by Toni Maguire
No doubt I would be able to worm out of Dad exactly what they were talking about, for I was very puzzled.
Even though those red-rimmed eyes of hers told me something was wrong, I was pretty sure it didn’t have anything to do with me. But by then I had grown used to her outbreaks of depression. Without asking her if she was OK, a question I had learnt never to pose, I just told her if she needed a break from the boys, I would make her a cup of tea and then take over spooning food into my brothers’ mouths – an offer she accepted gratefully.
‘Your dad’s coming to fetch you from school today,’ she told me just as I was leaving. I wanted to ask why, as it was a weekday and I would have homework to do, but as I turned around and saw that she was very close to tears again, the question died in my mouth. I’ll find out later, I told myself and carried on walking to the bus stop. Not that it prevented me from having a niggling feeling of apprehension all day.
* * *
I can remember what happened after school. Dad was waiting for me outside the gates, it was a sunny afternoon, but I have no recollection of where we went, only what it was he had to tell me. Though I do have a faded picture of him in my head – him leaning across a cafe table and placing his hand on mine and I can almost hear his voice as he gently told me that Gran had died in her sleep.
‘A heart attack, she would not have felt anything,’ he told me reassuringly.
Numb with shock and grief, I don’t think I even cried then – that came later.
Ever since we had moved just over four years ago, I had harboured a dream that once I was free of those mental shackles that Carl had hung on me, she would come back into my life – not just her, but the whole family. Then I would be able to go back to my old life. Now I had to face the reality: it was not going to happen. I would never see her kindly face wreathed in smiles again the moment I entered her house. Even worse was the picture imprinted in my mind of the last time we had seen each other. Her waiting patiently at the gates at the back of the school, her hand outstretched to me. When I had screamed out the word no, I got my last glimpse of Gran looking so desperately sad before I turned and ran away.
I knew how much she had loved both my mother and me – she must have been devastated when we disappeared. I believed then, as I sat opposite my father, that she must have died of a broken heart. Had she hoped as I did that we would walk back into her life? But one day that hope must have died and once hope left her, maybe she saw little reason to remain alive.
This belief was further strengthened when Dad admitted that my mother was not even going to the funeral, but he was.
And not me either? A question I already knew the answer to.
He looked uncomfortable as he searched for the right words to let me down lightly.
‘No one blames you for what happened, Emily. You were only nine when your mum and Carl decided to move away. There was nothing you could have done,’ he told me.
But there was, wasn’t there? I could have told them the truth. A truth I had now left too late to tell.
‘They know who’s responsible for you being separated from them. Now, I’ll tell you something that might make you feel a little better. Your gran certainly did not blame either your mother or you, and she never stopped loving you. She invited me over regularly – she wanted me to tell her as much about you as I could, how you were getting on at school and if you looked well and happy. In fact, every detail I could think of, she wanted to hear. She was so pleased when I told her you were in the A stream. Does that make you feel a little better?’
It didn’t, not when I pictured her sitting with Dad, asking all those questions because she missed me so much.
‘But now would not be a good time for you to see them again, not after all this time. Let’s face it, Carl wouldn’t want you to go – you know that. And the last person any of them want to have any contact with is him.’
No matter how Dad tried to camouflage why I was not going by mentioning Carl, this was not the message that registered in my mind: they do blame me for her death. And however much I tried to rationalise the situation when I was older, it is still a belief that has not completely left me.
* * *
The next few weeks were unbearably painful. Mum was also beside herself with guilt and sorrow, while Carl made it clear he didn’t want to hear a word about Gran’s death.
‘She was an old woman, Betty, and old people die. That’s normal, so stop wallowing in self-pity!’ he told her.
That was the limit of his empathy.
Dear Journal
I’m sorry I have not written to you this week. I’m just so sad that I will never see Gran again. Dad said she never blamed me for what happened, but I do. I never stopped loving her either. But she didn’t know that, did she? I expect she thought I had forgotten all about her, but I hadn’t. I can’t wait till I can leave this place. I try hard not to love my brothers too much because one day I will not to be able to see them again, either.
I made sure I showed as little reaction to Gran’s death when Carl was around as possible. Tears had to wait until I was in my room again.
Let him think I don’t care, I thought. That will annoy him more. Concentrate on your schoolwork. Remember, getting to university will be your road to freedom.
And I knew it was a road I must not waste any time getting on.
Chapter 55
Over the next two years there were a few changes in my life. The first was that Lily decided she did not want me sleeping over anymore. After she caught Paul trying to kiss me, she felt that we were getting too close. I was laughing at his attempt, but it was enough for her to put her foot down. Visit, yes, but better not to sleep over, was what she had told my dad.
And he agreed, which was a few more points lost.
