by Toni Maguire
‘Mr Davis, my English teacher.’
‘And what made him say that? Trying to get round you, was he? Asked to stay on for some extra work once school is over, is that it?’
‘No,’ I said and I started to feel uncomfortable.
Just what was he suggesting? That Mr Davis was the same kind of man that he was?
I quickly told him that I was not the only one Mr Davis had said that to – he had brought it up with several of us.
‘Why not the whole class?’ he persisted.
I told him that the whole class had been asked if they were hoping to qualify for further education, but only a few of us had put our hands up to say we were.
‘And you were one of them?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, that explains it then, he was just being nice. It’s not as though you’re likely to get a place, is it?’
‘I don’t know, it won’t be for years anyway,’ I said quickly.
Now I knew that over the coming years he would try and stand in my way of applying to any university, so best I never mentioned it again.
‘Well, let’s forget about that. You just run along and do your homework. I’ve got something to show you later.’
‘Later’ meant when my two little brothers were in bed and my mother, exhausted from looking after them all day, had either fallen asleep in front of the TV or gone to bed.
Which of course left him free to creep into my room.
‘Later’ was not a word I liked.
* * *
Dear Journal
I don’t know how to tell you this. He showed me some pictures in a magazine, women with no clothes on. I didn’t know that hair grows down there. And there were really ugly men putting that horrible thing into where the hair is – I wanted to be sick.
I don’t want to grow up and have to do that. He says everyone does and I’ll love it when I’m little older. And then he told me that’s how babies are planted in their mummies’ tummies. I sort of knew that, just didn’t want to think about it. I do want a baby, even two or three, when I grow up. I wish I had a big sister I could talk to – I feel so muddled now.
It was several magazines he had brought into my room while I was trying to read a book. Knowing he was going to turn up at some time or other had made concentration hard. When he slid into my room and I saw he was just holding some magazines, I actually thought for a moment that he had bought them for me and gave a sigh of relief – a sigh that quickly changed to a gasp of shock and disgust once I saw what they were. The lurid covers were bad enough, but when he flicked them open, I wanted to shut my eyes.
There was picture after picture of naked women with huge breasts, sitting with their legs apart, showing those parts that are meant to be covered.
‘Nice, aren’t they? Wonder if you’ll look like that when you’re all grown up.’
I’d rather die.
Then he opened another one and I began to feel sick. There were men getting on top of the women, with that horrible red thing going inside them.
‘Please,’ I said, my face burning, ‘I don’t want to look at them anymore.’
‘All right, that’s enough for your first time. But you think you’re beginning to grow up, don’t you? All that silly talk about university . . . Well, grown-ups like this sort of thing. You’ll find out if you go out into the big world.’
He must have been proud of himself.
He had just found another punishment for me.
Chapter 51
I have realised for some time that I am fluent in three languages. The first two are French and English. The third one, I had learnt by the time I was seven: it is the language of abused people. This language is so secret, only those who have been abused can speak or understand it. Why? It’s because our brains work differently from those who have had a secure upbringing. We tend to over-analyse everything, but it’s that which has kept us mentally alive or perhaps the word should be ‘sane’.
It has given us the strength to become survivors. To refuse to live the rest of our lives with the word ‘victim’ stamped on us for all to see. Although when we meet one another, without saying anything, we can recognise each other. We are the ones who have been trained to look carefully at every single detail of our lives and surroundings. When we meet new people, we have to weigh up whether or not they are trustworthy, for trust is not something we have in abundance. Why would we, when as children, we stayed awake at night dreading the sound of footsteps outside our bedroom doors?
And our mothers, who were meant to make us feel secure and loved as soon as we came into the world, betrayed us. Instead of building our self-confidence, they turned a blind eye to what was happening when we were small and helpless. And then, when we felt trapped by our dependence as we entered our teens, they withheld any advice as to how to deal with our changing bodies for by then they had come to see us as their rivals.
So, when we meet new people, we look for anything that will tell us who the real person behind the smile and show of friendliness really is. We take in every detail – their body language, how they move, how they sit, certain words they use, expressions flickering across their faces when they think no one is looking, how they laugh and at what, and who their friends are.
All those tiny details most people ignore, we analyse. How mad is that? But that’s how we decide who to tread carefully around and who we let into our lives. It’s also how I recognised another one of us.
Her name was Marion and she was the first friend I had made since we moved. The tentative friendship I had for a short time with Cindy, the girl who had taken me to her home to show me the puppy, dwindled out in a very short space of time. Not because I wanted it to, but because I was not allowed to bring her home.
‘No,’ said my mother when I asked, ‘you know Carl doesn’t like you ignoring your homework.’
‘Can I have her over on Saturday then?’
‘No, Emily. Carl is home then and you know he wants peace and quiet.’
That’s one way of describing his shouts if either of us upset him.
The next time I brought up Cindy’s name, it was to tell my mother I had been invited to her ninth birthday party.
