Don't You Love Your Daddy? (3 page)

On those terrible days her hair hung limply around a pale, puffy face streaked with the constant tears that trickled down it. When she held me I would smell the sweet, cloying odour of stale apples that clung to her breath. It was a smell I learnt to recognize, and I knew it came from the pale frothy liquid she drank from the large brown bottles I watched her trying to hide from my father and Pete.

I was too young to understand the feelings that engulfed her on those days, the utter hopelessness that turned her from a pretty, vivacious woman into one I hardly knew.

It was not until I grew up and entered a place where I too sat staring into space, with tears running down my face as unwanted memories filled my mind, that I began to understand how my mother must have felt. Then, as I remembered her sitting on the settee with her head in her stiff fingers, I could identify with the despair that had flooded her and robbed her of all rational thought. I would watch her grasping and twisting her skirt, while her eyes stared at something only she could see. And when those memories came back and I looked down, my own hands were mimicking hers.

Then I would think of the little girl I had been, watching my mother gaze out at the darkness beyond the window until all I could see was the back of a head and the reflection of my mother’s white face in the glass. My five-year-old self had thought it was as though a wicked witch had jumped out of a fairytale and cast a dark spell over her, and I wished that a good fairy would come and break it. Fear gnawed at me constantly then; fear that the mother I loved was lost to me for ever.

It was on those days that washing-up piled up in the sink, meals were missed or food was hastily prepared out of tins and packets, and my daily bath, followed by the cream, was forgotten.

Then there were no sounds of laughter in the house. Instead it was filled with angry shouts when my father returned home from work. ‘Oh, for God’s sake! Not again! Pull yourself together, Laura,’ he would yell, when he saw her sitting morosely on a chair or lying on the settee. Frightened, I would keep as quiet as I could.

It was during my mother’s black days that my fear of my father started. When I was very small, maybe only three or four, it was just a bubble of unease that, over the months and years, grew little by little, but it wasn’t until I was a teenager that my love for him was completely destroyed.

‘Come, Sally,’ my father would say, once I had eaten the supper he had cooked for me. ‘I’ll put you to bed. Your mother’s in no fit state to do it.’

I was lifted up and placed in a tepid bath. I liked the feel of the water on my inflamed skin and the soapy flannel being wiped gently over me. But I didn’t like it when it was moved to between my legs and I felt his fingers touching me there. Nor did I like what happened next. I would be picked up and, with a soft towel wrapped around my shoulders, sat on his knee, pulled close to his chest.

When I felt something hard pressing into my bottom I would try to wriggle away from him, only to feel his arms tighten and hear ‘No,’ whispered urgently into my ear. ‘Stay still and let me rub your cream in, Sally,’ he would say, when I squirmed in protest as his hands applied cream to parts that my eczema did not reach.

When tears spilled over and ran down my cheeks, they were wiped tenderly away. ‘Whatever’s wrong, Sally? You’re getting as bad as your mother. Don’t you love your daddy?’ and, of course, I did – then. A kiss would be pressed to my cheek, a sweet popped into my mouth and he was back to being the father I loved.

As I grew a little older, my father began to exercise more and more control over me. In front of my grandparents and my mother, he would sit me on his knee, his hand stroking my legs. ‘She’s a daddy’s girl, all right. Aren’t you, Sally?’ he would say. I wanted to twist myself out of his grasp and get down on the floor but, fearing his displeasure, I remained where I was.

His embraces when he returned home from work became tighter and more frequent, especially when my mother wasn’t paying attention and my brother was out of the room. Then his hands would wander under my skirt. I would feel his large palm stroking my bottom and the pressure of his fingers as they found the secret place between my legs. I wanted to tell him to stop, but without the words to express my feelings, I couldn’t.

‘Come here, Sally,’ he would say, when I hung back from him. ‘What’s the matter? Don’t you love your daddy?’ His arms would stretch out to me as he bent down to my height. I could sense his irritation building so I would walk reluctantly into them.

