Silent Child

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Silent Child Page 21

by Toni Maguire


  There might not have been much conversation between Mum and I, but that didn’t stop the tension between us – a tension Carl had skilfully orchestrated. Even during those times when he behaved like a normal husband and stepfather, neither of us was fully relaxed. Family meals could be pleasant for several days on the trot and then my mother’s cooking was praised. Not that she ever looked pleased with compliments as she once was – I suppose they never quite made up for the many complaints that Carl spat out at her when he was in a foul mood.

  Those other occasions, or should I say the majority of times, he took a delight in quizzing one of us about how we had spent our day. He would use every trick in the book to trip us up so that he had an excuse to inflict some type of punishment. Not knowing which one of us he was going to choose to question set our nerves on edge, a situation that made us both understandably selfish. It was a relief for the one who was not chosen, who instead of receiving barbed comments mixed with unrelenting questioning was the recipient of warm, friendly smiles.

  Nearly always the questions were about Mum’s family, the ‘enemy’ as he saw them. Since they had been cut out of our lives, Carl had not just rewritten history, he had actually come to believe that they were all set against him. There was no reasoning with him on that subject, so neither of us tried. Had we contacted them, he would ask one of us. Caught a bus and gone to see them? Had they come over here? All of which we vehemently denied – after all, it was the truth.

  Even worse than those evening meals was the apprehension we felt when, knowing he had been meeting his friends, he was due to arrive back late and probably drunk. Both of us were aware that the slightest thing could make him fly into a rage, but when he was worse for wear from too many gins, there was no knowing what might set him off. I had gradually learnt since we moved house that alcohol made his moods unpredictable. It was as though it had a voice of its own, telling him how to act. Sometimes it told him to be soppy and loving towards one or both of us, other times the voice told him the opposite.

  It was the opposite that frightened us.

  Would he arrive clutching a bouquet for ‘my beautiful Betty’ or might there be a scowl on his face as he looked around, searching for anything he could blame one of us for? Those were the thoughts uppermost in our minds as we sat on high alert, waiting for the sound of him coming through the door. By then, my whole body was tense, my mind full of dread as to what might happen. Would he find something I had done wrong and, one by one, slip those rings off before punching me? Or would this time be my mother’s turn? Not that I had ever seen him hit her, just heard the sounds. That was until the one evening he came swaying in, long after his dinner had gone cold.

  Just one look at his flushed face set off warning bells in my head. Could I quietly disappear into my bedroom? But no, seeing me trying to wriggle off my chair, he placed himself in front of me.

  ‘Oh no, you don’t! You stay here, got some questions for both of you. First, though, where’s my dinner? I’m starving!’

  Mum just told him it was a fish pie and that it would not take long to heat up as she quickly placed the dish in the microwave. I wondered why she stood watching it circling and then realised it was to stop the question she knew was coming. Once she heard the ping telling her the meal was warm enough to eat, she laid it on the table and throwing a teabag in a cup, made herself some tea.

  Apart from the scrape of cutlery as he piled his plate high and the sound of him chomping away, the kitchen was heavy with an ominous silence I would have done anything to escape. But I knew that if I made any movement, even asking permission to go to the toilet, he would grab hold of me and force me back in my chair. For some reason he was determined I should stay there to see and hear everything that was about to transpire.

  ‘Well, Betty, what did your mum have to say when you met up with her?’ he asked once his plate was scraped clean.

  Where had that come from? I wondered as I glanced from him to my mother, lids lowered, and saw her back stiffen. I guessed that somehow, she had found the money to escape the house and take herself off to see her old doctor. But had she seen her mother as well? If so, just how had he found out? I got the answer to that a couple of seconds later.

  ‘You’ve been a little careless, haven’t you?’ As he held out his hand, I saw a bus ticket lying in his palm.

  ‘It’s not mine,’ she muttered. ‘I don’t know where you got it, but it’s not mine.’

  ‘Wrong answer! I found it in your coat pocket, so it must be yours. Or is it Emily’s?’

  His glare swivelled around in my direction.

  ‘No, I haven’t been anywhere, only school and I have my pass anyhow,’ I protested.

  ‘Come on, Carl, leave her alone! She’s not got the money to catch a bus out of town, has she?’ Mum suddenly said. ‘Anyhow, I know where she is all the time.’

  Now that was a first, Mum sticking up for me – I shot her a grateful look.

  ‘Oh, I’m sure she has money tucked away. Don’t tell me you don’t scrounge money off your dad: money he should be paying us for your keep. Still, that’s interesting, your mum says she knows where you are all the time. Strange, seeing as you’ve been going to some girl’s house after school, haven’t you? Does she know about that?’

  My voice quavered as I tried my hardest to defend myself: ‘It was just once – we were walking up to get the bus together after school, that’s all. And she wanted me to stop at her house so she could show me her new puppy, I promise that’s all.’

  ‘And what have I told you?’

  ‘I’m to come straight home.’

  I waited for him to make a move in my direction, but his anger was not directed towards me, it was Mum who was his target and I could see her hands were trembling.

