by Louise Allen
Barbara turned and slapped me with the full force of her right arm across the face, and I fell to the floor and hit my head. I lay there sobbing. She walked over to me and kicked my foot, then kicked my side, hissing, ‘Thieving little bitch,’ then stormed out of the room, biscuit in hand. I cried for some time. It felt like the end of the world. I wiped the back of my hand across my face, and then saw blood on my hand. It had a salty, dark, bitter taste. I looked at the ceiling and counted: one, two, three, four; one, two, three, four; one, two, three, four. Perhaps my luck had begun to run out, or maybe I’d got sloppy. I’d have to be more careful.
On Sundays, Barbara did cook Sunday lunch, which usually turned out to be a difficult event. She didn’t like cooking and would complain loudly about it. She would bang and crash about in the kitchen. She said she was too hot, and would throw open the doors and windows and swear a lot. Barbara was angry about having to cook, angry with the oven, angry with the food and angry with us. ‘Get out from under my feet, you bastards,’ she’d shout, and we’d scuttle away.
Her anger included Ian, who was always turfed out of the kitchen. He usually spent Sunday morning cleaning out his work van, which sat on the drive. It was obvious he was staying out of her way. We all did. Ian kept a small Tupperware box in his van, which occasionally had biscuits in it: Garibaldi and Rich Tea. He often had the two front doors wide open, like widespread wings, while he cleaned it out. I would watch from the sidelines and, when he went to get something, I would dart to the Tupperware box and prise it open. If there were two or three biscuits in there, I would sneak one and quickly slip it in my pocket, then close the lid and slide the box back into its place. All before Ian came back, totally unaware.
The biscuit would burn a hole in my pocket. I would put my hand in and then bring my fingers up to my nose and smell that warm, biscuity smell. I relished when I would be able to crumble a bit off and slip it in my mouth, even just the crumbs were marvellous things to melt on the tongue. When dinner was ready, Barbara would shout at us to get Ian: ‘Tell Daddy dinner’s ready.’
We would run to the drive and tell him, and he would say, ‘Oh, ready? Now?’ He didn’t look that keen. We would look panicked, William and I, as we knew he had to come instantly to appease Barbara. We would give each other a look. I would go back and very quickly get some cutlery and plates out and put them on the big kitchen table – big plates for them; side plates for us on the little kiddie table. We would have tiny bits of roast, like a doll’s meal, while they had a whole plateful and seconds. Kevin would look very smug as he ate to his heart’s content. He’d taunt us whenever he could.
Then one day I was in the garden, down by the big brown shed with the birdseed, which was now locked more often than not. The day we first got the birdseed (and subsequent days) had been unusual, since then a huge new shiny padlock had now appeared. Maybe Barbara had found traces of the seed; we didn’t know. We didn’t talk about it. It was all done in silence with looks, nods and gestures.
This day I noticed the padlock was open and I was starving. It was afternoon time and ages till we would get our meagre tea. Barbara would make jam and mincemeat in the autumn and put it in labelled jars on high shelves. I got on an old wooden chair and found a jar of mincemeat, which had already been opened. I got my dipper out and plunged it into the sweet, strong-smelling goo. Once covered, I shoved it in my mouth and – Oh heaven – the fruity, tangy taste was utterly wonderful. I was just swallowing when I became aware of a change in the light and a grating noise. I swung round, terrified: Barbara was standing behind me, her face red with fury.
In two strides she was across the floor. She grabbed my arm, pulled the jar from my other hand and put it back on a high shelf.
‘You nasty little thief,’ she was spitting, incandescent, as she dragged me hard and fast off the chair and into the garden, pushing me down the end of the footpath. She dragged me along on my knees and by my arm, yanking it overhead. I fell forwards into the flowerbed, full of roses and dahlias, and she kicked me in the side with her brown lace-up shoe.
‘You little bitch,’ she snarled, and with that she pushed my head face down into the earth. ‘Eat dirt, go on, you little thief.’ I was shaking uncontrollably now and crying, but she stood astride me, with me hunched on my knees in the flowerbed, face down. ‘Eat dirt!’ she screamed. So I put my hand in the earth, scraped some out and raised it to my mouth. ‘Go on, then. Eat if you’re that hungry.’
