by Tracy Black
And he did.
Someone finally did.
CHAPTER 19
PLAUSIBLE
They didn’t let Dad in the car, and I had to wait until another vehicle arrived for him, which followed me to Army headquarters. Nothing was said to me in the car, but the officer I had spoken to had stepped outside before we left and had a quiet word with his colleague, presumably telling him everything. I kept my eyes closed and didn’t even look at my father.
When we arrived, I wondered how many people already knew what I had said – alleged, I suppose – as I felt everyone was looking at me. That was probably my imagination, but I felt so vulnerable, so naked.
I was told I was being taken to speak to ‘the boss’. By this they meant Commanding Officer Stewart, someone I had never met before. It was terrifying to think that my future was in the hands of a man who was a complete stranger to me. I hadn’t met many men I could trust, so I had low expectations of this one too.
I sat outside his office for two hours. There was a clock on the wall and I watched the hands slowly crawl round, wondering what decisions were being taken about me without my input. By this time, I knew it wasn’t my imagination which made me think people were looking at me – they definitely were, and I’m sure the story must have spread like wildfire.
By the time I walked into the office, I was shaking.
The CO was a posh man. To me, he sounded like someone off the telly or radio, but he had tremendous warmth to him as well. He was tall and quite thin, with a great gentleness to him.
‘I’ve had a chat with your dad,’ he said, ‘and he denies it. He denied everything, all of those accusations you made, and told me that you were just saying all of this to cover up getting into trouble.’
I wasn’t too surprised by the CO’s reaction. There may have been a tiny sliver of hope that he would have believed me, but ‘tiny’ was the operative word. I thought he would throw me out of the office there and then, but he continued to speak.
‘Why did you do those things? Why did you keep getting into trouble?’
‘To stop it all, to stop him touching me – and all of that,’ I admitted, not having the power of the word ‘abuse’ to throw at him at that stage.
‘How would that stop it?’ he asked.
I hadn’t actually thought it out that well myself, but the words came to me without any prior working through of it. ‘I thought that, if people saw that I was being bad, they’d ask why. No one had ever paid attention to me – not when I was smelly, not when I was covered in bruises. I thought that, maybe, if I started damaging things, property, they might sit up and take notice.’
The commanding officer was quiet for while. ‘I see,’ he finally responded. ‘It worked, didn’t it? You have been noticed, Tracy.’
‘I just wanted him to stop. I just wanted it all to stop.’
Again, there was a period of silence; then CO Stewart finally said one thing.
‘It’s plausible.’
That was it.
No more, no less, but in those words came the tiny sliver of hope again.
‘There’s nothing we can do right now,’ he said.
‘I’m not going home!’
‘I know that. I’m not asking you to, but I’ve got nowhere really to put you apart from a cell. You’ll be safe, Tracy. I’ll make sure the door is left open at all times and you only need to ask for whatever you want. There will be a female officer sitting outside all night. Do you think that would be all right?’
It would be more than all right. It would be, hopefully, a turning point.
‘Thank you,’ I whispered, ‘thank you so much.’
He smiled at me, and repeated the words that meant a great deal. ‘It’s plausible, Tracy; it’s plausible.’ I know now that he could never have shouted his belief in me or accepted it all instantly, but his reaction made me wonder. Had there been suspicions about my dad or his friends? Had anyone else made an allegation? I would never know – perhaps CO Stewart was just a good man who put children first. His actions over the next few days would certainly suggest that was a major part of his character.
He said goodbye and wished me well when a female soldier came and escorted me to the cell. I wasn’t scared of being in there; I was only scared of going back home. She sat outside the whole time and, although she didn’t speak to me, I was reasonably settled for a while.
As time went on, I did my best to not think of what might happen. It was getting late in the day and the sky was darkening, when I heard voices outside and the door opened. It was Commanding Officer Stewart. He asked how I was and checked that I had everything I needed – he was a kind man, but I knew that he was building up to something, as he seemed a little nervous. ‘Tracy,’ he said, ‘I have to tell you that, as a result of what you spoke to me about, I have been asked to ensure that you meet with a doctor.’
That seemed fine to me; I wasn’t ill, so the doctor wouldn’t have to give me medicine or injections, and I’d tell them just that. When I made these points to CO Stewart, he sat down and spoke gently.
‘Actually, Tracy, the doctor will need to examine you for other reasons. We need to know exactly what has happened – we need to know whether there has been any damage.’
There had been plenty of damage, I could tell him that, but I guessed what he was really referring to – this doctor would want to check my body; they would want to look at places I didn’t want anyone to look. They wanted to know if I was a liar. It was something I would have to get through because I knew there would be some evidence, some clue – there had to be – but I was under no illusions that it would be horrible and yet another invasion of my privacy.
‘It would be absolutely fine for you to have your social worker with you,’ the CO went on, ‘and I’d be more than happy to contact her now and request her presence.’
