Deliver Me From Evil (25 page)

But I had no time now to dwell on it. I simply had to pull myself together and get on with things because I had no alternative. I was hungry and needed money fast. I had to look at the incident in the club as a nasty ‘blip’ from which I would learn. So a week after the attack, and three weeks after being dumped in the hostel, I got myself a catering job and I found somewhere else to live. Connexions helped me find my first job as a ‘grill chef, which meant I was flipping burgers over a barbecue. I started off at £5.25 an hour, then it was raised to £7. I also moved into a rented room in Shirehampton in Bristol. There was a landlord on site and I had access to a computer in the living area which I had to pay for to use. I learned how to access the Internet and thought it was fantastic. The landlord made it clear that I couldn’t have visitors back to the house, especially not blokes, but I had great fun at night exploring chat rooms. It was an amazing world to me; I’d had no idea before that such a thing existed.

However, within a very short amount of time the landlord started pestering me. He got it into his head that he fancied me and he started trying to control me. It was terrible. I was managing to get to work on the bus and do my job, which was fairly boring, but at least I was earning. But at night, the landlord watched my every move and in the end he switched off the Internet and wouldn’t let me use it, even though I had paid for it. I think he must have been jealous of me contacting other men. Anyway, we argued over it and then he told me to leave. I couldn’t believe it, but I had to find somewhere else, and fast.

My life was going from bad to worse, and I’d only been in Bristol a short time. But I was still determined to survive. I had seen what happened to other young people like me who had nowhere to go. Turfed out by parents who didn’t love them, or couldn’t look after them, they hung around on the streets, begging, prostituting themselves or taking drugs. There seemed to be drug dealers on every corner; this was a big city and it certainly wasn’t kind, especially to lonely young people who needed to make their way.

As I was now homeless again I went back to Connexions and, with their help, ended up in a women’s hostel in Redcliffe in Bristol. I got a job in McDonald’s and, as I’d already had some catering training by then, I did quite well there. Again, I found it really boring, but I was used to kitchens, cleaning, sweeping and doing menial work, and I guess it did give me some independence. I had to get used to being alone, paying my rent, buying my own food, saving my pennies. It was a whole new way of life and absolutely everything was down to me, as I had nothing to fall back on.

There was a time when I was first in Bristol when I did let my hair down and tried some drugs. I also drank quite a bit. I call it my ‘wild time’. I went out with Beany and some other people I met at the hostel. We were all in the same boat and gravitated towards each other. I felt I was learning to be cool. I think I was catching up on a lot of lost youth and, of course, everyone else around me in the clubs was doing the same kind of thing. I tried drugs like ecstasy and speed, but always with Eunice’s voice in the back of my mind, telling me I was evil. I tried to ignore it and was discovering that away from her I was actually quite a feisty person who needed to let rip, to be free and make my own mistakes.

But I also found, after a while, that taking drugs didn’t really do much for me. I’d take some and dance until dawn, and then feel awful afterwards. I never could drink very much (although I certainly managed more than one bottle of Wicked without forgetting what happened afterwards); I didn’t like feeling totally off my face. I liked wine and cider, but hated beer, and I would try sweet drinks, like Breezers, which I preferred. In the end drink and drugs didn’t give me the freedom I wanted; although they gave me some respite from the hard grind of everyday reality, they didn’t solve my problems. I was still faced with getting up, doing a job, paying my bills, and finding a way to get myself to a better place.

It was at McDonald’s that I met Braedon, an interesting guy around my age, who made a beeline for me. Skinny, with short, gelled hair and pale skin, he was very intense and sometimes funny. I felt sorry for him as he told me a long sob story about how his dad had kicked him out. He was very persistent and sort of attached himself to me. Within two days of meeting him, he’d moved in with me at the hostel. There was an attraction between us and he was fun to be with at the time, but I had no experience of relationships and, with the benefit of hindsight, I know I didn’t love him. I was scared of being alone; I wanted someone I could call my boyfriend and maybe I hoped he would protect me as I was all alone in the big city. I’m not proud of it, but that’s the way it was.

