Dark Avenging Angel (3 page)

These days I would probably have been an at-risk child, with regular visits from social workers. Maybe I would even have been taken into care. That’s if they saw my mother’s bruises. And especially if they saw today’s effort.

Because today was the first time my father let fly so badly my mother ended up in the emergency room.

I cried when I saw the rivulets of blood trickling down her cheek. He’d managed to lacerate her eyebrow.

It took three stitches to close the wound and, still feeling guilty about deserting her, I stayed with her the whole time. My father stayed home.

The nurse asked Mum how she’d been injured. She said she’d opened a cupboard and caught herself on the sharp edge. The nurse looked at me. I couldn’t meet her eyes. Why didn’t Mum tell the truth? Maybe then the police would come and lock him away. For good, if justice prevailed.

The nurse sighed and completed the dressing. “If you decide you want to report anything, don’t leave it too long,” she said. Her voice sounded heavy, sorrowful. I suppose this wasn’t the first time, nor would it be the last, that a wife had refused to tell tales on her husband.

In the cab, I challenged Mum. “Why didn’t you tell the nurse what really happened?”

“You weren’t there, Jane. You don’t know. I opened a cupboard and stupidly caught myself on the corner. Eyebrows bleed like the very dickens.”

I folded my arms. “She didn’t believe you. And neither do I.”

“Don’t talk to me like that. I’m your mother, don’t forget.”

“I’m scared of him. Next time, he could kill you. What would happen to me then?”

She said nothing.

I lay in bed. Something had woken me from a deep sleep troubled by my recurring nightmare in which I was in a wood, being chased by some unimaginable horror. I never saw its face, assuming it even had one. But I knew if I didn’t find sanctuary, it would kill me. I had just made it into the strange little house that always appeared in the clearing, when my eyes opened and I gasped at the white, smiling face looking down at me.

That night, my angel seemed different somehow.

Oh, she looked the same. Same black cloak, but this time it shimmered and I wanted to touch it. I was sure it would feel soft as velvet under my fingers.

She put her finger to her lips and stroked my hair. Her touch was like a gentle breeze in summertime. My eyes wanted to close, but I forced them to stay open.

I knew I mustn’t speak out loud, but I could still whisper. “I wish I knew your name. Who are you? Please will you tell me?”

She continued to smile. Her lips moved, but the answering voice I heard was again in my head.
Do not be afraid, child. It is not yet time, but soon you will have the power to avenge yourself on those who have done you harm. Look for me in the shadows and I will be there, taking account.

I understood nothing of what she said. But, from somewhere, a calm I had never felt before emerged and wrapped itself around me.

I blinked in the darkness as she faded from sight.

Then I closed my eyes and slept. I never had that nightmare again after that night. But what if I’d known what was ahead for me?

Some things are better off left in the dark.

Chapter Three

The first time my father tried to kill me was when I was sixteen.

I had been visiting a schoolfriend on Christmas Eve and didn’t realize the trains were stopping early. There I stood, on the platform, with a couple of other would-be passengers. Waiting. Freezing.

A uniformed railway official pottered about. He took no notice of us. Eventually, with no sign of any trains, I plucked up the courage to overcome my shyness and ask him how much longer I would have to wait.

“Oh there’s no more trains today,” he said, and his cheerfulness irritated me. I bit my tongue. Mustn’t cheek my elders.

“But I need to get home and it’s miles away.”

The other passengers had drifted over and nodded in agreement.

The official looked from one to the other of us and shrugged. “There’s a phone over there. You could call a taxi.”

One of the other passengers said what I felt, “Oh very helpful! What did you think we were all waiting for? Santa Claus? Didn’t it occur to you to come and tell us what was happening?”

The official shrugged again. “Didn’t it occur to you that it’s Christmas Eve? We’ve got families too, you know.”

I left them arguing and moved away. What could I do? I couldn’t call for a taxi. I hadn’t enough money, for a start, and if I turned up at home and expected my father to pay, there would be an unholy row. No, there was only one thing for it. I’d have to call home and ask my father to come and pick me up.

Mum answered. I burst into tears when I heard her voice. “I didn’t know the trains were finishing early, Mum. There was no sign up at the station. I’m not the only one. There are other people here too.” One stood a few feet away, clearly intent on using the phone after me.

I heard my mother’s deep sigh. She couldn’t drive, so there was no way around this. She would have to ask my father to turn out after six on a cold December night to come and pick up a daughter too stupid to catch an earlier train. Happy Christmas, Jane!

They were both in the car and my father’s face showed no emotion. Never a good sign. I opened the rear door and climbed in. Not one word.

That is, until he started off. He slammed the car into gear and then he let me have it. “Just how stupid are you? Why the hell didn’t you check the bloody times of the trains when you got here? Why in God’s name should I have to come out at all hours and pick you up?”

“I’m sorry.” But I wasn’t. At that moment, a coil of anger gathered momentum in the pit of my stomach and lay poised, ready to erupt at any second.

