Daddy's Little Earner (12 page)

‘Don’t fight like a girl,’ he would tell me, ‘don’t scratch
and slap, you need to learn to punch hard like a boy.’

Then he would punch us with all his strength to show
us the right way to do it, unbothered by how much it
might hurt. He was always hitting us unexpectedly, giving
us ‘dead’ arms or legs for no reason, laughing at the
looks of shock on our faces as we bit back the tears, telling
us to toughen up, like that was the only reason he was
doing it – for our own good.

Because I was shy in school, and always felt like an
outsider anyway, I was an easy target for bullies. There
was a particular gang of three girls who were always
picking on me, laughing at my tatty clothes and taunting
me for being dirty and smelly.

‘You haven’t got a mum,’ they would shout into my
face, ‘because you’re so horrible even she left you.’

I knew they were right so I didn’t bother to argue, but their comments left me feeling sick and empty inside. I
kept coming home in tears but Dad would give me no
sympathy, telling me it was all my own fault and that I
should learn to stick up for myself. He had no time for a
girl who ‘blarred’ (cried) all the time.

‘You’re a wimp,’ he would tell me. ‘Punch them, then
they’ll leave you alone. Then they’ll respect you.’

Although I believed that the things the bullies were
saying were the truth, it still hurt to hear them from other
people, especially when they kept saying them over and
over again, constantly reminding me what a useless, ugly,
unlovable creature I was. I wanted it to stop; I wanted
them to like me, or at least to leave me alone, but I didn’t
know of any other way to make that happen apart from
Dad’s way. I just couldn’t find it in me to attack them like
he was telling me. I didn’t want to hurt anyone else in the
ways Dad seemed to enjoy hurting us.

One day the girls were going on and on at me as usual
and the tension was building inside my head, like an elastic
band being wound tighter and tighter. Finally I’d had
all I could cope with. Something inside me snapped and I
totally lost all sense of reason and restraint. I flew at them,
laying into them exactly as Dad had taught me to. I must
have been a scary sight, landing punches all over the place
without caring what happened to me as a result. The bullies
obviously weren’t expecting it because they put up
no resistance and I won easily. As soon as I really laid into the ringleader the others melted away with their jaws
hanging open and a crowd of onlookers gathered round,
enjoying the spectacle of the worm turning. Even though
I was meeting no resistance I still didn’t stop punching
until every ounce of my temper was finally drained away
and my opponent was lying in a crumpled heap on the
floor. I was euphoric when I saw what I’d done, all Dad’s
lessons having paid off, but I felt guilty at the same time.
As the girl groggily pulled herself up and backed off I
wanted to run after her to apologize and check that s
he was all right, but I knew I couldn’t do that if I wanted
to hold on to my newly won reputation for being hard. I
knew Dad would never have apologized for anything
and I wanted to be as feared and respected and untouchable
as him.

I couldn’t wait to get home and tell Dad what had
happened that day because I knew he would be pleased
with me for doing what he had told me to do. I was glowing
with pride at having stood up for myself. Dad seemed
proud of me too when I described to him what had happened,
giving a blow-by-blow description of my fabulous
victory. I felt that for the first time ever I had really done
the right thing and as a result I had finally succeeded in
pleasing him; I was actually turning into someone who
was worthy of his love. A few hours later, however, the
father of the girl I had attacked so ferociously came to the
door complaining that I’d beaten his daughter up. He wanted money because he said I’d broken her glasses and
torn her dress.

I stood proudly beside Dad at the door, happy to have
my victory confirmed like this, expecting him to lay into
the father just as I had laid into the girl, just as he’d laid
into that other dad when Terry got into a scrap in the
street. But instead of sticking up for me he suddenly
changed and started apologizing for my behaviour as if I
was some sort of delinquent child who was giving him
terrible problems. He was back to playing the sympathy
card, pretending to be the beleaguered single dad struggling
with difficult children. I wanted us to be a united
force on the doorstep, sending our enemy scuttling away
with his tail between his legs, but Dad had let me down.

