Invisible Tears

by Abigail Lawrence

  Whilst I was getting dressed in the clothes nan had put out for me, I could hear the voices were getting louder and angrier.

  “I’d of had ‘em!” Aunty Helen shouted in her Cockney accent. “Why on earth leave em there when you knew what she was doing? You worked away all week, every week and left her to do what she liked to your kids.” There was silence, I didn’t know who this was aimed at, but I guessed it was probably dad. I felt sorry for him. He had never done anything wrong to me as far as I knew, but everyone was treating him like he was the one who beat me up.

  “I never saw you go running back there to try and help those kids after she kicked you out,” dad bit back. “You’re just as much to blame.”

  I heard a lot of talk that I really wasn’t meant to hear, either through open doors or pretending to be asleep when I wasn’t. I found out that all my uncles had known what mum was doing to us when dad had gone. Even our neighbours had complained to dad and even rang the police when mum had gone out with one of her boyfriends and locked us in the house for the night. No doubt they must have heard us kids screaming when we were getting a beating or having our heads banged off the wall to “knock some sense into us.” No one ever mentioned Uncle Joe though, so I guessed they didn’t know that bit.

  They spoke about how mum’s own kids got all the nice new clothes and toys whilst Alex and I got clothes from charity. It reminded me of an occasion at school when one of my friends accused me of stealing her coat. It turned out she had seen her name in the collar and her mum hadn’t told her she had given it to the charity shop. That friend then told everyone at school how I had stolen her coat and that I wore tramp’s clothes.

  I overheard one of my uncles saying that no one from this side of the family knew for quite a while that my real mum had died. When I heard that I thought to myself, What could they have done even if they had known? No one could have been aware that our new mum got her kicks from picking on kids.

  As I sat listening to the grownups in the other room my mind drifted away thinking of how me and Alex were treated differently. All the things I was overhearing made me realise the things that had been happening to me were not normal.

  It didn’t take long--once something triggered it off--for me to be back into my world of hatred, my world of pain. Every day my mind slipped back to when my stepmother tortured us and tried to kill my spirit. I started feeling bad all the time. Every moment I was there, my anger built up inside me, and my life fell back to an all-time low.

  My thoughts and hopes and dreams were soon smashed out of me, as once again violence struck. I knew that the anger against my stepmother had built to a point of no return. My mind wandered back into dark memories. Fists came at me from nowhere, blood dripping from my nose and ear. Mum walked patiently around me, waiting for me to break and cry. It was her game, her way of controlling me and making me suffer. She stopped only when I could fight no more.

  I shook my head but all I could think about were those dark memories. I remembered coming home from school once and being dragged to the bathroom. The look in her eye was crazed, her eyes glazed over when she was in one of those moods. I had learnt to stay away from her, but sometimes she planned things and on that particular day she had known exactly what she was doing.

  “You are disgusting,” she screamed in my face slapping me around the head. My facial skin felt like it was burning off. I had that giddy feeling that you only get as a kid.

  “I’ve had a letter from school,” she said throwing it at me. “You’ve got head lice, you dirty slut!” With that I was picked up and thrown into the bath. It was full of freezing cold water smelling of bleach.

  “I’ll get you clean once and for all,” she yelled. She scrubbed me from head to foot with the floor scrubbing brush. My eyes were stinging, my skin was burning, but all I could do was sit there and take it. Inside my head was screaming and wishing I could have a silly pill. But the tears didn’t come out as I struggled to get away slipping in the bath, feeling like a rag doll, a lifeless body getting flung around. As my head was pushed under I wished I could remain under water forever and never come up. But Molly and I had been practising how long we could stay under water so I survived the dunkings.

  “What’s wrong with you?” mum screamed continuing to shake me. “How dare you embarrass me like that? In future wash properly then this won’t happen will it?”

