Daddy's Prisoner (19 page)

Sometime during the night I heard the footsteps of neighbours coming home from a night out and ran behind the rubbish bins to hide. My heart beat in my ears as I waited for the people to go into their flat. I’d never been outside alone like this before. All I’d done were trips out in the day but hadn’t gone out at night by myself. There were dark shadows, I could hear shouts and see the flash of car lights. I felt so afraid. The world seemed so huge now I was in it all by myself.

‘Let me in,’ I whispered through the letter box. ‘Please let me back in.’

The hours slid by and my pleas got slowly louder as I begged Dad to let me inside. I wanted to be with Mum and make sure she was safe. I wanted to be back in my prison.

‘I won’t do it again,’ I called. ‘I’ll be a good girl.’

It was getting light by the time Mum finally opened the door. She looked as if she’d been crying.

‘You’re to come in now,’ she said quietly. ‘Just go to your room.’

That was the moment I knew for sure I was dead inside. As I walked back inside, I heard the door lock behind me and knew I’d never escape.

Dad didn’t hit me too often now but, just like when I was a child, it was the fear which was the worst thing. My breath would come in ragged gasps if he moved towards me and, knowing the noise would make him even angrier, I would try to breathe silently. Be as quiet as a mouse. The migraines I’d had since I was a teenager also became worse and I took more painkillers to try to stop them but nothing worked. Sometimes it was up to fifteen paracetamols a day – far too many and a dose which could have really hurt me – but they didn’t dull the pain. It felt as if my head would split in two but I wasn’t allowed to go to bed until Dad told me I could. Sometimes it was three or four in the morning before he finally switched off his porn films and so I just had to sit there, waiting and wondering when he’d come for me next or let me finally go to bed.

It was always Mum who got it worst. It must have been a couple of years after we moved into the ground-floor flat that he punched her so badly in the jaw that she couldn’t speak properly for days. She tried to tell me that it wasn’t too bad but I could see the bruises and a bulge on her jaw line. I was sure it was broken.

‘You’ve got to go to hospital and get it seen to,’ I said one day when we were in the kitchen.

‘It’s fine, Alice. It will settle down soon.’

‘Please, Mum,’ I begged. ‘You’ve got to tell him how bad it is and make him take you to the hospital.’

‘Honestly, love, it’s fine. It feels better already.’

Mum wouldn’t listen to me however much I pleaded and so in the end I stopped. But it scared me as I wondered how far Dad would go. He didn’t seem to care any more, it was as if he wanted to push and push us to the final moment when he finally made good his threats. I watched and waited for trouble to flare again and it did a couple of weeks later when Mum brought his tea and The Idiot flew off the handle the moment he saw the poached eggs on toast she’d made for him.

‘What’s this? I hate eggs. Why did you give me this?’

Mum was standing by the bed as he tossed the plate at her and it smashed on the carpet. She looked down at the broken egg yolks and china at her feet.

‘Those were the last two eggs,’ she snapped. ‘It was all we had.’

‘What did you say?’

There was a moment of silence as Mum looked at him.

‘I said those were our last two eggs,’ she replied slowly.

‘Well, I didn’t want them, you dirty cow.’

I tensed as Dad threw back the covers and got out of bed. Wearing an old nightshirt, he lumbered towards a piece of wood leaning against the radiator.

‘How fucking dare you?’ he yelled. ‘Do you think you can answer me back?’

Mum didn’t move as I started screaming.

‘No, Dad! She didn’t mean it. I’ll get you something else to eat.’

‘Get the fuck out of the way,’ he roared. ‘Otherwise you’ll get it too.’

Raising the wood in the air, he smashed it across the top of Mum’s head. She staggered as she was hit before falling on to the carpet. She looked stunned, as if she couldn’t believe what he’d done to her, and Dad clenched his hand into a fist as he stood over her, daring her to try to get up. Mum lifted her palm to the top of her head. It was covered in blood as she pulled it away.