‘That’s the same weekend you go to your dad, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, but he could pick me up from the party, couldn’t he? He’ll be pleased I have a friend. He’s always asking me if I have made any at my new school.’
‘Of course he does, means he has to spend less time with you, doesn’t it? The answer’s no, Emily.’
Cindy accepted that excuse, although she looked disappointed when I told her.
The next one she didn’t accept.
She had asked me to come to her house for tea after school on the Monday after my return. ‘I’ll save you a piece of my birthday cake,’ she told me.
‘No,’ said Carl when my mother mentioned it, ‘you’ve got to concentrate on your homework. Don’t want another bad report, do you?’ he added mockingly, deliberately reminding me of the punishment he doled out when I had tried to alter my report.
I tried to explain to Cindy that I had to do my homework. She pointed out that we had very little to do in the juniors and I always got top marks anyhow.
‘Just come for a little while, I’ve got your piece of cake ready for you,’ she said pleadingly.
‘I can’t.’
‘I thought we were friends,’ she said tearfully.
‘We are.’
‘You never let me come to your house. My mum says it must be because your parents don’t think we’re good enough.’
That accusation completely silenced me – I could hardly say that Carl thought no one was, now could I?
She looked at me so hopefully, just wishing me to say something that would keep our friendship alive, but there was nothing I could tell her. Instead, I turned and walked away before she could see the tears in my eyes.
Cindy was the last person who tried to be friendly to me at junior
school. She ignored me whenever we bumped into each other and now at my senior school, she was part of the confident girls’ group. I wondered what she had told them. In the playground, I had seen her eyes swivel in my direction before she made some remark about me to her circle.
Chapter 52
My new friend Marion was different. She took no notice of those habits of mine which still made some students mock me. Like me, she kept herself aloof from the other pupils.
All I knew about her, apart from the fact she was skinny with a head of vibrant red curls and a freckly face, was that she hardly said a word in class unless she was asked a direct question. But there was something about her self-containment that made me feel I would like to know her.
‘You’re clever,’ she once told me when we were walking out of class and I felt a link begin to form between us.
‘Not really,’ was my answer, ‘I just have a good memory.’
‘But that’s what clever is,’ she protested with a grin.
She asked me what I was reading on our breaks and looked amused when I told her it was a book on French grammar and that I was trying to learn a minimum of ten new French words a day. Not that I told her why learning French had become so important to me. Gradually we started spending our break times together, until after a couple of weeks she asked if she could come back to my house.
There was a silence between us for a moment when I tried to think of an excuse.
‘They’re strict with you, aren’t they? Mine too.’
If Marion had not worked out just how strict my parents were, she was under no illusion after she witnessed me panicking when I spotted Carl’s car parked outside.
‘Oh, shit!’ I exclaimed when we were just about to walk through the gates. ‘It’s my stepfather!’
‘See you tomorrow then,’ she said.
I was thankful that without being asked, she hung back so we no longer appeared to be leaving together. Later, I realised that she recognised why I didn’t want him to see us together.
* * *
‘Who was that red-headed girl you were talking to?’ he asked as soon as I climbed into the car.
‘Oh, just one of my classmates,’ I replied as breezily as possible for I was aware that if he thought she was more than that, he would find some way of stopping the friendship. He seemed to accept my explanation and hummed cheerfully as he started up the car.
‘Thought we could go for a drive,’ he said and my heart lurched. There was no way what Carl had in mind would be just a simple drive, with maybe a stop for an ice cream.
And I was right.
He drove out into the country until he came to a wooded area, not unlike the one that I had learnt to cycle in.
‘Just want to chat,’ he told me, parking the car under some trees. ‘I’ve got a present for you.’
Please don’t let it be more of those horrible pictures.
But no, to my surprise he took out a delicate silver chain from his pocket: ‘Do you like it?’ he asked.
And what could I say but yes, because I really did.
‘Oh, I do, it’s so pretty,’ I told him.
He told me to bend my head forward so that he could do up the clasp for me.
‘It’s our secret,’ he said. ‘Keep it tucked under your collar.’
I must have looked completely astonished – this was hardly what I was expecting. He started chatting to me normally then and asked how I was enjoying helping Mum with my two brothers. A picture of the pair of them shot into my mind – chubby little Mark, who as long as I held his hands could already totter a few steps, and dark-haired Robert, who would clutch hold of my finger and give me a gummy smile when I came back from school.
‘I like helping with them,’ I said honestly with a smile. ‘They’re so cute and Mark’s already trying to say my name.’
‘I expect you will want children of your own one day?’
And I could feel his eyes watching my face, gauging my reaction.
‘Yes, of course,’ I answered and for some reason felt a little frisson of unease at that question.
He then brought up the subject that he always seemed to want answers to: had I thought what I might want to do when I finished school? I had already told him that I had university in mind. He had heard me, but clearly wanted to ignore it.
