I Own You

by Dawn McConnell

  My form teacher nodded at me so I got up and followed the girl back along the corridor, fully expecting to be disciplined about my mock-exam results. I’d failed all of them, except Art, and I hadn’t had the guts yet to tell my parents. So I was surprised to see two tall, young policemen standing in the room when I arrived.

  ‘Dawn,’ said Mrs Crowthorne grimly. ‘We’ve had another report about you, this time from Mrs Maria Kelly, that you’re seeing her husband. She’s had a private eye following the two of you for the past three weeks and she has shared this information with us.

  ‘Dawn, I warned you previously. You’re not sixteen. Legally, you’re underage and that’s why you’re going to be taken to the police station for questioning. You have to go with these gentlemen here.’

  It was a shock, but in that moment I didn’t feel frightened, I felt angry.

  ‘I need to make a phone call,’ I said defiantly. I was ready for this – Stuart had prepared me for this moment.

  ‘Why do you need to make a phone call?’ asked Mrs Crowthorne suspiciously.

  ‘I need to phone my mother.’

  ‘No, I’ll phone your mother.’

  ‘No, I want to. I can make a call, can’t I?’

  ‘You can call from here.’ The head gestured to the large black telephone sitting on her desk.

  ‘No, I want to make a private call,’ I insisted. ‘I’m entitled to a private call.’

  One of the policemen now spoke up: ‘Who told you this? Who’s put this into your head?’

  ‘It’s my rights. I know it’s my rights,’ I practically shouted, and with that I stomped out of the office and towards the payphone in the corridor. The two policemen bolted after me: ‘You’re going to run, aren’t you?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ I snapped back. ‘Where do you think I’m going to go? I’m going to the payphone!’

  They followed me all the way to the payphone where I managed to make a call, leaving a message on Stuart’s pager: Just been arrested from the high school.

  And when I’d finished, that’s when they put the handcuffs on me. Right there, in the corridor of my school! The bell had only just gone so everyone was still milling about and they all got a good eyeful of me being marched down the corridor between two hulking policemen in my school uniform. I was embarrassed and ashamed, but mostly angry.

  How dare they treat me like a criminal! What do these imbeciles know about love? I thought, as they ushered me into the police van, parked in the courtyard of the school. I kept my eyes locked in front of me, but I couldn’t help noticing the crowds of students and teachers who had gathered to watch the spectacle unfold.

  My mum was at the police station when we arrived. She was sitting in a plastic chair, dressed in a smart navy Betty Barclay suit and holding a hanky to her face, as if she was at a funeral.

  ‘What’s she doing here?’ I snapped at the young policeman at my side.

  ‘She’s your mother,’ he said, though this was self-evident.

  ‘I don’t care. Get her out of here. I don’t want to see her.’

  By now I had nothing but resentment for my mum and everything she stood for. She could cry if she liked, but it was her who had welcomed Stuart and his friends into the hotel. It was her who had stopped me seeing Dominic and insisted I spend the whole summer in the hotel. What did she expect? That I wouldn’t find my own amusement somehow? She was a blazing hypocrite as far as I was concerned and probably jealous, just like Stuart said. It was all sun and roses when they were offering to run away with her, so why not the same for me?

  In the interview room, the policemen finally took the cuffs off and let me sit down. Now two plain-clothed policewomen came in, carrying a wad of papers and a cup of tea each. They sat at the desk opposite me.

  Nobody had offered me a drink, I noticed. I know such situations would be dealt with differently now, but back in those days there was no sympathy or even a perception of me as the innocent victim: I was assumed to be guilty and made to feel like a criminal. It had only one effect: it steeled my nerves to protect Stuart, who – in stark contrast to these people – had always treated me so kindly and so well.

  The older policewoman, who looked about forty, examined the papers on the desk in front of her and then, still looking at them, she spoke: ‘We’ve had a report from Maria Kelly. You know who she is?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We’ve had a report that you’re having sexual relations with her husband and you’re under sixteen, you’re a minor.’ Finally she looked at me. ‘Do you know the consequences of this?’

