Mummy Knew (26 page)

Now that I was older, Dad allowed me to drink wine and I took refuge in that, standing alone at the end of the bar as Dad chatted to his nephew in the corner. At one stage I went to the toilet and when I came back everyone had gone. Just like that. I walked over the road home and it was obvious there had been a row of some sort. Everyone was being cagey and because I was still treated as a ‘child’ nobody explained anything. In fact, nobody spoke to me. Lesley and her boys had gone but the female relative I had never met before was still there.

Suddenly there was a bang at the door. A few voices said ‘There they are’ and Dad got up to go to the door, looking strangely reluctant.

There were a few raised voices then I heard some crashing sounds. We all ran out to see what was going on and found Dad face down on the pathway with blood pooling at the side of his head.

I knew that the fight was about me because everyone turned to look at me, and I started crying hysterically. After the sustained beatings I had taken over the mystery white Rover during the past couple of weeks, I knew Dad would blame me. He might even kill me, as he was always saying he would.

I couldn’t take any more. In bare feet and the stupid skimpy dress, I ran out of the door, past where Dad lay on the ground, and across to the pub. The barman who had been
serving us all night was leaving because it was after closing time. ‘What’s happened?’ he asked but I didn’t answer, just kept running.

I came to a phone box and realised that if Dad was dead, I should tell the police, and if he wasn’t, he would be mad as hell that I didn’t get an ambulance and save his life. I stopped at the phone and called both the police and an ambulance. The lady on the switchboard told me to go back home so I did.

As I got there, a squad car was just pulling up. I noticed Dad was no longer lying on the ground. The front door opened and Mum pulled me in quickly. I could hear somebody explaining to the police that it had all been a misunderstanding. Dad was sitting on a chair holding a cloth to his head. At that moment I just wanted it to all come out, I wanted the police to know what had been going on, and I started screaming. But the front door had been closed by that time and the police were driving off. The relative I didn’t know came over and gave me a hard slap.

‘Calm down, darlin’,’ she said. ‘Your Dad’s alright–look.’

Like everything else, the incident was never mentioned again but Dad let something slip, which was to confirm to me that Lesley and her family now knew about the ‘secret’. He said that when I went off to the toilet that night he could see his nephew Charlie following me with his eyes. Because Dad was drunk and careless he said to him, ‘Too late. I’ve had her, she’s mine.’

I like to think that a sense of decency prompted one of them to knock him out, but I don’t know the full truth.

Some time early in the New Year, Dad’s elder brother Keith came to the house. I remember my mum saying to Dad ‘Keith’s here’ and Dad saying ‘You’ve told him, haven’t you, you cunt?’

I ran upstairs, mortified and frightened. I crouched on the landing outside my bedroom from where I could hear Keith saying to Dad ‘But she’s almost the same age as my Alison.’ That was his own daughter, who was only a few months younger than me. ‘How could you do this? You said you wanted to adopt her when she was little.’

Dad replied, ‘I love her.’

Keith said, ‘What about her? Bring her down here. I want to hear it for myself.’

Dad came up the first flight of stairs and said, ‘Come down here and tell him.’

I could see the warning in his eyes and hear it underlying his tone of voice but there was no way I was going to go down and tell Keith what Dad wanted me to say, which was that I loved him too and it was a dream come true. It was all a lie. All I could do was cry like a baby and say I didn’t want to. Keith must have heard that, at least. In my confused head, I even thought this would be the end of it. Perhaps Keith would take me home. I wondered if they’d let me live in their caravan?

But just like everyone else who found out that this brute of a man was sleeping with the stepdaughter he had brought up since she was four, Keith accepted it. As if a young girl like me, with the rest of her life in front of her, would make that ludicrous choice. As if one day after my sixteenth birthday I’d
looked at Dad over the oven chips and decided, without any coercion or grooming, that yes, he was the violent drunken bully for me. He was the one. None of them insisted on getting to the truth. None of them tried to speak to me without Dad’s looming presence. I had no one to help me, and I didn’t have a clue how to help myself. My isolation was total.