But my father ranted on, “Sorry? I’ll make you sorry. I’ll make you wish you’d never been born! You can forget Christmas. Christmas is for your schoolfriends who’ve got more intelligence than to get themselves stranded on a railway platform.”

Mum piped up, “Oh don’t be so hard on her. She made a mistake. She won’t do it again.”

“Oh shut up, you stupid bitch. I’ve had enough of you and your good-for-nothing offspring.”

That did it.

We had just pulled away from the traffic lights. I wrenched the door handle open.

“
Shut
that
bloody
door!”

“No, I won’t,” I said. “I’m getting out. I’m not spending another minute in this car with you. I
hate
you
,
you
bastard!
”

The brakes screeched and the car swerved. Fortunately there was nothing behind us. The ratchets of the hand brake protested as my father yanked it hard.

I scrambled out of the car, without a clue where we were. I started to run. Behind me, my mother’s protesting yells to come back grew more distant. But pounding feet told me my father wasn’t going to let me get away.

I ran in blind fear. Tears of terror streaked down my face. I didn’t know where I was going, only that I had to get away from him. But I tripped over a half-concealed brick. I fell hard on my knees.

My father dragged me to my feet and shook me like a rag doll until the teeth chattered in my head.

My mother’s cries turned to sobs as she raced toward us.

I saw my father’s crazed eyes in the light of the streetlamp. He seemed possessed. Inhuman. My injured knees stung, smarted and throbbed, and still I spat out my venom against this man.

“You sadistic bastard. I
hate
you,
hate
you!”

He drew back his hand and a stinging slap set my head reeling. My teeth bit into my cheek and I tasted blood. Before I had chance to recover, his hands were around my throat, choking me.

I struggled.

He squeezed tighter.

Flashing lights darted in front of my eyes. A misty veil descended. My limbs weakened. I was falling. Something flickered behind my eyelids. A face, indistinct but familiar. My angel. But she’d gone.

“Get off her! Get off her!”

My eyes shot open as my mother flung herself at my father and threw him off-balance. He struggled to stay on his feet. He failed and let go of me.

I gasped, forcing air into my lungs. A fierce buzzing started in my ears, then faded.

My father struggled to his feet. He looked stunned for a moment.

“You’ve really done it this time,” my mother said. “She’ll have bruises around her throat. People will see.”

He said nothing, just brushed himself off and started back to the car. Mum put her arm around me and I leaned against her as she half carried me, coughing and spluttering, back to the vehicle, and the place I was forced to call home. We had nowhere else to go.

That Christmas was quiet. Deathly quiet. My father didn’t speak one word to us the whole time. My neck hurt and, sure enough, on Christmas morning I awoke to a necklace of purple, blue and red bruises encircling my throat.

Mum gave me one of her silk scarves.

A week later, my father decided to speak to Mum. She told me he was waiting for me to apologize before he would speak to me.

“Apologize? For what?”

“For swearing at him and being so disrespectful.”

“I
don’t
respect him. What has he ever done to earn my respect, Mum?” He’d half strangled me, but that was all right, was it? Because he was my father he was allowed to do that and get away with it?

“Nevertheless,” she said, “please say you’re sorry and we can all put this behind us.”

“Until the next time
,
I suppose. Only next time he might actually do it. He might actually kill one of us.”

Not if I kill him first.

I jumped. Looked around. That voice. I didn’t know where it came from. My voice? Or my angel’s? No, it had to be mine. It should have been in my head, but it sounded so loud, as if someone else was in the room with us.

Mum clearly hadn’t heard it. She continued to stare straight ahead, unable to look me in the eye.

I held out as long as I could, but my father kept chipping away at Mum until she pleaded with me to apologize.

“You don’t even have to mean it. Just do it for me. Please.”

And, of course, I did. Every word caught in my throat, which still bore some lingering yellow bruising.

The new school term had started and the high-necked shirts we wore covered pretty much all the last remnants of the assault. If anyone noticed, they didn’t say anything to me about it. Teachers weren’t trained to spot signs of abuse in those days.

Life continued much as it had all my life. I enjoyed school and hated coming home, except to see Mum and a now-senior Sukie. I dreamed my dreams of becoming a famous actress or playwright. Every year, when the Oscars were televised, I would imagine I was there. Robert Redford or Warren Beatty would present the award.

“And the award for best performance by an actress in a leading role goes to…Jane Powell.”

The audience would erupt. They’d be up on their feet, cheering, applauding. I would mount the stage, dressed in some gorgeous gown designed by Yves St. Laurent. Warren or Robert would kiss my cheek as they handed me the award. Then I would begin my acceptance speech.

“Thank you all so much for this amazing award. It’s especially wonderful to receive it this year because the role is one I wrote myself…”

I would then thank everyone in the universe. But not my father.

My father tried to kill me again when I hit seventeen. On my birthday, to be precise.

