Mummy, Make It Stop (18 page)

‘We couldn’t believe it when she got in touch to say she wanted him to come over and see you. It was like all our Christmases had come at once.’

I felt shocked and amazed to hear that Dad had wanted to see us all along.

Later I plucked up the courage to ask Dad if he really had been violent. He looked very serious and paused, trying to find the right words. ‘I didn’t behave well,’ he said at last. ‘Your mum and I were fighting all the time and I lost it a few times. I’m not proud of that. But I loved you kids; I want you to know that. Your mum and I were better off apart, but I was absolutely gutted when she said I couldn’t see you.’

Hearing this turned my world upside down. I sat alone in my room thinking about it for hours. Our lives might have been so different. George and Terry might never have been able to hurt us the way they did. We might never have been in care, if only our dad had been in our lives.

If only Mum had let him see us.

Chapter Thirteen

Jamie was still getting into all kinds of trouble, and inevitably it came to a head. He’d got away with fines and warnings so far, but when he was caught stealing yet again, he was told that this time he would probably get a custodial sentence.

In the hope that it might make a difference, Mum asked Dad to let Jamie come and live with him and Sandra, and Dad agreed. Jamie was delighted, and moved straight away. I couldn’t help feeling a bit jealous - I’d have liked to go and live with them, but instead Jamie got to go because he’d been thieving and breaking the law.

Once Jamie was there, I saw less of them. Dad and Sandra had their hands full with him, and although I was still welcome, Dad wasn’t able to come and get me as often, and the atmosphere there was more strained. My happy weekends helping Sandra in the café and cuddling on the sofa afterwards became more and more rare. I felt sad and hurt that, once again, Jamie seemed to be more important than me.

I was spending most of my time at home - where Mum was still partying every day with the people she met in the pub. She still seemed to be on a path to self-destruction, drinking heavily and wearing flimsy, revealing clothes. She was flirting with lads half her age, wearing baby-doll nighties with her dressing gown hanging open. She would parade around the room, cackling with laughter, a fag hanging out of her mouth, telling filthy jokes and dropping innuendos and of course the lads she invited over would be winking at each other with big grins on their faces.

I was so embarrassed that I was quite happy to go and make drinks for all of them, or act as gopher for her, just to avoid having to watch.

Mum was also taking more drugs. She was still smoking dope, and now she had started using hallucinogenic ‘magic’ mushrooms. Jamie had brought some home, and Mum thought they were great. After he left to go to Dad’s, she got someone else to bring her some. She’d eat them and then start laughing her head off in a really scary way. She tried to get me to take some too, but I was too scared. In the end I nibbled one, just to make her happy, but it didn’t do anything to me at all - to my relief.

Tanya had dumped her boyfriend, Kevin, and seemed to have a new one every week. Mostly they were older lads, in their early twenties, and even though Tanya was still just sixteen, Mum let her sleep with them at home. We were in separate rooms by that time, because Jamie had gone, and Tanya had a double bed in our old room. She’d disappear upstairs with boys quite openly, and come back down an hour or two later, grinning.

I didn’t want to be sleeping with boys the way Tanya did, but I was jealous of how popular she was. All the boys flocked around her and didn’t even seem to notice me. I was still very podgy and shy, while Tanya was gorgeous and confident.

Then one day she disappeared. She hadn’t been going to school for a while, so she spent her days out and about with various friends. We never knew where she was, but she always came home. Until one day she didn’t.

The next morning I told Mum that Tanya hadn’t come in. Mum didn’t seem worried. ‘She probably stayed at a mate’s,’ she said, yawning. ‘She’ll be back later.’ But Tanya wasn’t back later, and she didn’t appear the next day, or the next.

It was social services who alerted the police. Anna was away, so another social worker came to check on us because we weren’t at school, and heard that Tanya hadn’t been seen for a few days. By the time the police came round, Mum had cleaned the place up and was all motherly concern.

