by Louise Allen
On the way back I picked up the bread and water and ate and drank it very quickly in my room, despite my sore mouth, then put the plate and glass back exactly where it had been. I then heard the sound of the television going on in the best room downstairs, and canned laughter wafted up as the light began to go down on the day. A whole Sunday just in my room. She didn’t even come in and do the night routine – I was in total isolation. As the sun went down I watched the sky turn from blue to pink to orange to navy. I looked at the trees and saw birds gathering, swirling in bunches. I felt a bit calmer seeing colours in the evening sky.
Next morning, Monday, I was kept home from school, as I was ‘bad’. I didn’t care either way now, although I hated being in the house just with Barbara. When Ian left, I heard him say, ‘I want her out of that room today, Barbara, or I’ll call social services myself.’ I was amazed. He never usually stood up to her. I heard the door slam and Barbara mumbling something.
Suddenly my door was flung open. ‘Come down,’ she ordered. I was still in my pyjamas, and I trotted downstairs behind her, feeling quite dizzy and lightheaded. Theatrically, Barbara put on yellow Marigold gloves and we both went outside. I was barefoot. She went to the dustbin at the side of the house and started taking all the stuff out and throwing it on the floor.
‘Louise, why are you doing this to me?’ she said, as she threw empty cans of dog food and paper bags on the ground. It was very pongy. I said nothing. I was made to put all the smelly stuff back with my bare hands. I was eventually given some breakfast and then sent back up to my room.
When Kevin came round after school he also pushed my door wide open and shouted, ‘You’re a liar! You’ve broken Auntie Barbara’s heart, you little shit.’ I sat on my bed, saying nothing, wondering what was going on. I had Tony in my hands and squeezed him to me. Kevin disappeared, after which I could hear Barbara crying, loud howls, which was strange. She never cried usually. It sounded very dramatic. I could hear Kevin saying nice things to her: ‘It’s all right, we’ll find it.’
I was still kept home from school for the next few days, as this was a ‘crisis’. I also think the bruises on my face, which now had black fingermarks and cuts, would have made people ask some difficult questions. My lip was also split, and there was a gap where my tooth had been. Barbara ignored me most of the time. Then, one evening when Ian was home, she grabbed me near the larder and gripped my chin again with her steely fingers.
‘You think you can pull the wool over my eyes, you lying, thieving little bitch. You manipulate your dad against me, you have him round your little finger; you’re a spoilt, nasty little cow.’
She spat all this in my face and then tossed me against the wall. I pressed my back against it, trying to shrink from view. How was I manipulating him? Was she angry that he had tried to stop her locking me in my room? I never spoke to Ian and he never really spoke to me. I was just trying to survive.
Being under attack meant that I had to use my head all the time. I was constantly having to work out what was going on. I would use my head – or, rather, my imagination – to make things smaller, to shrink them down when I felt upset. I would imagine horrible things that had happened to me, or earlier to William, and then shrink them and let them float away. I used my imagination all the time: like squeezing my eyes and seeing colours, which was a great way of escaping what was going on in the room at any time. Or even during punishment. I would distract myself, and I could float out of my body and just move things around in my mind and put them away when I didn’t like them.
I had to do this because it was all too much to keep in my mind all the time – the horrible things that happened were too painful. So I learnt to wrap them up and pop them in the back of my head, like wrapping a parcel or a present. I would post them right at the back of my mind, hide them away, and not come back to them until later, if at all. I didn’t want to feel all the horrible crushing feelings, as they were too big and scary. I would slip and slide them around, turn them into shapes and colours, hide them and ignore them or paint an imaginary picture with them.
My main way of surviving was to rebel, very quietly and secretively, and when I was eight going on nine this became quite a complicated thing. Sometimes it looked like I was being very good, very nice, when in fact I was just playing being very good and very nice. Inside I felt very different, but I knew I had to keep thinking, keep working out how to survive. It would make me smile if I got away with something and she didn’t notice or find out. It would make me feel better when I got something I wanted – like nice cherry brandy or the dog’s Choc Drops – and she had absolutely no idea what was going on. For a moment I felt I had some power in a situation where I actually felt totally powerless. I went to the ‘Louise place’ in my head and nobody could see in there, not least Barbara, who was my worst enemy number one.
