I Own You

by Dawn McConnell

  ‘You’ve got a lovely daughter there, Duncan!’ Jim said. ‘I hope we’ll be seeing more of her now.’

  ‘Oh aye.’ Dad grinned. ‘She’s here all summer.’

  ‘Perfect!’

  Quite quickly, Mum’s attitude shifted from one of disdain towards what she called ‘those underworld types’ to warmth and hospitality. Money talked and there was no question we could use it. Once the men started spending money and showering her with compliments, they were welcomed into the hotel with open arms.

  It turned out that Jim was the new owner of The Schoolhouse. That first evening he took my dad aside and assured him that if we had any trouble from his residents, he would personally reimburse us. It was all that Dad needed to hear and from that point on there was no more stealing by Jim’s tenants.

  Slowly, my mother’s appearance started to change. Usually, she was stuck behind the kitchen door in her baggy blue overalls, the kind that button up at the front, unseen and unwilling to be seen by the guests. But now these men were coming into the bar every day, men who showed their appreciation for a good-looking woman, she was more than happy to make an effort. Mum plastered on the make-up, took off her overalls to showcase her best Jaeger suits and wafted round the hotel, smelling of Christian Dior perfume instead of cheese-and-onion pasties.

  ‘Now, can you tell me, Penelope, love, what on earth a beautiful, sophisticated woman like you is doing in a place like this?’ Jim would ask her.

  ‘Oh, don’t!’ she’d laugh bashfully, though secretly I could tell she loved it.

  ‘You’re a lucky man, Duncan!’ the men joshed with my dad.

  Dad smiled indulgently at these comments. He never complimented Mum like that, at least not that I ever heard, and I think she yearned for the attention.

  Within a few weeks, our drab little hotel had been transformed into a thriving and successful business once again. Jim and his friends brought all their ‘associates’ to the restaurant and Mum was busier than ever, impressing them with her expert culinary skills and most delicious Italian favourites, like osso bucco (slow-cooked veal shank), chicken cacciatore, bresaola and carpaccio, plus risotto and pasta dishes of every kind. These large men loved Mum’s cooking and dubbed her ‘the best chef in Glasgow’. I served in the restaurants most nights, marvelling at the number of times a week these men seemed to eat out. Don’t they have homes to go to? I wondered.

  One night, the men brought their wives along and suddenly it all made sense. The women were dressed head to toe in the latest fashions, clacking around in towering heels, plumping up their big hairdos with blood-red fingernails and showing off handfuls of glittering rings. They looked like they would rather be out in swanky restaurants than slaving away in a hot kitchen. ‘The nouveau riche ladies,’ Mum sneered behind their backs, though to their faces of course she was all smiles.

  I didn’t care who they were – for the first time in my life, the hotel was an exciting place to be and late at night, after the men had stumbled out of our hotel and gone over the road to The Schoolhouse, I’d sit up at my bedroom window and gaze at the building opposite, wondering what was going on inside. The Schoolhouse was right across the busy main road, midway between the hotel and the house. Whether I was at the hotel or house I had a perfect view of the front door. I’d seen the drunks and teenage prostitutes stumble in and out the whole time and I knew some of those expensive cars stayed all night long, but I couldn’t for the life of me imagine the sort of parties they were having in there.

  Naturally, I was banned from visiting. Mum insisted that the residents were all the lowest of the low, real deadbeats, and said it was ‘no place for a child’. Even Dad agreed with her for a change, describing it as a ‘den of vice and thieves’. But like a moth to a flame, I was drawn to this ‘other world’ and as the weeks passed, my curiosity grew more intense.

  One Sunday afternoon in July, I was serving in the restaurant as Jim’s group enjoyed a long and booze-fuelled lunch. Mum seemed to practically float around the hotel these days, held up on a sea of compliments.

  ‘Don’t just stand there. Clear the plates, Dawn,’ she hissed at me as she passed, carrying several more bottles of wine for Jim’s table.

  I jumped into action, picking up the empty plates that lay in front of the men sat round the table, who were now smoking and clinking glasses of whisky. As I came to the last setting, I recognized one of the men as the dad of a boy in my class. He was holding a twenty-pound note in the air and looking directly at me.

