Innocence Revisited

by Cathy Kezelman

  Although the worried part of me was considering going to hospital, the other part kicked up a fuss at the very mention of the word. It, and therefore I refused to countenance the idea and stated categorically that I wouldn’t be going anywhere.

  I told Dan how I was feeling and Kate talked to him too. I also told a couple of close friends and made a list of support people to call when needed. I saw Kate every day and spoke to her often in between consultations; sometimes we talked several times a day and at night as well. I told her that I felt as though I needed a security guard, twenty-four hours a day, maybe a team of them. Kate tried to assure me that she could contain me just as well as a team of guards. She wanted me to feel as though she was always watching over me. Sometimes I could sense her attentive presence, but at other times, I couldn’t feel anything at all.

  One Friday evening, in the midst of my turmoil, a small crack appeared in my despair. I finally recognised my perilous mental state of recent weeks as a sign; it had been the harbinger of a new set of memories that were on their way. After seven years of recovering lost memories I had become an old hand at the process, but in the thick of my horrors, all logic would fly out the window. I would be so subsumed by the feelings of the day that I would lose the capacity to sit back and read the situation.

  There was one physical symptom in particular which often heralded a new memory; a pain that built up around my eye, and then moved to the centre of my eyeball and bored into it like a dentist’s drill. So, when the pain came and my eyeball hurt until it felt as though it might burst, I felt curiously relieved.

  ‘Finally’ I reassured myself. ‘Perhaps I’m not psycho after all!’

  My head was thumping, but I felt buoyed; I really was about to get another memory.

  That weekend I couldn’t settle at all. I couldn’t concentrate long enough to get to the end of a single article in the newspaper, let alone sit down to read a book. Nor could I listen to music. Any musical tones, no matter how dulcet seemed too intrusive. It was as though I had developed an allergy to even the slightest external input; the turmoil inside of me was too frenetic to receive so much as the slightest sensory cue of a normal day. Conversations grated; words abraded. Touch burnt; light eroded. I was restless, yet decimated; desperate for care and protection but unable to reach out. I was on a hair trigger, snapping at my kids and at Dan, pushing them all away when I needed them close.

  On the Saturday night of that weekend, I woke up full of energy. The bedside clock showed ten past three. I snuck out of bed; I didn’t want to wake Dan. He was still snoring, unperturbed as I pulled the bedroom door shut, behind me. ‘Operation Leave Bedroom’ was a success.

  I crept into the kitchen and looked around. I couldn’t think of what to do. I walked downstairs and into the garage, grabbed the secateurs and hand saw, and ventured outside. The street lights cast an eerie glow over our front garden.

  I rolled up my sleeves and got to work; chopping, pruning, trimming and hacking. The night hours passed in a hectic blur. Dawn broke and with it the early birds in search of their worms or whatever it really is that birds do at that hour. I pruned on. By 7 am, when Dan usually walked outside to collect the morning paper, the driveway lay heaped with branches and cuttings. He stood by the front door aghast. Every plant in the garden had been given a number one; no plant had survived unscathed.

  During that weekend, interludes of manic activity punctuated those of despair as I careered from one mood to another. Monday finally arrived and with it, my scheduled session, at two in the afternoon. I dialled Kate’s number.

  I heard someone fumbling for the receiver at the other end.

  ‘Hello’ I strained to hear what I imagined was Kate’s voice, but it wasn’t her normal voice; this voice was husky.

  ‘I’m s…sorry…I.’

  Kate sounded groggy.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’ve woken you up.’

  I glanced at my watch. It was well before seven. I hadn’t thought to check the time.

  ‘No problem, Cathy’. Kate’s voice was already sounding clearer.

  I detected sounds of stirring at the other end of the line. I suspected that I’d woken Kate’s husband up as well. I heard her get out of bed and walk into the next room. As I explained how I was feeling Kate listened carefully; she had managed to switch into full professional mode in the blink of an eye. She listened until she was certain that I was in a fit state to let her go, but before she hung up she changed my appointment to the first one of the day. I was grateful for the gesture, but as soon as I hung up the phone I panicked that I wouldn’t be able to contain my angst until the appointed time. It was more than an hour away. While on the one hand I knew she was putting herself out by giving me a time she didn’t usually schedule, on the other I resented having to wait at all. I clicked back into overdrive to cope with the hour and a half I’d have to wait. I ripped around my house like a mad thing, moving objects from one place to another, then moving them back again. I didn’t care what I did; I just needed to keep busy until I could see Kate.

