Grimm
An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day you must be a stranger to one of your parents.
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, 1813
Although I didn’t respect my father and was slightly revolted by his maleness, his hairiness (which I’ve inherited) and his obtuseness, I was still upset at the callous way we treated him. I was ashamed of my complicity in his persecution but I had to pick a side and he was not on the winning one. I felt uncomfortable that none of us greeted him when he came home from work. Listening to him trudge upstairs to his room without acknowledgement was distressing. Not a kind or polite word was spoken to Lucien in our house for weeks on end, except by me occasionally. Sometimes I risked going against Mum to show him some affection, but whenever I did she called me a collaborator, ‘Like in the war.’ She said I was weak and greedy. Weak because I felt uncomfortable ignoring Lucien and wanted to make the atmosphere at home pleasant, and greedy because I sometimes sat on his lap so he’d give me a sweet. I was a bit greedy. I liked sweets and the only sweets we were given when I was young were a Haliborange tablet after tea (a vitamin C and halibut oil pill which had a tangy orange flavour) or a teaspoonful of dark molasses. Whenever I asked if there was anything else sweet to eat Mum said, ‘Have an apple.’ I’m sugarmad now.
The worst thing Mum used to say to me, and she said it often, was, ‘You’re just like your father.’ Considering she so obviously loathed him, it was a terrible and crushing insult. I wish she’d realised back then that the sort of daughter who sat on her father’s lap for a sweet, or left him a note because she felt sorry for him, was also the sort of daughter who’d feel responsible for her mother later in life.
Lucien 30.03.66 – Viviane bought me a pair of socks for my birthday. When I came in she was out. She returned about 5.30 and told me she had run away into the Broadway because her mother was cross with her for doing so.
04.07.66 – Viviane has continued to say hello and goodnight to me and these last few days has made a point of telling me where they are going. If it wasn’t for her I wouldn’t know where they are most of the time. I don’t say much to her because I don’t want to see her unhappy but I think she realises what her mother has been putting me through.
03.01.67 – Whilst we were watching a hooligan’s episode of Z Cars [police drama] on TV, Kath told the children never to let any man treat them like she had been treated, associating me with the bad characters on the screen in the eyes of the children. Pascale started calling the husband a ‘stinking husband’, a ‘rotten man’ and so on. I told her quietly she was very rude and she replied, ‘It’s nothing compared to what you are.’ She said that I would have left the house by now if I was a gentleman and that she will be glad when the divorce comes. She is nine years old and twelve months ago I was her daddy.
Kath has thrown away all our happiness including her own. I can no longer find any love in me for her. There is no doubt we loved each other very much in days gone by. I shall never forget all we have gone through together and all the places we have been together. I am so sorry for both of us and the children. One day when they are grown up I intend to tell them my side of the story.
Well, here you are, Dad. Now I’ve heard your side of the story, I thought as I sat at the kitchen table reading his diary. He never got the chance to tell me his point of view before he died. By the time we were reunited I was in my late twenties, and he was so pleased to see me that he didn’t want to scare me away by bringing up the past. He did try broaching the subject a few times, but I shouted him down and became tearful and accusing. I wish he knew I’d heard his side at last.
Go Now
If I was bound for hell, let it be hell. No more false heavens. No more damned magic. You hate me and I hate you. We’ll see who hates best.
Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea, 1966
According to Lucien’s diaries, Mum favoured Pascale, which I hadn’t remembered until I read them. This hurt me most out of all the revelations. I was reminded of how Mum spoke and behaved towards me during those two years, like she didn’t think I was very nice, and how that made me feel as if I wasn’t a good person. I used to think of myself as someone who always wanted things and clothes, who sucked up to my father, didn’t stand up for my mother or my sister enough, and was selfish and vain. I didn’t realise until I read the diary that this image, which I still can’t quite shake off, was constructed by my mother.
Lucien 05.05.66 – At 9.00 a.m. Pascale came into my room and asked if I wanted the Sunday paper and would I pay for her comic? I said yes. Viviane asked if I would pay for hers also, so I gave Pascale another shilling. Kath pounced on Viviane – accused her of being a spendthrift and took Viviane’s shilling out of Pascale’s hand saying she wasn’t going short and see everyone else spending money on comics. Viviane was in tears so I told her I would go and buy her a comic. She said, ‘Please don’t, Daddy, because I owe Mummy 5 shillings and she won’t let me have a comic unless I give it back to her.’ She was saving for a new swimsuit.
Then Kath burst into Viviane’s room and demanded her 5 shillings for the swimsuit back. With tears pouring, Viviane went to her money box and gave it back to her. I told Kath I had never seen anyone act so hard towards their children and they had done nothing naughty. She told me to shut up, that I was mental and that she hoped to be rid of me soon. She looked devilish, almost demented. She went to my bedroom, flung the door wide open, walked in, picked up the newspaper that Pascale – just back – had put on my bed and threw the pages all over the room then rushed out holding her nose telling the children, ‘The stink in there is putrid.’
