I Won't Forgive What You Did (3 page)

If they persisted, and, being babies, they did, she’d sometimes pick them up and shake them to shut them up. Even as a little girl this evoked strong feelings inside me, for I knew this had been my treatment too. How she’d force food down my throat and, much as I was gagging, how grateful I’d feel I was being fed at all.

I was glad to be four now, and to be walking about. Glad not to be just lying there waiting for the sound of her footsteps, and whatever her mood meant she’d do.

Not that I had any understanding, at four, of just how appalling our lives were. I knew what I knew, and it was
all
I knew, and though much of what happened to me felt wrong – Grandpops’ weekly sessions of ‘tickling’, for example – I persisted in the idea that this must be down to me, to my having been born so full of woe.

At that time, therefore, any moment of brightness was something I cherished, which was probably why a close friend of the family, Daniel, who was in his thirties, meant such a lot to me. Just as with Grandpops, there was never a time when Daniel was not part of it. He’d known me from babyhood and visited several times a year. As an adult, I would come to realize the horrible truth about him, about how carefully he groomed me so he could do what he wanted, but to the four-year-old me, a child desperate for attention, he was a light in the darkness of my emotionally cold world. He seemed to care for me, be interested in me, wanted to seek out my company. He seemed to love me, which made me love him.

Everyone seemed aware of Daniel’s special interest in me, but no one appeared to think anything of it. I was simply his favourite, so no one thought it strange or unusual that he’d want to spend all his time with me.

I never knew much in advance when Daniel was coming. Sometimes I’d overhear my parents talking about when he was due. One day, however, I hadn’t had even this prior notice, and the first I knew of his arrival was when I heard the sound of greetings coming from the front door, and him saying, ‘Hello, Pamela, how are you?’ to my mother.

Hearing this, I did what I always did when Daniel arrived. I ran off and hid behind the sofa. I wasn’t ever really sure why I did this. I knew he’d come to find me as soon as he was able, even before my mother had made a cup of tea.

I sat on the floor, by the wall, against the back of the sofa, my legs bent and my knees clasped to my chest. The sofa was old and shabby, a big, musty-smelling brown thing, and I hid behind it, hating the anticipation, feeling ‘on guard’, even though I wasn’t quite sure what I was guarding. It was confusing, feeling all this anxiety welling up, while at the same time there was a sense of such excitement. Despite my stress, I also wanted his attention. I knew I was important to Daniel, because his wife had always told me that I was ‘the apple of his eye’.

I could hear him approaching and my sense of confusion about my anxiety increased. Why was I anxious? I
wanted
to see him – he was always so gentle and asked questions about what I’d been doing, and though I didn’t answer – I always felt too shy – he didn’t seem to mind at all.

Eventually, I emerged, my stomach churning, the anticipation of knowing he’d find me having become impossible to bear.

‘There you are!’ he said, beaming. He looked happy to have found me. ‘You little minx! You’ve been hiding from me, haven’t you?’

He was tall and thin, smartly dressed and slightly balding, with white teeth, and cotton wool in one of his ears. I liked lots about Daniel, but I didn’t like the cotton wool. I never knew why it was there.

He reached towards me now, his arms outstretched, laughing as he pulled me towards him and picked me up. His face was so close I could feel his breath on my eyes as he moved to kiss my forehead and my hair. He sat down then, on the sofa, cuddling me tightly on his lap, his face close as he rubbed his cheek against mine. He was stroking my fingers, slowly, individually, while whispering: ‘You little girl, why were you hiding from me? You funny little thing. You know I love you, don’t you?’

When I was older, my mother told me that Daniel ‘couldn’t get enough’ of me, and that whenever he came, he’d always ask, ‘Where’s that Faith?’ upon which he’d pick me up and cart me off somewhere. By this time, I remember feeling rage, albeit subconsciously, at her pathetic acceptance of his behaviour. I would eventually come to realize it might be even more than that; I wondered if she secretly enjoyed the knowledge that something so disgusting was being done to someone else, just as it had been done to her all those years before – that somehow she felt a sense of sick revenge, or justice. Her own sickness, I came to understand, really was that bad.

