Daddy's Prisoner (2 page)

I stared at it. It was small, not the size of a doll’s house at all, and I ripped open the paper to see a brooch which I recognised from Mum’s jewellery box. It had a lady’s face in cream on it with a beige background and, even though I knew I shouldn’t, I started crying as I stared at it. All I could think of was the doll’s house. I couldn’t stop my tears as I thought of the Barbie doll lying on our dirty carpet when she could have been living in a beautiful house.

‘Stop your blubbing,’ Dad yelled as he turned his head to look at me. ‘You can’t always get what you want.’

I stared up at him.

‘You’ll get what you’re given,’ Dad screamed, his eyes darkening. ‘Now fuck off out of here.’

I walked towards the door, holding the brooch in my outstretched palm. Behind me, I could hear Dad grumbling as I turned the door handle and he called my name.

‘Alice?’ he hissed, and I turned to look at him. ‘Don’t you realise there is no fucking Santa Claus, you stupid bitch?’

I always knew I was different from other little girls. Growing up in a poor area of a huge northern city, you soon realised a lot of people didn’t have much. Big families crammed into rows and rows of houses, kids hanging round on street corners near the shops, everyone just getting by. But although money wasn’t any tighter for my family than it was for many others, there was something about us which set us apart. When Michael, Simon and I made paper chains out of coloured paper to celebrate Christmas, it was Dad who ripped them down. It was him who made my family different.

While many men in the area went to work as builders or road diggers, Dad didn’t. He was a labourer when he met my mum because she babysat for his brother’s kids in the evenings to earn a bit extra. She didn’t make much at the factory where she was working at the time but even so, the job was a little bit of independence for Mum and earning her own wage meant she had freedom. But it soon disappeared after she met my dad because she gave up her job to marry at twenty-one and have my brother Michael three months later.

My dad, or The Idiot as I like to call him now, didn’t seem to see the point of working. He’d given up being a labourer after having an accident and I don’t think he ever thought about going back to work and providing for his family because I never saw him lift a finger in his life. In fact, all he did was watch TV lying on a bed he put in the lounge of every single flat or house we lived in. He was too lazy to even sit in a chair and his favourite day was ‘pay day’ when he collected the benefit money which kept us clothed and fed. One of the only times he got out of bed was to lift weights and build his powerful muscles. Of course, he sat in front of the TV to do it but we all knew how strong he was as he did arm curls or used a chair for squats. His arms and shoulders were the most powerful – big, thick and strong.

But it wasn’t the work, or the laziness, or the stains on his teeth which marked Dad out. To the outside world, what set him apart was the fact that he came from a rough family – a big, extended mass of relatives who were like a tribe. His children, though, knew this wasn’t the real reason Dad was different. Other people might not have seen it but we knew it was because of a darkness inside him which clung to us like a second skin. At night, we’d dream he was coming to get us and would wake almost too scared to breathe in sheets soaked with urine. By day we were the wildest kids in the area as we tried to forget – climbing on roofs, roaming the streets and getting into fights as kids taunted us.

Dad hated the attention we attracted because it meant the prying eyes of friends, relatives or neighbours were turned on us. So if someone knocked at our door after a fight or a falling out, he’d keep us indoors for days on end to teach us not to make trouble again. The beatings he gave us then were warnings that no one must notice us and he used his hands, a walking stick or a heavy weight-lifting belt to thrash us. I got it sometimes but it was the boys, and Michael in particular, who got the worst.

‘Michael, Simon,’ he’d scream if he heard them shouting at each other. ‘In here.’

Running into the living room, the boys would stand in front of Dad.

‘Do you think I can’t hear your fucking screaming?’ he’d shout. ‘Well, if you want to fight so much then get on with it.’

The boys knew what to do without being told. Falling on each other, they’d kick and punch as The Idiot smiled. Michael always got the better of Simon because he was bigger and my younger brother would end up with a bleeding nose or black eye. But Simon never backed down, and so Michael would eventually stop hitting him because he knew he’d won. Then The Idiot would start on him because somehow Simon never got blamed for the arguments. It was always Michael.