I remember that swimsuit. Mum felt guilty for shouting at me, and a few days later she gave me the money back and a bit extra and told me to buy something unusual, like a bikini (I’d only had a one-piece before). I went to Jane Norman in Wood Green on my own and bought a black bikini, but the two pieces were joined together with black net. It was quite grown-up. When I got in I said to Mum, ‘I’ve bought another one-piece,’ to tease her, and she said, ‘What have you done that for?’ Then I showed her the swimsuit, and she said it was lovely.
Lucien 11.05.66 – Kath repeatedly tells Viviane she had better make up her mind soon what side she is going to be on in the divorce. I said it’s the judge who decides this and Kath retorted that she will have a say in it and ‘If I say you can have her, then you will have her.’ I replied that I would abide by the court decision and if, as I hoped, they gave me the children I would have them both gladly. She snorted and left the room saying, ‘Some hope.’
I would have preferred to stay friends with both my parents, but that wasn’t an option. I was scared I’d be left with my father if I didn’t demonstrate to Mum that I was firmly in her camp. I didn’t want to be too cruel to him (even though I did find him highly irritating and oppressive), but I didn’t want to lose Mum. I was terrified of losing Mum.
35 Mum must have sensed us scuffling behind her head because her eyes popped open with surprise. It was the most alive she’d looked for months. That’s perked her up, I thought. There you go, Mum, still entertaining you, right to the end. She couldn’t see anything because Pascale and I were tussling behind her against the back wall, but she must have been able to feel it. I wondered if Mum thought all the shaking and shuddering of the bed was the three Furies come to exact their bloody revenge on her, prompting her to remember something she’d done in the past which she felt guilty about and making her think she deserved a horrible end. No wonder she snapped her eyes shut again. Pascale is bigger and stronger than me, has been since she was twelve or thirteen, so I knew it was going to be a tough fight. But in all our fifty years together, even though we’d often been physically aggressive with each other, she’d never seen me behave like this. I knew there would be consequences for my actions: Mum’s last moments ruined; my relationship with my sister irredeemable; Vida’s memory of her grandmother’s death traumatic; and possibly the loss of my thum
b. All big losses but nothing compared to what I was fighting for. What was I fighting for though? Even now I’m not sure. Something so old and so deep, it has no words, no shape, no logic.
Normal
They are sisters, savages –
In the end they have
No emotion but envy.
Louise Glück, ‘Confession’, Ararat, 1990
With the tension in our childhood home escalating and everyone shouting at or ignoring each other – except Mum and Pascale, who were like a two-pronged pitchfork jabbing away – Pascale and I turned on each other. The natural sibling rivalry between us was exploited by our parents, who constantly characterised us in opposition to each other. To Mum, Pascale was loyal, I was a collaborator. Pascale was strong, I was weak. Pascale was a saver, I was a spender. In contrast, Lucien thought I was kind, Pascale was cruel. I was sensitive, Pascale was brutal. I was smart, Pascale was stupid (she was a darn sight smarter than him and better at most subjects than me). Two girls born eighteen months apart should have been able to get along – in fact, until we moved out of Frieda’s house I don’t remember there being any significant trouble between Pascale and me – but our parents cast us as adversaries and fought over us like we were the spoils of war.
Lucien 22.02.66 – The children have been picking on each other for some time, at around 9 p.m. they started fighting again. Kath will not say a word, especially if Pascale is the instigator. The result is that Viviane, being older, realises that Pascale is left to get away with a lot by her mother and feels frustrated. A little while later when Pascale made some nasty remark about her, Viviane kicked a stool under the table and Pascale’s glasses fell on the floor. Kath became infuriated, smacked Viviane and told her she wouldn’t be getting any pocket money for 12 months. Viviane said sorry, Pascale hardly ever does.
Mum was very sensitive about Pascale wearing glasses. She didn’t want her to feel embarrassed or hindered by them. (Children were much crueller to each other in those days and schools did nothing to stop taunts of ‘four eyes’ and other unkind names.) Mum made pretty little pouches for Pascale’s glasses that tied up with ribbons and matched her dresses, and told me – quite rightly – to stop doodling glasses on photographs of people in newspapers and magazines lying around the house.
Lucien Later this evening Viviane and Pascale fought. Viviane slammed the kitchen door so violently that she broke a glass panel 3’ x 15”. Kath smacked Viviane and told her she’s stopping her pocket money. [As I remember this, Mum didn’t smack me, I was sent upstairs.] I told Viviane off as well. As soon as I did that, Kath took the child’s side.
Pascale and I were having an argument. She said something that enraged me and I went to hit her, but she was out of the kitchen in a flash, pulling the door shut behind her. I felt humiliated that she’d got away with the nasty remark and also proved herself a faster mover than me, so I hammered on the glass panel of the door with frustration and in protest, thinking it would make a good loud noise. My arm went straight through the glass, shattering the whole panel. Mum said later I must have done a kind of karate chop because there wasn’t a scratch on me.