But it wasn’t just my mother who condoned his behaviour, all the adults in my life seemed complicit. It was as if by saying ‘He really loves your girl, Pamela’ it made what he did to me okay.

But seeing Daniel, and having Daniel give me all this attention, was at that moment the best feeling in the world. He stood up again now, and carried me out of the front door, up the road, through the field, then down a path that led towards the river. No comments had been exchanged between him and my mother; we just went out.

Daniel walked in silence till we came to the stile we always stopped at, and he sat me down on the step grown-ups would stand on if they wanted to climb over. He was now humming gently, and staring straight at me. I found it impossible to look at him, but I could feel his eyes on me. He never looked anywhere else at this point.

My feet dangled. I couldn’t reach the grass below me, but he was standing next to me and I knew he wouldn’t let me fall. My head was level with the top of his legs now, and he held it tight into him and began stroking my hair. He had his other arm around my shoulders and was hugging me. First tight, and then looser, and then tightly again, squeezing and unsqueezing with a rhythmical motion, and, after a bit, moving his body from side to side. As he moved, the middle part of him brushed across my face, and every so often he’d stoop a little to kiss my hair again. I didn’t mind this – in fact, it felt nice; he was so gentle. The only thing that bothered me was the fabric of his trousers; the material brushing against my mouth felt all itchy.

All too soon, however, I felt anxious, the familiar anxiety I always felt at this point – a sense of ‘badness’ whose origins I didn’t understand.

He stopped then, stood straight, and turned away from me, and when he turned back around, his hand was moving up and down on the thing I knew he would put in my mouth, even though it was too big and made me choke.

Sometimes, he’d only get it close to my mouth before stuff came out and made a big mess down my chin, but today he moved it slowly across my lips once or twice before staring straight at me as he pushed it between them.

At this point, being with Daniel no longer made me happy. Now it filled me with apprehension, fear and panic. I began to feel sick, and all wobbly and unsteady. I tried to scream – I always did – but no sound came out, and I knew I must try to open my mouth as wide as it would go. I didn’t want it in my mouth but I was frightened that if I didn’t let him, I’d choke on it and then I’d die. The feeling was horrible. I couldn’t breathe with Daniel’s thing in my mouth. I thought I would be sick and keep choking and then I’d definitely die. I knew about dying because I knew about kittens. Daddy would put them in a bag and throw them in the river and, because they couldn’t breathe, they all died.

He was staring harder now, going: ‘Look at me. You know I love you, don’t you?’ and I had to force myself to do it, because I really didn’t want to. Looking at him made me feel even more afraid. But
why?
Daniel loved me and was kind to me. So why did I feel so desperate to scream and run away?

He made a sound in his mouth now, and took the thing out of mine, holding on to it and making strange blowing sounds, before putting it back in again, more slowly this time, then keeping it very, very still.

I knew what came next because it
always
came next. He pushed it hard, suddenly – pushed it down my throat – and I was retching and retching, but terrified of biting it, as I needed to close my mouth. And then the bitter taste came, and made me retch even more, and when he took the thing out I bent down so he couldn’t see, and spat the stuff into my hand. I wiped it down the sleeve of my pink jumper, because I didn’t want to get it on my red tartan pinafore. I couldn’t bear to eat it, but I couldn’t let him see because I really didn’t want to upset him. I knew I mustn’t upset Daniel, because he
liked
me.

He plucked me up from the stile then, and we set off back for home, him cuddling me and telling me he loved me, but in a different, much less intense way.

Sometimes he’d take me to watch football or cricket, where the local teams played – but I didn’t like being in the unfamiliar surroundings, and would be anxious to return to my mother.

