What Daddy Did (2 page)

Edinburgh, 2007

My name is Donna Ford.
I am 48 years old.
I used to be a really, really, really bad little girl.
Now I am a really, really, really good mother.

I'
M NOT BAD
any more. I never was. My stepmother was the evil one, but since trying to face what she did to me as a child – what she
allowed
to be done to me – I have tried to focus on the good things in my life.

And there are lots.

My pride and joy, my wonders, are my three children. I have just come back from a holiday in Greece with my eldest daughter, Claire, and it was a fantastic experience. Now that I'm home, my youngest child, Saoirse, is in my arms, telling me her news, and hugging me as if she'll never let me go. I look over to my telephone and see the answering machine blinking. I get up, walk over and casually press the button to hear who has been trying to get me. It's my son, Paul. He wants to tell me that he and his fiancée have got their first flat together. The excitement is flooding from his voice. He sounds as if all of his Christmases have come at once! Saoirse and Claire pick up on the atmosphere and start dancing in the living room. They know how much this means to Paul and they are delighted for him.

And me?

The room starts spinning.

There's a buzzing noise in my ears.

I feel hot and cold all at once.

I think I'm going to faint – no, I think I'm going to scream.

Will anyone see me if I do? Will anyone hear me if I do?

I turn round to the girls and tell them how wonderful everything is. The words don't stick in my throat, but they stick in my heart.

I'm going to have to go back.

Before I went on holiday with Claire, Paul had told me that he was looking at flats with his fiancée. As with most cities, there are only so many places young people can afford to rent in Edinburgh when they are taking their first steps to independence. Older areas. Areas which used to be predominantly working class. Areas with tenements and flats and a dirty grey feel to them that no amount of rejuvenation schemes and Lottery money will ever take away. Places just like the one in which I was raised.

My father, Don, and my stepmother, Helen, had taken me from my Barnardo's home when I was four years old and brought me to Easter Road. In that flat, Helen practised her abuse of me. It was there that she would beat me and flail me and scream at me and lock me up and starve me. It was there that she would tell me I was evil, that I was ugly, that I was a bastard, that no good would ever come to me because a little girl like me didn't deserve good things in her life.

When we all lived in that flat, I thought it couldn't get worse.

I should have known.

We moved to a new house in Edina Place, a street just off Easter Road, where Helen could perfect her skills. She kept on with her campaign of hatred, but she also decided to bring in some additional help. Physically and verbally abusing me just wasn't enough for her – not when she could have her special 'parties'. Parties where she would invite men to do whatever they wanted with me, and where she could act the convivial hostess. Parties where she would stand outside my bedroom door as I was raped. In Edina Place, I grew to dread the sound of the doorbell, the particular rings which the men would use.

Even when I was an adult, and Helen had finally been found guilty in a court of law, I still avoided that area at all costs. When I visited my sister-in-law who lived, and still lives, at Leith Links, I would drive a long, convoluted way round just to avoid the area where there were so many bad memories. I knew before I went on holiday that Paul was looking at a flat in Edina Place. When he told me I shuddered but thought no more about it. I reasoned there was no point in getting myself worried unless it actually happened.

And it has.

Paul calls for me a few days after my return from Greece. He has been desperate to show me the flat he has managed to find. Thankfully, he is blissfully unaware of my fears and is caught up in the excitement of his new life unfolding before him – while I dread facing my past. We are driving up Easter Road and Paul is chatting incessantly about all his news; his beautiful fiancée, Ayumi; his walking trip in the Pyrenees; his trip next year to Japan; all his hopes for the future. I smile and laugh and encourage him, but inside I feel a ball of anxiety winding itself into a tighter and tighter knot. I am genuinely petrified at the thought of visiting a flat in this street, of being back here again.

When we arrive at Edina Place we manage to find a parking space, eventually, in front of what was once a printing shop and is now housing. We get out of the car and Paul leads me in the direction of my childhood home. But we aren't going there, I tell myself, we're going to his home. It might not be too close; it might not bring back anything to me.

