Unspoken - Kiss of the Wolf Spider, Part I (8 page)

I remember lying on my bed
that day, totally beyond tears, praying. “Dear God, so many bad things are
happening to me. What am I going to do? Please can you help me? Please can you
save me? I really wish that I was dead, then none of this would be my problem
anymore, but I am too afraid to kill myself. I need help. Can’t you just make
me brave enough to die?”

“Save me, O God...

I am forced to restore what I did not steal….

You know how I am scorned, disgraced and shamed...

Scorn has broken my heart

and has left me helpless…”

Psalm 69 (1;4; 19 – 20)

My door had no key, so
when my Dad started peeping at my underwear in the drawers, I needed to find a
better place to hide my secret diary. Feeling rather crafty, I had begun
placing it inside the scruffy remains of an ancient  English grammar book. It
went to school with me and came home with me inside the tatty brown book and
would lie next to some other old school books. My parents never looked at my
school work and the grammar book looked way too boring for my friends to care
about – so my diary remained my only secret. 

Saturday 25 March 1989

 I have had one of the
worst days of my life...

 
As I began writing, I heard
footsteps and turned the book upside down with the others.

Joanne entered
without knocking.

“Staring at
the ceiling is not going to make this problem go away,” she began.

She pulled out
my dressing table stool and sat down.

“I do
not
believe
you, by the way. Your father does but I certainly do not!” She enunciated every
word in a clipped staccato voice.  “I got hold of Doctor Harris a short while
ago and he says if you’d been raped you would’ve had marks on your body and
your behaviour would have been peculiar, which it’s not. You are your normal
moody, miserable self, but no different from before.”

As I stared at
the ceiling, tears began to leak from the sides of my

eyes – as
usual. I wished I could stop them.

“Why don’t I
just tell Joanne the truth right now?” I asked myself. “Tell her it was Daddy’s
idea because I’ve missed my period and he seems to think it’s such a problem.”

But then a
scary dark voice seemed to say, ‘
Yes, go on and tell Joanne. She already
thinks you’re a liar. This will prove it and she’ll tell Dad. Then you’ll find
out just how mad he can get….’

 No, I
couldn’t possibly tell the truth. I’d have to just stay with this lie.

“If you
were
raped and you
are
pregnant, you will have to leave school, do you
know that?”

My heart flipped over and
my hands went clammy. “No!” It was the first time the word ‘pregnant’ really
hit home.

“No, what?”

“No, I didn’t know – and
no I’m
not
pregnant. I’m not, I’m not!” My hands were on my stomach,
checking that it was still flat.

“And if they were black
boys then you’ll have a little brown baby, which is against the law. Did you
know that? And then you’ll have to go to a special home for unmarried mothers
and give the baby away when it’s born.” Joanne sounded like she was being mean
on purpose and how could I possibly be pregnant? I was only a child! 

I sat on my bed, hands in
my lap, staring at my chewed fingernails through blurred eyes. The nausea began
to overwhelm me again. I had been nauseous a lot in the past few weeks!

 “Just when
did
you
last have a period?”she persisted.

“Before school started –
in January.” Why did it matter?

Joanne swore angrily.

“Do you know what I think
has happened?” She stood with her hands on her hips looking down at me, a
little insect on the ground. “I think that you have a boyfriend, probably at
school. You’re at a co-ed school and I was your age too. I know what you
youngsters get up to today. … Well, you and your little boyfriend have been up
to some naughty business and now you’re trying to blame someone else. Was this
rape story your idea or his?”

“No, it happened,” I cried
out. “It happened. And I haven’t got a boyfriend!” I curled up in a little ball
on the bed, facing the wall and pulled the duvet over my head. The icy voice
continued to speak through the blackness.

“I want you to think very
carefully about the things I’ve told you and later on I want you to tell me the
truth.” Joanne left and slammed the door on her way out.

I took up my diary and
tears poured down onto it, smudging the writing; proof of how bad my life was.

What is my father
thinking? Can I really be pregnant? Is that what this is actually all about?
Did my father – could my father actually make me pregnant? Is that possible?

He did make Joanne
pregnant. Twice. Is that what has happened to me? Surely that must be a
gigantic sin. Now he’s trying to blame some boys we don’t even know!  Why
didn’t I have the guts to NEVER tell that lie???? But he makes me so afraid
when he’s mad.  Please God make this thing not be so. Please make it go away.
I’m desperate. Please God. If I am pregnant I will find a way to kill myself. I
really, really will.

I began to make plans –
thinking up methods of suicide. Knives. Guns. Dad had a gun. Pills. Joanne had
a lot of pills. Jumping off a high building. Diving off a cliff into the sea.
The more I fantasised my death, the more fearful I became.  I stayed in my room
the rest of the day and no-one called me to come out. I was queasy but didn’t
feel hungry, so I stayed on my bed crying, praying until eventually, I must
have fallen asleep.

