Don't You Love Your Daddy? (13 page)

My father’s hand gently stroked my bare knees and his fingers ran slowly around the tops of my white knee-length socks. ‘Well, she’ll keep you out of mischief, won’t she?’ he said, and my grandmother smiled happily at what she thought she saw – a father and daughter who loved each other.

‘Dolly’s my present to you for being such a good little girl,’ he whispered in my ear. He smiled at me then, a flickering secret smile, and it was as though the present of the puppy had somehow drawn me deeper into colluding with him and ensured that our shared secret would remain one.

That night I made her a bed with an old blanket and she curled up against me as my arm held her tightly, dreading the time when my father would come home.

I woke to the sound of him tiptoeing into my room and felt the comforting warmth of Dolly’s little body being removed. He placed her and the blanket on the floor where, even at only a few weeks old, she knew to stay.

Then I felt the heaviness of him climbing into bed.

‘Time for you to thank your daddy properly, Sally,’ he said, as his hand slid up my legs and his saliva dampened my chin as he forced his big tongue between my tightly shut lips.

When at last I heard his satisfied grunts and felt his tensed body go slack, he climbed out of my bed and stood beside it. His voice turned into a daddy’s one when he said good night and then left the room. That night my tears soaked Dolly’s fur when I picked her up and placed her beside me. Her little tongue tried to catch them as they ran down my face, but there were too many for her to deal with.

The Monday after he had returned home with Dolly, my father told me that the lady from social services was going to pay us another visit.

‘You know what she wants, don’t you, Sally?’ he asked. Before I could reply he repeated the threat that, even though I had heard it three times before without anything happening, still had the power to terrify me.

‘She still wants to take you and Billy away and put you both in a home. And you know what that means, don’t you?’

I just stared blankly at him as the old feeling of panic took hold of me.

‘I told you before what would happen if she did that, Sally. You haven’t forgotten, have you? It means that you’d never see your nana, Pete or me again. And they don’t allow you to have pets either, so you’d also have to say goodbye to Dolly. You wouldn’t like that, would you?’

In just those few days since I had been given her, I’d come to love the little dog and the thought of losing her was unbearable. I picked her up and held her against me. ‘No, they can’t! Please, Daddy, don’t let them,’ I whispered.

‘Well, as long as you tell them you’re happy at home and that you’re never left alone. And mind that’s all you say. Do you understand me, Sally?’

I understood. I knew he meant I mustn’t talk about the secret.

‘So you’re going to be a good girl, aren’t you, Sally? And keep doing everything your nana and I ask you to?’ he asked urgently.

‘Yes,’ I replied, looking into Dolly’s adoring upturned face.

Pete came into the room then and nothing more was said to me. My brother was told that we were having another visit from the social worker and that he was also expected to be at home when she came.

‘She won’t want to talk to you much. You’re leaving school soon anyway, but it looks good if she sees we’re still a family.’

Pete just said a surly, ‘All right,’ then told me it was time to leave for class.

All that day at school I worried about the impending visit. A home where orphans were put, I believed, because my father had described it to me over and over again, was a huge cold place with rows of narrow beds and a stern-faced matron. Children were not allowed to play or talk and had to work before and after school, scrubbing floors and doing other chores. They never saw their families again. When they were old enough to work they were sent away to be servants in big houses and they slept in a cold, draughty attic. And I was half an orphan, after all, wasn’t I?

That evening was similar to the last time the social worker had visited. My grandmother arrived at the house with a neat and tidy Billy and me, while Pete returned dutifully from school and placed his books on the table. The social worker chatted to me about Dolly. She said she could see how much I loved her and, without thinking, I told her enthusiastically about how it was my job to feed her and let her outside. Then, remembering that my father had said that if I was taken into a home I wouldn’t be able to keep her, I became quiet and eyed the social worker with suspicion.

She asked me how I was getting on at school. She probed as to what I liked doing most and what I did in the evenings, how often I saw my grandmother and how much time Billy and I spent with her. But her main concern was whether I was ever left in the house alone.

I told her I was happy at school, that I liked going to my nana’s house and that, no, nothing was troubling me; I told her just what my father had instructed me to say.

I heard him go on to say that his mother and sister looked after the baby full-time now and that I stayed at Nana’s house until he returned from work.

The social worker left after an hour. As she gathered up her things she told me she was pleased to see me looking so well. She added that this was her last visit because she wouldn’t need to see me again unless anything else untoward happened.

‘You did good, Sally,’ my father said, after she had gone.

I didn’t know then that what I feared most was going to happen anyway. That in a year’s time I would be torn away from everything that was familiar and that, once again, my life would change for the worse.

Without the fear that the social worker would remove me from my home, my father thought of another ploy to intimidate the child of seven I was then. Once again he knew this would ensure my silence. He told me about heaven and how, if I was good all through my life, one day I would go there and meet my mother again.

‘What did you learn at Sunday school this morning?’ he asked me pleasantly, on the afternoon that he put his plan into action.

Surprised and pleased by his interest, I told him about one of the stories the teacher had read to us.

‘And has your teacher told you about heaven and that only good people go there?’ he enquired.

‘Yes,’ I replied, although I was still uncertain how we got there.

‘You know that’s where your mother is, don’t you?’

‘Yes, Daddy.’

‘Now, your grandmother told you how one day when you’re a lot older you’ll meet her again, didn’t she?’

