by Caryn Walker
I had a flashback to coming home from school one day and Donna was gone. ‘I sent her back,’ Mum coldly told me, and it broke my heart. It turned out that Jenny had come home and Mum had said, ‘You can stay here if you like, but I’m having the baby, she’s mine.’ Jenny had been controlled throughout her pregnancy and even labour by Mum, she confided in me years after it had happened. When her waters broke, Mum asked her, ‘What’s happening?’ Jenny said, ‘You’re having it!’ and Mum replied, ‘Well, don’t be changing your mind – you’ve said I can have it, so no going back.’ That was it, deal done, and she always used it against my sister, reminding her it was ‘sorted’, and that she had agreed to give her child up to the woman who had manipulated and abused her from day one of her own existence.
It was only when I got the files that I realised just how much Jenny had still been going through when she was pregnant and when Donna was so little. I think I had almost convinced myself that she had got ‘out’ when she was a teenager, but the truth was, the damage was so deep that she could never have managed that. Her files from October 1985 say: ‘Jenny adamant that she wants her parents to look after the baby and that she does not have any feelings towards it herself so I should stop worrying about her feelings.’ It’s clear that the social worker is concerned and knows there is manipulation, but Jenny had to be free to make her own choices at this point, even when those choices weren’t really ‘free’ at all. As ever, there was only so much the authorities could do. I remember the social worker took both of us to Mothercare to get some things for Jenny and, as is evident in the files, she was embarrassed, thinking everyone was looking at her, young and pregnant, vulnerable but already facing disapproval from people who had no idea she had been through so much already in her fifteen years.
When Jenny was given a due date for the baby, Mum kicked off, perhaps because she felt that nothing had been decided yet in terms of whether she was going to ‘get’ the child, and said she would ‘sue’ if Jenny was allowed to go overdue and there was something wrong with ‘it’. But the files state that all goes well: ‘Jenny had a baby girl. Weighed 6lbs 13oz, to be called Donna Michelle. Jenny had an epidural injection and is well. Baby has one foot that turns in otherwise beautiful and just like Jenny. Possibly coming home today or tomorrow.’
It was only when I got those boxes and boxes of files that I realised other people were watching this part of the story too. The social work team had been ghosts in the narrative for so long, they had almost faded into the background. I had read their typed reports but the language was often so matter-of-fact that the dysfunctional events become normalised; however, at that point, there was a young woman who was invested in our story, in Jenny’s story, and I think that in those words beautiful and just like Jenny, I catch a glimpse of her attachment to my sister. It touches me, it really does. There were other, real people involved in our story and I think – I hope – some of them were rooting for Jenny.
My sister didn’t get out the next day with her baby as Donna wasn’t feeding properly and Jenny was ‘losing clots’. It must have been a terrifying time for her and the emotional upheaval would have been enormous. ‘Jenny did not want to hold Donna when she was born … Jenny has said she doesn’t love the baby but will not agree to her being adopted.’ By the time Jenny was discharged on the 20th, the social worker is obviously frustrated at Mum, who has been trying to get her own way behind the scenes and has dictated that she will be ‘sharing’ the baby and that Jenny can have home visits once a week. ‘I felt it was rather premature to be discussing this,’ the social worker rightly notes, before going on holiday until the beginning of April. It was a crucial time and I wonder how much damage was done by the lack of supervision or regular visits at that time. The records show that other people involved in the care of Jenny and Donna during this time ‘had not been informed previously’ of the history. They were ‘quite annoyed’ by this.
I do wonder whether Jenny was trying to keep her distance from Donna, perhaps knowing deep down that she would never be allowed to freely mother her, make her own choices or even be left alone. By April, it was being reported that Mum claimed Jenny was ‘so jealous’ of the baby. It seems, from the files, that a health visitor called Mrs Yates has a good idea about what is going on, for when she expresses concern about Mum’s involvement and influence and is told that three of her other children were removed from care (a very careful use of words, I feel), she replies that ‘she would probably see me in Court and again expressed annoyance at not being kept informed about the background, history etc.’. As always, there were so many people involved, none of them seemingly knowing what the others were doing, none of them able to make the decisions that really needed to be made.
