Never a Hero To Me

by Tracy Black

  He was as still as a statue as I stood beside his chair. I was a tiny child, terrified and desperate for some consolation. I couldn’t go to my mum and my dad was acting in a way I simply couldn’t comprehend. He wouldn’t even look at me. ‘Shut up. It’s only a fucking storm. Now get your arse back into bed and stop being so bloody annoying.’

  Tears were brimming in my eyes as I pleaded with him. ‘Can I stay up for a little while, just until it stops? Please? Please, Dad?’

  He finally turned round and looked at me. It chilled me to the bone. His face was alien and his eyes cold, almost as if he had no recognition of the child before him. Looking back, and knowing what was to come, I believe something had broken in my father that night. Given how my world was to shatter, beginning in only a few hours’ time, it was as if he himself was unable to react to how he was behaving. The swearing, the aggression, the lack of eye contact – all these things were part of a personality which he may have used in his day-to-day life in the Army, but they were not part of the make-up of a loving father.

  ‘If I have to tell you one more time, you little bastard . . .’ he muttered menacingly.

  He didn’t.

  I could feel the atmosphere. I could sense the tension.

  As Mum writhed in agony in her own room, my own body felt a wave of fear. I was filled with the knowledge that this was a battle I couldn’t win. As I scurried back to my room, the storm raged outside – and the one which would rip my life apart was only just beginning.

  CHAPTER 2

  FUN

  As I lay in bed, I watched the storm. There was no point in trying to sleep; I was scared of the noise and of the flashes, scared of how Dad had treated me and of his words, which had made me realise how ill Mum was.

  The blocks of flats surrounding where we lived were all alike during the day: grey, drab and peeling, desperately in need of some refurbishment. Ours was no different to the others, but the storm was changing things. The flats were washed in the glow of lightning, and the streaks of brilliant white sky were coming around more and more quickly. They changed from white to orange and then blue. My dressing-table mirror was reflecting all of this, and I was amazed by the kaleidoscope surrounding me. I wasn’t a scaredy-cat. I was a big girl. A brave girl.

  I snuggled down underneath the blankets. Perhaps other things would get better too. Perhaps, just as I had imagined the storm was a terrifying thing, I had imagined that Dad had been mean to me, that Mum would never get better again. Perhaps everything would be fine in the morning.

  I’m glad I had that optimism – even if it didn’t last.

  I lay there, torn between fear and wonder at the light display which was flickering across my room. I clung to my golliwog, one of the few possessions I owned, and tried to sleep. I closed my eyes very tightly, but the flashing shards of colour from the storm still seemed to register. Eventually I fell into a fitful sleep.

  I don’t know how long it lasted, but sometime later that night, more likely the early hours of the morning, I was awoken by something – voices maybe, shouting or some other commotion. The storm had stopped, but there was something else brewing. There was a low droning noise, which, in my sleepiness, I finally identified as voices. As I listened, I could pick out those of my dad and also of Agnes Anderson, Mum’s friend who lived in the same block as us. For a moment, I thought the storm had come back because there was still something playing out on the walls of the room. I rubbed my eyes and sat up, finally identifying it as a bright blue light shining upwards towards my window. But when I looked out, I saw something which made my stomach lurch – it wasn’t lightning, it was an ambulance.

  I ran out into the hallway and found the source of the noise which had woken me. There was a group of people there: two ambulancemen in green uniforms and Gary were standing beside my dad and Agnes. I wormed into the middle of the group easily, as I was so small, only to be grabbed by my father pulling at my nightdress. He stared down at me, his gaze unflinching, as I heard Agnes say, ‘Let me take the kids for the night, Harry; you’ve got enough on your plate.’ Dad dragged his eyes away from me to answer her. ‘No. They’re staying here.’ He was scaring me by that point, just as he had before I’d fallen asleep. He was acting in a very calm, intense, controlled way and, as no one had yet told me what was happening to my mum, I felt panicked. Agnes noticed this and tried again. ‘Well, at least let me take Tracy. She looks terrified, poor wee thing.’ I knew instinctively that was what I wanted.