  I walked towards the man and, as I did so, he smiled and pointed to his cheek. He wanted a kiss on the cheek for twenty quid. Well, why not? He was fairly good-looking with jet-black hair slicked back from his head, and it was more than I could earn working flat out for three days. I bent down to give him a kiss.

  But as I did so, he turned his face around so that I kissed him smack on the lips.

  I jumped back, surprised, but in that moment the whole table erupted into laughter and wolf whistles. Embarrassed, I grinned awkwardly and the man grinned back. I felt a light fluttering in my heart.

  ‘I know you, don’t I?’ he said, narrowing his eyes. ‘Don’t you go to the same school as my son, Fergus?’

  ‘Yes.’ I had seen him a few times at our school, dropping Fergus off in a beautiful green Bentley. ‘Your son is in the same class as me.’

  ‘Well, why haven’t you been round to one of his parties?’

  ‘Erm, I’m not really part of that group,’ I replied awkwardly.

  Fergus was practically the leader of the cool kids. He came into school wearing the latest DM boots, his tie slung cockily over his shoulder and his pockets bulging with cash. I knew that Fergus invited other kids over to his place for parties and, judging by the rumours, he lived in a beautiful, big house on the other side of town. But I wasn’t allowed to go to parties and, besides, I wasn’t cool enough for him to invite me anyway. In his eyes, I was a geek: I studied hard, played sports and basically did what my parents told me.

  Fergus rubbished all of that. He had no respect for the teachers and it was clear he planned to drop out after his O levels, whereas I had big ideas of going to art school. One time he had asked me bluntly why I was such a square and I’d informed him, quite primly, that I needed to study hard if I wanted to get a good job.

  ‘That’s rubbish!’ he’d scoffed. ‘My dad’s got loads of money, Bentleys and Jaguars and he didn’t even go to school. He can barely read or write! You’re wasting your time.’

  Now his dad was right in front of me and he seemed very different from his brash, spoilt and immature son. He was quiet and spoke to me in a way that made me feel like I was the only person in the room.

  ‘Well, I don’t know why Fergus hasn’t brought you back to our house. I really don’t. I mean, out of all the girls I’ve met from his school, you’re the best-looking one by far. Why don’t you come over to our place sometime?’

  I hesitated for a second then, looking down at my feet, and replied: ‘No, I don’t think that’s a good idea, Mr Kelly. Like I said, I’m not in your son’s group.’

  ‘Please don’t call me Mr Kelly. It’s Stuart to you.’

  I looked up then and in that second I felt that same fluttering in my heart.

  ‘Sorry, Stuart.’

  ‘And you’re Dawn, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, it’s a real pleasure to meet you, Dawn.’

  Stuart. Stuart. I smiled to myself as I cleared away the rest of the plates, his name like a mantra running rhythmically through my head. For the remainder of the evening, I kept catching him looking at me as I served all the tables in the dining room, bringing out desserts and drinks and refilling glasses. Every time he smiled at me, my stomach did a little flip. Here was a confident, sophisticated businessman paying me a lot of attention. It was thrilling and a world away from the young boys like Dominic with their needy, grabby hands and their boring small talk.

  After that day, I bumpe
d into Stuart more and more often. He was at the hotel most days and frequently gave me lifts when he passed me at the bus stop. He happened to be passing me a lot from then on – usually when I was on my way home from tennis in my white skirt and shirt. Every time he saw me, he told me what a beautiful girl I was and that if only he were twenty years younger, he’d take me out.

  ‘I never knew anyone as beautiful as you when I was a young man,’ he’d say as he drove slowly towards the hotel. ‘My wife and I, well, it was all a bit of an accident. She fell pregnant when we were teenagers and in those days, you didn’t have any choice. You had to get married. It’s been a struggle since then. I’ve got to be honest, I never really loved her.’

  As for me, I had developed a massive crush on Stuart. He asked if it was okay if we were friends and I said yes. I wanted him to be my friend.

