Never a Hero To Me

by Tracy Black

  What I had learned in class was that the whole of Northern Ireland was unstable – there were some people who hated being called British, and there were some people who would fight until their dying breath for the privilege of being called the same thing. It all seemed very complicated. There was no talk in Army camps of peace campaigners and civil rights leaders – everything was black and white. Sinn Fein, the IRA, the RUC and internment were all words and phrases I heard, but they didn’t mean much. In retrospect, I think that was partly because Dad wasn’t on the front line. He wasn’t a hero, he wasn’t involved in peacekeeping or ensuring the safety of Irish people from either side – he was just a little man sitting in an office pretending he was one of the big boys. If he’d been out on the streets with his life in danger every day, maybe I’d have known more, but, as it was, the most information I got was from the TV, when I was allowed to watch it, and from school history lessons.

  By the time we went to Northern Ireland, the violence was at fever pitch. The IRA had become much more powerful, and bombings were a way of life. People were being arrested and imprisoned without trial under internment, and a British accent was enough to put your life in danger if you walked the streets – which I was never allowed to do. No one could be trusted. I do remember Mum talking to another woman about the young girls who hung about the soldiers whenever they left the camp – I wondered whether they were as young as me and whether they were trying to help their mummies too. She made it clear that she blamed them for trying to ‘trap’ the soldiers, and when I heard her talking about ‘prostitutes’ I was very confused. Were these girls like me? I wondered about the word because that’s what my dad now called me and the word itself wasn’t one I knew the real meaning of. His use of that had only started in Northern Ireland. One night, when my mum was at bingo as usual, he had been touching me in bed. As he forced me to masturbate him, a sly smile crossed his face and stopped his frantic breathing for a moment. ‘Do you know what you are?’ he’d said, not waiting for my response. ‘You’re a right little prostitute. Aren’t you? You love all of this, don’t you? You’re a little prostitute. You’re my little prostitute.’

  I was ten years old.

  When my mum referred to these women and used the same word, I tried to work out what she meant. What was there that made us the same, I wondered?

  One day, in class, we were being taught Irish history. The teacher asked us if we knew anything about Catholics and Protestants. Desperate to do well, I put my hand up.

  ‘Tracy,’ she said, smiling. ‘What do you know?’

  ‘I’m one,’ I said, happily. ‘I’m a prostitute.’

  She frowned at me. ‘A Protestant. That’s what you mean.’

  ‘No, I’m a prostitute. That’s what my dad calls me.’

  It was the first time I had said anything in public which could have raised suspicions, but I had thought it was fine to bring it up, reasoning that if the teacher had said the word, it must be OK. She shook her head, presumably dismissing it as something I’d misheard, and went back to the lesson. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so sad.

  Now we had moved from Germany, I did hope that perhaps I might be given a bit more freedom – I thought I had shown Dad he could trust me as I hadn’t told anyone about our ‘secret’. While I had been given plenty of new warnings about the threats in Northern Ireland, my concerns were closer to home. I didn’t want to go wandering around the whole country, I just wanted to get out of the house, play, and maybe make some friends. I noticed very soon after we arrived that there was another girl who used to sit outside her house playing on her own. Her family lived directly opposite and I could see her from my bedroom window. She looked about ten or eleven, and I really hoped we could be friends. I saw something sad in her, her whole demeanour seemed shy and I wondered whether I might finally have someone I could talk to.

  It didn’t take long for things at home to fall into the same routine as in Germany. Mum was ill sometimes, but didn’t have to go into hospital, and there was still a lot of shouting in the house, most of it directed at me. It seemed as if Dad was getting more and more openly angry at me, and I can only think, in retrospect, that was part of his plan to try and make me seem like a terrible child. If he did this, Mum would presumably have no time for any ‘stories’ I then chose to tell her, and everyone would just think I was spouting lies as part of my ‘badness’.

