Never a Hero to Me (25 page)

‘I’m sorry that your father has had to leave,’ she continued, ‘I’m sure he’s very busy.’

‘Will I see him again?’ I asked.

‘Yes . . . yes, you will. We have to release you to him when you leave us.’

It wasn’t a problem. I had escaped. When he came to collect me on the last day of term, I knew we were going to the airport where I’d fly to Scotland and that would be the start of the next stage of my life.

As soon as we drove through the school gates, he parked in a country lane. Without a word, he put his hand on my throat and pressed really hard, so much so I felt my eyes were going to pop out of my head.

‘You evil little fucker,’ he snarled. ‘You’ve ruined my fucking life.’

The irony wasn’t lost on me.

‘Do you know what you’ve done to me?’

I didn’t respond.

‘Well, I hope you’re satisfied. All I can be glad of is that your mother hates your fucking guts now – you’ve brought it on yourself.’

That irony wasn’t lost on me either.

He released me and started the car up again. The rest of the drive to the airport was mostly in silence apart from him finding comfort in calling me all the usual names. The four years since I had left home must have been hard for him as he’d had no one to throw his foul insults at. I just kept looking out of the window, avoiding his eyes and praying for the journey to end. When we got to the airport, he pulled up right outside the front door, jumped out of his seat, grabbed my luggage from the boot and threw it on the ground. I got out of the car while he was doing this and he got in as soon as he was done. He screeched off without another word or a backward glance.

When I got to Scotland, I stayed with family for a few weeks in a village on the east coast. Uncle Bobby and Auntie Wilma had no idea what had happened – all they knew was that I had left school and didn’t want to stay in Germany. Wilma did query why I had been through an expensive boarding school education (she assumed my dad had paid for it) but wasn’t going on to further education. I told her I wanted my independence and she seemed to accept it. I needed to stay with them for a month until my sixteenth birthday, but spent those weeks preparing for leaving to start my life alone. They were nice people but they had a connection with my dad and I didn’t want that.

I worked at a local farm, pulling tatties and cleaning the chicken coop, for three weeks. At the same time, I was applying to places for another job. I managed to get a position as a waitress at a hotel in Edinburgh, so travelled in from my relatives’ place for a little while. Within days of starting, I met the man who I was to marry – Dan. Dan’s Auntie Gloria had a spare room available and I jumped at the chance of renting it. As soon as I turned sixteen, I left my relatives. My new flat was in a place near Leith, which was a bustling area of quite high deprivation a couple of miles from the city centre. I was delighted to have the room, even if it was a bit of a dive, and even happier to have a link with Dan. I’d fallen head over heels in love with him, which wasn’t surprising really. I was absolutely desperate for love and normality, and also very deluded to think I would find it with the first boy I met. We married when I was eighteen, a month after his Auntie Gloria died. It was far too soon and the relationship was a long way from perfect. I guess I just wanted someone to take care of me. I hated being on my own, which was odd as I had craved it for years and done perfectly well while at boarding school. It was different being an adult though. All around me, people were in relationships and I was desperate to make a perfect life to prove that my past hadn’t damaged me.

When I married Dan, I was very naive despite what I had endured. I had only ever had sexual relationships with my father and his friends, and was a complete novice when it came to navigating adult relationships. I almost dismissed what happened when I was abused as completely distinct from the consensual sex a woman has with her chosen partner, so when Dan and I did sleep together for the first time, it was as if I was a virgin.

As I hadn’t been in Scotland for long when we met, I hadn’t really established any networks of friends. Dan was close to his mum, an alcoholic, and they were the only people I had much to do with. They obviously had their own friends, but I only had them. I found it hard to break into the closeness they had and was always striving to be who I thought they wanted me to be rather than myself. My friends were Dan’s friends and the little life we had in Leith was very claustrophobic.

