Daddy's Prisoner (4 page)

‘This is because of your stupid fucking brother,’ Dad said as we stood in front of a Transit van he’d rented. ‘I’m going to get locked up because of him.’

You couldn’t be sure if it really was Michael’s fault, though, because Dad would have blamed him if the moon had fallen out of the sky. Whatever Michael did, he found a reason to use it against him as he screamed and beat him. So I couldn’t be sure why we were moving – whether it was the trouble with the police, the visits from social services or something else that had put a new idea in Dad’s head – but I wasn’t surprised. We’d done it before several times because The Idiot was always falling out with the neighbours and each time we’d load our smelly stuff into a van before moving on to the next home the council had given us.

There was no more talking as we were told to get a move on and pack our things. I only had a few clothes to stuff into a plastic bag but was worried about Laura. She was too small to be packed up and whisked away once again.

‘Get in,’ Dad screamed, and I knew there was nothing I could do.

I lifted Laura into the back of the van and held on to her as best as I could among all the bits of tired old furniture rattling around with us. No one spoke as The Idiot started driving and I wondered which street we’d be moving to now. But as the minutes slid into hours, I realised we were leaving the city far behind. We were going somewhere new, miles away from anything familiar. I’d always known my dad didn’t like prying eyes and now he wanted to get us out from the ever-increasing gaze of first the social workers and then the police. It’s true when they say: out of sight, out of mind. We were going to another anonymous, huge city and it would be a long time before the prying eyes found us again.

We ended up in same city where Tracy, one of dad’s sisters, lived with her daughter. Crammed like sardines into her two-bedroom flat, I got my first idea of why Dad seemed to hate Michael even more than the rest of us.

Tracy, who had dyed hair and a craggy face, didn’t like Mum. She saw her as an outsider, a steady girl with too much spirit. Later, people would tell me that Mum hadn’t taken any rubbish when she was young and when a woman at the factory where she’d worked had bullied her, she’d threatened to cut her hair off with a pair of scissors if she didn’t stop.

But by the time we moved, Mum’s spirit was beginning to be knocked out of her. She’d try to answer back when Tracy started crowing and cawing after they’d all had a drink together – Tracy liked Black Heart rum while my parents drank vodka and tomato juice. But Dad would always tell Mum to shut up if she tried to defend herself when Tracy went on and on about their brother Pete. He was my uncle whose children Mum had once babysat for and apparently she’d kissed him once before she met Dad. But even years later it didn’t take much to set the tinderbox alight.

‘I know the way it was,’ The Idiot would snap after Tracy had stirred things up. ‘You were fucking Pete all the time you were fucking me. That bastard son of yours isn’t mine.’

‘Of course he is,’ Mum would insist. ‘Michael’s as much yours as the rest of them.’

But Dad wouldn’t listen.

‘You fucking liar,’ he’d shout. ‘Making me look after your brats when all the time you were shagging him. You’re Pete’s ride, Pete’s dirty, whorish ride, aren’t you?’

However many times Mum tried to tell him – then and in the years to come – The Idiot would never listen and as I lay in the dark, I would picture the smile playing on Tracy’s lips as she listened to the fight. I was sure she loved seeing it because she always seemed to be the one who started it.

Things only got worse when we finally left Tracy’s for a homeless unit because by then we knew we had to watch ourselves even more carefully than we had before. Staying with Tracy had lent a new edge to Dad’s anger and he was even quicker to fly off the handle, even nastier to Mum as he taunted her about Pete. Day after day, he’d berate and belittle her.

‘What’s this?’ he’d scream when she brought him a cup of tea. ‘It’s too fucking strong, you silly bitch.’

Standing in front of him, Mum would turn away as he screamed, his face becoming red, spit flying from the corners of his mouth.

‘But what can I expect from a useless slag like you? You’re just Pete’s ride, aren’t you?’

‘No,’ Mum would exclaim. ‘There was never anything between us but one kiss. I’ve told you again and again.’

‘Fuck off. I know what you are, a dirty whore and it’s only me who’d have you. You’re a fat bitch and no one else would want you.’