I had lost my virginity by now. After the attempted rape I did have a one-night stand with someone I met at a club, as I just wanted to get it over with. If sex was such an important thing and something every man I met seemed to want, I felt I needed to be in charge in some way. I soon discovered that men were turned on by the idea that I was a virgin, so the sooner I wasn’t one the better. That way, I thought – mistakenly, as it turned out – I would be able to call the shots in my life. Losing my virginity, however, was neither pleasant nor fun – it was just messy and I didn’t enjoy it. I had sex with several people after that, but I really didn’t know what I was doing, and didn’t much like it.

When Braedon moved in I was still only seventeen. Although by then I was a little more experienced, I didn’t know what I was letting myself in for letting him live with me so quickly. I certainly wouldn’t do that now. For a start, I was breaking the rules by letting him live with me in the women’s hostel so I was jeopardizing the roof over my head. However, he managed to stay there undetected for four months before getting a hostel place of his own. I also stayed with him, although that wasn’t allowed either.

In retrospect, I think Braedon just needed somewhere to crash and I was easy prey. I seemed to attract men a lot. Perhaps it’s because I’m petite, or maybe it’s my long, dark, curly hair (as soon as I left Eunice I was able to let it grow), but I’ve never had a shortage of men wanting to be with me. At that time I came across as very vulnerable and that was a magnet; I didn’t seem worldly or tough like other girls, although I was probably tougher inside than most people.

I discovered that Braedon had lied to me about his father kicking him out; in fact, he’d left of his own free will as they weren’t getting on. This should have been a warning sign, but I just thought it was better to be with somebody than be alone.

Then the worst thing possible happened to me. I got pregnant. We were using condoms, but something obviously went wrong. The thin blue line appeared on a pregnancy test and I was pregnant, at eighteen. What on earth was I to do? I knew by then I didn’t love Braedon, and that I had fallen into a dysfunctional relationship. He had mood swings and would become suddenly very aggressive. Sometimes he would hit me, but because I was so used to Eunice’s violence (which was much more extreme, of course), I fell back into the same pattern of taking it and not reacting. I didn’t like it, but after years of conditioning, of being told I was worthless, it just didn’t occur to me when Braedon hit me that I should call the police or walk out of the door. Part of the problem was that I didn’t know what to do now I was pregnant and had nowhere else to go.

I was in a real quandary and I did weaken and call Eunice at this point. I needed to talk to someone and she was the only person I could think of. I was angry with myself for calling her, but being pregnant and alone, I felt I needed her help. It wasn’t an easy call to make – it hurt my pride as she had already told me I was scum and would mess up, and now I seemed to be proving her right. As it turned out she was utterly useless and told me, ‘You will abort it,’ meaning I was a terrible person who would obviously get rid of an unborn child.

At that point, I really did wonder if I could be a mother and offer a child a proper way of life. I didn’t immediately feel bonded with the little bean growing inside me and I did consider an abortion. But I also felt sorry for the baby. It wasn’t the baby’s fault that I had got pregnant, and it didn’t seem humane to destroy a child through no fault of its own. I had always had an affinity with all living things and I just didn’t think I could bring myself to kill anything that was alive.

However, falling pregnant suddenly made me think a lot about my parents. When you are going to have a child yourself you think more about your origins. What are you going to tell your child about their family history? Who will be their grandparents? Who will be there at the important times of their life, when they cut their first tooth or when they learn to walk, ride a bike, pass exams or even get married themselves? Being pregnant made me realize that I had to get back in touch with my parents somehow, but I had no idea what their address was or how to start looking for them.

I managed to get myself onto a register then for a council house and had to give two months’ notice to quit the hostel when I was seven months pregnant. I was very unsure of what I wanted to happen with Braedon, but regardless, we moved into a two-bedroom cottage in Kingswood just before my daughter was born.