When I got pregnant, I was still a teenager. Joe’s birth was long and difficult, I suspect made even worse by the damage which had been done to me internally through years of abuse. Joe was born with pneumonia and stayed in the maternity hospital for three weeks. I stayed with him all of that time as I had to express breast milk for him. It wasn’t what I had expected. When you have a poorly baby, all the dreams and images you associate with motherhood disappear and it is very hard to keep going. I was so focused on Joe but I was also very down. This wasn’t what I had dreamed of and I actually felt detached from the baby. I willed him to get better and I did all I could for him, but I didn’t feel the surge of maternal adoration I had expected, nor did I know that many women have the same reaction to their own baby, ill or not. It took many months before that bond was established, but I did feel a huge sense of relief when we were finally allowed to take him home.

Dan’s mother, Cathy, was an interfering old woman, and she was always nosey about my background. She wanted to know why I wasn’t in contact with my parents and I was always worried I would trip myself up on my own lies as I tried to throw her off the scent. However, she was like a dog with a bone. She didn’t like me, and I suspect one of the reasons she wanted to find my parents was in the hope that she could persuade them to take me far away from her precious son.

A few days after Joe was born, Cathy sailed into the maternity ward. I could smell the booze on her from a mile away, but she seemed happy today, which was out of character. ‘I’ve got a surprise for you!’ she announced. I looked behind her, towards the ward door, and there stood my mum and dad. Cathy was delighted. She had tracked them down somehow and discovered they were living at Redford Barracks. Apparently, they had been back in the UK since 1979 and living in the same city as me for two years. Dad had taken voluntary redundancy due to Mum’s health, and they were living on a reduced pension about half an hour from where I stayed. I could hardly believe it. I was feeling awful as it was. I was flooded with post-pregnancy hormones and Joe was still really ill – and now my abuser had turned up with the mother who hated me.

It was difficult to say the least. Naturally, nothing was said – I say ‘naturally’ because my family was based on lies and secrets. My mum seemed to think she could waltz in and be a granny when she had never proven herself to be a mother in the first place. When I got home with Joe, I found it very hard to work out where I was going with my life. I had thought I knew what I needed to be, the person I needed to grow into becoming, but now I was being thrown back to everything I wanted to escape. I hated Cathy for bringing them into my life.

It affected my marriage as I had never gone into detail with Dan about what had happened to me and he was oblivious to how hard I was finding it to cope. We were arguing a lot and he was violent towards me. When we moved house to the Pilton area of the city, I had hoped it could be a fresh start but nothing changed. I wouldn’t let Dad visit but Mum was coming round quite often. I always put a brave face on when I saw her because I wanted her to believe everything was working out for me. It was important for me to make her think I had a happy life, a perfect child, a loving marriage and a man who cared for me. The truth was the return of my father into my life coupled with my so-called marriage and the birth had all taken their toll. I remained disgusted at Dad for what he had done and upset at Mum for never having believed me. I have to admit that I never mentioned the abuse again to Mum at that point because I wanted to have a relationship with her. I was hoping against hope she could show that she loved me after all, but deep down I knew she was only back in my life for Joe.

I was very protective of my baby, never letting him out of my sight, but when he was eight months old, I had to accept that I had post-natal depression. Mum didn’t know, as I was still keeping up the pretence of having a great life.

It seemed as if I was never to be free of my past, even now I was a wife and mother, but I knew I would keep fighting while I still had breath left in my body.

As time went on, we all tried to muddle along. The postnatal depression faded with the help of medication and I continued trying to be the woman I wanted to be. I had told my mother very early on that under no circumstances would I leave my son in their care. Joe would never be left with my father. She didn’t even look shocked when I said that, she merely said, ‘If that’s what you want.’ That response spoke volumes to me. If she had believed in her husband’s innocence, she surely would have protested at that point?

Visits to my mother’s were nearly always when Dad was working. When she came to my house to visit me, he would drop her off and pick her up without coming into my home. After a few months of my shaky reconciliation with them, he started a job as a security officer, which ensured he was in uniform again – I think that really mattered to him, it gave him an identity. When we did meet, he would avoid conversation and eye contact. Unsurprisingly, seeing him was always a reminder to me of the abuse. It made me feel uncomfortable, sick to the stomach and anxious – the memories of what he had done would seem all too real again.

