by Toni Maguire
‘Gin and tonic, darling,’ he murmured, passing her a glass, and ‘Orange juice for you, Emily,’ he added to my surprise. I was not usually – well, ever – included in their evening drinks ritual.
‘Cheers, both of you,’ he said with another baring of teeth as he flashed that broad smile of his in my direction.
I stood there patiently waiting to be told just what we were celebrating. And I knew not to ask; they would tell me when they were ready.
‘Well, Emily, I’m sure you must be beside yourself with curiosity about what we have to tell you, aren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ I admitted, forcing myself to smile back at him.
‘What we want to say is that your mother has agreed to marry me and you are to be our bridesmaid. Great news, isn’t it? It means I really will be your stepdad then. Now, what do you think of that?’
Better not tell him, muttered Fear.
‘When will it be?’ I managed to ask, trying my hardest to look happy.
‘Oh, in about six weeks, so there are lots of plans to make. And there are dresses for you and your mother to buy. So, what have you got to say, Emily?’
‘Sounds really good,’ I replied, forcing another smile on my face, though my suddenly weak legs refused to carry me over to Mum and give her a hug, which no doubt might have been expected.
What I really wanted was to run out of the room, grab a pillow and scream into it.
Hadn’t I hoped that every time I had heard their rows and the sounds of him hitting her that she would throw him out? Just seeing the radiant expression on my mother’s face that evening told me there was no chance of that happening. Any hopes I might have had died in that room that night. He was to remain in my life, that was the uncomfortable truth, and the truth jangled at my nerves, squeezing my stomach muscles.
Marriage, I was certain, would give him even more power over my life if that were possible.
And I was just about to find out that I was right.
Through the fuzz in my brain I heard that they planned to look for a house – ‘Big enough if we add to our family,’ Carl said with a smirk, which was his way of letting me know that they planned to have more children. Then another thought struck me: Please don’t let it be far away from here.
Surely he would not move us away from everyone we knew?
‘Where will it be?’ I asked, trying to look interested although that sinking feeling in my stomach was growing.
‘Oh, not too far from here,’ came the answer. ‘Just further out of town, we want some outside space. Be good for you, won’t it?’
So, why did I have a feeling then that the move was part of Carl’s larger plan? On that evening, I couldn’t see what it was but somehow I knew he had formulated one.
‘Now, the meal needs some of my attention. No, my darling, you two stay put,’ he told Mum as she made a move to follow him into the kitchen. ‘I’ll bring everything in when it’s ready.’
If I wondered what he had cooked, I was soon to find out when he carried in a huge platter of rare meat and a bowl full of mixed vegetables. I saw straight away that they would be impossible for me to sort into different colours, though that was nothing like as bad as the meat.
Just looking at it sitting in its pink-tinged juices made my stomach churn and the bile started to rise in my throat. The thought of eating it was enough to send shivers down my spine. If I put one piece of it in my mouth, I would vomit it up straight away. I felt Carl’s eyes on me and looking up, I knew he was totally aware of what I was going through.
End of nice stepfather role all right! I wonder now what dark thoughts went through his head when he decided to cook a meal that would make a seven-year-old child feel physically sick.
I looked across at my mother – she understood, didn’t she? No help was to come from her, I realised, when she studiously avoided my gaze.
‘Mum,’ I whispered, trying desperately to get her attention, ‘you know I can’t eat that!’
‘You’ll have to try, Emily. Carl cooked this especially for us.’
Well, that was clear all right! He cooked it specially to show me up, more like it.
‘I can’t,’ I said, swallowing down the bitter-tasting bile making its way up my throat again.
Carl said nothing, just stood there, and without looking at him, I could feel his glare burning into my skin.
Without uttering a sound, he drew my chair from the table, caught me by the back of my neck, pulled me over to the chair and threw me forcibly onto it. Then he moved it firmly right up to the table. I watched with something approaching horror as he leant over the table and speared a piece of meat. He waved it just under my nose, making sure I could smell it. His eyes fixed on mine as he swiftly brought it to my mouth and tried to ram the piece into it.
I couldn’t help shutting my mouth so firmly it was as though my jaws had locked themselves tight all on their own – I couldn’t open them if I tried. Not that he was about to give up: he gripped my jaw and tried to force it open while holding the blood-flecked meat.
‘Open your mouth, Emily, or I’ll open it for you.’
But I couldn’t, my jaw really had locked tightly shut.
His face was filled with anger, those grey eyes of his burning into me, but the more scared I became, the more my mouth refused to open. Giving up, he pulled me from the chair, his arm raised, and I felt the cold, sharp skin of his hand connecting hard against my jaw. As I tasted the metallic sting of blood inside my mouth, I knew the monster in him was fully awake.
Another thump, this time to my head, and I saw stars as I fell to the floor.
He gripped my arm and pulled me up.
‘Go to your room and stay out of my sight!’ he hissed.
A command that was easy to obey as I staggered along the corridor, praying he would not come after me. I managed to open the door and throw myself onto the bed before finally blacking out.
