Daddy's Prisoner (28 page)

I was referred to a counsellor and poured out my story to her.

‘So where is your stepfather now?’ she asked, and I realised she could not even begin to believe that a biological father would do what mine had done to me.

I put her right but knew it didn’t matter whether it was a blood relative or one who had married into my family and hurt me. Children need to be protected and anyone whose job it is to do that can betray them in the worst way possible. The counsellor also asked if I’d considered reporting Dad to the police but I told her I hadn’t. If my own husband couldn’t understand why I’d stayed locked up in the house where my father had beaten and raped me, then how could a police officer?

I only saw the counsellor for a few sessions before she told me she wasn’t experienced enough to deal with someone like me. She said I’d need a whole team of experts and referred me on but I couldn’t attend the appointments because they were at 7 p.m., just as I was trying to get the girls into bed, and there was no one else to look after them for me week in week out.

Things did get better in some ways, though, because social services sent someone out to talk to Steven and me. We were told to work as a team but it was really hard. I wanted to discipline the girls, who were getting increasingly wild, but found it difficult to know how to do it properly because I’d never been taught as a child. But I learned one very important thing which was to count to ten whenever I felt angry. I knew I had come close to taking out my temper on the girls and vowed I would never lose control. I wanted to be the best mum I could and however bad things were with Steven, I couldn’t bring myself to leave. The Idiot had always told me no one would ever want me. I didn’t want my marriage to fail and prove him right so I clung on, hoping against hope that somehow things would get better.

Mum’s health was very poor by now and I worried about her a lot but didn’t see her regularly until Lily was about two, Emma was three, and she started going in and out of hospital a lot more. Soon I found myself helping out a lot because I knew Dad wouldn’t lift a finger to look after her. As my hospital visits increased, so did my trips to see Mum with The Idiot when she was sent home, and I gradually began seeing her several times a week. Steven hated it and wouldn’t let me take the girls alone so I’d leave them with him and go to visit for a few hours. I think I used going to see Mum as an escape from the house – even though I knew the comfort I found in seeing her was like a house of cards that could come crashing down any time The Idiot decided he’d had enough of my visits.

But about six months after I started seeing Mum regularly, everything came to a head when Steven and I took the girls to see her and The Idiot was in a foul mood. I could feel it the moment I walked into the lounge and knew he wouldn’t be able to hold his tongue for long. Dad looked like thunder as he ordered Mum to get him some tea and when she gave it to him, screamed that it was too hot. She went out to make another cup and as she came back into the room, I saw that her skirt was tucked into her knickers. She must have done it by accident when she went to the toilet and so had no idea why Dad started yelling.

‘What the fuck are you playing at?’ he raged. ‘Have you seen yourself? Are you trying to flash your fanny at Steven, you stupid slag? Do you want him to notice you? Are you trying to get a shag, you whore?’

Mum pulled her skirt free and I got up to help her without a word. I could see Steven’s face was still. He was furious.

‘It’s time to leave,’ I said as Mum sat back down again.

‘Not too fucking soon either,’ The Idiot snarled.

I gathered up the girls before walking to the front door but as we got outside, I could hear Dad shouting at Mum and turned to go back into the flat.

‘No!’ Steven said. ‘Let’s get out of here now. I can’t stand it any longer.’

I did as he said and worried for the next few days about what had happened when we left. I felt so torn: feeling responsible for Mum but knowing I had to think of my daughters too. I understood why Steven was angry because while Emma and Lily might still be small they’d soon take notice of the abuse my dad dished out. I didn’t want them hearing that any more than Steven did but couldn’t see a way out.

‘What is wrong with you?’ he shouted that night. ‘Why do you want to keep seeing your mum when he’s there?’

‘Because I love her. I want to keep an eye on her.’

‘Like you wanted to keep her safe when you stayed all those years?’ he snapped.

No matter how many times we had the same argument, it still hurt me every time he questioned me. Steven’s anger just fed my feelings of guilt and shame.

‘I’ve tried explaining it to you; I don’t know what else to say,’ I shouted back.

‘Explain what? You had a choice, Alice, and you stayed.’

‘A choice? He had a gun, Steven, he kept the doors locked, I was sure he’d kill me.’

‘So how can you bear seeing him now?’

‘Because I have to. I don’t want to but I have to if I’m going to see Mum.’

‘I don’t see why you have to see her at all.’

‘Because she’s my mum. I love her. She looked after us as kids and kept us safe. I want to do what I can for her.’

‘What can you do? It’s up to her if she stays.’

‘I know, but maybe it might help her to know she’s got somewhere to go. I never had that. That was one of the reasons why I stayed so long.’

‘Really?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Nothing.’

It felt as if he blamed me for staying, as if he thought I’d wanted to be trapped in that house.

I kept my distance from Mum for the next few days as I thought about it all. Could I really stop seeing her? She was so ill and weak, Dad didn’t look after her and Michael and I were the only ones who did. It terrified me to think of abandoning her a second time but seeing her was becoming too much for Steven and me.

A few days later, I got a phone call from The Idiot telling me that Mum had collapsed at home and I left the girls with Steven as I rushed to the flat to find an ambulance parked outside. Running into the living room, I saw Mum collapsed on the end of the bed and Dad lying in it. She wasn’t moving and her eyes were closed.

‘Mum!’ I cried as I rushed towards her.

Had he killed her this time? She was white as a sheet and so still.

‘She’s unconscious,’ a paramedic told me as another strapped an oxygen mask to her face. ‘She’s very poorly. We need to get her to hospital as quickly as possible.’

‘What?’ I whispered as my stomach turned over.

I couldn’t lose Mum. I couldn’t bear her to leave me. Not like this. Not here with him looking on and sneering at her.