  “I will, I promise,” I said, rubbing my stinging eyes. I was hauled out of the bath. My eyes were in agony and I couldn’t see properly. All I could hear were scissors clipping and cutting away at my lovely, golden brown hair. Everyone used to comment on how nice my hair looked. But now, my hair was shorter than my brother’s and I felt like a boy. I felt ugly and dirty and was sent to bed with no dinner.

  Mum had been forced to take me to see the doctor after my skin and eyes reacted to the bleach. He gave me eye-drops and cream for my skin. Mum told him I had thought the bleach was bubble bath after she had changed brands. The Doctor believed her, again.

  The voices were getting louder, bringing me back to my senses, “Stay here for a while!” nan pleaded. “They’ve been through enough don’t cha know?”

  Dad said he had to go to work in the morning so we would stay with nan while things got sorted.

  Nan was a hard lady to say “no” to. No one argued with her, not even grand-dad. Nan smelt of lavender, and her hands used to shake for no reason. “Parkinson’s,” my aunt called it.

  Maggie was arriving in a few days, I heard them say.

  “Maggie? Who’s Maggie?” I asked Alex.

  “I think it’s dad’s new girlfriend,” he shrugged.

  “New girlfriend?” I walked into the warm kitchen and asked Nan.

  “Yes,” she spat back.

  I could tell she wasn’t very impressed about this Maggie person. Nan said we needed “TLC” and lots of it, never mind competing with more kids. Maggie had three kids of her own but they wouldn’t be coming straight away.

  “Great, more kids to share dad with!” Alex snapped back sarcastically.

  I hadn’t thought of it that way, but there was no way I was sharing MY dad again. I agreed with Alex.

  Little did I know that everything had already been arranged and Maggie was on her way to be with us permanently.

  My aunty had arranged for me to go to school in London. I hated it! Being the new girl, everybody stared at me. They would look at me a giggle.

  “I look like a boy, I know I do,” I complained to nan when she asked how my day had gone.

  “I hate school. I don’t want to go there again. The teachers don’t do anything and everyone is picking on me,” I moaned at nan for hours that night.

  The next morning nan instructed my aunty to escort me to school demanding to see the head of year. She disappeared into an office and re-appeared again after about 20 minutes, apologising to the head teacher for wasting her time. She grabbed my arm and told me lying is not going to stop me from going to school, so I had better just get on with it. She told me if anyone started on me to, “Sort them out big time!” I thought that meant to smack them one. So that’s what I did the very next day. That was how it always got sorted in London.

  My aunt was called into school again, this time it was because I had hit several pupils. I was not very patient with anybody and when I hit someone “usually for no real reason,” I felt so good for ages afterwards. It had a real calming effect like I had been given that sugar sandwich all over again. The kids at that school didn’t bother me much after that. If they did annoy me, they soon learnt not to. Boys or girls it didn’t matter. No one scared me because I had no fear. What on earth could they do compared to what my mum had done? If they only knew what I survived, they would leave me alone, I thought, but I never mentioned anything to anyone.

  I did start to make friends, but I think it was more because the kids thought it was better to be my friend than my enemy. Kids left Alex alone too. My reputation for trouble had spread to years ab
ove me.

  “Get ready,” Nan shouted from the kitchen through to the garden, “Your dad is arriving with his new girlfriend.” Alex and I looked at each other not saying anything, but with knowing thoughts. We headed inside to meet the infamous Maggie.

  Chapter 9

  She sat in the front of dad’s Volkswagen camper van. He loved that car and was always tinkering with this or that on it. Dad was so proud he was constantly washing it, usually with Alex in tow. It was orange and white outside with orange stretchy seats inside, the curtains where brown and cream.

  Disgusting, I thought.

  It looked like she was scared to get, out and she was arguing with dad, her hands waving around frantically. As we peered out the window, it seemed she was pleading with him. Dad was obviously trying to calm her down. She looked over toward me and saw me looking from behind the curtain. I wish I could have smiled to make her feel more at ease, but the truth was, I didn’t want to smile. I wanted her to go back to where she came from. Who is this woman? I wondered. What is so special that dad would leave mum? And what about her kids? What about Molly, Debbie, Daniel and Kassie? This Maggie must be something!

