Deliver Me From Evil (12 page)

I lifted myself up onto my battered feet, which felt as though they’d been skinned. I found it hard to walk properly but Eunice commanded: ‘Don’t limp.’

Traumatized and nauseated by every tentative step, I tried to put on a brave face and hobbled as best I could out of the barn and back across the garden. Once out of her view I could limp to my heart’s content, the grass cooling my mashed-up feet. I was in deep shock that night. Everything was a blur and occasional sobs surfaced as I made my way through the dark kitchen to the living room, where I had to go back to sleep on the floor. I had to remember not to make a noise, and also to resume my duties, making sure Robert didn’t make a sound either. I now knew that the penalty for making so much as a whisper was more horrible than anything that had ever gone before. I don’t think I’d ever felt so lonely or desolate as I did that night on the farm.

This was the new way of life now. After this first night-time trauma, we would all be forced out to the barn regularly at the slightest noise and dealt with violently (all except Charlotte and Robert, who were just slapped and clouted occasionally). Eunice kept various implements of torture in there and we children even queued up sometimes to wait for our punishment.

One thing she liked to do was to beat one of us to get at the truth – a bit like a Nazi interrogator in an old black and white film or something out of the Spanish Inquisition. She would whack one of us on the feet to see if she could make us squeal. Eunice would say things like, ‘I’ll beat you all until I find out who’s done it,’ referring to a crime like taking a slice of bread or answering back. Eunice would blame us for something as trivial as moving the chicken feed, although often one of the animals was guilty. Whatever it was, the three of us – Sarah, Thomas and I – always got the blame and the worst treatment. Sometimes I’d own up for the sake of stopping the beatings, even if it was quite obvious that none of us was guilty. Other times we’d all just stay stubbornly silent and not admit to anything. And sometimes one of us would buckle under pressure and blurt out the real culprit. However, Thomas and I would often cover for each other, and feel close, at these moments, as a consequence of Eunices tyranny.

I remember one day I was in the garden, just playing around on the lawn, and I saw a hazelnut lying there. I picked it up, cracked it open and ate it, curious as to what it tasted like and probably a bit hungry, too. Then I carried on playing, fantasizing about goodness knows what, like I always did. When I went into the kitchen, Eunice was there, looking thunderously at me. ‘What did you do?’

I had to rack my brains. What did she mean? I didn’t dare say anything, but I thought hard, panicking.
What did I do? I don’t know what I did. I was playing.

‘What did you do? While you were out there? I told you not to touch anything.’

What did she mean? I couldn’t understand what she was getting at. Had I touched something valuable, like a farming tool? Maybe she’d got confused or something? I just didn’t know. All I knew was that I’d been outside playing in the garden. I found my voice and denied any wrongdoing.

‘You’re a liar. I saw you.’

Her face was white with suppressed rage and I was dragged off to the barn and given the new style of beating on the soles of my feet to bash the truth out of me. She beat me for a very long time. Then, at the end of it all, she simply revealed my heinous crime in a controlled, hard voice:

‘You picked up a hazelnut. I told you not to touch anything and you disobeyed me.’

Pause, while I tried to take in anything beyond the immediate agony of my pulped feet.
Oh, hell, the hazelnut.

‘You know very well that you brought it on yourself

I struggled to understand how this could be, as I rolled onto one side, panting with pain.

You know I only do this because if I don’t you’ll die a horrible death – you know you will, if you don’t become totally honest.’

Then she turned and walked out the barn, leaving me in a heap on the floor.

Another thing that happened around this time was going to hurt me for a very long time; in fact, thinking about it still upsets me today.

Eunice always cut our hair as it was obviously cheaper than taking us to a hairdresser. Plus, it meant she wouldn’t have to expose us to an observant adult who might notice our cuts and bruises, especially the numerous ones on our heads and mouths.