I think Jenny would have made such a good mummy if she’d been given a chance, and the right support. When I had Karl, she visited me, so proud and loving – I remember Mum dragging her out and screaming at her as I cowered with my baby in bed, but I only found out from Jenny later that our mother actually battered the life out of her in the corridor. How could either of us ever have normality when that was what we were used to? When I looked after Donna, when I had Karl, I used to indulge myself in little daydreams that we would raise our babies together – Mum and Dad never in the picture – but I’m not sure if I ever believed it would happen, because I’m not sure if I ever felt I was truly worthy of it. I needed to get there; I needed to get to the stage where I felt I deserved a good life – and I wanted to do it for Karl, if not for myself – but there was still a long path ahead, and those thorns were pricklier than ever. There was no fairytale ending in sight yet, for me or for Jenny.
CHAPTER 7
GONE
1995–2009
Before I had Karl, things had been as awful as ever with Dad – he had started making me go out with him to the shop when he wanted fags, but this was just an excuse for him to push me down an alleyway and do the usual things to me; only on these occasions, I guess he had the thrill of not knowing whether someone would catch us. This went on until I was sixteen, when, all of a sudden, he left. Mum had been going out a lot in the build-up to this, seeing other men, and she eventually threw him out.
The relief was something I can barely even describe. I think I knew he wouldn’t be back, because it was my mother who had made the decision – and no one messed with her really. This wasn’t something I could ever have initiated, but the fact that she had chosen to kick him out meant he would probably stay out. I only had her to deal with now – and Graham when he came on the scene.
Dad was gone for ten years while I dealt with other demons, scarred by what he had done to me and never able to stand up for myself because of it, only getting in touch again in 1995 to let us know he was getting remarried. Andrew and Kev were thrilled; me and Ian not so much. I faked it though, when Andrew and Kevin called, but as soon as I put the phone down, I knew this wouldn’t be as simple as one call. They were so excited about him being back in our lives that I felt I couldn’t say no – as usual. I’d just have to keep pretending. It was Dad’s wife-to-be who had encouraged him to contact his children, wanting us to be one big happy family. Of course, Sandra only had his side of the story, and I didn’t have the strength to tell anyone otherwise.
She called me and asked if we could all meet up. My stomach churning, I made some excuse about why it would have to be in a pub for lunch, rather than them coming to see me, but the truth was, I wanted him nowhere near Karl in any confined space. I didn’t trust him at all, and I was also scared of what my reaction would be to seeing him again after all this time.
Sandra was nice and he looked happy, but he still gave me ‘that’ look.
‘I haven’t seen you for years,’ he said in front of everyone, but as soon as he could, he whispered, ‘You’re a woman now, aren’t you?’ and winked. I left the pub and went home on autopilot, in turmoil, remembering it all, all of the things he had done. In my head was one question – I hadn’t asked Sandra if sh
e had any kids. I agreed to another meeting with them, a reunion just before the wedding, and she told me she had one daughter. My heart sank, and I looked at him out of the corner of my eye, knowing what he was, and wondered if he had seen Sandra’s daughter as a target.
My heart was filled with dread from the moment he got back in touch, but, for eighteen months, I tried, I really did, because I wanted to keep an eye on him. From the outside, we probably looked like a perfectly normal family – but the toxic waste of the past was eating through everything. There was no way I would ever leave Karl with him and I would only visit if Sandra was there, but I felt that I was the one making things hard, that I was the one ruining the façade everyone else was so keen to maintain.