  She had shoulder length, dark brown, permed hair and pale blue eyes that sparkled with life. She spoke with a soft Welsh accent and she was slim but not skinny. Her boobs aren’t as big as mum’s, I noticed. “A good figure,” I heard nan say to Aunty Helen. She was very pretty. Her face had fine features, and I could see why dad liked her but she did seem quite shy. I was happy for that; maybe she would leave me alone.

  I didn’t want to be friends with her.

  Dad asked of me before he left for work, “All I want is for you to get on and be friends.”

  Who is he kidding? I thought to myself. Keep me out of it. You want her, not me. You be nice.

  Once inside I heard her talking with nan.

  “If you love him, you will leave your kids in Scotland!” Nan screamed at Maggie.

  “But they are my kids. I love them. How could I possibly leave them?” Maggie cried. I could hear her sobbing.

  I expect nan was just trying to protect us, but I did feel a bit sorry for Maggie. Nan was not a person one disagreed with.

  I heard Maggie on the phone with dad that night. “Get me out of here right now!” she shouted down the telephone at him, “I will not stay here one day longer, do you hear me?”

  I thought whilst lying in my bed that night that Maggie deserved everything she got. Serves her right for splitting up me and my sisters. I was getting to quite like my bed. It was so warm with the blankets and patchwork quilt on top. Nan said she made it herself so it meant even more to me. I lay there thinking, if nan didn’t like Maggie, then there must be a reason. Nan was the only person on the planet I trusted. She had been the only one who understood my plight, so I would stay loyal to her no matter what.

  * * *

  We climbed the stairs to the flat we were looking at. It was massive. The block had only four flats with a shared garden space. Waltzing through the rooms Maggie was excited saying how Alex would have his own bedroom. I would have my own bedroom too, and her own boys would share, because they were brothers.

  My room was small and a funny shape. It had alcoves all around. Dad said it should have been a library; the window was arched and opened with a lot of huffing and puffing. It was old and a bit stuck where someone had painted on the runners. “We’ll fix that,” he reassured me. But I didn’t mind. It was the first time since mum died I had ever thought of having my own room. It looked out over the garden. I wondered who lived in the other flats, Do they have kids? Will they be nice?

  “It’s not perfect but it will do for now,” Maggie said. Dad didn’t look at all impressed.

  Maggie put her hands on her hips and said, “I will not spend another night at your mother’s house.”

  “Now Maggie,” dad said.

  “We’ve been there a week, and that’s six days too long in my book. So it’s this flat, right now, or I leave! The choice is yours, Sean.”

  “That’s my nan you’re talking about,” I said under my breath. She didn’t hear me.

  My attitude was deteriorating rapidly, and I was getting brave. Dad was working away again and only back at weekends. I had started helping myself to Maggie’s purse. I had begun smoking and needed cash. If Maggie knew I was stealing from her, she never let on.

  It was the start of yet another school for me. This time I went to school with a whole new attitude. It must have been an “If you dare” attitude, because the girls didn’t pick on me at all. My hair had grown and I started to bud out a bit, so I was looking more like a girl. I became quite popular at school, helped by the fact that I always had cigarettes and usually plenty of money to spend at dinner time when we went to the shops.

  I got on well with Maggie’s kids too. They were a bit quieter than I was used to, but they were nice enough. I put it down to the fact they were nervous because they didn’t know any of us. Keith was just four years old and so cute. The older two, Gavin and Sean, were similar ages to Alex and me. I didn’t have much to do with them though, probably because I was a girl.

  I remember when Maggie’s kids went to visit their dad for a day and never came back. Maggie was devastated! Her ex-husband told her that if she wanted her kids they would have to go to court and choose who they wanted to live with. Maggie refused not wanting to put her kids through that. So she left them with their dad. I expect she never stopped loving them though and, in a way, I think she felt resentment that we were there, and not her own kids. But, then again, she did often say how pleased she was she had a daughter at last. One thing is for sure though. I admired the courage it took for her to stand her ground. It must have eaten her up missing her kids and all.

