I Own You

by Dawn McConnell

  ‘Mum, I get what you’re saying to Phyllis,’ I said evenly. ‘But you remember: this happened with John and me?’

  I felt my cheeks burn hot with shame as I said the words. I hadn’t spoken about the abuse for years, not since I was a teenager, when I’d told Stuart what John had done to me. And even though I was now a fully grown woman and it was all in the past, it still felt wrong to bring it up; it still made me feel so dirty and ashamed. ‘I mean, how could you say that to Phyllis about it going on in your own home and not knowing?’ I continued.

  Mum had been clearing away the sandwich things, putting cheese slices back into plastic tubs, wiping down surfaces and returning tubs of butter and egg mayonnaise to the fridge when I spoke. But as my words sank in, gradually her movements slowed and then, very carefully, very precisely, she screwed the lid onto the top of the mayonnaise. Finally, after a long and heavy pause, she stopped and looked at me.

  In a querulous voice she asked: ‘What? What did you say, Dawn?’

  ‘Well, you know it happened to me, Mum. You know that John abused me for all those years.’

  Mum’s face seemed to collapse. As if to steady herself, she put a hand out to a bar stool before gently lowering herself onto it. Her hand went to her mouth and her eyes brimmed with tears. ‘Oh Dawn, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’

  For a moment I was dumbstruck, horrified at what I’d done. I had somehow expected Mum to come back with a smart reply, like she always did in any conversation, not to fall apart in front of me.

  There was a sharp tapping of black court shoes. Phyllis was now back in the kitchen, and a couple of the other serving staff members also came in, looking to fill the giant urn for the teas and coffees. Mum was perched on the stool, looking small and fragile and crying properly now, her shoulders shaking with emotion.

  Phyllis looked at me questioningly and I suddenly felt horribly guilty. I hadn’t meant to upset Mum like this and now look, she was crying in front of her own staff.

  Ashamed and embarrassed, I walked quickly to her side and whispered: ‘It’s okay, Mum. Really. It’s fine. Please, please don’t cry.’

  Mum took out a hanky from her pocket and squeezed her nose with it. She sniffed a couple of times and then looked at me through red-rimmed eyes.

  ‘We’ll talk about this later,’ she said. Then she adjusted her apron, dabbed at her eyes and carried on working to finish up the funeral lunch.

  For the next forty minutes, I helped to refill sandwich platters, arrange biscuits on plates and load the dishwasher with the crockery. I tried not to let myself think about John and the mindless tasks helped a lot. Keeping busy had always helped me to block out my most unpleasant thoughts; I found work focused my mind and let me forget about the things that bothered me. Perhaps that was partly why I had worked myself to the bone in the pub, missing out on time with Callum in the process, just to make sure that every hour of my day was filled.

  Because it was during the quiet moments, in the silences, that my head was filled with the dreadful memories of my past.

  As I worked in the hotel kitchen, I occasionally looked out the window to check on Callum – he had found two more friends to play with and now the four of them were having a full-on football match, with my dad refereeing. The kids ran about, knees pumping up and down, all with ruddy cheeks, so full of energy, so innocent.

  They were the same age I had been when my brother first gave me that ‘special’ bath.

  The news story on the radio had been familiar to me: it was about a case involving a young girl who had been abused by her father. It was a big local story and the community was shocked that someone who was such an upstanding pillar of society had turned out to be a vile paedophile – but it was happening more and more these days. Or, at least, we were hearing about more and more cases as historic accounts of abuse now came before the courts, with survivors speaking out about the traumas they had suffered long ago.

  As they did for my neighbours, each one filled me with fresh horror at the thought of what these girls went through. But for me there was a double whammy, as the women’s words resonated with my own experiences, reminding me of my own secret childhood shame.

  Nevertheless, I had never considered going to the police about John myself; never considered telling my own story. It all seemed too public and I had no desire whatsoever to rake it all up again – for my own sanity as much as anything else. No, I had decided that it was in the past and that’s where I wanted it to stay.