With the pressure of that, I developed an eating disorder – bulimia – that came over me almost overnight. It was as if my body was having a reaction to my dad’s reappearance in my life that I couldn’t control. Many people think eating disorders are about wanting to diet, or weight loss, but for me, it was nothing to do with food – it was always tied into my emotions, it was a way of escaping life and the only thing I could control. It was always worse when I was on my own or under stress. It still is. One mouthful of food can send me over the edge. There’s an urge to keep being sick when I start, something switches off and I’m gone for a while. I’ve had a damaged stomach lining and oesophagus. I get tired and weak. I don’t suppose it’s something to be surprised about really; when I think back to the disgusting food, the rank meals that were served up day after day until I forced them down, it would be a miracle if I didn’t have an issue with food; but actually that isn’t why I have an eating disorder – it’s definitely about control for me, without a doubt. I do want to stop completely. I hate it. I hate the headaches and tiredness and the feeling absolutely rotten in the days afterwards. For the first ten years of having bulimia, I’d make myself sick up to seven times a day, gorging on food, then forcing the vomit out, time after time. It has been a lot better recently, but I’m by no means over it.
Every so often, my dad would still look at me. It was all about perception versus reality. On the outside, we were a happy family and everything was fantastic; Sandra loved us. For me, it was all a sham. I felt like an empty shell. I pretended every single bit of it. Their wedding was in a registry office, and I went along with Grandma. I don’t think I felt any anger, just numbness, which I tried to push out of my mind. I still felt I had no voice and I was so ashamed every time I looked at him. I felt people could see how filthy I was; that they could sense I was the slag Graham had labelled me as for years now.
After eighteen months, I couldn’t do it any longer with Dad and I started to make excuses. I knew I was falling apart. I went to my GP and told him about the bulimia, but I was just sent away with a prescription for antidepressants. Mum came for a visit and goaded me the whole time.
She’d get drunk and cry about Dad, then phone one of her boyfriends, complaining I was treating her like a slave. She screamed and shouted, and in a bid to stop her constant haranguing, I brought up what Dad had done to me. Just like that. To her face. I confronted her but she wouldn’t have any of it and stormed off. I couldn’t carry this poison inside me a moment longer. It needed to come out.
I called Gail, who was amazing as always. She took me to her house and, that night, I told her all about the abuse as I lay on her bed, crying my eyes out. Everything poured out of me for the first time in my life. She was lovely, cuddled me and said it would all be OK. I didn’t regret telling her, but I wished I had denied it all when Mum started goading me. I felt she now had a bombshell that she would be willing to drop at any moment. I was terrified of others knowing as I didn’t want them to get hurt.
That day, I got a call from Mum – and all my fears were realised.
‘Guess what?’ she said. ‘I’m telling them – tonight. I’m telling them all just what you did.’ All I could think was, I need to tell them before she does. I need to be in control of this. I drove to the house before she got home and waited for Andy, who lived with her. As soon as he got in, I said, ‘I have something important to tell you.’
His face dropped. ‘Is it about Dad?’
I nodded.
‘Yeah, I know what you’re going to say,’ he whispered. Then he cried like a baby for half an hour. I knew nothing of these memories he’d carried for years but something was breaking inside him that evening. Maybe that was the point at which some people would think I would have gone to the police, but I didn’t. I believe in rehabilitation; I don’t think there is any point in prison if the person doesn’t change, and I didn’t think Dad would change, so I did nothing. Also, I just didn’t feel I had the strength.
I think he must have heard that Mum was on the rampage, that Andy and Kevin now knew, because on the outside he had changed. He had a job, he was nicely dressed, he had a lovely car and home with Sandra. His moody, quiet side had gone; he was chatty and friendly. It was confusing – was it me, I wondered? Was I the problem? He seemed like a different man. Inside I was dying and the bulimia was getting worse. Every time I saw him, it happened, it was there. I just wanted control over anything that was in me. When I put my fingers down my throat, it felt good. There was such relief afterwards, from the release, from the purging. I was soon in the grip of it. Any triggers at all would make me want to vomit. It was an escape from my own head; bingeing was the switch, purging had to go with it.
I astounded myself with what I ate. Three packets of biscuits, six packets of crisps and a loaf of bread, just to start with. I couldn’t be any fuller. I’d eat that quantity three times over and I would do it up to seven times a day. I was obsessed. I’d take Karl to school, then run back home so I could get started. I couldn’t sleep, I was exhausted and I felt so, so weak. I had no health problems for ages, though, but eventually the acid damaged my oesophagus, my stomach lining was hurt, I was bleeding, even the skin on my hands was hardened from shoving them down my throat.