  ‘That’s so sweet,’ he sighed. ‘You’ve got a lovely nature, Dawn. Really, because some people would be suspicious of a man of thirty-seven being friends with a fourteen-year-old. They wouldn’t understand. They would think it was all a bit sordid, and they might not approve, so best not to tell anyone . . . okay?’

  I had a secret admirer! It was so exciting! Weeks passed and now suddenly my life had an exciting new element. Some days I’d open my curtains in the morning to find Stuart’s Jaguar parked right in front of my house. When I asked him why he had been there, he just looked at me with sadness: ‘I don’t know, Dawn, I guess I just want to make sure you’re okay. You’re such a special person, I want to watch over you, to look after you. Is that okay? If I could, I’d marry you and I’d spoil you so much, you would never have to work. You’re so precious, I wouldn’t let any other man even look at you. We’d travel the world, I’d buy you nice clothes, shoes and take you to all the best restaurants and bars. I would be the envy of every man in Glasgow!’

  It was too much! I blushed with delight. Everything he said was amazing and I couldn’t believe that this important and rich man was paying me so much attention. Was this love? Was this how it made you feel? Mum had told me you’d know when it was right; you would feel as if you could walk on air. Well, this must be it, I thought. I’d never had this feeling before, so what else could it be?

  ‘You can wave to me if you like,’ he added. ‘When you see me outside your bedroom window. But be careful not to let anyone catch you. Some people might think it a bit odd and get the wrong idea.’

  School started up again at the end of August, and during that first week Stuart picked me up from tennis on my way home and asked whether I was going to the school disco on Friday night. He’d heard all about it from his son.

  ‘Maybe.’ I shrugged. ‘I haven’t really got much to wear for a disco. There’s a nice pair of shoes I’ve seen in Dolcis, but they’re quite dear.’

  ‘How much?’ Stuart said without missing a beat.

  ‘Oh no, I don’t mean that!’ I said hurriedly.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Stuart insisted. ‘How much do you need?’

  ‘They’re £19.99.’

  Stuart unfurled a clutch of twenty-pound notes from his large cash wad.

  ‘Here, take sixty quid,’ he said. ‘Get yourself a nice outfit.’

  I just stared at the money, gobsmacked: ‘But . . .’

  ‘No arguments,’ said Stuart. ‘Just take it. You deserve to treat yourself.’

  I was flattered, overwhelmed, in awe of this man. No one had ever told me that I deserved to treat myself; no one had ever said nice things to me. It seemed like he truly wanted to look after me.

  By this time, I had almost completely buried the memories of what my brother had done to me as a young girl. Then John came back home for a few days, after Mum persuaded Dad that he was truly sorry for flunking his exams and wanted to make it up to them.

  John hadn’t changed one bit, though; he was still a complete pothead and party animal. He hadn’t been home more than one night before he sneaked out to a club and came back in through my bedroom window in the wee small hours. I didn’t have any trouble now telling him to get lost. This time I was angry, and no longer scared of him. I knew what he had been doing all these years was so wrong. I didn’t want to be reminded about having sex with my brother; it made me feel sick to the stomach thinking about it. This time he didn’t fall into my bed, but shook my shoulder and asked me to move up. It was like he was testing the ground. He knew I had rejected him the last time and wanted to know if I would change my mind – or had his little sis truly grown up?

  The next day, Stuart gave me a lift to hockey practice.

  ‘What happened last night?’ he asked me, in a demanding tone, as soon as I got in his car.

  His question took me by surprise as I clicked my seatbelt into place and settled back against the luxurious leather seats; I far preferred travelling in Stuart’s elegant Bentley to my dad’s clapped-out old Saab. ‘What do you mean?’ I asked, confused.

  ‘I saw a boy crawl into your window at about three in the morning. Who was it?’

  My heart began to beat faster. What can I say? How can I explain this?

  ‘Oh, that’s my older brother John,’ I said, in what I hoped was a light tone. ‘He went clubbing and it was his only way of getting back in the house. We don’t see him much, he lives in London.’

  Despite myself, I felt colour rising to my cheeks as I talked of John and lied about why he was in my room. I looked out of the window to hide my discomfort.

  ‘Is that all there is to it?’ Stuart probed.