When I came to, it was to find my mother, a worried expression on her face, sitting on the end of my bed. My face was throbbing, my head ached, and all I wanted was to close my eyes and drift off into unconsciousness again.
‘Here,’ she said and placed a freezing-cold towel on the side of my face that he had hit. ‘Ice will help get rid of the swelling,’ she told me matter-of-factly. ‘Now, take these,’ she added, placing two painkillers in my hand and passing me a glass of water.
It hurt even to open my mouth wide enough to swallow them and gulp down the water to get them down.
‘He’s sorry he hit you,’ she said, still in that same tone.
Not ‘How dare he touch my daughter, I’m leaving the bastard! The wedding is off!’ Oh no, nothing like that. Her concern was that he had nearly knocked me out and there was only so much damage to me that she could cover up.
Yes, sorry he had not taken off his rings, I suspected. My jaw was bruised – in fact, so bruised and swollen, I had to be kept off school.
Sorry she had to fob off her mother from visiting me when she was told I was unwell?
Sorry she had to tell the same story to my dad?
I wonder now if she had any doubts on entering that marriage. She must have seen how her life would change, surely? If she did, she had firmly pushed them away.
And Carl? Well, he apologised for what he had done. Told me he only wanted to help me rid myself of those habits of mine, that he was concerned that when I was older, people would mock me.
I didn’t believe one word of it.
Chapter 22
For some time before the wedding was announced, I had come to realise that it was not only me who Carl exercised his power over, it was my mother as well. Gone was the bossy, sharp-tongued woman I had known ever since I could remember. In her place was someone who agreed with everything he said and just about everything he did – which included him making my life hell. It was as though he had taken the mother I knew and replaced her with his own creation, one who no longer had any opinions of her own.
I still
don’t know how he managed it, for it hardly took him long to control how Mum spent her time, who she was able to see, and I suspect, even what she thought. Not only that, but since he moved in, Carl had steadily managed to put a distance between us and my mother’s family. There were those unsubtle verbal digs aimed at them. He said her sisters and their husbands were jealous of us, that Gran disapproved of her, and was constantly reminding her of his belief that no matter how hard he tried in bringing presents for the children and flowers, chocolates and beers for the adults, they made no effort to accept him as part of their family.
He even suggested that Mum was the least favourite one, frequently reporting snide remarks about her that he claimed to have overheard at the family get togethers. Were they true? I doubt it – it was just his way of trying to make her suspicious and distrust her family.
And finally, after she agreed to marry him, he said he hoped she knew just how much he was looking forward to the wedding: ‘It means we three will be a proper family.’
Just goes to show how little he knew about the meaning of the word.
* * *
Even though Carl had put doubts in my mother’s mind about the loyalty of her sisters, she still continued to arrange to go to those monthly lunches with them. And what do you know? They nearly always fell on a day when he was suddenly free from work: ‘Oh, just say you can’t make it today,’ he told her gaily when he turned up from his business, saying he had finished unexpectedly early. ‘I’ll take you out somewhere nice. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’ And a kiss was planted on her cheek.
The first time he did it, I saw a flash of annoyance cross her face. She’s going to say she’s going anyhow, I thought then. But, oh no, she quickly smiled back at him and said she would give her sisters a ring to cancel and hoped they would understand.
‘Darling, we have a few minutes before we need to leave so you have time to change and put some lipstick on,’ he said.
Well, that was telling her, I thought. I mean, she was already wearing make-up and dressed for lunch with her mum and sisters, wasn’t she?
But Carl didn’t do casual and relaxed, and he hated the flat shoes she always wore for these gatherings. ‘Heels are much more feminine,’ I had heard him say on more than one occasion. Followed by, ‘And let’s face it, your sisters have let themselves go a bit, haven’t they?’ before, with a smile, he patted her on her still-slim behind.
I could just imagine what my aunts would have said if their husbands had told them to change. Far less what their fate would have been if a remark like ‘You’ve let yourself go’ was mentioned. But, Mum seemed to think it was flattering that he took such an interest in her appearance. He had certainly managed to change it quite a bit. No more lounging around the house in tracksuits for her anymore, or sitting down for dinner without a face full of make-up.
After succeeding the first time, it was an act he seemed to take enjoyment in repeating.
‘Right,’ she would say each time, ‘I won’t be long.’ A few minutes later she was back wearing a tight clingy dress, her feet pushed into high-heeled shoes and her subtle pink lipstick replaced by a vivid red one.
‘That’s better,’ was his usual comment as he looked her up and down. Then, taking her arm, he would open the door and off they went. At least I had some peace to read my latest book from the library, all about the Greek gods.
After that first time when I saw the flash of annoyance when he bounced in, telling her to cancel her lunch, those subsequent times she responded differently and it seemed that her annoyance was slowly being replaced by acceptance. Even at my young age, I thought I recognised an approaching defeated air about her.
‘My sisters were fine about it,’ was all she said after each phone call. ‘They understand.’
She was right there, they probably did.
From the snippets I overheard after the third time it happened, and the odd comment my cousin Ben made to me, it seemed they were not in the least bit fooled by those last-minute cancellations.