A
s well as insisting on seeing me at lunchtime, Dad took to ringing me at work during the day and screaming obscenities down the phone. Susie the receptionist asked me who the man was that kept calling me. I had to tell her it was a boyfriend because he certainly wasn’t acting like a dad. It became a standing joke with the office girls that I was seeing an ‘old bloke’ who was a bit of a jealous nutter. So whenever Dad rang, Susie the receptionist recognised his voice and she would say to me ‘It’s your mad boyfriend’. I’d have to dart into a spare office or an empty corner where nobody could overhear the screaming coming from the phone. He would rant that he was going to storm in and kill me and everybody else there.

One day he called in the middle of the afternoon from the phone box in the street downstairs, demanding that I leave the building. He said that if I didn’t come down in the next five minutes, he would come up and get me. At that time, I thought that he was the most powerful man on earth. Totally fearless. I thought that if I didn’t go out to him, someone might get hurt. I don’t know why, but clearly upset I asked to
see Ros Newman, the woman who had originally given me the job. In a garbled fashion I explained that I had to go home early. I told her that I had a very jealous boyfriend who had become convinced I was having an affair with someone who drove a white Rover and it had all started after the office party. I didn’t tell her that the boyfriend was my Dad and that he was effectively keeping me prisoner. She seemed concerned about me but gave me permission to leave.

As I got down the office stairs I could see Dad waiting for me, and my legs were shaking with fear. He seemed wild with rage. Without seeming to care who saw, he dragged me into the office car park and pulled me by the hair over to a white car. I was petrified.

‘What the fuck’s that then?’ he screamed. ‘It’s a white fucking Rover, you whore.’

I was in the worst nightmare imaginable. After kicking me about the place and screaming in my face for answers he pinned me by the throat to the back windscreen and started choking me. Just when I thought I was going to pass out, he threw me aside on the ground and shouted ‘fucking cunts’ at the top of his voice. With that he brought both fists down on the back window of the car and it shattered into smithereens. There was a shocked stillness for a moment or two. I think he was surprised at his own strength.

As I lay sprawled on the ground sobbing and Dad stood motionless by the car, the company accountant happened to be passing with some paperwork.

He squinted into the gloom, took everything in and said hesitantly, ‘What are you doing in there? That’s Stuart King’s car.’

At that point a whole crowd of people emerged from the studio to see what was causing all the noise. There were murmurings about the police being called so Dad grabbed my arm and dragged me off. All the way home he kept pushing me into shop doorways to hit and kick me.

‘Who the fuck’s Stuart King?’ he kept spitting in my face.

I tried to tell the truth, that I had barely spoken to him the whole time I’d been at the company, but Dad wasn’t in a mood to listen. When he got me home he raped me sadistically and covered me with bites all over.

As I had told Ros Newman about a raving boyfriend and a white Rover, and the next minute a member of staff had witnessed me sobbing on the ground next to a smashed-up white Rover, I wondered if perhaps the police might pay us a visit, but they never came. I think Ros took pity on me and didn’t want to cause me any trouble, but it was another lost opportunity for the abuse to come out.

I couldn’t go back to work after that. A few days later Dad decided that they had diddled me out of some pay I was due and marched me down to the phone box to call and ask for it. He stood with the door open as I spoke, poking me in the ribs if I didn’t say the right thing.

First I spoke to the managing director’s secretary. ‘I don’t want to be awkward,’ I said, trying to explain to her telepathically what was going on.

‘But you are being, aren’t you?’ she replied. ‘I’ll put you through to Ros.’

Ros, who was older and wiser, said ‘I don’t think this is you, Lisa. I think someone is making you do this.’

What could I say with Dad’s foot holding the door open to listen? I was relieved she didn’t mention the car or what had happened in the car park.

‘You’re a good worker,’ she said. ‘Don’t let that boyfriend ruin any more chances for you. Take care.’

I was jobless now but Dad was keen for me to get more work as he missed my wages. Since I didn’t have any qualifications my options were limited, but I got a job at a fashionable tanning salon in Mayfair. At first I was an assistant to the controller who operated the machines and took the money, but I quickly proved myself and was promoted to a more responsible position. I even had to cash up, lock up and take the takings to the night-safe round the corner when I was on evening shifts.