  In fact, I would never have said anything to Mum at all if it hadn’t been for her comments to Phyllis. It was the way she had spoken, her voice laden with judgement, dripping with condescension, as if she couldn’t possibly imagine such a thing in her own home. If she had known, it was hypocrisy, plain and true, and I couldn’t stay silent anymore.

  Finally, service was finished and Mum instructed the staff to take a break. Then she made us each a cup of tea and we sat silently on the stools in the kitchen for a while, lost in our own thoughts.

  Eventually, Mum spoke: ‘Dawn, I’m so sorry about what happened with John. But I thought I stopped it.’

  My pulse began to quicken. So she had known. She had known exactly what he was doing . . . I swallowed hard.

  ‘Yeah, well . . . it didn’t stop,’ I mumbled. I felt so embarrassed talking about this with her. It was excruciating.

  ‘I can’t believe you’re bringing this up again, after all this time.’ Mum held her tea with both hands and blew over the top of it to cool it. ‘Do you think about it a lot?’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ I said. No matter how much I tried to block it out, those kinds of memories can never be bricked up. ‘Especially now I’ve got a child of my own. I wanted you to stop it, Mum, but after I told you, it just kept going.’

  The tears sprang from her eyes again.

  ‘I thought I did stop it,’ she said in a voice thick with emotion. I sat in front of her, unmoved. I wasn’t upset myself, just curious for answers. Who is she crying for? I wondered, in a detached way. Is she crying for me, or for her?

  ‘So you do remember then?’ I went on. Now that it was finally out in the open, I couldn’t let this point go. ‘You remember when I tried to tell you what he was doing? And you knew what he was doing?’

  ‘I remember very clearly,’ said Mum. ‘And yes, I did know what you meant. You told me he hurt you – and I just knew. I knew – but I thought I stopped it. I told him to stop hurting you.’

  ‘Well, it didn’t stop,’ I said bitterly. I was staring out of the window now, unable to meet my mother’s eyes. On the lawn, Callum was trying to do keepy-uppys on his knee. The ball bounced once, twice, three times, and then slipped sideways and rolled away. I watched him run after it.

  ‘Well, why didn’t you come back and tell me?’ Mum asked suddenly, almost accusingly. ‘Why didn’t you tell me it hadn’t stopped?’

  I shrugged, still looking out over the lawn. I didn’t know the answer. I had only been five. I’d asked for her help and, when it didn’t come, what more could I have done?

  But my mother’s tone set my mind ticking, peeling back the years to the same old guilt I’d always felt. Is it my fault it went on so long? I wondered now. Is that what she’s saying? Am I to blame?

  Mum had her hanky out again and she was now talking into the space in front of her, gesturing with it.

  ‘I just thought that it maybe happened once or twice and then I put a stop to it. You never said anything else! So then, I thought you’d got over it. You were into your sports and you did tennis. I mean, look at you, Dawn, you’re such a strong person. Look how well you’re doing now! I didn’t think . . . I really didn’t think you had suffered.’

  There was a challenge in her eyes, one I had to counter.

  ‘Well, I did, Mum. I did suffer.’

  Other than that, I hardly knew what to say. A tornado of emotions and thoughts ran through me so fast I couldn’t catch a hold of any of them long enough to put them into words.
After trying to bury these memories for so long, I didn’t know how to even begin to talk about them. But I knew I had to say something, to let her know the truth.

  Mum sat in front of me, quietly sniffing back tears as I battled with my shame and embarrassment. Finally, I let the words slip out quietly, like a sigh: ‘It went on for years, Mum. It only stopped when he went away. Except then he did it one more time when he came back. I was twelve. And he raped me.’

  There was a sharp intake of breath and Mum looked away. For a moment I felt like a little girl again, and inside I could feel my heart hammering so hard it felt like it would explode out of my chest. Look at me, Mum! I cried inside. Look at me!

  Just like the child who had tugged on her apron so many years before, I was reaching out to her. I wanted her to see me, to acknowledge my pain.