  The monster grabbed me the moment I sat in the consulting chair.

  The monster’s big, hairy and ugly and it’s drooling all over me, smearing me within its foul stench. The monster’s smacking its filthy lips; its putrid tongue shoots forth and its mighty jaws open to reveal a jagged set of monster teeth. The monster grabs my head and draws it into its mouth. The monster snaps its jaw shut and takes its first bite.

  I arched back writhing in pain as the monster pierced my psyche.

  The monster holds me in its clutches and devours me, piece by macerated piece. I try to pull free but there is no escape. The monster clamps its jaws harder, drawing my head inside it, tightening its grip by clamping its jaw down around my neck, constricting my throat. I can barely breathe.

  Chilling sounds emanated from the throat of a dying neck; one last guttural gag, one final choke, a short gasp and I was no more.

  ‘Cathy, CathYYY! You’re going to have to start coming out of it!’ Another fifty minutes had passed; I couldn’t imagine where they’d gone.

  Sip after sip of water delivered a fledgling sense of the here and now. Devoured and fragmented I rose up through the layers of my entrapment and came to, in an alien muted apricot room. I drew a breath in and proceeded to check myself, but before I could complete my appraisal I was unceremoniously turfed out of the only place I felt safe. Kate had to see the patient after me; there was no choice, I had to leave. As I stumbled up the driveway to my car, I felt completely alone with the monster within my head.

  The monster didn’t leave me; it wouldn’t let me go. That monster held me in its clutches, tormenting my every waking and sleeping hour as I waited out the twenty-seven hours until my next scheduled session.

  I walked down the driveway, through the gate and into the waiting room. Sitting back in my chair, within seconds it was as though my last session had never ended. Ghghgghghghghgghg…. khkhkhkhkkhkh…..ghghghghg….gkkkkkkkkk…….’

  ‘Cathy, Cathy! What’s happening? Can you tell me what’s happening?’

  The monster releases its grip; its face flashes before me.

  ‘ ghgghhghghghghghgh’

  The monster reels backwards and roars. The monster looks down at me with evil eyes. Its nostrils flare and I take a long hard look at it for the first time, but there’s no mistaking what I see; the monster is my Daddy. It has been all along.

  It’s an afternoon, like any other, except that it’s teeming with rain. My mother has gone out shopping and I’m lying on my stomach on the floor of our Indooroopilly home, with my face six inches from the TV screen, watching my afternoon wet weather line up of F troop, Rin Tin Tin and I love Lucy. I’m sprawled out at Daddy’s feet. He’s in one of his dazes and seemingly dead to the world. But I’ve checked him out and I’m sure it’s okay. My Daddy’s drooling and the drool is moist, so he’s not dead. When you’re dead you can’t drool and your drool isn’t moist.

  Daddy awakens from
his stupor, wipes his drool aside and leaps to his feet. He has a wild look in his eyes; he bends down and grabs me up off the floor. Wraps his hands around my neck and shakes me so hard I feel like I’ll come apart.

  ‘You little bitch, you told her, didn’t you? I know you did. How could you? ‘Don’t play the innocent with me! You told her, didn’t you?’

  Gulping hard I try to be firm. ‘Daddy! You’re hurting me! Stop, please stop! What, Daddy? Who? Who did I tell?’

  Daddy doesn’t answer my questions.

  ‘You little bitch, you… y…. You told her, didn’t you? You told her, I know you did. You little bitch! Bitch, bitch, bitch!’

  Daddy is being rough; my Daddy isn’t usually rough. And he’s cussing and swearing and his eyes look crazy.

  I don’t recognise this Daddy. It’s not my real Daddy and it’s certainly not my special Daddy. I don’t know who this Daddy is. This Daddy is saying that I betrayed him, that I told Mummy about his night-time visit, that it’s my fault that she found us.