I remembered that my grandmother had told me about heaven and how my mother would live on in my memories, but not that I would meet her again. Seeing my puzzled look, he explained that when we died all the good people went to heaven. I had been taught that at Sunday school hadn’t I? he asked. I told him I had.

‘Now do you know what being good means?’

I thought desperately about any misdemeanours I had committed and could think of none.

Without waiting for an answer my father carried on talking. ‘It means obeying the Ten Commandments. You’ve learnt about them at Sunday school, haven’t you?’

Anxious to please him, I warily said, ‘Yes,’ again.

‘Name some of them to me,’ he ordered, and my mind went blank.

I told him I knew the ones about not lying or stealing but that was all I could remember.

‘Look here,’ he said, and he opened his Bible at a pre-marked page. ‘See what this says, Sally.’ He read it out to me in a slow, booming voice, a bit like the minister’s when he gave his sermon each Sunday. ‘ “Honour thy father and mother.” ’ Then, dramatically, he closed the Bible with a triumphant snap. ‘That means, Sally, that you must do everything you are told to by me. If you don’t, when you die you will go straight to hell.’

I didn’t know what that meant either but I had heard the word in one of the church sermons and knew it was not a place anyone would want to go. My father made sure that I was fully aware of how terrible it was there. He told me about the devil and the fire and how the spirits that were sent there spent eternity in pain and torment.

‘And if you were sent there because you had been bad,’ he continued, seemingly oblivious to the tears of fright that were leaking from my saucer-sized eyes as he drew those pictures in my mind, ‘then you will never meet your mother again. Now do you understand why you must obey the commandment?’

I burst into tears then as the thoughts he had placed in my head were just too horrific for me to cope with. But long after I had stopped sobbing they took root and stayed in my mind for a very long time; thoughts that would ensure my silence until I believed that it was too late for me to speak out about what he had done.

I had forgotten that when my mother had taken the pills he had said she had committed a mortal sin and told her she would rot in hell for ever for doing it.

My life had now taken on a set pattern: school, church and walking Dolly. The last was the only one of those I enjoyed doing. Wearing her red collar and matching lead, the little white dog pranced at my side, and whenever I stopped she cocked her head upwards looking questioningly at me.

I passed boys the same age as Pete who, dressed in tight jeans that flared from the knees, their hair long and greasy, lounged around smoking on street corners and studiously ignored us. But the girls, with their minute miniskirts revealing pale legs dimpled with the residue of puppy fat, balanced precariously on platform shoes, turned to admire Dolly whenever we walked by. Their faces, smothered in thickly applied makeup to disguise their youth, always broke into wide smiles at the sight of my fluffy little dog.

‘She’s so gorgeous! What’s her name?’ they would ask and, forgetting their desire to look sophisticated, would bend down to pet her. Proud of the attention Dolly received, I took great delight in telling them.

After his confusing conversation with me about heaven, my father paid me little attention and continued to act as though the now regular visits to my room at night never happened.

Frightened both by the thought that the social worker might come back and take me away and that my father would be coming to my room the next time Pete stayed at his friend’s, my sleep was disturbed by frequent nightmares. I dreamt about a huge rambling old house where white-clad children, like so many ghosts, drifted wraith-like around its empty dark rooms. These figures called silently to me and came up to me and stared into my face, but when I looked at them there was only a blank black circle where their faces should have been. At other times I was falling and I felt my body plummeting helplessly towards unknown horrors, the air rushing past me, as the ground came closer and closer. I would awake with a start, drenched in sweat. With my heart pounding, I was too afraid to go back to sleep in case I had to return to the dream to confront the creatures. I would search the darkness, frightened that something might be lurking in the corners, but then, pulling Dolly closer for comfort, I would finally fall back into a troubled sleep.

My grandmother, seeing the signs of those disturbed nights in the dark shadows beneath my eyes, asked me if anything was troubling me. But my terror of the social worker, coupled with my new fear that God saw and heard everything, ensured my silence.

On weekend nights I always went to bed very reluctantly and even suggested to Nana that I should stay at her house rather than her coming to babysit. But late at night, when I heard the front door open and him bid her farewell, the sinking feeling in my stomach was replaced by nausea and fear. As I listened to him coming up the stairs my palms would grow damp and I would clutch Dolly to me. She always picked up on my fear and seemed to know that she would be roughly thrown off the bed as soon as he came in. Instead of snuggling closer to me, as she always did when I awoke from a nightmare, she would wriggle free and retreat to her wicker basket on the landing before he reached the room.

It was fairly soon after my father had told me about heaven and hell that I had my first attack of asthma. It happened at school on a Thursday afternoon when my thoughts were full of dread as to what the next day might bring.

It was a spelling lesson and the night before I had painstakingly learnt the ten words that had been set for homework. But even though I was convinced I had memorized them correctly, I was equally convinced when I sat in the classroom that I had forgotten how to spell them. One after another my classmates’ hands shot up in the air when the spelling of a word was asked for, and each time the right letters were given, they earned words of praise from the teacher. I just sat at my desk with my eyes downcast, nervously hoping that she wouldn’t notice that my hand had not gone up once. What if she asked me to spell one of the remaining words? What if I had forgotten how to?

Suddenly there was a pressure in my chest. It was as though a thick rubber band was being drawn tight and squeezing it tighter and tighter. My throat felt as though it was closing and I coughed and coughed trying to dislodge whatever was causing that feeling. But only dry harsh barks came out of my mouth and the pressure increased. Panicked, I looked at the teacher for help and opened my mouth to speak, but could only make dry, wheezing sounds that filled my ears with their desperation.