Daddy's Prisoner (22 page)

Caitlin slept fitfully for the rest of the day and each time she woke up I’d stroke her hand to let her know I was there. Eventually, about 11 p.m. I gave her a last kiss goodnight.

‘Sleep tight, baby,’ I said before sitting down in the chair beside her cot.

I couldn’t wait to pick her up again and take her home. Caitlin would get even stronger now. We would prove the doctors wrong, I thought as I fell asleep wondering how long she’d be in hospital. But a few hours later I was shaken awake to see faces in front of me, people standing by Caitlin’s cot.

‘Your daughter is in distress,’ a voice said.

‘What do you mean?’ I cried as I stood up.

‘We need you to leave us for a minute, Alice. We have to look after Caitlin now.’

I was in a daze, didn’t understand what was happening as hands guided me out of the room.

‘But I want to be with her,’ I cried. ‘Let me stay here.’

‘You can’t, Alice,’ a nurse said. ‘The doctors need to look at Caitlin. They’ll come and get us when they’re ready. We’ve just got to leave them to do their work now.’

The nurse took me to the smoking room where I lit a cigarette. The smoke tasted bitter as I inhaled it. I didn’t want a cigarette. I wanted to go back upstairs. Why wouldn’t they let me?

‘Please,’ I sobbed. ‘Let me go back. I’m her mum. She needs me.’

‘It won’t be a minute now,’ the nurse told me.

Tears ran down my face as I waited until the door opened and another nurse asked me to follow her.

‘Where’s Caitlin?’ I cried. ‘How is she? Is she okay? What’s happened?’

‘The doctor wants to see you, Alice,’ the woman said as we got into a lift. ‘He won’t be a minute.’

Panic forced the breath out of me as the lift door opened and the nurse walked me towards another room.

‘But I want to see Caitlin,’ I pleaded. ‘What’s happening? Please tell me.’

The door to the room opened and I saw a nurse and a doctor waiting for me.

‘Where’s my daughter? What’s wrong? Why won’t you tell me where she is?’ I sobbed. ‘I just want to see her.’

By now I was crying and shaking. I could hardly stand up straight as the doctor walked towards me.

‘I’m sorry, Alice, but there was nothing we could do,’ he said.

‘What do you mean?’ I screamed.

‘She was a very sick little girl. We did all we could.’

‘I don’t understand. Where’s Caitlin? I have to see her.’

‘I’m afraid we couldn’t save her, Alice.’

‘Where is she? You said she’d be well.’

‘I’m sorry but Caitlin did not survive.’

‘What?’ I screamed. ‘I want to see her. She needs me.’

‘Alice, listen to me.’

I felt hands holding on to me as I started to fall.

‘Caitlin is dead.’

Everything went black.

I can’t remember anything but glimpses about those days after Caitlin left me: desperate to get back to the hospital because I was sure someone had stolen her, they were hiding her from me, I just had to find my baby and we’d be together again; Michael coming to see me and stopping me from leaving the house.

‘Let me go,’ I screamed at him as I tried to get to the front door. ‘I’ve got to find her. They’ve got her.’

‘But where are you going, Alice?’

‘To see Caitlin. She’s at the hospital.’

‘She’s not there any more.’

‘She is. I left her there.’

‘Come with me. You can’t go out now, Alice.’

‘Let me go. Please let me go.’

Eventually Michael took me to see the doctors at the hospital where Caitlin had been treated because I wouldn’t stop asking for her.

‘Where is she?’ I cried. ‘Who’s got her?’

‘She’s not here,’ a man told me.

‘She is! She’s having an operation. She’ll get better. They told me she’d get better.’

‘I’m sorry but Caitlin has died, Alice. She’s not here any more.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘She’s gone.’

‘Where is she? Where’s my baby?’

