Wake Up, Mummy (9 page)

Then, one day, I heard my mother telling Carl that Chris and I were old enough to start having baths on our own. I was so delighted I almost shouted out loud, but I wanted to hear what Carl was going to say, so I managed to stay quiet as I stood by the open living-room door and listened. He began to argue with my mother, and I could tell he was trying to sound reasonable and hide the annoyance I could detect in his voice. I smiled to myself at the thought that he was wasting his time, because when my mother made up her mind she rarely changed
it. Carl, too, must have realised he wasn’t going to convince her, and he soon began to talk about something else, although I knew that that wasn’t the end of the matter. He was as devious and determined to get his own way as my mother was and, as I knew he would, he soon came up with an alternative plan.

One day, he announced that in future I was not to get out of the bath until he came to dry me. He claimed that it was because I got water everywhere and regularly soaked the entire bathroom. That wasn’t true, but as my mother never came upstairs when we were getting ready for bed, she took Carl’s word for it and, after that, I always had to call him when I’d finished my bath. I would stay in the cooling water for as long as I could, sometimes until I was shivering with cold, but eventually I’d have to shout through the open bathroom door and then sit listening to the sound of his feet thudding up the stairs towards me.

He’d make me stand in the bath while the water drained away, and then he’d wipe every inch of my body with a sponge before I was allowed to touch a towel or step out on to the bathmat. I hated him running his horrible hands all over me and I tried and tried to think of some way to outwit him. I’d never really thought of simply disobeying him, but, eventually, when I’d run out of any other ideas, I washed myself quickly one day and
then jumped out of the bath, dried myself on a towel and ran into my bedroom.

When Carl came upstairs and realised I hadn’t waited for him to sponge me dry, he flew into a terrible rage. Ripping the belt from his trousers, he lashed it repeatedly across my bare body, shouting, ‘You fucking little bastard! You got the fucking place soaking.’ I hadn’t, but I knew there was no point trying to defend myself.

The best nights were those when Chris and I were left alone in the house while Carl and my mother went to the pub or a casino. We were used to being left to look after ourselves, and it wasn’t until a friend of mine stayed over one night that I discovered other parents didn’t leave their children home on their own while they went out.

My brother, my friend and I were sitting on the sofa together, watching a late-night horror film on TV, when my friend suddenly asked, ‘Where’s your mum?’

‘She’s at the pub,’ I answered, snuggling further down under the blanket we’d spread across ourselves.

‘Aren’t you worried about her?’ My friend sounded surprised.

‘No. Why should I be worried about her?’ Although I shrugged as though I wasn’t concerned, what I really meant was ‘no more than usual’, because the truth was that I worried about my mother all the time.

‘If my mum knew we were going to be here on our own, she wouldn’t have let me stay,’ my friend said, and then added in a thoughtful voice, ‘I think we better not tell her.’

‘Okay,’ I agreed, storing away this new bit of information about what was normal in other families so that I could think about it later.

Although my mother didn’t have a driving licence, she was often the one who drove home in the early hours of the morning after she and Carl had been to the pub, because despite the fact that she’d be almost too drunk to get up the stairs, Carl would be worse.

One night after they’d been out, I woke up with my heart thumping as Carl came crashing into my bedroom. My mother must have passed out downstairs as soon as they got home, because he obviously wasn’t afraid of her hearing him. He stood in the doorway for a moment, one hand resting against the door as he tried to regain his balance, and then he staggered towards my bed. I could smell the familiar stench of cigarettes and drink as he leaned down towards me, dragged the covers on to the floor, and tried to force his hands between my thighs. He was being rougher than usual and he was hurting me. I twisted my hips to try to turn away from him. But he grabbed my legs and flipped me over on to my back, hissing, ‘You love it, you dirty little bitch. Open your
legs.’ I kicked out at him and shouted ‘Bugger off!’ and then, ridiculously, was instantly terrified of getting into trouble for swearing at him.