  ‘Did you know about this, Betty?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s up to you to be stricter with her, to make sure she obeys my rules. But then, doesn’t look like you’ve been doing that either. So, tell me, who did you see, Betty, when you went off visiting?’

  ‘Carl, let me explain . . .’

  But he told her he wasn’t interested in explanations, he wasn’t really in a listening mood, especially as far as excuses were concerned – he just wanted the truth.

  ‘Carl, I can explain . . .’ she repeated.

  She just wanted them to sit down on their own, she pleaded next. I could tell by the way she was twisting the edge of her jumper in her hands just how nervous she was. I also realised that she was desperately trying to think of something that would stop him losing his temper.

  Just tell him, Mum, I felt like shouting.

  I could hear her voice quake as she repeated that it was not what he thought it was.

  As the words left her mouth, we both found ourselves looking at someone we scarcely recognised. Oh, I had seen my stepfather losing it before, but this time the mask of fury slid over his face was even more frightening than when he had beaten me so badly. For a second none of us moved, then a bellow of rage tore from his throat, his arm drew back and he hurled the dish with the remains of the pie at my mother. She ducked and it flew above her head, hit the wall and shattered on the kitchen floor. Pieces of fish pie and vegetables slid down the wall and oozed onto the tiles. She seemed almost frozen with terror as her husband leapt from his chair. His large hands, which after his third gin the night before had lovingly stroked her waist, now grabbed hold of her, lifting her a foot into the air until their faces were almost touching. Just as he had done with me, he shook her hard before dropping her onto the floor. Not that he was finished, this was just the warm-up. He bent down from the waist, twisted his fingers into her hair and clenched his fist. It would be seconds before his fist would punch her hard and once he began, there would be no stopping him. In desperation, I flew at him and, clutching hold of his jacket, screamed at him to stop. He tried to push me away as though I was no more than a tiresome flea, but I refused to let go.

  His eyes were
empty as he turned and met mine.

  ‘She’s having a baby!’ I shrieked as I pummelled his chest with my small fists. ‘A baby, Carl!’

  Finally, I had found words that reached him. His hands fell to his sides and he shot me a look of disgust.

  ‘Is that true, Betty?’

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered.

  ‘So that interfering little bitch of yours knows this and I don’t?’

  ‘She heard me being sick and put two and two together, that’s all. I went to my doctor to have it checked, that’s why you found the ticket. I wanted the same one I had last time, he knows what happened before. That’s why I went to him. And he was the only person I saw.’

  At this she burst into tears, her shoulders heaving with sobs.

  But he made no move to comfort her, no apology either. He just looked at us both with those cold fish eyes.

  ‘You better get this mess cleaned up, Emily,’ was all he mumbled before stalking out of the room.

  * * *

  I’m not saying peace reigned in the house after that. There were a few improvements, though mostly offset by Carl enforcing stricter rules.

  • I was to come home straight after school. Mum was to check the time when I walked through the door and write it down. He had worked out exactly how long it should take me.

  • He would give me a list of all my duties and I was to make sure that they were all completed – Mum was to check that.

  • He wanted to see just how much homework I really had, so I could not use that as an excuse not to help around the house.

  • Not only was I limited to home and school during the week, but at weekends, apart from the times when I met my dad, I was to stay within the boundaries of the house and its garden – ‘You’ve enough to do here, what with your homework and helping your mother,’ he told me.

  Meaning: even if you were able to make friends, I wouldn’t allow it.

  • Finally, when he was home, I was not to speak unless spoken to.

  Rules were also laid down for my mother. She must have obeyed all of them, for during those months of pregnancy, I didn’t hear him shout at her once or notice any new bruises. Not that the same could be said in my case. He accepted the fact that she needed to rest and mustn’t pick up anything too heavy. Like the vacuum cleaner, for instance – which meant my duties increased. He insisted she register with a local doctor – that visit to her old GP was to be the last one.

  As he had done in those last weeks at the flat, he started returning home at unpredictable hours. Each time he walked in, he would check the last call made and received on the phone.

  Every day he was at the door, waiting for the postman to arrive. Regardless of what type of envelope it was, the postmarks were closely scrutinised before he slit them open and examined the contents thoroughly. Did he really think that there would be letters to us disguised as an electric bill or a reminder about paying the TV licence?

  When it came to shopping, that could be done once a week, he told us. So, there was no reason for either of us to go to the shops. He would drive my mother to the supermarket – after all, she should not be carrying any bags. Meaning even short trips into town had to cease.

  My classmates might have been looking forward to their summer holidays but I just wished that the school remained open seven days a week, all year round.

  I dreaded to think just what plans my stepfather would have for me during those weeks off school. To make matters worse, Dad had told me that he, Lily, baby Crystal and Paul were going camping for several weeks during the summer. He rang Mum to ask if I could join them. Naturally, Carl refused categorically, insisting I told Dad that I did not want to go away while my mother was pregnant.

  I decided I had to show I had things to do for school that would give me the excuse to stay in my room as much as I could, so I went to each of my teachers and asked them to give me as much homework as they could for the holidays. From my English teacher I asked for a written reading list so Mum could get the books from the library. I hoped that borrowing these books would therefore appear compulsory to my mother and Carl.

