The Step Child (16 page)

So, Gordon started coming along on the visits. I should have known it wouldn’t take long for him to wreck it all, but I was still naïve enough to think it couldn’t get quite as bad as it did.

I hated taking him to Auntie Nellie’s. I didn’t want him there, soiling what we had together. Gordon brought the stench of Edina Place with him and he reminded me of Helen every time I looked at his ugly face. When he slumped into one of Auntie Nellie’s armchairs or messed up her ornament collection or
guzzled his tea, I despised him so much for taking the one thing I had in my life. One Sunday while we were at Auntie Nellie’s, Gordon motioned over to me while she was in another room. ‘Have you seen this?’ he whispered conspiratorially. I looked over at him from my chair. ‘I’m not interested.’ His eyes only ever sparkled when he was up to something – and they were like diamonds now. ‘You don’t even know what it is! How do you know you’re not interested?’ I knew that I was running quite a risk as Gordon’s anger was like that of his mother – quick, unprovoked and generally aimed at me. ‘Get over here, Donna,’ he snarled. ‘Come and see what Auntie Nellie has for us.’ I didn’t want him nosing about in Nellie’s things. He was over at the sideboard where she kept all her china and crystal, her headed notepaper, and lots of other precious things which made her my own. I should have known Gordon wasn’t interested in any of that. He’d found a purse full of change – that was all that had grabbed his attention. ‘Take it, Donna. Take it.’ He jangled the purse in front of me, rattling the coins inside. This was different. This wasn’t like stealing from Helen, whom I hated, to give to her son, whom I also hated. This would be taking from a woman who had only ever given to me. Nellie had given me her love, her attention, her mind – all of which were more important than the money she had lavished on our high teas and my school clothes.

I tried to tell Gordon I just couldn’t, but the look in his eyes made me realise it was useless. He may only have been a child, he may only have been five years old, but he had learnt so much from Helen. Some people question what children are capable of, what they can do – but over the years I’ve come to believe that those who are brought up as Gordon was can be incredibly manipulative and clever as children when it suits their ends, or the ends of those they are linked with. Helen pushed him to be what she wanted, her firstborn had to live up to her expectations – give a child the ammunition for what you want them to do and
they can flourish. And that is what this boy did. I remember it as if it was yesterday.

‘Take the stupid purse and go into the stupid old woman’s toilet,’ he hissed. ‘Take the stupid money out of the stupid purse and throw it out of the window into the garden. When we get home, you give me the money. All of it. And you do it now, Donna, you do it now.’

I was eight years old. I was so scared and numb, and anticipating such bad things, that I did it. I turned my back on all the good things Auntie Nellie had done for me and did exactly as Gordon said. My heart was sinking from the moment I touched the purse. Giving the money to Gordon didn’t take away the guilt. I knew it was the end. I had betrayed Auntie Nellie. I had ruined things again.

A few days later, Helen called me through to the living room. She could hardly contain her delight. ‘Well, you dim-witted, evil little cow,’ she began. ‘What nasty things have you been up to now?’ As she started on me, she waved a letter in front of my eyes. ‘Auntie Nellie has been telling me all about her perfect little Donna. Donna with the high hopes and big dreams. Donna with it all ahead of her.’ Helen read from the letter. We were no longer welcome at Auntie Nellie’s house – and, according to the words my stepmother read, my great-aunt was heartbroken.

Helen was torn between the glee she felt at having finally split us up and the opportunity she was now presented with to beat the living daylights out of me. Before I had even entered the room, Gordon had easily convinced his mother that the theft had nothing to do with him.

‘Get into the bathroom, you little bitch,’ spat Helen. I knew what was coming to me – she didn’t even have to tell me the drill any more. I took off my clothes and waited in the freezing room, clad only in my threadbare underwear. I waited and waited. Shivering. Dying inside at the thought of losing my precious, wonderful Auntie Nellie. ‘Over the bath,’ snapped Helen as she
came into the room. ‘Bend right over. And shut your fucking face.’ As the tawse railed down on the pathetic bits of flesh stretched over my bones, I knew the outside of my body was aching – but it was nothing compared to the ache I felt inside. Helen left me there, with a list of warnings. ‘You’re on “no rations”. Don’t even think of food. You don’t speak unless you’re spoken to. You don’t move unless you have permission. In fact, you don’t even fucking breathe unless I say you can.’ She also informed me that a couple of weeks had been added to my ‘sentence’. This was a strange notion of hers which allowed her to maintain the pretence that this was all about basic discipline, not child abuse. Those days, I was under a constant sentence from Helen. Whenever she claimed I had done something else ‘wrong’, another week or so would be added. I never knew what the total sentence was and I would never dare ask.