He was so drunk he kept falling backwards against the cupboard behind him, and eventually he gave up and staggered out of my bedroom. And it was then that I realised that whenever my mother was in a drunken stupor – which was almost every night – Carl could do exactly what he liked to me, safe in the knowledge that she would never wake up and come to my defence.

After that night, I became convinced he was going to murder us all, and I’d lie in bed shaking as I listened to him downstairs, becoming louder and more aggressive with each drink. I was determined to stay awake. My heart would be pounding and my fists would be clenched so tightly that my fingernails left small, red, half-moon-shaped marks on the sweating palms of my hands. The worst thing of all, though, was the thought that when the time came and he made his move to try to kill us, I would be responsible for protecting my mother and brother.

Although I was always very frightened of Carl, I became more defiant towards him in some ways as I got older. I continued to refuse to call him Dad, and I tried not to speak to him at all unless I had to, and then I’d get his attention by shouting ‘Oi!’ It always made him furious. He’d accuse me of being rude to him and not
appreciating him, and then – to my amazement – he’d have the nerve to whine to my mother that I didn’t show him any respect.

I’d do everything I could think of to avoid being alone in the house with him. If ever I had to go home before my mother was there, I’d sit outside at the front, near the pavement, and wait for her – even if it was pouring with rain and pitch dark. If I was in the house when my mother went out and I had to stay there for some reason, I’d run silently up the stairs and hide in the wicker washing basket, which was in the cupboard in my mother’s (and Carl’s) bedroom. I was just small and skinny enough to fit inside, and I’d pull the dirty clothes over my head and close the lid. Then I’d wait there until my mother came home, holding my breath as I listened to Carl searching the house for me. Sometimes, he’d call my name angrily, and sometimes his tone would be cajoling and he’d promise he wasn’t going to ‘do’ anything to me. He often opened the door of the cupboard where I was hiding, but he never found me, and each time I felt a thrill of satisfaction knowing that I’d outsmarted and frustrated him.

One day, I was in the front garden when my mother came out of the house with Chris and asked, ‘Do you want to come with us? We’re going to the shop.’

‘No, I’ll wait here till you get back,’ I told her.

She shrugged and said, ‘Okay. Please yourself,’ and as she pushed Chris through the gate ahead of her, I heard him say, ‘But I thought you said we weren’t to leave her at home alone with Carl.’

My mother slapped him across the back of his head and hissed angrily, ‘I told you not to talk about it in front of her.’ Then she turned to look over her shoulder at me.

I stared into her eyes for a moment, and then said, ‘It’s all right. I’m going to stay out here. I won’t go in the house.’ And as I sat and watched them walk up the road, I wondered what my mother could have meant.

She’d caught Carl on at least a couple of occasions with his hands down my trousers when he was playing one of his ‘games’. Her tone had been sharp when she’d asked him what he was doing. But he’d pretended he hadn’t noticed the look she was giving him and he’d answered jovially, ‘Just playing,’ or ‘Just keeping our hands warm.’ She’d looked at me then, before turning away and walking out of the room, presumably deciding to ignore a possibility she didn’t want to have to face.

A couple of years later, I heard her tell a houseful of drunks that if anyone ever raped or attacked me, she wouldn’t report it to the police, because she wouldn’t want me to have to go through the trauma of standing up in court to give evidence. At the time, I thought it was an odd thing for her to say, but I wonder now if it was her
way of trying to convince herself she’d done the right thing when she decided not to rock the already unstable boat that was our household by asking questions when she’d rather not hear the answers.

Living with Carl taught me not to trust anyone. Gradually, I built a wall around myself in an attempt to prevent anyone being able to hurt me. However, it was a wall that also prevented anyone getting close to me. The hugs and kisses I’d always had from my grandparents had been very important to me, not least because they’d seemed like affirmation of the fact that I was loved, and therefore lovable. But by the time I was eight or nine years old I refused to let even my grandparents touch me. If I was left alone in a room with one of the uncles who’d been so good to me from the day I was born, I’d get up and walk out, just in case they came too close. When I’d lived with my grandparents, I’d been almost constantly cheerful and affectionate, but now I came across as a cold, heartless little girl who loved no one and who never showed her feelings, whether happy or sad. Everyone must have thought I hated them. But it was all a front, a carefully erected barrier to hide behind so that no one else could hurt me.

