Don't You Love Your Daddy? (6 page)

Missing her became a constant ache, and every morning when I woke I would for a few moments expect her to walk into my room, then remember that she wasn’t at home. It was my father who got me out of bed and dressed before taking me to my grandmother’s house.

‘Why don’t you leave her with me?’ my grandmother would ask, when he delivered me each day.

‘Better for her to sleep in her own bed,’ was his quick reply. Every night he would bath me, rub cream on my body, then sit me naked, except for a towel, on his knee. I would hear his voice telling me that he loved me much more than Mummy did. After all, he was there with me.

‘It’s me who loves you most, Sally,’ he kept repeating – and, confused by my mother’s long absence, I started to believe him. Bewildered by what was happening to our family, I liked being held and hearing the words of love that I so missed from my mother. I would close my eyes and, half asleep, snuggle up against him as his hand gently stroked my back and shoulders.

But I didn’t like what followed, when it wandered down my tummy until it went in between my legs. My body would stiffen, but he would whisper soothing shushing noises in my ear until, more relaxed, I leant against him again.

My mother had been in hospital for about a week when he kissed me, not on my cheek but on my mouth. His tongue, large and slimy, slipped between my teeth and I recoiled with distaste when I felt his saliva drip on my chin. ‘That’s what daddies do with special little girls they love,’ he said. He took my fingers and grasped them firmly as he pushed my hand downwards. Only this time they touched something hot. I knew without looking that it was the hard thing and that he had taken it out of his trousers.

He ran my fingers up and down it and all the time I squeezed my eyes shut for I didn’t want to look down and see it. ‘Good girl,’ he kept saying, as his arms tightened around me, ‘good special girl.’ And I, wanting so much to be told that I was good and therefore loved, did what he requested without protesting. He showed me what he wanted as his hand closed over mine, squeezing my fingers tight around the thing. That first time he groaned, as though in pain, and, startled, I tried to remove my hand.

‘No,’ he said, gripping it so hard it hurt, and moved my fingers up and down faster. He groaned loudly again, and something wet and sticky covered my hand. He hugged me then and, taking my hands, he wiped them with a flannel. ‘You’re my special little girl,’ he told me, before pulling my nightdress over my head and putting me to bed.

Some basic instinct warned me that this was wrong but I was too young to question it or do anything about his actions. It was a nightly bathtime ritual that, gradually, step by cautious step, he had presented to me as normal. Without my mother or Pete in the house, he was free to bath me without being caught. So when he uttered the words of endearment I needed to hear, I would say the words he expected of me: ‘I love you too, Daddy.’

It was August when my mother finally came back from the hospital. The Saturday morning she was due home I had woken as soon as the sun had risen. There were flutters of excitement in my stomach as soon as my eyes opened: this was the day I had been longing for. I lay in bed visualizing how different life at home would be now my mother was returning. She would give me my baths and put me to bed; she would play with me and read to me and tell me her wonderful stories.

A few days earlier my grandmother had told me that my mother was well enough to come home and had helped me make a big card of welcome. On it I had crayoned a yellow sun shining above a square house. I had coloured in the door and windows and then drawn a family of stick people. Circles represented their faces and, with a red crayon, I had given them all wide smiles.

My nana drew some large letters, which said, ‘Welcome home, Mummy’, and I coloured them in, then stuck on cut-out stars and glitter. It took pride of place in the centre of the table next to the flowers my grandmother had cut from her garden.

The house was spotlessly clean – my aunt had seen to that while my grandmother had stocked the fridge with lots of food. I waited till I heard sounds of movement, which told me Pete and my father were up, and crept down the stairs. Before we had finished breakfast my grandmother arrived with a gurgling Billy and all the paraphernalia that accompanies a baby. She had brought more food to put in the fridge and a large casserole dish of her chicken stew. ‘Just needs heating up,’ she said, as she placed it on top of the stove. ‘She won’t want to cook on her first day back.’