Number 31 is a main door flat and Paul's flat is in the nextdoor tenement block on the top floor. As we approach the steps, my anxiety is getting worse. I can hear a murmuring noise getting louder and louder. The echoes from my past are gathering in force. Not much has changed about this area and I try to focus on superficial things: the number of cars that make it so busy; the dinginess of the Co-op building; the new housing that has sprung up in every nook and cranny.

As we approach number 31, I see that all that has changed here is the colour of the front door, from maroon to white. I am still filled with dread. I can hear Paul chatting excitedly and I know that I am answering him but, at the same time, I am being transported right back into my past. I look at the old house and half expect my father to come stumbling out of the door or for Helen to roar another order for me to 'get in here now, you little bitch!'

I manage to keep walking, with the voices getting louder, the past getting closer, until we get to the door of Paul's building. When we actually enter the stairway, I think that I'm going to vomit. I turn to Paul and, before I can explain anything, he says, 'Oh, Mum! Let's go and check out the garden – it's lovely!'

After my first book was published, I deliberately came back to Edinburgh to face my demons and see everything in a different light. I genuinely love this city, but I want it to disappear at this moment. Paul isn't being insensitive – he, like his sisters, doesn't know the extent of the abuse I suffered as a child. He has a copy of my book and will choose to read it at some point in his life, or maybe never. It doesn't matter – all that matters is that he does what he wants, that he follows his own choices. I know why my two older children haven't read it yet. Claire told me that I was their hero, their rock, and that they didn't want to think of me as vulnerable when I had always been so strong for them. I have been very happy for this to be the way, but it does mean that Paul is blissfully oblivious of my fears here today.

I am glad about that because this is his moment. However, as we start to descend the stairs to the basement (the only way to get out to the garden), I wish that I could be a million miles away. The stairway is just as I always remember, identical to the one in my childhood 'home'. There is the same worn stone staircase and, what seems to me, the same paintwork and the same smell. The smell! A horrible, damp stench – the stink of mixed living.

It is so, so dark and I'm beginning to tremble. I know that I'm going back there. I have to keep dragging myself into the present because the strength of the flashback I'm having is so strong. I follow Paul down the stairs to the basement, which is also still the same as I remember. The steps lead down to a corridor going left to what would have been the coal store, and the right side leads to the garden. I am following my son with real trepidation and I'm visibly trembling. Paul looks back at me and asks if I'm all right because he can see me shaking. I pull myself together and push back what has just forced its way into my mind. A memory that has hit me like a sledgehammer.

I follow Paul out into the back garden. I get immediate joy and comfort from the sun. To my surprise, it is so lovely out here, and that is what I will focus on. There is a beautiful, cultivated lawn with a herbaceous border, all lovingly tended by a man who is tidying and pruning. Paul introduces himself to this neighbour, which gives me a chance to really look around. All of these back greens adjoin the rear of the tenement blocks and I feel compelled to walk into what was once ours. I walk over and look up at the old kitchen window and down at the old cellar where I took many a beating.

The flashback I've had is still shouting at me to let it through, but what I can see now is that this is a different place. Those people who hurt me are long gone and I am the only one who can let them through again. I can take this experience and make it a positive one. Paul's house will be filled with laughter and love. I will visit him there and I will make sure I do it with joy in my heart.

I can do this.

I can.

So, why do I still feel a chill on my heart and hear the ghosts in my head?

I'M A DIFFERENT WOMAN
to the one I was in the winter of 2001 when the police knocked at my door. They were there to inform me that my half-brother had approached them to tell of the abuse he had suffered at the hands of our stepmother over 30 years previously. I had little contact with him so had no idea that he had reached this stage of criminal proceedings. The police were gathering statements to determine whether there was enough evidence to prosecute my stepmother, Helen Ford. They told me that day to consider whether I wanted to be involved in the case – if I did, they would return to let me know what would happen next.