  But no. There was nothing. For a long while, I just listened to the whirring of the draft extractor above our heads. Finally Mum said: ‘Well, I’m going to speak to Jenny about this. I’ll talk to your aunt.’ Then she got up off her stool, squeezed my shoulder once and left.

  I couldn’t get away from the hotel quick enough that day. I gathered Callum up, threw a breezy ‘goodbye’ in my dad’s direction then marched my son off down the road so fast his little legs had to run to keep up.

  I was very confused by how that conversation had gone. Though I’d imagined talking to my mum about the abuse one day, this had been a very different conversation to the one I’d expected. So Mum had known what was happening, even though I’d never expressed in words exactly what my brother was doing.

  So why hadn’t she stopped it? I thought angrily. Why did she think it was over?

  I thought of my mother: her elegant outfits, her sense of superiority to our neighbours, her obsession with us kids doing well. Was it just too unpleasant for her to bring up again? Could she just not face the truth?

  Questions flew through my mind. After all this time, I felt more confused and ashamed than ever about what had happened. And Mum’s reaction and her questions made me feel so guilty, too. Was it my fault it had gone on so long?

  I was so upset, I just wanted to get home and try and get things straight in my mind. But that same evening, Mum called.

  ‘Your aunt flew up to Scotland tonight,’ she said at once, with no preamble.

  ‘Why?’ I asked dumbly. I still couldn’t make sense of anything that was happening.

  ‘Because we need to talk about things. I think you better come over, Dawn. We have to talk to you.’

  It felt rather like I was being summoned to my own execution. What is this about? When I walked into my parents’ house at 8 p.m. that night, I had no idea what to expect.

  The kitchen was dark except for the low central light which hung over the kitchen table. There, Mum sat nursing a Scotch while Jenny paced the kitchen. Dad was nowhere to be seen; he was probably still working at the hotel.

  ‘Dawn!’ Jenny ran towards me and threw her arms around my neck. She held me tight, as if I’d just escaped some terrible accident. ‘Are you okay, Dawn? Sit down, Dawn. Sit down. Your mum told me everything. Oh, it’s awful. Awful! We haven’t stopped talking about it for the past few hours, have we?’

  Mum shook her head.

  Jenny was in full ‘crisis management’ mode: ‘Dawn, sit down! Now look, do you want to tell me what happened?’

  ‘Erm, er . . . well . . . not really,’ I mumbled. Actually, I felt like running away. Jenny was so over the top and melodramatic it was difficult to know how to act. After all, this hadn’t just happened. I’d lived with this for seventeen years now and all her hysterics were a bit baffling and unsettling.

  Jenny stopped pacing for a minute and came to sit opposite me. She took both my hands in hers and, with an earnest look, she said: ‘Dawn, we need to know – do you want to take this any further?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

  ‘I mean, do you want to report John to the authorities?’

  I pulled my hands away now and sat back on my wooden chair.

  ‘Well, yeah, I’ve thought about it . . .’ I started. Though I was scared of the publicity and scared of speaking out, ever since Callum had been born five years previously my memories had been a little like a pickaxe, chipping away at my resolve to lock it all away, reminding me over and over that there were innocent children in the world and that it might be my responsibility to keep them safe. When Callum was born, these fears had begun to haunt me: I’d suddenly realized that John was still out there, still the same person he’d been years before. On late, dark nights when I couldn’t sleep, I worried that he might find other vulnerable children to abuse.

  I opened my mouth to tell my mum and Jenny all this – but I didn’t get the chance.

  ‘Yes, well, we know it’s an awful thing that’s happened to you,’ Jenny butted in. ‘I can’t imagine the pain you went through as a child. I really can’t. It must have been horrendous for you. But, I wonder, how that would make you feel?’

  ‘What?’ My head was buzzing now. How would what make me feel? I couldn’t follow her.

  Perplexed, I looked over to Mum for guidance, but she wouldn’t look at me. She just sat there, head bowed, a Kleenex to her nose, occasionally shaking her head as if too distressed to talk.