As soon as the man left, Dad turned his anger on me
and gave me a beating for causing him so much trouble. I
was shocked and totally confused as his blows rained
down on me. How could he have changed so quickly?
Would I ever be able to do anything right? He’d always
told me I should stick up for myself and now that I had
he was hitting me again. When it was all over I was left
sitting on the stairs wondering what I could ever do to
please him.

Despite the fact that Dad had turned on me for
causing him to get a visit from an irate father, I had to
admit that he had been right about the need to stand up
for myself against the bullies. From that day onwards everything changed for me at school. I now had respect
and a ‘reputation’ for being hard. People who had witnessed
the fight had told other people about it and the story
of my awesome powers had probably grown in the
retelling. All the people who had previously ignored me
suddenly wanted to be my friends and no one ever picked
on me again. Deep inside I still felt guilty about the damage
I had inflicted on that poor girl, but I couldn’t afford
to let it show and I couldn’t help but enjoy my change
of status.

I might have taken on a new confidence on the outside,
but I was still the same insecure little girl on the
inside. Even though people no longer teased me, I still felt
different to the other girls, as though I didn’t belong there
amongst them, as though I wasn’t worthy. They all had
mums and dads who had stuck around for them and who
they knew loved them. That meant that in my eyes they
were superior, even if I could punch harder than them. I
found it difficult to play easily with other children, impossible
to ever relax and join in any childlike fun. I was
always on my guard, always expecting to be attacked,
always holding myself in reserve. I thought everyone was
laughing at me behind my back even if they no longer
dared to do it to my face.

The problem with becoming Queen Bee was that I
got noticed and other girls wanted the same respect that
they saw me being given. Every so often someone would try to pick a fight with me in order to show that they
were hard too. I never wanted to fight back but the other
girls would always be watching to see my reaction when
any challenge was made to my position. I knew that if I
backed out of a fight the way I always wanted to I would
immediately lose the respect I had earned and would risk
being bullied again. Most of the time I was able to get
away with just threatening the other girls, facing them
down, and I was always relieved when my reputation
did the intimidating for me and I didn’t have to hit
anyone.

Despite getting all this respect I still didn’t feel like I
was popular. I had been told so often over the years by
Dad and by the school bullies that I was worthless and
horrible that I completely believed it was true. It seemed
the only friends I had were girls who wanted me to stick
up for them against bullies, or the odd one or two who felt
sorry for me because of my home life. That sort of popularity
didn’t help my self-esteem in the least. The teachers
were often sympathetic towards me, as if they had
seen some sort of promise that was as yet unfulfilled, but I
never allowed myself to get close to any of them because
Dad was always going on about us not accepting charity
off anyone and I always suspected they were patronizing
me when they tried to reach out and help. I guess I made
it difficult for anyone who wanted to get close to me,
always looking for ulterior motives for their behaviour, constantly on the defensive and ready to believe the worst
about everyone.

Terry and I grew really close during our years together
with Dad. Even though he was only a year older than
me I believed he was much more mature and that he
knew everything. I would follow him around relentlessly,
never giving him a moment’s peace, certain that he could
make everything all right for us if he just chose to. He was
a boy and he was older, so in my mind that made him my
protector, my hero, the one with all the answers. But what
could he do? He was just as much of a child as me and
just as confused by everything that had happened to us. I
was never much interested in the usual girly activities like
playing with dolls; I just wanted to hang out with him
and his friends. Whenever they came round I used to beg
to be allowed to go with them.

‘No you can’t!’ the other boys would say, horrified at
the thought of having a small girl tagging along.

‘If she can’t come,’ Terry would say, ‘I’m not coming.’

It always worked because everyone liked Terry and
wanted to hang out with him.

At home, I sometimes persuaded him to play shops
with me and in return I’d play with his plastic cowboys
and Indians, staging fake battles for hours on end, just
like normal children our age.

