Escape From Evil (16 page)

NINE

I’d become so accustomed to Mum disappearing for days and then suddenly popping up that for weeks after her death it just seemed like another one of those periods. I’d go a couple of days, getting on with life, having fun, and then it would hit me like a kick in the stomach.

She’s not coming back. She’s never coming back.

Granny and Grandpa were more pragmatic than me and certainly more efficient than Mum had ever been. Within a few days of her death, I’d been enrolled in a local Saltdean school. I’d been staying with them in their Tremola Avenue bungalow and it seemed logical to start rebuilding my life from there. That was fine by me. Settling into a new school was a chore, but tolerable. It was the order I hated, being told what to do and where to be at a specific time, although I never had a problem with the people in authority.

Ever adaptable, I just slotted into life with my grandparents. Then they dropped the bombshell: I might have to move out.

In a way, I was taking life a day at a time. On the other hand, I’d assumed I’d be living with my grandparents now. I probably would have preferred to live on my own in Telscombe Cliffs, but that was obviously not an option, despite the fact that I’d been doing virtually that since we’d moved in. As far as the authorities were concerned, I needed proper grown-up care and as Granny and Grandpa were my closest relatives, I’d naturally stay with them. Or so I thought. Technically, though, there was someone else who was biologically closer to me. Someone I had no recollection of ever existing. My father.

Granny broke the news. There was going to be a court hearing. Lawyers and magistrates would decide what was to be done with me.

I knew she was talking about something important, but the words didn’t mean much to me. As far as I was concerned, it was adult business. In any case, I’d already moved around so many times that choosing where to live seemed less of a permanent decision than it actually was.

‘Can’t I stay with you?’ I asked.

‘Of course you can,’ she replied. ‘But it’s not up to me.’

If it’s not up to you, then who is it up to?

It turned out to be me.

Courtrooms are intimidating at the best of times. Whether you’re a witness or a member of the jury, you somehow feel that you’re the one on trial. There’s an aura about them that really puts you off guard. That’s what I feel as an adult who has seen the very worst of them. Imagine how it felt as an eight-year-old?

As I remember it, I had to tell the magistrate where I wanted to live. There were two choices on the table. Legally, my father had the strongest claim. Then there were my grandparents, whom I’d stayed with so often and with whom I was living now. Did I want to live with them?

My father didn’t appear in court. Or if he did, I can’t remember. I sat with Granny and Grandpa and then, when the magistrate called me forward, I went and stood near a lawyer. He asked me: ‘Who would you like to live with as your official guardian or guardians?’

It was a lot of pressure on an eight-year-old who’d just lost her mother. The law doesn’t seem to worry about things like feelings though – as I would discover again and again many years later.

I didn’t hesitate. If there was anything of the romantic in me, I would have chosen my dad. But there wasn’t. I was an impossibly practical child; I’d had to be. The fact that he hadn’t even shown up confirmed my instincts: ‘I want to live with Granny and Grandpa.’

I don’t know what the court knew about my domestic circumstances, but it was as if that was the last thing they’d expected to hear. A child choosing her grandparents over her own father? Incredible! There was a hubbub of conversation between the three magistrates and the various legal advisers – lots of whispering and gobbledygook to my ears. I couldn’t follow any of it. Then the lead JP came back.

‘We have decided to accede to your wish.’

Which in English means what?

‘You are now the legal responsibility of Mr and Mrs Beavis.’

Yes!

I’d won the day. But, as we drove home, neither I nor my grandparents really knew what we were letting ourselves in for. All we knew was that our lives would never be the same again.

Before the court case I’d been staying at Tremola Avenue. Now I was
living
there.

They tried to make me feel comfortable. I was given the room I’d always stayed in with Mum and they brought in her old wardrobe from the flat and her record player and albums. Even though Granny was a dog lover really, she let me put a cardboard box on the floor-mounted boiler, which we lined with a small crocheted blanket and pillow for Mushka. She loved it there. As a treat, they also got hold of a black-and-white portable television, complete with bendy wire aerial. It was great. Just one bed, rather than two. No sharing, no worrying about strange men following me in. My own little sanctuary.

Mushka didn’t seem to mind the change of scenery, but then she had other things to worry about. Barely a fortnight after Mum’s death, I was woken by a wet sensation in my bed. My first instinct was to cry out, ashamed and embarrassed that I’d wet the bed again after so many months of dry nights. Then my eyes adjusted in the half-light. Mushka was on my lap – and she wasn’t alone. Two tiny bundles were mewing and wriggling next to her!

I called Granny and together we sat on my bed for the next few hours, sharing a bar of Dairy Milk, while Mushka had two more adorable little kittens. It was a wonderful night. I’d never felt so close to my grandmother and I had my mum’s old cat to thank for it. Maybe life at Tremola Avenue wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Of course I was happy that I wasn’t sharing a room any more. Then I’d remember why.
Mum
. That happened so often it began to scare me. I could do so much and then her memory would crash down on me without warning. I loved her and I missed her, but I wished I had greater control over her memory.

It was a sombre household at first. I’d lost my mother and Granny and Grandpa had lost their daughter. I had to keep reminding myself of that. I would bound into the kitchen, eager to get the day off to a good start, and I couldn’t understand why they’d be moping around. I really hope they didn’t find me disrespectful.

I don’t think I ever appreciated the magnitude of my decision that day in court. The clerk had told me what I had to do: ‘Go up there and elect where you want to live.’ That was pretty much it. But I’d moved around so often, I don’t think it really seemed real. In the back of my mind was the idea that, if things didn’t work out, I’d just move on again. Not necessarily to my father’s, just away from Tremola Avenue.

