Daddy's Prisoner (10 page)

Turning around, Dad grabbed a hammer and we scattered as he threw it. We managed to get away without being hurt but Simon got a bad smacking that day and never dared touch anything of Dad’s again. None of us forgot how close we’d come to having that knife in our guts.

Another day, I heard a fight starting as Dad rounded on Mum and I ran to the living room with the little ones following behind. Flinging open the door, I saw Mum pinned to the wall.

‘Pete’s ride,’ The Idiot screamed. ‘You’re just a useless piece of shit, aren’t you? Don’t you dare answer me back.’

Fear filled me as I saw a knife in his hand.

‘Dad, no,’ I screamed. ‘Leave her alone. Let her be.’

‘Get the fuck out if you know what’s good for you,’ Dad roared as he turned towards me.

I looked at the knife again. I felt sick inside, shaky as I looked at the blade. Would he use it this time?

Mum was still as she stood pushed against the wall but I knew what I had to do when her eyes slid towards me. Closing the door, I grabbed the kids’ hands and ran upstairs. It was just as it had always been: Mum would take the beating whenever she could just to make sure we didn’t get hurt and the reason I didn’t help her that day was the same as she had for not helping me – it was better that one person got hurt than all of us.

‘You know that no one will ever want you?’ The Idiot whispered in my ear. ‘There will never be a man who looks at you.’

I hung my head as he spoke to me.

‘Now do it,’ Dad snapped, and I felt his hand on the back of my neck, forcing my head down.

He hadn’t made me do this before and I didn’t want to. At least I could turn my head away and switch myself off when he forced himself inside me. All I had to do was lie there and pretend I was dead. But this was different and I didn’t want to go near him or do anything to him.

Trying to push my head back up, I felt his hands force me back down again. He had pulled up the T-shirt he was wearing and was naked from the waist down.

‘Stop your fucking wriggling, you useless cow,’ Dad snarled.

He pushed himself into my mouth and the bitter smell of urine washed over me. It was so thick and strong that it felt like it was filling me. I retched as The Idiot pulled my head up and down. Gasping for breath, I felt sick as the smell of him choked me. He smelled like an animal in a cage – bitter, acrid and unclean. But he wouldn’t let me go. Again and again, he pushed my mouth up and down. I couldn’t breathe or move as the stench of him filled my lungs.

‘Use your fucking tongue,’ he shouted. ‘You’re not doing it right. Suck it, do it properly.’

It seemed to go on for ever until at last I heard The Idiot groan and felt his hands slacken. I couldn’t bear it, I couldn’t do it again. I felt sick. The smell of him. The dirt on his skin. His hands pushing at me.

As I raised my head, I felt the back of my throat watering and knew what was going to happen. I tried swallowing it down but it was too late. Vomit poured out of me – splashing The Idiot and falling on to the floor beside the bed.

‘What the fuck are you doing?’ he screamed.

I felt his hand slap me around the back of the head.

‘Dirty bitch,’ he roared. ‘You did that on purpose, didn’t you?’

‘I’m sorry, Dad,’ I said as I tried to scrape the mess off him. ‘I’m so sorry.’

I didn’t want him to punch me or worse. I could see his knife box under the bed next to me.

‘Get a fucking cloth,’ he roared.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I won’t do it again.’

‘No, you fucking won’t, or you know what will happen, don’t you? Just get me cleaned up and get out of my sight.’

I ran into the kitchen, put a tea towel under the tap and went back into the living room.

‘I’m sorry,’ I kept repeating as I tried to clean him.

‘You’re worse than useless, aren’t you?’ Dad snapped. ‘You can’t do a thing right, you useless slag. If you do that again I’ll kick your cunt in.’

My head felt light and I wanted to be sick again but I kept swallowing it down as I scrubbed at Dad’s lap. Why couldn’t I get rid of the mess I’d made? I had to clean off the stain or he would go for me. I thought of the weapons lying close – the sharp knives, the throwing stars with their sharp points. I had to do whatever he wanted or he’d kill me.

