At last we arrived home and I was sent to my room while the adults continued to discuss ‘my’ problem. Eventually, Joanne must have decided to telephone the doctor and demand an interview by phone.
I heard her speaking in angry tones to the doctor and my dad. It was all beyond me now. I was going to get into terrible trouble no matter what happened next, of that I was sure.
I remember lying on my bed that day, totally beyond tears, praying. “Dear God, so many bad things are happening to me. What am I going to do? Please can you help me? Please can you save me? I really wish that I was dead, then none of this would be my problem anymore, but I am too afraid to kill myself. I need help. Can’t you just make me brave enough to die?”
Chapter 10
“Save me, O God...
I am forced to restore what I did not steal….
You know how I am scorned, disgraced and shamed...
Scorn has broken my heart
and has left me helpless…”
Psalm 69 (1;4; 19 – 20)
My door had no key, so when my Dad started peeping at my underwear in the drawers, I needed to find a better place to hide my secret diary. Feeling rather crafty, I had begun placing it inside the scruffy remains of an ancient English grammar book. It went to school with me and came home with me inside the tatty brown book and would lie next to some other old school books. My parents never looked at my school work and the grammar book looked way too boring for my friends to care about – so my diary remained my only secret.
Saturday 25 March 1989
I have had one of the worst days of my life...
As I began writing, I heard footsteps and turned the book upside down with the others.
Joanne entered without knocking.
“Staring at the ceiling is not going to make this problem go away,” she began.
She pulled out my dressing table stool and sat down.
“I do not believe you, by the way. Your father does but I certainly do not!” She enunciated every word in a clipped staccato voice. “I got hold of Doctor Harris a short while ago and he says if you’d been raped you would’ve had marks on your body and your behaviour would have been peculiar, which it’s not. You are your normal moody, miserable self, but no different from before.”
As I stared at the ceiling, tears began to leak from the sides of my
eyes – as usual. I wished I could stop them.
“Why don’t I just tell Joanne the truth right now?” I asked myself. “Tell her it was Daddy’s idea because I’ve missed my period and he seems to think it’s such a problem.”
But then a scary dark voice seemed to say, ‘Yes, go on and tell Joanne. She already thinks you’re a liar. This will prove it and she’ll tell Dad. Then you’ll find out just how mad he can get….’
No, I couldn’t possibly tell the truth. I’d have to just stay with this lie.
“If you were raped and you are pregnant, you will have to leave school, do you know that?”
My heart flipped over and my hands went clammy. “No!” It was the first time the word ‘pregnant’ really hit home.
“No, what?”
“No, I didn’t know – and no I’m not pregnant. I’m not, I’m not!” My hands were on my stomach, checking that it was still flat.
“And if they were black boys then you’ll have a little brown baby, which is against the law. Did you know that? And then you’ll have to go to a special home for unmarried mothers and give the baby away when it’s born.” Joanne sounded like she was being mean on purpose and how could I possibly be pregnant? I was only a child!
I sat on my bed, hands in my lap, staring at my chewed fingernails through blurred eyes. The nausea began to overwhelm me again. I had been nauseous a lot in the past few weeks!
“Just when did you last have a period?”she persisted.
“Before school started – in January.” Why did it matter?
Joanne swore angrily.
“Do you know what I think has happened?” She stood with her hands on her hips looking down at me, a little insect on the ground. “I think that you have a boyfriend, probably at school. You’re at a co-ed school and I was your age too. I know what you youngsters get up to today. … Well, you and your little boyfriend have been up to some naughty business and now you’re trying to blame someone else. Was this rape story your idea or his?”
“No, it happened,” I cried out. “It happened. And I haven’t got a boyfriend!” I curled up in a little ball on the bed, facing the wall and pulled the duvet over my head. The icy voice continued to speak through the blackness.
“I want you to think very carefully about the things I’ve told you and later on I want you to tell me the truth.” Joanne left and slammed the door on her way out.
I took up my diary and tears poured down onto it, smudging the writing; proof of how bad my life was.
What is my father thinking? Can I really be pregnant? Is that what this is actually all about? Did my father – could my father actually make me pregnant? Is that possible?
He did make Joanne pregnant. Twice. Is that what has happened to me? Surely that must be a gigantic sin. Now he’s trying to blame some boys we don’t even know! Why didn’t I have the guts to NEVER tell that lie???? But he makes me so afraid when he’s mad. Please God make this thing not be so. Please make it go away. I’m desperate. Please God. If I am pregnant I will find a way to kill myself. I really, really will.
I began to make plans – thinking up methods of suicide. Knives. Guns. Dad had a gun. Pills. Joanne had a lot of pills. Jumping off a high building. Diving off a cliff into the sea. The more I fantasised my death, the more fearful I became. I stayed in my room the rest of the day and no-one called me to come out. I was queasy but didn’t feel hungry, so I stayed on my bed crying, praying until eventually, I must have fallen asleep.
Later I woke when Anthony opened the door.
“Jane is grounded. Jane is grounded!” he chanted in brotherly one-upmanship. “Jane you should stop being so cheeky to them and you wouldn’t get grounded so often.”
