Escape From Evil (18 page)

Not being able to read or write is a bit of a disadvantage when you join a school late – especially if everyone else can. Unsurprisingly, I was bottom of the class from the moment I stepped through the doors of Saltdean Primary School. But, I’m proud to say, it didn’t last. Set me a challenge and I will meet it. If I can, I’ll beat it. That’s how I am now and that’s how I was then. Whether it was rolling joints or playing glockenspiels in the sand, I wanted perfection and I was prepared to work for it.

Everyone in the class was above me, but there were these two brainboxes, Peter Haslem and Jeremy Kempton, who were head and shoulders above everyone. Once I’d got my feet under the table, there was only one target. I thought,
I’m not having this. I want to beat them.

So I knuckled down and I worked and I worked and I worked and, by the end of the first year, I’d almost done it. I was in the top three for just about everything, just fractionally behind these two in most subjects. It was quite an achievement. These lads were singled out as potential Mensa candidates, so I was thrilled to be first among the ordinary kids!

I wouldn’t say I was naturally gifted, but I am definitely a grafter. I really thrived on applying myself, which was just as well because Grandpa insisted on the highest standards. He was very strict. If I made a mistake in my homework, especially once I’d gone up to senior school, I rewrote the whole thing. He wouldn’t tolerate crossings out and, of course, after a while I grew to despise them as well, so I would just start again. I didn’t mind. The strive for perfection burnt bright.

It wasn’t just Grandpa who was pleased with my progress. I was in the headmaster’s office every single week to get a gold star for the quality of my work. And if there was a new hall display, you could guarantee one of my stories or pictures would be up there. I was completely unrecognizable from the illiterate little girl who’d had to be escorted screaming from the premises.

If I wasn’t doing homework, I’d be customizing my books. We are an artistic family and I’d think nothing of spending all my free time decorating the covers of my exercise books with colourful borders or intricate flower designs. It was the same diligence that I’d applied to making pom-poms for Mushka back at Telscombe Cliffs, although I tried not to think about that.

Mum was rarely far from my thoughts, but I had to select the memories. Too many, in hindsight, were soured by this new knowledge of drug-taking. Despite my best efforts, I’d begun to wonder,
If it was so dangerous, why did you do it? Why risk your life and leave me all alone?

But it wasn’t hard to sift out the good memories. Mum never told me off or made me do much that I didn’t want to. Life with her was fun. Just being with her made me happy. She was all I needed. I just wished I had been enough for her.

Outside school, my thirst for perfection – and, I admit, hunger for winning – was there in everything. When I was young Granny would take me to Brownies. After that I couldn’t wait to join the Girl Guides. I loved everything about it, but what really thrilled me was collecting the achievement badges – for reading, sewing, helping, you name it. The target was thirty-three badges, which nobody got. I’d managed thirty-two by the time I left. One more and I would have qualified for the Queen’s Guard. I wasn’t particularly disappointed to have missed out because it was working towards a goal that really excited me. In any case, I did get to go to a massive Girl Guide jamboree and I always had a really great time.

I loved a challenge. I was soon picked for the school tennis team and no sooner had Grandpa taken me for swimming lessons at Roedean School for Girls than I was begging him for more and more practice time. Six months after my first lesson I represented the school in a competition. I obviously had a really competitive streak, but Granny was the one with the high aspirations for me.

‘You’ll have tea with the Queen one day,’ she told me one morning as she teased my hair into its usual top-knot. ‘It’s your destiny.’

Of course, as a little girl, I wanted to believe that, so when Granny insisted I learn the correct way to break open and butter a scone, I listened and copied devoutly. It wasn’t just afternoon tea she was concerned about. I was schooled in all manner of etiquette, all in preparation for that day when I would dine with royalty – and marry a certain type of gentleman. Our Sunday afternoons were already packed, but somehow Granny found time to teach me how to speak correctly, how to carry myself upright with books on my head, how to eat fairy cakes, even how to get in and out of cars with grace. It was like being at a Swiss finishing school.

