Watching Over You

by Sherratt, Mel

  They don’t.

  ‘They hate me.’

  They do.

  ‘They try to categorise me, put me in a box so they can put a tick against me and then move on to the next lost soul. That’s what they do!’ She held up her glass in a silent toast. ‘I know I’m lost but I don’t really want to be found, do I?’ She sniggered before taking another large gulp of vodka, wiping her mouth as it spilled over. ‘I want to be screwed. And you,’ she pointed at Jean, ‘you just want to watch, you sleazy cow. Shall I give you something to watch now, huh?’

  Ella staggered slightly as she set down the glass on the windowsill with a bang. She was about to pull up her jumper, when she remembered Charley in the cupboard. Barefoot, she raced back to her bedroom and put her ear to the closet door, but she could hear nothing.

  ‘I hope you’re enjoying reading that filth,’ she said, knocking on the closet door loudly. ‘That’s my life story. Every last detail. I hate Malcolm, I hate Mark, I hate Brendan – I hate everyone. They all hated me. My life was shit.’ Ella began to cry. ‘My life has always been shit. What did I do wrong, Charley? What did I do wrong?’

  After I’d been at Ravenside for a few months, trying my best to fit in, I started to withdraw from everything. I didn’t want to spend time with Billie so I stayed in the common room downstairs. But everyone ignored me in there, too. They said I was strange, a weirdo, a quiet little thing.

  Billie hid her mean streak well – that’s what I started to do when I changed from Cassie to Ella later. I learned to put on the charm in public and be the real me in private – or when I went out to be screwed.

  When I was eleven, I was fostered out for the first time. I went to live with a family in Liverpool. Far away from anyone who knew me. I liked it at first. I could pretend to be someone else and leave my past behind. And now that I was rid of Billie, I could relax. My foster parents, Sally and Phil, were great. I had my own room, my own space to feel safe in. No one ripped my covers off in the middle of the night so I had to sleep on the mattress shivering. No one would wake up, run over to me and thump me, giving me a dead leg while I was asleep. And Sally and Phil bought me books. I read them all.

  I started another new school, settled in as much as I could by keeping my head down, getting on with my work and staying quiet. For the first time since my family had died, I felt happy.

  Then Sally and Phil’s son, Ian, came home from university.

  Ian was nineteen; he was someone who should have known better. I could tell he wanted me, with those beady eyes of his that used to look me up and down, follow me around the room when he thought no one was watching. I was eleven, for fuck’s sake.

  One night, he was babysitting while Sally and Phil were out. I was asleep in my bed but he woke me up as he pulled the duvet from me, grabbed for my hands, and pinned me down. I struggled to get free, kicking out my legs underneath him as he straddled my body. I screamed but no one was there to hear me. Sally and Phil were out and Ian was looking after me – is that what you’d call it? Holding me down by my hands while he forced himself into me, thrusting and grunting like an animal while I screamed, telling me I wanted it and I was going to get it.

  I continued to scream but eventually he hit me, told me to shut up or else he’d hit me again. I was so shocked that I let him finish, closing my eyes tightly, hoping it would be over soon.

  Afterwards, he squeezed my chin hard. ‘You tell anyone and I’ll do much worse than that,’ he warned. ‘No one will believe you, anyway. You’re just a damaged kid who tells lies.’ And then he left my room.

  I curled up in a ball, my thighs bruised, my insides hurting like hell, blood all over the covers. How could you do that to me, you sick bastard? How could you take away my innocence? I was vulnerable and I was so scared.

  Sally found me the next morning, afraid to come out of my room. I couldn’t hide the bruising, or the blood. She said not to tell anyone what had happened as Ian would get into trouble. And because it had happened, I couldn’t stay there any longer. I was sent back to the home. Sally told the authorities that I was unruly and she couldn’t handle me. I was labelled again. And it wasn’t my fault.

  Sally and Phil should have protected me. They all should have looked after me! I was their responsibility. They should have kept me safe from harm. I was put into their care and another piece of my innocence was taken away. Never to return. Their son saw to that, that piece of lowlife shit.

  Do they know? Do they have a sixth sense that tells them ‘this child has been abused so you’re welcome to abuse her again?’ What was wrong with those people? Or was it my fault?

  Charley came to the end of the page, unsure if she could cope with reading any more. This was far more harrowing than the notebook she’d flicked through. What Ella had gone through at such a young and tender age was appalling. Charley couldn’t begin to understand, the raw emotion from the words alone putting her on edge.

  Ravenside Home was no longer open when she’d worked for the local authority so Charley hadn’t been around to visit it. But she had heard the tales of ill-treatment and abuse, the reason why it had been closed down.

  Page by page as she read, Charley was able to understand more about why Ella craved attention, her mood swings, her eagerness to be accepted, and to please. Head beginning to pound, she dabbed at her swollen eye with the corner of her sleeve. It kept watering, the effort of reading too much for it, but she had to continue. Because if she was going to talk herself out of this situation, then she needed to know everything about Ella, no matter how unbearable it became.

  My worst fears came back when I was returned to Ravenside, the home I’d left before. Billie was still there but there was a new boy called David. He was fifteen and Billie had a soft spot for him. But David started to look at me too.

