by C R Martens
“How did it affect you that you still had to see your father?” he asked. Eve was a bit astonished that he had actually paid attention. By the look of him, he wasn’t a man who took any great interest in his own appearance, suggesting he was an inattentive person.
“My father was excellent at keeping secrets, he kept people who cared about him at arm’s length so they wouldn’t catch on to his problems,” she said. Thinking about him, Eve knew he had unintentionally taught her how to distance herself from the people closest to her or maybe it was genetic. “And he did have periods when he would be sober. Mum tried her best to keep an eye out for signs of relapse. It probably would have helped if I hadn’t covered for him on so many occasions. I never told him about that night, what it did to me. Of course if I had, I already know what he would have said: ‘It never happened like that. You must remember it wrong, you were just a small child.’ As with everything else when he was drunk, it never happened. I never told Mum either; I didn’t want any more conflict and I didn’t want Dad to get in trouble. I certainly didn’t want to be a nuisance to either of my parents, so I stayed quiet.”
“Okay,” he said, writing in his notebook. “I think that’s enough for today.”
Eve was a little baffled that he wasn’t going to discuss her past any further, not that she wanted to, but that had been her assumption going into therapy. Straight away Eve knew he wasn’t like the other psychologist she had seen over the years. In fact, he didn’t resemble any kind of psychologist at all. Sitting there Eve sensed that he might even had regretted asking that question about her dad.
“Okay,” Eve said and got up from the chair and started towards door.
“Same time next week.” It wasn’t a question; he didn’t even look up from his notes when he said it. That’s when she noticed it, standing there looking back at him, the camera in the corner.
“Fine,” she replied, looking straight into the camera. And suddenly the game had changed.
Even as a child Eve knew her dad was a more vulnerable person than her mum; she knew very well that he wasn’t like other dads. And though Eve didn’t like it, she often felt like she had to cover for her father whenever he had done something wrong. But with time, Eve became very adept at spotting when her dad was or had been drinking, she became an expert at spotting lies. When she saw the warning signs, Eve knew it would be a while before she would see her dad again. It would usually be years. Everything kept repeating itself. For the majority of her life, Eve’s father was absent. He came and went almost as he pleased. He didn’t want it to be that way because his daughter needed him. He just couldn’t help himself. What was just alcohol to everyone else, was an obsessive addiction for him. It was everything he needed when he wasn’t happy. This was hard for Eve to understand as a child, but as an adult it was even more difficult to understand the neglect; why hadn’t she been more important to him? But she adapted and changed and kept growing, and while he didn’t, she learnt from his mistakes. So right from a very young age Eve began to look at all the faces she passed, studying them, seeing the differences and the similarities in them; she was good at that, reading faces and body language. Every time her dad didn’t show up and every time he disappeared out of her life, the more the curious and carefree happy child disappeared and Eve, the mistrusting but precocious child, started to form. She learnt that comfort came in many forms and that even pain had its emotional values.
3.
I know that the memories I have of my childhood are bound to be vague and maybe even in the wrong order. But the feelings, the emotions tied to these experiences, are very much real and I feel them deeply. I wonder if all these bad experiences are the reason for who I have become. Can bad things make good people, or does Evil always just create more evil?
As Eve’s dad vanished from her life, she and her mum continued their lives in the little flat. It was a large red-brick building with white sash windows. It was an old building, you could still see the remnants of where the old toilets had been in the courtyard, but now the courtyard had been turned into parking sheds for bikes, grass areas and a playground. Eve rarely ventured out to play on it, she had gone from being an extroverted and confident child to being introverted and shy. One spring afternoon Eve had no choice she had to go out to the playground, her mum was having a visitor and needed some privacy. She met another girl her own age and like Eve she too was playing by herself in the courtyard.
“Do you want to play?” Eve asked the girl in the red jacket. The girl looked up at her. The sun was glaring in her face so she squinted a little to see Eve.
“Okay. Let’s go to the swings.” She didn’t smile, she just headed towards the swings. “I’ll take this one, and you can push me.”
“I want to swing too,” Eve said as she stood there watching the other girl on the swing. It was a momentous stare down for two girls of four-and-a-half-years-old. “Okay, but it’s my turn in a little while,” Eve finally said.
Eve pushed the girl for what seemed like forever and she was starting to get tired of pushing. “It’s my turn now,” she told the girl.
“I’m bored. I don’t want to swing anymore,” the girl said as she jumped off the swing and started walking away.
“Stop!” Eve shouted. “You promised that you would push me afterwards.”
“I don’t want to.” The girl just stood there, completely expressionless. “Let’s play with your ball.”
“That’s not nice,” Eve said, but she went along with the girl. Eve had been alone so long that she was desperate to make friends. And though this the girl was quite bossy, it was still more fun to play with someone than to play alone.
“Is that a new coat?” She looked Eve up and down.
“No, it isn’t,” Eve replied truthfully. It was a hand-me-down from one of her cousins.
“Mine is new,” the girl said, showing it off. After about five minutes of playing, the girl’s mother called for her. “I have to go.”
“Can I have my ball back?” Eve asked tentatively, walking over to take it.