  ‘Let me go with Agnes, please let me go with Agnes!’ I begged. Somehow, I just knew that I needed to get away from my father, but he wouldn’t budge. There was something so alarming about the look in his eyes – I didn’t recognise it but knew I had to escape. He refused my pleas, rejected the offer from Agnes, and kept a firm grip of my wrist as Mum was carried out of her bedroom on a stretcher. I realised then that there was a doctor in the house too, and both he and the ambulancemen looked very serious.

  Mum had been sedated and was oblivious to everything; and the fact that she was so still and so unlike my mummy started me crying. I wanted her to hold me. I wanted her to tell me that everything would be all right. I had a terrible feeling that if she didn’t say those words, things would never be the same again.

  I was right.

  I was so right.

  Dad told me and Gary to go into the lounge and, as we did, I could hear Agnes try again. ‘I’ll just take Tracy,’ she said breezily, as if my dad’s previous rebuttals had never happened. ‘I can make sure she gets to school tomorrow and then pick her up afterwards. She’ll be fine with me, Harry. I’ll keep her safe.’

  Those words are imprinted on my mind. We don’t remember everything about our childhoods, but there are some scenes we all keep locked in our memories as if they happened only yesterday. That one, the one of my mother being taken away on a stretcher and of Agnes trying to get me away, is burned in my memory. Did Agnes suspect something? Why was she so insistent? She was a good, kind woman, but I do wonder why she was so keen to get me in particular away from my dad, rather than Gary as well. What was she picking up on?

  Whatever her thoughts, whatever she sensed, she failed. My father grabbed her firmly by the arm and escorted her to the open door. ‘Leave now, Agnes. I’ve said “no”. We don’t need your help, we’re fine on our own. Tracy is my daughter. I’ve made my decision.’ He closed the door on Agnes without another word. For some reason, the moment he did that, a wave of dread came over me.

  Dad came into the lounge, lit another cigarette and opened another can of beer. The room was filled with silence and he stared at me for a few minutes with no glimmer of emotion on his face. I wrapped my flimsy nightdress tightly around me and squirmed into the softness of the sofa. Gary was unusually quiet too, keeping his eyes down and saying nothing. Finally, the silence broke. ‘Get yourselves back to bed. Now.’ We both scuttled off the sofa and ran through to our rooms, where I fell asleep much more quickly than I expected, no doubt glad of the comfort and safety of my own bed after such an emotionally exhausting late night.

  I woke up next morning to the sound of Dad swearing yet again. ‘Up! Up! Fucking move it! Get your arse through for breakfast now.’ I was confused when I got there to see an empty table. ‘Where is it then, Dad?’ I asked, sitting down. Standing behind me, he slapped the back of my head with such force that my forehead hit the wooden table. ‘Your breakfast will be there when you fucking get it,’ he snarled. ‘Get something for your brother as well – and make me a cup of fucking tea.’

  I was stunned and hurting. I was only little and was used to being told to keep away from the kettle and hot things, not being told to make cups of tea. I stood up, but was flustered – was Dad tricking me? Did he really want me to do this? His next words left me in no doubt. ‘Move it, I fucking said! Or do you want another slap?’

  I went to the cupboard, choking on my tears and rubbing my forehead. He had never hit me before. Just like his swearing, his violence was totall
y out of character; it was as if he was a new daddy, someone who had been brought in when my mum was ill the night before. He looked like my father, but his voice and his actions, his words and his behaviour, were totally foreign to me. I had to accept that I was at risk of being hit again if I didn’t do what he wanted, even if what he wanted was so hard for me to grasp. He was making it very clear that no matter what he told me to do, I had to do it. Go to bed. Go to sleep. Keep away from Agnes. Stay with him. Make tea. All of it was at his command.