Tell him what he wants to hear, muttered my annoying companion Fear.
‘Don’t know really,’ I answered as my brain scrambled around, trying to think of something that would please him. ‘I thought if I do well in French, I could get a job as a hotel receptionist. Or maybe work with children – I’m getting experience with that all right!’ And I managed to flash him a wide, beaming smile.
‘Or have your own,’ he repeated. ‘We’ll just have to wait and see what the future holds, won’t we?’
‘Yes,’ I replied.
At this he gave me one of his warm smiles and I knew I had chosen the right answer. He then told me he thought a summer job might be a good idea for me over the next holidays – it would give me some pocket money and get me out of the house as well.
‘How does that sound?’
I had to admit it all sounded pretty good to me. But that didn’t stop my feelings of unease. Did he have a hidden reason for being like this? When I was younger, I would have taken him being nice at face value, but not any longer.
His next words aroused all my suspicions.
‘You know I love you, Emily, and only want what’s best for you.’
You’ve got to be joking!
‘I was drawn to you the first time we met. There you were, all big-eyed and innocent.’
Well, thanks to you, I’m hardly that now.
But I had learnt enough over the years to humour him so I nodded at his remarks, thanked him again for the present and told him I would not take the chain off as it was so special. That seemed to work and apart from my knee being patted a little too high up for comfort, he just drove me home.
What had he really been up to? I couldn’t help but wonder.
Over the next couple of years, this question would gradually be answered.
Chapter 53
I was a bit embarrassed when I met up with Marion on our morning break. Not that I needed to have been. She was her usual friendly self and made no comment about my stepfather and the fact she had worked out why I didn’t want to be seen talking to her. Instead, for the first time she talked about her sister, who almost a year ago had left home on her 16th birthday: ‘She left me a note saying one day we would be together again and I was to write to her. I have a phone number where I can get a message to her.’
‘Does she go home for holidays?’
‘No.’
Our eyes met. Her definitive no and my response to seeing Carl were all that was needed for us to understand each other. That week, we came up with a plan which would allow us to spend more time together – pairing up pupils who are good at different subjects and can help each other with their homework. ‘It’s been done in a few schools,’ she told me. ‘For it to work, we will need the teachers’ support.’ My best subjects were French and English, hers were Maths and Chemistry, which meant we would be obvious choices to pair together. ‘It means we either have to stay late at school, or go to each other’s houses. Our parents won’t disagree with the head, will they? I’m going to talk to Mr Davis and if he likes the idea, he’ll get the others to agree.’
I don’t know how she managed it, but all our teachers were enthusiastic and so too were the other pupils. Between all of them the class was sorted out into pairs, a list was printed and a copy given to us all. Carl was hardly pleased about that, said it would have been better if I had waited until my room was finished.
What, another three years?
He then agreed, very reluctantly, that we could use the kitchen.
‘I’d rather you stayed in your own home, Emily.’
Where you can keep an eye on us, you mean.
All throughout our se
nior school years, those joint evenings which progressed to studying in the library and treating ourselves to a coffee out were what kept Marion and I going as we progressed through our teens. My Maths improved – not only did I get every answer correct, but thanks to Marion’s tutoring, in most cases I could show the workings-out too. In her case she learnt to speak French, began to enjoy English Literature classes and came first in Maths.
* * *
Unlike me, Marion knew what she wanted to be once she had finished her education. She was going to study Law, she told me. And during our school years, she never once changed her mind.
‘And you?’ she asked several times over the years. ‘With your skill in languages, you could be a translator, travel, all sorts.’
‘I want to go to university, I know that,’ was my answer, for in a way I had not thought past that.
‘One that’s a long way from here?’ she asked with a curious glance.
‘Yes,’ I answered, ‘as far away from here as possible.’
It was not until we were in the fourth year that we earnestly planned how we were going to be able to get into uni.
‘You need the school to suggest you go to a sixth-form college, especially if you want to do A-level Psychology,’ Marion told me. ‘You can take all your exams there and then apply for a bursary. All you have to do is make your stepfather think you’re looking for a job as soon as you’ve taken your A-levels – a job nearby, of course.’
‘And will you have to keep it quiet from your parents as well?’
‘Oh, Mum will be delighted when I leave.’
Chapter 54
It was during my third year after the introduction of the buddy system, as we named it, was put in place that I began to use the school library to study in. It was a good excuse to stay later after school. A tiny piece of freedom that made me feel I was a little more in control of my life.
That year was also the one when Gran died. It was not Mum who broke the news to me, but Dad. Funnily enough, when I had heard my mother speaking to him on the phone, my curiosity had been aroused. For once it seemed their conversation was a friendly one, which pleased me as no child really likes their parents to be at loggerheads, do they? On this particular call there were no snappy remarks, instead I heard her saying that yes, she would be grateful, and yes, she would find it difficult, then finally, ‘Thank you, Ted’ – three words I had never heard her say to him before.