My hair was always a bone of contention between us. I was very proud of my jet-black curly hair and liked it long. Eunice thought it was too unkempt and wild – she wanted me shorn like a sheep. She was always rough with my hair and grimaced as she brushed it – I was obviously disgusting to her. She would make me sit on an upright chair in the kitchen, with a towel around my neck, and she would roughly snip off a couple of inches of my unruly gypsy’ hair. Of course, whenever she cut my hair, she would never consult me as to what I wanted. She would simply start hacking away, aggressively, with her sharp scissors. In fact, if I didn’t keep my head in the right position, she would give me a little jab with her scissors, stabbing me in the head with the sharp points to make me sit up and pay attention. This would make me very nervous, to the point that I couldn’t hold my head still. The more I tried, the more I seemed to wobble, the more she jabbed at me, which made me flinch, bringing more jabs. It was a vicious circle, literally.

One day, when I was about nine or ten, Eunice took it into her head to cut all my hair off. I didn’t want her to – my hair was my identity and I loved it. It was almost as if it was the one thing that I had left which was my own. However, I knew that if she picked up on the fact that it mattered to me, she’d do it to spite me, so I tried to be as deadpan as I could.

I sat on a stool in the kitchen with Eunice standing behind me with her scissors, going snip, snip, snip. I wanted to say ‘Stop’ or ‘Enough, but I had to sit in silence as she cut away, making my hair shorter and shorter as I helplessly watched my locks falling to the floor.

Higher and higher went her scissors, my eyes darting about to follow her fingers, and if I moved,
stab,
I’d get a steel point in the head. I could feel the tears welling up, but I bit my lip, hard. I wasn’t going to show her I cared, because if I did shed just say I was vain and cut it even shorter. This particular cut left me with about an inch of hair all over my head. I looked like a shorn and forlorn black sheep. Looking in the bathroom mirror afterwards I could see my big, hazel eyes peering out from under a curly, dark skullcap. It was all too much and I collapsed into silent tears of grief. I never would have cried about it in front of Eunice, or anyone else for that matter, as I was learning to keep my tears and misery to myself. But this felt like such a disfigurement. I had suffered and endured so much at Eunices hands, but this was one indignity too many.

After this I would often stare at the mirror when I was alone and simply cry. But I’d never show anyone else. I didn’t dare.

A few days later something snapped inside me. It was over something very trivial, but I guess it’s often the small things that push us over the edge.

It was about five in the evening and I was trying to decide with Robert which video to put on the TV. We weren’t allowed videos very often, but for some reason that afternoon we’d been told we could watch something. I wanted to watch
Free Willy
and he wanted to watch
Budgie, The Helicopter
and, I suppose, it was one of those days when I just didn’t want to give way to him, even though he was younger and favoured. Maybe I was fed up with my hair, maybe I was sick of looking after him and never having what I wanted. After all, I was only a child myself. I put on
Free Willy
first, ignoring his complaints. However, Robert continued to make a fuss and Eunice got to hear about it. She came striding in and told me I was going to be beaten for it. Later.

I knew ‘later could mean anything from half an hour to a day. The waiting and the build-up were horrible and because I knew what was coming I was totally gripped by fear. If shed done it there and then in anger it would have been over and done with. But it was the threat, the long wait that drove me to the edge that day. I’d had enough and simply couldn’t stand waiting to be hurt any more.

I remember standing in the washroom, having to take my shoes and socks off as usual and just not wanting to go through with it. It was too much to contemplate – just one beating too far. I could just about deal with Eunice’s random, daily cruelty – like a clout around the head, or even a squirt of washing-up liquid in the mouth. But for some reason – maybe because I’d just watched
Free Willy,
a heart-rending film about escape and freedom – I felt I could no longer go meekly like a lamb to the slaughter.

Whatever it was, I panicked and ran out the back door of the kitchen and down the garden. I ran and ran and ran, as fast as I could, speeding over the field, jumping over the graveyard fence to the right of the farm. I landed in brambles, got to my feet and just kept running. I ripped my T-shirt badly on the fence (that would earn yet another beating, no doubt, but I didn’t care right now) and ran out across the street. I stopped and looked to the left and right. I didn’t know where to go, or what to do; I just knew I had to get away.

