by Toni Maguire
Gran believed she was heartbroken by her husband’s desertion and she needed her friends, didn’t she, she told my aunts when they voiced their disapproval. I heard them, though, when my grandmother was out of earshot, saying they didn’t think it was girlfriends their sister was interested in. What they didn’t know about were the evenings when she left me in the house alone.
There was more than one time, when I watched unnoticed as she carefully applied make-up, that I knew my mother was going out and leaving me on my own. Catching me standing in the doorway, she would glare at me. ‘Don’t you open your big mouth and tell your grandmother I went out or you’ll be in big trouble!’ she spat out each time, before telling me to get back in bed where I belonged.
I can see the child I had once been now looking at her desolately, when in high heels and a clinging dress, she left the house in a waft of perfume while I took myself off to bed miserably. I just wanted her to do what my grandmother did: envelop me in her arms, kiss me on the cheek, say I was her special girl and then tuck me in.
Well, that was something that was never going to happen.
* * *
It took quite a while after my father had left before Mum came bursting through the door, cheeks pink with excitement, as she told her mother and sisters the good news. She had been offered a job in a restaurant, where she would be handling bookings, seating customers and generally making sure that everyone was being well looked after. Not only that, she had also found us a new place to live. Friends of hers, she explained, had bought their own council flat, but they couldn’t sell it for five years and were happy to rent it out.
‘They are off to Spain,’ was the answer when Gran asked where they were going to live.
‘And where is it?’ My grandmother wanted to know and was clearly unhappy with the answer.
‘Oh, but, Betty, that’s the worst estate in the town!’ she exclaimed.
‘Well, not for long, not when people are buying their homes. Anyhow, it’s all we can afford. Got to cut our cloth now, haven’t we?’ Mum told her snippily.
That was all I managed to hear of that exchange. I knew by the sudden silence it was a conversation that would be resumed only once I was out of earshot.
Chapter 12
I would not be telling the truth if I said my childhood was a happy one before he entered my life. After all, I had five years of living with two parents who gave me little time. Luckily for me, much of those early years was spent with my mother’s family, who gave me the love I needed. But that didn’t stop me from being aware that neither of my parents felt the same way as they did. If there were times I was unhappy, it was not something I talked about – I was used to being ignored. Maybe if I had understood just how bad my home life was, I might have told my grandmother. But not understanding, I said nothing.
How I wish I had, for soon after I turned five, Mum introduced me to the man who was to become my stepfather.
And Fear came into my life.
The moment I think of that day, a picture so vivid comes into my mind. I can almost see the pores in his skin, that shadow, so dark and smooth, it looked as though it was painted onto his jaw, his receding hair that made me think then of an inverted three and those eyes, pale grey and cold. Call it child’s instinct, but I knew from the moment I saw him that I was never going to like him. In fact, what I felt was distrust mixed with just a tinge of fear and dread.
My mother, who never seemed to sense when I was unhappy, picked up on my aversion to the man she introduced as Carl straight away. Once she had me alone, she gripped the tops of my arms so tightly, the marks still showed when I went to bed. A stream of accusations spewed from her mouth – I was a jealous little girl, I did not wish her to be happy, I wanted her all to myself. Well, there was some truth in that, which is natural, though the last comment was a slight exaggeration. Just a little bit of her, an occasional smile, a pat on the shoulder, my name said with warmth, anything caring would have satisfied me.
If before the breakup she had seemed either indifferent or irked by my presence, since my father had left, there was anger on her face nearly every time she looked at me. If there was hurt and also loss inside her, to me she showed only the anger. I knew not only had Dad blamed me, but she did as well. After all, it was me, wasn’t it, who had imparted that bullet of knowledge that had destroyed their marriage.
I did try to force my lips to smile at Carl the next time I saw him. Now adults might be able to plant phony smiles on their faces, but children have a knack of showing their real feelings very clearly. Right from the start, he saw that he was never going to turn me into his little admirer. Not being a man who was prepared to wait for what he wanted – in this case, a compliant child – he made it clear to my mother that I was creating a situation he could not tolerate.
This resulted in her tackling me again.
‘You are to be polite,’ she instructed me, ‘and respectful.’ He was to live with us. ‘It was him that got us this flat and he’s going to make it nice. He’ll even do up your bedroom. He wants you to see him as your new father, so you’d better be grateful.’ With that, she held my shoulders tightly and shook me, adding, ‘Do you understand me, Emily? I’ll not have you showing me up.’
I did, I understood all right: I would have to accept him and be respectful or I would be punished. And she would take his side, not mine – she wanted a man more than she wanted her daughter’s happiness.
‘So, are you going to be a good little girl, Emily?’
‘Yes,’ I whispered and got my first reward since my father had left – a quick hug.
* * *
Carl arrived the next morning. He was taking Mum out for the day, he told me. Not us, just her – I was going to Gran’s. Seeing him in my mind still sends a shudder down my body for I cannot forget the expression on his face when, as he told me it was only the two of them going out, his eyes locked with mine in a deadly combination of obsessive ownership and contempt.
