by Caryn Walker
Jo’s dad was actually her stepfather and he treated her really well – in fact, he treated her so well that I started to look for signs, suspicious that she was being abused too. There was nothing, though – they were genuinely just good people. Jo’s family was making me think – if they were nice and normal, then maybe what I had wasn’t right. I started to see holes in Dad’s arguments and started to try to say no. I’d push him off – not violently – but he would change, putting his hand round my throat and pinning me down, raising his fists to me. This frightened me so much that after a couple of times I stopped saying no.
The sexual abuse was the same in that new house as it had been in the previous one – constant and horrendous. Oral, fingers, rubbing, rape, telling me I couldn’t get pregnant as he’d had a vasectomy, saying ‘You’re not a virgin, you’re tarnished, marked, people will know you’re dirty.’ I believed him – why wouldn’t I? Mum became drinking buddies with a neighbour and was out three nights a week, and this gave him complete free rein, free access to me – until Mum put a lock on my door when I was thirteen. The fact that she did so would become a very important point in my story; it wasn’t the action of a woman who suspected nothing. But still, if I left my room, he was there. He never slept. If I ran to the loo, he’d be there when I came out. I’d use a plastic tub, a Tupperware one, in my bedroom for the toilet, ashamed but desperate. If I went for a bath, he’d follow. He’d say ‘Karen’ over and over again outside my door in a low, menacing way. He tried every trick in the book – your mum’s ill, your mum wants in. I’d go into my room and there’d be lacy underwear and candles on the bed. It was sick.
I don’t think I could really comprehend how far he would go in his obsession, but there were so many signs. One day when I was thirteen I came home from school and went into my room. I had pictures on the back of my bedroom door of Michael Jackson, and I always scanned them – scanned everything, checked everything – it registered that there was something off about them that day. They just didn’t seem to be aligned as they normally were. Something wasn’t right. I walked over to get a closer look and saw that in one of them, for some reason, the head was separate from the rest of the poster. I removed it and was shocked to find a hole in the door, covered up by the picture. I searched and found two more. I put the pictures back and sat down on my bed, shaking. He was spying on me. He had drilled holes in the door, then put the posters back in almost the same place, leaving a slight gap so he could see through the space and watch me.
Every night after that, when I went to bed, I would use my dressing gown and my coat to cover every inch of the bedroom door so he couldn’t spy on me. He just wouldn’t leave me alone; I could never settle because he was always there, always trying to get me. He was often standing outside my room at night, sometimes trying to get in through force, trying to get me to open the door (which I never would, never voluntarily), or just waiting with endless patience for me to have to go to the toilet.
The lock gave me some safety, but there were occasions when he removed it or, sometimes, got to my room before me or cornered me in another part of the house. I knew Mum took sleeping tablets a lot of the time, so maybe she didn’t know when he was leaving their room. I remember being forced by him into sleeping in their bed once while she was in hospital – he left at one point when he thought he heard a noise, and I heard Ian’s voice. When the door opened again, I prayed that it was my brother, that he was coming to keep me safe, but it was Dad. I think Ian knew I was in there, but I also think Dad would have made excuses or threatened him to keep away.
The spyhole was just one of his many attempts to control me and get to me at every turn. One night, he cornered me in the kitchen and had his hands inside my clothes when Kev walked in – he was only nine, but he must have seen it, must have known it was wrong. Dads don’t do that. Except mine did. I think the lock being put on my door had incensed him. He took every chance he could – the bathroom, any bedroom, the hallways – he followed my every move and my life was like a military operation. I moved around only where it was ‘safe’, where there were other people. This was it; this was every day for me now that he couldn’t just come into my bedroom each night.
I went home one lunchtime and he was there. He said Mum had gone to the shop, and would be five minutes. I ran upstairs and locked myself in the bathroom because he could do a lot of damage in five minutes. I stayed there for about an hour, until one of my friends came to get me to go back to school. She was angry at me for making us late but he was even angrier with me, and said, ‘Wait until I see you later.’ He did see me later, and what he did to me makes me wonder why I even bothered trying to avoid it. He would always get me; he would always manage to do those things to me. Maybe it was just a basic survival instinct that made me try to avoid it when I could, even though I knew I could never really get away from him. I worried what would happen when I was older and would perhaps want to go out at night. It would be impossible for me, I knew that, because my life wasn’t normal. No one protected me, no one at all.
There was one occasion when Mum walked into my bedroom in the middle of the night. Dad was standing at my bed, and she would have seen that he had no pyjama bottoms on. My nightie was pulled up and my bedclothes were pulled down. She left, he followed, and a while later she screamed, ‘I want her out of my fucking house!’ Later on, I walked past their bedroom and heard her say, ‘She’s still in her room.’ He replied, ‘She’s probably playing with herself.’ That was it, that was Mum’s involvement and that was the answer she accepted.