‘What have you done?’ I cried.

Crouching down beside Mum, I saw blood pouring out of a two-inch gash on her crown.

‘We’ve got to call an ambulance,’ I pleaded. ‘She’s got to get this seen to. Look at her. It’s bleeding so much.’

‘What are you fucking talking about? It’s nothing.’

‘Please, Dad. She needs a doctor.’

‘No, she doesn’t. Now get that snivelling bitch out of my sight or you’re next.’

Mum was gasping for breath as I got her to her feet and led her out of the room.

‘It’s okay,’ I kept whispering. ‘I’ll look after you.’

Mum didn’t say anything as we went into the hallway.

‘Sit down,’ I told her before running to the kitchen and wetting a dishcloth under the tap.

I ran back and started dabbing at the cut. I didn’t want to hurt Mum but I had to stop the bleeding. The gash looked so deep and blood was pouring from it. I didn’t think I’d ever stop it.

‘You’ll be all right,’ I said as Mum flinched a little. ‘I’ll sort this out for you.’

It seemed to take for ever until the blood finally stopped running. The cloth was covered in it and I felt light-headed by the time I was finished. Any harder and Dad would have killed her.

‘Are you all right now?’ I asked as I hugged Mum. ‘You’re okay now, aren’t you? I’m here. I’ll look after you.’

She didn’t speak as I held on to her. I wondered if she was thinking the same as me. Was he finally going to kill us soon? When would this ever stop?

‘Get back in here,’ Dad eventually shouted from the living room.

He was back in bed and a horror film was on the TV.

‘Sit down both of you and shut up. It’s just a fucking scratch. It’ll teach you both to cook a proper meal for me, won’t it?’

Mum stared at the TV as I looked at her. Turning my head towards the screen, I pushed down the tears which were stinging in my eyes. Weeks later, I woke up to find that I couldn’t see properly. There were only shadows and outlines in front of me now when I opened my eyes. I went to see the doctors and they ran all sorts of tests but nothing was found. Eventually I was told there was no physical reason why I’d lost my sight and it was down to stress. After a few weeks my vision started to return but months later it happened for a second time. Once again my sight came back but it was as if my body was trying to blind me to the horrors I saw each day.

In late 1995 I fell pregnant for the sixth time and The Idiot told me to make sure nothing went wrong this time. Mum didn’t even ask me how I’d got pregnant and I was almost angry until I told myself that someday soon she’d find the courage to fight. Until then, I’d keep quiet and look after her just as I always had.

As weeks turned into months and my stomach grew, The Idiot told me that this baby would be the first of many.

‘Surely you know that by now?’ he said with a smile. ‘Your mother can’t have any more and so it’s your job now.’

I wondered if he’d finally leave me alone and the violence would stop if he got what he wanted. By now I knew I’d give almost anything for that and felt disgusted with myself that I almost wanted this baby just to escape. Maybe it was the only way that Dad would leave Mum and me alone. I worried about her all the time. I wasn’t sure how much longer she could cope. I had to find a way to help her.

I was sure that I’d lose this baby like all the others but as the weeks turned into months, The Idiot became convinced that all his wishes were finally coming true. He watched me day after day like a cat making sure a tasty mouse doesn’t run for cover: ordering me not to lift anything heavy, reading a book about the different stages of pregnancy from cover to cover and making me stand in front of him naked when Mum went out so he could stare at my stomach. Sometimes he’d put his hands on me as he tried to feel the baby move and told me once again that I was going to have a boy. He also said that no one in the family should know about my pregnancy and so if anyone visited, I had to sit in a chair. I was quite overweight by now and, with my baggy clothes, it was easy to hide what was happening. We didn’t see many people, of course, and Dad’s relatives didn’t take much notice of me even if they did come.