  Silence filled the car as I counted the trees that whizzed past the window.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked, casually, certain he could hear my guilty, pounding heart.

  ‘I mean, is there anything else you want to tell me about John? It just seems strange to me, that he should go through your bedroom.’

  He seemed so caring, so gentle, that I felt I could trust Stuart; that of all the people in my life, he would understand. We’d been friends for months by then, and I trusted him completely.

  Little did I realize that this was the very moment everything changed for me. Years later, I would be told that my ‘revelation’ to Stuart had been crucial, that it told him so much about me and my world; not least that I was capable of keeping a secret.

  ‘Grooming’ – that’s what they called it. But at the time, aged just fifteen, I had no idea. I simply thought he was my friend and he cared deeply about me.

  I stared across at Stuart in the Bentley. He gave me a reassuring, oh-so-kind smile that brought an involuntary smile to my own lips, like we were mirror images: two sides of the same coin. You can do this, Dawn, I told myself. It felt right.

  And so, for the first time ever, I opened up. I told him that John had abused me in the past, when I was a little girl. I told him everything. I told him how I hated John, even though the abuse had stopped some years before. I told him how much it had hurt.

  I was shaking with emotion by the time I’d finished talking and Stuart took me in his arms in a huge embrace.

  ‘That’s terrible,’ he whispered. Now he took me by the shoulder: ‘That’s really awful what he did to you, Dawn. I want to beat the shit out of him for what he did . . .’

  ‘No! Don’t!’ I looked at him in alarm.

  ‘I won’t, Dawn, not if you don’t want me to. Don’t worry – your secret is safe with me. I won’t tell a soul.’

  There was a pause then, as though he was thinking hard. He gave me another easy smile as he rubbed my arms gently with his big, grown-up hands. ‘You know that I care very deeply about you, don’t you, Dawn?’ he said, smoothly.

  I nodded.

  ‘I can’t help it. I know I’m a married man and you’re still only fifteen and at school, but . . . I love you.’

  He loves me!

  ‘If I were single,’ Stuart continued, ‘I would marry you tomorrow. I’ve never had feelings like this for anybody before. All I want to do is run away with you and look after you for the rest of our lives.’
He looked me deep in the eyes. ‘Tell me, do you feel the same?’

  I nodded shyly. I was blown away by Stuart’s kindness, and this declaration of his love was overwhelming. I felt myself swept up in a tornado of emotion. He loves me!

  Well, I loved him too. We would be together forever, I knew that now. Stuart would love and protect me and keep me safe. I have nothing to worry about, I thought happily. Nothing at all.

  And then, for the first time, Stuart leaned in close towards me. It felt incredibly intimate. His face loomed closer to mine and I knew before he did it what was about to happen. I closed my eyes, anticipating – sweetly anticipating. Locking his lips on mine, Stuart kissed me passionately, then whispered into my ear as his hands started to explore my body with an excited, urgent pace.

  ‘I know this is going to be hard, Dawn, but I’m prepared to be there for you and to protect you, always,’ he murmured as his palms roved my body. ‘We mustn’t let anybody find out about us, though, because you are underage.

  ‘This is going to be our little secret. Okay?’

  Chapter 6

  Stuart

  Stuart wanted sex straight away – of course he did. I assumed that this was normal because it was all that I had ever known. Never mind what I wanted, when men wanted sex they got it: that was just a fact. And Stuart had been at pains to reassure me that sex wasn’t a bad thing, even though my brother had abused me. It was a natural and beautiful thing between two people who loved each other. Sex was nothing to be ashamed of and if it was with the right person, it was the best thing in the world.

  That was what he told me, at least, but my first time with Stuart wasn’t what I expected from his passionate declarations.

  Not at all.

  I had agreed to meet him after school at one of the buildings he had just bought in the centre of town. Stuart was a real wheeler-dealer businessman, with interests in cars, jewellery, antiques and property. From the way he had described this new venture, I had imagined a glamorous high-rise building with luxury flats; a real ‘party place’ he’d called it. But when I arrived at the address, I was surprised to find a grim sixties office block with an entrance through an underground car park.