Deliver Me From Evil (13 page)

Eunice had left Judith at the farm with the other kids while we played ‘happy families’ for the sake of the police and social services. Eunice never asked me why I ran away, but the next day, as she drove me back to the farm, she said she’d let me off of the beating –
this once
– because I’d had enough punishment for that day. I didn’t trust her and thought she’d beat me anyway. And I knew that even if I was let off today, there’d be another beating tomorrow, for something else. It was only a matter of time.

CHAPTER 12:

After being brought back to the farm, I lost all hope of escaping from Eunice. Instead of planning to run away again, I grabbed whatever moments of play, freedom or pleasure I could get. There weren’t many – although Eunice did try to teach us at home, there wasn’t much time for lessons as my life was mainly focused on looking after Robert, which was definitely a full-time job.

Eunice ruled all of our lives, including John Drake’s, with a will of steel and it seemed that as John declined daily, Eunice’s rules got harsher. For instance, she had taken to controlling the food a lot more. I’m not sure whether she was finding it expensive to run both George Dowty Drive (where Judith still lived) and the farm, with little or no financial help from John Drake, but for some reason food had begun to get very scarce. We were not allowed to help ourselves to food at all and she would dole out what she thought was appropriate when she felt like it. If we did pinch food – which we did sometimes out of desperation – we were beaten mercilessly in the barn.

One morning, I was enjoying a rare moment of freedom, as Judith had Robert back at George Dowty and I was able to play unfettered for once. Charlotte and I were dressed up in some old ladies’ clothes we had found (they must have been Johns mother’s, I now realize) and were perched on two old rocking horses, swinging wildly back and forth. I was pretending I was a fairy. Then I was a princess or a queen. It was great fun and while I was trying to not make any noise – of course – I was still free to let my imagination soar.

Suddenly, the door flung open and there stood Eunice, dressed in a red outfit, looking very grim. We both stopped rocking immediately and jumped to attention.

‘John Drake’s dead. Be quiet.’

I don’t think we registered what Eunice meant; not at first, anyway. Charlotte and I looked at each other, then back at our horses, and started to rock gently, keen to resume our game, but fearful of angering Eunice.

Then Eunice raised her voice like she meant business. ‘I said be quiet. Seriously. He’s dead. I’m waiting for the nurse to come.’

Both Charlotte and I stopped rocking and I gingerly climbed off my horse and took off the clothes I’d dressed up in.
Dead. A dead person. In the house.
I wasn’t scared – it felt almost cool – although I did feel a bit odd about seeing a dead body. But I also felt a bit sad because although he’d been old and grumpy, John Drake had been a kind person in our lives. After all, he had shared his big house with us.

Eunice, on the other hand, showed no emotion whatsoever. I couldn’t tell if she was sad, relieved, happy or even heartbroken. The doctor had visited John the day before and had given him some painkilling drugs. He had been moaning and groaning with pain, but had also been talking quite lucidly about his life before we came. He had slept most of the day, snoring away in his electric chair, but hadn’t looked to me like he was about to die. So the idea that he was really gone now was very strange.

Eunice led us in to where John lay in his big reclining chair. I was a bit scared as it looked like John yet, at the same time, not like him. He was all waxy and grey-skinned. His eyes were closed and his mouth was open, sort of slack-jawed. Eunice said to us we didn’t need to be afraid of his dead body.

She peered at him, examining his face closely, then said in a loud, flat voice, ‘There’s nothing there. No more pain now then, John.’

Then Eunice did something really bizarre; it freaked me out. She leant over with her hand and pushed John’s jaw up, as if to close it and said in a jolly voice, ‘Hello, John, how’re you doing?’ as if she was playing with a ventriloquist’s dummy. Then she started stroking his hands. She said, ‘Go on, try it,’ and indicated that I should stroke his hand too. I did, briefly. It was ice cold, like marble. Eunice carried on playing with John’s dead body as we sneaked out of the room. I paused at the door and looked back, still trying to take in the strange behaviour I’d just witnessed.

Eunice’s primary concern was reading the will. She had advised John Drake to make out his will so as not to die intestate, and – surprise, surprise – the farm had been left lock, stock and barrel, to Charlotte, Eunice’s favourite. It was to be held in trust until she was eighteen. Eunice had always told John that Charlotte was a good girl and indeed, he had given her a bedroom for herself when we came to live with him, while the rest of us camped on the floor like street urchins. In addition, he had left some money to Eunice.

Eunice had triumphed. She had set her sights on her goal and had attained it. Looking back now, I’m surprised she didn’t just sell up George Dowty and bide her time until Charlotte was eighteen and came into her property, as it would have been less to manage. She probably wanted to hold all the property cards to maximize her earnings, like a real-life Monopoly game.

But why did she still need to have all of us kids in tow, costing her money for food, clothes, light and heat? The answer was that Eunice was struggling to keep both properties going, especially in the period before the will had gone through probate, and needed the money she got from fostering.

The next stage of her grand plan, once the money from John came through, was to modernize and renovate the farm as an investment. In the meantime she needed to keep it running and luckily for her she had the help of unpaid domestic labour – in other words, us. Her daughter would keep George Dowty ticking over (Judith was earning money and I’m sure Eunice would have charged her rent to live there) and Eunice would always have that to fall back on if things got too tight financially Of course, we didn’t know any of this at the time.