A good while later Granny told me that I’d made the right decision. My father, she’d heard from a solicitor, had intended to put me into care had I chosen to go with him. He didn’t know me, I wasn’t part of his life and I was very young. He was terrified at the prospect of coping. When I met him later he swore this wasn’t true, but those were the facts according to Granny.

I should have been offended, but I wasn’t. I’d already been into care twice. I’d been abused in one residence and looked after well in the other. And on Mum’s watch, as I could never forget, I was subjected to the worst degradation I could imagine. If I’d been put into care with my father in control, then so be it. I would have coped. I always coped.

I guess I took after Grandpa in that respect. Looking back, his reaction to Mum’s death was quiet and personal and very straightforward. He stopped believing in God.

He still went to church, still remained a warden, but the candle of his faith had gone out. Non-religious people won’t understand what a big deal this is for a believer. For churchgoers, faith is everything. He was a middle-aged man who was being forced to question things he’d always taken for granted. It was very sad.

Granny, on the other hand, had her own way of getting through such a difficult time. Whenever the subject of my father came up, she couldn’t help but be scathing about him. At first I thought it was because he hadn’t taken a role in my upbringing. Then I realized her anger went deeper. He was the one, in her eyes, who had got her daughter pregnant and then abandoned mother and child. He was the one who’d walked away and let her fall into the clutches of those wicked men. By not being there, he’d let her die.

In her eyes, he was to blame for everything.

I never dared ask about my dad for that reason. Not that I cared anyway. He was just a name to me. Other kids had dads – I didn’t. That’s how it was. One more thing that was normal to me. I never gave it a moment’s thought.

Reviewing my relationship with my mother today, it’s obvious that our roles had been reversed. For so much of the time I was the carer and she the dependant. I was the one worrying about laundry, about getting food on the table. I never questioned it. That’s just how we lived. Moving in with my grandparents obviously flipped the adult/child dynamic back to normal – but not entirely. While they provided for me far better than Mum had ever managed, emotionally they seemed to need pepping up. They were the ones moping about Mum’s death, long after I’d stopped. They were the ones who couldn’t get through a meal without one of them mentioning it and Granny breaking down and Grandpa sitting there in silence, tears not far from his eyes. Of course I missed her more than anything and I would spend hours dwelling on how she’d died from cold, wondering what I could have done to save her. But I suppose I adapted to the new situation faster than my grandparents did.

Going back to school probably helped. When you have a routine, it’s easier to stop your mind wandering back to dark thoughts. The trouble was, when I left the house Granny and Grandpa had nothing to do all day except dwell on everything that had happened. They’d still be doing it when I came home. I thought I was coping so well. It seemed a point of pride that I just had to get on with things. That’s what I’d always done, whatever life had thrown at me.

I’m a coper. I’m in control.

Then, one day at school, I realized I wasn’t in control of anything.

Everyone else in my class could read and write whereas, after a few months, I could still barely scribble my own name. I’d just never been taught how. But I’d picked up some basic reading skills at Telscombe Cliffs. I could sound out short words and names and I was getting better every day. It wasn’t a thirst for knowledge that drove me on, though. I just hated the idea that everyone else in the class could do something better than me. I’d been Miss Independent for so long that being at the back of the queue for anything cut me deeply. So, not only was I a coper and in control, I was a winner too.

In those early days at my new school in Saltdean, I would stare at anything that looked like it had words on and try to decipher the strange hieroglyphics. Initially I didn’t get very far, but I persevered. Add ‘fighter’ to the list.

I’d been there a month or two when the teacher said we were going to do art. I knew the drill, so when everyone else went to a cupboard and got out old newspapers to cover the tables with, I did the same. Unlike everyone else, though, I was more interested in trying to work out what the headlines said than what I was meant to be painting. Most of it was impenetrable to me, but there were also a lot of words written in really large type that I could translate. Even some of the smaller print was manageable. And two words in particular virtually leapt out.

‘Jennifer Wilson’.

I checked and double-checked the spelling. That’s definitely what it said.

Mum? Why was she in a newspaper? Suddenly my painting was over. I stared at those two words.
What are they saying about Mum?
My brain was fizzing, so confused, which only made trying to decipher the rest of the story more difficult than ever. But I kept going and going and going. And then I screamed the place down.

I can only imagine what my classmates must have thought. I wasn’t aware of them or the teacher. All I could see were the words: ‘Jennifer Wilson’, ‘dead’ and ‘drugs’. They filled my mind. That’s what the story was saying, it had to be. Mum had died because of drugs.

I was out of control, I admit it. My composure at home had been an act, a brave front. It had to have been. How else can I explain how quickly and explosively I crumbled? In the space of a couple of seconds I went from a poor little girl doing her best to get over her mother’s death to a howling, wild child screaming, ‘It’s not true! It’s not true!’

The next thing I remember is Granny arriving. I don’t know how long it took for her to get there or how hard they’d tried to console me before calling her. All I know is that as soon as I saw her I shouted, ‘They’re liars!’ and fell into her arms.

Back at Tremola Avenue, the truth came tumbling out.

‘Your mother did die of cold,’ Granny – left by Grandpa to handle what he saw as women’s work – explained. ‘But that’s not the end of it.’

She paused to catch her breath. It must have been hard for her to dredge up the painful memories, but I was desperate to hear them.

‘What happened?’ I urged.

‘As the police explained it to me, she had taken so many drugs that she collapsed in an alley.’

‘Didn’t anyone help her?’

Granny shook her head. ‘It was the middle of the night and it was freezing cold. No one was around. She was there for ages. By the time someone found her and called an ambulance, she had contracted pneumonia.’