What Daddy Did (17 page)

I told Mae about Helen and the beatings. I told her how I felt Helen hated me. Auntie Mae sat and listened to me as I told her about not being fed, and about how scared I was. The only thing I didn't tell her about was the sexual abuse. I was just too ashamed. Mae was a drinker. In fact, she was often drunk when I saw her, but she was a cheerful drunk. In spite of the bruises she often wore on her face, she was a beautiful woman. She was downtrodden and life was hard for her, but she was a good person. As she sat there and listened to me, she held my hand and wiped the tears from her eyes and mine. 'I'll have a word with Helen,' she said to me softly, as she held me. I was hysterical. 'Please, no! No, don't do that, Auntie Mae!' I begged. I was so scared of what my stepmother would do. I was convinced that she would kill me if she knew that I was even at someone's house, never mind that I'd told them about her. I was terrified, but Mae managed to calm me down. She said that it would be fine and that she would make sure Helen didn't touch me.

Auntie Mae put on her coat and, taking me by the hand, led me home. I stood behind her, shaking, as she rang the doorbell. One of the boys answered and shouted to Helen that Auntie Mae was there with me.

I was still shaking and couldn't see how this could possibly end well. Auntie Mae pushed the door aside and went marching up the lobby towards the living room. As she stomped, she shouted back to me, 'Get to your bed, hen, you'll be fine – I promise.' I still didn't dare trust her – I never dared trust anyone – but I sneaked into my bedroom and got into bed as fast as I could. I heard them talking, though I don't know what was said, and I heard footsteps going past my door as Auntie Mae was shown out. I waited and waited for Helen to come into my room but she never did, and she never mentioned the matter to me. I don't know what was said between those two women that evening but whatever Mae did say saved my bacon for the next few days – for that, I'm eternally grateful.

After Helen left my Dad, Auntie Mae came round to the house once or twice to check on us. On one of these occasions, she asked me what had happened between Helen and my Dad. I said that I wasn't sure, but that they had been rowing and then Helen just left. My Dad had told me that Helen had picked up one of his crutches and hit him with it, and I told Auntie Mae about this. She replied that was funny because Helen had said my Dad had hit her with the crutch.

Whatever the real reason was, Helen just left.

She left behind her belongings . . . and she left behind her three children.

Everything went quiet that night. It was late December, round about the time of New Year as 1969 faded into 1970. The next morning, the whole impact of what happened sank in. From now on there was to be no more Helen. No more being locked up. No more starvation. No more silence. No more restrictions and hours upon hours being spent on punishments.

No more abuse. Or so I thought.

I would be able to eat. I would be able to talk. I would be able to go outside – I would be free! I just knew she wouldn't be back this time because my Dad was so angry with her. In fact, I had never heard or seen him so furious. Thinking back, and putting two and two together, this may have been the time he found out who Karen's father was. In later years, he told us that up until that point we all thought he was Karen's Dad too. He had known before Karen was born that he wasn't the father – he'd been told by doctors that he couldn't have any more children after he'd had an operation on his prostate gland.

No-one seemed to share my sheer joy in Helen's departure apart from my older half-brother. My Dad was very sad but also angry. Helen's two boys were tearful, and baby Karen just needed attention.

On the day that followed Helen's departure, my Dad shouted through tome as I lay in bed. In my mind, I had been going through the things I would now be allowed to do, dreaming of a normal childhood and a happy life. When I heard his voice, I dragged myself out of my thoughts and rushed through to the living room. It was such a normal thing for a father to call through to his child, and yet, for me, it was alien to think that he would be doing anything other than chastising me for something Helen claimed I had done.

'Donna?' he said as I walked into the room. 'Sit down, lass. We need to talk.' I don't think I'd ever been asked to sit down in that room before, never mind be offered a two-way conversation. On top of that, I was alone with my Dad – something that had rarely happened on a positive level for years. I remember that he sighed a lot and seemed to be finding it difficult to work out what he wanted to say. Eventually, the words came out. 'Donna, you're the woman of the house now,' he said simply. I was 11 years old! I asked him whether Helen was really gone, and whether she had taken her children with her. He said that, even though she wouldn't be back, all the kids were still there, even the boys whom she had seemed to dote on.

