Mammy had closed the shop and was dozing on the settee. She hardly noticed I had come home at all and didn’t even bother to say hello.
I found half a sandwich and a banana in the shop and had my meal in front of the television. Mammy was still asleep on the settee, so I settled myself in an armchair, clutching my thin blanket around me and wishing like mad that I could be back in the gypsy camp with my new friends.
After school the next day, I went back with the same boys and played with them around the big top. To one side of the site was a small cluster of caravans and trailers which housed the circus acts and their families.
My new friends said they didn’t know any of the circus children and warned me to keep my distance as some were quite nasty and liked to bully smaller boys. But I had already decided on a plan and was determined to see it through, so I told them that, if they didn’t want to come, I would go on my own and play with the circus children.
I felt brave when I said it, but I didn’t feel quite so brave when my new friends all chose to stay behind, yelling after me to be careful and run like mad if I got into a fight.
My idea was not to get into a fight. I wanted the circus people to take me with them when they left town. This was to be my escape route from Daddy and his beatings.
Several boys and girls were standing around by the caravans and most of them looked a lot older than me. Two of the boys nearest to my age were playing with a football and I asked if I could join in.
‘Who are you then?’ asked one of them. He and his friend stopped kicking the ball and stood in front of me. One or two of the other boys started to wander towards us.
Suddenly I wasn’t feeling brave at all.
‘I was playing with the gypsy boys and wanted to see the circus,’ I told them.
‘Does this look like the bloody circus? This is private,’ said the boy who had spoken before. ‘Outsiders aren’t wanted, so bugger off.’
‘Maybe he needs a thick ear,’ said one of the bigger boys who had joined us. ‘Teach him not to come sneaking round here.’
He made a move towards me and I ran. A caravan was in the way, so I dived under it and rolled to the other side, sprang up and kept running.
I could hear the boys shouting behind me, so I scrambled under the next caravan and crawled behind one of the wheels.
My teeth were chattering now and I was scared the boys would hear me. I could still hear them calling to one another but they hadn’t spotted me going under the second caravan, and soon their voices died away. I reckoned they had gone back to the spot where I had first seen them, but I was too frightened to come out of my hiding place.
When I finally plucked up the courage to crawl out from the far side of the caravan there was no one there. It was dark by now and, although I could see the big top, lit up beyond the caravans and trailers and outlined against the black sky, I didn’t dare go in that direction in case I ran into the boys who had chased me earlier.
I had never been out after dark by myself before and it was all very frightening. A fine runaway I had turned out to be.
I made my way back to where the gypsies lived. Their mobile homes were all brightly lit inside and I could picture my school friends sitting with their smiling mums having their tea or watching television. I longed to be a part of their world and I was just plucking up the courage to knock on one of the doors when I heard Mammy’s voice calling my name.
Moments later, she appeared and I ran over to her and clutched her round the waist. I had never been so happy to see her.
She burst into tears as soon as she saw me, but she was also very angry. She pulled my arms from around her waist and boxed my ears so hard I heard ringing noises in my head. Mammy had never hit me before, except for a slap on the bottom, and the shock was almost as bad as the pain.
I started to cry, and then she pulled me close.
‘Oh, Michael,’ she said, ‘I was so worried about you. One of the gypsy boys came and told Mrs Watson [one of our neighbours] that you had gone off with some older circus boys who were really bad. She came and woke me up and told me, and I came to look for you.’
In that moment, I felt happy. Mammy had been so concerned that she had come out to find me – and that meant she really cared for me. Today, when I think back on it, I suspect she was really more concerned about what the neighbours thought of her mothering skills than about my safety.
But my joy lasted only a few seconds, for Mammy’s next words brought all my fear flooding back. ‘Daddy’ll be home by now and he’s going to be mad at you and me for being out. I don’t know what I’m going to tell him, and, if he sees Mrs Watson before he sees us, then there’ll be hell to pay.’
Mammy’s hand clung on to mine as she dragged me, so unwillingly, along the Ashton Old Road, the terror building inside me at every step as my imagination conjured up the many awful things Daddy might do to us when we got home.
The house was silent when we went in through the shop and I could hear nothing as we climbed the stairs to the flat, not even the television. My spirits soared. Perhaps Daddy hadn’t come home yet.
But when we reached the top of the stairs I could see him sitting on the sofa in the living room, glaring in our direction. When he spoke, I could tell straight away that there had been a subtle shift in his attitude. Whether it was because my mother had dared to go looking for me, which to him would have been tantamount to mutiny, or it was seeing the two of us together like co-conspirators, whatever it was, something that night sent him into a rage the likes of which I’d never seen before.
‘What the hell have you been up to, you little nobody?’ he snarled at me as he stood up. ‘You and your useless mother. You’re up to mischief, getting yourself into trouble, and she can’t keep you under control. A bloody five-year-old.
‘Or perhaps you’d prefer to go with the gypsies too,’ he yelled at Mammy. ‘You bloody whore. You both need teaching a lesson.’