With time the comforting stopped. More and more often he was annoyed with me. ‘Don’t be a baby – you’re getting as bad as your mother,’ he would exclaim, when I told him I wanted to get off his knee. My fear of his anger would keep me there while I felt the ‘hard thing’, for which I had no name, pressing against my buttocks.

Some time between my third and fourth birthday my mother told me I was going to get a new brother or sister. I was sitting next to her on the settee, watching one of her favourite programmes,
It’s A Knockout
, on the television. My mother was laughing at the contestants, who were carrying an assortment of unwieldy foam objects and trying to run over a huge inflatable obstacle course. The shapes resembled the ingredients of a hamburger. The players’ aim was to deliver each component to another team member, who was waiting at the far end of the course. They would then return to the start, allowing another team member to complete the same task. Because the items were so large there were lots of false starts and falls and we laughed at their antics.

Leaning against her, I noticed her stomach had grown big and asked her why.

‘It’s because there’s a baby inside it,’ she told me. I don’t remember much of the following months, just that my mother got larger and larger. Then she went away for a few days, and when she returned she was thinner and she was carrying my baby brother, Billy.

My mother was pale and tired and said she’d hardly got any sleep in the hospital. Once again, she ignored my needs, the cooking and housework.

After a week my mother’s sister, my aunt Janet, came to stay and order was restored to our home. The amassed piles of dirty clothes and bed linen were washed, dirty nappies, which had been left in an overflowing bucket in the bath, were soaked in bleach, and home-cooked meals appeared promptly on the table. She took over my bath and cream routine, got me into my nightdress and read me bedtime stories.

Our front door was forever being opened to friends and relatives who wanted to see the new baby, and every visitor who came bearing gifts cooed over tiny Billy. The sitting room was full of soft toys and hand-knitted cardigans, hats and romper suits in soft blue and white wool. A fleecy blanket that my mother had spent hours crocheting covered his cot.

‘What do you think of your baby brother?’ Suddenly it was the only question anyone ever asked me. Otherwise I felt ignored. Everyone’s attention was focused on Billy, and even my mother seemed to have little time for me. It was the baby who was cuddled and talked to, not me.

I felt rejected and lonely, and glared at the small, gurgling addition to our family with resentment. It seemed that with his arrival it was only my father who had time for me. ‘You’re my special little girl,’ he would say repeatedly, and I, craving attention, would cuddle up against him.

My aunt left, saying she had to get back to her own family, and once again it was my father’s large hands that rubbed cream all over my body. ‘I want Mummy to do it,’ I protested.

‘Your mother is too busy looking after the baby to put you to bed,’ he said, every time I asked for her, and, taking my hand firmly, would lead me from the room.

‘You’re a good little girl, aren’t you, Sally? You’d do anything I asked you, wouldn’t you?’ And when I nodded, he took his touching a stage further – he probably knew my mother was in the middle of feeding Billy. He held my small hand in his and placed it on the front of his trousers, then pushed my fingers against the fabric as he forced my hand to move up and down. Fearing that any resistance would alienate the one person to whom I was still important, I would stroke the place he directed me to. It felt hard through his trousers, and I did as instructed – I felt something twitch, as though I had woken a small living thing. My father’s hot breath rasped in my ear as he moved my fingers faster and faster until I felt his knees jerk and a tremor go through his body. Then, with a sigh, he would remove his hand and push me away.

I knew I didn’t like touching it, that the sensation of the ‘hard thing’ moving and my father’s hot breath on my cheek repelled me, but I didn’t know why.

It was my fourth birthday. I knew that because my mother had told me so as soon as she woke me up. When she took me downstairs she pointed to a small dark blue box next to my breakfast plate. ‘It’s for you, Sally,’ she said. ‘It’s your birthday present.’ Opening it, I found a silver bracelet.

‘Look at this! As you grow, it can be made bigger,’ said my mother, and showed me how the band expanded. She placed it on my arm for me.