  I dragged two stools to a place in front of the worktop and climbed up on my tiptoes to take breakfast bowls and cornflakes from the cupboard. I had watched Mum do this a hundred times, and although I had to stretch and make sure I didn’t wobble or drop things, I knew I could do it. My little hands were shaking, but I pretended I was getting a teddy bear’s picnic ready and focused on the job in hand. I reached down with everything, one thing at a time, while I stayed on the higher stool. I could feel my dad’s eyes burning into the back of me as I climbed down and got the milk from the fridge. It splashed out of the bowls, over the top of the cornflakes I had poured, and I paused, wondering if he was going to hit me again, but nothing happened. I looked at him questioningly and he moved his eyes to the china mug in front of him, then flicked his gaze over to the kettle. I gulped and walked over, switching it on and realising that I had to do this.

  Gary came in and asked what I was doing. One look at the red mark on my forehead and the tears on my cheeks silenced him. He hurriedly ate his breakfast as I struggled with the full kettle and, against all odds, managed to make my first ever cup of tea. It should have been a moment of triumph but it was far from that. I could feel sweat pouring down the back of my nightdress. So much was going wrong and Mum had only been away a few hours. I was in charge of feeding everyone and I was five years old. Was this going to continue until she came back? Was I now a grown-up? How many slaps would come with that role?

  Thankfully, the drama of making breakfast and using the kettle had taken up a lot of time so, by the time it was all over, I had to get ready for school. Dad barked instructions at me again as I rushed through to my room and pulled on my clothes. I tried to brush my hair as best as I could and then walked through to the living room.

  ‘Are you walking me to school today?’ I asked him.

  ‘No, I’m fucking not,’ he shouted, slumping into his chair with a can of beer and cigarette already in his hand, despite it being eight o’clock in the morning.

  Although I had been going to school on my own for a few days now, which was what I’d wanted, I felt the need for someone to look after me that day. I looked imploringly at Gary, willing to even take a few pinches from him so long as it came with a bit of brotherly care, but he sneered at me, muttered ‘baby’ and ran out of the door before I could even hoist my satchel onto my shoulders.

  I wandered down the stairs and waited for Debbie and the others at our usual meeting place, saying nothing about what had happened as we walked along. The morning passed uneventfully and school finished at lunchtime, as it always did on Fridays. I had a childlike happiness at the prospect of freedom. I saw Gary playing football with his friends as I walked home and wondered whether he might be the one to get into trouble – we usually had to go straight home after school, and I could only think he was taking advantage of Mum not being there while forgetting how horrible Dad had been since yesterday. As I trotted along with my friends, I started to feel a little brighter. Perhaps Mum would be back? Maybe the doctors had made her all better and I could forget last night and this morning, as if it were all a nightmare.

  When I got to the block of flats, I ran up the steps two at a time. Opening the front door, which was on the latch, I ran down the hallway. ‘Mum! Mum!’ I shouted, stopping in my tracks when I entered the lounge and saw only Dad sitting in his chair.

  ‘She’s not here,’ he said, as he saw my eyes flicker around the room. ‘They’re keeping her in hospital – where’s Gary?’ I told him my brother was still playing football with his friends, expecting an explosion of anger, but instead Dad just nodded as if this was a good thing. ‘That gives us time,’ he reflected.

  ‘Time for what?’ I asked cautiously.

  He paused at my question, as if wondering what to say next, then abruptly stood up and said, ‘Come on, follow me.’ He walked towards the bedroom he shared with Mum, then smiled at me. It wasn’t how he had been for the last day or so, and I was confused again at how quickly his mood and character seemed to change. ‘We’ll change the bed,’ he announced. ‘Your mum was sick on the sheets. Go on. Strip the bed.’

  I was bewildered – Dad was smiling but, yet again, he was asking me to do something I had never done before. He had offered me no help when I’d had to boil the kettle and make a cup of tea that morning, so why would he help me with this new challenge? The bed looked massive to me, and I didn’t really know where to start. A sense of relief flooded through me when Dad seemed to read my thoughts. ‘I’ll show you how to do it. Don’t worry. I’ll tell your mum that you did it on your own and she’ll be so proud of you that it will help her to feel better. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’

  Of course I would! I gave Dad my biggest smile and started work, following his instructions.

  ‘Pick up the quilt, Tracy,’ he began, ‘and undo the buttons at the bottom of it.’

