Deliver Me From Evil (11 page)

‘Don’t wipe it off.’

I opened my mouth to breathe, but could now taste the poo on my tongue and lips. I wanted to be sick, but I wouldn’t let myself. Not in front of
her.
I started shaking involuntarily.

‘That’s how you teach dogs not to poo. You rub their faces in it. Got it?’

I said nothing, still struggling not to vomit as the revolting stench of dog poo filled my every pore.

‘Don’t take it off until I say.’

With that Eunice marched out of the kitchen, leaving me standing there and Jet staring up at me, head on one side, totally bemused.

Over the next months, this ‘dog training’ happened a few times more, when Jet had an ‘accident’, although I always tried desperately hard to get him out the back door in time. It wasn’t easy to get him to stop pooing round the house, as he was only a baby, plus I wasn’t always with him because I also had Robert to look after, too. However, after a while, if I was asleep with Jet under the table, I’d automatically wake up so I could pop him out in the middle of the night to wee. Luckily, by the time he was a year old he was finally trained and my own ‘dog training’ also stopped. I’d certainly learned another painful lesson at Eunice’s hands.

CHAPTER 11:

Because Charlotte was Eunices favourite I was given all sorts of household chores to do instead of her as if I, and not she, was the eldest child. One of my responsibilities was making sure that Eunice had a list of what food and general supplies we needed, well in advance of things running out. It was hard for me, at nine, to work out what weekly provisions were needed for two adults and five kids, let alone the animals. With something like chicken feed, for instance, Eunice told me I had to give her a three-day warning before it ran out. I had to check the cupboards, the larder and the fridge, plus all the animal feed, and make sure she knew if things were running low. Eunice said she was too busy herself as she was looking after John, who was in terminal decline by then.

One day I forgot to tell her about the chicken feed, but I was so terrified I didn’t dare say anything. I counted down each day – three, two, one – until it was too late.

Eunice came into the kitchen and looked around with a grim expression. I knew that look and I tried to sneak past her, out of the door. She grabbed me by the hair and pulled me back.

‘Oh, no you don’t.’ She turned me round to face her, digging her scrawny fingers into my shoulders. ‘Where is it?’

I feigned innocence and just looked ahead of me, stony-faced. It was all I could think to do, but my heart was racing under my pink and white spotted T-shirt. By now, Charlotte and Sarah had crept to the kitchen door and were watching.

Eunice did not like being ignored. She bent forwards and said menacingly, ‘Where’s the chicken feed?’

‘I. . . er . . . ’

I tried to speak, but my voice trailed off. I could smell the terrible odour of her armpits as it wafted up to me; being close to her was always revolting. Her eyes were boring into me and I had no idea what she’d do next.

‘Right, that’s it.’ Eunice yanked me by the arm out of the kitchen and into the living room. In front of the grate there was a crowbar on the slate; she bent over and picked it up. Until now she’d hit my feet with a variety of sticks – old table legs, ends of copper bed pans, bits of beading, indeed, whatever came to hand. I knew that my tiny feet would not hold up against a crowbar.

I stood shivering in the middle of the room, anticipating the pain.

‘How many times have I told you to let me know three days in advance? I can’t just drop everything and go running out to the shops for chicken feed willy nilly. It’s your responsibility.’

Eunice stood in front of me, but I tried to avoid her eyes. I focused on a large crack in the wall that went from the side of the fireplace up to the ceiling. I had flimsy shoes on and I kicked them off.

Eunice savoured the moment, holding the heavy crowbar in her right hand. Suddenly she bent over and I gritted my teeth and focused as hard as I could on the crack in the wall.

Clunk. Clunk.

Oh God, the pain was violent and immediate. I bit my lip, trembling uncontrollably; tears ran down my cheeks.

Clunk. Clunk.

The other foot was hit and the pain enveloped me instantly. It was so bad I felt sick instantly and wanted to fall over and scream, but I suppressed as much as I could, biting deeper into my lower lip. I stared maniacally at the crack in the wall, following its feathery tracks upwards and sideways towards the dingy ceiling. I was really shaking now as the shock took over.

‘I don’t think you’ll be forgetting again, you little scum.’

With that, Eunice strode out of the room and I collapsed on the floor, crying uncontrollably at last. My feet felt like they’d been mashed to pieces in a farm machine and I couldn’t stand up. They were swollen and already bruising (I think it was possible that my toe was broken, although I can’t be sure) and for several days afterwards I could only hobble around.

Another onerous job I had was to look after Robert. He was now a toddler, although he was still in nappies. He was becoming quite hyperactive and was very tricky to manage. I was given the primary responsibility of caring for him, day and night. I had to tend to him, change his nappy, feed, wash and clothe him and – once Jet was trained – sleep with him. I had to keep him amused and out of trouble all day, so I often ended up walking him round and round the fields just to wear him out, which was exhausting. He slept in a cot in the living room with me, Sarah and Thomas.

Eunice would give Robert bottles of 7UP to drink, even at night. Not water or milk, but loads of fizzy, sweetened pop. My job was to give him three seven-ounce bottles of 7UP overnight. No wonder he was hyperactive with all those E-numbers, additives and sugar sloshing around in him. I trying to change his nappy one night when he was so hyped up he was bucking around and poo went everywhere. I got a clout around the head for that, then had my face pushed into his nappy, just like with Jet’s ‘potty training’. It was disgusting and it was entirely my fault, of course.