As the months went by, I started to feel the baby move and remembered the feelings I’d had when I was pregnant with Jonathan. Back then I’d crushed them down but this time it was harder as thoughts slipped into my mind about what the baby would look like or how it would smile. The pain of losing Jonathan had never left me and now I felt so confused: half of me hating the baby because of how it had come into the world, the other half wanting it because I longed for something of my own to love – just like all the women I’d seen at the country and western clubs.

Mostly, though, I didn’t let myself think about the day I might become a mother. I couldn’t imagine it ever happening because then my nightmare would finally come true. It had been ten years since I first fell pregnant and time had proved to me that nothing would stop The Idiot except my own body which refused to allow a baby to be born. When I went for a scan at twenty-eight weeks and was told the baby wasn’t developing properly, I was sure I was going to lose it. Relief wrestled with shock as the doctors reassured me that they just needed to keep an eye on things more closely. I told myself they were just hiding the truth as I went home to break the news to Dad.

‘What do you mean, it’s not growing?’ he exclaimed. ‘You look fine. You’re big and round.’

‘The doctors said the baby was too small so I’m going to have to get checked more regularly from now.’

‘Well, do whatever they say, do you hear?’

But even though I was sure that history was going to repeat itself, I was wrong. The doctors monitored me, gave me steroids and booked me in for a caesarean at thirty-seven weeks in July 1996. The child inside me was small but alive.

I pushed down a scream as I was wheeled into the operating theatre. This couldn’t be happening. It could not be real. I wanted to run and hide, go to sleep and wake up and realise I was in another place. I could not bear to give him what he had forced inside me. I wanted to close my eyes and die. I was in a bright white room, filled with eyes looking down from behind masks, faces I was sure could see my secrets.

‘We won’t be a minute, Miss Lawrence, and all you’ll feel is a few tugs before your baby is born,’ a woman’s voice said.

I didn’t know who was speaking and didn’t dare reply to the eyes looking at me. They seemed so cold, as if they knew the truth. I knew what they were telling me. A head leaned close to my ear and I heard another voice.

‘You’ll be right, Alice. It’ll only take a jiffy.’

Dad was standing beside me and I turned my head away as he spoke. I didn’t want him here but he’d insisted on attending the birth. He had to see his precious baby born. I felt sick as I thought about how much he was going to enjoy seeing the doctors cut into me. I’d told them the baby’s father was a landscape gardener who was working away. They’d never suspect in a million years that he was standing in the room with them: my father, my baby’s father; my sibling, my child. But I knew what they’d say if they did know.

‘How could she let it happen?’

‘Dirty slut.’

‘Sick bitch.’

The Idiot leaned forward and I looked at his hand resting on the white sheet beside me. I pushed it away as the doctors started the caesarean but he didn’t notice as he stared over the screen hiding my stomach. Revulsion filled me as he watched, excited as a schoolboy in a sweet shop. I hated him and I hated his baby which was coming into the world. I knew that now. There was no love inside me. All the years of my pain would be bleached into its bones, every slap and punch would mark it out; this baby would be cursed for ever just like me. I felt tugging and pulling on my stomach. I wished I could close my eyes and it would all disappear.

‘It’s a girl,’ I heard a voice say.

I held my breath waiting for a cry, the sound which would prove to me she was real. I was a mother. I remembered the silent seconds after Jonathan was born as a nurse gathered up the bloody bundle and carried it into an adjoining room.

‘What’s happening?’ I cried. ‘Where are you taking her?’

‘Not to worry, Miss Lawrence. She’s a little bit drowsy. We’re just warming her up.’

A son and now a daughter. They were both so silent. She was just like him. My two lost children.

And then I heard it.

A cry.

A wail.

A scream which filled me.

And in that instant I knew my baby could never be my curse. She had not asked to be conceived. She was my daughter, a tiny, innocent child whom I must protect for the rest of her life.

‘Well done,’ I heard Dad say and a feeling I’d never had before rushed into my veins. I would never allow my daughter’s father to hurt her as he’d hurt me.