  The teachers all looked pretty surprised at this request, but they all agreed smilingly. Unfortunately, one of them told the class about my diligence and what a good example I was. Imagine the derisive mocking comments that caused. Now, I was not only weird, I was an even more unpopular teacher’s pet. Let’s just say when school broke up, I did not receive a chorus of friendly goodbyes, more like a few well-aimed taunts.

  Ignore them, said Reason, which was easier said than done. I missed the friendliness of my previous school, desperately missed my cousins and hated the thought that for the next six weeks the only faces I was likely to see belonged to Carl and my mother. But, as I walked slowly through those gates as my fellow pupils called out to each other, whooping with joy that the holidays had begun, I came to realise that true loneliness is having no one beside you when you are in a crowd.

  Chapter 49

  Carl did not wait long for my revised list of duties to be handed to me. First, he asked for details of the homework I had been set for the holidays. Luckily, he did not know that apart from recommending a couple of books, at our ages none had been given – ‘Doesn’t look like much, does it?’ he said as he flicked through some of the pages, ‘Gives you plenty of time to still do your chores.’ He made it clear that those chores were to be finished and inspected by either Mum or him before I could take myself off to my room to study.

  I noticed that vacuuming everywhere had now been added to my list of weekend duties. And he had also written all the others down, just in case I had forgotten them: dusting all surfaces, cleaning the bathroom, cleaning the kitchen and on the daily list was setting the table, washing up, keeping my room tidy and ironing my own clothes.

  Doesn’t sound too bad, I decided, and it wouldn’t have been had my stepfather not seen his opportunity to create another game – one where, if he won, I got slapped very hard.

  But what was fun for him wasn’t quite the same for me.

  * * *

  Carl tested his new game out in the living room. With its heavy dark furniture, it was the most overcrowded room in the house. Although my mother never voiced an opinion in regard to interior design, I don’t think she liked it any more than I did because if he was out, we both ate in the now-renovated kitchen. Even though the tiles in there were burgundy too, the cooker and work surfaces black, it was still lighter than the living room and the dining area. When my stepfather was home, he demanded his evening meal be served on the large oblong table that sat under the window. And of course, he expected it to be laid properly as well. That room was his pride and joy, so he was definitely going to inspect it carefully once I had finished cleaning.

  ‘Right,’ he said, rubbing his hands together on the first Saturday of the holidays, ‘you can start in here. I want every bit of furniture moved so you can also dust underneath after you’ve vacuumed. Then once you’ve done that, put it all back in its rightful place.

  ‘Every single piece, Emily, understood?’

  Of course I did, he just wanted to make cleaning the room as difficult as possible.

  ‘And,’ he repeated, ‘make sure everything is put back exactly, and I mean exactly, in the same place.’

  So, what did he do to ensure that it was? Why, he measured up the spaces they occupied, of course. He wrote it all down in a notebook – table so many centimetres from wall, chair so many centimetres from table, and so on. Then when I was finished and had used all my strength to push the heavy furniture back where it had been, he would appear. Out would come that metal tape measure and round every piece of furniture he would go. It took him ages to check and double-check just how many centimetres out it was.

  One centimetre equalled one slap, two and he hit twice.

  I tried the next week to place small markers where the table legs had stood, but Carl must have guessed I would do something like that and giving me that smirk-tin
ged smile, he picked them up and placed them in his pocket.

  Luckily, Dad had not gone away for his holidays yet. When we met, I asked him to buy me the same type of tape measure as Carl had. He was a bit curious about that request – I just told him it was part of a school project when he asked, which seemed to satisfy him.

  Before the furniture was moved, I also measured up every item and noted it down in my head – not having to write it down was a true asset. Without seeing me clutching a piece of paper, he wouldn’t be able to work out how I did it; the metal measure I placed down the back of my skirt.

  * * *

  The following Saturday, my plan went into action. I had already measured up everything the day before, when he was out. Once I had finished, in he came with that metal tool of his, which he liked flicking in the air.

  Round he went – twice.

  He was not happy.

  I was, though.

  He glared at me – I’d obviously spoilt his fun for the day.

  No excuse to hit me.

  Carl loved his games.

  And I loved beating him at them.

  Another small victory chalked up to me.

  * * *

  It was near the end of that summer holiday that I finally said hello to Mark, my blond-haired baby brother. Having produced one son who was healthy, Carl didn’t waste any time getting my mother pregnant again.

  A year later, she gave birth to her second son, Robert.

  It was also during that year that I walked through the doors of my senior school. And it was there that I finally got a glimpse of the world that one day I would belong in.

  The senior school I was to attend was not much further away than the junior one. It was larger, with a well-stocked library, which was the extent of my knowledge. Like the junior school, uniforms were not worn. I wished they were, then at least I would look the same as everyone else.

  I had asked my mother if I could have a couple of dresses in lighter colours and a pair of prettier shoes. Her reply was a sigh: ‘Pretty clothes for you are the least of my problems,’ she told me. She did agree that I needed a couple of teen bras as my body was beginning to change though.

 

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