While Joe was little, I saw them maybe once a fortnight (well, I saw Mum really), and I only ever stayed for a couple of hours. Dad was usually working – I think we all preferred it that way as it saved awkwardness. Not that Mum and I had much to say to each other. It was all centred around Joe and what stage he was at. She never asked me how I was or even commented when I would turn up with bruises or a black eye. I shouldn’t have been surprised.

I have wondered about whether my father abused any other children. It may have happened in Germany, it may have happened when I was at boarding school or when I left, but I don’t know for sure. Paedophiles don’t stop as far as I can tell. They keep going until they get caught or they can’t do it any more. I do feel that, even if he did abuse others, I was his main focus. From what I learned about his behaviour once he came to Edinburgh, I don’t think he continued as he was acting so erratically that he wouldn’t have been capable of maintaining the web of lies required to do anything. When he lived in Edinburgh and then on the outskirts, he was a loner, keeping himself to himself.

My Auntie Fiona, Mum’s sister, also lived in the village my parents had moved to and saw him every day. She said he was always quiet; she thought maybe he was missing the Army and not adjusting to civvy life terribly well, and Mum had said the same on more than one occasion. My immediate thought to myself was ‘Yes, that would be the case – he doesn’t have his “friends” with him.’ I know that was very bitter, but I
was
still feeling bitter about the abuse and about him ‘getting away’ with it.

Mum was ill again. She had been diagnosed properly at last, but her body was rejecting the medication given. She had to have her spleen taken out and was in hospital for a few months. When she was first taken in she suggested that I visit her in the afternoon and Dad would come in for the evening sessions, so we would never bump into each other. That was fine by me, although by then I had another new baby and it was a lot to juggle, but she was in there for so long it meant I didn’t see just how ill he was becoming too. When I had visited them at their house, or he dropped her off at mine, I caught glimpses. With this new arrangement, I was seeing less of him. I was however gradually getting snippets from Auntie Fiona. According to her, his behaviour was becoming stranger by the day.

One day, Auntie Fiona came to the hospital just as I was leaving. It was intentional as she wanted to talk to me, but not in front of Mum. She said my father was acting strangely at home and, that morning, she had seen him driving on the wrong side of the road. She was keeping the house tidy for Mum and had gone round that morning and let herself in. Mum had wooden wall panels, the décor of the time, but my father had apparently drilled big holes in the wall; not just one or two but dozens. The house was a complete mess and one bedroom was completely full of toilet rolls he had stolen from his work.

Dad came into the hospital just as Fiona was finishing telling me all of this – I can only assume he had no concept of time either. He looked almost demonic. His eyes were wide and staring, he was sneering like an idiot, ranting aloud, saying, ‘They thought they would catch me, but I fucked them up!’

Auntie Fiona said, ‘Who are you talking about, Harry?’

He just said, ‘You know, you know who I’m talking about! I couldn’t find them in the walls but I know they’re there somewhere!’

He kept uttering unintelligible drivel to himself. He didn’t acknowledge my presence but, then again, I’m sure he didn’t recognise Fiona either. She told me to go and get a doctor as she took him to Mum’s ward and sat him down. When I returned to Mum he was dribbling at the mouth and sniggering to himself with his eyes wide. Mum was in a room by herself and he was looking around madly. Fiona told Mum he was a little bit under the weather so she had called for a doctor to look at him. Mum hadn’t witnessed the short conversation Fiona had with my father but she saw from looking at him that something was very wrong. She was quite poorly herself and I felt so sorry for her. She didn’t say much and just stared at him.

The doctor came and observed Dad for about twenty minutes. I had to go as the baby was getting fractious and I needed to pick up Joe from toddler group. I wasn’t really interested in Dad but decided to go back and see my mum again that night as her visit had been interrupted.