What Daddy Did (25 page)

I can honestly say that this was the single most important relationship with a man I have had in my adult years because it allowed me to shape a real role model of how fathers should be. Through him, I got the father I never really had. It was he who arranged and paid for my wedding to Robert. It was he who was the granddad to my children. He taught me to cook roast dinners; we went to the theatre and concerts; we even went shopping together. Robert and I would join Bob nearly every weekend at his holiday cottage in St Monance. This time in my life was full and rewarding because I finally had the parents and family I'd always wanted.

When Bob died I was devastated. I cried so hard at his funeral. Looking back, his immediate family must have wondered about the intensity of my grief, but, of course, they knew nothing about my past or just how much this man meant to me. Perhaps they will understand if they read this.

PAUL WAS BORN ON
26 November 1986. He arrived on the day he was due and weighed exactly 9lb. I'm not a very big person, and Robert isn't very tall either, so it was quite a surprise to give birth to such a big baby; an extremely painful surprise! I felt that Paul was
the
most wanted baby ever. After having suffered a miscarriage the previous year, I felt that I was doomed not to have children. Also, although I never discussed it, I was terrified that the years of sexual abuse had done untold damage.

As I sat in hospital on a very wintry day with my beautiful boy in my arms, I was overjoyed that I had been given such a gift, and terrified that I wouldn't be able to be a good mother to him. I needn't have worried, though, because I couldn't even let him out of my sight. When the nurses came to take him for his heel jab I cried pitifully. I'm sure they must have thought I was a complete lunatic, but only I really knew how very precious this baby was to me.

The first night I took Paul home he slept in a Moses basket right beside my bed and I fed him on demand. I read book after book on how to bring up children and how to stimulate them. My favourite author at the time was Penelope Leach. I bathed him and fed him, sang to him and read him the newspapers. I took him out for walks and showed him the world. At 10 months, he was walking. At a year, he could recite nursery rhymes. By the time he went to school he was reading. Although I'd initially been terrified of letting him down, I actually found motherhood very easy. There were so many rewards just sitting there as I watched him develop and grow. The reassurance that I was doing well came from Paul's happy demeanour and selfconfidence.

There have been difficult times, such as when Robert left, and times when he has had to be 'the man' of the family, but I am proud to say that he has turned out to be one of the most wellbalanced and likeable young men I have ever had the pleasure to know. Paul and I discuss most things and we have a good relationship. He is warm and kind and a gentleman.

It would have been very easy for me to have overprotected my children or been too soft with them. However, I made a decision early on in Paul's life that I would do the opposite of what happened to me as a child – I would bring them up in a fair environment where they always had a voice. They would be able to question anything I asked of them; and if they felt what I was asking was unfair then they should not be expected to comply just because I said so. I also felt it was important to give them boundaries – bedtimes, manners, respect and so forth.

I love all my children equally and differently. They are my finest achievements in life, but there is something in particular about Paul that gets to me. Perhaps it's because he's a boy and I've had to be both Mum and Dad to him. Maybe the knowledge that the way I've brought him up has paid off enormously is at the bottom of our relationship. Paul knows about my past in general but doesn't know all the details. I'm happy for it to stay that way until he chooses, if ever, to read my story.

Paul is very like his father in both physical appearance and nature, yet I see some of my characteristics in him too – his utter optimism for a start. He has a complete love of life and adventure, meeting people and travelling. There is too much in the world for Paul to see. These are a few of the things that make me very proud of him, and proud of myself for having managed to raise such a lovely boy against all the odds.

Claire was born in September 1987, and, unlike Paul, arrived three weeks early. She was 6lb 10oz and absolutely gorgeous, with big dark eyes and a shock of black hair. I was much more confident with Claire. I wasn't so worried and didn't have the anxieties I'd experienced when I first brought Paul home. Paul was so lovely with her; there was none of the sibling rivalry that I had read of and expected, even though he was only 18 months old at the time. He was loving and protective of his new little sister – whether this had something to do with the fact that I had got him his own baby doll to look after before she came home, I don't know. We'd bathe our babies together, take them out for walks and read them stories.