It was the middle of the morning when my father left to collect my mother. Pete, for once, did not leave the house, but waited impatiently with our grandmother and me in the kitchen. I could hardly contain my excitement and every time I heard a car coming I rushed to the window to look out.

‘He’s only been gone a few minutes, got to give him time,’ my grandmother and brother kept telling me, but nothing could keep me still.

When, finally, I heard my father’s car draw up I rushed to the door, flung it open and ran outside. ‘Mummy, Mummy!’ I shrieked, as I hurtled towards her. She looked the same as she had before she’d gone away. Her hair was loose and hung to her shoulders and she was wearing the outfit I loved, the one she’d had on when I’d visited her in hospital. ‘Give me a hug, Sally,’ she said, as she leant down and embraced me.

Once she was inside she went to my elder brother and I saw his arms lift and close tightly around her.

My grandmother rose from her seat. ‘Good to have you back with us where you belong, Laura.’ At her words, I saw my mother’s eyes fill with tears. She went to where Billy sat in his playpen and leant over it to coo a special greeting just for him. He gave her a slightly puzzled look, instead of bestowing one of his wide smiles on her, and turned his head away. A look of dismay crossed my mother’s face when she saw that Billy didn’t appear to recognize her. When she picked him up, he cried and stretched his arms towards my grandmother.

‘He’ll get used to you again soon enough,’ said my nana. ‘Six weeks is a long while for a baby. Just give him time.’

Tea was made. My nana, as well as cooking our evening meal, had brought homemade scones and a chocolate cake, which she put on the table. I heard my mother saying how good it was to be home and how she had missed us all. But the smiles did not hide the worry that crossed my grandmother’s face when she saw all the bottles of pills come out of my mother’s bag to be placed on top of the fridge. ‘Too high for little hands to reach,’ my mother said, and added that if they were there she wouldn’t forget to take them.

It wasn’t long before I was thinking that the hospital had sent back a different mother. The tears and blank-faced depression might have vanished but so, too, had the laughing woman with the sparkling green eyes. This was not the mother I had missed so unbearably; the mother who ruffled my hair and, with her arm around my shoulders, held me against her comforting warmth when I was upset or afraid. The mother who had dressed small cuts and laughed at my chatter, baked me gingerbread men and told me exciting stories seemed completely lost to me.

She appeared much more concerned by Billy’s indifference to her than anything else. His smiles were for my grandmother and, in fact, almost anyone else who came to our house, and for the first few days he appeared to ignore her. Trying to win him round she spent the mornings playing with him while I was sent out to the garden to entertain myself on my Space Hopper. ‘He needs to get to know me again,’ she explained, when I whined that I was bored, thirsty or hungry. ‘He’s punishing me for leaving him – he’s too young to understand,’ she added.

But I was, too, which she didn’t seem to take into account. When I pleaded with her to take me to the park she said she was too tired. When I asked if we were going to the shops she said Nana or Pete would get everything we needed. I was too young to realize that my mother neither wanted to confront the neighbours nor to be lured into the shop that stocked those brown bottles. So, not understanding her motives, I felt dejected at the lack of time or interest she seemed to have for me.

More casseroles and pies arrived from my grandmother’s kitchen. ‘She’s not up to cooking much yet,’ she said, each time she delivered one.

It was at the end of the summer when I was due to start school that her reluctance to leave the house became more apparent to me. First she told me that my grandmother was going to come to take me shopping for my uniform. I was crestfallen: I had thought my grandmother would look after Billy and I would have my mother all to myself on that special day.

I had imagined us going to the park on the way to the outfitter’s. I had hoped that, just for one afternoon, her attention would be focused on me.

I was sulky when my grandmother arrived to collect me and she immediately realized it was my mother I wanted with me. ‘She needs a little time to get better, Sally,’ was all Nana said when I complained that my mother never wanted to do anything with me.