Dad did one thing that was right though – he told me that when the time came, he would help with my applications to go to university. I had told him that Mum and Carl were reluctant for me to go to one too far from home. I don’t think he believed that was the only reason I didn’t want them to learn what my plans were, it was pretty obvious that I didn’t want them to find out until it was too late to stop me.
‘I have joint custody of you, not Carl,’ he told me. ‘Didn’t you realise that?’
The answer was no. And in a way, why would I think that? True, I saw him every other weekend, but not staying over at weekends had placed another void in my life. Yes, we went out for coffee and we talked then, but I had always known he loved Lily and Crystal more than me.
‘Joint custody with your mother, not him,’ he said firmly. ‘All correspondence to do with your further education can start going through me so get yourself into that sixth-form college then I’ll notify them that your reports are to be sent to me and anything else to do with your education. Carl can just back off. Don’t you worry, just concentrate on your exams and then we’ll take it from there.’
And that was a big problem solved.
Well, not quite, as I was to find out.
* * *
Carl accepted me going to sixth-form college and he had also kept his promise and arranged for me to have a holiday job, which would be just Saturdays in term time. It was in a bakery owned by a pleasant man called Colin, who was one of his friends. Naturally, my stepfather insisted I came straight home once the bakery shut, so any socialising with the other staff was out of the question. Still, I enjoyed being away from the house and having a little money of my own. It meant Marion and I could treat ourselves to our cups of coffee and the occasional piece of cake after we had finished studying.
Thank goodness that she and I had a list of homework we had to do jointly. That gave me a break from the oppressive atmosphere in the house as well.
What I had not taken into consideration was the plans that Carl had for me.
* * *
‘Colin and his wife are very impressed with your work at the bakery,’ my stepfather told me one evening when I had just got in. ‘Don
’t know if they told you, but they’re hoping to open up another shop, a bit more upmarket, where they will do afternoon teas and lunches. Colin thinks that you could help run that. What do you think?’
The last thing I want to do.
‘That’s very nice of him.’
Now try and put him off that idea for the moment, said Reason.
‘Have to finish O-levels and get into college for A-levels before I can think straight about working,’ I told him, hoping the subject would change.
I understood, or so I thought, why he wanted me to work for his friend – he would know my every movement, who I was friendly with and if I came straight home from work. Another assumption that I was only half-right about. It was the second part of his plan which sent shivers down my spine and made what he really wanted frighteningly clear.
Once all my education was complete, which would not be too long in his mind, Carl wanted me to have his child.
‘I’ve not forgotten you told me you wanted children when you were older. And you’re older now, aren’t you? You did say that, didn’t you?’
Yes, but I don’t want yours.
‘But what about Mum?’
‘Oh, she knows. She doesn’t want any more, anyhow.’
It was then that I knew he had just been biding his time until he could legally impregnate me. More than once he had told me that I was the reason he had married my mother. Not that I had believed him then, but I was beginning to now and it scared me.
Well, if you fancy molesting little girls, that’s what you do. Find a single mum and there you go!
That’s what I had thought ever since I was old enough to realise that I was actually being sexually abused. If I hadn’t already known that time was running out for me, I did then. Ignoring the baby bit, I put my head down and tried to look embarrassed.
‘Thanks for talking to Colin,’ I said. ‘He’s a really nice man.’
A statement I was beginning to have my doubts about. Just what did my stepdad and his friends all have in common?
‘I know he thinks that eventually you would make a good manager. And if you needed a bit of time off’ – and here, he flashed me a lascivious smile – ‘it wouldn’t be a problem, if you get what I mean. So, what do you think of that?’
Help!
‘Well, I’ve got to get all those exams out of the way, haven’t I? But tell you what, I’ll have a chat with him after work on Saturday.’
Chapter 56
One of the questions I’ve often heard asked is when someone escapes from their old life and creates a new one, can they really put their past behind them? On the face of it, yes, we can. Or should I say the persona we show to the world tells them that of course we have. Inside our heads though, it’s a different matter. The dark shadows of those memories cling on (to the tangle) in our minds as they nibble away the parts that matter, like confidence and self-esteem. That’s something I find hard to share with another person. Even when that someone is close to me, the words won’t come. For it hurts them to know that with all the love they have given me, I still struggle to put my past life behind me. But that doesn’t stop the need to get those thoughts out there. So, what do I do instead of confiding in a human? I do what I’ve done ever since I was a child – I write those feelings down in my secret journal:
Today, I hurt my head badly. I have a mild concussion, all the symptoms are there. ‘You need to get that checked out,’ Patrick told me. But I refused to go to the hospital or even to the doctor. Why? I don’t like to bother people. Not that he was going to put up with my refusal. My saying it was not important just didn’t work. There I was, dizzy, with blurred vision, a blinding headache, feeling nauseous, and to his annoyance refusing to make sure I was all right. He told me bluntly that it was not OK to have no concern for my own health.