Today we went back the way we’d come, and though Daniel seemed less and less interested in me as we did so, he still said ‘You know I love you. You’re my favourite. You’re
very
special, as we made our way back to my house.

By now I didn’t feel special at all. I felt all too aware he wanted to leave me, which left me sad, and feeling strange, and full of woe. I shut my eyes tightly to try to make it go away, and told myself everything was all right.

The adults barely looked up as we came in, and Daniel set me down on the red tiles. However upset I was, I at least still felt important. I’d been given special attention because I
was
special – different from my brothers and sisters.

I went back to where I’d been when he’d arrived – behind the sofa – and my mother went to make him his tea. By now, I didn’t want to be around him any more, because I knew he’d start getting all anxious about leaving and saying what a long drive it was home. I also knew that once he went I’d be unable to sit still and would wander around, as if there was something missing and I was looking for it. I wouldn’t find it, of course, because it was simply the anticlimax after all the excitement of his arrival.

And now he
had
gone again, and my mind was a muddle; I was relieved the bad bit of seeing him was over, but at the same time felt this great sense of loss. Daniel loved me and was happy to be with me, and I knew if I hadn’t been a woeful Wednesday’s child, I wouldn’t be so stupid about it all.

It would be many, many years before I would fully understand that Daniel’s tenderness towards me was not an expression of love, but the conscientious grooming of a small child he wanted to abuse. All I knew,
as
a child, was that Daniel, who was so gentle, was one of the few welcome things in my life. It made no difference that I felt bad when he had me do things I didn’t want to. Daniel was everything the rest of my life wasn’t; he was kind, he seemed to love me, he wasn’t violent. In contrast, life at home seemed very dark.

And also frightening. I cannot remember a time when I didn’t spend significant periods of my day silent behind or by the side of my mother’s chair. I was crippled with fear if I couldn’t physically see her, afraid of what she might otherwise do to me or one of my siblings. I thought that if I could see her I could prevent this from happening, and also protect her from my father and his violence. That way, I reasoned, with my little-girl logic, neither of them would have to go to prison.

But whatever the squalid nature of my home and family – even my unhappy, dysfunctional one – it was the only thing I knew. It was no surprise therefore that when the time came for school I was absolutely terrified of leaving it.

By the time I was due to start my first day, my older sister had already painted a picture that left me feeling very fearful. The reality, however, was even worse.

That morning, at least, had started well. I was dressed in a grey pinafore and white blouse that were now too small for my older sister. Because this was a special occasion I had a pair of new white socks and black shoes that did up with buckles. I also had a new grey jumper, which my mother had knitted with wool she’d obtained by unpicking a jumper from a jumble sale. This made me feel very important. I had a jumper of my own, knitted especially for me, because I was going to school.

This was a big event, and one my mother had been warning me about for ages. ‘Thank God,’ she kept saying, ‘that you’re going to school soon and will be out of the way.’ My older sister had also been telling me things. She told me I must behave and keep quiet, or else I’d be in trouble, because they wouldn’t like me, and because she was the oldest. All of this sounded scary. I didn’t know what form this trouble might take, but when I arrived at the gates and saw all the children in the playground it no longer mattered. All the pleasure of wearing my new grey school jumper disappeared. I just wanted to go home.

There were probably no more than sixty children – it was a village school – but to me it seemed like there were millions of them, all running around screaming. As a contrast to the dark, silent world I usually inhabited, it was more intimidating than I could ever describe.

I’d been walked there by Nan, my paternal grandmother, having been dropped off by my father in his lorry, because the school was near her house. It was a long way from where we lived but it was the one I had to go to because it was the one my father had gone to and it had been decided.

Nan held my hand tightly and pulled me through the gate, then across the playground to my teacher. I looked down at the ground, feeling little and empty in my tummy and scared, and not wanting to see the children’s faces or listen to their noise. She spoke to the teacher – she knew her because they lived close to each other – and then, suddenly, she was gone. I felt totally lost and unable to think; I simply couldn’t understand what I was doing there.