  I just stared silently at my feet. Stuart had drilled it into me to say nothing and I wasn’t going to let him down. I wasn’t going to be responsible for sending him to prison. If anybody could stay quiet, it was me: I’d had a lot of practice at it, ever since I was five.

  I remembered what Stuart had told me, too: as long as I kept quiet, they had nothing that could split us up.

  Now the two policewomen took turns to fire questions at me.

  ‘How long have you been seeing Stuart Kelly?’

  ‘Are you having sex with Mr Kelly?’

  ‘Where do you meet him?’

  ‘How often do you meet him?’

  ‘What do you do with him?’

  ‘Where do you go?’

  ‘Are you having sex?’

  ‘Are you using a condom?’

  I didn’t say a word. I just stared at them both, my arms folded, with one eyebrow raised and a cocky smirk on my face. Fuelled by self-righteous rage, all I could think was: I hate these bitches.

  What right do they have to treat me like this? I thought indignantly. I couldn’t see that they were trying to protect me, that they were trying to gather evidence for what was, at the end of the day, a crime that Stuart had committed. On and on it went, the questions and the interrogation. They wanted to do a test to check if I was still a virgin. Would I submit to this test? No: I shook my head. Finally, exasperated, the older policewoman sat back and sighed.

  ‘You know you’re going into care, don’t you?’

  Silence.

  ‘Your mother has told us that she can’t ensure your safety from this man and wants you to go into care.’

  I didn’t speak but inside I was raging. Was this true? Mum wanted to put me into care? What a bitch! Every inch of my fifteen-year-old body seethed with anger.

  ‘We’ve arrested him too, you know. He’ll go to prison and you’ll go into care so you might as well talk to us, Dawn.’

  But the only time I spoke was to ask to go to the toilet. When I got back, I was surprised to see a smart man in a beige suit and tortoiseshell glasses sitting on my side of the table.

  ‘You’ve got a solicitor here now,’ said the older policewoman testily. ‘A criminal lawyer. Who called him?’

  I just grinned knowingly at her.

  ‘Well, anyway, you can speak to your lawyer now.’

  The policewomen both got up and left the room. Once the door was firmly shut, the lawyer turned to me.

  ‘My name is Michael Turner – call me Mike. I’m Stuart’s lawyer and now I’m going to represent you. It sounds like you’ve done well, Dawn, by not telling them anything.

  ‘Now, once we finish up here, I’ll speak to the police and they’ll release you back into the care of your parents. You’ve got a few months till your sixteenth birthday so you have to be very careful. If you and Stuart are seen together, you’ll get arrested on the spot. Maria’s got a private investigator following Stuart. She’s given times and dates of where you’ve been seen. So just be really smart about this, okay?’

  Mum was still in the station reception when I came back out; still sobbing into her hanky. She walked me to the car outside where Dad was waiting for us.

  ‘Look what you’ve made your mother do,’ he said, as I slid into the backseat. He started the engine and, as he drove us all home, Dad told me there would now be a new regime. He was going to drop me off and pick me up
from school each day and I’d have to sign in to each class. If he got a report that I’d missed any classes, I’d be in serious trouble. And, naturally, I was grounded.

  ‘Go to your room,’ Dad muttered when we got home. ‘Nobody wants to speak to you.’

  That was ironic: I hadn’t spoken a word the whole time. My only thought now was: how on earth am I going to last six weeks without seeing Stuart?

  For in my mind, nothing had changed. The dream lived on: once I turned sixteen, we would run away together and I was going to be treated like a queen. Just two months, that was all, and then everything would be different. I’d leave this miserable hellhole and move into Stuart’s house. We’d get married, have children and I’d spend the rest of my days as a lady of leisure. Just two months, and it would all be mine: a happy, loving future with the man that I adored.

  Or so I thought . . .

  PART II

  LOST

  Chapter 7

  Trouble in Paradise

  ‘Dawn, what are you calling for? We’re going to have to cool it,’ said Stuart in an urgent whisper. ‘I could get arrested, I could lose my whole business! My children aren’t speaking to me. I’m sleeping in the spare bedroom, for God’s sake!’