This ring situation went on and on for two whole weeks. I heard Barbara telling our neighbours that I was ‘a little thief’ and ‘not to be trusted’. She told my teachers and she told our local doctor. And she did actually even go and tell the police – we marched into the police station and she told the story. The policeman looked at me and said, ‘You wouldn’t do that, would you?’
I shook my head, speechless and completely dumbstruck. Barbara grabbed me and pulled me out of the station, huffing and puffing all the way home, shouting at the dog the whole time. An elderly couple came up and told her off for hurting the dog – and she told them to ‘Mind your own sodding business!’ They were very shocked and scuttled off. I felt hugely embarrassed but said nothing.
I began to wonder if I really had taken the ring, like I accidentally took the little-finger ring from Maisie’s. I really thought I had put all three rings back, as I was always so careful to make sure things went back exactly the way they were. I was usually a master of covering my tracks.
It was Saturday again, and I was doing my usual household chores in total silence: the hoovering, the bed making, the polishing with Pledge (although I was not allowed to touch Barbara’s dressing table now, that was out of bounds).
‘You are to go and brush the rugs on the lawn,’ she snapped at me after I was finished. I went outside and started bashing the rugs, which were hanging over the line. Loads of dust flew out as usual. I hated this job. I coughed and spluttered but carried on. Suddenly I heard a scream.
‘Look!’ I heard coming from the kitchen. I stopped. Barbara was showing something to Kevin and Ian. There was a commotion. I stopped bashing and tried to listen. All three were staring at Barbara’s hand. I crept across the grass towards the door and watched. Barbara looked up.
‘It was on the stairs,’ she said quickly, ‘under the edge of the carpet. I found it when I was brushing.’
My heart lifted. The ring! She had it back!
‘I know that’s where you put it,’ she snipped at me, ‘but at least I have it back now. It’s my wedding ring. Nine-carat gold.’
I looked over at Kevin, who was smirking at me with an evil look that said, ‘Gotcha!’ I knew he had been behind the whole thing. What I didn’t know was that worse was to come.
10
Being Dumped
School is horrible, but home is worse. Spencer and his gang are still picking on me, and now he tries to feel me up as I pass. One of his friends corners me in the playground and pokes a pink sausage through his trousers and wiggles it at me. I don’t tell anyone. I keep my head down and try to muddle through. Barbara has a strange attitude to school – she tells me, ‘It’s really a waste of time for the likes of you,’ so she often keeps me home to do chores.
Apart from looking after the chickens, I also do a lot of other housework, alongside the ironing and bed making. Sometimes the social workers drop in without any warning to find out why I’m not at school. Then Barbara shooes me upstairs and I’m told to get into bed, as I’m ‘ill’. I lie rigid in my bed in my clothes, pretending I’m sick, playing along to keep the peace. I hear voices in the hall, and then t
hey’re gone. I wish I could see them alone and tell them the truth but I never get to do that, so I have to play the game otherwise she’ll never let me forget it.
I’m always listening out for what’s going on, as nobody tells me anything. Once the social workers have gone, I hear Barbara come upstairs with a heavy tread. She walks into the bathroom and I hear her open the mirror cabinet. In there are her bottles of pills: green ones, green and black ones, little round yellow ones. I hear her pop open a bottle and the sound of pills pouring into her hand. I hear the toothbrush glass clink against the sink and water running. I know she’s taking a handful; she often does. I’ve seen her do it many times. She thinks I don’t see her. In fact, I also do this myself when I feel very upset. I’ve learnt to go in and sneak a few of those shiny green ones I’m given at night, and I take them with a gulp of water, very quickly. Then I feel all woozy and calm. It’s a nice feeling, a break from all the fear and pain. It’s like my head fills up with cotton wool. I’m often hurting – I have so many bruises, punches, whacks – and I’ve learnt that I can go to the bathroom and sneak a few of these ‘sweeties’ and feel a bit better afterwards. I know they aren’t really sweeties, they’re some kind of medicine from the doctor, but I pretend they are.