In the shop my grandmother put on her glasses to read the list that the school had provided. She chose a navy blue pinafore dress, two white cotton blouses and a pair of lace-up black shoes. But nothing was going to please me and, rebelliously, I decided I hated the feel of the new clothes. They were stiff and scratchy and I moaned ungratefully. My grandmother took no notice. ‘They’ll soften up once you wear them in,’ she said, before picking up the packages and leading me out of the shop.

The following week I started school. That day my mother dressed me in my new clothes and produced a brown-leather satchel, which she told me every schoolgirl needed. My hair was brushed and I leant against her, liking the feel of her running the bristles through my hair. Then she tied it into a smooth ponytail and stood me in front of the mirror. ‘Now don’t you look smart?’ she said.

It was not until I had swallowed my last mouthful of breakfast that she informed me Pete was taking me to school instead of her. ‘I can’t leave Billy,’ was the excuse she gave, adding that as Pete’s school adjoined mine, it made sense for me to go with him.

Tears were of no avail; neither were the protests that I didn’t want to leave her. My brother dragged me out of the door and we set off. Slouching along with his hands in his pockets, Pete refused to walk slowly and I had to scuttle to keep up with him.

‘Don’t be such a cry-baby. You’re embarrassing me,’ he said impatiently, when my tears threatened to overflow. ‘Don’t see why I’ve got to take you anyhow. It’s her job,’ he added.

‘She’s not well,’ I said indignantly, even though just a short time earlier I had thought the same thing.

‘She’s never well, is she?’ But underneath his words I sensed a layer of fear – after all, she was his mother too.

The school was barely ten minutes’ walk away and for the rest of that time neither of us spoke. When we arrived anxious parents were departing, small children looked tearful and the teacher in charge of the infants’ class was busy keeping us all together. There were a few faces I recognized but a sea of others I didn’t and I stood shyly on the edge of the group.

The teacher rescued me by telling us all we had to follow her into the classroom.

It was when we had the break that the questions started.

‘What’s your name?’ asked one little boy, and I told him. But the next caught me unawares.

‘Why didn’t your mummy bring you? Mummies always do.’

As I tried to answer those questions I could feel the dreaded itching and my fingers started rubbing at my skin. Seeing me scratching, one little boy pointed to the rash which my sleeve failed to cover. ‘What are those?’ he asked, with a sneer.

Self-consciously I tried to tug my sleeve down to cover the rash.

‘Ugh,’ I heard someone else say, and I cringed with embarrassment.

‘You talk funny,’ said a third.

‘I don’t,’ I said.

‘You do,’ jeered a fourth. ‘You sound like a baby.’

‘Wownd and wownd,’ another mimicked – I couldn’t pronounce my Rs.

I knew by the end of that day that school was not going to be a place I liked. I felt like an outsider but there was also the nagging fear that my mother might disappear again while I was away from her. Even though she was always at home waiting for me, the anxiety refused to go away.

I had been at school a few months when we had our first lesson on telling the time.

‘Who can tell me what numbers the hands of the clock are pointing to?’ the teacher asked, indicating a large cardboard clock perched on her desk.

My hand shot up in the air. This was something I knew about for my grandmother had taught me how to count to twelve and how to tell the time. Now it will be me the teacher praises, I thought – being complimented was becoming more and more important to me.

Before the teacher could utter my name I heard sniggers and gasps of pretend horror and the shrill voice of the little girl who sat next to me saying, ‘Please, Miss, Sally’s dripping blood everywhere.’

Looking at my arm, I saw blood had oozed through my sleeve and tiny droplets had fallen on my desk. Ashamed, I blushed.

The teacher gave an exasperated sigh and marched up to me. My classmates turned to watch as she rolled back my sleeve exposing the rash and the vivid marks where my fingers had scratched it. ‘Come with me. We’ll have to get that looked at that.’ With my head down, I followed her to the headmistress’s study. As we walked down the corridor I tried to concentrate on the sound of her shoes making a rhythmic tattoo on the wooden flooring, which had been worn smooth by the passage of time and the tread of thousands of small feet.