'You'll have to take care of the barns, Donna,' continued my Dad. 'Helen won't be back, I can promise you that, but you'll need to take her place. Cooking, cleaning – you understand, hen? That's your job now.'

'Just me, Dad?' I asked.

'Aye – the boys can help you when they can manage, but you've got responsibilities now,' he told me. Frances had long gone, but Adrian and Gordon were old enough to help. Even Andrew, although younger, was bigger than me in size. None of that seemed to matter. I was the girl, so it was my responsibility. 'Things will be tight, Donna,' continued my Dad. 'I'll no' work again, and everyone will muck in when they're able, but you . . . this is up to you now.'

I was so relieved that Helen had gone – and that my Dad had reassured me she wouldn't be coming back – that I didn't really dwell on the unfairness of it all. A starved, beaten, abused, neglected 11-year-old being in charge of a whole household was still preferable to her returning.

Or so I thought.

'Everything will be fine, Dad,' I said, over and over again. 'Everything will be fine. You won't let her back, will you?' He gave a little snort and said, 'No, no, I won't – you can rest assured of that. And, Donna?' he asked. 'The bairn? Karen's yours now.' She had left the baby! I shouldn't have been surprised really – my own mother had proved just how easy it was to leave babies. 'You'll have to be her Mummy – best start now, best go see what she wants.' I walked through to Karen's cot where she was standing, gurgling and smiling at me as soon as she saw my face. Her nappy was soaked and stinking; Helen obviously hadn't changed her before she left, and my Dad hadn't given it any thought either. I picked her out of her cot – it was a strain on my skinny little arms – and started telling her that I was her Mum from this point on.

Initially, it was hard work. I was a tiny little girl, very weak from being starved. Now I had the workload of a grown woman. I cooked the food that I'd learned about in home economics at school: soup, cheese scones, apple crumble and suchlike. I was given a book by my Dad called
Home Management
from my Auntie Nellie's collection, and I learned from this how to cook other things too – smoked haddock in milk being my Dad's favourite. I was always trying to make him proud of me – doing his perfect meal, running the house, dealing with Karen – but he never really said much, nothing about being proud of me or that I was doing well.

After being denied food for so long, I began to eat anything I could get my hands on, almost as if I was storing it all up in case things went bad again. This made me incredibly ill – in fact, at one point I needed an emergency appendectomy as my body couldn't take what I was doing to it. I'd had the most awful stomach pains, so my Dad took me to the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh. I didn't see him for two weeks until he collected me. He told me it had been impossible for him to make any hospital visits due to the problems he was having with his feet, and also because he had to look after the other children. I do remember my Dad's sister, Auntie Madge, visiting, and I also remember having a lovely time in hospital because I got to do school work, play with toys and have meals cooked for me.

It was a very strange time for all of us as the dynamics of the house had changed overnight. Even Helen's boys were not as sure as they had been previously. Gordon and Andrew were used to talking down to me. They were accustomed to me being seen only occasionally, and being treated worse than the dog whenever I was let out. Now they had to face up to a different world. Dad sat us all down the day after Helen left and told us how things were to change. Helen's sons were really upset because their Mum had left. They didn't see her the way I did. She was their Mummy and here was my Dad, who didn't share blood with them, telling us she was gone and definitely wouldn't return. The youngest one was crying and the eldest just kept saying, 'What are we going to do?'

All I could see was that Helen, my tormentor and abuser, had gone.

I liked cooking and I liked looking after the baby. However, I didn't like the housework because I had done so much of it when Helen was around and it brought back bad memories. I also didn't like being left with Helen's older son, Gordon, when my Dad hobbled over to the pub twice a day. He would torment me, just as he had when Helen was still at home, calling me names like pissy pants, black sheep and bastard, and sometimes nipping me or kicking his football at me. Gordon saw no reason to stop now, even though my Dad would tell him off if he caught him.

Helen may have gone but her son was a constant reminder of her. I know that children are a product of parenting, and Gordon was certainly a child who had learned from his mother. Although I was a couple of years older than him, I was very small for my age and hadn't yet learned to stand up for myself. Gordon missed his Mum and blamed me for her leaving. He would often tell me that I drove her to it by being so bad. A big part of me believed that.