  I didn’t understand. I had expected Stuart to compliment me on how well I had managed to keep my cool under pressure in the police station. I had been holding out for his warm words, for since that day I’d been a virtual prisoner in my own home, under constant observation. After school each day the police were round at the house, making sure I didn’t go out. Meanwhile a journalist from the local paper hung around the school gates all day, hoping to get a juicy titbit about the ‘private schoolgirl who’d copped off with the married businessman’. Nobody talked. After all, what could they say? Without my confession there was no story and I wasn’t about to start blabbing. I had thought that Stuart would be proud of me – and impressed that I had managed to escape the surveillance to snatch this phone call with the man I loved.

  My opportunity had been my chores. A week after my arrest, I’d managed to get to the payphone three streets away from my house under the guise of taking the dog for a walk. Excitedly, I had dropped in the coins and paged Stuart the number of the phone box.

  Straight away the phone rang – I had been delighted, thinking it a sign of how much he had missed me – but instead of showering me with praise for my silence in the face of hostile questioning, Stuart seemed irritable and uneasy.

  ‘What do you mean, “cool it”?’ I said now. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Look, the shit’s hit the fan big time here and I can’t see you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I can’t see you until you’re sixteen!’

  ‘Stuart, I have to see you,’ I insisted.

  ‘Oh, don’t you get it, you silly girl?’ he snapped. It was the first time he’d been so angry with me and I was taken aback. ‘I’m getting followed!’ he went on. ‘The police are looking for me, Maria’s going to divorce me, she wants all the money, all the business and she’s planning to bankrupt me. You need to go back to school and get your O levels.’

  What?! This was the complete opposite of everything that Stuart had been saying to me. Do my O levels? How could I, now? I’d stopped working months ago, which meant I was bound to flunk them completely.

  ‘But I don’t want to do my O levels,’ I said pathetically. Suddenly, I felt lost and very alone.

  ‘Just do them,’ he grunted. ‘Do your exams, don’t contact me and I’ll see you when you’re sixteen.’ With that, he hung up. I was shocked and very angry.

  I lay in bed that night, staring at the ceiling and wondering what to do. Suddenly, I was gripped with cold, white fear. Had I ruined my whole future for a stupid schoolgirl crush? Oh God, I had been silly and foolish. But it wasn’t too late! Nothing terrible had happened. I could still turn this situation around.

  I was filled with determination but gradually, day after day, it got harder to believe I could get my life back on track. Home was unbearable with neither of my parents speaking to me. At school, I heard the students whispering behind my back, though no one seemed to want to talk to my face anymore; no doubt they had been warned to keep away by their appalled mothers. Meanwhile my exams were looming and I had done no work at all. Did Stuart really love me? I wondered, hurt and confused. He’d shown no affection in that last call; he’d treated me less like a queen and more like an inconvenience. A ‘silly girl’.

  Is that what he thinks of me? Is that all I am to him?

  As the weeks passed, I knew I needed help. Eventually, one day after school, I screwed up my courage and went through to the kitchen where Mum was ironing. I slid myself up onto one of the Formica kitchen counters and watched her silently for a minute, swinging my legs.

  ‘Mum, I’ve got something to tell you,’ I said eventually, my voice quivering with emotion. She didn’t look up, just kept ironing. ‘Mum, I have been seeing Stuart Kelly, but I don’t like him anymore and I need you to help me.’

  With that, she put the iron down and looked at me with cold, unsympathetic eyes. ‘Well, Dawn, you made your bed, you can lie in it.’

  ‘Mum, I need help here. I’m really sorry. I know I’ve made a big mistake, but I’ve got my O levels coming up and I need you to help me. I don’t think I’m going to pass them and I don’t know what to do.’

  I heard my own voice then, pleading with my mother, begging for her help. I knew I’d taken things too far but I wanted to get back on track and I couldn’t do it on my own. I was still only fifteen; the problems before me seemed so huge I had no idea how to handle them.