Now I hear Barbara coming along the landing and I freeze. Please go past, please go past. I close my eyes, pretending I’m asleep. I’m still under the covers in my clothes and play-acting being ill. The door flies open.
‘I don’t know why I ever had you,’ she says to me fiercely. ‘You are nothing but bloody trouble.’
I’m trying to flatten myself out completely, blinking over the rough blanket. ‘Those bloody idiots don’t know anything about children. I’d love to see them deal with you and all the trouble you are to me.’
I know better than to say anything. I just lie, as quietly as I can. I don’t even blink. I hardly breathe. She looks her at watch. ‘Come on, get up. We’re going to get Dad’s tea.’
I have no idea what the time is, although it’s probably afternoon. I should be at school, and no doubt the social workers have told her so. She has argued with them or something; that’s why she’s taken the sweeties. I get out of bed very obediently and follow her down the stairs. We get the dog, go outside and get in her Ford Escort.
Barbara drives like a maniac all the way to Headington, a village outside Oxford. She swears the whole way at other drivers, calling them ‘bloody idiots’ or ‘stupid bastards’, hits the kerb several times and overtakes on the bend of the road. I’m terrified, so I squeeze my eyes tight shut, trying to see the swirling colours I like. Orange, purple, blue, spots… it makes me feel much safer somehow.
When I open them we’re in a car park behind a supermarket. Barbara is grumbling about having to buy food, cook tea for ‘bloody men who want everything their own way’. She hates cooking, she hates buying food, she hates men. Hate, hate, hate. It’s all she says, all the time. Her eyes are glazed and she’s simmering – I know we are building up to one of her explosions. So I keep very quiet and trot along after her, trying to be pleasing and helpful.
We walk round the supermarket and she approaches one of those ticket machines with a queue system. She snatches a ticket.
‘I only want some sodding meat pie. Why should I have to bloody queue for hours?’ Barbara snaps at all listeners.
I feel my face go red and offer to carry the basket. We are queuing and people are looking at her, as they always do. She’s building up to a volcanic eruption. I feel ashamed. I want her to stop, but she won’t – she is now complaining loudly about the shop, the queue, the ‘bloody idiots’ behind the counter. She starts pacing up and down like a wild hen. I stand, holding the basket, wanting the ground to swallow me up.
Then I see Maisie’s mum coming towards us. She smiles. I smile. Barbara sees her coming too, and her face darkens. She grabs my arm and takes the basket, half full, and throws it on the floor. She’s hurting me as she pulls me by the arm, past Maisie’s mum, who is looking confused. I’m crying now. I hate it when this happens. I say ‘Mummy, you’re hurting me,’ as she drags me across the car park. People stare. I am dragged so I fall on my knees and graze them, which makes me cry louder.
‘What the bloody hell are you looking at?’ Barbara screams at a man standing by a nearby car. ‘Mind your own ruddy business.’
I’m pulled to my feet and we get to the car. She’s fumbling in her bag for the keys. I’m crying uncontrollably and my knees are bleeding. I say, ‘Mummy, please stop, please stop.’ She looks daggers at me and says, ‘I never should have had any of you bloody unwanted children. You have ruined my life.’
Her face is bright scarlet. She opens the driver’s door and I’m standing at the other side, by the passenger door, shaking, holding the car handle. She turns the ignition, revs the engine and backs out. I’m still holding the handle and I run alongside the car. Then I let go as she does a back turn, nearly squishing me against a parked car. She puts her foot down and the Escort drives through the car park at high speed and out onto the road. I helplessly watch it go. I wail. I’m standing and howling and I don’t know what to do. I’m just crying and crying, my knees smarting, and suddenly there’s a hand in my hand. I open my eyes and there is Maisie’s mum, looking down at me, worried.