The shouting and bawling seemed to get worse and worse now and I’d lie in bed at night listening to it, feeling sick as I wondered what was happening to Mum. Sometimes she’d appear at breakfast with a split lip or bruises on her arms and, although we didn’t see it, I knew Dad was hitting her. By now I was ten, old enough to want to stop him hurting Mum more than anything else in the world and although I knew I was too small to do that, I did the only thing I could – make sure none of us did anything to annoy Dad because it just made him meaner. But soon after moving into the homeless unit Laura and I forgot ourselves because we were just kids after all. I can’t remember what we’d done but we got into trouble one day and whatever it was made Dad furious.

‘What are you playing at?’ he screamed at us as we stood in front of him.

‘Nothing, Dad, honest,’ I said as I started to cry, hoping that if he saw our tears he wouldn’t take the belt to us.

‘Haven’t I told you enough times?’ he roared. ‘Don’t you know better than to get yourselves into trouble?’

My heart beat as he walked towards Laura and me carrying his walking stick.

‘I’ve had enough of you little bitches,’ he yelled as he raised it and started beating our legs.

Laura was only about five, so tiny she staggered as the stick hit her, and I screamed as it smashed into my shins and thighs.

‘Get out of my sight,’ Dad shouted when he’d finally finished, and we limped out of the room.

Within a few hours my legs felt so sore I could hardly move them. Huge red weals ran livid over my shins and bruises had started to blossom purple under my pale skin. In fact, the beating was so bad that Mum decided she was going to have to take us to hospital.

‘What are you doing that for?’ Dad snarled when she told him. ‘They’re fine. Stop worrying for nothing.’

‘Look at them,’ Mum insisted. ‘They can’t go into school like that, can they?’

In the end Dad let us go but lined us up to tell us what to say to the doctors when we got to hospital.

‘They’ll take you away if you say a word different and you’ll never see your mum again,’ he told us. ‘Just remember that when you’re there.’

I felt scared by the time Laura, Mum and I were sitting in casualty. Mum had given our names and we’d been shown to a cubicle before being taken for an X-ray. My legs throbbed as it was done and we sat down to wait again in another cubicle. I stared at the bruises as I wondered when we’d next get a doing. Michael usually got the worst of it but now no one, not even little Laura, was safe.

‘There’s nothing broken,’ the doctor said when he finally came back to see us.

‘That’s good news,’ Mum replied as she started gathering us together.

‘But how did this happen?’ the doctor asked quietly.

I stared at him.

‘We fell downstairs,’ I said quickly.

He looked at me, his eyes sliding down to the bruises on my legs before turning to Mum.

‘They’re always doing it,’ she said. ‘They play and get themselves into trouble. I was cooking dinner when I heard them tumble.’

The doctor stared at her and I knew he didn’t believe our lies. Fear rushed into me. Would he tell anyone? Would Mum get a beating when we got home? Would someone call the police again?

‘Well, you need to take better care of them,’ he said as he turned to leave.

Mum looked at Laura and me, legs covered in thick bruises and tears staining our cheeks.

‘Let’s get you home,’ she said.

Relief bubbled up inside me. The doctor wasn’t going to get us into trouble, Mum wasn’t going to get a beating because we’d been naughty and told Dad’s secret. She was safe.

I didn’t like the new city where we lived and the kids at school were the same as ever – they just used different names to taunt me.

‘Smelly,’ they’d snigger. ‘Fatty.’

At least the faces in my old class had been familiar ones and I’d known the teachers. This new school was full of strangers and we were even less accepted than we had been before. But I didn’t have too much time to dwell on what was happening because by now I had another brother and sister to look after. Baby Kate was about a year old by the time we moved and in 1980 my youngest brother Charlie arrived soon after we left the homeless centre for a three-bedroom house. Now there were six of us: Michael, Simon, Laura, Kate, Charlie and me. I loved Kate from the moment I saw her and felt the same way about Charlie. But Dad didn’t seem to like him much because something happened to Mum in hospital when she had Charlie that made him furious.

‘Sterilised?’ he shouted as they argued. ‘That wasn’t your fucking decision to make. It’s up to me what happens.’