“You weren’t even here so you don’t know what really happened!”I argued.
“They told me you were cheeky… and you failed your last maths test. So now you have to do homework too. Well I’m going with Robert to a movie. Ta-ta.” He pulled a tongue.
I hurled some sort of childish abuse back at him and threw my shoes, hitting the door as he closed it. I was never allowed to go out overnight but he could spend whole weekends with friends!
If only Mom could be here to hold me and say it will be okay. Perhaps if Mom was here none of this would have happened! If Mom had been here … if Mom had done her job … if Mom had protected me…
As I started to think about Mom, a sudden fury exploded from deep within me. It grew hotter and intensified to a terrifying, inexpressible crescendo. Where was she? Why wasn’t she here? Why didn’t she care?
In that moment I hated everything and everyone in the world more than I’d ever hated before. I clenched my hands and dug my nails into my palms – then I grabbed my hair and began to pull. That wasn’t enough to satisfy this storm. I looked around.
Scissors!
I pounced on the pair of nail scissors that were lying on my bedside table and plunged them repeatedly into the wood, screaming soft and low, deep in my throat. Suddenly I stopped stabbing the wood and pulled them across the back of my hand, ripping the skin.
Terrified at my own rage, I stared at my hand. Fear transformed to fascination as the pink scratch became a broad red line. I did it again, making a second line like a pair of train tracks. Blood oozed more quickly to the surface. I was alive and I could feel myself.
After a while, I needed to experience that rush again. I did it to the other hand. Systematically. Slowly. I wanted to feel. I needed to feel! The blood began to pool on the back of each hand – rich, red, vibrant. I watched it run down the sides of my hands and trickle round onto my palms; I rubbed it as if it was hand c
ream. I watched in the mirror as I wiped my hands across my face. “I look like a murderer,” I thought, “and I’ve just killed my family.” The immense power in that moment of drama was short-lived, for as the initial excitement died down, my hands began to sting and I became afraid of Joanne finding me like this.
To my relief, I heard Dad’s car drive off and a few minutes later, Joanne’s car followed. I dashed down the passage to the bathroom. I needed to wash off all the blood or my clothes would soon be stained from the dripping and Joanne would just start yelling again. In fact, now would be a good time to bath, I decided. If Dad was out, that meant he couldn’t come and stand at the window, watching me and telling me to open my legs in the bath so he could see.
After my cleansing ritual, I patched up my hands with a few too many Band-Aids, fixed myself a piece of toast and tea and went back to my bed.
Chapter 11
“Even if I were innocent,
my mouth would condemn me;
if I were blameless, it would pronounce me guilty,
Although I am blameless
I have no concern for myself;
I despise my life.”
Job 9:20-21
I slept fitfully and awoke, distraught.
I tiptoed down the passage to make a cup of tea but Dad must have heard me for there he was, hovering around. “Jane, I want you to take these pills. Then go and have a really cold bath. You must come to me every day to get them and have a long, cold bath straight afterwards. It will get your periods going again. I want to know when your period starts. I’m not taking you back to school till then.”
My heart just about stopped. Not going back to school! Oh no! “But why? I want to go back to school and I don’t want a cold bath!”
“Just do it!” He raised an arm to strike. Quickly I grabbed the tablets and furious, I went to bath. It was freezing and uncomfortable but I stayed in the water a long time. I had to start my period so I could get back to school. I lay there, willing it to come, pleading with God to make my body work properly and to make the pills somehow fix me.
I wasted most of the next two days watching TV, and staring at the ceiling in my room or freezing to death in a cold bath. I started to get a cold and sore throat but did the bathing thing several times a day anyway.
Monday 27 March 1989
At last my period has started and I can go back to school. I never thought I would be glad to have it. But it is very, very sore and the blood is pouring out. There are also thick lumps in it. I’m lying in bed with a hot water bottle now and have the worst stomach cramps of my life. I feel like I am going to die from pain. I don’t know how much more of this ! can take.
And I’m missing my friends at school.
I heard soft footsteps outside the door and I tucked the diary away. Dad came in and half smiled.
“Dad what have those tablets done to me and who gave them to you? They are killing me. My stomach hurts so much,” I complained.
“I got them from a friend, he’s a sort of doctor,” Dad answered. “I told him you’d slept with your boyfriend and we thought you were pregnant, and I asked him to help us out. He does that sort of thing. He helps people. He said those pills would start your period again and they have. See! Dad always sorts out your problems!”
He sat next to me on the bed, and patted my shoulder gently. “You can take these Paracetamol tablets for the pain,” he said. I was confused but really needed the kindness. “Now, Jane there is something else you must do for me,” he said suddenly. “I want you to tell Joanne you lied about the rape.”
“What?”
“I said tell her you lied.” He was changing from kind to irate.
“Why?” I was immobilised.
“Because I say so; she still wants to tell the police.”
“But she’ll scream at me … she’ll hit me … she’ll kill me!”
“I won’t let her kill you. Just tell her. And ignore her screaming.” He left the room but turned back at the door and looked hard at me. “Go and tell her. Now!” That tone again. He shut the door and left.