‘You have another present,’ she told me, and gestured to a huge parcel done up in gaily patterned wrapping paper and tied with gold string, which was sitting on the kitchen floor. ‘Here, I’ll help you,’ she said, as I struggled to open it. With a few snips of her scissors the paper fell off to reveal a painted wooden dolls’ house.

The front slid away and inside it had miniature wooden furniture and a family of dolls. I gasped with delight. I had seen one just like it in a toy-shop window and had pointed it out to my mother as the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. But I had never dreamt I would have one of my own.

‘I made it for you myself,’ my father said gruffly.

‘Yes – he spent hours on it, working alone in that old shed,’ my mother added proudly.

My father’s arms opened and I ran into them to receive a hug. I felt the bristles on his chin rasp against my cheek before he lifted me on to his lap. ‘Do you like your present?’ he asked. I nodded enthusiastically. ‘Well, then, give your daddy a big kiss.’ I obediently pressed my lips against his cheek.

‘Look, Sally, let me show you something. Do you see this tiny switch?’ His finger flicked it down and tiny lights shone out of every window.

I was almost speechless with excitement as I played with the dolls’ house and moved around its family of tiny inhabitants.

‘Sally,’ my mother said, ‘go into the garden while I tidy up in here.’ Reluctantly I left my adored new possession and went outside to play with my Space Hopper. Later that day my mother took me upstairs and I saw a brand new dress of pale blue cotton, embroidered with tiny pink rosebuds, lying on my bed. ‘A new dress for my special birthday girl,’ my mother said. ‘Your nana and your cousins are coming for tea.’ My hair was brushed till it shone, my face was wiped clean and the dress was pulled over my shoulders. She stood me in front of the mirror. ‘See how pretty you look?’ I grinned with delight at her smiling reflection.

When my nana, aunts and cousins arrived for tea they brought more gifts, and this time it was me, not Billy, who was the centre of attention. ‘Happy birthday, dear Sally, happy birthday to you,’ they sang, and I was hugged and kissed before parcels of all shapes and sizes were handed to me.

‘Come on, Sally, you can open them,’ said my mother, and before long the floor was covered with torn wrapping paper. I opened my grandmother’s present first. It was a Tiny Tears baby doll, something I had dreamed of owning. Nana showed me how I could insert a bottle filled with water into its rosebud mouth before changing its nappy when it dampened. In the other parcels I found picture books, more new clothes and last, from my unmarried aunt, a miniature tea set. ‘You can have your own tea parties with your dolls,’ she told me.

Pete came straight home from school to be in time for the tea. When he entered the room he thrust a small packet tied up with string into my hands. ‘Happy birthday, Sally,’ he said, and blushed. Inside it were some minuscule ornaments, a mirror and a set of pictures. ‘For your dolls’ house,’ he said. ‘I knew Dad was making it.’

It was his present that made me the happiest. Until now he had never taken much notice of me despite my attempts to get his attention.

I realized why I had been sent out to play in the garden that morning when my mother produced the birthday cake she had made. The white writing on top of the pink icing said, she assured me, ‘Happy birthday, Sally’, and in the centre there were four candles – one for each year since I had been born, I was told.

‘You have to blow them out, Sally,’ everyone told me in unison.

‘Then make a special wish,’ my mother instructed.

I puffed out my cheeks, blew hard and squeaked with delight when the flames flickered and died. But I was so excited I forgot to make a wish. I often wonder if things would have been different if I hadn’t.

That evening it was my father who took me to bed. Ignoring my protests that I wanted Mummy, he led me from the room. Once in the bathroom, the same ritual followed of me being bathed, then sat naked on his knee. This time my wails at him spoiling my birthday were so loud that they brought my mother upstairs. She came into my bedroom and saw him trying to pull my pyjamas on to my small struggling body. ‘What’s wrong, Sally? Why are you crying?’ Receiving no reply she turned to my father. ‘What’s wrong with her? Why’s she so upset?’