A Family Secret

by Maureen Wood

  ‘Who is the father? Which one? Which one?’

  So she knew, I thought, as I awoke. Of course she knew. Again, this was not a shock to me, but it was something I had successfully dodged for years. And now it had caught up with me, as the pieces of my childhood began to come together. I mustered all my courage and wrote her a second letter. This time I told her that her husband had been abusing me, and that she must have known about it.

  ‘Remember the funeral?’ I wrote. ‘I do. I remember it all.’

  It was a complete departure from my usual character to confront her so directly. But by now I think I was losing my sense of self, and I felt as though I was on the edge of something. I could not admit it to myself, because it would have been too terrifying. But I knew there was no way back. After I posted the letter, I half hoped that she might retaliate. I wanted to have it out with her. I needed to see her face. I wanted answers and explanations. But I was also petrified of her reaction and I regretted my boldness. As much as I wanted her to read the letter, I also wished I had not posted it.

  As it was, she did not reply. The days passed and there was nothing. Her silence felt dismissive and contemptuous. As if I didn’t even merit a response. With nowhere else to download my anxiety, I lashed out more at those around me, bickering with the neighbours, barking at my children. I hated that side of me; it reminded me horribly of my own mother. That I could be like her, even in the smallest of ways, was hard to take. I sunk lower still, with the comparison.

  One day in June 2008, with the children at school, I reached my lowest point. Frantically, blindly, I rifled through drawers and cupboards, gathering all the tablets I could find. I swallowed handfuls of painkillers, blood-pressure tablets and anti-depressants, believing each time I swallowed I was a step nearer to peace. There was no planning, no rational thought, but I truly believed, in that moment, that my children would be better off without me. That I was so badly injured, as a person, that I was beyond help and beyond hope. I took the lot, and then called my mum. She didn’t pick up the phone, and in my stupor I thought that was very fitting; it felt like a final kick in the teeth. So instead, I left her a rambling voicemail.

  ‘You didn’t protect me, and I can’t carry on,’ I slurred sadly. ‘You failed me.’

  I staggered out of the house and went out for a stumbling walk, ending up, somehow, at the cemetery. I was slumped on the ground, under a tree, and losing consciousness, by the time I heard Josie’s voice frantically calling my name.

  ‘Maureen! Maureen! Thank God, here she is, she’s breathing …’

  Apparently Mum had picked up my message, but instead of bothering to look for me herself she had simply called my children and told them I had taken an overdose. They, in turn, had contacted Josie for help. That in itself depressed me further; that Mum would land my own children, her grandchildren, with the responsibility and the worry. And I realised she didn’t care about them any more than she cared about me.

  My poor children must have been panic-stricken, I realised. And another wave of guilt washed over me. Josie got me to hospital and, with my stomach emptied, I was discharged the following day. But I felt no better. What frightened me most was that I might lose my children. That I might drive them away, with my own erratic and dramatic behaviour. Or equally that they might be taken away; I was, after all, a single mum with mental health issues. I was being treated for depression and I had tried to kill myself. I knew full well that I would soon run out of chances with social services. If I didn’t act fast, I would regret it. That same week I called Mary and asked for more counselling.

  ‘I can’t go on like this,’ I told her. ‘Something has got to give. I’m going to lose my children if I don’t get this under control.’

  Mary agreed immediately; it was almost as if she had been expecting this, as though she knew that one day, inevitably and irreversibly, the truth would come out. As a friend, Mary could not counsel me professionally. But she arranged instead for me to see a woman called Louise at SAIVE, a counselling service; Sexual Abuse and Incest Victims Emerge.

  ‘This is the turning point now,’ Mary told me. ‘It won’t get any worse.’

  My first session with Louise was arranged for 22 July 2008. It was a glorious day as I caught the bus, racked with nerves, worrying how I would be able to confide in someone new. I trusted Mary’s judgement, but I knew it would be tough to open up to a stranger. Louise was small and blonde, and as she came to greet me I felt instantly at ease with her.