I licked a bit of dirt from my hand; it was gritty and disgusting. She pushed her foot into my side again and kicked. Suddenly she pulled my hair and yanked my head backwards. She bent her red face over mine and spat: ‘Louise, I said EAT, you little bitch. That’ll teach you never to steal again, you horrible little girl.’
She made me dig my hand in the dirt and eat a whole load, and as I ate I cried and cried and it dribbled out of my mouth and down my chin and onto my blue gingham summer dress, making everything a dirty mess. It was then that I saw I was also eating cat poo, little sausages of white stuff mixed in the dirt. I fell on my face and sicked it all up, all the dirt, the poo, the mincemeat. Barbara stalked away shouting, ‘One day you’ll learn that you can’t do as you please.’ I sat, sobbing, my hands on my knees, a total mess.
‘Louise,’ she barked from down the garden, now by the chicken run. We had about six chickens in a coop behind chicken wire alongside the back of the house. ‘Come and help, you lazy little bitch.’
I got to my feet, stunned, and stumbled up the garden. My side really hurt and I was covered in sick, dirt and dribble. I was still sobbing quietly, but I knew better than to show any more feelings, so I tried to stop myself. I started counting as I walked. Counting, counting, counting. Barbara pointed to big sacks that the hen straw had to go in once they had used it, and I had to hold them open while she forked mess and straw into them. She said not a word to me the whole while, and I just tried to calm myself down, thinking I really had to be more careful in future or I wouldn’t survive.
3
Caravan Saviours
The back garden was big, with a chicken run on the left with a long wire fence and, next to that, right at the bottom, an orchard with old apple, pear and plum trees. At the end of the orchard was a piece of land that served as a small traveller site, with a few cream and blue caravans on it, occupied by a mixture of Polish and Irish people. William and I often wandered through the garden, past the shed with the birdseed and mincemeat, past the greenhouse, and then into the orchard beyond. We would stand by a leafy apple tree and watch the travellers: the women had colourful headscarves and aprons, full skirts and crinkled white shirts and looked very old. We crept through the orchard hedge up to the long, cream caravans and were fascinated by their dinky net curtains and plastic flowers. Everything looked very neat and tidy inside.
In one caravan lived an old, thin couple we called ‘the robot’ and ‘the witch’ – it made us both giggle. There was another, smaller, pale-blue caravan, set to one side, which belonged to an older Irish man. We watched him come out of his caravan dressed in big brown trousers with braces, an old stripy shirt with no collar, with rolled-up sleeves and a flat cap. He had a crinkly kind face and white hair. He would come out and sit on the step of his caravan and roll up a cigarette and smoke. We would watch him sitting with his cigarette hanging out of his mouth. He’d wave to the Polish people and nod, or just watch the birds. William and I would watch him, half-hiding behind the apple trees. Then we would wander about, picking up fallen fruit and eating the sour flesh, avoiding the worms.
One day we were wandering around the caravans, looking for apples, and we got nearer to the Irishman’s blue caravan. We both crept along by the window, which was propped open, and were trying to peek inside when suddenly a hairy arm shot out. We jumped and froze. We were used to being scared and being shouted at, and we supposed we were about to get a beating. William and I were both shaking and wondering how to creep away but were staring at the disembodied arm
hanging out the window. We realised there was a nice piece of crusty bread clasped in the strong fingers.
‘Take it!’ the Irishman whispered hoarsely out the window. William and I looked around, making sure the coast was clear. We didn’t want Barbara to find us; there’d be hell to pay. We looked at each other, then back at the hand, and then the crust. ‘C’mere wontcha. Take it,’ the voice repeated softly. We crept up to the hand like cats, and sniffed. Was it a trick? It smelt like bread. Real bread. Snatch! William grabbed it and broke it roughly in two and we dived into it. Oh, the taste! Yeasty, sweet, soft, divine. No bread had ever tasted anything like this. It was manna from heaven. The hand disappeared and reappeared with another slice, and that too we gobbled down as fast as we could. William and I stood riveted to the ground, amazed at our fortune, as the caravan door opened and out came the familiar figure of the Irishman. He went down a couple of steps and sat down. ‘Sean Brannon,’ he said warmly.
