Can't Anyone Help Me? (13 page)

‘Tomorrow we’ll take our bicycles and go into the country for a picnic,’ they both said, almost in unison.

‘You’re more important than the hairdresser and my dinner parties or even Daddy’s golf,’ my mother added laughingly, as she gently stroked my hair off my face. They both smiled warmly at me as I basked in their love.

That evening she cooked my favourite supper and afterwards, instead of going to my room to watch videos on my own, we all sat down together and watched television. I sat next to my mother on the settee and rested against her. I could smell her light flowery perfume and she, feeling me pressed against her, smiled and put her arm round my shoulders to pull me even closer to her.

The next morning, no sooner had I come down the stairs than the picnic basket was strapped to the back of my father’s bicycle.

Other family groups were riding their bikes on the country roads that warm sunny day. Pink-faced with hard pedalling, little blond boys waved at us as we overtook them, and looking up at the clear blue sky, I saw the white vapour trails left by aeroplanes as they flew overhead.

We came to the fields where a lush green carpet thick with daisies and buttercups beckoned us. We dismounted and walked, our legs brushed by flowers. In the distance I saw rabbits, their retreating white tails bobbing as they disappeared into the long grass.

‘This is the perfect place,’ my mother said, as she spread out a brightly coloured woollen rug for us to sit on before opening the wicker basket. It contained soft drinks and an assortment of appetizing food.

She handed round sandwiches and we ate and drank. My mother picked buttercups and held them under my chin. ‘To see if you like butter,’ she told me solemnly. ‘If you do there will be a small yellow circle there.’

‘And do I?’ I asked, giggling with the tickly feeling of her stroking them against my skin.

‘Yes, you like butter, all right,’ she declared, and we all laughed.

My parents lay basking in the sun and I picked daisies and made them into chains that I strung around my mother’s ankles and wrists.

Later I dozed, my head resting in my mother’s lap, her hand stroking my back.

We were tired when we returned home but not so tired that my mother refused to read me a story when I climbed into bed. I was nearly asleep by the time she had finished and I felt her lips brush my cheek before she left my room. ‘Night-night, my darling,’ she whispered, as she closed the door.

When morning came, I woke to a fuzzy feeling of happiness.

The memory of the previous day was sharp and clear. The picture of it replayed in my head while I came fully awake. It was then that I realized memory was unreliable: that day had never happened. During the night my imagination had painted a pastel picture of how I wished my life to be, a fantasy created by my subconscious that unleashed waves of longing – longing to be a normal little girl whose parents loved her and who took every measure to keep her safe.

My grief when I faced the reality of my life was expressed by a string of inarticulate words directed at Paddington who, in my unhappiness, I clutched tightly to me. My body shook with sobs of loss, followed by an open-mouth wail before I pressed my face hard against Paddington’s furry body to deaden the sounds of my despair.

For what had really happened that weekend was that my aunt and uncle had told my mother at the last minute that they had to go away – something to do with my aunt’s sister being unwell. When my mother told me that my weekend visit had been cancelled, I could tell by her clipped tone that she was more than annoyed.

‘Well, Jackie,’ she said, tight-lipped, ‘that’s really inconvenient. We’re having a dinner party tonight and I don’t want you creeping around. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, I know,’ I mumbled, feeling a surge of resentment against her.

That Saturday progressed as all the others did when I stayed at home for the weekend. My father left early to play golf and I accompanied my mother to the hairdresser and the shops. I was given an early supper and two videos were handed to me as I laid down my knife and fork. ‘I got you these to keep you busy. Remember you’re to stay in your room, Jackie,’ my mother reiterated sternly.

‘Why?’ I asked, in the petulant, whiny tones of the aggrieved that I had learnt to perfect. They earned me, as I had expected, a stony stare followed by an exasperated sigh.

‘Because I said so,’ my mother replied and, knowing that no other explanation would come my way, I meekly agreed.

That night, remembering how I had been discovered the previous time, I waited until the music was turned up before I crept down the stairs.

The guests were dressed as cowboys and cowgirls. The women’s fringed skirts were so short that they only just covered their knickers and the men were wearing chaps.

I watched through the half-open door as they danced and kissed people who were not their partners, but then, scared that I would be seen, I scuttled back up the stairs to my room.

This time, instead of feeling unsettled by what I had seen, I was just filled with anger. I hated them and concluded they must hate me too. This was why my mother never wanted me around. I knew that what they were up to involved the same sort of things my uncle made me do. Was this what the adult world was all about?

But I knew that other people’s families were not like mine. Even Kat, with all her complaints, had a mother who appeared to love her, and a father who spent time with her whenever he could. I had heard the excited Monday-morning buzz at school as each child chattered about what they had done at the weekend. Enviously I stood quietly by and listened to them talk about family outings to the cinema, going into the countryside for picnics and taking trips to the seaside.

That was the type of childhood I so desperately wanted.

I began to resent the other children in my class. I glowered when I heard them talking of things they had done and they, sensing my anger, avoided me more and more. Little groups of friends stopped their conversation when I approached, which fuelled my rage and resentment.

My fingers started to reach out and painfully nip those smug, contented children who were unaware I was standing near them. My feet tried to trip them up and my fists lashed out when the inner fury swelled so forcefully inside me that a teacher had to rush and restrain me.

As I grew bigger, my small hands were clenched into hard fists when I hit out indiscriminately and my kicking feet were strong enough to inflict pain. By the time I was ten some teachers refused to let me into their classes. ‘Disruptive to the rest,’ they started to say when, once again, I was made to spend my time outside the door. Underneath I sensed a growing fear of me and my wild actions.