  ‘Look, if you go to the authorities we’ll back you,’ Jenny went on. ‘A hundred per cent, we’ll back you. But I’m wondering: how do you think that’s going to help the situation?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Help you mentally, I mean?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, we don’t think it will. Think about it. If you bring a case like this against your brother you’re going to have to go over what he did to you in great detail not just to the police, but in court, in front of dozens of people. And that’s going to be reported in the papers. That in itself will be very, very difficult for you.

  ‘But then imagine he pleads “not guilty”; then the jurors will have to decide – who is to be believed? You or John? And you know what? That’s going to be very tough for you.’

  Jenny barely paused for breath before continuing: ‘Even if, in the best possible outcome, you manage to convince the jury that he’s guilty and he gets sent to prison, his defence barrister is going to tear into you. He’s going to bring up your whole past and everything to do with Stuart and the school and everything else. Your personal history, with Stuart and Maria and their marriage, will be used against you, to discredit you, to make you look like a liar. Whatever happens, whatever the outcome, your name will be dragged through the mud, in the interests of justice. In the interests of giving John a fair trial.

  ‘Think about it, Dawn! You’ve got Callum to look after now. He starts school in August – if this comes out it’s going to be humiliating for him. You might have to take him out of that school and put him in boarding school so that his education isn’t affected.’

  She paused for a beat now, letting that sink in. ‘Even so,’ she went on, with a troubled sigh at all this distress I would be caused, ‘it’s going to be very traumatic for you, and very traumatic for him too, no matter what. And that’s imagining the best possible outcome.

  ‘Now imagine for a minute you bring this case against John and you lose. We’re not just talking about humiliation now, we’re talking complete bloody annihilation. Your character, your good name, your reputation, your mum’s reputation, your dad’s, Stuart’s reputation – everybody! The whole family ripped to shreds. They’ll all go down with you.

  ‘Are you strong enough to cope with that? Because if you’re not, Dawn, and you’re not prepared for that outcome, then think very carefully about going down this road. Because your little boy needs his mother. And if you can’t handle the fallout and lose the plot, then I ask you: what happens to him? Hmm? Who’s going to take care of him if something happens to you?’

  It was a horrifying scenario that she was laying out and I suddenly felt very frightened. She went on and
on about how this would affect my son, my parents, Susy, Stuart, everyone I’d ever cared about. It was appalling and I just sat there, stunned into silence.

  ‘But, look, you don’t have to report him,’ Jenny concluded. ‘We could keep an eye on him, make sure he knows we know and make it clear that he’s to stay away from children, at all costs. And then, for you, Dawn, we get the best counselling money can buy. That’s your other option.’

  Jenny watched my reaction carefully, observing the impact of her words. ‘So,’ she said brightly, assured her work was done. ‘What’s it to be? Think very carefully now. Do you want to talk to the police?’

  ‘Erm, no, I guess not,’ I stuttered. My head was throbbing and I felt a familiar stabbing pain in my side. My kidney stones had been getting a lot worse recently and now I was desperate to get home so I could take some painkillers.

  ‘You could see a good psychiatrist, couldn’t you?’ Jenny went on encouragingly.

  ‘Yeah, I suppose,’ I said, rubbing at my temples. I just wanted to get out of there. I’d had enough. It was like I’d opened Pandora’s box, seen the terrible contents and just wanted to close the lid and put it away again.

  ‘Good girl.’ Jenny smiled at me; there was pity in her eyes, but maybe also a certain satisfaction. Then she nodded to my mum, who had stopped crying and was looking at me with something resembling hope.

  ‘Very wise, Dawn,’ Jenny added quietly. ‘Very wise indeed.’

  Chapter 14

  The Sadist

  It was not long after the discussion with Aunt Jenny that my phone rang one morning. I’d been sorting out some paperwork for the new flats I was buying and, distracted, I answered without really thinking.

  ‘What the fuck did you have to go and bring all this up again for?’ hissed a familiar voice in my ear.

  It was a shock to hear it again, after all these years.

  ‘John?’ It took a while to register that it was him. Despite myself, despite the fact I told myself he couldn’t hurt me anymore, I felt my heart start to pound in fear.