  This took quite a while. I was still mastering buttons on my own clothes, but they were easier to open than do up, so I managed eventually. Dad was sitting on a chair at the side of the bed, watching me and telling me what to do. ‘Pull the cover off,’ he continued, then he told me to take the pillowcases and bottom sheet off too. I was so pleased with myself. I was being a good girl for Mum and Dad while I did all of this hard work. ‘Well done, Tracy,’ he said, ‘now here comes the fun part!’

  ‘What’s next, Dad?’ I asked, out of breath with my exertions.

  ‘Putting on the clean quilt cover – it’s a lot harder than taking it off, but I’ll help you.’ He stood, telling me to stand in front of him, and shook the cover out. He put his arms around me and told me to grasp the two corners he was holding. ‘I’ll put the quilt in and you grab it once the cover is in place. This is fun, isn’t it?’ he said. He was still smiling, but the smile seemed forced – and it didn’t feel like that much fun, because his arms were tight around my little body and I knew I had no choice about being there. He was pushing into me and it was something that didn’t feel nice at all. I wanted to break free of him, I wanted to get away, but I was still very much aware of how quickly his moods were changing since Mum had gone into hospital and I didn’t want to risk things taking a turn for the worse again.

  As we struggled with the cover, I felt his body press hard into my back, harder than before. I held the corners just as I’d been told, but he didn’t let go. ‘I’ve got it, Dad,’ I said. ‘I’ve got it.’

  Behind me, he said nothing, but he was pushing his body into me, harder and harder. I wasn’t tall, and my head was at the level of his crotch as he shoved and shoved into me.

  ‘Dad!’ I almost whispered. ‘Dad – I’ve got the cover, you can put the rest of the quilt in.’ He didn’t move his body from mine, but he did take his hands from my arms and allowed them to travel down my body slowly, finally resting on my waist. ‘Dad?’ I whispered again. ‘Dad? What are you doing?’ I honestly didn’t know what was happening. What could I have made of it at that age? All I realised was that he was rubbing his hands around my waist, pressing in as hard as he could to my body, and breathing in a funny way as if he had run up the stairs too quickly and couldn’t catch his breath. His head had dropped forward and I could feel a warmth on my neck; there were little gasps as he made a strange noise.

  As soon as the strange noise had finished, Dad loosened his grip on me.

  ‘There,’ he said, turning me around to face him. ‘I told you that would be fun.’

  The duvet and cover lay discarded on the bedroom floor, forgotten
. My father walked towards the door and, with a final glance back at me, concluded. ‘That was fun.’

  It wasn’t a question.

  It wasn’t a laughter-filled remark.

  It was a command.

  I stood there, confused and upset, with only one thing certain in my mind – no matter what my dad wanted me to believe, whatever had just happened was not fun.

  CHAPTER 3

  BEING A GOOD GIRL

  After it happened, I wasn’t quite sure what to think. I was only a little girl, barely more than five years old – looking back with the awareness and understanding of an adult is completely different. At that age, all I knew was that my mummy was in hospital and my daddy had turned horrible, seemingly overnight.

  I didn’t really know anything about bodies or the birds and the bees, I didn’t know anything about what grown-ups did with each other in private – but I did know that what my daddy had just done was horrible. I didn’t want to complain; well, I didn’t want a slap again and something told me that if I said a word, that’s exactly what I would be getting.

  To my relief, just as these thoughts were running through my mind and Dad was rearranging himself, I heard Gary open the front door. ‘Remember,’ said Dad, ‘that was fun. You did well, Tracy, you did well.’

  That was all he said. He had used me to pleasure himself, and he didn’t even look ashamed. With his few words, he left the bedroom to speak to my brother. I heard him welcome Gary back – ‘Nice time, son?’ – as I stood there, looking at the bed. Remembering it now, the main feeling that I know I had was one of confusion. I was so young. After being ill for such a long time, Mum had been taken into hospital. Hospitals seemed scary places to me, where doctors put needles into you and there were lots of sick people. That’s where my mummy was, and since she had gone there, my daddy had been acting like a stranger.