There was one boy, however, who did not seem to be intimidated by my behaviour. His eyes would challenge me, his smirk mocked me and he would snigger as I walked past. ‘Loopy Jackie,’ he would hiss aggressively, so that only I could hear.

My glares had no effect on him and his bony fingers would reach out and pinch the soft places on my arms. His foot would trip me. When he did these things to me, I would hear the sniggers of the other children and see the teacher look down, determined not to interfere.

I knew that my classmates and those who tried to instil some knowledge and discipline into me thought it was time I was taught a lesson, which succeeded in enraging me even more. Over the weeks that followed, that boy became the person to whom I redirected all my pent-up anger with the world.

I waited until he, with the confidence of so many bullies, went too far. Not only did he hiss at me when he was giving out schoolbooks but he yanked hard on my plait when he was standing behind me. I saw the teacher, her blue eyes watching us, a slight smile on her face; a smile I had learnt to recognize in an adult – it showed that they derived pleasure from my discomfort. I knew that she had seen what he had done and decided to pretend she had not. I waited, biding my time, for I knew if I kept quiet, the boy would make a mistake. Later that day he did.

It was in the afternoon when he stood in the wrong place, positioned between the wide-open classroom door and the wall behind it. I felt the pressure in my head as I saw my opportunity. ‘Now! Do it now, Jackie,’ screamed the voice that lived inside me. I leapt forward, seized the handle and smashed the door as hard as I could into him so that he was crushed against the wall. I heard him scream, saw him fall and triumphantly stood there watching his fractured nose bleed as he writhed with pain.

The class was in an uproar. The teacher caught hold of me, dragged me from the room and told me to stay outside while she dealt with the injured boy. Then it was back to the headmistress’s study and, once again, my parents were summoned to be notified of my appalling behaviour.

‘What made you do it?’ the headmistress had asked. ‘You could have hurt him even more than you did.’

But I could not explain to her that, as much as the boy’s torments had angered me, it had been the sight of that smile on the teacher’s face that had brought the rage to the surface.

I opened my mouth to try to tell her, but I could find no words, so I gave one of my indifferent shrugs that I had learnt infuriated the teaching staff, and looked expressionlessly at the floor.

That violent act led to another visit to the psychologist and another lecture about what a lucky little girl I was. His questions to me and my mother never once touched on what might have been at the root of the problem. I don’t know what he wrote in his notes, maybe nothing much, as I have no copy of them in my file.

I only had two interests before I was twelve: my bicycle and listening to music. I found riding out of our village into the country reduced my anger, and music transported me to another place. Not for me the sweet, catchy harmonies of the boy bands and schmaltzy pop groups, such as Abba, that my classmates adored. I liked the more powerful voices of Annie Lennox, Debbie Harry and Siouxsie Sioux. When my black mood refused to lift, it was the loud thump of heavy rock and the anti-establishment lyrics of the punk bands that I wanted to listen to.

The music I had discovered might not have been the sort that other children of my age or even my parents liked, but I wanted sounds I could escape into, sounds that shared my anger and helped me find oblivion.

I would let my mind wander as I listened to the harsh, angry rock songs shouted out by young men whose lives were already being wrecked by drugs and alcohol. They bellowed out words that told of a bleak anarchistic future that some did not even live to see. They sang of lost dreams, of disillusionment, and as I listened to those lyrics, my mind was free and the world distant.

I pleaded with my parents for more and more music and, pleased that I had found an interest, they bought me whatever tapes I asked for.

In my room I watched an interview with Johnny Rotten on the TV. With spiky blond hair and wild eyes, he shocked the world with his swearing and disrespect for everyone and everything that people like my parents valued. I loved him. He was ‘the man’, I decided.

After that initial occasion, a family holiday in Spain was never mentioned again. I knew that my father still owned the
finca
, and sometimes I wanted to ask him if we could go again, but pride stopped me. I had overheard too many fragments of conversations not to know that my mother did not want to take me away with them.

Instead I spent half of my summer holiday with my uncle while my parents went to places like Italy and the South of France. I only knew that because I saw the glossy brochures that my mother left lying around.

Staying with my uncle was not just restricted to my parents’ summer holidays and numerous weekends, but as my behaviour became more unpredictable, some of our short half-term breaks as well.

‘Heaven knows, Jackie, why you can behave for him and not me,’ my mother said repeatedly, while my father said little and just looked at me with the puzzled, worried expression I had grown to hate. My weak protests that I wanted to spend time with Kat were ignored. ‘You can see her during the week or next weekend. We’re having a party this Saturday,’ was always the abrupt answer.

Was my uncle scared that as I grew older and more troubled I might also become less malleable? Was it fear that made him arrange what was to happen next? Or was it that his clients were demanding more? I don’t know, I never asked him, and, of course, it’s too late now. But I do know they were customers, not friends. Over those years, not only had he been able to use me as his toy he had also been able to make money from me. I had come to understand that quite young. The drink and drugs I had been given had not blurred my senses completely, and I had seen the wads of banknotes handed to him by sweaty-palmed men anxious to get their hands on what they had paid for.

Whatever the reasons, he decided to move my degradation up a notch or two.

There had been times, indeed many times, when my uncle was present while one of his ‘friends’ had sex with me. Sometimes he was behind the camera and sometimes he just watched. By then, of course, I had learnt to float out of my body and look down at the child, who lay there passively, drowsy from whatever she had been given. After it was over, I was furious with that little girl. Why did she never refuse to do as her uncle told her? Her submission over the years had turned her into a mute supplicant to his controlling Svengali.