  ‘No, Daddy. I…I promise. I wouldn’t do that, Daddy, I swear. Pl…please, please believe me! Cross my heart and hope to die. I would never tell on you. Never! I don’t know why Mummy came. I had nothing to do with it. Nothing! Can you hear me, Daddy? You have to. You have to believe me!’

  Daddy is holding my arms really tight and shaking me still.

  ‘Daddy, let go, pl..ea..se! You’re hurting me! Dddd….aaaa….dddyyyy!’

  ‘You little bitch. I’ll show you!’

  Daddy hurls me onto the floor and barrels into his bedroom. When he comes back he looks smug; he snaps a thick black leather belt in my face. I turn to run but he catches my arm and swings me round. His fingernails pierce my flesh.

  ‘I’m going to show you once and for all!’

  Daddy marches me into his bedroom and pulls my pants down, undies and all. As he tosses me onto his bed, Cherry scampers away with her tail between her legs. A blur of black rises into the air and rips into my flesh as it lands.

  As a monster thrashes me, I tremble. I am confused; I can’t understand how my special Daddy has turned into a monster. I beg the monster to stop hurting me, but the monster doesn’t stop. The black rises and falls. Whack! Whack, whack! I sob; I can’t abide a hurting monster Daddy. I mentally remove the head from the monster Daddy. As a headless figure wallops my bottom, a princess pleads for mercy. But the arm beating me cannot hear the princess’s pleas because it is no longer my Daddy’s arm.

  My Daddy wallops me until his fury is spent. Then he drops the belt to the ground, and looks at me. I try to smile but my Daddy gets angry again and his eyes go wild. The monster takes me by the neck and shakes me so violently that I think I will smash into little pieces.

  As my monster Daddy rages, his hands tighten around my neck.

  ‘You little bitch. You told her, didn’t you! I know you did!’

  My Daddy’s fingers are pushing into my neck; I’m struggling to get enough air in, and swallowing hard between gasps.

  ‘Chhhh chhh Daddy, please let go!’ The tears are streaming down my cheeks.

  ‘Chhhh chhhhh chhhh please!’ Daddy startles and loosens his grip. His hands drop down by his side and he runs out without uttering another word. I crumble to the floor; my breathing is as laboured as a puffing steam train going uphill. At least I’m breathing and I’m grateful for that. I think about running after Daddy, but I’m scared; I’m scared that he might try and hurt me again.

  But Daddy comes back by himself and when he does, he’s the monster Daddy. The monster Daddy shakes the little girl with his monster hands. I’m scared I will come apart. But I can’t let myself come apart and I don’t. I save myself by making my arms and legs float away. And I make my body go numb a bit at a time, until I cannot feel any part of myself anymore. I call out to my bits one at a time and they don’t answer. That’s when I know that they’ve gone away and that they’re safe. But then I get scared because I’m not a whole little girl anymore. I’m only a neck and a head and my neck panics because it has a head on top of it but nothing underneath to support it. Little girls’ necks need bodies and little girls’ bodies need arms and legs too. Without all their bits, little girls aren’t whole and they aren’t little girls anymore.

  The little girl’s head still has a mouth and the mouth cries, ‘Daddy, please stop! Please stop, my Daddy! You’re hurting me.’

  But my monster Daddy squeezes my neck harder.

  ‘Daddy, please. You have to believe me. I’m your princess, remember. I would never do anything to hurt you.’

  But the monster Daddy can’t hear what I’m saying and he doesn’t stop squeezing my neck and he doesn’t stop shaking me. And my head gets scared and it tries to run away but my neck begs the head to stay because a little girl’s neck doesn’t want to be left alone with a Daddy who is squeezing the living daylights out of it.

  My head stays and it pleads with the monster. My mouth begs the monster to let go, and at long last, he loosens his hold and looks into my eyes and hears what my mouth is saying.

  ‘Daddy, I swear, I swear. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you. I just wouldn’t. Daddy, please. Please believe me.’

  As my tears flow, my Daddy reaches out his hand, the same hand that a minute earlier had wielded the strap: ‘Oh, my sweet, sweet princess. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me. How could I? How could I hurt my princess? Princess, I love you. I’m sorry. Please forgive me.’