‘But the doctors did it,’ Mum tried to reason. ‘They said that six children were too much for me. I’m too ill to have more.’

‘Well, you should have stopped them,’ Dad growled. ‘We need more little ones. That’s all you’re good for.’

I didn’t understand why he wanted more children when there were so many of us already. But The Idiot was very angry and Mum had to spend even more time looking after him now to keep him quiet. In fact, by the time we moved into our new house she looked after him pretty much the whole time: if he spat on the floor, she cleaned it up; if he blew his nose and tossed away the tissue, she picked it up. He did things like that all the time and Mum could hardly leave his side without him shouting at her. If she came upstairs to quieten us down, he’d yell; if she left the lounge to go to the kitchen, he’d scream at her to stop.

‘Where are you going?’

‘To make the kids’ tea.’

‘Well don’t. Get back here. They can look after themselves.’

‘But they’re too small.’

‘I don’t care. Get back here now.’

She had to do what he said otherwise she – or one of us – would be punished and that was why Michael, Simon and I ended up doing so much for our younger brother and sisters. The boys helped out with jobs like cooking, which was one of the hardest because we often ran out of gas when there wasn’t enough change to feed the slot meter. Sometimes The Idiot sent us out on to the streets to sell some of his precious gadgets to earn a bit of extra money but there were many days when we went hungry. We’d eat cold baked beans and tinned ham if there were tins around or go down to the local supermarket to scour in the bins for food that had been thrown away or wooden crates to burn in the fireplace so we could cook using a big metal pot over the flames. I worried all the time about the little ones getting hurt by the fire but in the end it was me who burned myself quite badly when I sloshed boiling water on my foot one day as I took the kettle off the fire.

The cooking, though, was mostly Michael’s job. He was the one in charge of feeding us, Simon helped out with whatever else and I tried to keep our bedrooms and clothes clean and looked after the little ones: doing nappies and bottles, soothing them at night when they lay crying in their cot. Mum was still only allowed to do what she absolutely had to when the babies came along and so a couple of months after Kate and Charlie arrived, their cot was always put in with me and I’d be the one to get up in the night to feed them.

I liked doing it, just as I enjoyed being useful to Mum and the smiles and cuddles my younger brother and sisters gave me. They were still too little to feel constantly afraid like I did and so in between the shouts and beatings, they always seemed to be happy. Of course, they had their tears like all children but I loved looking after them and trying to make our home as nice as possible for them.

Even so, I knew from the time I was a little girl that our house wasn’t like other people’s. I saw proper homes on the TV – fires in the grate, smoke in the chimney and comfy, clean sofas – but however much I tried to keep things clean, our new house was soon as filthy as anywhere we’d ever lived. Downstairs was a living room where Mum and Dad slept, a kitchen and bathroom, while upstairs there were three bedrooms – one for Michael and Simon, one for the girls, me and Charlie in his cot, and a spare one. There were so many of us that the place was soon a mess: vomit dried hard on baby clothes and stained them, the little ones wiped their bottoms on whatever they could find because we often ran out of toilet roll and one day I opened a cupboard door to find maggots wriggling in excrement buried deep in a pile of old clothes. It wouldn’t be the last time. Our new house also got infested with fleas and we were bitten everywhere – arms, neck and chest – tiny, itchy bites which ended up getting infected.

I dreamed of a nice clean house like the ones I was sure the other kids at school had but The Idiot didn’t seem to notice the filth. In fact, he hated it when Mum and I tried to clean because he’d moan about the smell of bleach and forbid us from using it. All he cared about was keeping an eye on us every minute of the day and we only left the house on his say-so. Occasionally we went out to buy boxes of eggs and sacks of potatoes at a farm, or once every few months we’d drive into the country where Dad took pictures of us smiling in the sun like we were a happy family. But mostly we lived in our cramped filthy house or on the street surrounding it and didn’t do the stuff other kids did like going to the cinema, for walks or to the playground. We were kept inside because Dad didn’t want us making trouble. He just couldn’t understand that six children were always going to be noisy – even more so if they weren’t allowed outside to let off steam – and kept us quiet while he watched the westerns he loved on TV by shouting and bawling or hitting us with his walking stick.