Now that John Drake was gone and we no longer had to be quiet for him, things began to slide into a punitive mayhem. Instead of being free to be kids and be noisy, we had to be quieter than ever for Eunice: being quiet was being obedient and being obedient meant being honest, true, pure and saved. Thus, Eunice devised even more violent and unspeakably nasty means to make us obey her every whim. She viewed the three of us Bad children – Sarah, Thomas and me – as the lowest of the low. She didn’t treat us as human or with any human kindness. We were expensive slaves who had to earn their keep.

By now I had been totally estranged from my parents for some time. The last contact that I had had was when we had gone from George Dowty Drive to visit my parents in their new flat. It had been a tense and awkward visit, with Eunice telling me to be quiet, to call her ‘Auntie Eunice’ and to behave impeccably.

Since then, all birthday cards and Christmas cards from my parents or Nan to me had been binned unopened. I knew the Jehovah’s Witnesses didn’t believe in sending greetings cards as such, but I did wonder why my parents and Nan had forgotten me completely and it made me very sad at times. Had I done something wrong? Did they no longer love me? Or care? Had they forgotten their kid completely?

In fact, Eunice had taken it upon herself to imprison me on the farm, away from George Dowty Drive, without my parents’ knowledge or consent. She hadn’t adopted me, or Thomas for that matter; she wasn’t even our legal foster mum. Yet, she thought she owned us children totally, that we were her property, and that nobody could come between her and her unwilling ‘slaves’, especially my parents, who were obviously the lowest of the low in her books.

Some changes occurred immediately John Drake died. Eunice now started to keep the curtains closed permanently, so no one could see in from the outside and, of course, we couldn’t see out. It did feel like we were imprisoned in some way. Although we now could go upstairs – which was just as dingy and old-fashioned, cluttered and dirty as the downstairs – our living conditions didn’t actually improve. There were several cold and damp bedrooms with fusty old beds – enough for each of us to have one – but we all had to sleep in one room together (that is, Thomas, Sarah and I). Charlotte, of course, continued to have her own bedroom, as she still had some privileges over us. Robert also had more privileges and supposedly went in with Eunice, who, of course, had her own room. But in reality, she usually made me look after him so he slept in the same room as the rest of us ‘Bad’ kids. She just had him with her if she fancied company.

We also had to look after the animals now, so I was given a new chore: feeding and caring for the chickens, who provided us with eggs and meat. I didn’t really mind because I’d always loved animals, but it was yet another job I had to do on top of thinking about the shopping and looking after Robert. Eunice went out and bought a variety of breeds because John Drake’s chickens were a bit of a motley crew. I remember the white Sultans with their ruffs and feathery feet and the pretty Wyandottes with their lacy markings.

My first job, early in the morning – whatever the weather – was to let the chickens out. I loved the way they went crazy the second I opened the door, cackling and scratching and pushing to get out. And it amused me when I’d see a long line of our geese flying towards the chicken bowl, trying to muscle in on their breakfast. It was always a lively display and something that I felt belonged to me in a funny way. There was so little that was mine that I clung onto anything that was offered.

Indeed, we had some nice breakfasts for a while, with fresh eggs, cereal and toast. We still had to have All-Bran and linseeds, of course, and undergo the daily poo check, but it didn’t matter so much, as we had more variety in our diet.

As with all light, however, there is shadow and we were still having our ‘proper beaten-style’ beatings all the time, including on the soles of the feet, for the smallest things. One day, not long after John had died, I was in the kitchen when Eunice appeared, looking very angry. I was clearly in her Bad Books for some reason.

‘Where are those throat sweets I told you to get for Judith?’ she demanded.

I knew I was in for it because it was the third day in a row I’d forgotten. There was a little post office down the road where I could have gone to buy them but it had simply gone out of my mind. I knew that saying anything at all would inflame the situation, so I just tried to blank my face and stay still, hoping the storm would pass.

‘Cat got your tongue, has it? Well, I’ll give you a sore throat, then you’ll know how it feels.’

Next, I was being dragged unceremoniously out of the kitchen by my arm and into the living room. Since John had died Eunice had no need to take us out of the house, unless we were out already or she just felt like it, as she could now wield her stick in the comfort of her own home, behind closed curtains. Eunice pointed to the floor so I duly took up my position on my back, took my socks off, rolled up my trouser leg and put one leg in the air. It was always difficult to keep my leg up and I often had to hold it up with both hands, otherwise it wobbled so that she couldn’t take aim, prompting yet more punishment.

Eunice brandished her favourite stick – a chair leg, which she hid in the living room, propped up in a dark corner. She positioned herself alongside my body, as always. But then I noticed there were two sticks this time, not just one.

‘Open your mouth.’

What? What
’
s she up to now?
I turned my eyes towards her, terrified by what she was going to do now. Coming towards my opened mouth was a long piece of wood, wedge-shaped and about a foot long. To my horror, Eunice thrust the wood into my mouth, past my new front teeth, until it hit the soft tissue at the back of my throat. I retched automatically. It was a natural reaction. Shocked and terrified by what was happening to me, I retched again, tasting the wood. I choked, but couldn’t be sick, as I could hardly breathe and was pinned down, flat on my back, like a beetle staked to a tray. In response, Eunice pushed the wood in further. It hurt like hell, and again, I retched involuntarily. I was in complete distress and thought I was going to die. Looking up, past the wood sticking out of my mouth, I could see Eunice’s hand clamped firmly on the end, pressing it down into me. On her face was a look of stern concentration. I really thought she was out to kill me; that she might stab me to death through my neck and pin me to the floor. I wriggled to get out from under. I wanted to get away. Fast.