I Won't Forgive What You Did (19 page)

When I was discharged I took the baby round to my mother’s, because some instinct must have taken over, and all I really understood was that if
I
couldn’t cope with him, then at least my mother could do better. In that sense, it seems obvious to me today I was still desperate for a mummy of my own. And despite everything I’d seen and experienced, I consciously believed that to be true. I didn’t then believe she was a ‘bad’ mother generally – I thought it was
my
fault she’d been so with me.

She took over straight away. ‘Here,’ she said immediately, taking him from me. ‘Give him to me.’ She then swaddled him tightly in a cloth. I felt panicky watching her. It was a feeling I couldn’t articulate, and yet was so strong. Here was my baby and what was she doing to him? I felt once again overwhelmed.

Breastfeeding had never been an option, not only because I’d felt so dreadful post-natally, but also, despite my positive experiences with Joe, because I still associated my breasts with what Grandpops had done to them, and as a consequence they felt ‘bad’. The idea also felt difficult, like another type of assault, and the knowledge that I never got to – or indeed, will, ever – breastfeed my own children is something that still saddens me greatly, even today.

My mother, who I’d never seen breastfeed, immediately pushed the baby’s bottle into his mouth and started telling my aunt, who was visiting, what a useless mother I was, how I never wanted to be a mother – was never going to have any children – and now look at me! They both seemed to find this very funny. In the midst of this I couldn’t take my eyes off my baby. Why wasn’t she watching what she was doing while she was feeding him? While she was laughing he could be choking.

Yet what could I do about her taking over in this way? I
had
said those things, and she was right – so far I
had
been a useless mother.

This set a pattern that never ever seemed to vary. I’d go to her house, she’d grab my baby, say ‘give him to me’, and then swaddle him and feed him. And it was her confidence that was key. I felt so hopeless, it was a relief to hand him over. Deep down I cared deeply for the baby I’d borne, but my conscious mind was all too ready to agree. So I just had to put up with the fact that, if anyone was there to listen, she’d repeat the same thing to them – that, unlike her, I was completely useless as a mother.

We eventually named our baby Alfie and, as the weeks passed, we settled into a routine. My mother’s principal advice to me was that if he cried I should ignore him, except to feed and change him, because, if I didn’t, he’d end up a spoilt, demanding and unpleasant child. So I didn’t tell her that once I started getting used to him, and feeling less fearful, I’d break this rule, often, in the privacy of my own home. Though sometimes I’d just want to sit and look at him, I started propping him up on the sofa beside me, and played with him and laughed at all the noises he’d make. He sometimes sounded, to me, a little bit like a dolphin, but I didn’t share this with my mother or she’d know I was spoiling him.

When Alfie was three weeks old, I went back to work for the same lady, and took him with me. I’d felt guilty about not contributing to the finances, but going back to work was equally distressing. When I was working I was anxious all the time about Alfie, worried he’d wake and start crying and need feeding and my employer would be cross about things not getting done. She never suggested this was the case, but if I stopped working for even a minute to tend to him I felt enormously guilty. It was almost as if I’d been so conditioned to never have needs of my own, that everyone would be cross with me for illustrating that
he
did, as if such things simply weren’t allowed. All of which was ridiculous thinking anyway, as I’d already insisted on taking a cut in pay, as I felt it only fair now I was bringing along a baby.

I seemed to live with guilt all the time. Guilt that I couldn’t spend time with Alfie when I was working, and guilt for getting paid for doing work I wasn’t doing because I was feeding him or changing him or getting him off to sleep.

On Saturdays, however, our time was our own, and we’d often wrap Alfie up and put him in his pram and walk the six miles to my parent’s house so we could still go food shopping with them. I felt increasingly strange about the things my mother did with Alfie. Though to some people they might have seemed nothing out of the ordinary, I used to hate it that she was always so keen to take off his nappy, chattering all the time about ‘his little willy’ and finding it so funny that he’d wee, which he often did. She’d laugh and laugh about this, just as she’d laughed throughout my childhood about anything to do with willies, in all likelihood because of what she’d suffered sexually. That aspect of her personality I’d become used to, by this time, but in relation to my baby it felt horrible.

