Daddy's Prisoner (18 page)

‘I’m okay,’ she’d say with a smile. ‘It’s just a bad day but tomorrow will be better.’

But while our new flat gave Mum a little more freedom, it only made me even more of a prisoner. Being on the ground floor meant Dad could watch me even when I left the flat now and there wasn’t a second of the day when he didn’t know what I was doing. I got out of bed when he told me to, went to sleep when he decided it was time and couldn’t be in the bathroom or kitchen too long before he started shouting.

I think he got braver because he’d started seeing more of his sisters, nephew and nieces who came to visit sometimes. It made The Idiot feel even stronger because he was part of a tribe again and his sisters looked up to him so much that there were no limits now to the extent Dad wanted to be in control. It was more than four years since the kids had left and Mum was still lost without them but her fight had gone. Sometimes I’d find her sitting in a chair looking at their pictures and tracing the outlines of their faces.

‘They’re not being hurt any more,’ she’d say as she looked at them.

Now Mum and I were the only ones left to order around and we weren’t even allowed to speak without Dad’s say-so and had to sit in silence for hours while he watched TV. We were his prisoners and fear kept us in chains. I left the flat even less now and being sent to the shops almost scared me as much as being at home because I knew Dad was watching me as I crossed the road. Most of the time the living-room curtains in our flat had been closed with just a crack open at the top to let in a sliver of sunshine because The Idiot liked living in the half light. But now when Mum unlocked the door and I was sent to get some food or cigarettes, Dad would pick up his stick from beside his bed and pull back the curtain to see me. I knew he was watching my every move and my heart hammered as I ran across the road. It happened more and more now: I’d feel as if my heart was going to burst as the breath was crushed out of me. Kneading my sweaty palms, I’d try to tell myself everything was okay. But it felt as if I was going to die when the panic flooded over me and I stood in the shop praying that the person in front would hurry up.

‘What took you so long?’ Dad would snap when I got home.

‘There was a queue.’

‘Didn’t look like one to me. I couldn’t see anyone going in or out of that shop. Were you talking to someone?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, Dad. It was busy, that’s all.’

‘Well, just remember I’ve got my eye on you.’

‘I know.’

‘And if you dare try anything then I’ll finish off your mother, do you hear?’

His threats would ring in my ears every time I left the house and if someone who knew Dad or one of his relatives stopped to ask how Mum was, I’d always be too scared to linger. Muttering a few words, I’d hurry on because I knew that he was watching and waiting – staring at the clock to make sure I didn’t take a second longer than he’d put up with and give him an excuse to punish me.

It’s hard to know why monsters do half the things they do but I think The Idiot stopped performing even the most basic human tasks for himself because it made him feel powerful when we did them for him. No job was too disgusting, no request too repulsive that Mum or I would dare say no.

The black hole we were falling into just got deeper and deeper in those years after we moved to the ground-floor flat and Dad stopped getting out of bed. The only time he moved was to go to the clubs occasionally and soon he had bed sores – red, weeping wounds on his backside – that people in hospital get. But Dad wasn’t ill, just lazy and determined to humiliate Mum and me every second of the day. It started with the bed baths he demanded she give him because his skin itched but soon he even stopped using the toilet.

It was less than ten feet from the living-room door to the bathroom but he wouldn’t even take those few steps. Instead, he used bottles to pee in or would crouch over a mop bucket he kept by the side of the bed. Sometimes he’d throw the toilet paper on the floor after wiping himself and my stomach would turn as I had to pick it up. He still spat on the floor, of course, when he felt like it but now his mess was littered across the lounge. Of course, he didn’t always hit the bucket and I’d have to clean up after him then too. But if I didn’t do it right or if I took too long and got in the way, he’d make sure to let me know.

‘Hurry up, you silly cow,’ he’d say as he picked up a piece of stained toilet paper and threw it at me.

Once when Michael was visiting, he tried to have a word with Dad as he peed into a bottle when he was lying in bed.

‘You could ask us to go out when you do that, you know,’ he said.