I had no one to talk to or confide in. My mother was always drunk, high on pills, or both, and in any case she didn’t care what I thought or how I felt. She had no
energy or interest to spare for anyone but herself. One of the things I particularly hated was rushing home from school bursting to tell her about something that had happened during the day, and finding she was already drunk. My heart would sink, because I knew there was absolutely no point trying to talk to her. And even if I did manage to make her listen to me, she’d misunderstand whatever it was I was saying and it wouldn’t be long before she flew into a rage and attacked me.

My mother had obviously told Carl about her life before she met him – at least,
her
version of its events. In fact, she related to anyone who’d listen the exaggerated details of all the hardships she’d had to bear. Whereas, in reality, most of her problems were self-inflicted, the result of too much alcohol and not taking her medication properly. I think the main reason she talked about them was because she loved the attention she received when she told people how my father used to beat her up and how he had never loved me, his first child and his only daughter. She didn’t care at all for my sake about my father not liking me; she just enjoyed basking in reflected sympathy when she ladled on the pathos and described how miserable it was for her poor little girl, and how brutal and aggressive my father had been towards
her
because of his hatred of me.

I would feel physically sick when she talked about it. Not just because I hated her discussing me with total
strangers and because it made me feel as though there was something wrong with me if my own father couldn’t love me, but also because I knew that Carl valued any knowledge he could glean about me that would give him ammunition when he taunted me. He often accused me of ruining my mother’s life, and would thrust a nicotine-stained finger into my face as he blamed me for her alcoholism and for all her mental health problems – while choosing to overlook the fact that if she hadn’t been a mentally ill alcoholic, she’d certainly never have got herself tied up with a grizzled, ugly no-hoper like him.

I was nine years old when my mother’s behaviour changed from erratic to dangerous, and she was sectioned for four months. She was in hospital over Easter, and I used the little bit of money I’d saved up to buy her a box of three creme eggs. I gave them to her when we went to see her at the hospital, and she was really pleased. She opened the box immediately and insisted on giving one to me, one to my brother and keeping one for herself. It was the sort of thing a normal mother might do, and it was one of the moments when I realised I loved her, despite everything.

Although I had precious little evidence to support the idea that she loved Chris and me, I think she did, as much as she was able to feel affection for anyone. Like everything else about her, though, her love was erratic. When she was sober, she could sometimes be like a proper
mother – which always drove Carl crazy. He hated it when she was nice to us, because caring about
us
meant diverting her attention away from
him
, and he’d behave like a spoilt, jealous little boy.

That day in the hospital, when she was nice to Chris and me, I think she was missing us, possibly for the first time in her life. I was certainly missing
her
; I
really
wanted her to come home, and to be like that all the time. So I felt particularly miserable when we left her there and walked back through the sterile, empty hospital corridors towards the exit.

As soon as we got into the car, I burst into tears and Carl turned on me immediately, shouting, ‘Shut your fucking mouth. I don’t know why you’re crying in any case; you’re the reason your mother’s locked up in a mental hospital.’

All the way home, he continued to taunt me, saying, ‘Your mother only drinks because of you,’ and ‘Even your own father hates you.’ Then he turned to my brother, who was sitting in the passenger seat beside him, and said, ‘If it wasn’t for your sister, your mum wouldn’t be ill and she wouldn’t be in that godforsaken dump of a hospital. She’d be safe at home with us.’

At first my brother just looked unhappy, but, with Carl’s persistent encouragement, he soon began to torment me too, and to tease me because I was crying.

It was just one more step towards my already almost complete acceptance of the fact that I was responsible for everything bad in my mother’s life – which meant just about every aspect of it. If I hadn’t been born, she wouldn’t be a hopeless, abandoned alcoholic and she wouldn’t have the mental health problems, which, amongst other things, prevented her from ever being happy or contented. I was guilty, and it was no wonder my father hated me too.