I was in absolute torment but climbed weakly off the bed, clutching the hot water bottle and wandered dizzily through the house till I found Joanne in the baby’s room as usual. I didn’t knock, resigned now to the fact that she was going to kill me anyway.
“Joanne …” I waited for Joanne to look at me while I looked down at my feet, trying to steady my nerves. “Remember I told you I was raped by those two black boys? You said I had to think carefully about my story. Okay, I lied. Sorry.” I held my breath and waited for all hell to break loose.
There was just white hot silence while Joanne turned an outrageous burgundy. “You what?” She hissed like an angry volcano building up pressure and slowly she picked up a child’s hairbrush.
I prepared to duck when the brush become a flying missile. “I lied. I’m sorry.”
“Have you told your father yet?” The ice in her voice scared me even more than screaming would have. Joanne’s knuckles were turning as white as the little hair brush she was holding.
“No.” I shook my head, ashamed at the proficiency of my lies. I continued looking at my feet as tears dripped onto my toes.
“Go to your room.” She spat out the words like snake venom. “I cannot believe I’m hearing this. Just get out of my sight.”
As I left the room, Joanne exploded into the passage yelling my father’s name with toxic fury.
I ran to my room, my haven, my prison. Slamming the door, I hurled myself onto the bed and beat it to death with my fists and feet, screaming into the pillows at the cruelty of the world around me.
I heard the muffled sound of loud angry voices that seemed to yell and scream at each other for ages. Let them tear each other’s throats out. It was all their faults anyway.
I waited tensely, knowing that Joanne’s quiet response had been the first rumble before the volcano erupted. Finally, the door burst open and Joanne gave vent to her anger. When she’d finished yelling and cursing at me, throwing clothes and books on the floor and launching a small vase at the wall, she issued a warning with dire consequences.
“…and now you listen very carefully to me ....” She closed in and held me by the upper arms, nails biting through my skin. Her teeth were clenched so tightly I wondered if they would break and her breath was warm against my face.
“I never want you near my children again. You stay away from them with your filthy mind and disgusting lies. Do not ask me for anything. Ever! Not even as much as a slice of bread. In the holidays, you will go to work with your father or stay with your mother, though not surprisingly, even she doesn’t want anything to do with you, you deceitful little toad.” Her pitch and volume rose, reminding me of the witch in Snow White.
“Here I go busting my gut trying to work out a trip to the doctor and all the time, I knew you were lying … I just knew it!” She shook me till my teeth rattled and whispered more threats at me. At last she walked to the door. I started to breathe when suddenly she turned back and grabbed a handful of my dark hair. Dragging me towards my cupboard, she added, “And by the way, pack your bags. You are going back to school now! If your father won’t take you I will.”
Dad did refuse, so Joanne roared out of the garage to drop her kids with their aunt. As she pulled back into the driveway to collect me, Dad jumped into the vacant passenger seat. I put my case in the boot and hugging my hot-water bottle, climbed in the back.
“He’s so afraid I’ll tell on him,” I thought, and despised him all the more. “As if Joanne would ever believe even one word from me now.”
The trip back was awful. Joanne continued telling me what a terrible person I was and how I didn’t deserve my father. He just sat there in silence until Joanne started to interrogate me about boyfriends and sex.
Dad ended it angrily. “Leave her alone for pity’s sake. The kid doesn’t know if she is Arthur or Martha. Just cut it out now, Jo. Obviously something happened and at le
ast she’s no longer pregnant.”
“I never was, I never was,” I kept saying to myself. “Please God make him wrong.”
Chapter 12
“But you, O God, do see trouble and grief;
you consider it to take it in hand.
The victim commits himself to you;
you are the helper of the fatherless.”
Psalm 10:14
I ended up in the school infirmary which we called the sick-bay, until my terrible stomach pains and heavy period eased. Matron Ruth said if it was ever again that severe, I ought to see a doctor. When she told me she thought my parents were very insensitive to have brought me back to school so unwell, I began to see another side to my Matron.
After I left the sick-bay, I was initially bombarded with concerned questions from my friends but soon enough, this made way for irritation and pleas to ‘grow up’ and stop crying.
All the stress and distress of that terrible week at home resulted in my becoming more moody and listless. My school-work suffered and instead of the borderline passes, I started to fail my tests. It wasn’t long before I was called into the office.
“Good morning Jane,” said Mrs Martingale as I walked into the daunting teak and lavender surrounds.
Terrified, I greeted her in a whisper and was told to sit in a huge mauve chair. Mrs Martingale was a sturdy, tall woman, slightly greying, probably in her fifties. Most of the girls had to look up into her face unless they were heading for six foot themselves. She carried pride and sternness in her bearing, but, looking back, I don’t think she ever tormented us with her power.
Shaking and staring at my hands in my lap, I wondered what awful things I had done wrong now.
In a calm, firm voice, Mrs Martingale said, “Jane, your teachers are worried about you. You seem to be a very miserable pupil at this school and you’ve had so many punishments and three Saturday manual labour days already. Don’t you like it here? Perhaps it was a mistake to come to boarding school.”
Unspoken - Kiss of the Wolf Spider, Part I Page 7