He had already taken off his belt and must have been sitting there waiting for us, holding it ready, for he was now swinging it, folded double, in his right hand.
Mammy pushed in front of me and took the first blow on her arm. It seemed that this one gesture to protect me was all that was needed to set off his rage. As she screamed and turned away, the next swing of his belt, with its big buckle, caught her right across her buttocks.
I realised then that he was completely out of control. This wasn’t his usual calculated bullying. This was a man gone berserk.
As I turned to run and lock myself in the toilet, he grabbed me by the shoulder with his left hand and began beating me on every part of my body with his fist, feet and belt.
The pain got worse and worse and I begged him to stop, but he just carried on swinging and hitting.
When he did take a pause from beating me, he went back to using his belt on Mammy, who was by this time down on her knees with her head on the ground, not even attempting to defend herself, just sobbing.
This complete capitulation by Mammy was more frightening to me than anything my father did to us that night. I realise now that on that night Daddy had finally achieved what must have been his objective – to break her spirit.
When at last he threw his belt on to one of the armchairs, I thought our punishment was over, but I quickly learned differently.
Daddy sometimes carried a black leather-covered baton in a holder fastened to his uniform. It was to use if the prisoners at Strangeways became violent. He drew this out of its holder now and came at me again, jabbing it menacingly in my face and saying quietly, through gritted teeth, ‘Maybe a taste of this will teach you to behave in future.’
His face had gone dark red and his eyes were bulging. His colossal anger had become almost tangible.
The first blow of the baton was across my back and its force almost knocked me off my feet. The pain, which was far worse than when he used the belt, seemed to go right through me. He concentrated on beating my back and shoulders – I suppose so th
at the bruises didn’t show – but some of his blows caught me on the arms as well.
It all ended when, perhaps deliberately, or perhaps through poor aim, the baton landed on the side of my head. There was a huge burst of light and lightning like fizzes behind my eyes and then everything went black.
He had managed to knock me senseless.
Just before I passed out, I remember pleading in my head to the powers that be – anything, anyone, any being – to give me one small inkling what it was inside me that could provoke such terrible anger and violence from the man who was supposed to be my protector – my father – and was one day supposed to be my guide into manhood.
How long I was unconscious, I have no idea. Mammy had been so badly beaten with the baton, after he had finished with me, that she was too groggy and in too much pain to know exactly what was happening. But when I came round I was still lying on the floor. I tried to sit up straight away, but my head started spinning so badly I had to lie down again.
Eventually, Mammy managed to crawl to the kitchen and, clinging to the draining board, struggled to her feet. It was difficult to know which of us was the more battered. Finally, she pulled herself together enough to fetch me a cup of water. She had also picked up a dishcloth and soaked it with water under the tap.
Holding me in a sitting position with her arm around my shoulders, she put the cup to my lips. After I had sipped some water, she bathed my face with the wet cloth.
It was then I began to realise that it was me who had come off worse this time, because the roles had been reversed. Usually it was me helping Mammy.
Every bit of me felt tender and I started to cry again and just couldn’t stop, even after Mammy helped me up into an easy chair.
It took me a while to notice that Daddy was no longer there, but I was still so frightened by what had happened that I couldn’t stop shaking. It was a feeling I was never going to lose while he remained a part of my life. So this new level of fear was to be my daily companion for years to come.
Chapter Six
Daddy’s savage attack with his baton did not go unnoticed at school. Suspicious about the cause of my bruises, my class teacher took me to the headmaster’s study so that he could examine me.
There was one big bruise on the side of my head, extending almost to the tip of my left eyebrow, and a string of others along my left arm.
Having seen the one on my head, the teacher had rolled up my sleeve before I could stop her, and seen the others. But when she had asked me to take off my shirt I refused, and that must have been what made her so concerned.
‘Michael claims he fell downstairs,’ she told the headmaster. ‘It’s the third time this month he’s supposed to have fallen downstairs. But I’d say someone has given him a good hiding.’
‘Is that right, Michael?’ the headmaster asked. ‘Did somebody beat you?’
I shook my head violently and was ready with my lie. ‘No. Nobody beat me. I just fell downstairs. I’m always doing it. Mammy says I’m clumsy.’
‘You’re sure your mother or father didn’t hit you for being naughty?’
I shook my head again. ‘No, sir. It was all my fault. I fell downstairs.’
The headmaster looked at my teacher and nodded. ‘All right, you can take him back to the classroom. But I’ll have a word with the childcare people just in case. I think they should visit and talk to the parents.’
I could hardly wait to get home that night to give Mammy my news. I didn’t stop to play with the other kids but went straight back to the shop, where Mammy was still behind the counter.
‘I promise I didn’t tell them anything but he said someone might come round,’ I blurted.
Mammy looked puzzled. ‘What are you talking about, Michael? Who’s coming here and what didn’t you tell them? Calm down and tell me what happened.’
So I told her all about my visit to the headmaster’s study and how they had looked at my bruises and asked if I had been hit by someone.
‘But I didn’t say it was Daddy,’ I told her. ‘I told them I had fallen downstairs again. That’s what I always say, or that I was hurt in a game or something. I’d never tell them Daddy had done it.’