‘Can’t you get her off this bed?’ The Idiot snarled. ‘She didn’t even make my fucking breakfast and I’m diabetic.’

I felt sick as I heard him speak.

‘I don’t think she was well enough to do it,’ the paramedic said coldly.

When Mum was finally put into the ambulance, Dad refused to get out of his bed to go with her to hospital.

‘I’m too ill,’ he snapped, and I left him lying where he was.

He disgusted me beyond words.

When I arrived at the hospital, the doctors told me Mum was critically ill and they didn’t know if she would survive the night. Apparently she’d stopped breathing but they’d managed to bring her back.

‘Your mother is very sick,’ a doctor said. ‘What would you like us to do, Alice, if she stops breathing again?’

My legs felt weak as I heard those words but I knew what I had to say.

‘Let her go in peace,’ I replied.

I could give Mum that if nothing else.

She was unconscious for thirty-six hours until she came round again but I didn’t see her when she did. When The Idiot found out what I’d said to the doctors, he forbade me from seeing her and told them that Mum should be revived if anything happened to her. No matter how much she suffered, he wanted her brought back.

But even if he hadn’t stopped me from seeing her, I knew things couldn’t go on as they had. If I did not show Steven that he and the girls meant more to me than anything else in the world then I might lose him. He had to know he was everything to me and, however much I didn’t want to do it, I knew I’d have to leave Mum a second time to try to save myself.

‘Do you want another drink, Alice?’ Steven’s sister Donna said as she held up a bottle.

I was at Donna’s house for a night with some of her girlfriends and was pleased to have been invited. I hadn’t got on all that well with her when we first met because Donna thought I was too old for her brother and, thanks to the dowdy clothes I wore when I was first free, I had to admit that I’d probably looked it. But Donna and I had learned to get on better and I was also fond of Steven’s mum, Joan.

Tonight Donna had got a fortune teller round for the evening for a bit of fun. Her friends were all laughing as they went into a bedroom one by one before coming out and telling each other what their future held.

‘I’m going to get married and have a family,’ one told us excitedly.

‘And I’m going to get a good job,’ exclaimed another.

Donna’s friends obviously all loved the idea of finding out about what was going to happen to them but it scared me. Emma was nearly five, Lily was three-and-a-half and things between Steven and me were as bad as ever. I’d hardly seen Mum since the day she collapsed more than a year before but it hadn’t made the difference to my relationship with Steven that I’d hoped it would. Things were still so bad that I worried we’d never work it out. Neither of us, though, was ready to be the one to finally give up on our family.

Sometimes I lay awake at night as I tried to make sense of it all. I’d got married believing so strongly that it would be for ever. All I wanted was a normal life but it had fallen apart. I felt as if my own husband hated me and knew the situation was affecting the girls because children pick up on what’s in the air around them. I wanted them to feel safe and happy but it was as if I was in a tunnel and there wasn’t an escape. I knew I’d made mistakes and it was hard for Steven to understand why I’d kept in touch with Mum but I couldn’t find any more ways to explain it and he could not forget.

‘Are you going to go in to see the fortune teller?’ a woman asked as she stood next to me. ‘It’s good fun.’

‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘It’s not really my kind of thing. I don’t believe in all that.’

‘Oh, go on,’ she replied. ‘You should have a go. You never know what you might discover!’

As other people went in, I thought about what the woman had said. She was right. I should do just what everyone else was doing – treat it like a bit of fun and take whatever was said with a pinch of salt.

I walked into the bedroom to find a woman with long streaky blonde hair sitting in a chair. I did not know what I’d expected but she wasn’t it – she looked so normal. But even so I started shaking as I sat down opposite her.

‘Can I see your hand?’ the woman asked, and I held it out.

She looked at it closely for a few seconds before speaking.

‘You have three children.’

‘No.’

‘I see a little boy.’

‘No. I have two girls.’

The woman looked at me.

‘But you’ve lost a baby?’

I wanted to pull my hand away, stop her seeing these things. Did she know about Jonathan?

‘Yes,’ I said quietly.

The woman’s eyes looked sad as she lowered them to examine my hand again.

‘The baby you lost – was its conception out of the ordinary?’

I gasped as she spoke.

‘Was it someone close to you?’ the woman asked softly.

I pulled my hand away.

‘What do you mean?’ I exclaimed. ‘I thought this was supposed to be a bit of fun. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

In all this time, I’d only ever told Steven and the counsellor about what had happened and now this woman had seen my secrets. She didn’t speak as I struggled to get my feelings under control. I could hear Donna’s friends laughing and chatting. I wanted to run back to them and forget this.

‘You know you can still get something done about it.’ The fortune teller spoke slowly as if she was choosing her words carefully. ‘You can still get him charged.’

‘What?’ I gasped.

‘I understand what happened to you. I can see it in your palm.’

‘Please stop,’ I pleaded. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

The fortune teller looked at me with sadness in her eyes.

‘I know how you feel, Alice,’ she said.

‘What do you mean?’ I whispered.

‘I was abused by someone close to me just like you.’

I couldn’t speak as she leaned towards me. How did the woman know these things?

‘I got the man who hurt me charged for it fifteen years later,’ she said. ‘He was locked up for what he did. You could do the same.’

Her voice was quiet as she spoke.

‘Tell me what happened to you.’

One minute I wanted to run but the next my secrets were spilling out of me. I didn’t know why but somehow I knew I could trust this woman. I’d never met someone who’d been abused before and I started crying as the fortune teller asked me questions about what had happened. Slowly I told her my story and described everything – the start, the birth of Jonathan and the death of Caitlin. I felt exhausted when I finally finished speaking.