‘Hurry up!’ he yelled and I scrubbed even harder.

Suddenly he bent his head down towards mine and looked at me.

‘You really are a stupid bitch, aren’t you? You need to practise that and get better.’

Kneeling on the floor, I looked up at him.

‘Because it’s all you’re good for, isn’t it? Cleaning up, looking after the kids and lying on your back.’

‘Yes, Dad.’

‘Are you listening to me, you dumb bitch?’ he screamed as he raised his hand and I flinched. ‘Don’t go getting ideas about a boyfriend or nothing. I know what you’re up to when you go to the shops. I know you’re eyeing up the boys and hoping one of them might give it to you. But who would? Who would ever think you could be anything other than a used piece of skirt? You’re damaged, used goods, fit for nothing and you’d be in just as much trouble as me if anyone ever found out what we did. They put slags like you in prison, you know.’

I pushed back the tears burning the back of my throat.

‘Can’t do a thing right, can you?’ he sneered as I got up to leave.

‘No, Dad,’ I whispered.

All the time, The Idiot was watching and waiting to get what he wanted from me. It only took a few months for my periods to stop again and when they did I knew I’d been forgotten by the god I’d prayed to. After a week of waiting, I told Dad and he smiled as he heard the news. ‘When were you due?’ he asked.

‘Last week.’

‘So why didn’t you tell me before?’

‘Because I thought it would come.’

‘Well, get down to the chemist and get a test done. Here’s the money.’

I felt a scream ripping up inside me as I walked into the pharmacy, wrote my name on a slip of paper and gave in a urine sample. The minutes slid by until a lady walked up to me and handed me back the slip of paper I’d written on. I unfolded it and saw two words on the page: positive and negative. The box beside positive was ticked. The ground swooped beneath me as I walked home to tell Dad.

‘Good,’ he said with a smile, and turned back to the TV.

Of course, I had to tell Mum as well and the words felt thick in my mouth as I formed them, the lies suffocating me as I spoke.

‘It was a one night stand,’ I said. ‘A tumble in a bush with a local boy on the way home from the shops. I couldn’t help it. I’m sorry.’

She didn’t speak and for a moment I wanted Mum to start firing questions at me – so many that I’d have to break down and tell her the truth of what was happening. She didn’t say anything to me but later I heard her go into the living room to tell Dad what he already knew.

‘How did this happen?’ she asked.

‘How the fuck do I know? Your daughter’s a slag just like you.’

As the weeks slid by, I silently prayed for the baby to bleed away inside me just like the last one. I pictured it just as I had before – blood pouring out of my body as it left me. I felt terrified every minute of the day. Maybe this time I would have to have it but I knew I could never love it. I would hate it almost as much as I hated myself for letting this happen. I knew you were supposed to feel happy if you were pregnant and my feelings were just another sign of how rotten I was. It wasn’t the baby’s fault yet still I hated it.

I grew more and more afraid as the weeks passed: eight, nine, ten . . . the baby was inside me. Eleven, twelve, thirteen . . . it still wouldn’t let go. Sometimes I woke up in the night and felt tears on my cheeks. But as the weeks passed, I shut myself down inside again and refused to let myself think about it. I felt so ashamed and dirty and knew that if anyone ever found out the truth, I would be punished. Dad had always told me that. If only I had been born a boy, he wouldn’t hurt me like he did.

Finally my prayers were answered when I started bleeding two days after Christmas 1986 and knew my wish had been granted. I was taken to hospital for an operation and felt free as I woke up and knew it was over. But as soon as I got home, I felt despair wash over me. My first pregnancy had been over so quickly, I’d been almost able to pretend it hadn’t happened. But this one had gone on long enough to plant roots of terror deep inside. Why couldn’t anyone see what was happening?