I was worried sick about Tanya, imagining she’d been kidnapped or murdered. Why else was there no word from her? If she was all right, surely she would let us know? But then, I thought, perhaps she wouldn’t. Perhaps she would think that no-one would really care.

When the police and social services weren’t around, Mum didn’t seem worried at all. I wondered sometimes whether perhaps she knew where Tanya was, and just didn’t want the authorities to find out.

It was twelve days before they found her, living with a twenty-five-year-old boyfriend, the boyfriend’s mother and her girlfriend, in a high-rise block of flats. She didn’t want to come home, and as she was sixteen they couldn’t force her. Mum certainly wasn’t bothered. But a couple of weeks later Tanya came back, her face bruised from where her boyfriend had hit her during a fight.

Once Tanya was back, things carried on just as before. Mum was drinking, smoking and carrying on with younger men. Tanya was out most of the time, or taking boys up to her room. As for me, I was miserable. I’d started to feel a bit better about myself when I was spending time with Dad and Sandra. But with Mum poking fun at me, calling me Fatty and treating me like a slave, my confidence plunged and I felt down in the dumps, lonely and in the way.

Like Tanya, I had stopped going to school. By the time I was thirteen, I had more or less left. I just couldn’t face the taunts, the name-calling and seeing people laughing at me. I was overweight and wore hideous clothes and was a sitting target for every bully. The teachers didn’t help me and, even though I wasn’t stupid, I was behind because I’d missed so much schooling. It seemed easier to give up on it all. No-one checked up on me or tried to get me to go to school, so I just sat at home. Sometimes I sat with Mum and her friends, but most of the time I was upstairs in my room, feeling that no-one in the world wanted me.

When she wasn’t partying at home, Mum was in the pub. Her favourite, the Angel Inn, was a few minutes from us, just off the estate. She would arrive there wearing stiletto heels and plastered with make-up and often spent most of the day there, drinking and joking around with the other regulars.

I didn’t mind her being in the pub - at least the house wasn’t full of people sitting around expecting me to make them tea. But it meant I was on my own even more, mooching around and wondering what to do with myself. Sometimes I went down to the pub with Mum and sat quietly in a corner with a packet of crisps, just so that I didn’t have to be on my own.

Most of the people in the pub were really friendly and some of them would come and say hello to me. But I never found it easy to chat or join in; I would blush and look awkward, until they gave up.

The pub was run by a couple, Gavin and Sheila. They were really nice and would often bring their three-year-old daughter, Lauren, down from the flat upstairs, where they lived. I would sit and cuddle her and play with her, and Mum suggested they might want me to babysit when they were busy and both had to work behind the bar. They jumped at the offer, and after that I often spent evenings upstairs at the pub, especially at weekends, playing with Lauren and putting her to bed. They didn’t pay me, but I didn’t mind - I loved looking after her and wished that I could have a baby of my own to care for.

Sheila was nice to me, but it was Gavin who was really friendly towards me. He would often pop up to see if I was OK, bringing me some crisps and lemonade from the bar. Sometimes he’d stay and chat and I loved the attention. I thought he was really good-looking and developed a bit of a crush on him, even though he was much older than I was. But I kept it to myself - he was married and, besides, I was sure he would only think it was a joke if he knew.

When Mum met yet another new man, Craig, I didn’t think he’d be any different from the others who’d come and gone. But Mum swore he was special and within a few days he’d moved in with us. He seemed all right. He was pleasant to me and he and Mum were always draped over one another, but it all seemed a bit hasty. Then one day, a couple of weeks after they’d met, Mum asked me to babysit at the pub so that Gavin and Sheila could go out with her and Craig for a few hours. I didn’t know where they were going, but it didn’t really matter, I was happy to babysit anyway.

When they got back, Mum seemed really excited and Gavin began pouring drinks for all of them. ‘Guess what?’ Mum said, coming over to where I was standing holding Lauren. ‘We’ve got married! We just came from the register office - Gavin and Sheila were our witnesses.’