When Alfie was about seven months old, we were out shopping one day and bumped into Maria, the girl from school who I’d been in the play with and whose father had used my hand to masturbate with.

She seemed keen to meet up. She said she and her boyfriend had nowhere to go much, bar the pub, and they’d love to come and see our house. I felt embarrassed – had done around her since the incident – but unable to say, ‘Did you know your father assaulted me?’ Instead I said, ‘Yes, that would be nice.’

Maria and her boyfriend started coming twice a week, and on Sundays, because they began coming ever earlier, I even started doing dinner, which we really couldn’t afford.

Worse, though, was that Maria kept insisting I must go round and show Alfie to her parents. She apparently talked to them about him all the time, and she said they were really looking forward to seeing him. As usual, unable to be either assertive or find excuses, I was eventually persuaded and we all trooped round. Maria’s father was obviously very agitated. While her mother cooed and fussed around Alfie, he looked anxious and wouldn’t meet my eye. Eventually, after some forced laughter and a few noises made at Alfie, he went out, mumbling about going to cut the grass.

I hated it, but after that first visit Maria was keen to include us in all her family gatherings. And as Joe knew nothing about the past, and got on well with Maria’s boyfriend, I felt unable to do anything but endure it. I was an adult now, but the feelings of duplicity remained strong. I felt as uncomfortable around her father as he so clearly did with me, as much responsible for the terrible things he’d done as he was doubtless terrified I might spill the beans.

But freedom from the rest of the world beckoned, because when Alfie was a year old Joe passed his driving test. So we bought a little car, and were independent at last. It was only an old banger but we loved it. Loved that we could take Alfie out anywhere we wanted, loved that we could go shopping on our own, instead of trailing round with my mother. Loved going to the beach, where we’d lay on a blanket in the sunshine, or to have picnics in the countryside, just the three of us.

It was the first properly happy time I’d ever had in my life, and I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else now. As winter closed in we’d cut up logs together, for the fire, which we’d store in our little shed to keep dry. I loved our clean, quiet home, and though I was still struggling with Alfie emotionally, I loved that I could now meet his needs physically. Joe was always really nice to me, caring and gentle, and I’d started to tell him I loved him, because I did, and could imagine us being together always.

But then, when Alfie was eighteen months old, Joe came home from work one day and delivered a bombshell. He was bored and wanted to look for a new job. I was devastated. For the first time in my life I felt stable and secure, and if he left his job we’d also lose our home.

Joe didn’t seem to care. He was determined to move on, and gave his four weeks’ notice anyway.

My father was livid. ‘I found you that fucking job!’ he shouted. ‘That farmer trusted me! I have a fucking relationship with these people! You stupid bastard!’ But Joe was adamant. Nothing my father said made the slightest difference. He was leaving. So now we had nowhere to go.

I contacted the council to see if they’d help, but all they could offer us was a bed and breakfast place in town, coincidentally close to the Honey Globe cafe. We had no choice but to take it, even though it was completely unsuitable; Joe had got a new job as a labourer, in a nearby town, and would now be away every weekday from six in the morning to six at night – sometimes later, if he had to work late to finish a job – and the days now seemed interminable. I’d got used to him popping home for lunch when on the estate, and now he was gone for twelve hours at a time and when he was home he seemed distant and preoccupied.

I was only doing my old cleaning job two mornings a week now, as the lady’s children were all in school, so I had a lot of time on my hands. But, uncomfortable hanging around someone else’s house all day, I’d wrap Alfie up and we’d spend our time mooching round the streets or visiting my mother, or my elder sister. Yet I felt in the way at my mother’s house now, so would spend my time engaged in the largely pointless task of cleaning up the mess, clearing out and scrubbing. Since living in my own home, it always struck me anew how alien and chaotic her house was.