“No. I’ll keep it. It looks new,” the girl said. With one arm she shoved Eve on the shoulder and Eve landed hard on the ground, breaking the fall with her hands. The sound of the crack was unmistakeable, even to a child like Eve. The girl took the ball and ran off laughing, leaving Eve in excruciating pain. It wasn’t the physical pain that bothered Eve, she could deal with that, it was the feeling of being rejected yet again that hurt the most.
And just like that, Eve stood there alone again, without anyone to play with. She was stunned at what had happened. It was Eve’s first meeting with a bully, but unfortunately it wouldn’t be her last. Eve never told her mum about the girl or that she had taken her ball. It turned out Eve had broken her left wrist. She stopped going down to the playground after that; she didn’t want to meet the girl again – she didn’t want the hassle or the confrontation. They didn’t stay long in that flat, and soon Eve was introduced to her mum’s new boyfriend. Who also happened to be her mum’s secret visitor.
***
“What do you want me to talk about this week?” Eve asked. The man looked just as dishevelled as he had during their previous session. He sat opposite her, yawning.
“How about starting where we left off last time?” He took his notebook out and gave a nod for her to start. “Your mother’s new boyfriend?”
“Oh, John, yes – the misogynistic bastard psychopath,” she said, dreading going down that particular memory lane. “I remember driving up to his house and thinking, ‘Wow, he has a house’. We got out of the car, walked up the drive and went up the steps to the front door. Being the age I was, I walked behind my mum rather than by her side. I held her hand tight while dragging a little behind her. She rang the doorbell and told me, ‘Behave and smile, sweetheart.’ Adults have all these rules for how to behave when being around others and especially of how a child should behave. It got a little confusing at times – why would I smile at a perfect strang
er?
“The door opened, and I saw him. I instinctively hid behind my mum; I don’t know why but I was scared of him. He said hello to my mum, and with forced effort, he bent down. ‘Hi, there,’ he said with a strained voice, which made me pull away from him even more. Though he smiled there was nothing sincere about him. ‘You can call me John.’ We walked through the door and for the next two hours it was like I wasn’t even there. Two weeks later my life changed again when we packed up all our belongings and moved to his house. It was a dark house, with dark wood panelling on the walls and dark curtains – everything was so dark, including the dog, which was black, named Trip.
“Packing up our flat had been easy; we only took what could fit in our suitcases and a few boxes, everything fit in our car and it only took one trip. John didn’t want any of our furniture in his house. He kept pointing out that this was his house and that I couldn’t just do what I wanted. I had my toys in a tiny suitcase and I had a firm grip on its handle as I stood by our car looking up at the house. It was a yellow-brick house, but the bricks looked old and dirty. The house was overgrown with ivy and the garden was wild with big bushes, prickly bushes, and tall trees that cast big shadows. There wasn’t much grass in front of the house and it wasn’t a place for a playing child. Mum ran back and forth, getting boxes out of the car. She seemed happy and excited, so maybe I should’ve been happy too. But for some reason I couldn’t be. I felt sad.
“‘Come on, Eve,’ Mom said, giving me a nudge towards the house. We walked up the stairs to the front door. It was already open and John was standing there, leaning against the doorway of the living room, his arms crossed. He didn’t help us move; he just stood there watching, drinking his coffee. He somehow made it feel like we were walking into a trap.
“‘This is your room, Eve.’ Mum took my hand and led me into my new room.
“‘It’s my office,’ John corrected her. ‘Which she can borrow, when I don’t use it.’
“Like every other room, it was brown and dark, even the lamps were dark brown. There was a bunk bed in the middle of the room and a desk by the window, John’s office, that faced the back garden, and in the corner next to the shelves and desk was a little television. Nothing in the room was ours, it was all his. ‘Start unpacking your things.’ Mum left the room to get the last suitcase out of the car. I started to unpack my toys and organise them on the empty shelves, but being a child you can easily get distracted and so I started to play with my toys instead. After a few minutes of playing, I could feel I wasn’t alone, I turned around and John was standing in the doorway. His head was slightly tilted to the side with his chin up, he looked angry.
“‘Shouldn’t you be unpacking?’ he asked with still-crossed arms. ‘Not playing?’
“‘Yes,’ I said and immediately I started to clear up my toys, scared of what would happen if I didn’t. Mum came back in with the last of our stuff.
“‘Here’s your suitcase,’ Mum said. ‘Let’s put your clothes in the drawers.’ As we unpacked our things in his house, I felt watched and uncomfortable, not at all like I was home. I didn’t like John and instinctively I knew he didn’t care much for me either, but I didn’t want Mum to know that.
“‘Don’t worry,’ Mum said. ‘Soon we’ll be all settled in.’
“‘Can I play now?’ I asked.
“‘Sure you can,’ Mum said. ‘And when I’m done unpacking we can go play in the garden.’ Trip came walking into the room, tail wagging and happy. He was nice and seemed ready to play.
