What Daddy Did (19 page)

We five children were victims – victims of a relationship between two adults – and we were all suffering to varying degrees. The shocking thing is we were still being visited by social workers on a regular basis. They saw the squalor we were living in; they saw that my Dad couldn't cope physically, financially or emotionally; yet we were all left there. Our home help, Nora, left after a little while because she couldn't cope. We once had our walls painted by a group of students, and we received a charity parcel at Christmas time, which was very welcome given that there was little in the way of extra money at that time of year.

I was 12 and a half when I had my first Christmas without Helen (I couldn't remember the ones in Barnardo's). My Dad came home from the pub one night with a book of Provident cheques. These were prepaid savings certificates, almost like gift tokens, which could be exchanged for goods displaying the Provident sign. 'Take these,' he told me. 'Get yourself to the shops and get a few wee things for the bairns.' I looked at him, waiting to see what he would say about me. He didn't offer anything else. 'Something for Karen?' I asked, as she was always my priority. 'Aye, a dolly maybe,' he answered.

I felt something pull at my heart at those words when I remembered the Christmases I had spent wishing for a Tiny Tears dolly. It was all I wanted, all I thought about. Although Helen had started beating me by that stage, she hadn't begun her worst cruelties. She kept asking me what I wanted from Santa. I should have realised there was something amiss as, in truth, she couldn't have cared less. In my innocence, however, every time she asked, I answered, 'A Tiny Tears baby, please,' and she'd laugh as if it was the most hilarious thing she'd ever heard.

On Christmas morning, I could hardly believe my eyes when I walked into the living room and saw a wrapped present with my name on a little tag. I walked over, mesmerised, as Helen and my Dad watched. I picked it up, hardly daring to believe it might be what I wanted so much, but, as I tore the paper off, I had to accept the wonder of Christmas. It was! It was a Tiny Tears dolly box! By this stage, Helen and my Dad were beside themselves with laughter. I opened the box carefully – Tiny Tears must be so precious and delicate, I thought, because it hardly weighed anything. It took a few moments for the reality to sink in. There was no escaping the fact that my Christmas present was an empty Tiny Tears box. What hurt even more than Helen's nastiness was the fact that my Dad was joining in – he must have known what she had planned, and he must have thought it was a good idea. Now, he casually mentioned getting a baby dolly for Karen as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

I held back the tears that pricked at my eyes and asked, 'Gordon? Andrew? Adrian? Shall I get something for all of them, Dad?' He didn't even glance up from his newspaper crossword, 'Aye, something for them all.' I walked away, holding the cheques, but he called out to me, 'Donna?' 'Yes, Dad?' I answered – maybe this would be a good Christmas after all. 'If there's anything else, get yourself a wee thing. Only if all the bairns are sorted though.' I thought I might get a Christmas that year, but it didn't look like it – I was bottom of the list, as always, and my Dad hadn't even seen fit to recognise that I was one of the 'bairns' too.

I had to be Santa.

We had chicken on Christmas Day and we were given selection boxes from our social worker. I will always remember that Christmas because there was no tormenting or abuse, but there was precious little happiness or joy either.

By the time I went to high school, I was completely disillusioned with the education process. Since I'd started school, teachers had never really noticed anything was wrong with me – apart from when I was caught stealing food – and I saw no reason to believe this would change. From about the age of 13, I began truanting a lot. The only subjects that interested me were art and science. I liked art because even I could see that I had some talent there, and science was enjoyable because of my wonderful teacher, Mr Ritchie.

Sometimes it was absolutely unbearable going into school because of the constant teasing and ridicule, and I was confused by the adolescent changes in my body and feelings. Very rarely was there anything in my day to look forward to. On a typical day I would drop Karen off at nursery school then just go off for the rest of the time she was there, usually up to the art galleries or museum in town where I would wander around and look at everything while keeping warm. Although we got 'free dinners' at school (something Helen had stopped while she was around), I preferred not to be at school to get them, taking a jam sandwich with me for my jaunt instead. I would always leave in plenty of time to go and pick up Karen from nursery.