We talked about almost everything together, sharing
our fears and our puzzlement, but I never told him about the sexual abuse when that started. Years later he admitted
that he had guessed something was going on but didn’t
know what to do about it. What could he have done?
He was just a boy and Dad and I were the two people
closest to him; there was nothing he could have said or
done that wouldn’t have earned him a terrible beating.
He became very angry when it eventually all came out
into the open. He must have felt painfully left out and
awkward about the way Dad treated me when we were
young, perhaps without really knowing why. Dad had
always rubbed it in about him being Mum’s favourite
and if he realized that Dad and I had secrets from him it
can only have increased his own feeling of isolation.
There was nothing I could have said to make him feel
better without actually telling him what was going on,
which would have been unbearably embarrassing for
both of us.

But I thank my lucky stars that I had Terry on my side
in those days. To have had to cope with Dad’s behaviour
on my own would have been unbearable. I don’t think I
would have survived.

It was always impossible to predict when some seemingly
routine part of our day would erupt into a nightmare.
One night when I was nine, for instance, Dad sent
me out to get him some butter. It was already getting
dark. Once I was in the shop I picked up our normal
brand of margarine without thinking, even though he had specifically asked for butter. When I got home and he
saw what I had done he exploded at me.

‘You are fucking useless,’ he screamed, his face only
inches from mine. ‘You can’t do anything right!’

He ordered me to go back to the shop, which I did,
keen to get out of the house again before his temper
spilled into physical violence. With my heart in my
mouth I bought what I thought was the right thing and
hurried home again, trembling at the thought that I
might still have got it wrong. Of course it turned out I had
got it wrong, although even to this day I don’t know what
I did. He shouted and screamed again and then kicked
me out of the house, issuing the usual threat: ‘Don’t come
back till you’ve got it right.’

With all the trips back and forth it had grown late and
by the time I got back into town the shop was closed but I
was too terrified to return empty-handed. I started to
walk towards home but I couldn’t face the thought of the
beating I was going to get for disobeying him. I knew
from experience that if he had set his mind on having
something specific nothing else would satisfy him, just
like the brands of whisky that he always insisted on. He
had told me not to go back without the right kind of butter
and I couldn’t disobey him, but I didn’t know where
else to go. I was well aware that I wouldn’t get a welcome
from Nanny and there wasn’t anyone else to turn to.

I remembered that there was a place at the back of the greengrocer’s shop at the bottom of our road, where they
dumped all the old crates and boxes to be taken away in
the morning, so I decided to stay there for the night and
try my luck again when the shops opened in the morning,
by which time Dad would hopefully have sobered up and
calmed down, or would have gone back down to the pub.

It was pitch black in the alley, away from the streetlights,
and bitterly cold. I felt as though I had suddenly
become homeless as I groped my way in amongst the boxes,
trying to make myself a nest without being able to see
what I was doing. I eventually managed to get myself into
a position where I thought I would be able to sleep, but it
wasn’t possible. When I closed my eyes I was painfully
aware of the cold and the uncomfortable corners of the
boxes, and every sound from the surrounding streets
seemed threatening. For the first time in my life I truly
wanted to die. I wanted to be able to close my eyes and
just drift away from the world, never to have to wake up
and start another day of struggling.

‘That’ll show them,’ I thought. ‘Then they’ll be sorry.’

I wondered if either Mum or Dad would actually feel
guilty about my death and decided they almost certainly
wouldn’t. Dad would just have said it was all Mum’s fault
for leaving me as a child and she would have thought it
was his fault for whatever he was doing to me after she
left. Sometimes I wondered if they had the remotest idea
what they were doing to any of their children with the way they behaved, or if they cared at all. I felt I must be
the worst little girl on the planet; that there must be something
really wrong with me that I had ended up in such a
terrible situation. It was a feeling I was to become very
familiar with over the years. I didn’t cry as I nested
amongst the old fruit boxes, because Dad had taught me
how to control my tears, so I just lay there, dry eyed and
miserable, staring out into the blackness of the back street
wishing that my heart would stop beating and my life
would end.