The birth itself was fairly straightforward, although I wasn’t properly prepared for it. I never went to classes or anything like that. I was ten days late, feeling very restless and grumpy, when the first small contractions started. I thought,
If that
’
s as bad as it gets it’ll be a breeze.
But then they got closer together and then they were absolute agony. That took about two hours to happen. Braedon was in the cottage and didn’t help me at all. In fact, he told me to go and get him a kebab while the contractions were coming. I went and got him his kebab, hardly able to walk, having to pause every time the contractions came and I doubled up in pain to get through them. When I returned, Braedon seemed more concerned about whether or not I’d got chips with his kebab than anything else. While the ambulance was coming I cleaned out my cat Pansy’s litter tray and left Braedon instructions on how to look after her for the weekend – which he then completely ignored. I didn’t feel at all relieved when the crew arrived, as I was worried about Pansy and whether she’d survive my absence. Braedon just sat there eating his kebab and watching TV as I was carted off to hospital to have his child. He never offered to come with me because, I think, he didn’t really want it to be happening at all.

When I got to hospital I was already two centimetres dilated; they gave me some pethidine to relax me and put me on the ward. I slept fitfully between the pains and after about three hours, I began to have some mighty contractions and a bloody show. By then Braedon had arrived and was sitting beside me amusing himself on his PlayStation. He wasn’t warm or kind towards me, and didn’t help with my breathing or pains. I felt more alone than I’d ever felt in my entire life. When I rang the bell because I was in agony Braedon snapped at me to be quiet and not make a fuss. I couldn’t believe his attitude, but I was in no fit state to argue. The baby was coming rapidly as the staff wheeled me to the birthing suite in a wheelchair and about forty minutes later, Ivy was born. When she was placed in my arms I have to admit that I didn’t feel a gush of overwhelming love. I sat with my new, tiny baby in my arms and thought,
I’m in a terrible relationship, it’s all wrong and I don
’
t know what to do.

I went home from hospital feeling pretty daunted about having a new baby to look after. I didn’t know what to do and Braedon was not very supportive. I was tired and the baby cried a lot, so the first few weeks I just managed to muddle through. I was beginning to get warm feelings for the baby, but I wasn’t yet ‘in love’ as people describe it. Then I had a phone call from a girl who told me Braedon had fathered a child with her. I had no idea what to do or say, and she changed her story so much I doubted it was true, but she was ringing me all the time and it was really unsettling. On top of this I was trying to cope with a new baby, who didn’t sleep at night, and I was exhausted.

Perhaps because I was having such a tough time, one day in August 2004, when Ivy was three months old, I finally decided to track down my parents in earnest. I’d thought about it before, but hadn’t known where to start and had let it slide. I eventually worked out that I needed to look up the electoral register. To do my detective work I went to Kingswood Library. Because I didn’t know my parents’ address the librarian told me to search on the Internet for family tree sites. That didn’t help so I looked on ‘lost children’ websites – the sites adopted children use to find their parents. I drew a blank as I soon discovered that I’d never been adopted by Eunice. Then I tried the Cheltenham Social Services website. Looking at a map, I recognized the name of a road near where my parents used to live. I remembered the approximate number of their house and I wrote a short letter to every possible address in the surrounding streets, saying who I was and that I was looking for my mum and dad.

A couple of days later I was absolutely amazed to receive a text message from my parents, saying they would write soon and they couldn’t wait to get back in contact with me. I was gobsmacked. Thrilled and scared at the same time. I wrote another letter inviting them and my nan to Ivy’s christening. I was having a little ceremony, mainly organized through Braedon’s mum, whom I knew quite well by then. It just seemed right to have something in a church, although I wasn’t particularly religious any more.

Unfortunately, none of my family appeared at the christening and I was extremely disappointed, although it was a good day and I was glad that I had done it for my beautiful little girl. It seemed like ages before I heard anything further from my parents, then one day, the post arrived and there was a card from my nan in shaky handwriting. In it she explained that they hadn’t come to the christening because she had lost her voice and my mum wasn’t well, but they promised to send Ivy a christening bracelet, which arrived later.