A Family Secret Page 13

  At the end of our visit, it was always so painful taking him back, and Ben never wanted to leave me either. He would often cry when we said goodbye. I kept on telling him that one day soon we’d be together for good, but I wasn’t sure he understood. And though I hated to see him upset, a small part of me was encouraged that he clearly liked me. Perhaps, after all, I was not the hopeless mother I had painted myself out to be.

  The day my offer of a tenancy arrived from the council, I yelled out in celebration.

  ‘At last!’ I beamed.

  On 6 August 1993, aged twenty-two, I moved into my very first home, all of my own. It was the same area I’d grown up in, the same place I’d suffered those unspeakable horrors, but I needed a house, anywhere, to get my boy back. If it was on the moon, I’d have taken it. That first day, Mary turned up with a cleaning bucket and two pairs of rubber gloves.

  ‘Let’s get this place shipshape and fit for a little family,’ she smiled, handing me gloves and a bottle of bleach.

  She had stepped into what I imagined, what I dreamed, must be a mother’s role. She looked out for me and looked after me. She wasn’t afraid to hug me, or to tell me when I was out of line. Together we scrubbed and dusted and polished until my little house was ready for the arrival of my prince.

  ‘Don’t know what I’d do without you,’ I told her bashfully, as she left later that night.

  One week on, Ben came home. He and I danced around the empty rooms together, our laughter echoing off the bare walls, our happiness shining out from our faces. I felt so proud, so pleased. And though Christopher was in my thoughts, and always would be, I felt almost complete, too. The house had barely any furniture, but that didn’t matter at all. Mary had rallied round and found me a single bed for Ben, a second-hand sofa and a microwave. Our first night, I slept on the sofa, with Ben in his little bed. I kept on slipping down between the cushions, but it didn’t matter. I felt like I was sleeping in a five-star hotel. My boy was upstairs, I had my own home, with my own front door keys. It was exhilarating; both the here and now, and the promise of what was to come.

  Steve had stayed on at the rented house, at my insistence.

  ‘Just for now,’ I told him. ‘I want to do this properly, for Ben, and it has to be me and him.’

  My Ben had been through so much, for a four-year-old, and I wanted to make this transition as easy and as secure as I could for him. I wanted a few weeks with him on my own. And Steve understood completely. He was so fond of Ben. In the days that followed, Mary managed to find me a brand-new cooker from a charity contact she had. She asked around at church and even found a gas fitter to install it for free! She helped me to apply for a grant, too, and I was able to buy carpets and more furniture. I also bought clothes for Ben, and some books and toys.

  Settling into family life was rewarding and nerve-racking in equal measure. I loved taking Ben to the shops, I loved washing his hair, folding his clothes, reading him stories. They were simple things. But I treasured and valued those moments so much. That September, Ben started school.

  It’s a proud day for all parents, but for me it felt almost surreal. I felt as though I had won the lottery. I didn’t know where all this good luck, this happiness, was coming from. He settled in well, but the long days in the classroom left him starving and shattered. He would be so hungry when I collected him at the school gates that I had to have a meal waiting for him at home. Watching him sit down at the table, his little legs swinging, as he chattered away about his day at school, was a lovely time for me. Then, without warning, his little head would loll forward and he had fallen asleep, halfway through his tea! School had exhausted him to the point where he actually dozed off whilst eating. Once or twice he even face-planted into his Bolognese or his shepherd’s pie! I loved scooping him up, fast asleep, wiping the mashed potato off his cheeks, and tucking him into bed. They were precious times.

  ‘My boy,’ I said proudly, as I watched him sleeping.

  But I was anxious, too, about getting it right. If we were late for school, or if Ben fell over, or he picked up a cold, I worried that he might be taken away again. At first I didn’t let him take risks, and of course that is what childhood is all about.

  ‘Not the climbing frame,’ I told him. ‘That’s too high. Stick to the swings, where Mummy can push you.’