My Dad never once asked me about school or whether or not I went. The truant officer became a regular visitor to our house, concerning myself. It was purely this intervention that made my father insist that I was to attend school. The very thought of going to school was awful for me. I felt stupid. I know that people thought I was stupid too, because I was different, I was scruffy and unkempt. I knew that I had a decent brain because I had devoured all of Auntie Nellie's books; I had helped Adrian learn to read; I could draw and there was a part of me that had the desire to make something of myself. But I didn't fit in. I had no friends at school. No-one wanted to know me. My friend, Elaine, went to a different school.

The only time I really enjoyed school was in my final year, thanks purely to the two new art teachers, Mr Slater and Mr Dalgleish. They were young, fresh out of college and enthusiastic, but most important of all, they encouraged me. I have met both of them in recent years. Mr Slater came along to an exhibition I held in Edinburgh during the Festival in 2007, and I visited my old school in 2006 and spoke to Mr Dalgleish. Both of them taught my niece, Hannah, who is now a very accomplished artist herself. They looked beyond the exterior of the person I was and saw who I was inside. Small details like these allow us to grow. They were good teachers because they did not discriminate. I still treasure a school magazine that features some illustrations I did back then.

I did well at art and managed to pass my Ordinary Grade, but that was the only qualification I achieved. I know I wasn't stupid because I'd read voraciously ever since my Auntie Nellie left all of her library to my Dad, and I had accessed it through the horror of those years in Edina Place. In fact, I was better read than most people I knew, but I just didn't have the support at home to allow me to achieve. I was going back there from school to cooking and cleaning and caring for a little girl. In some ways, I knew that all of these things were wrong but I wasn't really too bothered because I always had a plan to get out of that house and that street.

I knew there was another world out there and I was determined to find it.

HOME LIFE IN MY TEENAGE
years was better than it had been when Helen was there – but it was still terrible. I was growing up, even though I'd had no childhood to speak of. I had so much responsibility – cooking and cleaning for six people, and looking after the younger children – yet not one of my needs was being met.

When I was about 14, my Dad came through to my room one day. 'We need to have a wee talk, Donna,' he said, pretty much always his opening gambit when we spoke about anything he decided was important. I wondered what other task or responsibility he had thought of to give me this time. 'It's . . . well . . . it's stuff that you need to know,' he stuttered. 'Life . . . things . . .' I looked at him blankly; I had no idea what he was fumbling around trying to say. 'The birds and the bees!' he quickly said. 'The birds and the bees, Donna!' Saying this, he shoved a paper bag with the local chemist logo on it into my hands. I looked into it gingerly – inside were the biggest sanitary towels imaginable. I was embarrassed and so was he. I had started my period before this time but I was too ashamed to tell anyone, so I would use rolled-up toilet paper stuffed in my pants. I wonder now if he knew that I had started?

'You'll need these, Donna, when you become a woman,' he told me, not looking at my face at all. 'You'll know what to do, but there's something else . . .' I wondered what else he could possibly say that could be any more embarrassing. 'Boys. Watch out for them, Donna. They only want one thing.' With that, he almost ran out of my room, no doubt proud of himself for doing his fatherly duty.

That was it. That was all he offered. I couldn't even look him in the eye. He'd had men staying over in this house who had abused me – friends of his – and here he was trying to be a Dad? The fact was that I had been sexually abused again in the years after Helen left. In some ways, these later attacks were more awful for me because, for a long time, I felt I was responsible for much of what went on. I don't in any way feel that now because I know I was a child and that these things were done to me without my permission or encouragement. However, I felt guilty and responsible then, and at some points afterwards, because of the way a lot of it happened.

One of the things that used to confuse me was that these men were often nice to me. They engaged me in conversation and gave me attention – things which my Dad rarely did. They flattered me and listened to me. My Dad was always too tired, too distracted or too drunk to actually notice that I was carrying so much and yet being deprived of even basic interaction. It was always just assumed that I would cook and clean and look after everyone. But these men, these men he brought to our home and trusted, they knew how to be nice – and I'm sure that they saw it as an investment worth their time given what their ultimate aim was.