The final piece of her jigsaw, she thought, was ballroom-dancing lessons. ‘For when you take a twirl around Buckingham Palace.’

The original
Come Dancing
programme was on television at the time and, as a nine-year-old, I used to love watching those glamorous couples spinning around the screen. What little girl wouldn’t dream of wearing dresses like that? So Granny made me some wonderful outfits and I started classes. Like everything else I’d set my mind to so far, I excelled. I won badges for my foxtrot, my cha-cha, my paso doble. You name it, I danced it.

A year or two later I wanted a new challenge. This time it would have nothing to do with preparing me for meeting the Queen. To her credit, Granny didn’t baulk when I announced I’d like to take up judo, even though she’d really enjoyed dressing me like a dancing princess. But she did make me choose.

‘We’ve only got money for one class. It’s either judo or dancing.’

I had plenty of little trophies for ballroom, so martial arts it was. A year or two later, the familiar story: myriad colourful belts hanging up in my wardrobe. Such a desire to win at everything.

No sooner had I learnt to read than I wanted to do it all the time. There wasn’t an Enid Blyton or Nancy Drew book in the village that I didn’t devour. The more I read, the more I wanted to enact the adventures. Kids used to play outside unattended all the time in those days, so gangs of us would run around the local coppice pretending we were detectives, leaving clues and shadowing each other. I was pretty much a tomboy, I suppose. I even built and raced go-karts.

Church still played a large role in our lives, despite Grandpa’s epiphany. He was still a warden and we still attended every Sunday. I was a little star of the choir and Sunday School and helped Granny with the flowers and, even though I wasn’t sold on the religious aspect of it all, once again I found myself thriving on the routine. I loved tasks, I loved trying to better my previous work – and everyone else’s. When the church held a fête, I would spend weekends knitting and sewing and cutting and drawing and making as much as I could to sell. Whenever there was a craft show, you’d find me manning a stall, flogging my own little stuffed animals or table decorations. I was such a sweet little girl – I wonder sometimes where she went!

I loved keeping myself busy. After all those years of just hanging around with Mum, rarely having anything to do apart from household chores, I really responded to a full diary. I suppose I had Granny and Grandpa to thank for that, for packing my early life with events and inspiration. And I found myself realizing that Mum had had exactly the same opportunities. What had made her throw it all away?

By the time I finished at Saltdean Primary I had achieved just about everything I could. When it came time to move up to Long hill Secondary, I was genuinely excited. I must have thought my reputation as an achiever would count for something there. I was wrong.

It was a classic case of big fish/little pond syndrome. At Longhill, though, several little ponds merged and I very quickly realized I was out of my depth.

Whereas Saltdean was a lovely village school whose pupils played nicely together in the copse after class – as I did most afternoons with my friends Peter, Debbie and Sally – some of the other schools didn’t have such a good reputation. The kids from Woodingdean were like creatures from another planet. Granny warned me they would be rough and she wasn’t joking. The girls wore make-up and even the boys had pierced ears. Attitude, though, was the main difference. If there was a chair and a child from Saltdean and one from Woodingdean wanted it, Woodingdean would win. The same with books, sports gear – even dinner money. I’d been there a week before some kid even smaller than me demanded I empty my pockets. Bearing in mind some of the horrendous things I’d witnessed and experienced from people scarier than these, I’m surprised now how much it affected me. I don’t think ballroom dancing would have impressed these kids, but why didn’t I at least try my judo on them? I suppose part of my grieving process over Mum included putting as much distance as possible between ‘new me’ and the horrors of the past. That’s not who I was.

Rough kids aside, it’s a peculiar thing about school life that you rise to the top of one system then get moved back down to the bottom of the next, like a game of snakes and ladders, but with more at stake. I’d gone from teacher’s pet at primary to the bottom of the pile at secondary. And when I say ‘bottom’ I mean the very bowels.