At the time, there were also a lot of issues with Jenny’s daughter. As Donna got older, Mum started working on her to twist her mind against Jenny. It worked and Donna left their home to stay with her. However, the novelty on Mum’s part soon wore off and, when Donna was sixteen, she kicked her out to stay in a hostel. Her relationship with Jenny never recovered. It’s not my place to tell that story, but all I do know for sure is that Jenny was heartbroken.
From 2004 Jenny and I started to spend a lot of time together, and I was so glad of that. She told me that when she got her first flat, Dad was round there within the first few days, trying to have sex with her, so I guess it was something he just felt entitled to. ‘I’m not your real dad anyway,’ he said to her, ‘so it doesn’t matter.’ It hadn’t mattered to him with me either, though. Real dad or not, blood or not, he just saw his daughters as something to be used.
I don’t suppose we saw each other constantly but those were important times. Mum tried to control it, but she started to lose some of that power as I got older. Previously, if she was talking to Jenny then the rest of us were allowed to and if not, then we weren’t. I remember one day we all went for a walk. Jenny and I tried to get ahead of Mum as we never got the chance to talk alone, and we said to one another how lovely it would be if we could spend time together, just us – but that wasn’t allowed under Mum’s rule.
When I got older and started college, I would sneak off to Jenny’s flat to see her and Donna. She had a nice place, decorated just like her personality – quirky and warm. She had good friends there and I think she was happy. I know she drank with her boyfriend sometimes, but I never saw any signs of things getting out of control. On the contrary, I thought she was doing well. I hid my trips from Mum, as I’d been told I’d be disowned if I talked to Jenny – I was still so psychologically bound to my mother by the years of mental abuse, that I couldn’t see that being disowned would actually be a positive thing.
Once I moved, when Karl was three months old, I saw Jenny a lot less. I
was driving by then, so when I went back to Merseyside I would sometimes go to her flat. Once Ian and I took her for a pub lunch when he was home from the US, where he was living. She was so happy that day. It was a lovely experience, just me, Ian, Jenny and Donna. She had a German shepherd dog by that time, that she adored, and Donna was a happy little thing, always smiling. She was making a home; a real home.
One time, when I came to visit her in my car, she had been watching me from the window. When I got there, she said, ‘Look at you, driving! I’m the big sister, I should be doing that.’ There was a sadness in her voice, and she seemed to think for a moment, then quietly added, ‘One day, I’m going to be a proper big sister to you.’ At the time, I thought it was a sweet thing to say. Now, it breaks my heart.
I also saw her occasionally at Mum’s house, but those were never good times as there were still issues of control and manipulation. One Christmas, the whole family was told to come and have lunch together, but Jenny was only allowed to be there in the evening – and it was made very clear to her that was the case. She was still being singled out and treated differently. She was told what hours she could come for, only after the rest of us had eaten, and that if she wanted to drink anything she had to bring it herself, even though the rest of us didn’t get given such restrictions. It was awful for her; always the black sheep, always made to feel like an outsider.
On another occasion, she was ‘allowed’ to go to Mum’s house after we had all had dinner, then Mum said we should go to the pub. ‘Not you though,’ she told Jenny. She took it all, always craving love, always willing to take the dregs she was offered. She would say such nice things, never a bad word about anyone. My sister kept her good soul despite everything.
By the early 2000s, I had a new partner, a wonderful man called Elroy who only ever treated me with respect and love. It was hard for me to trust a man, but Elroy worked hard and recognised what I had been through, and together we built the relationship I never thought I would have. In 2003, we moved to Spain, trying to build a life away from all the demons in the UK, but we did return briefly at one point. At the time I wasn’t happy about returning, but now I am so glad I did. During the year we were back, I saw Jenny more than ever. I was so touched the first time I went back to her flat and saw a photo of me on her fridge. She also had an article about me cut out and pinned up from a ‘Posh Spice’ lookalike newspaper piece I had done. We laughed about it, but Donna told me her mum was really proud of me and showed it to everyone, saying, ‘That’s my little sister!’