‘You’re a fucking troublemaker – always fighting with your brother,’ The Idiot would shout before slapping or caning Michael.

It’s hard to know how often we were hit but there never seemed to be a week when someone wasn’t ‘getting a doing’ as we called it and I knew from the moment I was old enough to recognise danger that there were two fathers inside mine. One had dark brown eyes and a mouth which curved into a smile that could make my heart leap. That was the man who smiled at people in the street and I always hoped I’d be able to make him look just as happy at home. Occasionally I could, like the times he smiled at me when I got into bed next to him to warm up from the freezing cold which made everything in our house feel damp. Or he’d sit up in bed and let me perch on pillows behind him, my legs around either side of his neck, as I searched for pretend nits in his hair.

‘A penny for the big ones, a halfpenny for the small,’ he’d say with a smile as he leant his head back between my legs.

Those rare times when I made him happy made me desperate to do it again. But as I grew up I learned it was impossible because when the door to the outside world closed, it was as if another man was in our house. If I drew Dad a picture at school, he’d rip it up; if I made him a cup of tea, he’d throw it at me. Then his eyes would turn black, his face twist and his mouth open to scream. We all got burned by scalding tea and food thrown back in our faces.

I lived feeling permanently afraid of what he would do next – always ready to escape if his temper exploded, to run if a slap or object was thrown in my direction. It felt as if a snake was coiled constantly inside the pit of my stomach: sometimes it reared up and bit, but it was the watching and waiting that was the worst.

It wasn’t just us kids, though, who were scared because Mum was as well. I knew it hadn’t always been like that because Michael told me that when we were little Mum went to the pub with Dad, which meant they must have had fun once. Apparently she was with him there until just a few hours before she gave birth to Laura and back again the night after. The regulars collected £75 for the new baby and marvelled at Mum’s fortitude.

But all I can remember is a woman with the same shadow of fear on her face as I felt inside. Just like me, Mum knew that if she got anything wrong she’d be punished. She took it, though, because she knew that if Dad was happy then we wouldn’t get a doing.

With beautiful smiling eyes and a plump face, Mum gave me little cuddles when he wasn’t watching or washed the cuts on my knee if I fell over. On the nights when he went out to the pub to play darts, she’d put on her Elvis records and sing along as she danced with me. Or she’d rub-a-dub-dub me when there was enough money to warm the hot water for our weekly bath before towelling my hair dry and kissing me goodnight. We all loved her cuddles and kisses and knew Mum did all she could to keep us out of trouble.

‘He’ll be in here if you don’t pipe down,’ she’d say as she walked into the bedroom where we were playing. ‘Quieten down now or he’ll be in.’

If The Idiot carried on ranting, we’d hear her telling him that she was going to deal with us. Then she’d come back to our room and whisper: ‘We’re going to play a game. I’m going to pretend to smack you and I want you to scream even though it won’t hurt.’

I thought games usually made you laugh, like the hide and seek I played with my brothers and Laura. But I’d do as Mum said and yell as loudly as I could because I knew it was better for her that way as well as me. If I didn’t play the game with Mum then she’d be punished and I hated it when she was hurt. I didn’t see her getting a doing but I heard it happening at night – the shouts and thumps, as if something was being thrown against the wall. The next day Mum would be the one with bruises or a cut lip but she’d never mention it or cry in front of us. I knew what had happened to her, though, and in a way that was the worst thing: seeing the pictures in your mind, knowing it might be you next, but never quite sure when that would be.