Kids have an instinct to attack anyone who stands out. The gang mentality takes them all over at some point. Sound different, look different, act different and you can expect grief from the masses.

And I looked different. A couple of years earlier I’d been so proud of the beautiful dresses Granny had run up for me on her sewing machine. Even when she said she’d knit my school jumper and crochet a skirt, I was touched. And then all the other kids saw my uniform was different to theirs and that was it. I was a marked girl – especially with Granny’s latest old-fashioned hairstyle for me. But at least I didn’t have to wear that stupid top-knot anymore!

The only saving grace was that there were two girls who were considered weirder than me. They were twins to start with, which would normally have been enough on its own, but they also had a surname that was just asking for trouble: Pratt. It was horrible really, but at least while they were being picked on, the older girls ignored me. It couldn’t last, of course. ‘Nice jumper’ would be one of the least harmful insults to come my way, however sarcastically it was said. It was horrid, a really unhappy time. A lot of kids never recover from bullying at school. It affects their whole lives. As bad as it seemed at the time, however, I knew I’d be all right. When you’ve felt the cold steel of a knife blade pressed against your cheek, a few names and a bit of bullying isn’t a problem at all.

Maybe, though, I would have been better off being scarred by the bullying. The threats and abuse I’d already suffered had, I think, dulled my attitude to violence. It had been such a large part of my life already that I didn’t notice my reactions to it weren’t as extreme as other kids’. I wasn’t as scared, I wasn’t as prepared to change my behaviour to please the bullies. At the time that worldliness protected me.

But that was also why I couldn’t spot the signs when the greatest threat of all was staring me in the face.

My grandparents weren’t too much help when it came to getting through my new school ordeal. ‘Just concentrate on your work and the bullies will go away.’
Nice in theory
. . .

But that’s what I did. Head down, I really applied myself to lessons and was soon in the top class for every subject. I won lead roles in school plays and decided to take my guitar-playing more seriously. I’d always enjoyed evenings spent noodling with Mum’s old six-string. Soon, once I’d put my mind to it, I was in the school band on acoustic guitar. Our teacher was a great inspiration: his band, the Piranhas, had a hit record in 1982 with ‘Zambesi’.

Being a swot didn’t make me any less likely to be bullied, of course, and in fact I got dog’s abuse. But as I grew older, I persuaded Granny to stop making me dress like a doll and confidence soon followed. With self-belief came a rekindling of my desire for independence. I enjoyed being at Granny and Grandpa’s, but I really wanted my own space. And, to be honest, they couldn’t wait to have their retirement back for themselves.

In those days young people would collect bits and bobs for their ‘bottom drawer’ – things you would need for your first home – so that’s what I decided to do. In order to do that, however, I needed money. At fourteen years old, it was time to get a job.

Typical me, though, I thought,
Why get one job when you can have three?

The local fish shop took me on for two evenings a week, which was nice, although it made my clothes and hair smell like a chip pan. Then, on Thursdays and Fridays, I would go straight from school to help out at Saltdean’s florist shop. But best of all was getting a Saturday job at Robert Dyas. You had to be sixteen to work there, which I told them I was, and I loved it because I could get staff discounts on their stock. Week after week, I’d spend my pay packet on things like cutlery sets, crockery, glasses, an electric blanket, a duvet, duvet covers – you name it and I had it stored under my bed or in my wardrobe, ready for the day I could leave. I had my Duran Duran posters on the walls and my ‘bottom drawer’ all ready to go. How many kids are thinking that far ahead?

So, there I was, juggling homework, three jobs and half a dozen hobbies, and I was flying. I was going great guns. I bought myself a brand new Claude Butler racing bike for £500 and took part in the London to Brighton race. I was healthy, I was wholesome, I was happy. Everything was rosy. Granny and Grandpa must have been so grateful that I wasn’t displaying any of the tendencies that their daughter had shown. And then I came off the rails.

It all seemed to happen at once. Boys, alcohol, cigarettes – they all came a-calling and I gave each my fullest attention.