  Dad seemed unhappy in Northern Ireland. I don’t see how it could have been as a result of his job, because he wasn’t in any danger. While there were many brave soldiers walking the streets and risking life and limb every day, he was in an office doing very little. He never left the base for work, so wasn’t risking anything happening to him as part of the Troubles. What had changed in his life were two things – he had to re-establish the controls over me which he had in place while we were in Germany, part of which depended on my mum making new friends, and he was away from the group of men he was so close to back in the other camp. His personality seemed to change wherever he was posted, and he was very morose this time, with a lack of confidence. The only thing which remained the same and which gave his ego a boost was that he could still abuse a child. That was his rock.

  He needn’t have worried about Mum. As an Army wife of many years, she always had new friends, and there was always bingo for her to go to. Whenever anything went wrong, or seemed likely to, Mum went out. We were very rarely together, all four of us, as a family. It was as if she would rather be out than in – I knew the feeling, but I didn’t have the option. If my dad was there, she would either be at one of her little part-time jobs (cleaning usually), or at a friend’s house for a Tupperware party – or at the bingo. It was her favourite get-out option, her way of burying her head in the sand, and it played right into my dad’s hands. There was nothing he wanted more than to have an empty house. With no one there to be suspicious at all, he could do whatever he wanted. By this time, I was starting to resent Mum in many ways. Of course, it was only natural that I still craved her attention and affection, but it is also only natural that a dog can only be kicked so many times before it stays down. My love for her was still there, but only in the way that the bonds between mother and child can never be truly broken. She never really acted like a mother, even though I tried my very hardest to be a good daughter. I tried harder than any child should ever have to try, because during all of those years, through all that horrendous abuse, I was doing it for my mum. Every time my father touched me, every time he invaded me, I was doing it not to avoid being hit, not to avoid being called more names – no, I was doing it all for a woman who could barely even look me in the eye.

  I wouldn’t be human if I hadn’t spent a long time – perhaps too long – wondering how much she knew about what was going on. I wondered whether she suspected something about what Dad was doing to me and that was why she pulled herself away, but it didn’t make any sense. Why would any mother do that? If she thought her husband was abusing her daughter, why would she not stay and fight? Why would she not accuse him of his terrible crimes? If she felt incapable of doing that, of being assertive and acting in the best interests of her child, she could have protected me in other ways. If she couldn’t face up to throwing him out and reporting him to the police, or his employers, why could she just not stay with me? Make sure I was never alone with him, make sure he never had the opportunity to do such awful things to me? None of it made sense – but the overriding thing I hated to remember was that she had never been warm to me. Even before the abuse started, I have no memories of hugs and kisses from her, no memories of cuddling up together reading stories or playing with dollies together. No real love at all.

  It breaks my heart to think what I was willing to put up with for a woman who treated me like a stranger. I know there are others who have lived with cold mothers, but, thankfully, their fathers often step up to the plate and give those poor children what they need. What my father gave me, what he forced on me, was no compensation
for what my mum withheld. But the saddest thing of all was that when he did those awful things, it was the only affection I was given. When he kissed me, when he stroked my hair, when he held me – all of which he would do before abusing me – that was all I had. That was what I knew of love.

  All that had changed was the geography – Dad was still the monster he’d always been.

  CHAPTER 12

  DANGER

  We spent two years in Northern Ireland. For some reason, Dad had thrown out his tape recorder some time before we left Germany. He still read voraciously though – that is one of my strongest memories of him. He drank, he smoked, he treated me appallingly, and he always, always had a cowboy book or a thriller on the go.

  Gary and I read a lot from an early age too, mainly the annuals which came out every year – Jackie, Sparky and Bunty for me, The Broons for Gary – and I also loved Enid Blyton books. My favourite of all, however, was Black Beauty, which I read time and time again. I adored the happy ending.

  Mum stopped wearing her short dresses due to constantly getting ulcers on her legs and the resultant scarring. She continued to wear bell-bottoms but replaced her short skirts for maxi dresses. She used to wear tights but changed these for pop socks, which I also wore under my jeans. Fashion and music was changing as always, but parts of my life never altered.

