Amelia's story (4 page)

Jake and I both feared our mother
immensely. W
e sometimes felt as though we were walking on quicksand most of the time
and
it was very hard not to sink. We were quite often blamed for her bad luck and many problems. Over time, my fear of the dark developed deeper and so did Jake’s. I would often cry out in the night for my mother in fear, as it was so pitch black in my bedroom
and
I was unable to put the light on
. Of course
my
cries
were
always ignored
. Instead
,
she would
seize
th
e
opportunity to make frightening shadows at the top of my door
where was a small window. She made
echo
-
like noises to increase the effect
,
knowing I was already in a state of fear
.
Mother appeared to enjoy the fact that her children were scared and scared because of her.
I cr
ied myself to sleep many nights
, all the time my mother finding it highly amusing. She would target me some days for total humiliation
and
then turn on my b
rother. One day, my mother tied Jake, who was only six years old, to a chair in the kitchen. T
hen mother sealed his mouth with brown carpet tape
,
and
she
carried
him
upstairs with the chair and left
him
alone in his bedroom unable to move. She screamed at him
,
“
You bad, bad, boy!
”
A
ll I could hear downstairs w
ere
Jake
’
s muffled cries. My mother looked
at
me then and said
,
“
O
ne word
, Amelia,
and you
’
r
e
next
.”
I sat at the top of the stairs for
four
hours trying to comfort Jake
,
talking to him through the door while our mother paid a brief visit to a friend’s house leaving us alone again.
On her return
,
she finally went upstairs and untied
Jake. S
he ripped the tape of
f
his mouth
,
then gave him a hug and told him to be a good boy. When he went downstairs
,
mother decided it would be hilariou
s to put Jake in a frilly dress.
S
he then tied pigtails in his hair and pushed him outside
to
the front of the house where the other children were playing footb
all. He cried and pleaded with M
other to let him in but was
only
met with her
twisted screams of laughter.
I
t was a long time later that she got bor
e
d of this latest humiliation technique and finally let him in. We were both petrified of our mother
,
as she cou
ld turn on the flip of a coin. It would
be so unexpected and often took us by surprise. Yes, even after all this time, the speed in which her mood changed still had that element of surprise from time to time.

My mot
her was drinking heavily by that
time,
and
she had also developed a liking for barbiturates, swallowing th
em daily like they were sweets. T
his did not help our situation one bit as our home life was becoming more and more unpredictable. I used to kneel by my bed most nights and pray to
God
to make all this go away, to make our mother happy so that we could be happy and we no longer needed to fear her
.
(
M
y prayers were never answered
.
)
A
s a child
,
I
thought
that perhaps
God
was just too busy.
The relationship between our step
father
and mother was becoming more and more volatile. Our step
father
could no longer cope with my mother
’
s temper and unpredictable moods. When she was like this,
Jake and I could not do right—
we only had to look at her the wrong way and she would order Robert to pull down our
trousers
and give us the belt. He was far too afraid to refuse her; this was a heavy buckled belt, wide and made of leather
, and it had studs imbedded through the center
. I was always the first and remember the belt to this day. I
often tried
to fight him off, pleading with him not to strike, but this fell on deaf ears as he was far more afraid of mother’s wrath th
an he was of the injuries he might
cause us. Mother would stand by the door watching while we received at least ten lashings of the belt. Then when she thought
we
had received enough and could take no more
,
she
ordered
our
stepfather
to stop.
I knew
there would be no use crying;
she never soothed our
cries
and actually seemed to enjoy the tears. The imprints left on our bodies from the buckled belt would remain as a reminder for days. We
were
ordered
to go to our room until she deci
ded we had learned our lesson. T
hen
,
and only then
,
would she unlock the door. At this time in my life
,
I was confused and feared my mother but d
esperately needed to please her.
I needed her to be happy with me, and
I
wanted her to love me.