  I strived to be perfect, and like all mothers I was far from it. The weeks wore on and, inevitably, I relaxed. I learned to enjoy motherhood more and more. I learned to let myself go. One day, Ben came home from school with muddy shorts and his face was tear-stained and creased with concern.

  ‘Whatever is the matter?’ I asked him.

  ‘I’m sorry I got muddy,’ he told me. ‘I know it’s naughty.’

  It stumped me. How could a little boy ever think that getting dirty was wrong?

  ‘Little boys are supposed to be full of muck,’ I told him cheerfully. ‘Don’t you worry.’

  But deep down it broke my heart what he must have been through – what I had let him go through – for him to think that a few mud stains were worthy of punishment. I made a point after that of taking him out in the rain and encouraging – insisting even – that he splash in puddles, run through mud and collect sticks and pebbles.

  ‘It’s all part of being a boy,’ I smiled.

  And just as I was growing into the role of being a mum, I could see that he, too, was warming to his role as a little lad. In December 1993 I went into labour, six weeks early. I started bleeding at home and, in panic, I called an ambulance from a neighbour’s phone. Steve was at work but he raced to the hospital and met me there. We were both concerned.

  ‘It’s far too early,’ I fretted.

  I was in hospital for two worrying days before the contractions began properly. Steve held my hand as our daughter, Naomi, came into the world, at 6.30 a.m. on 13 December 1993, weighing 6lb 3oz.

  As she was laid on my chest, and her face turned towards mine, it took my breath away. She looked so much like Christopher. She had the same fair hair and round face. It was as though he had sent a double, to comfort me. He wanted to be a part of our new start. Despite being six weeks premature, Naomi was healthy and absolutely perfect, and I felt blessed. She spent ten days in hospital with jaundice, which the midwives explained was not uncommon at all, and then she was allowed home. Steve moved in with us and I was so happy with my little family. I kept myself busy looking after my children. Every day I looked forward and outward. But I never once dared to look in, at myself. I didn’t trust what might happen. Every week or so I would change our furniture around, moving the TV to the other side of the room, swapping the couch with the dining table.

  ‘What do you think of this?’ I asked Steve, as I pulled the couch from one end of the room to the other.

  He was completely bemused. He didn’t understand my constant need to switch things around. I did the same in the bedrooms, too. I was always itching for change. I also did it with my own appearance; I dyed my hair a different colour every couple of months and I lost and gained dramatic amounts of weight. Back then, I thought I was just being picky, but I would learn later, much later, that my behaviour was typical of someone who had been abused.

  Somehow, word got back to Mum that I had a new home and a new baby, and she turned up at the door, uninvited and unexpected. My stomach flipped when I saw her outline, dumpy and severe, through the glass in the front door. Not wanting a confrontation, I opened the door and let her inside.

  ‘I heard you’d had a baby girl,’ she said, marching straight past me.

  I couldn’t think of anything to say to stop her. It struck me again that I could defend myself on the streets against drug addicts and pimps, but I could not speak my mind to my mother. She had a poisonous hold over me, a vice-like control, which I could not shake. John Wood was lurking behind her, and they went into the living room and looked around, making a fuss of Ben a
nd Naomi, as though it was the most natural thing in the world.

  ‘Give us a guided tour, then,’ Mum said.

  Feeling like I was in a parallel universe, I showed her round the bedrooms. Ben couldn’t wait to show off his own room.

  ‘I’m your Nanna,’ she told him with a big smile.

  She was so amiable, so animated, that it scared me. I just couldn’t win. Whatever side she showed, friend or fiend, I was frightened.

  ‘We’re planning on decorating, when we’ve saved up,’ Steve told her. ‘We’d like to do the kids’ rooms first.’

  ‘Let me know when you’ve got the wallpaper, I’ll come round and help,’ Mum said. ‘I’m a dab hand.’

  I was astounded. It was at once comforting and totally bizarre. I wanted so much to have a family, to be included in a nucleus of support and warmth. Yet this was so absolutely wrong.

  ‘That would be great,’ I heard myself say. ‘I’ll buy the wallpaper as soon as I can.’