  ‘After what you put me through, I don’t want anything to do with you,’ Mum said, shaking her head in disgust. ‘Haven’t you brought enough shame on this family? I think it’s time you left, don’t you?’

  How can she be so cold, so heartless? Now the tears welled up and I couldn’t stop them landing in big splashy drops on my thighs. I just needed a hug; I wanted her to take me in her arms and tell me it would all be okay.

  ‘It was a mistake,’ I sniffed, wiping at the tears. ‘I know it was a silly thing now. It was a crush and it went too far but I want to stay at school. I want to go to college.’

  Mum had returned to her ironing and now she smoothed out the sheet in front of her on the board. ‘Dawn, all married men are the same, you should know that. They tell you what you want to hear. It’s disgusting what you did. You put a lot of pressure on us, on the family, and it has caused a lot of arguments between me and your father.’

  ‘Oh, you’re always arguing anyway!’ I spoke angrily through my hot tears. Didn’t she care? I was reaching out for her help and her love but, like she always did, she was pushing me away, making me pay for her public humiliation in the police station.

  ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Fine! If you don’t want me here, I’ll just leave then.’

  ‘Good.’ She smiled acidly. ‘Why don’t you leave home? I think that would be best for all of us, don’t you?’

  Stunned, I stomped off to my bedroom, where I slammed the door and crawled under my bedcovers, pulling the duvet tight over my head so she couldn’t hear my sobs.

  I thought over my situation. There seemed no way out, and I realized that I had no choice now. Mum had said I had made my bed and that I had to lie in it; there was no help coming from that quarter. I felt trapped, scared and alone. Most of all I was confused. I didn’t know who I could trust anymore and, in desperation, I turned to the one person I believed could help me now.

  I called Stuart again.

  This time, I told him Mum knew everything and that she wanted me to leave home.

  ‘But I’ve got nowhere to go,’ I sobbed. ‘I thought you loved me! I thought we were going to be together.’

  ‘I do love you, Dawn.’ Stuart’s voice now softened. ‘And we are going to be together. We just have to be smart until the heat is off.

  ‘Look, I’ve got an idea. I’m
going to go away for a few weeks, just to let everything calm down. I think it would be a good idea if you went away too. How do you fancy a trip to London?’

  This was just what I needed to hear! All was not lost – Stuart did love me and now he was proving it. Like that – just like that – I was back in his thrall.

  A couple of weeks later, Stuart met me and Simone at the station cafe with train tickets and £500 in cash. I’d managed to persuade my friend to come along for the adventure. Her family wasn’t as strict as mine; in fact, her mum didn’t seem bothered that she was going away for a fortnight, just weeks before her exams.

  I didn’t even tell my parents I was leaving. Instead, I penned an angry note for my mum: ‘I’ve left and I’m never coming back so don’t tell the authorities and don’t try looking for me. I hate you and I never want to see you again!’ After the way she had abandoned me – the memory of that acidic smile as she told me to leave was burned into my brain – every word I wrote was true.

  We were sent off with strict instructions that we could do what we liked with the money as long as we managed to stay in London and out of trouble until my sixteenth birthday in two weeks’ time. It was a marvellous holiday and Simone and I had the time of our lives!

  At first we stayed with my sister Susy, who was studying design, in her shared flat in Baker Street but, after a couple of days, Susy said we had to go because her flatmates weren’t too impressed at suddenly having two young houseguests. We weren’t close any longer and she was so much involved in her own life and her own boyfriend issues that she really didn’t have time to try and bang some sense into me. Her advice was basically to sort out all the commotion I had caused and try to salvage anything left of my education. Of course I thought I knew better so laughed it off, and Simone and I left and went to stay in a variety of different B&Bs and hotels. We spent our days strolling round Carnaby Street, Oxford Street, Sloane Street and Camden Town. At night we drank in pubs, danced at clubs like the Hippodrome in Leicester Square and caught a couple of West End shows. Simone teased me because I insisted on buying a black trilby, just like the one worn by Sally Bowles in Cabaret.