  That first meeting was in complete contrast to my first encounter with Mary, as a rude and gobby teenager. This time I sat down and told Louise everything that I could remember about Jock and John Wood and their horrific treatment of me. I was like a ball of wool, unravelling, slowly at first, snagging on knots. But then I rolled faster and faster, feeling lighter and lighter as I shared my burden.

  ‘I want it to stop,’ I said. ‘I will do anything I can to make it stop.’

  It was like a drain bursting, and all the filthy floodwater splurging out. At the end of the session Louise looked at me and said: ‘So, what do you want to do about this?’

  I was stunned to hear my own reply: ‘I think I should go to the police.’

  Louise put her hand on my knee.

  ‘I’ll sort this out for you,’ she said. ‘I’ll speak to the police and I’ll come back to you.’

  I had complete trust in her. But all that week I was a wreck. I was shocked at the complete turnaround in my approach. I had never once considered going to the police – so why say it? It had come from nowhere. The following Tuesday, Louise gave me a number, a date and a time.

  ‘This police officer is waiting for your call,’ she said.

  I stared in awe at the scrap of paper, which held the shadowy possibility of justice. Far away, on the horizons of my troubled mind, the turnaround that Mary had promised was slowly taking shape. I went home and, with a heavy heart, I spoke to Ben, now nineteen, and Naomi, now fourteen. The other children were too young, but I had to consider my eldest two. This was a conversation I had hoped to avoid, yet I saw now that I had been naïve to think that. I could never have buried it forever. I had just wanted to protect them, to save them the horror and the hate that I knew they would feel. Yet right now my plan felt about as realistic as my plan to run away to London, at fourteen, with my newborn baby. I had to stay and face the music. Both times. When it came to it, I pulled no punches and I was blunt and honest.

  ‘I was sexually abused by your grandfather and your Uncle Jock,’ I told them. ‘If I go to the police there might be a court case, there might be stress. I want to ask for your opinion. If you don’t want me to do it, that’s fine. I can live with whatever decision you make.’

  It was, of course, a massive shock for them. Like all children, they loved their grandparents and their extended family. Yet they had known also that something was wrong; they’d heard me screaming in the dead of night, they knew about the overdose. They had known I was battling an anonymous enemy – and now it had a name.

  ‘Do what you have to do, Mum,’ they said immediately. ‘We will support you all the way.’

  We hugged, and I wept with gratitude that even though fate had dealt me a rotten hand with my childhood family, I had been blessed with golden and wonderful children. Through the thicket of stress and sadness that had sprung up around me, they were always my priority, always my shining light. I told my younger children only that Grandad had hurt me when I was little and that he had done a bad thing, so we would no longer see him.

  ‘Mummy loves you,’ I told them. ‘And that’s all you need.’

  Early in August I spoke with the police over the phone, my hands shaking so violently I could hardly keep hold of the handset. They arranged for me to do a video interview the following day. It was a daunting prospect, but Louise promised to come along too.

  ‘You’re not on your own,�
� she reminded me.

  An unmarked police car arrived at my home late in the morning, and I sat on the back seat with Louise. I was trembling so much that she had to hold my hand to calm me down. When we arrived at the interview suite I was introduced to a WPC named Marie. She took me into a small room with a sofa and chairs and a window that looked out over a school playground. So, as I talked about my abuse, I also watched as young children came out to play. There was a poignancy and also a purpose about that. I remembered I was doing this not just for me, but for my own children, and for all children. With the sound of children laughing and playing in the background, I told Marie all about Christopher, and his short but beautiful life. I confided how I thought he must have been Jock’s baby, because John Wood had had a vasectomy.

  ‘My stepfather was always so certain that his vasectomy would not fail,’ I told her. ‘He and my mother had no children and so I think he was probably right.

  ‘Also, when Jock held Christopher, it sounds silly, but I felt a connection. I felt sure that Jock was his father.’