“The first few months were all right; Mum was happy, and we two just went on as usual. John did what he used to do and during the weekdays we only interacted at dinner. The weekends we spent at his summerhouse, doing what he wanted to do. Every minute spent with John was spent doing what he wanted. He would do everything he could to ostracise me, keeping mum from me. She didn’t see what he was doing or how he was playing her against me. But even at that young age I was all too aware of the signs of neglect.
“As autumn came, the house grew darker and so did the atmosphere. Even on the days where the sun would shine, the house felt heavy and dark; everything in the house absorbed light – the walls, curtains and the furniture. Nothing could possibly be happy here. The loud music was only the beginning of something being not quite right in this house. Every night after I had been tucked into bed, loud music would play, too loud for me to sleep. The first time, I got out of bed. ‘Mum, mum…’ I said quietly as I tiptoed towards the living room. ‘Mum, I can’t sleep.’
“‘It’s okay, we’ll turn the music down,’ she said, hurrying over and ushering me back to bed. ‘Go to sleep.’ She kissed my cheek and pulled the duvet over me, tucking the sides in tight around me. But the music was still too loud; it hadn’t been turned down and now there were raised voices as well. I could hear Mum trying to calm John down, it only seemed to make things worse. The music lasted a long time and so did the arguing. I didn’t sleep much that night or all the other nights like that one.
“‘You fell asleep all right in the end,’ Mum said. It wasn’t a question.
“‘Yes,’ I said, my head hanging over my porridge, feeling too tired to even eat. I knew she had been into my room at least four times after tucking me back into bed. I had just closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep; I didn’t want to be difficult, I didn’t want to cause her trouble.
“‘Eat your breakfast, we leave in five minutes.’ Mum dashed out of the kitchen and down into the basement where their bedroom was and the only bathroom in the house. I sat quietly in the small kitchen eating my porridge while a million questions were bouncing around my head.
“As Friday came, I got more and more excited. Two things happened on Fridays – a bag of sweets, and roast chicken with chips and gravy. My two favourite things. It had been a good afternoon in nursery and I was a happy child when bedtime came around. I fell asleep quickly.
“I woke abruptly to the sound of a loud noise, followed by a lot of commotion. It was a new sound, something I had never heard before, a sound that would be forever burnt into my young memory. That’s when I heard my mum.
“‘No, no, please stop. John!’ Mum said, pleading. And then there was a thud, the same sound as before. Mum was crying loudly, talking through her tears, ‘I promise I won’t say anything again.’
“‘Shut up,’ John said, through gritted teeth. ‘You have no right, meddling in what I do or how I behave.’
“‘No, I know,’ Mum said crying. Then came another thud and I could hear mum ache in pain.
“I had crawled out of bed, walked silently over to the slightly-open door and I stood watching through the crack. I saw my mum being wrestled to the floor and John standing over her with his fist raised. Thud! I saw him hit her and then shake her violently while she tried to quench her screams. He pulled his hand back in the air and I saw the back of it slam across my mum’s face. Smack! It seemed time had slowed right down, but the sounds were so intense, yet for something so violent and brutal it was so eerily quiet. He continued to beat Mum until she couldn’t defend herself anymore and until her arms just flopped to the floor. And I just stood there, I did nothing. My entire body was shaking, my bare feet felt cold on the floor and yet the palms of my hands were sweaty, and the tears streaming down my face felt burning hot. I couldn’t look away, every punch I locked away in my memory; I had frozen with panic and I didn’t know if I should run to help her or go back to bed. When it stopped, when John finally stopped, he let go of my mum, dropping her on the floor like she was nothing. Out of breath, he stumbled back on to the sofa, wiped off the sweat from his forehead. All I hoped for was that she was still alive. ‘Mum!’ I whispered to myself.
“‘Look what you made me do,’ he said to my mum. I could only see the back of her head and her hands over her face – the rest of her was hidden behind the sofa – but to my relief I could hear her sobbing. ‘Clean up.’
“‘Yes, I will,’ she said through her tears, not moving.
“‘I’m going to bed,’ John said. ‘Stop whining and tidy yourself up before you come to bed.’
“‘I think I’ll sleep in Eve’s room tonight,’ she stammered out quietly, trying to get up on her knees.
“He stormed back towards her, his hand grabbed her chin and I saw my mum’s face, bloody and bruised. She closed her eyes, expecting to be hit again, but she was too tired to defend herself.
“‘You live in my house, and you’ll come to my bed every night,’ he threatened her. Then he walked away wiping his hands clean on his trousers.
“I couldn’t make it back to my bed silently enough, so instead I quickly hid behind the door in the shadow. Hoping he wouldn’t hear me, I held my breath. I heard him go down the stairs. Still holding my breath and as silently as I could, I crawled back into bed and pulled the duvet up over my head. Light headed, I exhaled, but I couldn’t catch my breath so when the door opened into my room I held it again. It was Mum. I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep, not that she could see them anyway from where she stood. That was the first night I had a nightmare that would haunt me for years and years. I can’t remember falling asleep; I only remember crying and wishing for my mum to come and comfort me.” Eve finished, “Pleasant man. Maybe that’s when my life in the shadows began, standing in the darkness of that room. What do you think?”