Later I woke when Anthony
opened the door.

 “Jane is grounded. Jane
is grounded!” he chanted in brotherly one-upmanship. “Jane you should stop
being so cheeky to them and you wouldn’t get grounded so often.”

“You weren’t even here so
you don’t
know
what really happened!”I argued.

“They told me you were
cheeky… a
nd
you failed your last maths test. So now you have to do
homework too. Well I’m going with Robert to a movie. Ta-ta.” He pulled a
tongue.

  I hurled some sort of
childish abuse back at him and threw my shoes, hitting the door as he closed
it.  I was
never
allowed to go out overnight but he could spend
whole
weekends with friends!

If only Mom could be here
to hold me and say it will be okay. Perhaps if Mom was here none of this would
have happened! If Mom had been here … if Mom had done her job … if Mom had
protected me…

As I started to think
about Mom, a sudden fury exploded from deep within me. It grew hotter and
intensified to a terrifying, inexpressible crescendo. Where was she? Why wasn’t
she here? Why didn’t she care?

In that moment I hated
everything and everyone in the world more than I’d ever hated before. I
clenched my hands and dug my nails into my palms – then I grabbed my hair and began
to pull. That wasn’t enough to satisfy this storm. I looked around.

Scissors!

I pounced on the pair of
nail scissors that were lying on my bedside table and plunged them repeatedly
into the wood, screaming soft and low, deep in my throat. Suddenly I stopped stabbing
the wood and pulled them across the back of my hand, ripping the skin.

Terrified at my own rage,
I stared at my hand. Fear transformed to fascination as the pink scratch became
a broad red line. I did it again, making a second line like a pair of train
tracks.  Blood oozed more quickly to the surface. I was alive and I could feel
myself.

After a while, I needed to
experience that rush again. I did it to the other hand. Systematically. Slowly.
I wanted to feel. I
needed
to feel! The blood began to pool on the back
of each hand – rich, red, vibrant. I watched it run down the sides of my hands
and trickle round onto my palms; I rubbed it as if it was hand cream. I watched
in the mirror as I wiped my hands across my face. “I look like a murderer,” I
thought, “and I’ve just killed my family.” The immense power in that moment of
drama was short-lived, for as the initial excitement died down, my hands began
to sting and I became afraid of Joanne finding me like this.

To my relief, I heard
Dad’s car drive off and a few minutes later, Joanne’s car followed. I dashed
down the passage to the bathroom. I needed to wash off all the blood or my
clothes would soon be stained from the dripping and Joanne would just start
yelling again. In fact, now would be a good time to bath, I decided.  If Dad
was out, that meant he couldn’t come and stand at the window, watching me and
telling me to open my legs in the bath so he could see.

After my cleansing ritual,
I patched up my hands with a few too many Band-Aids, fixed myself a piece of
toast and tea and went back to my bed.

“Even if I were innocent,

my mouth would condemn me;

if I were blameless, it would pronounce me guilty,

Although I am blameless

I have no concern for myself;

I despise my life.”

Job 9:20-21

I slept fitfully and
awoke, distraught.

 I tiptoed down the
passage to make a cup of tea but Dad must have heard me for there he was,
hovering around.  “Jane, I want you to take these pills. Then go and have a
really cold bath. You must come to me every day to get them and have a long, cold
bath straight afterwards. It will get your periods going again.  I want to know
when your period starts. I’m not taking you back to school till then.”

My heart just about
stopped. Not going back to school! Oh no! “But why? I want to go back to school
and I don’t want a cold bath!”

“Just do it!” He raised an
arm to strike. Quickly I grabbed the tablets and furious, I went to bath. It
was freezing and uncomfortable but I stayed in the water a long time. I had to
start my period so I could get back to school. I lay there, willing it to come,
pleading with God to make my body work properly and to make the pills somehow
fix me.

I wasted most of the next
two days watching TV, and staring at the ceiling in my room or freezing to
death in a cold bath. I started to get a cold and sore throat but did the
bathing thing several times a day anyway.

Monday 27 March 1989

At last my period has
started and I can go back to school. I never thought I would be glad to have
it. But it is very, very sore and the blood is pouring out. There are also
thick lumps in it. I’m lying in bed with a hot water bottle now and have the
worst stomach cramps of my life. I feel like I am going to die from pain.  I
don’t know how much more of this ! can take.

 And I’m missing my
friends at school.

I heard soft footsteps
outside the door and I tucked the diary away. Dad came in and half smiled.

“Dad what have those
tablets done to me and who gave them to you? They are killing me. My stomach
hurts so much,” I complained.