‘When you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go,’ The Idiot replied with the hint of a smile, as if he almost enjoyed people’s shock.

The only thing he’d do for himself was shave because I think even he wouldn’t risk letting Mum or me anywhere near him with a razor. Just one slip of the knife and it would all be over. He could sense the danger – just like the night I took one of his knives and stood over him while he was sleeping. My hand trembled as I stared at Dad – just one swift move and we would be free. But he stirred in his sleep as if he knew I was near and I crept back to my room with my heart thumping.

He controlled every move we made and Mum did everything from cutting his toenails to combing his greasy hair. Whatever she did, though, he’d usually end up shouting and as time went by the panic I felt when I went outside started to fill me when I heard his screams. The only time he moved was to throw something at us or scream abuse. There was less physical violence now but the moment Dad began to shout, I’d start to shake. I knew what was hidden in the room with us; I could see the pictures of the weapons in my head even if they weren’t in front of me.

‘Will he kill me this time?’ a voice would shout in my head. ‘Will he really do it?’

And then another softer voice would whisper: ‘I hope so because then you’ll be free.’

There was never any logic to The Idiot’s moods – he used any tiny thing as a reason to humiliate us. One night, for instance, Mum and I were sent out in the early hours to get him a takeaway. It was a long walk in the cold and we hurried back, both silently hoping that his food was still hot.

‘What’s this?’ he sneered when he tasted it. ‘It’s a curry from the fucking Chinese, isn’t it? Those fucking Chinkies can’t cook.’

‘But the chip shop was shut,’ Mum tried to say as Dad threw the plate of burning food at us.

Bits of hot sauce spattered my bare arms as I tried to get out of the way and the plate hit the floor.

‘Just clean it up,’ he snapped. ‘And get me something else to eat.’

He didn’t care now what bruises he gave us because we hardly saw anyone – not even the nurses who needed to come and visit Mum were allowed in. But while there were occasions when he hit Mum or me, most of the violence was psychological now. He’d learned how to control us without using his fists. Once I walked into the lounge when he was practising with his knives and one flew past my face. It felt as if he was giving me a message. Or he’d lie in bed next to Mum and pinch her again and again. Tiny little nips which made him laugh as he saw her flinch in pain.

‘Please stop,’ she’d tell him. ‘I don’t like it.’

‘I don’t care what you want, you fat, lazy bitch,’ he’d sneer. ‘You can’t look after me right so what the fuck use are you? I should get myself another woman.’

‘Maybe you should,’ Mum would whisper before he backhanded her across the face and she started crying.

He didn’t hit me as much but the worse thing was that he didn’t care how much he hurt me when we had sex now. For so long, Dad had almost pretended to be gentle – asking me if I liked it just as he had when I was a little girl. But now he didn’t seem to care as he forced his way inside and made me do whatever he wanted. Eight months after moving into the new flat, I fell pregnant again. I was just a few weeks along when I found out in the summer of 1993. Once again, I lied about how it had happened but Dad didn’t get away with it so easily this time because his relatives asked questions, even if Mum didn’t. I knew Dad’s sisters and nieces were whispering about this pregnancy. They were the only people allowed in the house so they knew more than most what my life was like.

‘How did she do it? She’s never out. I haven’t seen her with a boyfriend.’

The Idiot silenced them all with a snarl.

‘She’s the biggest slag around here,’ he’d tell them. ‘Look at her, the useless lump. She just takes what she can get. She’s done it since she was a girl and it’s the same this time. Fucking whore.’

Thankfully, it was only a couple of weeks before I started bleeding again and had another operation. I didn’t feel anything when I miscarried for a fourth time because how can you feel when you’re already dead inside? There were rocks in my heart now and although Dad was more careful for a while because of all the questions, I knew the time would come when he wasn’t.

