The Step Child (10 page)

I knew what to do – I knew to answer the questions as she wanted me to, and never to offer extra information. When my Dad came home, Helen would, of course, tell him that I had given her a ‘showing up’ and I would get walloped again. It’s hard for me to comprehend how blind my father chose to be. Did he never ask any questions? Did he never have any suspicions? Did he never want to be involved?

I was always thinking that things would be different once Frances and Simon arrived. In Haldane House, we hadn’t been together all the time, but I knew they were there. Because I was still so little, they were my brother and sister to me; there was no talk of half-siblings or different fathers.

This lack of paternity for Simon and Frances has always bothered me. I suppose, to begin with, Don Ford might have had some notion of responsibility to my Mum’s other children; perhaps he even thought she would be home soon and he would try to keep us all together for that day. I can only assume that, at some point, he realised this wasn’t going to happen, and that looking after three tiny children and holding down a job – even with the help of the teenage Helen Gourlay – was more than he could manage. But why did he and Helen take all three of us back to Easter Road eventually? I had been there for eight months by myself, with things getting progressively worse, when Simon and Frances arrived ‘home’. In later years, when I questioned why all of us were ‘rescued’ from Barnardo’s, given what was waiting for us, I was told by one family member that the initial reason had been a practical one. The flat in Easter Road had been bought by Frances’s father for Breda. I don’t know what happened regarding ownership, but I do know that the imaginary continuing
presence of Breda, my mother, continued to haunt Helen. She hated anything that reminded her of her predecessor, so the fact that we all lived in a flat which had been bought for Breda (even if, ultimately, for her daughter), a flat in which she had given birth to her three children, a flat in which she had loved my father, was anathema to Helen. Having me there was bad enough, but why put up with another two children who had no blood link to her – or, indeed, to her husband? I have been told that Helen wanted to move to a bigger house, a council one, and rent out the Easter Road property. By taking on even more children, she must have thought that being rehoused would be more likely. It seems strange now that the council would have allowed them to keep a privately-owned home while using up rented accommodation, but things must have been different in those days, and files from Barnardo’s seem to confirm this. It seems that Helen wasn’t a rescuing angel – she just saw us as a means to an end. We were potentially useful – with Frances, Simon and me in Easter Road, along with two adults and Gordon, things would be intolerably cramped and the council could come to our rescue.

It never happened. Helen was apparently told, after taking Frances and Simon in, that because they weren’t my father’s children, they couldn’t be counted in our family total for rehousing. She had been thwarted and we would pay the price.

By the time Frances and Simon came back, most of my childhood fantasies about a perfect family life had been shattered. Given my own experiences, this time I knew there would be no party, no warm welcoming, no balloons around the door and cake on the table. In fact, as far as I can remember, the day they were brought back blended in with all the others. One minute they weren’t there; the next they were.

I have a clear memory of seeing Frances again after such a while. She was so beautiful! My half-sister had the most gorgeous long, dark hair and I just wanted to stroke it, and dream of
looking like her one day. To begin with, Simon and Frances were dragged around to see all of our relatives, just as I had been, and Helen was sure to take her fair share of the compliments wherever we visited. I would listen to all of these people, my flesh and blood, praise her to the heavens, saying she was an angel to take on this brood of kids who had no link to her, and I’d think of what she did to me. I wondered how and why adults could be so ignorant and let such bad things happen to children. Did they see nothing? Or did they know and not care?

Like me, Frances and Simon had a rude awakening – they quickly realised that Helen was not the kindly mother figure we all hoped for.

Frances’s hair was one of the first things to go. Helen couldn’t stand anything pretty or worthy of praise, so one day she sat my sister on a chair in the living room. She held Frances’s hair up in one hand. ‘Pleased with this, are you?’ she asked. Frances already knew that there were never right answers where Helen was concerned. Silence was generally the best answer until you could gauge where she was going with her questions. ‘Pleased with your lovely hair? Take after your Mum with it, do you? Everyone tell you how pretty you are, do they?’ All the time, Helen was lifting Frances’s hair up, twirling it round her hand, then letting it drop.

It was only after this had been going on for what seemed like ages that Helen pulled a pair of scissors out of her pocket. ‘Vanity’s a terrible thing, Frances – a terrible thing. Anyway – I’m sure it’ll all grow back again.’ She then chopped off all her beautiful hair. And made as bad a job of it as she could. It wasn’t a haircut; it was a scalping. Frances sat there and cried and cried as her hair fell about her feet. There was no hiding from it any more – Helen was going to hate Frances and Simon just as she hated me.

Again, what was my father’s role in all of this? He must have seen the evidence of Helen’s hatred when he came home that night. He couldn’t have failed to notice that Frances had been scalped. He and Helen were always fighting, always shouting, so perhaps they did argue about things like that – but, if they did, it was never enough to change things, to make him do anything.