  We didn’t stay at the flat for long, maybe three months. Dad had been offered another job for more money, so we were to be moving houses yet again. Wiltshire wasn’t too far away. I was twelve years old had been to six schools. I wasn’t looking forward to moving again. I started the new school and surprisingly, I loved it straight away. I made friends quickly. Proud of myself, I was even getting good at making friends and that included boyfriends.

  I soon had a boyfriend named Tom. I never worried when he touched me. He didn’t try to do more than put his hand up my top or down my knickers. I found it all pretty boring really, but Tom seemed to get a kick out of it.

  What is it about me? I wondered. I always seem to attract people that want to touch me. My friend Lucy’s dad was no different. He would walk me home and insist on having a kiss. He would fumble around my top, breathing his cigarette breath into my mouth.

  “You’re beautiful,” he would say as he kissed me goodbye each time.

  I would run inside and brush my teeth. He was ugly and his teeth were stained and rotten. I could still taste him and the fags hours later despite the fact I smoked. His taste always stayed with me.

  I knew Lucy was kissed that way by her dad too. I saw him go into the bathroom with her when I stayed over one night. Her mum had gone to Bingo with her friends leaving him to babysit with Lucy and me. Lucy had gone to the bathroom to get changed. She was in there a while, so I went to see what she was doing as we were supposed to be having a feast in her room. As I approached the bathroom I was about to knock and call her when I heard a whimpering cry, followed by a slap. That perked my ears and I was frozen stiff.

  “Just fucking do it,” I heard her dad say in a forceful demand.

  “Please dad, not now, Abbie is here,” Lucy pleaded.

  I heard another slap followed by, “Suck it. . . good, now lick it or shall I get your friend to do it for you?” I was scared, but I couldn’t help listening through the door. It went quiet for awhile apart from a few quiet grunts and groans and whispering from her dad. Then I heard him say louder, “I’m telling you for the last time, open your fucking legs or I will walk straight into your bedroom and service your friend. Got it? She’s far prettier than you anyway.”


  I knew what he was doing to her. I could hear his grunts louder and louder and Lucy crying, then all went quiet. I ran to my bed that had been made up on the floor and pretended to be asleep.

  Stretching my arms up as if I had just woken up, I said to her, “Oh there you are, I must have nodded off.” What could I say? I knew what had just happened. I assumed it was probably best for now that she didn’t know I knew. I could see she was upset. It happened enough times with Uncle Joe and others for me to know the score.

  Lucy’s dad started kissing and touching me a few weeks after that night. He told me that if I told anyone, Lucy would be put into a children’s home. He said she was only kept there because he liked me to visit. If I stopped pleasing him then he didn’t want Lucy anymore. She was my best friend and a bit of kissing and touching didn’t bother me really, after all I’d been through. Uncle Joe had fooled around a lot more than that, and the way Lucy’s dad fiddled with my privates was no different. It didn’t seem to bother me that much. It’s what men do after all, I told myself. Isn’t it? I didn’t know any better.

  Chapter 10

  Memories of riding horses always haunted me, in a good way though. I never forgot how it felt to ride that stallion when I was nine. I just knew I had to be around them. I would dream of riding horses bareback on beaches or galloping through woods ducking to avoid trees. The feeling of power when that horse surged, and the wind built was something I would never forget. Those dreams kept me going many a boring day at school whilst I stared out of the window.

  I was twelve when I started helping at the yard. It was an hour’s walk either way, but helping wasn’t enough. I wanted to ride more and more, so I began stealing money to pay for riding lessons. There was a big riding school there. They had horses of all sizes from little Shetlands to big Hunters. I loved them all, and it didn’t take me long to learn all their names and where they slept.