I remember, when the lock was put on my door, thinking, ‘She knows.’ Certainly, once it was in place, Mum constantly screamed at me about my door being locked. She was blaming me I felt. She would say, ‘Why are you in there and the door isn’t locked?’ The truth was, he would have been in earlier and taken it off so it wouldn’t work. One night I walked downstairs, not knowing Mum was out. He held his hands out to show me the lock from my door. I grappled it from him, and he gave in just as the boys arrived. I rushed upstairs and tried quickly to put the lock back on. He came upstairs, having sent the boys outside to play, and walked over to me, grinning, as he did so often, and said, ‘That’s a shame – no lock on your door? You should watch yourself; anyone could come in.’
I blank some of it out, Jenny – I often do.
I’ve blanked out what came after he said that.
I feel that a floodgate has opened, Jenny. I feel I am telling you things that have been locked up inside me for ever – some people know some parts, but no one has ever known it all. And over the top of it is your story. We were separated so much, denied the chance to ever become loving sisters, but we were each going through our own hell at the same time, even if not together. I wonder what would have become of us if we had been brought up in the same place? Not even with different parents – although it is a lovely thought – but there, together, would we have fought harder? Would we have been a team? It’s so tempting to romanticise what could have been but, the reality is, we were dealt that hand and we had to cope.
Looking at the files, it seems the older Jenny got, the less anyone really thought she deserved recognition for all she had been through. Mum was constantly pushing and pulling, never able to break the pattern of emotional manipulation that had been there from the start. I guess for some abusers, once the child gets older they almost have to reassess their approach. If they can no longer physically abuse, they can always use psychological approaches. There is a note in the file from January 1985 to say the social worker had chatted to Mum about how Christmas had gone and about the fact that Jenny had visited. ‘Mrs Yeo felt Jennifer showed off and became a little nuisance. She felt that Jennifer is only after what she can get from people. She does not want to give anything herself. Mother and daughter are so alike that they can only tolerate each other for so long.’
This was the key to so much – whenever Jenny was seen as behaving in a certain way, it would often switch off symp
athy or support from those who should always have been on her side; they would think she was frequently acting like a version of Mum. Those words in that file could have been talking about either of them. The little cruelties, what Mum did to my big sister, are there in black and white, over the years, across hundreds of pages. Petty things, point-scoring. ‘Mrs Yeo told me that she didn’t bother with Jennifer’s birthday because Jennifer didn’t remember her birthday.’
‘She felt it was time Jennifer started growing up because some day she is going to have to stand on her own feet.’
‘According to Mrs Yeo, Jennifer is saying nasty things about her to Karen at school.’
It was (ironically, given Jenny’s pet name from an early foster-family) a constant yo-yo – she wanted Mum, she hated Mum. She lured her back, she threw her away. How could Jenny have even hoped for any happiness with a life like that? And she’d had it from the start. The file says, ‘Her mouth has always tended to let Jennifer down.’ No: her parents let her down. Mum was never the adult in her relationship with Jenny, unless it suited her. In 1985, when it was noted ‘Mrs Yeo told me that she didn’t bother with Jennifer’s birthday because Jennifer didn’t remember her birthday’, they also reported: ‘She wasn’t going to make any move towards Jennifer.’ Mums shouldn’t be like that. They should keep trying, not playing tit-for-tat with the emotions of their child. It shouldn’t matter one bit if Jenny forgot her own birthday; she was her mum, and her love should have been unconditional. Instead of that, it was her hatred that knew no bounds.
When it was reported that, ‘According to Mrs Yeo, Jennifer is saying nasty things about her to Karen at school,’ it wasn’t parenting, it was schoolyard nonsense, and it broke my heart to read it. I can see what is behind the words when the report notes what Mum said about Christmas Day. Jenny only visited us for a little while, but even that must have been so hard for her. ‘Mrs Yeo felt Jennifer showed off and became a little nuisance – no one was particularly bothered when she went home. In fact, they were more relieved.’ I was bothered, Jenny, I was, and I just wish I had screamed LET HER STAY! LET MY BIG SISTER STAY! Maybe if we had all said it, all shouted it, we could have shown Jenny that she was wanted, but there was never the strength among us to do that. ‘Mother and daughter are so alike that they can only tolerate each other for so long,’ the social worker reported. It may have been true, but the story behind it shows just what Jenny was up against.
Then, in summer 1985, things changed again.
Jenny was pregnant.
She had been to the doctor and was going there the next day to discuss her plans either for a termination or keeping the child. It was felt that Jennifer needed some counselling; it was stated that she would prefer a female to talk to rather than a male […] called to see Jenny; she was very nervous during the interview and at times giggled inappropriately. It appears that the boy who is the father of the child is a boy she has known for quite a time and seems to have been quite an intense relationship on the part of Jenny. She had a rather naïve opinion that he would stand by her over this issue, and she would have no problems; she was in very much of a dilemma over what action to take; she did feel that adoption was not appropriate as she did feel she could not carry a child for 9 months and then give it up. We then discussed the 2 options she faced and I gave her all the necessary information.
With regard to termination; we acknowledged that although this would appear to be the simplest solution, we discussed the emotional trauma she would go through and the guilt and other problems associated with termination.
With regard to keeping the child we were quite open in discussion re care of the child and problems that would expose Jenny to […] she was rather confused and what she wanted was someone to make a definitive statement she should take one step or another; we stated time and time again that we would help her whatever her decision but we could only advise and put forward the options.