Soon after Helen chopped off Frances’s hair, she got us all together to tell us ‘the rules’. We were all made to stand in the living room with our hands by our sides, like little soldiers. Helen rattled through a list that she was making up as she went along – don’t speak unless you’re spoken to; don’t take anything at all without permission; don’t talk to anyone without me saying you can; don’t suck up to your Dad; don’t expect me to be a mother to you. The list went on – most of it washing over me, as I knew that there was no rhyme or reason to Helen’s ‘rules’, and that adhering to them all wouldn’t save you in the slightest. But Simon and Frances – although terrified – still seemed to think that if they could only remember it all, and stick to it, then life might be bearable. They still had hope. I was running out.

Our stepmother dealt with my half-brother and sister in different ways. Frances was almost 10 when she came back, so Helen could make use of her. I suppose it was also more difficult to intimidate the eldest of us completely, although she did try with incidents such as the hair-scalping. More than anything, Helen found Frances quite handy. She would be sent on lots of errands – to the shops, to neighbours, to collect bits and bobs, or to take messages between Helen and her friends. Helen would use Frances to walk the baby and even cook the dinner.

On one occasion, I had been playing in the back green when I fell and hurt myself. Predictably, Helen showed no sympathy – her only response was to tell Frances that ‘if she wanted’, I could be taken to the ‘sick kids hospital’ to be checked over. It was a long bus journey, and I remember being so proud of my big sister as she found the hospital, spoke with the receptionist at accident
and emergency, and then related my fall to the doctors. A few times, I remember staff asking where my Mum and Dad were, and telling Frances what a good girl she was. They must have found it odd that such a young child was in sole charge of another, but they stitched me up and we made our way back home again, alone.

Simon had a different strategy, imposed rather than adopted. While Frances made herself useful and I continued to be the little bastard who bore the brunt of the physical abuse, my half-brother became the centre of Helen’s ridicule. From making fun of the way he looked, to playing practical jokes on him that weren’t in the least bit funny, there was no end to the amusement she got from this skinny, insecure, nervous little boy. One day she called him through to the living room. ‘Time to stop being so useless,’ she informed him. ‘At least your big sister can actually do some things if you get it through her thick head.’ Simon stood there trembling. I could see that he was trying to remember the ‘rules’, trying to figure out what he should do.

‘I want you to try and make yourself useful too,’ said Helen. Simon nodded vehemently. ‘Get yourself sorted, get your coat, and get yourself off down Easter Road. I’m not sure what shop you’ll need to go into, so best try them all. Go into every one, every single shop mind you, Simon, and ask them for a left-handed screwdriver. Make sure everyone in the shop hears you, and don’t take “no” for an answer. Don’t you come back here until you’ve got me what I’ve asked for – a left-handed screwdriver. Do you hear me? You useless,
glaikit
boy? Do you hear me? Has it gone in?’ Simon nodded again and set off on his humiliating journey. I can only imagine what happened next – the slight boy going into every shop each side of Easter Road and tremulously asking for something that didn’t exist, something
which was such a good joke to everyone else, but just another method of degradation for Helen to inflict on us.

Eventually Simon came back – empty-handed of course. He couldn’t even bring himself to speak to Helen. ‘Well, where is it, stupid?’ she asked. ‘Where’s the screwdriver?’ Simon just looked down. She got up and walked up to him, pushing her face down to his. ‘Oh, Simon. That’s just not good enough, is it? You didn’t try hard enough, boy. You didn’t do what I asked you to do. Do you know what you need to do now?’ Simon was shaking. What did he need to do? Get her something to hit him with? Lie down so she could kick him? Bend over so she could beat him? ‘Go back out again. Try Leith Walk. Every shop now, Simon, every shop.’ The fact that Helen was offering him a non-violent option brought such relief that my big brother raced out of the house. Leith Walk ran parallel to Easter Road and was a huge shopping street with flats above all the outlets. You could buy anything on Leith Walk; it was – and still is – the heart of multicultural, 24-hour Edinburgh, and Simon probably had high hopes for his elusive left-handed screwdriver purchase. To walk the length of Leith Walk, both sides, and go into every shop would be quite a project even for an adult, but Simon set off on his mission.

When he returned hours later, empty-handed, he was weeping. He came into the house and shamefacedly went towards Helen. She said nothing this time – just launched into hitting him straight away, constantly telling him he was useless and a cissy. To this day, I think of all those shop-owners and customers probably having a good-natured giggle at the wee boy asking for a left-handed screwdriver, perhaps thinking he was on a childish dare, perhaps thinking he was winding up the shop staff, but no one knowing the hurt which was really behind his errand.