  I told her also about the rapes from John Wood that followed Christopher’s passing; the punishment rape because he blamed me for his death. The barbaric rapes when Mum was in Scotland. And those regular-as-clockwork rapes, as routine, as expected and accepted as doing my homework. That was the truth of it. I told her everything. The interview lasted four hours, and by the time I got home I was ready to drop.

  Aged thirty-seven, I had finally found the courage to let go of a secret which, for twenty-nine years, had festered and blistered and threatened to eat me up completely. Yet there was no sense at all of a weight being lifted. I had a feeling of release, but not of relief. I was still so frightened, as though I had been caught under the spotlights, as though I had been exposed, somehow. I still felt that it was my fault. And the thought of my family finding out what I had done was too daunting for me to even contemplate.

  Absurdly, I felt like a sneak, like I was a grass. I had been raised never to tell tales and here I was, telling tales on my own family. Nobody said that, of course, but it gnawed away at me. It was irrational, but it was there all the same. There was a sense of shame that stuck to me like a bad smell. I had gone to the police only because it was my last option, because I knew I could not live with it any longer. I either spoke out, or I let this kill me. The choice was simple. The next few weeks were purgatory, waiting for Marie to get in touch. And when she did, it was another crushing disappointment.

  ‘The CPS won’t touch the case,’ she said. ‘It’s so long ago and there is no hard evidence at all. We’ve spoken with your stepfather and your brother and they deny everything.’

  It was what I had expected, but it was nonetheless devastating. Later that day Marie came to my house.

  ‘This hasn’t been done before,’ she said hesitantly. ‘But we’d like to exhume Christopher’s body. We want to see if his DNA can prove that Jock, or John Wood, is the father.’

  I gasped. I had never for a minute considered that Christopher might be able to provide concrete, Boolean evidence in my favour. That he might be the star witness in this whole sorry and sordid affair. He had saved me once, when he came into the world. Could he now save me again, having left it? Marie warned that all previous applications had been refused and that the request would have to go before Theresa May, the Home Secretary.

  ‘Will you agree to it?’ she asked me.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I mumbled. ‘It doesn’t seem right.’

  I hated the thought of Christopher being disturbed. Part of me felt angry and affronted that he should be dragged into this. Yet I realised, of course, that he was a part of this. He was at the very centre of it. John Wood and Jock were both counting on me not being able to see this through, and I had to find the strength to prove them wrong. It was too late to help Christopher, but I knew he could help his younger brothers and sisters, from beyond the grave.

  ‘Go on, Mum, do it,’ said a soft voice in my ear. ‘I want to help you. I don’t mind the exhumation. I’ll do whatever it takes. Nothing can hurt me now, so you have to think of yourself.’

  I knew it was him. My beloved boy, whispering to me, when I needed him.

  ‘Let’s go for it,’ I said to Marie.

  The application was made early in March and it niggled away in my mind, obliterating all other thoughts. Marie warned me it could be many months before we heard a reply, so I had to try to carry on with day-to-day life. Ben, by now, was working at Alton Towers. Naomi was at school getting ready for her GCSE exams. The younger ones were moaning about homework, bickering over the last biscuit in the tin, complaining about early bedtimes. On the surface, life was normal. But underneath, there was a lethal riptide, which was about to tear me in two.

  Chapter 13

  On 1 June 2009 Marie called me, and I held my breath, not knowing whether I wanted the application to be approved or not.

  ‘It’s good news,’ she said warmly. ‘We have the green light. This is a way forward.’

  She explained we would need to wait for the necessary paperwork, which might take another few weeks.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I appreciate all your help.’