Jenny chose to keep her child. Young, with no family who would support her, ‘she had the thankless task of making the decision about keeping her baby’. A handwritten note in her file says she has travelled ‘a long, hard road since her last review’. When the social worker met with both Jenny and Mum to discuss everything, the stark summary was: ‘felt both Jennifer and her mother were totally unrealistic about the position’.
It didn’t take long for my mother to decide what she wanted out of Jenny’s pregnancy – and that was the child itself. All concerned ‘counselled her and gave every support and assistance but, sadly, she was left with only one choice by her mother. You take the baby and you lose your family’.
It’s there in spindly handwriting, noted down by a social worker who is trying hard to keep her own emotions out of it, but, all these years later, I read it and I feel as if the horror is coming off the pages. My own mother did that to my own sister. Keep your baby – lose your family. A family that had given her precious little but abuse and negativity since the day she was born. Mum was always telling me she would get the baby, and Jenny would be too terrified to say no to her. I wasn’t sure – I wondered if Jenny would find the strength to stand up to her (and hoped she would), for her baby’s sake. ‘What a choice to have to make. Jenny has always craved acceptance by her family.’ But she did it; she chose her baby, and Donna was born some time later. Mum made it difficult from the start; she made it very clear that she assumed and believed Jenny would be a terrible mother. It’s there in the notes, but the brief comments made by social workers can’t possibly truly represent the onslaught that Jenny must have faced.
Jenny stayed with us until the baby was born, but after ten days, she left – I wonder if that was because it took ten days for the midwife to discharge her? Was she biding her time, making plans to escape? I hope so. I hope she had that spark.
Mum was – naturally – furious.
‘She’s fucked off,’ she shouted. ‘More interested in whoring about than in her child.’
I can only guess what happened, that Jenny was found by Mum and forced to come back, as that’s exactly what she did – for a few days, then … then Mum won, and Jenny disappeared again, but without Donna this time. ‘I told you,’ crowed Mum, ‘off whoring!’
‘Needless to say, she left the baby with her mother. She does have access but this is fraught as, when she visits, physical contact with the baby is restricted. Still a long way to go with her relationships. Needs to be liked by all and goes to great lengths to obtain same.’
We had Donna for fourteen months, and she was dressed immaculately by Mum. I tried to always have Donna in my room, and I would get up in the night to feed her – I was only fifteen – but it was torture, as Dad would be waiting downstairs for me when I would go to make up a bottle. He would grope me as I tried to sort things for the baby, touching me in all the places he always wanted, still saying all of those things, but I tried to just focus on my niece, to get through what he was doing so that I could meet her needs – and do all I could to keep her safe.
Jenny struggled – she was always easily led, and hung around lads who were on drugs, and now she was having her baby looked after by the very woman who had ruined her childhood, by the very woman who took great pleasure in finding new emotional brutalities to inflict whenever she could.
By September 1986, my mother was exerting control as much as she could. I can only imagine what was going on behind the scenes, but the reports all say Mum was – falsely – claiming Jenny was pregnant again and that she ‘wouldn’t stand for it’. Jenny was back with her boyfriend, Woody, once more, but she was being so closely monitored by everyone that they knew she was on the Pill.
The inanity of some of the reports get to me. On one hand they speak of how troubled my sister was, how much she wanted her baby back, how Mum was badmouthing her at every review that she could be bothered to attend, but also that she ‘requires calculator, notepad, pencils for college as only on £3.50 pocket money’. The little things cause an ache in my heart for the life she wa
s living, neither daughter nor mother, halfway in and out of her own world.
A handwritten letter by the social worker on 10 October 1986 speaks volumes: ‘She does have access but this is fraught as when she visits, physical contact with her baby is restricted. Jenny needs to be liked by all and goes to great lengths to obtain same. Has now started at college, retaking O levels.’
Poor, poor Jenny.
She was letting things slip, according to the Parkside children’s home staff, in that she allowed ‘lads’ to visit, to smoke, to use POT (as they always glaringly capitalise it in the files) and to let ‘noise go on’. They do agree that
Jenny has coped with considerable pressures and has done very well, especially in her exams. There are currently difficulties in observing her contract particularly in having lads around who are involved in drugs. Jenny needs to involve staff to move them and not let it go on. Jenny’s access to Donna is not satisfactory and, after lengthy discussion, we concluded that action should be taken and Jenny supported in her contact with Donna. We felt Jenny needs to assert herself more positively.
But it wasn’t that easy. A lifetime of being abused, of being told she was nothing, meant Jenny couldn’t just decide to stand up to Mum overnight. By January 1987, Mum had applied for full custody of Donna – it’s hard for me to work out in my mind whether that was to get one over on Jenny, or because she wanted another life to control, another baby to ruin. Jenny was distracted at this point as she wanted to move out of Parkside into a flat of her own, and there were many meetings and discussions looking into this. There is no doubt in my mind that Mum would have used Jenny’s interest in this aspect of her life against her – while my sister was hoping for a flat to make into a home for her and Donna, Mum was going full steam ahead in trying to make sure her granddaughter would be hers legally and permanently.