It was midwinter, so it was pretty nippy, and I was in thin clothes and barefoot. It was early evening by then; it was dark already and I could see the lights coming on in houses around the village.

Winding country lanes surrounded the farm with houses along one side and I soon came across a cottage with a red four-by-four parked in the drive. I scrambled underneath it and just lay there on the cold cobblestones, praying and praying that nobody would come out of the cottage, and particularly that no one would get into the Jeep and start it up. I stared bleakly at the underside of the car, fascinated by all the pipes and rivets, covered by a black oily fur. I could see lights twinkling in the cottage and hear voices far off, but so far, so good.

Then I heard an engine coming. The house I was outside was only round the corner from the farm and, of course, Eunice would come looking for me, as soon as she’d discovered I’d escaped. As the car slid past the gates of the cottage, it paused briefly. I rolled sideways and peeked out and saw Eunice driving her mustard Volvo estate with Judith in the passenger seat peering out the side window towards me, flashing a torch. I held my breath and kept still, then they moved off, thankfully, without seeing me.

I rolled onto my back, uncomfortable on the hard ground.
What should I do next?
I lay for what seemed like an eternity trying to work out what to do. It was getting very dark now and the temperature was dropping, so I was really shivering. I was hungry, but I was able to suppress any pangs as I was so used to using my mind to control my body or feelings. I must have stayed under that car for about six hours or so, until I was frozen and felt sort of woozy with hunger and exhaustion.

Then suddenly, I thought of the donkeys over in the field, snug in their shed. They probably had hay and would be warm to snuggle up with. So under cover of darkness (it was now about midnight, I think), I sneaked out from my hiding place and ran down the lane and across a bridge to a little black shed behind the graveyard, where the donkeys were. It was pitch-black inside. I tiptoed in, whispering to the donkeys not to be afraid, that I wasn’t going to hurt them. I was met by a warm animal smell and a waft of dung. The donkeys were in a one part of the shed but I was disappointed to see that where I had entered there wasn’t any hay, only a bit of straw on a concrete floor. I was so exhausted that I simply curled up in a corner and fell into an immediate, dreamless sleep.

The next thing I knew there was a helicopter buzzing overhead. A searchlight came in through the window and I was bathed in brilliant light. I was suddenly wide awake. I heard someone’s voice shouting out ‘Harriet’, and I thought,
How strange there’s a donkey called Harriet.
I must have been delirious by then. The door was flung open and a tall policeman stood looking in at me: ‘There you are, young lady. We’ve been looking for you everywhere. Do you know how many people are worried about you?’

Yeah, right,
was all I could think. Someone threw a blanket around my shoulders and as I couldn’t walk by then I was lifted up and carried out by the policeman. I was then bundled into a police car, with two Alsatians screened off in the back. The policeman told me I was suffering from hypothermia and could have died in the shed – the temperature was below zero and I had barely any clothes on. But I didn’t really care; I felt so drowsy and far away.

I was surprised that the policeman drove me back to George Dowty Drive and not the farm, although I realized afterwards it was because this was where we were supposed to be living. Eunice was keeping up pretences with the police and, as usual, she was doing something on the sly. Social services had recently visited apparently and Eunice had clearly tidied the place up (it was usually a terrible tip). She’d got the police to drive me back to George Dowty Drive so her cover wasn’t blown.

When we got there, Eunice was standing in the doorway waiting for me, a strange look on her face. I wondered what punishment I would get now. No doubt something doubly horrible on top of the one I’d missed to teach me another lesson.

Once the policeman had gone and the door was closed I waited for the blows, but Eunice actually made me a hot chocolate – a rare first. There were no hugs or words of comfort, but she didn’t ask for an explanation, which was a relief. She just tried to guilt-trip me by saying, ‘You realize you could have woken up the whole family. How do you think the baby would have felt about all this fuss?’