  The little girl’s neck swallows hard as her head breathes a sigh of reprieve but the relief only lasts till the head realises that it doesn’t have a body. And when the head remembers, the head panics and so does the neck, because without a body a head and neck can’t live and without arms and legs, a body can’t move. The little girl’s head calls out for its bits to come back, but they don’t. It calls again and again until the numbness fades and the little girl’s bits come back to her in her mind. Once the bits come back the little girl can be a whole little girl again.

  Daddy starts to cry and I get scared. It’s scary when you are little and your Daddy starts to cry. I try to help but I’m too small. My little girl’s arms stretch out as far as they can but they can’t reach all the way around a big Daddy. But Daddy doesn’t mind because now he knows that I’m his little girl princess and he hugs and kisses me. ‘I’m so sorry, princess. Please forgive me. I’m so, so sorry.’

  ‘Daddy, please don’t cry. It’s OK, really it is. It wasn’t you. I know that it wasn’t you. I love you. I love you, Daddy!’

  I plant a super-dooper kiss on a cheek that is as sodden as mine, and for a split second I allow myself to believe that everything is going to be alright.

  I peer up into the back of my eyelids and visualise my Daddy but he isn’t the monster Daddy who attacked me before; he is my special Daddy. And my special Daddy asks me what is wrong, but I don’t want to tell him because I don’t understand and I don’t want to upset him. I sob my story out to him except I don’t tell him who the monster is because I don’t want to upset my special Daddy by talking about a monster Daddy. My special Daddy listens and he gets upset and he wants to search for the monster, but I tell him to not to bother, to just stay and hold me instead.

  I lay curled in a tight ball in the corner of Kate’s chair, sobbing. I was racked with sobbing convulsions, but still not making a sound. My sobs were always silent.

  Whenever my monster Daddy returned during sessions I would dissociate. As I dissociated, and my mind’s eye would go blurry, I would perceive my body as having fragmented into parts. As the parts separated from one another, my head would become cloudier and I would become far more deeply dissociated.

  When I remembered about my monster Daddy and what he had done I could appreciate how completely my mind had to lose itself in order to survive. In the process of remembering I got back in touch with how terrifying it was to not be able to find any part of myself. I understood how ingenious that life-preserving defence had been. The mechanism was simple; whe
never my ‘self’ couldn’t be found, even by me, I could no longer be hurt. When there was no ‘self ‘ there to hurt, my monster Daddy couldn’t hurt me anymore. As parts of me fragmented and freed themselves, they would float away to safety. Only when the monster Daddy went away, would the parts look for one another. Once found, they would join together to make a whole little girl again. In this way, a frightened little girl had managed to survive my monster Daddy.

  chapter 21

  ‘Thank you for the lift, Mrs McKay! See you Judy!’ I slam the door of the McKay’s old Ford shut. Judy is my best friend and her family’s house is my home away from home. I know that something is wrong right away. Daddy’s Fiat is never parked in our Indooroopilly driveway at this hour on a school day. I don’t know whether to hurry or dawdle, as I work my way up the drive. I want to make sure that Daddy is okay, but on the other hand I’m worried that I’ll find something concerning that I won’t be able to fix.

  That’s how it’s been lately. Daddy has had all sorts of bad things happen to him and I haven’t been able to help him even though I’ve tried to be there for him. I’m only twelve, so there are lots of things which I don’t understand. I wish I was older and smarter too.

  By the time I get to the top of the front steps I’m tripping over my feet to find out what’s up. When I see that the front door has been left wide open, I stop in my tracks; Daddy’s keys are dangling in the lock.

  ‘Daddy, Daddy. Are you there?’

  No answer.

  ‘DADDY!’

  I’m in a real panic when Daddy still doesn’t answer after I call out to him.

  I peer into our house from the security of the front veranda. I can’t see anything unusual so I take a couple of teeny steps forward. A funny noise is coming from the lounge room so I stop and listen to it to see if I can make out what it is. It sounds like a person is moaning or crying or both. Or maybe it’s more; two people and one is crying, and the other moaning.