In the moments when I wasn’t sedated, I pleaded with people to help me before everything went black again. Even Caitlin’s funeral was a blur. Later I was told that when I dressed her for burial in a white smock with pink bows and a white cardigan, I lifted her up, held on to her tightly and didn’t want to let her go. Apparently my parents, Michael and some of the doctors and nurses who’d looked after Caitlin were at the ceremony but I can’t remember them watching me as I ran forward to try to grab the casket when the hearse doors opened or later when I screamed as the coffin disappeared behind the crematorium curtains.

The first clear memory I have is of waking up in my room alone and wondering where Caitlin was. I couldn’t hear her breathing and everything felt so silent. Then Michael walked in.

‘You’re awake, sis?’

‘Yes,’ I said as I sat up and looked around me.

Caitlin’s cot was empty.

‘I’ve come to get the child benefit book,’ Michael said gently. ‘It has to be returned.’

I looked at him and remembered. Caitlin had gone. She wasn’t with me any more.

‘I haven’t got it. Ask Dad.’

Michael closed the door and I lay back down again. That’s all I can really remember of that time – the feeling I had then: emptiness and a slicing pain in my broken heart. I couldn’t believe I was alone again. I just wanted her back. I wanted Caitlin with me.

Life was meaningless now. Without my baby there was no reason to carry on, no point to anything, and I sat for hours staring into space. My life with The Idiot and Mum went back to how it always had been: I was locked in the flat and allowed out to go food shopping or twice a week to collect the benefits. The only change was that Dad paid for driving lessons for me. He didn’t even want to get out of bed now to drive Mum to her hospital appointments.

‘I’m sick of being a fucking chauffeur,’ he told me. ‘You can run her around. You’ve got nothing else to do.’

It was as if Caitlin had never even existed: I was given an hour to leave the flat, queue at the post office for our money, pick up doctor’s prescriptions and get them filled out at the chemist. One minute over and The Idiot would start asking questions and each time I got home he’d check the mileage on the car because it was a two-mile round trip. But I didn’t care because I didn’t even think about trying to get away any more. Without Caitlin, there was no point to anything; without her, I did not want to carry on. For so long, I’d thought about escaping and hoped that some day Mum and I would finally do it. But now I knew I’d never have a normal life because I’d destroyed my own daughter’s. I was a monster.

The doctors said Caitlin had died of cot death but I knew it was because of me. She had paid with her life for my mistakes. I’d given birth to her and consented to the operation. I was supposed to protect her and instead I’d let the doctors do what they wanted and now she’d gone. I’d allowed The Idiot to get me pregnant and Caitlin had been punished for it. I couldn’t stop the thoughts whirring away in my mind as I sat for hours each day holding a picture of her. Sometimes her face would blur in front of my eyes but I didn’t look away for a moment. I felt dead inside. Each moment of each day hurt me because I knew Caitlin was not with me.

The only person who understood was Mum. She’d lost children too and knew how it felt. Mum missed Caitlin almost as much as I did and sometimes we’d sit crying together as we looked at photos until The Idiot told us to shut up. At night, I’d lie down holding a picture of Caitlin and one of her cuddly teddy bears. It was white with a pink hat and I’d laced Caitlin’s hospital tag around the ankle. Lying in the dark, I’d turn it around and around as I tried to sleep. But I couldn’t stop thinking. Caitlin had paid with her life for all that I’d done and I knew my sentence was to be a prisoner for ever.

The months passed and I became like a shadow – not moving or flinching when Dad slapped me, which made him even more vicious. I didn’t care what he did any more and that meant he didn’t have the pleasure of sniffing my terror in the air or seeing it on my face. If he threw something at me, I didn’t move; if he hit me, I stared at my feet and if he screamed abuse, I turned my head to the wall.

By the time 1997 drew to a close, Caitlin had been gone for nine months and I was as withdrawn as ever. The Idiot still took what he wanted, of course, but I was like a dead thing and he didn’t come back too often for sex. I didn’t care though. He could do what he liked with me now just as he’d always done.