Claire was a happy, joyful little girl and determined, very determined. She has been a real joy to me, and has grown into a woman I am very proud of. Even though she struggled at school with dyslexia, she never let it get in her way, and has overcome any problems she may have had to finally land herself a place at university to progress to her much coveted career as a midwife.

She has known loss and rejection, as has Paul, because, sadly, the relationship between Robert and I didn't last. He left when Claire was two and a half. I still care for Robert, and I don't want to say anything about our life together that he may not want to be made public. However, when he left to go and live in Portugal with a new partner some years later, he didn't seem to realise that it was still very important to maintain contact with his children, to reassure them of his love for them and make them feel as important as his new partner. As an adult, I could see that this was because he had wrongly assumed that the children no longer needed him now they were growing up. However, Claire's adolescent mind, rightly so, couldn't understand and saw it as rejection.

Claire and I have had to work through many issues regarding this, coupled with the fact that my second husband also felt threatened by the link between Claire and myself. He tried at all opportunities to divide and separate us, but he could never break the bond that we had established many years before. It is my belief that if you make this bond well with your children in the early years of their lives – if you nurture them, play with them and love them – no-one can ever change that.

Claire is a wise and clever young woman. She could see through my second husband long before I did, but she stuck it out and supported me. When I finally saw for myself the damage and destruction he was trying to create – when I finally plucked up the courage to leave him – it was Claire who was there to see me through it all. Claire has good values; she is headstrong and focused; she is a respectful, loving daughter, a wonderful friend, and – most importantly – she is her own person.

And then there is my baby. Saoirse was born in December 1996, and, as I always say to her, she was the finest, most wonderful Christmas gift I have ever had. I met Chris, her father, before I travelled to South Africa. I liked him from the start as he was a kind and gentle person, the type of man who is everyone's friend. When I returned from my travels, we hit it off, started dating and within no time we were living together. We both needed someone and just fell into each other's lives. Within a matter of months I was pregnant. I couldn't believe it as I was usually so careful about taking precautions, and I wouldn't generally just fall into a relationship so quickly, but I did this time. When I knew I was going to have a baby I was genuinely delighted. For some reason it seemed right.

My children knew Chris. They had always liked him and his gentle ways. Everything just fell into place, and the result was Saoirse. Her name is the Irish Gaelic for 'freedom'. When she arrived, she was like an angel coming into our lives. She was white blonde from the moment she was born, and still has lovely blonde hair and the bluest eyes. Saoirse is such a gentle, loving girl, with the most beautiful singing voice. She is artistic, insightful and very clever. We all fell in love with her from the moment we saw her. Claire was like a little mum to her and Paul just loved to show her the world.

Chris and I tried to make our relationship work, but, sadly, it didn't. However, he is a wonderful father to Saoirse and remains a respected friend to us all. I would say that Saoirse is the child who has been with me the most on my journey into my past, albeit without her actually knowing. She was only five years old when I gave my statement to the police regarding my stepmother, the same age as I was when I returned to live with my father and Helen. That was very difficult. I looked at my little girl every day as I went through the memories of what had happened to me, and I wondered, as I saw her innocence, how any adult could actually want to damage such purity. I had to keep myself in check all of the time. I had to make sure I didn't overcompensate for my pain and possibly destroy her childhood in the process. I wanted to protect her but didn't want to overprotect her. These issues weren't there in Paul and Claire's childhood because the past then was buried, but every day as I was faced with a new memory, a new pain, it was very difficult to see this child and not think of myself at that age.

I don't know how but I managed to keep it from her. She knew, as my older children did, that something was going on, and I knew I had to give her an explanation. The only way I felt I could explain it to her was by telling her the story of Snow White – I was Snow White and Helen was the evil stepmother. When I finally went to court, I told her that the man (the judge) was going to tell Helen that she had been very bad and that she had to say sorry. With this explanation I was able to simplify and explain in a way that she could understand.

Saoirse is 11 years old now and understands a little more than she did then, but it's not a topic that comes up very often – and I won't allow it to because that was my childhood, not hers. She has a normal, happy life with a Mum, Dad, sister and brother who love her, and a big extended family and many friends. She is a little girl growing and developing in a world far from mine. She is without fear and surrounded by love. I can give her what I never had, and I am so very thankful for that.