Once again, I felt sad and lonely, and the depression I’d had since Alfie’s birth, that for a time had almost lifted, now returned with a vengeance. I knew I had to do something or else plunge even deeper into the abyss, so I contacted social services to see if we could be moved from the bed and breakfast. What we needed was a place of our own again. Perhaps then we’d get back on track.

All they had to offer was a live-in job for me, looking after a family of six children, whose mother was due to have an emergency hysterectomy. Joe and Alfie and I would apparently have our own ‘very large bedroom’, and would share the rest of their ‘nice house in the country’.

I took it – a rash and impulsive decision – and the three of us moved in straight away. Unfortunately, however, what they hadn’t told me was that not only would the children’s father be there, but also that the nice house was actually in the middle of nowhere and our bedroom was dingy, cold and damp. They were a poor working-class family, living in very poor conditions, in a house tied to a farm. Looking after all those children, plus Alfie, who was by now almost two, was exhausting, as was cooking for ten people every night. Joe was also now working much longer hours for hardly any more money, and even though I knew he’d brought this on himself, I still felt desperately sorry for him. Yet he told me he’d no choice but to stay late most nights; the firm were making people redundant, and if he didn’t do the overtime, he might lose his job.

The father of the children I was looking after was a very strange man. He seemed unable, or unwilling, to make conversation, and mostly just stood or sat, watching me work, in silence, especially at lunchtimes, when we were on our own apart from Alfie, as his own children were all at school.

It turned out I was right to be wary. One lunchtime, when I was standing at the stove cooking sausages, and he’d been silently watching me for some time, he crossed the kitchen, put his arms around my waist and tried to kiss me. I pulled away sharply, disgusted and appalled, and though he immediately realized he’d done wrong and apologized, I knew I couldn’t bear to stay there any more.

I’d planned to phone social services on the Monday to see if they could find us somewhere else. The mother was due home, in any case, and until then they’d just have to cope. But when I woke the next morning I felt terrible. I’d been up all night suffering from sickness and diarrhoea and now I literally couldn’t get out of bed. I had a raging temperature too, and had no choice but to lie there while Joe, it being a Saturday, tried to look after me. Eventually I suggested I ought to see a doctor. By now, I felt sure there was something seriously wrong.

The doctor came and examined my stomach. He felt it was a virus and that further bed rest was needed – I’d probably begin to recover the next day.

I didn’t feel better the next day – in fact, I felt worse, could now barely stagger to the toilet and I couldn’t pass any urine when I got there. By the Monday, really worried now, I asked Joe to drive me to the surgery, where we were told he must drive me immediately to hospital, and they’d telephone and let them know to expect us.

I felt even worse, hearing this. The next day was Alfie’s second birthday, and now we had to stop off and drop him at my mother’s; I knew this wasn’t something that would be sorted out this evening, and I felt wretched watching Joe take him into the house. I was too ill to even get out of the car. Even worse was watching him hand her the Tonka truck we’d bought him, knowing I wouldn’t be there tomorrow to give it to him.

Once in Casualty I was processed very quickly and given an anal examination. It was excruciatingly painful, but even worse was the news that I was going to have to have an emergency operation, because they could see something inside me had ruptured. The very air around me seemed full of apprehension that night. Was this it now? Was this how I was going to die?

I came round from my operation to find Joe and both my mother and father around my bed. They’d apparently been summoned there immediately after the operation as it was considered fairly likely I might die. The surgeon had apparently opened me up to find my insides in a terrible state. He had likened it to there having been some sort of explosion, and told me I’d been very lucky. Various nerve endings, my bowel, and my bladder, were all gangrenous, due to some sort of burst cyst. They’d also removed my appendix, which had been very close to bursting itself. Had it done so, I knew I might not have survived. I had a tube in place, draining the pus from my stomach, as well as a catheter and drip.