We just stood and looked at him, licking our lips, feeling our tummies filling – a warm, wonderful, comforting feeling. Sean smiled at us and sucked on his cigarette. We just stared at him and didn’t know what to say. Suddenly, afraid of being found out, we turned and ran away. I was scared there would be a terrible price to pay. What if he told Barbara? What if she saw any crumbs or noticed that we were happy? This was too good to be true. But in my heart I knew we would be back again, just as soon as the coast was clear.
After that we began to creep into the orchard and watch the caravans through the hedge even more closely. We would hang around Sean Brannon’s caravan and he would come out and always give us a snack with a kindly wink: some bread, some cake, some milk and biscuits. We were like little cats creeping around, scavenging, looking for whatever we could find to keep us going. The people in the caravans had very little, but what they had they shared with us. They were our saviours, and without them we would have starved. The Polish women began to hand us scraps of cake, pie and bread, too. We always wolfed down on the spot whatever we were given, looking over our shoulders like vigilant animals, waiting for a shout or curse from Barbara.
Sean had some cuddly toys in his caravan, and one time he let us choose one each. I got a little black-and-white panda – I called him Tony. William took a tiny bear called Fizz. We couldn’t believe how lucky we were. Sometimes Sean would bring out a piece of wood and a knife and whittle a shape, like a boat. We would stand watching, fascinated. He was kind, warm and friendly. We told him our names, and he was now ‘Sean’ to us. We would watch as he skilfully carved the wood with his knife – a special knife with a knobbly wooden handle – but all the time our ears were pricked and we were ready to run if we were summoned. We knew better than to not respond to Her Mistress’s voice.
About this time Kevin began to pick on William a lot more. When I was five, Kevin was eleven, and William was seven. However, William was very small for his age, while Kevin, because he was well fed, was sturdy and strong. Kevin began to play ‘games’ with William that scared me. One day he got a flick knife and made William stand with his feet apart on the grass. The game was for Kevin to aim the knife to land between William’s legs, blade down in the earth, but for it to be near enough for it to be scary. Another version of this was you had to dance about to miss the knife as it flew towards your feet and legs. I was terrified, as Kevin had already briefly tried this with me, and the knife had landed on my foot, giving me a bad cut. When I showed it to Barbara, bleeding profusely, she just said, ‘You should be more careful, you stupid girl.’
I watched the ‘game’ unfold from the relative safety of the kitchen. Kevin was teasing William and threw the knife, which very nearly landed in William’s leg, making him jump. Provoked, William shouted something at Kevin, then Barbara, who had been pinning washing on the line, suddenly strode over and picked up William by the T-shirt collar, swung him round a couple of times and hurled him like a discarded rag doll across the grass into the rockery.
William landed badly but scrambled to his feet. Kevin watched all this grinning, shouting, ‘Ha ha!’ Enraged, William ran into the kitchen and locked the door, which had glass at the top and wood below, like a stable door. By now I was cowering by the larder, speechless, watching the drama unfold. Barbara was loping up the lawn. ‘Come back, you little bastard. I’ll kill you when I get my hands on you!’
Her face appeared at the backdoor window, florid and furious, her eyes wild with intent. ‘Open it!’ she spat.
‘No!’ said William, through the window. I was both impressed and terrified. He was in for it now. He’d said no. You never said no to Barbara, it wasn’t allowed. She turned and marched down the lawn, picking up a cricket bat that Kevin had earlier strewn to one side.
Then she marched back to the door where William was still standing at the window, defiantly looking out. Barbara looked like she was going to explode and I thought I would pee myself with fear. Suddenly she raised the bat and screamed, ‘I’ll kill you!’ and smashed the bat into the glass door, shattering it all over William, who was now screaming in terror, as was I.
Glass flew everywhere. Barbara batted and batted, and William was covered in shards of glass. Instinctively I ran up to William, who was cut and bleeding, but he seemed fixed to the ground. I pulled his arm and we ran upstairs to the bathroom. I could hear more glass shattering as Barbara bashed in the rest of it until she was able to open the door from the inside. Then we could hear her thumping upstairs like a marauding monster.