I was graciously allowed to go back to my bedroom, my freezing tiny body cultivating yet more cuts and bruises. Helen screeched at me to stand facing the wall without moving. As I counted the roses on the wallpaper, tracing the pattern over and over again with my eyes, things seemed more hopeless than ever. I had always had Auntie Nellie to dream of before – but she was gone. I was bitterly cold, starving, hurting inside and out, completely alone, and I had lost the one individual who had actually treated me as a person. When my Dad came home, the yelling started again – this time with Gordon smirking in the background. My Dad said he was going to disown me for bringing such shame on the family, but I knew they were only words.

I stood there in that room, listening to the insults, feeling the pain creep through my body, watching Gordon sneer at me, and I vowed to myself that one day – one day – I would be a person of whom Auntie Nellie would be proud. They wouldn’t crush me; they wouldn’t take away what she had instilled in me, no matter how hopeless it seemed.

I never saw my Auntie Nellie again. She died a few years later,
and it came to light at the reading of her will that she had planned to leave everything to me, until that fateful day. She may not have bequeathed me her house or its contents, but her efforts were not in vain. Apart from the obvious bequest of a love of books and a thirst for knowledge, Elizabeth Ewart left me with hope and a yearning to discover myself, to find the woman she thought that little girl could become. She made me realise the value of what each of us holds in our heart, no matter how bleak things become.

Auntie Nellie had gone. I was more alone than ever. All I was left with were her words. ‘Books are the key to knowledge, and knowledge is the key to life itself.’

And that alone would become enough to save me.

AUNTIE NELLIE LEFT ME
with an amazing legacy. I think about her much more than I think about Helen Ford, and I actively try to put the good stuff from Nellie way ahead of the bad stuff from Helen. As well as the emotional support and intellectual stimulation my father’s aunt gave me, she also provided a practical release. When she died, her huge collection of books was given to our family. Of course, this meant nothing to Helen. The books were worthless to her as reading material; she would never have considered actually using them – the only surprise is that she didn’t try to sell them as soon as they arrived. For me, they were a lifeline. Naturally, they weren’t given to me. They were stored in the boys’ room and I had to access them surreptitiously. My bed was next to a wall, against a door, on the other side of which was Simon’s bed. We couldn’t use the door properly, but Simon could open it a tiny bit and pass books through to me. Until then, I had been in total despair. Then I discovered this amazing, magical world. I had my escape and Nellie had given it to me.

I adored the musty smell of each new book that came through that tiny passage towards me. I loved the avenues which were opened up each time a new adventure began. I could be
transported to a world in which orphans won and young girls conquered their oppressors. I went on travels and had such experiences, even while stuck in a room with little light, no door handle, and an ogress outside. I learned to cope by living in a fantasy world. Books were all I had – they were the saviours of my childhood. On a daily basis, whenever possible, I would disappear into a story, becoming an intrinsic part of the plot, the scheme and the drama. Reading took me so very far away from my life as I was living it. I began to draw the scenes of the story on the blank pages at the beginning or end of the book, making it all as real as possible. My absolute favourite was
Little Women
, and I could reread it a hundred times without being bored, each time a new character appealing, each time a new story thread reeling me in.

Of course, Helen couldn’t bear it. On the occasions when she did catch me reading, I always thought that would be the last book I’d ever see. But something stopped her from getting rid of them, burning them or selling them – I can only assume my Dad played some part because I would hear them arguing about it, and I would be given another reprieve. Reprieve in the sense that the books would stay on Simon’s side of the door, but I would be beaten senseless for yet another rule transgression.

Things hadn’t changed for the better in Edina Place. I was still starving, still beaten, still neglected, humiliated and unloved. But now I had my books, I had my other world. Was that why Helen decided to make things even worse?

I know that, to a lot of people, I am nothing more than a category. I was an abused child. I am an adult living with the memories of that abuse. To some, I am a victim. To others, I am a survivor. But behind each label, behind each story, is an individual. And for this individual, the memories of the sexual
abuse I suffered, endured and moved on from have created the adult I am today. I defy anyone sexually abused as a child to claim that the abuse has had no effect on the way they have developed as a sexual being. However, it is only as I have begun to revisit my past that I have started to realise fully just how significant this aspect of my earlier life is to the person I now am. I wanted to say that it didn’t matter. I wanted to claim that it was of no consequence – but that is a façade that takes either too much stupidity or too much effort to maintain. I do feel that I have, at many points in my life, been in denial regarding this part of my history. What those men did, as much as what my stepmother did, has made me. I now owe it to myself to face that.