I snorted. ‘She’s a waste of space,’ I told him. ‘She didn’t help me when I asked her to, and I don’t want anything to do with her.’ I felt a little bad being so rude to him, but the very thought of that woman angered me, and her attendance at any medical examination would offer me no comfort at all. To be honest, I was feeling numb and exhausted by this point, and the prospect of the examination itself was just something else for me to get through.
About an hour later, I was taken to a little room along the corridor from the cells in the same building. It seemed the sort of place where basic medical supplies were held, so was probably used for minor injury treatment. For those purposes, it was no doubt fine – but for what I was about to endure, it was cold and charmless. The room was small and drab, and didn’t even seem very clinical. It had a sort of musty smell, not one of antiseptic or soap, which is what I might have expected had I given it much thought.
There was a female nurse waiting for me, wearing a white uniform. When I entered the room, she said ‘Hello’ and asked me to take my clothes off behind a screen so that I could put on a medical gown. It was huge and white, and looked like a sack on my childish frame. I could hear the nurse moving about, opening and closing doors, as I changed and placed my clothes on a steel-backed chair. She called to me that I should lie down on the examination table and cover myself with the blanket, which was there when I was ready, and then I heard the door open and close. She had gone.
The table was long and thin, rather like a stretcher. It was black and covered in something like leather – as an adult, I know now that there was something missing; there were no stirrups for an internal examination but I didn’t realise that at the time.
As I lay there, I tried to find something to focus on. The room was at the far end of the building, so there was no noise to listen out for; no snatched conversations to distract me. There was a small window to the side which looked out onto the woods, but it was very late in the day by then and getting quite dark, so I couldn’t be preoccupied by anything there either. The only thing for me to look at, as I waited for the doctor, was an uncovered light bulb in the ceiling. I re
member thinking, if I look at that hard enough, will I go blind? It was a warning that many parents tell their children about the sun but, for me, I was wishing it was a viable option. I was sick of looking at things, at people, at life.
I got up and sat on a wooden chair while I waited. A few minutes later, the same nurse and a male doctor came in. He was wearing a white coat too.
‘Hello,’ he said. ‘I’m Dr Fraser and I’m the medical officer who will be examining you.’ He was polite and professional, and explained what he was going to do – but not why. I was told that my heart and pulse would be checked, and that he would look inside me. I think I must have looked horrified – which I was – because he said that it wouldn’t hurt, that he would be gentle, and that he just needed to make sure everything was all right. While I sat on the chair, he checked my heart and breathing, rattled off the findings to the nurse, then asked me to lie down.
I walked nervously over to the examination table and he followed me as the nurse stayed some distance away. I lay down and he gently pushed my gown up over my hips and placed the blanket over what he had uncovered. The whole experience, from when he checked my heartbeat to when the internal was over, only took about ten minutes – but what really sticks in my mind is the one phrase I heard the doctor say – her hymen is broken. The words never really meant anything to me that day, but I knew from the way he said them – a low voice, assertive, determined – that this was important. It wasn’t until I was a couple of years older and studying biology at school that the meaning of the statement became apparent and I understood that this physical fact had actually given them some objective, incontrovertible evidence to back up my claims.
On that day when I was in the examination room, my only thought when he said it, was whether it meant my Dad had broken me in some way. My mind raced from wondering whether it had happened because of his attacks, or because I had been bad by telling of our secret. I didn’t know what ‘hymen’ meant but it was ‘broken’, which was registering loud and clear.
Dr Fraser said he was finished and that I should get dressed quickly because it was getting cold. As he got ready to leave, he smiled and asked if I was all right – I nodded as he walked out. The nurse said very little but took me back to my cell when I was dressed; it was never spoken of again by anyone. I was never told if my parents knew of the findings or if it was discussed with them at all. The embarrassment I felt when it was all taking place was acute, but I tried to remove myself from the experience – something I had plenty of practice with – and just took some comfort from the fact that at least something was finally being done.
In the cell, I lay down on the narrow bed and tried to sleep. I was still exhausted, but any rest I managed was fitful. Time did pass however, and, sometime in the early hours, a soldier put his head around the door and asked, ‘Are you awake?’ I sat up on the narrow bed, rubbing my eyes. ‘Not speaking?’ he commented. ‘Get your head into this,’ he said, tossing me a book. ‘It might teach you fucking something.’ The woman outside said nothing, she did nothing, didn’t even flinch. I can’t even remember what it was called, but it was a story about a girl who had been abused by her stepfather and it was by Harold Robbins. The story told of how she killed him and went on to become a prostitute. I only read so much and left it there when I was called out. I should have taken it to the CO and told him what that man had given me. It went through my mind that he was probably one of them, one of the paedophile ring I now had no doubt my dad was part of.
It also made me realise that they must have all known what I was there for, because the woman who was sitting outside my cell seemed to be on his side. He had looked at me as if I was dirt and had thrown me something she hadn’t even checked, so presumably she was of the mind that a nasty little girl had made ludicrous allegations about her ‘hero’ father, one of her colleagues. While I was there, most of the other guards were distant, but fine, apart from him.
