounced off my shoulders while my limbs became strong and toned by years of sports and exercise. At twelve years old I was an innocent, oblivious to the girls in my year who flirted and dated boys, obsessed only with tennis and art. And I had almost, almost allowed myself to forget what had happened to me as a child.
If only . . . If only he had just left me alone.
But he didn’t. That last time, when I was twelve years old . . . that was the worst time ever.
It had been a hot, clear day that Saturday in July and I had played several hours of tennis, catching the sun enough to leave my skin throbbing with heat. I lay in my bed that night, sweating and struggling to sleep in the still, humid air. Despite the fact that I’d left my bedroom window open, I felt no breeze at all and it took me ages finally to fall asleep.
Next thing, I was woken up by the scrape of an arm against the window frame. In another second, the whole window was wide open and John had flung himself into my room, falling onto the floor and laughing his head off, high as a kite on drugs. This scruffy, long-haired student was a far cry from the smart, blazered boy who had left home four years before.
‘Shhhh!’ he giggled, putting one finger against his lips.
A wave of revulsion washed over me as he crawled into my bed. I felt my whole body tense up as I lay there, not speaking, not saying a word. Though I was taller now, I still felt small when it came to John. The closeness of his body made me freeze inside and I was unable to do anything to stop him; unable to do anything at all as he lifted my nightie up past my waist and unbuttoned his trousers, pushing them down with one hand.
I knew what was coming but in that moment I could not move. I could not do a thing. I was a helpless five-year-old again, trapped in an unbearable situation from which I saw no escape.
Then something happened which I couldn’t explain. It was as if my mind floated up outside of myself, leaving my helpless body behind. From above my bed, I watched it all unfold, as if it was all being done to someone else.
I watched him crawl up the bed so he could enter me.
This time, he was not tender. He gripped my hips and tried to kiss me. His breath was toxic with drink.
My body, no longer that of a small child, was developing in a way that I saw made him more urgent and excited than before. He grabbed at my budding breasts, shoved his rough hands into the thick pubic hair between my legs. Above him and me, I watched.
Somewhere down there, he pulled at my skin, squeezing my nipples. Faster and harder he drove himself into me. He grabbed at my legs, trying to wrap them around him. He held my jaw as he shoved his tongue into my mouth. The body down there was frightened and upset. She tried to push him away, shaking her head, but it made no difference and he held her down with renewed force. I watched it all.
This time it was rape. I knew the word now, but it was also more than that. He knew I did not want this but the more I fought, the stronger he became. Fear and shame kept me from shouting out – what if my mother or sister came in now and caught me like this? So I kept silent, my cries locked in my stomach, locked in my throat. They would not come out.
His touch was fierce. His unshaven face scraped across my body. His hands twisted my nipples and pinched them until they were red raw. He did not speak, he did not look at me. On and on it went until with one deep groan he pulled himself out of me and ejaculated over my stomach.
I felt sick but he lo
oked at me and laughed.
‘Admit it, you enjoyed this,’ he sneered. He smiled cruelly at me as he opened my bedroom door and left.
Finally, my mind floated back down to my body. I curled up in a ball and cried.
Little did he know that that would be the last time he abused me. The following week at school we had a sex education class and I found out that now I was menstruating every month, sex could get me pregnant. It was the first time I had realized sex could lead to a baby.
In the playground after class, my friends and I stood around discussing this earth-shattering news.
‘Oh that’s disgusting!’ said my friend Simone. ‘The man pees inside you! That’s how you have a baby! Can you imagine?’
‘Gross!’
‘Revolting!’
‘Urgh!’
They stuck their middle fingers into their mouths and made exaggerated ‘throwing up’ faces and we all agreed this was probably the most despicable thing any of us could imagine. And I played along too: ‘I could barf just thinking about it!’
I had to pretend not to know about sex because in that moment I realized nobody else knew. It was as I had suspected for some time but now it was finally confirmed: everything John had told me was a lie. It wasn’t normal! Nobody did this to their little sisters. And, worse, it could get me pregnant!
I was terrified that it was already too late. His child could be growing inside me already. What would I do? How would I explain this to my mother? What about school, my life? A baby would ruin everything.
So when John crawled into my bedroom again two weeks later and tried to get into bed with me, I said no. For the first time in my life, I said no.
I Own You Page 4