‘Where’s your mum gone?’ she asks. I shake my head; I can’t speak. I can’t stop crying. Maisie’s mum keeps asking what is wrong with Barbara and I can’t answer. I’m scared of getting her into trouble. I’m scared what she’ll do to me if the social workers and police get involved, but I’m also scared, more importantly, of what would happen to me if I gave the game away.
Maisie’s mum and I walk across the car park and get into her car. She hands me some tissues. I blow my nose. She keeps asking why Barbara would leave me in a car park. Should we go to the police? I feel very scared at the idea and shake my head. Maisie’s mum starts her car up, and I try and get hold of myself.
‘Mum is feeling sad,’ I stutter out, trying to make it into something Maisie’s mum can understand. She turns and looks at me, but keeps driving. When we get home, the Escort is parked on the drive. When Barbara opens the door, I can see she is still in a rage. Maisie’s mum stands with her hand on my shoulder but speaks gently to Barbara. I can see Maisie’s mum doesn’t know what to say. Barbara leans forward, grabs my arm and pulls me into the house, saying, ‘You know what kids are like – and these ones have a chip on their shoulder.’
The door is slammed in Maisie’s mum’s face. I’m pulled down the corridor and whacked across the face for being ‘nothing but trouble’ and told to go up to my bedroom. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was confusing and humiliating, but Barbara always found a new way to torture and punish me.
Barbara never said sorry, she never explained. I was to be abandoned many times by her – being dropped places and not picked up, or simply left while she was in one of her furious rages, when she would drive off. She often got in her car when in a vile mood and drove about the country lanes. At first I thought it was because she needed to get out and get a change of view from the family home. There was some truth in that. She also liked visiting farms to check out the chickens, or in answer to adverts, as she liked getting new dogs. I learnt to be wary of her when we went anywhere in case she drove off suddenly without me, or hid from me, or suddenly disappeared.
One time she drove me to a place called Shotover Woods, a park near Cowley. Barbara told only one nice story about Ian, and it was that when they were courting he took her to Shotover and picked her a bunch of bluebells. I used to think, when she said horrible things about him, that there must have been something good at the beginning, otherwise they wouldn’t have got married. The bluebell wood sounded wonderfully romantic.
One afternoon I was off school, as Barbara had kept me home as usual. We got in the car and she drove very fast. I felt sick, as I often did in the car. If I felt sick she would stop the car very roughly, open the door and throw me
out on the kerb to be sick. She would be furious. ‘Bloody children,’ she’d be muttering. There’d be no sympathy or travel sickness pills. Then we’d be back in the car and roaring at speed down country lanes.
As we drove out to Shotover this afternoon we had to pass by my school. She shouted, ‘Get down,’ as we did, as she didn’t want anyone to see I was in the car, so I slipped onto the floor and hid as we went past; she didn’t have seatbelts. Then I crawled back up once the coast was clear. At Shotover we parked in the car park, which had only a couple of cars in it. She was in one of her spiteful moods, ranting on about Ian. She hated bloody Ian, she hated the nosy parker neighbours, the stupid social workers, the ruddy school. Barbara strode off with the dog, snapping that it was everyone else’s fault. She said I should never trust men, they were filthy, dirty bastards, and she ran through all the usual things she hated, including me. I guessed she had taken some of her tablets and was burning off her anger with a brisk walk involving me and the poor dog.
Eventually we reached a deeply wooded area. It was far away, so we couldn’t hear the traffic from the motorway or even local roads any more. I was sad not to see any bluebells but it was beautiful, leafy and green, and I loved looking up at the trees, where their leaves were rippling in the wind against the blue and grey of the sky. I could hear birds and there were grey squirrels running along branches and hopping. I wondered if I’d see fairies or elves. I’d seen them in books at school. I started daydreaming, enjoying the peace of nature.