After breakfast, I was told that CO Stewart wanted to see me again in his office. It felt as if my heart was going to beat out of my chest. My tummy was in knots and I was just so worried that the relative safety I had been offered since I had last met with him would be snatched away again. I was taken along the corridor from the cell and all I could think about was whether the CO had changed his mind – would he still be so kind today, or would he shout at me and say he didn’t believe a word?
I was so wrapped up in my own thoughts that I wasn’t really paying attention to where we were. Before I knew it, we were outside the CO’s office – and we weren’t alone. Sitting there, on hard, plastic seats, were my parents. They were there to take me back to my own private hell, I was sure of it. But this time would be worse, because this time I had committed the cardinal sin – I had told someone.
Mum couldn’t even raise her eyes to look at me. After all this time, after all the time she had failed to love me, failed to save me, there was still a part of me which remained an innocent child desperate for her mummy. If only she had rushed to me, held me in her arms and said everything would be all right. If only I had seen some shred of affection from her, I would have thought it was all worth it.
Unsurprisingly, there was nothing.
She kept staring at the floor, her face hard.
I’d rather my father had been doing that, but he chose to look me in the face, hatred written all over him. He fixed me with his eyes and I knew then he would never admit to anything. From what I could tell, he had no remorse. He was a paedophile who had raped and abused his own daughter for years, and would have happily had many more men do the same – I was as likely to get an apology from him as I was to get a cuddle from my mum.
I thought I heard him call me names as I went into the CO’s office – bitch, whore, slut, prostitute – but perhaps they were just echoes of the years gone by when those were the only words he ever used for me.
I was shaking as I stood before CO Stewart again. I had run the gauntlet – was I now to be returned to the people outside that door who seemed to hate me so much?
‘Please sit down, Tracy,’ he said, smiling kindly as soon as I went into his room. ‘Did you sleep well? Did you have everything you needed?’ I nodded because, really, I wanted him to like me, to think I was no bother, and to believe I was a trustworthy girl who deserved his help. ‘I’ve given this a great deal of thought and, under the circumstances, you have two choices – you can go back home, or never go back home again.’
I could hardly believe it.
‘You mean it? I can choose to never go back there? Ever?’
‘Yes. If that’s what you want. Is that what you want?’
‘Yes! Yes, of course it is!’ I responded.
He allowed himself to smile at my obvious happiness. ‘You will have to go back for your things but you won’t be alone.’
I could do that – but what about long term, I wondered?
‘And school?’ I asked. ‘What will happen about school?’
‘It’s all taken care of,’ he assured me. ‘If you never want to go back there again, it’s all taken care of.’
‘But where will I go? Won’t I have to live at home so that I can go to school?’
‘I’ve arranged for you to go to a different school.’
I still didn’t comprehend what was going on. No matter which local school I went to, surely I would still be living with my parents, with my dad?
‘Which school?’ I pushed.
‘You’ll be going to a British Army boarding school here in Germany. There’s nothing to worry about, it’s all been sorted.’
It seemed as if everything had indeed already been decided. I felt that CO Stewart knew which option I’d go for, and that he had made sure everything was in place – whatever it was going to be – by the time I went into his office that morning. He suggested I go back to the cell and try to sleep for a few hours as I had an emotionally draining time ahead of me. ‘When you wake up, you’ll be able to go back home for everything you need. Your
mum has . . . well, she’s gone away for the day, and there will be a military police officer with you when you leave here.’
‘She’s out there, though,’ I said. ‘Mum’s out there.’
‘No,’ he replied. ‘She won’t be there when you leave this room. I can assure you of that.’
There was such strength to this man, and I’ll never forget him. When he spoke, I believed him, and when I wondered if he might be able to wave a magic wand and sort things for me, I actually felt as if he could. I had no idea what discussions, or indeed arguments or threats, had gone on in the background, but CO Stewart had obviously been working hard during the night and I would do anything he suggested.
As I went to leave the room, he called my attention. ‘Tracy – I’m sorry, but your father will have to be there when you return home. Legally, he is still your guardian and, in the absence of your mother, he will have to supervise things. As I’ve said though, you will never be alone with him – there will be a policeman there with you at all times. Everything is in place for you. I wish you the best.’
My heart sank at the thought of being anywhere near my father, even for a little while and even under the protection of the military police. What if the person charged with looking after me was like him? What if they thought I was a liar and left me alone with him? I had no idea what he would do – I felt I had only seen some of what he was capable of, and it was bad enough. I felt angry that my mum had removed herself from the situation yet again. I guess it was a hard habit for her to break; it’s what she had been doing for years. I could only assume she had been told what was happening and didn’t want to be anywhere near me, but her selfishness was leaving me vulnerable yet again and placing me in direct contact with the very man I had accused and who I never wanted to be near again in my life.
I went home and packed in a daze. I was so sure that Dad would shout at me, rant and try to find a way to get at me, to hit me and do something awful. He didn’t even come out of the living room. Gary wasn’t there. Mum wasn’t there. None of my friends were playing in the street. It was as if this was the last chapter of a story which was now coming to a close and all the major players, except me and my dad, had simply walked away. I was stunned that Dad just accepted it, but so relieved.