  Billie didn’t like it.

  I didn’t like it!

  I knew then that I needed to wise up and start defending myself. I would learn but first things were about to get a lot worse. I thought Billie had found out that I was raped when I was at my foster home. Yes, I was raped, wasn’t I? I didn’t realise that at the time. I was torn and ripped apart, violated by a man who should have known better.

  But if I’d thought about it, she couldn’t have found out, could she? Because no one said anything about what had happened to me. Sally told me to be quiet about it, said no one would believe me and that it would only bring trouble to their door. So Billie was just being her usual vile self.

  Billie was fourteen by then. One evening, she came into our room and she brought David with her. I was sitting on my bed reading a book. While some of the boys watched by the door, Billie grabbed my arms and held them over my head. David sat between my legs and pulled up my skirt. I remember him laughing as he played with the elastic on my knickers, enjoying seeing the fear in my eyes as I tried to kick my feet. Billie now had both my wrists tightly held together in one of her hands; her other one was covering my mouth so no one could hear me call out.

  My knickers were forced down and I was on display. It was so embarrassing. Then he pushed up my T-shirt. I wasn’t developed enough to wear a bra so the whole of me was on display. He circled my small breast with his dirty fingernail. I can still remember praying, Please let this be over soon.

  But it wasn’t. It was far from over. Billie held me down while David forced himself into me. It hurt, God it hurt. Just writing this I can remember the pain.

  The fucking bastard! He was fifteen: he knew it was wrong. I shut my eyes again, so I couldn’t see him. But all the time he was inside me, I could still hear Billie. She was laughing at me, egging David on while he grunted and groaned on top of me, just like Ian.

  And all the time I screamed, my screams were muffled.

  I’m glad it happened, though. I know it won’t make sense to anyone who’s had a wonderful childhood and upbringing. Raped twice by the age of
twelve made me into a better person. It sounds perverted, I know, like something from Jeremy Kyle. But it did. Because from that day forward, I realised that no one was going to look out for me. I realised that I could trust no one, that I could only rely on myself. Age was making me that little bit stronger, taller, harder to manipulate.

  Billie continued with the bullying, enraged that I had David’s attention. He didn’t like Billie, it was plain to see. Ha ha ha! Stupid bitch. Luckily, he’d had his fill after one go with me so he never touched me again.

  When he was sixteen a few weeks later, he had to leave. You’re kicked out onto the streets at sixteen, sent to a hostel if you’re really unlucky. Most of them were worse than Ravenside. More bullies, just a little bit older.

  Billie missed David and took her anger out on me. I let her for a while. Until that day, when I was twelve. You see, she might have had me scared, and she might have controlled me for years, but something inside me snapped.

  I heard it go ping.

  Billie told me I had to clean our room up. I did as she told me but once I’d finished, she came in and said it was still a mess. The room was tidy, exactly how I had left it, but then she wiped everything off my chest of drawers with one sweep of her arm; my belongings crashed to the carpet and scattered all over the room. She pulled drawers out, threw socks and knickers to the floor.

  It was when Billie pulled a book from the shelf that I saw red. I was reading more and more: I’ve always lost myself in a good book, you know? There’s nothing better than escaping into someone else’s happy life when yours is shit and has no chance of improving.

  Billie gathered all my books up and took them down to the communal bathroom. I followed behind her quickly, trying to get them from her arms. She laughed as she dumped them all in the bath and turned on the taps. I tried to stop her, turn the water off, but she hit me, knocking me onto my bottom across the floor.

  But I wasn’t staying down this time. Those books were my treasured possessions – my only possessions.

  I had taken three years of abuse and that moment,

  that exact moment,

  I tipped over the edge.

  I charged forward and pushed her head into the bath water. I held it underneath as she flailed around. Her head came up and she gasped for breath, crying out before I managed to push her underneath again. One of the younger kids came to the door. I saw his terrified face before he ran away.

  I realised that I did have the strength to overpower Billie as she fought against me.

  Then Jean, one of the workers, came in. She closed the bathroom door and locked us all in there, away from prying eyes while she assessed the situation. Then she held me in her arms until I was calm. Billy sat panting, gasping for air, but Jean didn’t go to her: she comforted me. It was the first time anyone had done that since my parents had died.

  I remember Jean glaring at Billie. ‘You think you’re never going to get a taste of your own medicine, don’t you?’ she said. ‘Well, think again. You can only push people so far. Let this be a lesson to you to change your ways.’

  I liked Jean. She hadn’t been working there long, yet she could see through Billie. What she said, and what I had done, shocked Billie enough to realise that I could be dangerous if I wanted to.

  Billie hardly ever spoke to me after that. She kept her distance, made everyone think she couldn’t be bothered to interact with me. But I knew. I had won my first battle to survive. When I tried to drown her, a little bit of doubt had emerged. I stopped her in her tracks, didn’t I?

  Ella stood in the window again. Rain poured down outside; the wind was getting up too. All in all it looked like a murky night, a night to draw heavy curtains on and curl up on the settee with a mug of hot chocolate and a feel-good movie.