I
did everything I coul
d around the house—
vacuuming, washing up,
and
looking after my little brother so she
could watch her movies quietly.
I would keep him entertained in the garden for hours. But it was never enough
,
and every day she picked out something I was doing wrong and suddenly
,
without any warning
,
I would receive an almighty slap or even a punch across the face. Jake and I were
having problems concentrating
at school
. But
unknown to us
at the time,
our bodies were harboring small amounts of sleeping pills on a regular basis
,
and this was affecting us more and more each day.
I did not know what it
was like to live without fear,
or to wake up in the morning with my mother in the kitchen getting breakfast ready. I woke up each morning to closed curtains,
and my
mother still in bed drunk from the night before (nursing a bad headache).

On
days like these
,
Jake and I awoke to ou
r bedroom doors unlocked and could
only assume she thought to unlock them in adv
ance of her drunken spree while
we were already asleep. We had to get our own breakfast every day (
Ready B
rek and cornflakes were a
favour
ite
,
I recall
!)
During the winter we would
favour
porridge, but there was no microwave back then so we would have to make do with cold milk if
m
other was unable to get out of bed. I co
uld not reach for the cupboards—
they were far too high
—
so I would stand on a chair and climb onto the kitchen
countertop.

After
feeding and dressing ourselves, we
went
outside the front of the house and play
ed
with the other children. More often than not
,
it would be near
one
o’clock in the after
noon before our mother surfaced,
and
,
always in a bad mood, shouting and screaming because we had left a mess in the kitchen. After she had berated us to the point of bringing us to tears
,
M
other would then throw us out of the house and shout
further abuses at us and
in front of the other children. We would not be allowed back into the house until
after
dark, but this suited both Jake and I.
During the hot summer days, we
play
ed
with the
older children from our square
and often head
ed
down to
the wide river
with over
-
hanging tree
s
. The other kids had been going
down
to the river long before Jake and
I. They
had made a make
shift swing out of an old tire
and a bit of rope, (we though
t this was the best thing ever!)
We spent
all day
hanging onto the swing and would jump off into the deep rive
r below without any fear at all.
Those days away
from our mother were good days
and earned a place in my memory bank for the future
,
which was pretty empty.

We also spent many summer days scrumping in an old orchard attached to an old ruin near Shepton School
.
T
he orchard was well stocked with damson
, pear, apple,
and plum trees, and many blackberry bushes
too
. We would be armed wi
th old Carrefour plastic bags—lots of them—and every bag
was
filled with fruit until they were bu
rsting,
forgetting
that
we would have to carry them all the way home! Jake and I would climb to the top of
the trees, teasing each other to see who could climb the fastest.
T
here were many times when we would slip and
fall, but this did not stop us;
we
got right back on
our feet and within seconds
we
would
be at the top of the tree again.

In the grounds of the old ruin there was a sun
dial several hundred years old.
I remember this so well because I was transfixed by it as a child, thinking it was beautiful. Just outside the front of the old ruin was a small lake
,
which we used to skim stones in
to
.

We
held
competitions to
see who could skim the furthest.
I believe this old ruin has now been made into a luxury hotel. However, back then, this beautiful
,
old building with large
,
o
vergrown gardens was our place—
Jake and Amelia’s secret place far
away from the clutches of our torturous mother. At the end of the day
,
we would carry our bulging bags all the way home in the hope
of pleasing
our mother
.
O
n these occasions
,
even for just a little while
,
she
smiled,
accept
ed
the fruit
, and baked
apple pies, blackberry pies, and
plum pies. They were delicious! O
ur mother was a great cook and produced great
,
wholesom
e food, and when she was on form
s
he could be quite pleasant during her more peaceful periods, but it never lasted. Not ever.
I thank
ed
God
for our secret place, our very own secret garden
,
somewhere we could retreat
to when things got really bad. T
his was the only place where we were truly happy.
To us, this place was our “Garden of Eden,” with all the b
eautiful fruit trees and birds. I
t almost looke
d untouched by the modern world.
T
his
truly
wondrous place was
ours, Jake and Amelia’s
,
and it always would be.
One day whe
n we were sent home from school,
(
I was seven and Jake was six
),
the Headmaster
urgently
called our mother
.
There had been complaints by our teachers
that we were both drunk and had fallen as
leep at our desks during class.
One of the teachers raised the concern when they could not rouse us from our sleep and could smell alcohol on our breath
s
. The school reported our mother to the
Social Services
to cover their backs
,
as this was normal protocol.