They understood all right, just not in the way she hoped for.
* * *
Once Carl had controlled the amount of times Mum saw her sisters and visited her mother, he must have decided it was essential to tackle those family lunches too. He knew they were something both Mum and I had always looked forward to. When their relationship was new, I had heard her tell him it had been a family tradition for many years. In fact, before he came into our lives, apart from when I had succumbed to a few childhood ailments, we never missed one.
Nevertheless, it was a tradition he was determined to break. He told her that now they were getting married, he wanted us to spend more time together doing our own family things. Not that we seemed to know what he had planned until the last minute. Were we going to the family or not seemed to be a question she was too frightened to ask. Instead, she waited until he told her his plans, which was usually less than an hour before we were due to be there. Then it would be yet another phone call cancelling the arrangements. I would hear her trying to make it sound as though a surprise outing was romantic, while I just swallowed my disappointment.
They weren’t even married yet and he was in full control, just how much worse could it get once that knot was tied? Already he was steadily getting what he wanted – my mother completely dependent on him, and me becoming more and more isolated with no one left to confide in. Fear might be able to control a small child, but what about an older one? Something that the adult me thinks he must have thought about round about then. Later, when I became a teenager and found out what his plan for my future really was, his earlier actions became as clear as day. Right from the start, he had a master plan and our lives were all mapped out long before he asked my mother to marry him.
All I understood during those earlier years was that I missed my old life so much. Those carefree days with my cousins and the special times I spent with my grandmother when I had felt both loved and lovable. Piece by piece, the part of my life that had given me such stability was fast disappearing. I can remember now the loneliness of those Saturdays when yet another excuse had been made to turn down an invitation to a family get together.
‘Oh dear, I had something special planned for us,’ was Carl’s usual excuse when he saw Mum and I getting ready. Not that he ever made any arrangements to include me. He just said, ‘Now you can help your mother by washing the breakfast dishes, can’t you? And when you’re done, I suggest you catch up on your homework, Emily.’ Those would always be his last words to me before he swept my mother through the door.
Where was the ‘We will do things as a family’ idea? I wondered after they had swanned out of the house yet again, leaving me alone.
In a way, apart from feeling both angry and miserable at not getting to see the family once more, even though I would be alone for most of the day, it was still a relief when they had gone. While I washed the breakfast dishes I thought about everyone else in my family getting food, drink and themselves ready for the get together. At least on my own I had peace to immerse myself in my own thoughts. When it was just the three of us at home after Carl had persuaded Mum to turn down yet another invitation, it was hard not to show my resentment. And any show of objecting to his decisions did not go down well – it wouldn’t take him long to find something to punish me for.
Throughout those lonely days my mind was filled with images of what was taking place without me. I could see my cousins laying the long table and I wondered which one had been delegated to do my task and put out the cushions. My uncles would be busying themselves with getting the coals just the right heat for grilling, while their wives carried out those heaped plates of food. As the day progressed, I thought of my cousins kicking the ball round and Ben giving someone else that high five when a goal was scored.
It was when I let my mind stray to how Gran would have sorted out my food and her smile, so full of love as she gave it to me, that tears pricked my eyes – I just wanted those days b
ack so much. Without my family, I no longer felt I was the special little girl my gran had repeatedly told me I was over the years. In such a short time I had gone from being the much-loved youngest cousin to the girl no one wanted.
Well, that’s who I was, wasn’t I? Lily didn’t seem to want me, nor did my mother. As for my father – well, I wanted to believe he did, but then how many times had my mother told me that it was only because of the law that he spent any time with me? So, let’s face it, my nasty little inner voice said, he doesn’t want you either. Not now he has another little girl to love, one who won’t have your embarrassing eating habits or any of your other odd ways.
There’s nothing like wallowing in self-pity to see the world collapsing all around is you, is there?
My excuse for that little girl I was then was she was still only seven and those small drops of poison were dropped into her ears on a very regular basis. The saddest thing was that she truly believed all of it. Her confidence began to disappear, she thought all she did was annoy and irritate all the people around her, and so she closed herself off from her school friends, telling them she wanted to be left alone.
Even the fact that the teachers kept praising her schoolwork failed to reassure her. Hadn’t Carl told her they were just being kind because she was different?
‘And what will happen to you when you grow up?’ he kept saying. ‘You’re not going to find being an adult easy, are you? Who’s going to want to give you a job? So, you’d better listen to me – I only hit you to make you realise that.’
And the little girl I had once been had no choice but to believe him.
Chapter 23
During the week, I was still able to see Gran although it was never long enough. The moment I heard that phone ring to signal that I was to go home, I would clench my fists so hard, my nails left small red crescents on my palms. My gran was always careful not to mention what was planned for the weekend or tell me about the previous one, if I had not been there. I assume because she had got wise to Carl’s manipulations and didn’t want to build my hopes up only to see them dashed at the last minute. Without saying anything, she must have understood how disappointed I would have been each time he insisted that our acceptance was cancelled – she never asked me what we did instead either.