 “I got them from a
friend, he’s a sort of doctor,” Dad answered.  “I told him you’d slept with
your boyfriend and we thought you were pregnant, and I asked him to help us
out. He does that sort of thing. He helps people.  He said those pills would
start your period again and they have. See! Dad always sorts out your
problems!”

He sat next to me on the
bed, and patted my shoulder gently. “You can take these Paracetamol tablets for
the pain,” he said.  I was confused but really needed the kindness. “Now, Jane
there is something else you must do for me,” he said suddenly. “I want you to
tell Joanne you lied about the rape.”

“What?”

“I said tell her you
lied.” He was changing from kind to irate.

“Why?” I was immobilised. 

“Because I say so; she
still wants to tell the police.”

“But she’ll scream at me …
she’ll hit me … she’ll kill me!”

“I won’t let her kill you.
Just tell her. And ignore her screaming.”  He left the room but turned back at
the door and looked hard at me. “Go and tell her. Now!” That tone again. He
shut the door and left.

I was in absolute torment
but climbed weakly off the bed, clutching the hot water bottle and wandered
dizzily through the house till I found Joanne in the baby’s room as usual. I
didn’t knock, resigned now to the fact that she was going to kill me anyway.

“Joanne …” I waited for
Joanne to look at me while I looked down at my feet, trying to steady my nerves.
“Remember I told you I was raped by those two black boys? You said I had to
think carefully about my story. Okay, I lied. Sorry.” I held my breath and
waited for all hell to break loose.

There was just white hot silence
while Joanne turned an outrageous burgundy. “You what?” She hissed like an
angry volcano building up pressure and slowly she picked up a child’s
hairbrush.

I prepared to duck when
the brush become a flying missile. “I lied. I’m sorry.”

“Have you told your father
yet?” The ice in her voice scared me even more than screaming would have.
Joanne’s knuckles were turning as white as the little hair brush she was
holding.

“No.” I shook my head,
ashamed at the proficiency of my lies. I continued looking at my feet as tears
dripped onto my toes.

“Go to your room.” She
spat out the words like snake venom. “I cannot believe I’m hearing this. Just
get out of my sight.”

As I left the room, Joanne
exploded into the passage yelling my father’s name with toxic fury.

I ran to my room, my
haven, my prison. Slamming the door, I hurled myself onto the bed and beat it
to death with my fists and feet, screaming into the pillows at the cruelty of
the world around me.

I heard the muffled sound
of loud angry voices that seemed to yell and scream at each other for ages. Let
them tear each other’s throats out. It was all their faults anyway.

I waited tensely, knowing
that Joanne’s quiet response had been the first rumble before the volcano
erupted. Finally, the door burst open and Joanne gave vent to her anger. When
she’d finished yelling and cursing at me, throwing clothes and books on the
floor and launching a small vase at the wall, she issued a warning with dire
consequences.

“…and now you listen very
carefully to me ....” She closed in and held me by the upper arms, nails biting
through my skin. Her teeth were clenched so tightly I wondered if they would
break and her breath was warm against my face.

“I
never
want you
near my children again. You stay away from them with your filthy mind and
disgusting lies. Do not ask me for anything. Ever! Not even as much as a slice
of bread. In the holidays, you will go to work with your father or stay with
your mother, though not surprisingly, even she doesn’t want anything to do with
you, you deceitful little toad.” Her pitch and volume rose, reminding me of the
witch in
Snow White
.

“Here I go busting my gut
trying to work out a trip to the doctor and all the time, I
knew
you
were lying …
I just knew it!”
She shook me till my teeth rattled and
whispered more threats at me. At last she walked to the door. I started to
breathe when suddenly she turned back and grabbed a handful of my dark hair.
Dragging me towards my cupboard, she added, “And by the way, pack your bags.
You are going back to school
now
! If your father won’t take you I
will.” 

Dad did refuse, so Joanne
roared out of the garage to drop her kids with their aunt. As she pulled back
into the driveway to collect me, Dad jumped into the vacant passenger seat. I
put my case in the boot and hugging my hot-water bottle, climbed in the back.

“He’s so afraid I’ll tell
on him,” I thought, and despised him all the more. “As if Joanne would ever
believe even one word from me now.”

The trip back was awful.
Joanne continued telling me what a terrible person I was and how I didn’t
deserve my father.  He just sat there in silence until Joanne started to
interrogate me about boyfriends and sex.

Dad ended it angrily. “Leave
her alone for pity’s sake. The kid doesn’t know if she is Arthur or Martha.
Just cut it out now, Jo. Obviously something happened and at least she’s no
longer pregnant.”

“I never was, I never
was,” I kept saying to myself. “Please God make him wrong.”