  Mum was still buying from Avon when she could but she had to get friends to post things to her as there didn’t seem to be any Avon parties in Northern Ireland. The house was covered in Avon tat – Cinderella shoes, bells, candles, small cottage houses and rocking chairs (made from pegs) with smelly pot-pourri cushions. Maybe she was trying to get rid of the smell of stale beer which seemed to permeate everything. I also remember she bought a mood ring. I was fascinated by it and truly believed it showed what you were feeling. The changing colours had different meanings; blue was happy, purple meant moody, and black suggested you were down in the dumps. I would often try it on just to see what my mood was and hoped for the happy colours.

  Mum changed her hairstyle shortly after we arrived in Northern Ireland. It was still long but she got herself a curly perm which she liked very much. I remember she bought two large pictures of a crying boy and crying girl, which she put up in the sitting room. She always used to say that the crying girl and I were the same: ‘bloody miserable’.

  After we had been there about a year, something happened which made me very happy. We got a dog.

  One day, Gary came back from school with a little scrap of fur in his arms. I was already home, being on my own personal curfew, but he had been playing football with friends. On the way back, he had found this little puppy shivering by the roadside. She must have only been about three months old, and was a beautiful spaniel and collie crossbreed. That might just be a mongrel to most people, but to me she was the loveliest dog I’d ever seen.

  I looked at her in wonder when Gary brought her home.

  ‘Do you think we’ll get to keep her?’ I asked him.

  ‘We’d better,’ he replied, with a steely determination in his voice.

  ‘Can you ask?’ I knew he would have a much better chance than me. Luckily, he felt the same way.

  ‘No problem. I’ve always wanted a dog,’ he told me.

  He was right. It was no problem, because it was the ‘right’ child asking for something. Gary played it absolutely perfectly by going to my mum first. He turned his own puppy-dog eyes on her and she was powerless to resist. By the time Dad got in and had settled himself in his chair, drinking, the deal was done. Mum took the puppy through and simply said, ‘Harry, we’ve got a dog.’

  ‘What do we want a dog for?’ he asked.

  ‘We just do,’ she told him.

  ‘I don’t want a dog. I’m doing nothing.’

  His retort didn’t bother her – I’m sure all that was in her mind was that Gary wanted this puppy, so she’d fight for it if she had to.

  ‘I’m not asking you to do anything, am I? What are you calling it, son?’ she asked.

  Gary was standing at the doorway in front of me, both of us wondering if we really were going to get to keep it. I whispered to him, ‘Betty, I want to call her Betty.’ He shrugged. I suspect it was the getting of the dog which mattered to him, not the naming of her.

  ‘She’s called Betty,’ he told my mum.

  ‘What?’ asked my dad, steadily getting more drunk as the conversation went on. ‘Bay? That’s a fucking stupid name for a dog.’ It seemed that the drink was finally having an effect on his faculties. He couldn’t pronounce it with his slurred, drunk voice, and no one wanted to contradict him.

  ‘Don’t you swear at him,’ snapped my mother. ‘It’s Betty. That’s settled.’

  I couldn’t believe my luck. We were getting to keep the dog, and I had chosen her name. Mum shoved her into Gary’s arms as she went to make dinner, and he, in turn, gave her to me. Food was more important than the puppy. I slipped away to my room, closed the door quietly – Dad had said that I wasn’t really allowed to shut it – and lay down on my bed with her. I whispered her name over and over, as she licked my face. She was so loving already and I was bursting with happiness that she was going to be part of my life. My dog!

  I don’t think you can overestimate the comfort any child can get from a pet, but for an abused child it is magnified a hundredfold. As time went on, I’d tell her my worries, I’d cry to her, I would pour all of my frustrations out to her. She was a wonderful outlet for me. Dad always called her Bay, as that was all he could manage when he was drunk. Ironically, that ended up being the only name she responded to – she knew who was in charge too, I suppose.