  But when I hung up, I felt empty. And uneasy. I was beginning to feel like I didn’t care whether the case went to court or not. I just wanted my baby to be left alone, in peace. Surely that was more important? I wrestled with the decision, oscillating between what was best for Christopher and what was best for my surviving children. As a mother, I was no good to them like this. And perhaps a court case, and perhaps the merest glimpse of justice, would be enough to rid me of the demons that taunted me every time I closed my eyes. Perhaps Christopher’s exhumation was the key to my survival. As it was, I was barely coping. I was still grappling with the nightmares, and I hadn’t found a way to ease them or to make them stop. Perhaps this was it. Perhaps my first-born held all the answers. Yet why should Christopher suffer? He had been through so much, too much, in his brief life. I didn’t want him to have to go through this. I went round and round in circles, unable to settle on a decision. In the end, I went to his grave and sat with him for hours.

  ‘I feel as though I’ll always regret it if I pull out now,’ I told him. ‘I do want justice, for me, for your brothers and sisters. And for you too. Can you ever forgive me, my little angel, if I agree to the exhumation?’

  I sobbed and sobbed, with my head in my hands, pleading for him to reply, begging him to send me a sign. And after around three hours I felt an incredible sense of peace and tranquillity wrapping softly around me like a cloak. I had an overwhelming sense that I was doing the right thing. Sitting on the grass, under the trees, with the red sun low in the sky in the distance, I knew for certain that my Christopher was there right beside me, at my shoulder.

  ‘You are forgiven,’ he whispered. ‘Do it, with my love.’

  That moment at the graveside was dream-like, it was almost divine. And I knew it would stay with me for the rest of my life.

  Later that same month, still tortured by appalling nightmares, I saw my mother at the edge of the picture. And, as John Wood violated me, she leaned across the bed towards me and began to join in with the abuse. I saw, in sharp detail, the sick pleasure on her face. I smelled the Charlie perfume. I felt the pain of her long fingernails.

  ‘No,’ I sobbed. ‘Please, no.’

  It was so vivid, so intense, that I woke up weeping, confused and exhausted. I was soaked in sweat; it was as though the sheets had come straight out of the washing machine. I clutched my head in my hands and wailed, as memories flooded through my mind, one grotesque image after another.

  ‘I don’t want this,’ I begged. ‘I can’t cope with it.’

  Another night, I relived grotesque scenes of her performing oral sex on me. When I woke, I was retching and gasping for breath. My heart was hammering in my chest.

  ‘Not my mother
,’ I pleaded. ‘Not her as well.’

  One night I was trapped in a nightmare where John Wood was abusing me. Then I felt a sharp slap on my face and my mother hissed: ‘That will teach you to enjoy it.’

  When I woke, my face was burning with shame. What was wrong with her? And what was wrong with me that she was so wicked towards me? Mothers were supposed to nurture, protect and cherish. Yet she was the very antithesis of all that was pure and good.

  My subconscious had turned on a tap, pouring acid memories into my brain. It was as repulsive as it was vivid. A large part of me wanted to ignore it, push it away again, and pretend that my mother loved me. But a deeper part of me had known this all along. One half of me wanted to scream it from the rooftops and the other half wanted to never tell a soul.

  To try to make sense of it all, I wrote it down, in a long letter, addressed to my mother. I knew I would never send it, but I hoped that I might feel unburdened somehow. But writing didn’t help. Not really. I had to be brave. And then Christopher’s voice suddenly came to me, as clear as if he was sitting on the end of my bed.

  ‘You have to tell the truth, all of it,’ he persuaded. ‘Do it for me, do it for all of your children. You can’t live a lie any more. It’s now or never, Mum.’

  I knew this evil would destroy me if I let it; if I left it. So, with my heart thudding, I called Marie to ask if I could make a further statement.

  ‘There’s something I left out,’ I whispered. ‘It’s important.’

  I called Louise, too, and she sensed on the phone that I had something momentous to tell her. She came straight round to the house, and I was bursting to share it with her. But when she arrived, the words stuck in my throat. The idea of voicing what my alien mother – my own mother – had done, disgusted me beyond words. I could not shake the belief that it reflected on me, that somehow she had tainted me with her poison.