Chapter 13
My mother, wilful as she was about getting her own way, had enough sense not to move Carl in with us too soon. He might have been staying over on the nights I was forbidden to talk about, but their plan was that he would not take up full residency until he had gone through the hurdle of being introduced to the family. I heard her telling him that it was important to her that he met them and gained their approval first, which she had already arranged. All three of us would be going over to the aunts’ houses in a week’s time.
My heart sank at the thought of seeing him every day. It was bad enough that when he stayed over, he acted not only as though the place was his, but as if he had every right to tell me what to do. Worst of all, it was something Mum never pulled him up on.
‘He’s going to be your stepfather one day, Emily,’ was all she said when I complained about him walking into my room and telling me off because I had my colouring books out.
‘You should put them away neatly,’ he told me, which was something, even in a bad temper, my mother never said.
Right from the beginning he had tested her reactions to him giving me orders. While he hoped there would be none, I crossed my fingers to see if she would put me first. To begin with, it was just fairly good-humoured observations about something I was doing that he disagreed with. When he went a little further and criticised me more strongly for carefully arranging all the food on my plate, she still said nothing. Nor did she say anything at the next meal when he told me to stop playing with my food and eat it all up.
The next evening, I could feel him watching me as I pushed aside some meat that was too rare.
‘She’s far too fussy, Betty,’ he remarked. ‘I think you should just serve her the leftovers the next time she leaves something.’
And if I hoped she would tell him that she was used to that and it was no problem, I was to be disappointed. Yes, he was testing the water there all right. And how I hated that condescending monotonous tone to his voice each time he pointed o
ut what he perceived to be my wrongdoings.
Not that Mum seemed to notice.
Each time I thought of what my life would be like when he was in the house full-time, I felt my stomach churn. It certainly would change, and not for the better, of that I was certain.
It was when I heard them talking about the flat that I realised why he treated our home as though it was his. My mother had told him that her family objected to the area we were living in – it was not considered a good area and they worried about the sort of children I would mix with.
‘Well, they should be grateful a friend of mine was willing to give it to you at a reasonable rent, shouldn’t they?’ was his sneering response.
‘That’s not something I told them, was it?’ she retorted.
‘Don’t worry, they’ll think differently when I’ve fixed it up. It’ll be like a little palace then, you’ll see,’ he told her in his reassuring voice – another one I already hated.
* * *
I never found out what it was he told my family about his background, and to me, it’s still a mystery. The adult me believes he must have fallen out with his own family well before he came into our lives. Then there must have been some questions about where he lived, something I didn’t know the answer to either. After all, it is usually the woman who moves into the man’s home, not the other way around. I know one of his excuses was that as a single man he needed only a very small space, plus – and I winced when I heard him trotting this out – with all the upheaval in my life, moving again would be too disruptive for me.
That was something I had heard my mother repeat to my grandmother at a later date.
The day Mum arranged for Carl to visit her family fell on a Saturday when one of those big get togethers with a barbecue was planned.
‘Everyone will be there,’ she told him happily. ‘That way, you will get to meet the whole family all at once and get it over with. After all, it’s a bit much to trust Emily not to say anything, isn’t it?’
That was her way of wrapping up a criticism inside a joke.
And what did Carl do to make certain he fitted in?
Made sure he learnt all about the interests of each of the adult members. And did not arrive either overloaded with gifts – ‘too ostentatious’ or too few – ‘tight-fisted’.
Mum needn’t have worried he would get that wrong – after all, he had wooed and won her in a suspiciously short time, hadn’t he?
Out he went shopping the day before the gathering to return with two perfectly wrapped bunches of flowers for, as he said, ‘his hostesses’ and a carton full of beers for the men.
‘Oh, I thought I’d better get your mother something too, Betty,’ he added triumphantly, waving a large, but not too large, box of chocolates under her nose.
‘Perfect, darling,’ she murmured, throwing her shapely arms around his neck.
Ugh, gross! I thought.
* * *
The following day, Carl’s welcome, when he presented his gifts, was almost as warm as Mum’s had been. Evidently it was something Dad never thought to do as I heard my uncles mutter to each other later in the day.
Even worse as far as I was concerned, when Carl had shown his very recently acquired knowledge of football, my uncles turned to my mother, saying it looked as though she had found herself a decent bloke at last. He must have studied the sports columns for days before that family gathering for he was able to talk not just about the game and which team had played where, but also to name the players he admired as well.
Funny how they were exactly the same ones that the men in our family saw as their own heroes.
He even asked his hostess, Aunt Lizzy, if he could walk around her garden and then was able to name all the plants that grew in it.
Some research must have gone into that as well, I would say.
And me, he addressed more than once as ‘sweetie’. Not that he ever called me by that name when we were out of the family’s earshot.
Everyone lapped up his company, the women almost preening when he complimented them on their cooking. The men were happy to have another male in the family who shared the same interests as they did when he joined them around the flames as they cooked the meats.