  I refused to think about the abuse. In fact, it was more than just putting something out of my mind. I had buried it so deep I couldn’t have dug it up again, even if I’d tried. The memories were locked away in a steel safe and I no longer had the key. I don’t think it was a conscious decision. I think it was all about survival. I knew, inherently, that if those memories surfaced they would destroy me – and destroy my chances of being a mother to my children. For their sake, and for mine, I had to sever all ties with my own memory.

  Jock had a family, too, by this stage. Like Mum, he turned up out of the blue when he heard about our new baby. He stood on the doorstep with his own family, carrying a card and a present, just like any older brother would.

  ‘Come in,’ I said, steadying myself against the door. ‘Lovely to see you.’

  I just didn’t know what else to say. I thought it was the best thing for everyone to let him in. And yet, though I allowed my family back into our lives, I never for one moment left them alone with my children. And so, although I had blocked out the abuse, a small part of me must have been alert to the risk. They were in my life, but I was vigilant. Always vigilant. I’m not entirely sure I knew what I was looking out for, but I was always on my guard. One afternoon, when Steve was at work and Ben was at school, there was a knock at my door and I spotted Jock outside.

  ‘Thought I’d call in as I was passing,’ he said, striding into the house.

  I nodded, confused and a little afraid, though I wasn’t sure why. Naomi was asleep in her Moses basket. I walked through to the kitchen to make him a cup of tea, but I could feel the tension. Every pore in my body was crackling with fear. But why? As I flicked on the kettle, I suddenly felt Jock’s breath warm against my neck, and I spun around. He pushed himself up against me, right between my legs and whispered: ‘How about one for old times’ sake?’

  All of a sudden I was bombarded with vivid flashbacks, scorching across my brain. Suddenly I was a little girl, lying in the grass on Black Bank, with Jock looming over me. And there I was, pinned down, behind the couch, my underwear around my ankles. I could see his St Christopher medal as it swung back and forth, feel his rough skin against mine, wince at the pain down below as I was brutalised and violated, again and again. I stared at his face and, involuntarily, I kicked out at him.

  ‘I am not that little girl. You can’t do this to me,’ I gasped, choking on each word.

  His choice of words left me reeling, seething. It was as if it had been consensual, like it had been a fun thing between us. He acted as though we’d been out together. Jock marched out of the house without a word and I sank onto my kitchen floor, shaking so hard that my teeth were chattering.

  ‘I am not that little girl,’ I whispered, as the tears spilled down my cheeks and pooled in the grouting between the kitchen tiles.

  I could see the memories, out of the corner of my mind’s eye, pushing to get back in. I could hear them, angrily jostling for space, desperate to be seen and heard. With a sinking feeling, I realised Jock had known I would keep quiet, that I would never dare say anything to Steve or to anyone else. He had taken a chance, knowing he had nothing at all to lose. Supremely arrogant, he had walked into my home and turned my world inside out. He was still controlling me. Jock was still my jailor. I was imprisoned. I had told myself that I was seeing my family on my own terms, but that was rubbish. They called the shots, every time. It was not Stockholm syndrome, but it was a close relative.

  ‘I’ll never be rid of them,’ I sobbed.

  There were two sides to me; two conflicting, battling, paradoxical camps. I wanted a family, I wanted aunts and uncles for my kids, I wanted normality. I wanted what everyone else had. I needed an antidote to those lonely nights in the damp flat with the cheap furniture and the thin mattress, in the place I had hurt Ben. I needed a sense of belonging. Yet somewhere, buried in the pit of my soul, was a burning ball of angst.

  ‘No,’ I said out loud. ‘No, I can’t have this. I can’t do it.’

  I stood up and made myself a cup of coffee. I felt as though I was physically scooping up my entire childhood and burning it on a bonfire. I wanted nothing left, no reminders. I buried Jock’s visit along with every other noxious family memory. I was almost like a witch, casting them out. Banished.