Michael started visiting more after Caitlin’s death and sometimes brought the girls with him. They were so grown-up now – Paula was ten, Jacqueline was nine and they were like a streak of lightning in the darkness. I knew Mum loved them visiting because we hadn’t really seen the girls since those few months seven years before when we’d lived with Michael. Now Mum lit up whenever she saw the girls but I didn’t. Nothing could get through the grief which had buried me alive.

‘I’m worried about you, Alice,’ Michael told me when he came to visit at Christmas. ‘Why don’t you come and stay with Julie and me for a while? It might do you some good.’

‘You know I can’t,’ I replied.

‘Why not? Mum will be fine.’

He just didn’t understand.

‘Come on, Alice. There are too many memories here. You can stay as long as you like.’

I looked at him. Was he remembering the promise he’d made all those years before when we were children sitting on a bed and he’d magicked bread into biscuits and water into lemonade? Surely he knew it was too late now? Jealousy stabbed into me as I watched Michael leave with his daughters. They were a family, just as I had been with Caitlin. I knew I’d never stop wanting to be a mother for as long as I lived. Caitlin had changed me for ever. She’d shown me life beyond my prison.

‘You stink,’ The Idiot snapped as Mum handed him a cup of tea. ‘Have a fucking bath, won’t you?’

I stared at the TV as I heard Mum leave the room and the taps being turned on in the bathroom.

‘What’s up with you?’ Dad said. ‘Sitting there like a fucking moron, not speaking or moving.’

I could feel his eyes on me.

‘Get over here. Your mum will be a while yet.’

I didn’t move.

‘I said get over here now.’

I knew what he wanted. I wouldn’t give it to him.

‘Are you fucking deaf or something?’

Still I didn’t move.

‘Do as I tell you or your mum will feel the back of my hand. Do you hear me?’

The water pipes rumbled as the bathroom taps were turned off.

‘Get the fuck over here now, you stupid bitch.’

I heard a grunt and felt something hit my leg as he threw it. It stung but I didn’t look down.

‘Alice!’ he snarled. ‘Are you listening to me?’

I got to my feet and walked towards the door.

‘Where the fuck are you going?’

A glass crashed into the wall beside me as I turned the handle and walked out into the hallway. I opened the door to the bathroom. Mum was sitting in the water and there was steam in the air.

‘Why don’t you let me do your back?’ I said.

Kneeling down by the bath, I took the soap in my hand before plunging it into the water and rubbing it between my palms.

‘We’ll get you nice and clean, Mum,’ I whispered.

I don’t know why I defied The Idiot that day. I’d done it occasionally when I was younger and the kids were at home but had always given in after Mum or the kids were beaten even more to show me I couldn’t say no for ever. But something changed that day. Maybe it was the realisation that I could never take the risk of another child being punished as Caitlin had been or maybe it was the fact that Michael had thrown me a lifeline by showing me there was finally somewhere I could run to. Or could it have been the fact that I had nothing left to lose? I had been beaten and raped since I was eleven years old but losing Caitlin meant nothing could ever hurt me again.

The next day, Dad turned on me as soon as we were alone together.

‘Think you’re going to get away with it, do you? Because you’re not, you know. I’m going to slice up your mum and then you’ll be sorry. Who the fuck do you think you are? You do as I say, when I say it, do you hear?’

I didn’t answer back, look at him or even flinch when he walked up to me and stuck his face in mine. I didn’t gasp when he threw something or slapped me. I didn’t speak as he threw insults and I didn’t jump to his orders as he told me to make him a cup of tea or get down to the shops. The Idiot got more and more enraged as the days went on and I stopped eating, drinking or even speaking.

‘You’ve got to stop this, Alice,’ Mum tried telling me. ‘He’s so angry with you. I don’t know what he’s going to do.’

But I didn’t care any more. I wanted him to kill me, make good his promise once and for all so that I could be with Caitlin again. I just wanted him to do it – carry out the threats he’d been making all these years. Day after day I sat like a zombie, not moving or answering back, just waiting for him to finish me off. I’d seen my death a million times in my nightmares and now wanted him to finally kill me.