Once he had put his foot down, then driven me to Casualty and back home again, I had to ask myself why I had been so difficult. Though I knew the answer, didn’t I? My idea of myself is so low, I don’t feel worthy of anyone’s time. My partner, although he has tried his best, has not succeeded in ridding me of those deeply imbedded thoughts. And this is a very sad reality, one that hit me hard today.
Good thing you got rid of Fear, said Reason, now it’s just me left. You know what you have to do: open that drawer labelled ‘Last Time I saw Carl’. That should make you believe what you have managed to achieve. Then when you have done that, get rid of all those negative thoughts of yours!
I knew that made sense and before I could push that compunction aside, the drawer slid open.
The last time I saw Carl he had just found out that I had every intention of going to university. I knew that he had phoned the college, asking for the results of my exams. And what had they told him? That they had been sent to my biological father. Luckily, he was also unaware that as my mother had joint custody, she would also have been sent a copy. And she would have been, had I not given the college Dad’s address as my main residence.
If Mum guessed what I had done, she kept quiet – I’m sure that Carl’s wanting me to have his child had been enough to turn her into my ally.
* * *
I was called into the Principal’s office about my deception. She actually started the interview by asking if everything was all right at home because judging by Carl’s bad temper and rudeness when he had shouted down the phone at her assistant, she completely understood why I had kept him in the dark. She reassured me as much as she could that all he had been told was that everything to do with my education had been sent to my biological father. And her assistant, who had the misfortune to take the call, had refused to give him any more information.
‘Does he know that I’ve applied to go to university?’
‘No, but he did ask if you were working hard because you still want to go. And he was told that’s what sixth-form college is all about – achieving excellent results and gaining the grades for university entry.’
So, he doesn’t know everything, I thought gratefully, trying to ignore those worrying niggles that he had found out more than I ever wanted him to know. But I dreaded to think what his temper would be like if he had discovered the whole truth.
For once Carl’s rages, which were worst when he was thwarted, had worked in my favour. I can just imagine how he must have ranted and raved at the lack of information being given to him. I only told Miss Evans the Principal that he was against me going to university. Whether she believed that was the only reason I had been so secretive, I don’t know. But she reassured me that he was not going to learn any more about my plans from them and I can’t tell you how much of a relief that was. Another thing that worked in my favour was that my stepfather would never have credited me with the ability to be deceitful, but then I was fighting for my future while he was trying to prevent me from having one.
Marion and I put our heads together over this latest act of deceit. We had both easily been accepted into the sixth-form college and because our O-level grades were so high, we were given the opportunity to be fast-tracked. Which meant we could take our A-levels in one year instead of two.
‘Don’t tell him that,’ my friend cautioned. ‘He’ll think you’ll be at home for those two years. You can apply for universities without him having a clue and then just scarper.
‘Your real dad will help you there, won’t he?’
This was one of the rare times she brought his name up as she usually didn’t ask questions about my home life. She had a pretty shrewd idea of what it was like, as I had about hers. The two of us shared a joint aim, which did not include complaining about our lives. Instead, we were determined to be positive, to focus on our education and prepare to gain our independence, whichever way we could. If that meant deceiving our families, so be it.
So, Carl had no idea that I had already applied and been interviewed by my university of choice when he made that phone call. I can just imagine what a slap in the face it was for him when the college refused to give him any
information. OK, he had managed to wheedle out the fact that I was still aiming to go to uni, but that was all.
Another piece of luck for me was that he did not understand how the further education system worked. For a man who believed that he knew so much, it was surprising he knew so little. Like the issue of releasing information in a joint custody situation. And best of all, he had no idea that A-levels could be fast-tracked and completed in one year instead of two. But still, there was one more worry that refused to go away – that he now knew that it was unlikely that a career running a bakery shop was of any interest to me. That was something he would certainly tackle me about. Still, forewarned was forearmed and I was able to work out a few excuses that I could use when challenged. Not that I was completely confident that they would placate an angry and erratic Carl – Psychology A-level had taught me enough to realise that he was even more unpredictable and irrational when he felt thwarted.
* * *
As a smouldering fire maintains its intense heat when banked down with the dust-like remnants of coal but shows no flames, so Carl’s simmering rage was hidden from sight. He was waiting for my term to end before he would allow himself to add enough fuel to turn it into a roaring blaze. He wanted to catch me on the hop, let me keep asking myself the question: had he heard that snippet of information or not?
He waited until the day he believed was my last day at college before the summer holidays – which it was. This was also the day that Marion and I were told by the Principal that because of her report and our expected results, we had obtained unconditional university places. Mine was at a northern red brick to read English and French, while Marion was going to LSE to study Law.