  ‘A night not to go out on the pull,’ Ella said with a grin. She could cope with that. She had all she needed here.

  Then she thought about Charley and her mood changed again.

  She’s in there. Reading all that filth about you.

  ‘I should stop her – drag her out by her hair and kick the fuck out of her. Just like Billie did to me. See how she’d like it. I know she –’

  The sounds of Neyo’s Beautiful Monster filtered into the room.

  What the fuck is that?

  Ella glanced around, trying to figure out where it was coming from. Charley’s handbag was on the settee: it was her phone! She rummaged around, searching through zipped sections until she found it. It was an incoming call from Aaron.

  She let it ring.

  When it finally stopped, a text message arrived moments later.

  Be 15 mins. Picking up takeaway. xx

  Ella smiled again.

  Let the fun begin.

  She was going to show Charley just how much it hurt to have someone she cared for taken away for the second time. That would teach her not to interfere.

  Yes, that would be perfect. Once she’d dealt with him, there’d be time to come back to sort out Charley. She would keep for now.

  Now you’re singing in tune.

  Ella laughed hysterically. Charley couldn’t escape anyway. Just like she hadn’t been able to when Billie locked her inside the cupboard over the stairs.

  She texted Aaron back: Great. C u soon Cx

  Then she let herself out of the flat.

  Charley froze at the sound of Neyo. It had to be her phone! She pulled herself up quickly, unease ripping through her body. It would most likely be Aaron.

  But then the music stopped.

  She strained to hear. Had Ella answered it? She held her breath, wishing she could slow the beat of her heart down, or at least the noise as it banged out of her chest. But then she heard the beep of an incoming message.

  A feeling of helplessness washed over her again. If Aaron had sent a message, it meant he’d be arriving soon. It could be good news because he’d want to know where she was. He had keys now; he was bound to use them to get in. He’d find the flat empty, see her car outside, and start to investigate.

  He’d probably look upstairs first, right? Which meant he could be in danger too.

  And she couldn’t warn him.

  ‘Ella?’ She banged on the door, panic back again. ‘Ella, are you there? Let me out of here. ELLA!’

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  I ran away from Ravenside several times when I was thirteen but each time I was found and brought back. Malcolm hated authority – the police or the social. He hated anyone poking their nose into how the home was run. Because there was a lot that they could find if they did dig deep. A FUCKING LOT!

  And each time I got back, Malcolm would give me a good thrashing. Luckily for me, Malcolm didn’t like little girls or else he would have taken a turn shagging me too, I’m certain. Instead he used me as a punch bag, explaining the bruises away by saying I was fighting with the other kids. Everyone thought I was the troublemaker. I wasn’t! I SO wasn’t!

  The only good thing to come of the running away and the beatings was the trouble I brought back to the home. For punishment when I ran away, I was locked in my room every night. Hilarious, don’t you think? Being locked up meant that no one could get to me but it brought demons with it too. Memories of Billie; memories of banging on the door to get out; memories of time passing so slowly that I had no idea whether it was morning or night.

  I was so lonely, though. No one to call my friend; no one to talk to. No one at school wanted to know any of us kids from the home. We were doomed, wherever we were.

  Billie left when I was thirteen and, now just that much older and stronger, I saw my chance and wised up. It took me a few months of fighting my way to the top of the pile, most of the kids thinking I was still going to be the pushover they had grown up with. But I got there eventually – after banging Melody Johnson’s head repeatedly on the floor as I sat astride her and throwing
one last punch before being pulled off, I gained respect. It was easy from then. I had everyone wanting to be my friend.

  That’s the pack mentality of being in an institution. Either join in and survive, no matter what you have to do, or be singled out for being a loner, like I was. Peer pressure. Fitting in. Being a sheep. Better than being on your own.

  But I was different to the Davids and the Billies, because woe betide anyone who picked on any of the younger kids then – unless I told them to, obviously. Which wasn’t very often, I admit, but if one of the little shits annoyed me, I’d get them back. Or if one of the older kids thought they could recruit to get one up on me? Then the fists started to fly. I surprised myself by how hard I could punch.

  This was my home now; until I left I was going to be its lead girl, even if it meant fighting every minute of every day for it. I had done my time as a punch bag. Even Malcolm became wary of me. He was right to be. I began carrying a flick-knife everywhere and I knew I’d use it if I was vulnerable again.

  Surprised to see Charley’s rooms in darkness when he arrived, Aaron knocked on the door to the flat twice before letting himself in with a key. His pulse quickened with anxiety, as Charley was normally there to greet him at the door when he’d texted her to say he was on his way. Maybe she was going to surprise him, greet him naked or something. Maybe she was lying in the bath, waiting for him to strip off and step in next to her. He felt a stirring in his groin. Stuff the takeaway getting cold: slipping into hot water with Charley would be even more of a treat.

  ‘Anyone home?’ he said, switching on the hall light. ‘Charley?’ He went into the kitchen and put the takeaway down on the worktop.

  Weird – no light on in there, either.

  ‘I hope you’re where I think you are?’

  Still no reply.

  He popped his head around the living room door and switched on the light, but the room was empty. The bathroom and bedroom were too.