It had been a great day at school. I’d come in first in the history homework assignment and received a record (for me) number of birthday cards. Twenty of them adorned the mantelpiece and television, so I was in a happy mood when I got home. Mum had cooked my favorites for my birthday tea. Cottage pie with a lovely cheese crust on the potato and, for pudding, her deliciously fluffy, steamed treacle sponge and custard.

My father arrived home in a foul mood. He threw his briefcase onto the table.

“Don’t put it there,” Mum said, preoccupied with her meal preparations, I should imagine, or she wouldn’t have said it quite like that. “I’m just about to set the table for dinner.”

The blow was unexpected and sent the plates she was carrying spinning across the room. They shattered against the wall. Mum grabbed a chair for support.

I ran over and put my arms around her. Tears were pricking my eyelids. A flood of despondency drowned every shred of happiness I felt that day. I glared at him. “Today’s my birthday. Why do you always have to spoil everything?”

He dragged me away from Mum and threw me across the room, where I hit the edge of the dining table. Shards of pain shot through my hip.

A dull thud followed a sharp slap as Mum crumpled to the floor in a dead faint.

Something clicked in my brain. “You
bastard!
”

He turned his crazed eyes on me. “What did you call me? How
dare
you. I’ll teach you a lesson you won’t forget in a hurry.”

He lurched toward me.

I circled the table, hobbled and hurting. I couldn’t move quickly enough. He knocked me to the floor and I fell on my knees. Daggers of pain shot up my thighs.

His hands tightened around my throat as he dragged me to my feet. With strength I didn’t know I possessed, I pushed my hands up between his arms and thrust them apart. He hesitated. I took my chance and scrambled out of the dining room, choking, struggling to breathe.

In the kitchen, I found Mum’s carving knife in a drawer. I gripped it hard. My breath came in short gasps. Blood rushed through my ears. The familiar sour taste of bile washed up into my mouth. I turned to the sink and threw up.

Happy birthday, Jane.

I don’t know how long I stayed there. I watched the door, gripped the knife and wondered if I would have the courage to do it. Ram it home in his chest. Right up to the handle. Watch his eyes glaze over, as his lifeblood poured from him and he stared at me in disbelief.

All was quiet in the house. He wasn’t coming. Sukie wandered in, looked at her empty bowl and meowed at me.

That one glimpse of normality snapped me back to reality. I stared at the knife as if it had put itself into my hand. I was no murderer after all. I didn’t have it in me.

With a cry, I tossed the knife back into the drawer, picked Sukie up and cuddled her. Tears soaked her coat, but she just purred. The sweet, clean smell of her fur soothed me.

That’s how Mum found us when she limped in looking dazed. A raised lump on her forehead had already turned red and purple.

“Now will you report him?” My voice was croaky from the near strangling.

Mum shook her head. “That’s not what we do. What goes on behind closed doors stays behind closed doors. We don’t want to air our dirty linen in public.”

“Mum, he knocked you out. He tried to strangle me. Again. How long is this going to go on before you do something? I’m not eighteen yet. To the authorities, I’m just a child. No one will listen to me, and he’ll deny everything. But you’re an adult. They’ll listen to you.”

“I said no, Jane. Now, let’s forget about it. He’s had a hard day at work.”

“Oh I see. That makes it all right then, does it?” Sukie struggled in my arms and I set her down on the floor.

Mum picked up a tin of cat food and opened it. My cat meowed and rubbed herself up against Mum’s legs.

“Just drop it, Jane. Please. I don’t want to hear any more about it. Go to your room and lie down. You look very pale. Have you got another migraine? I heard you being sick.”

“Hardly surprising, is it? I’m not used to being strangled on my birthday.”

“Don’t be sarcastic. It’s not very becoming.”

I couldn’t believe we were having this conversation. Mum and I should have been consoling each other, defending each other. Right now, we should have been talking to the police. Instead, here we were, arguing, with my mother more concerned about my unladylike behavior than the circumstances that had led us both to end the day bruised and battered.

“So where is he now then?”

Mum set down Sukie’s bowl and the little cat sniffed at it. “He’s calmed down a bit and he’s reading the paper in the living room.”

As if nothing happened. As always.

I left Sukie munching on her Kit-E-Kat and Mum bathing her face.

I hoped my angel would come to me that night. As I lay in bed, I even thought I caught a glimpse of her as the shadows lengthened and the patterns, formed by the gently waving branches of the chestnut tree in our garden, shimmered and swayed on the ceiling. There were no more noises from downstairs and my lovely birthday tea ended up in the wastebin.

I hoped my angel had taken note.

When I hit eighteen, I knew I had to get away, even though it meant leaving Mum and Sukie behind. In any case, maybe it would be the best thing for all of us. One less catalyst for his anger.

I went through the motions of applying to university and was even accepted. Initially, I saw it as the best route out. Of course, the subjects I would have chosen—English and drama—were rejected by my father. My financial dependence on him would stretch out for a further three years. This, he believed, gave him carte blanche over what I studied.

“Drama? English? What good are
they
going to do you? No, you will study for a vocational degree.”