Once in the bathroom we locked the door and cowered by the side of the bath, under the sink. On the landing, outside the door, she was shouting wildly at both of us: ‘Open the bloody door, you bloody little bastards! Open the door!’ Bash. Bash. Bash. She thumped on the door with the bat. We froze, held hands and shivered, heads down, eyes closed tight shut. I started counting furiously. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three… Barbara was still beating the door. She was slamming the door handle and bashing away. Suddenly it flung open and she threw herself at William, attacking his head, his legs, his arms, with the bat. I was screaming, crying, pleading: ‘Don’t hit him, don’t hit me!’
She pulled me to standing, leant me over the bath, raised my dress, pulled down my knickers and whacked the bat as hard as she could on my bare bottom. William was sobbing uncontrollably in a heap on the floor. She kept whacking me, one, two, three times, and I thought I would die. Then she turned to William and kicked him in the stomach as he lay there, sobbing.
‘Take your clothes off,’ she raged. ‘Both of you. Now!’
Crying and shaking, we undressed as she turned the cold tap on and put the plug in the bath. ‘Get in.’ I put my toes in the icy water and, although terrified, did as I was told. William followed and we sat down in the freezing bath; the water came up to our chins.
‘Stay there, you little bastards,’ Barbara spat, then turned and stormed out of the bathroom. William and I sat there, blinking, shivering, terrified, not knowing at all what to do. We knew better than to move. We stared at each other, too frightened to speak. It was probably late afternoon, and we sat in that icy bath watching the evening light come in slowly. I started really shaking, but everything felt numb. I could see William’s body turning shades of red and blue, where Barbara had landed her bat. His cuts were bloody streaks. His lips were purple. Were we going to be here for ever? Would we die?
We could hear voices downstairs in the kitchen and the sounds of teatime: plates, chairs, movement. Still we sat in the freezing-cold bath, too terrified to move, no idea what to do. Had she forgotten us? Why didn’t Ian come? Would we be here all night? Eventually she came up – it was night now, and it was dark and we were grey shadows in icy water, numb, exhausted, hungry, frightened. ‘Get out,’ was all she said.
Barely able to move, we clambered stiffly out of the bath, one after the other, and stood dripping and shivering on the lino floor. Barbara told us to get dressed, so we did; we were too scared to do anything but obey. Tears sta
rted rolling down my cheeks, but she just barked, ‘No snivelling,’ and then we went into our tiny box room without our tea or even a drink, and the usual horrific night ritual began all over again.
After an incident like this, nothing was said. There was no sorry, no making up, no nothing. The window was replaced the next day – ‘You two just cost me money’ – and life went on as before. The only difference was that Barbara seemed more and more horrible to William now, and encouraged Kevin to attack him whenever he wanted to. She never intervened, and in fact seemed to enjoy it, even encourage it. ‘I hate the little bugger,’ is what I would hear her saying to Kevin, and William became their mutual punchbag.
Ian just turned a blind eye to everything, and lived like a ghost in the house. As he was a quiet man, he was well liked in the village and at work, but he was a blank slate to us. William and I had very few times with him alone, but on some weekends, when Barbara was in a black mood, he would take us out on a job. We would get in his van and it felt like a treat. One day we went to a house next to where Ian grew up in Oxford. It was a lovely old ramshackle place, very untidy inside, with books everywhere. Even the toilet was full of books, newspapers and magazines. I thought Barbara would be furious to see how unclean it all was, as she took bleach to everything.
Iris and John, whose house it was, wanted Ian to mend something, and William and I were sat at a table with a plate of slightly stale chocolate bourbons and custard creams and two full glasses of orange squash. It was heaven. Ian busied himself mending things, and Iris, who told me she was a writer, read the newspaper, asking me what I thought about this and that. I just sat nibbling on the wonderful biscuits, looking at her with saucer eyes. I didn’t know what to say but she was kind, like Sean. The radio would be on, with voices talking, and John and Iris would sit together and do a crossword or talk about something. I would stare at them, watching how nice they were with each other, as one made tea in a big old brown teapot and put a greasy cosy over the top. Or the other did some washing up.