Besides Mum, the person I loved most in the world was my older brother Michael because he was everything I was not. Brave, talkative and full of jokes, I loved him from the moment I can remember. Sometimes we went into the woods to play and sometimes we’d be out on the street but I didn’t care as long as I was with Michael. During the day, he’d protect me from the local bullies and at night he’d sneak bread from the kitchen to make us a ‘feast’. Sitting on the beds, our stomachs rumbling after a day without food, Michael would break the bread into pieces for Simon, Laura and me. Suddenly a feast would be laid out before us – cream cakes, turkey drummers, jelly and chicken wings dancing before our eyes as Michael told us what each piece of bread had been magically transformed into.

‘One day I’m going to run away, find us a pile of money and buy a big house,’ he’d say. ‘Mum will have her own magic bedroom like a princess and he won’t be allowed anywhere near us.’

‘I’ll stay with Mum when you go,’ I’d whisper back. ‘And then I’ll get a house even bigger than yours and she’ll stay with me.’

‘No you won’t! I’ll look after Mum. I’m the oldest so I’ll look after her.’

That was Michael’s way – he always wanted to protect us. I’ll never forget the day I stole a pencil from a girl at school, which Michael in turn took from me because he was my big brother and that’s what big brothers did. But later that day the girl’s father came to our flat to demand the pencil back. His daughter had told him I’d taken it, his son had seen Michael at school with it, so which of us thieving brats had it? When the front door closed, The Idiot looked at me – his eyes black as the night – and demanded to know what I’d done.

‘Nothing,’ I pleaded. ‘I didn’t take anything.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, Dad.’

‘Well, where’s that bastard Michael, then? He got hold of that pencil somehow.’

My brother got a doing that day and I felt tears sliding down the back of my throat when we went to bed later that night because I knew it was my fault he’d been hurt.

‘Don’t worry, sis,’ Michael told me. ‘I took the pencil off you so I’m to blame as well and I’d rather be hit by that old bastard than see you get it.’

That was what I loved about Michael. Even though he was just a boy and too small to stop my father’s huge fists when they came flying at him, he was the only one who stood up to Dad while the rest of us ran like mice. Michael was the one person in our house who was brave.

No one else really knew what Dad was like. To the rest of the world, he was nice as pie – a bit rough around the edges, maybe, but nothing out of the ordinary. There was just one other person who knew the truth like we did. Mum’s mum Granny Ruby might only have stood about 5ft 2ins but being so tiny didn’t make her afraid of Dad.

‘Have you no shame to treat your wife and children like dogs?’ she’d tell him.

But her visits always ended with Dad yelling at her to get out of his house, so she didn’t come too often and after she’d gone, he’d look at Mum and smile at her frightened face.

‘Load of fucking nonsense,’ he’d say. ‘Where the fuck could you go? Who else would put up with a slag like you and your brats? Only me, that’s who. I’m the only one stupid enough for it.’

A couple of times I went to visit Granny Ruby’s flat nearby and loved it there. It was full of pictures and ornaments and there were also figures of Mary and Jesus on the walls because Granny Ruby was a born-again Christian. Back then, I still believed there was a bearded man in the sky who would protect me even if my dad didn’t and so I liked going to Granny Ruby’s and seeing pictures of Him on the walls. But my visits were soon stopped. Dad knew I felt safe with Granny Ruby and he didn’t want me feeling that way.

The social workers first came to our house when I was about seven. Michael, Simon and I walked in from school to find our parents waiting with a strange man and woman.

‘These people have come to see the bruises I’ve given you,’ The Idiot said as he lay in bed.

His eyes were black as he watched us.

‘Shut your mouth,’ they said.

Fear filled me as I stared at the man and woman. Who were these strangers? People never came into our house. The woman smiled as she walked towards us.

‘Someone has told us you’ve got some bruises,’ she said. ‘And we’ve come to see if you’re okay.’

None of us spoke for a moment.

‘We were fighting,’ Michael said in a rush. ‘We fell downstairs.’

We knew exactly what we had to say and what would happen to us if we didn’t. The lady looked at our faces again before turning to The Idiot.

‘Strip down,’ he snarled. ‘To your underwear. Let’s show these people I haven’t hurt you.’