  Towards the end of our two years in Northern Ireland, I would say that Dad became more subdued. I still couldn’t count the number of occasions on which he abused me. While this seems an odd thing to say, given that the whole situation was horrific and degrading, I don’t think he got as much enjoyment out of it as he had in Germany. That’s why I think he had to take it up a stage.

  One night, I came in after taking Betty for a walk. Not only did I now have someone to talk to, but I had actually been given more freedom since we’d got a dog, because Gary got fed up with her very quickly, so I was given the responsibility of exercising her. Mum was at bingo, as usual, and it was starting to get dark, so must have been after 9pm. When I came in, I went straight to the kitchen to get a towel for Betty as it had been raining and I wanted to dry her off. Dad was standing there. I had hoped he would be in the living room, drinking, and I would have been able to get Betty sorted and then sneak off to my room before he knew I was back.

  ‘Come here,’ he said, as I tended to the dog.

  I pretended I hadn’t heard him and soon felt his palm hit my head.

  ‘I know you can hear me, you little bitch,’ he said, ‘and we both know you’ll do as I fucking say. Do you not want to come here?’

  I knew it was probably a trick, but I still shook my head and whispered, ‘No.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ he replied. ‘No problem.’

  I waited. There was no way that would be the end of it.

  ‘You don’t want to come over here, that’s fine – that’s your choice. We’ll do it your way,’ he threatened. ‘Get up those fucking stairs to my room, now.’

  ‘I don’t want to,’ I said, although I have no idea where I got the strength from.

  ‘Is that right?’ he replied.

  ‘You said it was my choice, Dad,’ I reminded him.

  ‘Aye, aye, it is I suppose,’ he pondered. ‘Fine. You’ve made your choice.’ With those words, he leaned over and put the tap on. ‘I’ll just drown this little fucking rat, then.’ He grabbed Betty as I screamed.

  ‘You will do as I fucking tell you,’ he shouted at me, ‘and if you don’t, you’ll suffer the fucking consequences.’

  ‘No, Dad, I don’t want to go up there, but please don’t hurt Betty!’

  ‘Then say goodbye to this!’ he shouted back at me.

&nbs
p; There was a lot of screaming going on between both of us, and poor little Betty was barking furiously in the middle of it all while trying to get out of my father’s arms, he was squeezing her so tightly. Suddenly, I heard the front door open and Mum shouted, ‘What’s all this racket?’

  She came into the kitchen just as Dad had crossed the room. He threw Betty into the bin as she walked through the door. ‘What on earth is going on, Harry? Tracy?’

  ‘False alarm, Valerie,’ he said, scooping the dog out of where he had thrown her seconds ago. He handed her to me and I hugged her with all my might. ‘Tracy thought she’d lost the dog but the silly wee bugger had just climbed in the bin and was hiding there.’

  My Mum just accepted his explanation. She didn’t seem to think it odd that a little puppy had climbed into a really high bin and squashed herself in a tiny opening, and she didn’t question why there had been so much screaming when my dad had presumably found Betty very quickly. I suppose that was just how she was with everything – she never questioned what he said.

  Not long after that, when Dad demanded I go upstairs to his room, I knew I really did have no option. I couldn’t lose Betty, and I would just have to face up to what he always did to me. I was getting older and I hated everything about his control over me. Of course, I’d always been terrified and sickened by the abuse, but as I grew up I was starting to question things. Mum seemed a lot better – couldn’t we stop? Why couldn’t the doctors make her well rather than it all depending on my accepting my dad’s violation of me? And, as always, if I was helping, why didn’t she love me more? On top of all that, though, was the moral belief that this was just wrong. Dad had said it was our secret and it was a secret that lots of little girls had with their daddies, but these were such horrible things to do that I didn’t think other, nicer daddies would put their little girls through it.