One good thing was that it wasn’t so easy for Dad to meet me all the time as it had been when I worked at the record company. He still phoned me at work at least once every day and he would pick me up after my evening shifts. If nobody else was around he would ransack the reception, scattering leaflets and spilling bottles all over the place. He’d grab the keys to old lockers where lost clothing was kept, convinced that this was where the ‘kinky’ outfits were kept. I’d be petrified that the owners would pop by on their way home from dinner, as they sometimes used to do.

There was a girl called Bridget who also worked there. She was very worldly-wise and had previously lived in New York, where she had owned a boutique. She liked me and took me under her wing. I think she could tell that something wasn’t quite right with the ‘boyfriend’ who she saw
picking me up a couple of times. As we worked more shifts together, she began telling me about her violent first marriage and explaining how she escaped from it, but I was so guarded that I gave nothing away about my own circumstances. I was still riddled with guilt and shame that Dad was my ‘boyfriend’.

Meanwhile, out of the blue one Wednesday, Dad awkwardly announced that he and my mum had been granted a divorce. This was the first I’d known of it. Neither of them had mentioned it was happening, but then we were far from a normal family where such a discussion might take place. My spirits soared and I was careful to hide my jubilation in case Dad gave me a back-hander. Mum was finally taking action and was going to kick Dad out of our lives. I had hoped and prayed she would come through in the end.

Later, when Dad was out of earshot upstairs, engrossed in the racing on television, I had a word with Mum in the kitchen.

‘I hear you’re getting a divorce,’ I said grinning and doing a little hop of elation.

Mum frowned as she dunked a teabag in Dad’s mug before dumping it into a sink full of greasy plates. She turned slowly, her face set in a sneer.

‘We didn’t want to, but we’ve been forced into it now that Lesley’s lot have found out about you,’ she said pointedly. ‘They’ve been asking questions and we can’t have that, can we?’

A ripple of dread ran through me. This wasn’t going as I’d hoped. I felt my face fall as Mum went on.

‘It’d look mighty fucking odd if we all continued living here together forever,’ she hissed.

The rollercoaster of emotion I was on took an upwards turn. ‘You mean Dad’s moving out?’

Mum nodded. ‘Yeah, he is, and you’re going with him.’

‘No!’ I shouted, unable to contain my horror.

‘Shush,’ she said urgently. ‘He don’t want you to know until the last minute. Don’t you tell him I’ve told you.’

This couldn’t be happening. I spent the next few days in turmoil, wondering how I could save myself but I couldn’t think of anything. Dad had spent years making me believe that I was useless, worthless and powerless. I had no money because Dad took almost all my wages every month, no friends, and no family other than Mum. I was so beaten down I couldn’t see any options for a way out. Running into a police station and screaming for help didn’t even occur to me. It was a Wednesday morning when Dad officially broke the news.

‘Get your bags packed. We’re moving out on Saturday,’ he told me. ‘I’ve got us a flat up the road.’

‘But why…?’ I started to ask, but before I had time to finish, Dad had thrown his ‘World’s Best Husband’ mug in my lap. Scalding tea soaked through my skirt, running in rivulets into my knickers. I jumped up in pain, and the mug rolled off my lap and bounced on the floor, breaking the handle.

Dad leapt up from the sofa and scooped it up. ‘Look what you’ve fucking done, you good-for-nothing cunt.’

‘Sorry, Dad,’ I said automatically, backing away.

‘Stop calling me Dad! My name’s Frank. Call me Frank, for fuck’s sake.’

‘OK, but why do we have to move?’

‘I’m sick of you, with your “Why this? Why fucking that?”’ he shouted, slapping my face with the back of his hand. A dribble of blood ran from my nose. ‘Just do as you’re fucking told, got it?’

‘Yes, Dad.’ I said, cowering.

He slapped me again. ‘It’s Frank, remember? I’m not your fucking Dad.’

Over the next few days I stopped eating, unable to keep anything down.

‘You’re so fucking vain,’ said Mum, insinuating I was trying to lose weight. ‘He don’t care what you look like as long as you’ve got a hole he can poke.’

I broke down then, sliding down the wall in the dining room, until I lay curled up on the floor.