‘You need to be more careful, Alice,’ Mum told me one day as I lay on my bed. ‘You’re only sixteen – too young for all this. You need to wait and find the right person to settle down with. Will you think about that for me, please? I want you to be happy in the future with a husband and children but now is not the right time. You have your whole life ahead of you.’

How did she not know it was being stolen from me every day? I didn’t want to live any more and withdrew into myself, hoping that I would somehow die.

‘You’re a useless bitch,’ The Idiot told me later. ‘What did you do to the baby? Did you want this to happen?’

It was a question without an answer. It didn’t matter what I wanted. I was just a thing – a body he beat when his fury was ignited or abused when his desire peaked. I knew it was only a matter of time before he made me pregnant again. I was a prisoner and my father was not going to release me until I had given him what he wanted.

Kate curled her hand around my swollen stomach.

‘What do you think it is, Alice?’ she asked. ‘A boy or a girl?’

‘I don’t know. Now stop talking otherwise you’ll miss the next bit.’

It was April 1988 and I was nearly eighteen. Pregnant for the third time, my baby was due in the summer. But as Kate turned her head towards the TV screen and cuddled into me, I could almost feel happy for a moment: curled up on the bed with the kids and able to forget as we lost ourselves in a film.
Bambi
and
Lady and the Tramp
were my favourites while Kate and Laura loved
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
.

Once more I’d frozen myself up inside when I realised I was pregnant again and I tried to stop myself having the baby by throwing myself out of bed and taking more of the pain relief pills the doctor had given me than I was supposed to. But the baby had stayed inside me and I didn’t want to think about it now as I pulled my sister closer to me and stared at the screen. I’d told Mum the father was a friend of Michael’s who I’d known since I was young and had bumped into again at the shops. This time she didn’t ask questions about how I’d managed to have sex with a boy when I was only allowed out for a few minutes at a time.

‘Make sure nothing happens to this one,’ Dad had told me when we got the news.

Of course, I hoped it would and twelve weeks had passed while I prayed for the bleeding to start again. But it hadn’t and fear filled me when I realised there was no escape. I hated the baby growing inside me even more than The Idiot’s smile when he stared at my expanding tummy. Sometimes he made me stand in front of him naked so he could look at me. It was as if I was precious now I was giving him what he wanted.

‘Make sure you save some milk for me when the baby’s born,’ he’d say with a smile.

He sickened me but in spite of myself I knew there was another emotion waiting to be felt inside. It had bubbled up out of me one afternoon when I was upset by another of The Idiot’s spiteful outbursts that I should have been so used to. It happened when I walked out of the kitchen squabbling with the kids.

‘Will you lot shut up?’ he screamed as he picked up the hammer he kept by the side of his bed and flung it.

I felt a thud on the edge of my stomach and white-hot fury filled me.

‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’ I screamed.

Dad’s eyes hardened as I shouted at him and I suddenly remembered who I was talking to before walking away. But later I felt confused that something had made me protect my baby even for a moment. I’d wished it dead from the moment I knew I was having it. I didn’t want this child any more than the others, couldn’t imagine how I could ever survive having The Idiot’s baby. I didn’t want to think about it as the weeks turned into months and my stomach grew and grew. Sometimes Mum would talk about how things would be after the baby was born but I’d turn away. I wouldn’t talk about it or feel anything for something I hated.

Turning towards the TV, I shifted my weight as I tried to concentrate on the film. I couldn’t stop thinking about my brother Simon. Earlier that day, I’d gone out to help him on his paper round because I wanted to get some fresh air. I’d been stuck inside so long because I was hardly allowed to leave the house now but Dad sometimes let me out if Simon was there to keep an eye on me. On the way home though, I’d got a stitch and the pain had cut through my side as I puffed and panted. Simon had told me to sit down long enough to get my breath back and rubbed my stomach until I felt well enough to walk home. We’d arrived ten minutes late and Dad had grabbed me as soon as I got through the door.

‘Where have you been?’ he yelled as he started shaking me by the shoulders.

‘I didn’t feel well. We had to stop.’