  By 3 p.m. I was calm, composed, and ready to collect my son from school. Ready to be a mother again. Christmas was just a few days away and I had saved every penny to buy Ben a Sega Mega Drive – it was the must-have toy that year. I concentrated on my children, and on my future, and everything else was dead to me. I met Ben at the school gates and all the way home we chatted about Santa and reindeer and snowmen.

  ‘Can’t wait, Mummy,’ he beamed.

  This was what I wanted. Security, normality, purity and love. The rest could go to hell.

  In the New Year of 1994, when Naomi was six weeks old, my paternal grandfather died. Jock and I had lived with him when we were small, before going into care, and I remembered him fondly.

  ‘I’d like to go up to Scotland to pay my respects,’ I said to Steve.

  He offered to drive us there, then Jock asked Steve if he could have a lift too.

  ‘Course you can mate, loads of room,’ Steve agreed.

  I opened and shut my mouth again wordlessly. What could I say? I was livid that Jock had assumed, with his trademark self-importance, that he would be welcome. It was further confirmation, if any was needed, that I was completely under his control. Somehow, I sat in the car all the way to Scotland, Jock in the front seat, me in the back with my children. Together we greeted and comforted our grieving grandmother. We stood, shoulder to shoulder, brother and sister. It is mind-boggling to me now. I don’t expect anyone else to understand it, because I am at a loss to do so myself.

  In the build-up to Christmas 1994, Steve and I began arguing more and more. There was a tension in the house; we were often not speaking or we were sniping at each other, and I didn’t like it.

  ‘It’s not good for the children,’ I told him.

  Over Christmas I felt it so much more acutely, and I knew that something had to give.

  ‘I want you to leave,’ I told him. ‘I don’t want any more trouble. I just want some peace.’

  I had my children to think of, and they came first, before any man. I was not, in truth, fully committed to any relationship. I doubted, realistically, whether I would ever find a partner I could feel at ease with for the rest of my life. Steve moved out in the New Year, and afterwards me and the kids settled into a new routine. I was genuinely very happy.

  Admittedly, I was guilty of enjoying my own company. I preferred being alone, as I always had. And being a mother, loved and being loved, was the best job in the world. So far, since getting Ben back, I seemed to be finding my way quite well in the world, and that brought me immense joy.

  Over the summer of 1995, when Naomi was eighteen months old and Ben was six, I
became friendly with a man from our street called Mick. He was the ex-partner of one of my neighbours, so though he didn’t actually live on the road any more he was often around. He was larger than life, funny and irreverent, and every time I saw him he would shout a light-hearted insult.

  ‘Look at the state of you!’ he would shout, as he walked past my house. ‘Haven’t you ever owned a hairbrush?’

  I could give as good as I got. He and I got on well, and just seeing him brought a smile to my face. One afternoon, a couple of months on, one of Mick’s friends knocked on my door.

  ‘Mick wants to know if you will go out with him, on a date, like,’ he said awkwardly.

  I suppressed a giggle.

  ‘What is he? A teenager?’ I replied tartly. ‘If he wants to ask me out he can do it himself. Where’s his loud mouth now?’

  Laughing, I pushed the door to. I never thought he would do it. But a few minutes later Mick stuck his head around my open door, blushing bright red, and repeated the question.

  ‘I’ll have to come now, you’ve put me on the spot,’ I grinned.

  My only condition to agreeing to a date was that I could bring my children along too!

  ‘I’m part of a package,’ I told him.

  Subconsciously I was probably trying to put him off, but it didn’t work out. He took us all out for the afternoon, to the local club, where there was a bouncy castle and a play area. We had a brilliant afternoon, and by the end of it the kids had fallen for him, too. Mick had children himself from a previous relationship, and he was wonderful with little ones, mine included. He was just 5 foot 3, but a bundle of fun and energy. He was not in the least bit romantic but he was kind and laid back. We rarely argued – we were best friends, above all else. He was industrious and hardworking, and always in a job of some sort. He was a Jack of all trades and could turn his hand to almost anything, but when I met him he was working as a cleaner.