Lucien 24.04.66 – Viviane told me that her mother took her to the doctor because she was having fits of violence, and he gave her some pills.
Kath knows very well that she is sacrificing her children’s happiness, her own and mine, but she would rather do that than come to her senses.
I don’t remember the pills, but I checked my medical records and on 23 April 1966 Beplete tablets – a barbiturate – were prescribed to me for ‘Screaming fits’. I was eleven and a half years old; it was just before my 11-plus exam. Even then it was an extreme medication to use on a child. According to medical journals, Beplete was a high-dependency class B drug, a sedative – creating a diminished level of consciousness – occasionally used for seizures. It can cause anxiety and withdrawal symptoms. I don’t know why only I was prescribed the pills. I was no more violent than Pascale.
I ricocheted between my parents during those two years, trying to placate and be liked by both of them but afraid of committing the ultimate offence: being deemed disloyal by my mother. Pascale lived under a different tyranny, indoctrinated by Mum (who was trying to turn Pascale into her little attack dog) and constantly picked on by Lucien. The more aggressive Mum made Pascale, the more harshly Lucien behaved towards her. She didn’t stand a chance. What nine-year-old child would, in the middle of an emotional war zone? Pascale and I argued and fought every day, with no idea how to resolve disagreements amicably – we had no role models. No arguments were settled peaceably between our mother and father. For a long time (about fifty years) I comforted myself with the thought that I was the only sane person in my family, like Marilyn, the normal niece in The Munsters, but after reading Lucien’s diary, I realised I wasn’t normal at all.
36 Mia was reduced to a shadow flickering on the edge of my field of vision. All I could see was the three family members I had left, Vida, Mum and Pascale, like I was looking at them through a long cardboard tube. My sister’s jaw was still clamped around the thumb on my left hand, the hand that holds the neck of my guitar. She just kept on biting deeper into my flesh, severing our ties. I needed my thumb, I wanted to keep it, but I wanted my sister off the bed more. My blood sprayed out in a fan shape over Mum’s sheets and fountained up the wall behind her head. It was a terrible scene, worthy of the Borgias. At least there’s no blood on Mum’s face, I thought. I was thankful for that.
Proxy
Lucien 19.10.66 – The children started throwing things at each other. A small toy hit me and spilled the cup of water in front of my plate. I showed them the belt I was wearing and told them if I had given them a good hiding from time to time perhaps they would not behave any more as they were behaving.
Kath has brainwashed them with a set of stories, telling them I gave them the belt a few years back when in fact it was her who asked for a belt saying that it hurt her hands more than the children to correct them. She distinctly asked me if she could keep my old belt for that if need be. I have not seen her use it but I think she has no right to tell them I hit them with it when I just reminded them of its existence a couple of times.
But I remember the belt hanging on a nail just inside the cellar door when we lived at Nanny’s house and being told to go and get it and Lucien hitting us with it. Or do I? I looked up from the page and tried to picture Nanny’s house, the cellar, our bedroom, us on the bed crying. Was Lucien telling the truth and he only threatened to use the belt but didn’t actually hit us with it? I don’t trust my memories now. Most of what he’d written in his diary was true, but I couldn’t believe that Mum planted false memories in our brains. When we lived at Frieda’s, Mum used to tell Lucien how naughty we’d been when he arrived home from work. Years later I thought, If she hadn’t told him we’d been naughty, he wouldn’t have hit us. Did she ask him to give her his belt like he said? Was she smacking us by proxy so that she looked like the good cop and he was duped into being the bad cop? Was she that scheming? Was he that gullible? I remember drawing around the red marks on my legs with a biro after I’d been hit by him, but they may have been impressions made by his hand, not the belt. I definitely remember red stripes on my skin surrounded by wiggly blue lines.
Gaslight
Lucien 05.03.67 – Midday yesterday Kath informed me she did not want me to enter the lounge any more, that it was her room from now on and I was to keep out of it. She repeated twice, ‘You keep out of it you hear.’ I replied I was entitled to sit in the lounge.
24.05.67 – The situation is too much and too tense for anyone to endure. Either Kath is right or very wrong or I am right or very wrong. If I am wrong then I can only conclude that I am sick. If so, then I am in need of care, advice or whatever else that may be necessary. I am prepared to submit to psychiatric investigation, provided my doctor advises it. Something must be done to avert some disastrous conclusion mainly where the children are concerned. I am not tr
ying to dramatise, this is a serious situation.
I am more convinced now than ever that Kath is trying to make the children despise me enough to secure their support in court and I have little doubt that she will ask them to testify in her favour. They – more so Pascale – act towards me with such indifference that I have to repeat to myself that it isn’t true, it hasn’t happened, that I am still their father.
To Throw Away Unopened Page 14