I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to be glad for her, but she’d known Craig for two weeks. And she hadn’t bothered to tell me she was going to marry him - or to invite me. Or Tanya or Jamie, come to that.

‘Great, Mum. Congratulations,’ I managed, before turning to take Lauren back upstairs. If Mum noticed that I was upset, she didn’t care. They partied into the night and then went home and slept well into the next day.

Two days after the wedding Craig said he was just popping to the shops for something. ‘See you in a minute,’ he called, as he went out of the door. He never came back.

Mum wasn’t worried at first, but when she checked with the pub and he hadn’t been there, it dawned on her that he’d done a flit. She heard a few weeks later that he’d turned up on the other side of town, but she never managed to find him again, so she wasn’t able to get a divorce.

Everyone at the pub had a good laugh over it. Even Tanya and I teased Mum. It had been a pretty crazy thing to do. Mum seemed to see the funny side. But then, a few days later, I came back home after babysitting to find Mum sitting alone in the front room, in the dark.

‘Are you OK?’ I asked her. She pulled out a note and handed it to me. I looked at it - it said that she’d had enough of trying to cope with us kids and how horrible we were, that we made her ill and she wanted to get away from us forever.

I was devastated and burst into tears. It felt awful to think she wanted to leave me. I couldn’t help feeling that it was my fault and that I must be really bad. Yet when I looked up at her, she was grinning.

I wondered if she really hated us or if she’d written such a cruel note because she really was broken-hearted over Craig. But if she was, she made an amazingly rapid recovery in the next few days. She seemed to forget she had just gained and lost a husband, and she went back to partying and hanging out at the pub.

I carried on babysitting. It was nice to have something to do apart from sitting around watching people drink, and Gavin and Sheila were always nice to me. In fact, Gavin was becoming nicer and nicer. I always felt like the ugly one next to Tanya, so when he started telling me how lovely I was, I felt great. He was popping up to see me all the time, and he began sitting next to me and holding my hand at first and then cuddling me and stroking my arm.

I wasn’t sure what to do. I liked him, and he was nice to me, when most people barely noticed me. But he was older and married, and I didn’t want to do anything wrong. So I sat, blushing and saying very little, unsure whether to run or not, while he paid me compliments, told me how gorgeous I was and got more and more amorous.

The trouble was that I thought Gavin was wonderful and different from the men who had hurt me when I was little. I would have done anything for him. I didn’t see that he was a grown man in his early thirties grooming a thirteen-year-old girl. I just thought he was lovely because he was nice to me and wanted to spend time with me. I was the perfect prey.

Then one day he told me that he and Sheila were going to look after a pub in Wales for the weekend, to give the owners a break. They wanted me to go along with them to babysit. Mum was going to look after their pub while they were away, so everything was taken care of. I thought it sounded like an adventure, so I said yes.

In the car on the way up I sat in the back, next to Lauren, who was strapped into her seat. Sheila was in the passenger seat and as the hours passed both she and the toddler fell asleep. I became aware that Gavin was looking at me in his rear-view mirror. Time and time again I saw his eyes were fixed on me, and I became more and more uncomfortable. Why was he doing that? I just wanted him to stop.

When we finally arrived it was late. I helped Sheila put Lauren to bed, and then went to bed myself. I was sharing a room with Lauren, so that I’d be there if she woke.

I’d almost fallen asleep when Gavin appeared in the room. He told me how beautiful I was and that he had feelings for me. Then he sat on my bed and kissed me. I was so shocked I didn’t know what to do. His daughter was asleep next to us, his wife was downstairs in the pub, and if I screamed or made a fuss she would hear. So I did what I had always done - I tried to pretend it wasn’t happening.

After a few minutes, Gavin heard a noise and said, ‘I’d better go, but remember, it’s you I want,’ and slipped out. I lay awake for the next few hours in turmoil. I wanted a boyfriend, like Tanya, I wanted to be loved and I liked Gavin so much. But this was all wrong - Gavin was married, and too old. I didn’t know what to do.