There was one person though who did not warm to him – my gran.
I saw her watching him, her lips in a tight line. She was polite enough but if I sensed it at my age, I’m sure he must have done as well. He knew she had seen through him, seen the person he really was. It must have been then that he began to plan how he could rid both my mother and I of her influence.
A week later, he moved his cases into our flat.
‘The furniture will arrive once the decorations are finished,’ he told us.
Once those large feet of his were planted firmly under the table, he felt confident enough to start laying down the rules, rules that my mother seemed happy to agree with. Rules that over time were to make me his virtual prisoner. Not that there were locks on the windows or padlocks on the doors, but then there are other ways to turn a child into a captive.
I call them the bars of fear.
Chapter 14
Before he moved in with us, it was usually one of my cousins who fetched me from school and walked with me to my grandmother’s. On the days she was seeing Carl, or ‘working late’, as Mum had told her mother, then I stayed happily overnight.
Gran’s home was my refuge, it was where I felt safe the moment I walked in. Instead of being ignored or snapped at, I was greeted with a smile the moment I returned from school. Within a few minutes, I was sitting down in front of the TV to watch children’s afternoon programmes. A slice of cake and a glass of lemonade were quickly placed on the small table beside me before I was left alone to watch my favourite cartoon characters. Giggling away at their antics, I could forget about everything, including his presence in my home.
All that began to change once he moved in.
He announced what his plans for my future were: ‘I’m going to be your stepfather one day,’ he told me, ‘so I’m going to start acting as your father right now.’
‘I have a dad,’ I said and saw the darkening of his eyes.
‘Well, he’s not a very good one, is he? When did he last bother to see you?’
The day he left was the truthful answer. Mum had not told me when I would see him again, but my gran had tried her best to explain what was taking place between my parents. She had sat me down, her hand on my knee, and told me that things would change when everything was settled. Or rather, as I was a small child without any knowledge of the law, she said, ‘When your mum and dad have sorted everything out, you will be spending some time with him. He really does want to see you.’
This was an adult’s way of explaining to a small child that until the court made its custody ruling, Mum and Carl were refusing him any access to me. All I understood was that someday in the future I would spend some time with him and Lily. As I had no way of finding out how many times Dad rang Mum to ask to see me, I carried on believing that he did not visit because he did not love me.
A belief that my mother had cemented in, the day we moved to our new home. When everything was unloaded, I saw that the television was missing and asked where it was.
‘Your dad came round last night and took it, said it was his. Anyhow, I asked him then if he wanted you to spend time with him and you know what the shite said? That he’d rather spend his time with the telly now he was getting it back. Nice, eh?’
The lump in my throat was too big to answer her.
So, when Carl made those comments and with Mum’s words still lodged in my mind, I could hardly think of anything to say in Dad’s defence.
It only took a couple more weeks for Carl to test my mother again. She had allowed him to lay down the rules and chastise me for any misdemeanors he could find.
I’ve labelled that Stage One.
Then came the start of Stage Two – seeing how she would react to him hitting me. To do t
hat, he had to find an excuse. Or in his case, invent one, to justify his actions. For not only did he want to punish a child physically, he wanted Mum to admire him for it.
Education was the tool he chose as his weapon. It was important, he said, every time we sat down at the table together: ‘Don’t you agree, Betty?’ And my mother, who I doubt had ever given it much thought, replied very firmly that of course it was.
First part of Stage Two achieved.
Carl was not interested in the fact that this was my first term at school and as I had only just started, I could hardly have learnt very much. Plus, there might just be a reason that five-year-olds are not given any homework – not that he agreed with that. It was something he voiced his opinion about very loudly when he questioned me about what I had learnt each day.
‘As soon as children begin school, they should have some work set for them to do at home,’ he stated, ‘seeing as you don’t seem to do much in the way of lessons there.’
‘We learnt to tell the time today,’ I ventured boldly.
Not that it had really seemed like a lesson to me, more of a game, with a big cardboard cutout of a clock with hands that our teacher moved before asking us to say what time it was.
‘So, at least you can tell the time now. Let’s see if you’re telling the truth on that: what does 22 hours mean?’
But I had no idea and just looked at him blankly: surely there was not a 22 o’clock?
‘So, you can’t tell the time! Thought so,’ he announced triumphantly when he saw my confusion. ‘Anything else you can remember?’
‘No.’
‘Well then, you’re obviously not learning enough there so I will have to help you, won’t I? All right, before we get to that, you tell me what exactly you are learning at school that you think is important.’
Something told me not to tell him that there were two things I wanted to get right: the alphabet and spelling. I could already read – that I had learnt when my grandmother read to me. Every evening I stayed with her, out would come a book and she would bring alive the characters living inside it. The story I asked for most was of a little girl who fell down a very large hole before entering a world where animals spoke. As she read a chapter to me, I would peer at every word and then lock them in my head. Which meant it was the shape of words I recognised, not the letters. Something I kept quiet about. The teacher never asked the infant class if they could read, so I never said I could. And I was not about to tell him either.