I was his prisoner and The Idiot knew for sure the night he took me to a Christmas party at one of the clubs. Looking at the families sitting together, I thought of my brothers and sisters and wondered where they were and what they were doing as I remembered the times we’d been together and the fun we’d had. They’d always got so excited about Christmas, desperate for me to tell them about Santa Claus and his reindeer. Did they remember me now? It had been so many years since I’d seen them and yet suddenly it felt like yesterday as I looked around at the families drinking, singing, dancing and celebrating together. Mum and I weren’t even allowed to talk about the kids now. We’d received a couple of letters from the social workers after they’d gone but soon it was as if they’d never existed and I felt so sad as I looked at all the people around me and remembered. I knew I had to stay strong for Mum because she was getting weaker and weaker, but it was so hard.

‘How about a dance?’ a voice said, and I looked up.

The man was tall and handsome with brown eyes. He reminded me of Jimmy.

I didn’t think about Dad when I agreed to dance with him or let myself feel afraid about the punishment I knew would come, the beating I’d get. I wanted to feel alive like I had when the kids were still with us – as if there was someone in the world who wanted me – and holding on to this man I could believe it for the few short minutes the song lasted. At the end, he leaned forwards to kiss me and I let him: my first proper kiss. Not the peck Jimmy had given me or what Dad had taken. For a moment I felt life flicker inside me. I knew The Idiot’s eyes were on me every second and when I sat down at the table, I felt his fingers dig into my arm.

‘What the fuck are you playing at, you stupid slag?’ he shouted. ‘Do you think anyone would want you or do you think he knows you’re the biggest whore in here?’

A man sitting near us looked around as The Idiot threw a string of insults at me. He was a friend of Dad’s but now stared at him as if he didn’t know him at all before quietly moving away. Dad was usually careful to hide what he was really like from outsiders but he was too angry for that now.

‘Will you never learn?’ he yelled. ‘No one else is going to want you, do you hear? He just knew you were fucking desperate, that’s all. All he wanted was a quick poke, do you hear? Now move it.’

He didn’t stop screaming for the next hour. In the car and back in the flat, he told me I was a prick tease, a joke and I’d been egging the guy on – desperate to fuck him. Everyone knew what I was like. There wasn’t a person in the club who didn’t know what a slut I was.

‘She didn’t mean it,’ Mum kept trying to reassure him.

‘Don’t give me that shit!’ The Idiot screamed as he walked up to me holding a knife in his hand. ‘She wants to humiliate me in front of all my friends.’

He pushed the blade towards me and grabbed hold of my arm.

‘I will fucking kill you if you ever embarrass me like that again,’ he screamed. ‘I’m not taking you there to get your hole filled, do you hear?’

I stared at the knife in terror as he looked me up and down. I was wearing a new T-shirt he’d bought me, an old skirt and trainers.

‘Give me that top now,’ he yelled. ‘I buy you something nice and then you’re all over him.’

I took off the top and handed it to Dad. With a snarl, he started ripping it until it lay in pieces at his feet. Standing in my skirt and bra, I turned towards my bedroom door so that I could get another T-shirt.

‘What are you doing?’ The Idiot roared. ‘Get out of my flat. I don’t want you anywhere near me, do you hear? I don’t want a little slag like you in here.’

Grabbing at a T-shirt lying on the floor by my bedroom door, I turned towards the hallway.

‘No,’ pleaded Mum. ‘It’s freezing out there. She’ll catch her death.’

‘Good,’ The Idiot snorted. ‘It might teach her a lesson.’

He pushed me towards the door and I dug my feet into the carpet.

‘Please don’t,’ I shrieked. ‘Don’t make me go outside. Let me stay here. I won’t do it again. I’m sorry, Dad.’

But he didn’t listen as he pushed me out into the cold and I heard the key turn in the lock. I didn’t want to be out here alone. I knew what was waiting for me. I’d been told by Dad for long enough that the world was a dangerous place.

Sitting down on the step to wait, I could hear The Idiot shouting at Mum as she asked him to let me back in. I shivered as fear filled me. What was he going to do to her? How could I have been so stupid? I should never have done it. Now Mum would get hurt again because of me.