‘Thank God for that,’ she gasped. ‘And don’t say anything to Daddy about what happened at school. It’ll only make him more angry than usual. Let’s keep this to ourselves for now and wait to see if anyone comes round.
‘Perhaps no one will.’
But I think we both knew that was a forlorn hope.
It was more than a week later, but eventually someone did come, a young woman, and she turned up just after I got in from school.
Mammy closed the shop and we all went upstairs. I was told to wait in her bedroom while Mammy and the other woman talked in the living room.
When Mammy came to get me, she was very serious but she wasn’t crying, which meant, I thought, that everything was going to be all right.
The woman asked me to take off my shirt and vest and Mammy nodded to show it was OK for me to go ahead. When I had stripped off, the woman told me to turn around so she could see my back.
By this time, most of my bruises were either a bit yellow or had nearly disappeared, though I think there were still quite a lot of them; enough anyway to make the social worker ask a lot of questions.
‘I fell downstairs,’ I kept telling her, but I don’t think she believed me any more than the teachers had.
‘These look like they came from much harder knocks than you would get just falling downstairs,’ she told us. ‘What really happened?’
‘I fell downstairs,’ I repeated.
‘He’s always falling downstairs,’ said Mammy. ‘He’s in such a hurry to get out and play with his friends he doesn’t take care. I keep telling him to slow down but at five they don’t take much notice, do they?’
The social worker obviously didn’t believe us, but there was clearly not a lot that she could do about it.
If we just keep on telling lies, eventually she will go, I thought.
In the end, that’s what happened. The woman stood up and told Mammy, ‘I’m not entirely happy with the explanations you’ve both given me. I don’t think I’m hearing the whole story. I may decide to have Michael examined by a doctor, and I’m also going to want to see you both again in the future. I’ll probably make it an evening so that I can talk to your husband as well, Mrs Seed.’
I don’t think Mammy or I was happy with that. Except that perhaps Daddy would become angry and hit the social worker and they would take him away. That would be good.
After Mammy had seen the woman out, she came back upstairs and said, ‘Oh, Michael, I feel so ashamed. What are we going to do? They only send social workers to check up on the worst possible kind of families. If my mother or father ever found out, they’d be horrified.’
Secretly, I was quite happy with the situation. Especially after Mammy told Daddy about the visit. Whatever she said had a big effect on him. He didn’t stop shouting at us, but for at least a couple of weeks I didn’t receive his regular thrashings. It seemed he was just as terrified about people finding out the truth of the situation as she was.
The effect on Mammy was much more worrying. She became even more switched off, if that was possible. Sometimes she would be crying when I left for school in the morning and still crying when I came home. I don’t know if she opened the shop in the afternoons at all, because she always seemed to be upstairs, crying or sitting in a chair just staring into space.
But one day she did something which was very different indeed and it left me terrified.
I had returned home from school at the normal time and found the shop already closed. That in itself was no longer unusual as Mammy had been acting more strangely since the social worker’s visit and seemed to have totally lost interest in the shop.
When I went upstairs, she was sprawled out in the armchair in a funny way. Her legs seemed to be bent at an odd angle and her arm was flopped over the side of the cha
ir, just dangling down. She seemed to be asleep but I could tell that something wasn’t quite right. For some reason, it frightened me and I did something I had never done before. I shook her and tried to wake her up. But she didn’t move.
I shook her really hard by the shoulders and even pulled at her hair, but she stayed fast asleep. Her mouth was slightly open and she was breathing with a rasping sound.
‘Mammy, wake up!’ I shouted in her ear, but she didn’t even twitch. Nothing I did had the slightest effect on her. I began to feel really scared. I had seen her in a zombie-like state before but never flopped out like this, unable to wake up. She just didn’t look right.
I don’t know how long I had been trying to wake her, but it was a long time after I had come home when I heard Daddy on the stairs.
For once, I was overjoyed to see him, though he was about as pleased to see me as ever. He had always allowed his contempt for me to show, but, since the last beating and the social worker’s visit, it seemed as though he was now giving free rein to his bullying and hatred, but without the physical violence.
After all, who was going to stop him? Certainly not poor Mammy, who was lying, broken and battered on the settee.
‘What are you snivelling about, you little bastard?’ he spat.
Until then, I hadn’t realised that I was crying.
‘It’s Mammy,’ I said. ‘She won’t wake up. I’ve been shaking and calling her for ages but she stays asleep.’
Daddy stopped glaring at me and pushed me to one side, though not roughly for once. He knelt down next to where Mammy was sitting and gently shook her arm. Even I could detect the anxiety in his voice as he whispered, ‘Lillian, come on, Lillian, wake up, for Christ’s sake, woman. It’s Joe here. Your Joe.’
Never before had I heard him use such a tender tone to her. He laid the side of his face gently on her breast.
‘Wake up, Lillian, love. Wake up, will you.’
But Mammy just lay there dead to the world, as she had been since I’d got home from school.
Nobody's Child Page 4