John Drake was now very poorly and Eunice was hot on her campaign to have the farm signed over to her. She was quite brazen about it at times, which surprised me, saying things like, ‘If you’re too noisy we’ll never get him to give us the farm’. To please John (and, of course, to ensure her inheritance was safe) we had to be quiet, day and night. This was one of the reasons we weren’t allowed upstairs (except for Charlotte, her ‘princess’). We all had to tiptoe around, which was doubly difficult with Robert being so hyperactive. It was a real strain to keep him calm and I was only a child myself, so I had no real authority.

As I mentioned earlier, I was a heavy sleeper and it was difficult to wake me once I was asleep. One night Robert started crying, calling out for his ‘mummy’ (meaning Eunice, of course); he must have been wailing good and proper but I didn’t hear a thing even though he was in the same room as me. I was curled up on a sofa cushion, an old smelly duvet wrapped under and over me, dead to the world. Suddenly, I was being pulled up onto my feet and out of bed. Eunice was in an ice-cold rage and was spitting fury at me. It was blatantly obvious what she was angry about, and it certainly wasn’t the baby’s welfare.

‘You’ve really upset John Drake now – we won’t get the house and it’ll be your fault.’

I said nothing, as I was confused and terrified by being woken up in this way. Robert continued screaming as well, so there was chaos. Eunice dragged Sarah to her feet too and barked at her to comfort the baby. I thought that might be it, but Eunice had other plans for me that night. She pulled me out of the back door by my hair, barefoot and still in my nightie, then frog-marched me to the big barn across the lawn.
I’m really in for it now,
I thought. I suppose I expected a toe beating which was what I usually got when Eunice wanted to hurt me badly. But this time it seemed she had even more outrageously sadistic plans.

‘Lie down,’ was all she said to me.

Seeing I was not sure exactly what I should do, she indicated a spot on the floor quite near the door, next to the potato-sorting machine I’d seen the first time we looked around the barn. Although there was electricity in the barn the light was very dim and I remember looking at the four bare bulbs along the centre of the high barn ceiling. I found myself examining the wooden cogs and conveyor belts of the machine with some curiosity, while Eunice rifled in the dark corners of the barn, clearly looking for something. Then her voice broke into my night-time reverie.

‘Put your leg up.’

Leg up what? For a moment I didn’t know what she meant. She was standing beside me, towering over me, a stern look on her face.

‘Hold your leg up. Come on,’ she snapped.

I duly raised one leg in the air and it shook I was terrified at the thought of what she might be up to now. I felt I might wee myself with fear at any moment, and knew that doing so would prompt even more punishment. I remember the floor being very hard and cold that night, as I lay there, exposed, with Eunice hovering over me, her face as black as thunder. Then suddenly, she produced a long wooden stick, which she must have found in the barn, raised it up high and brought it down hard on the bare, naked, upturned sole of my foot.

Whack.

I heard it thwack, like something was breaking. It hurt like hell and I screamed involuntarily, although I knew I was supposed to be silent. My leg moved away, also involuntarily, but she grabbed it roughly and brought it back into position, while I continued to scream and protest, trying to wriggle out from under. The sole of my foot was on fire; I couldn’t believe it wasn’t split open and bleeding from the pain. Meanwhile Eunice was not happy with me making a noise and she was in fierce and furious mode. She was not having any of it. She knew exactly what she wanted and how she was going to get it.

‘Keep still and shut up,’ she snapped. ‘You’ll wake John Drake.’

Then the stick came down again and I thought I’d vomit with pain.

Whack. Whack. Whack. Whack. Ten . . . twenty . . . thirty
.. . forty . . .

I counted numbly as the beats rained down. I couldn’t help myself and screamed again and again. But on and on and on she went.

Whack. Whack. Whack.

Tears were streaming down my face. I was sobbing helplessly, but Eunice was indifferent. She almost had a zonked-out expression, as if she was not really there, just going through the motions, like a robot. Then the other foot had to be held up – by me – and the same punishment was enacted: calmly, calculatingly, viciously. I was totally distraught. I writhed from side to side, my feet pulsating with pain, but If I tried to move away or let my leg flop, Eunice would grab my ankle roughly again and pull my leg up to a position that exposed the sole of my foot better still, so she could whack it full on with her stick.

‘It’ll be much worse for you if you don’t stop messing around,’ was all she said, in a flat, hard tone. ‘I’m doing it like this so the bruises won’t show’

At one point the pain was so great that I was losing consciousness for a moment, blanking out, then coming to and staring hard at the potato-sorting machine, trying to lose myself in something. I found an odd comfort in that strange contraption. I must have realized that I had to escape in my mind to survive what was happening. I started following the lines of the conveyor belt, tracing the cogs, going round and round, endlessly, as the stick continued to come down with a sickening thud on my bare foot. Suddenly, I heard a rat behind the machine, gnawing at the wood, which freaked me out more at that moment than the fact that a fully grown woman was trying to shred the soles of my size-one feet with an implement of sheer torture.

After the beating was over, I was in pieces. I rolled over, sobbing, distraught, agonized. I could hardly breathe, I couldn’t move and I wanted to die.

Eunice calmly put the stick away in a dark corner of the barn. ‘Get up,’ she said coldly.

Automatically, I reached my arms out towards her, wanting a hug. It was a childish gesture, made in a very desperate, primitive way, but I needed comfort – even from the woman who had just beaten me in a way I had never believed possible. Even though she had shown how much me she hated me, I still wanted her love.

But tonight, in the dank, dark barn, she ignored my outstretched arms completely. She wouldn’t put her arms around me and that was that. Other times she had told me she was only punishing me ‘for my own good’ or to ‘teach me a lesson. This time it was different. The stakes were higher: this beating was because she wanted the farm, very badly indeed.