Don't You Love Your Daddy? (26 page)

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Billy,’ Sue snapped. ‘Sit still and stop making a fuss. Now, Sally, I don’t want any nonsense from you either. This is a real delicacy.’ She placed it in front of my father for him to carve while she opened the top of the trolley to reveal an assortment of vegetables in glass dishes.

Whatever she wanted to call it, I couldn’t bear to look at the decapitated head sitting on one of Sue’s best serving plates. My father, taking no notice of Billy’s and my shocked faces, picked up a carving knife and adeptly removed the tongue, which he laid at the side of the plate. He then proceeded to cut slices from the sheep’s cheeks. Finally he picked up a serving spoon and scooped out some grey slush from under the watercress at the top of the head.

As a child brought up on supermarket food – meat came in plastic trays wrapped in clingfilm and milk in cartons – I had never faced the reality of where it actually came from. When I had admired animals in the fields I had not connected them with the food that was put on our plates.

‘What’s the matter, Sally?’ Sue asked, in a deceptively sweet tone. ‘You eat bacon, don’t you?’ She lifted up a spoon of the grey slush and placed it on my plate. ‘Brains, Sally. They’re really lovely,’ she said, ‘and they might make you smarter.’ She turned to my father. ‘David, please cut a piece of tongue for her – mind you, it might have been better to have cut out Sally’s a few weeks ago!’ She gave the annoying tinkling laugh that, since the first day I had met her, had grated on me.

From somewhere I found the strength to pick up my knife and fork and cut the meat into small pieces. I placed it in my mouth and chewed. If I didn’t look at that ruined head and just thought of it as a slice of lamb, I told myself, I could get it down.

I watched Billy out of the corner of my eye. He, too, seemed to have come to the same conclusion and was manfully chomping away.

My father heaped praise on Sue for cooking such a traditional northern dish. He told her it was delicious and recalled his own grandmother serving sheep heads. ‘Yours is much better, though, Sue, really it is,’ he added. Billy and I managed to say we had liked it too and kept our fingers crossed that this was not going to be a regular addition to her menus.

It was after our dessert, which I thought looked like a crushed ice-lolly and she called ‘sorbet’, that she decided it was time to tell me what was going to happen to me once the school holidays were over.

‘You’re going to a new school,’ my stepmother informed me. In a voice that said, ‘This hurts me more than it hurts you’, she added, ‘One where I hope you won’t make up any more stories,’ thus dashing my hopes that my misdemeanour, if not forgotten, was not to be mentioned again.

‘Why can’t I stay at the one I’m at?’ I asked, feeling panic at the idea of changing schools again. For a moment I thought she meant a boarding-school, and however bad it was at home, I knew I didn’t want to go to one.

‘You’ve upset your classmates, and their parents have complained about you. Your father and I have discussed it and think it will be better for you to have a completely fresh start,’ she told me, trying to make everything seem as though it was just my best interests that she had at heart.

‘Yes, Sally,’ my father butted in. ‘Sue’s father told me that your stories were repeated to him by one of our employees. Imagine how embarrassing that was! He said that you’re the talk of the town. And that’s not good for business, is it, when people who are supposed to respect me are laughing about my daughter behind my back? And goodness knows what you said to Jennifer – her parents don’t want you in their house again.’

I sat straighter in my chair, feeling his eyes boring into my head. I was thankful that Jennifer would be back at boarding-school in a few weeks and that our paths were unlikely to cross. If she didn’t see me, then surely she would forget what I had said to her – at least, I hoped so. I didn’t want to try to imagine just how terrible my punishment might be if my father ever heard what I had asked her.

He carried on as though he hadn’t noticed my discomfort: ‘They’re friends of Sue’s family, influential people, and now we can never take you to their house. Yes, you’ve made everything very awkward for us. Still, I’m not going to say any more about it.’

I made no comment, just stared at my empty plate.

Not wanting the awkward atmosphere to ruin her special meal, Sue decided to lighten the conversation. ‘Anyhow, Sally, next week I’m taking you shopping for a new uniform – I thought we might even have some tea out,’ she chimed in brightly.

Already smarting from her comments about brains and tongue, I thought sourly that she wasn’t fooling me with her talk of shopping. She wanted an excuse to go into the next town, which was more than ten miles away and much larger than the one we lived in.

The school was several miles from home and much larger than the local one I had attended previously. Sue pointed it out to me when she drove us to the shops. Unlike the neighbourhood one, which was housed in an old building, this school was a modern brick, steel and glass Meccano-like construction. To me, it looked a vast, soulless place and Sue’s chatter that it had every modern amenity did nothing to allay my misgivings.

She parked in a multi-storey car park, then set off purposefully in the direction of the shops, with me trailing along beside her. The first stop was a store where school uniform items were sold. This time I needed a navy skirt and blazer plus a grey jumper and two white shirts. Pulling the items hurriedly off the rail, she bundled them into my arms. ‘Try that one on as well,’ she said, holding up a second blazer that I could see was miles too big. I protested that I thought everything was the wrong size, but it had no effect on her and I took them into the changing room. The skirt hung to mid-calf and the blazers swamped me, as did the shirts.

‘They’re all too big – look!’ I said, as I came out of the changing room.

She sighed. ‘Sally, have you any idea what this constant school changing is costing us? And you can’t have a new uniform whenever you grow an inch, can you?’

I mumbled, ‘No.’

‘No,’ she repeated. ‘We don’t want this expense again for a few years, so you’ll just have to grow into them.’

‘But I’ll look stupid!’

‘Well, whose fault is that?’ was her tart rejoinder. As soon as I had changed back into my own clothes she handed everything to the shop assistant, saying we would take everything. My satchel, the one my mother had given me to start school with, was to be replaced with a briefcase that she also added to the pile. ‘You need something bigger than that old one,’ she said.

‘But everyone else will have a satchel,’ I tried to tell her – like all children I had a fear of looking different from my peers.

‘Not everyone, Sally. You won’t,’ she replied, and I saw a smile of satisfaction cross her face at my dismay.

When the purchases had been packed, Sue led the way to the ground floor. There, I found out that I had been right: the shopping trip was more for her than for me. She spent about the same amount of time and almost as much money choosing makeup and beauty products as she had on selecting my uniform.

Once the spending spree was finished she turned to me with a smile. ‘We’re going to have some lunch now, Sally,’ she said brightly. ‘I need to freshen up.’ We made a detour to the ‘ladies restroom’ as the sign said on the door. Out came the new blusher and pink lipstick, which were skilfully applied, her hair was fluffed up and perfume sprayed on wrists and neck. With one last look in the mirror, Sue decided she was ready.

Click, click, went her stilettos as she marched briskly down the road. ‘A friend’s going to join us,’ she told me.

Join you, I thought, but wisely said nothing.

Into a small dimly lit wine bar we went to find her friend was already there. As they greeted each other the friend’s blonde bouffant hair bounced, her pale lips smiled, and the two nearly identical women air-kissed and exchanged compliments – ‘You look wonderful,’ and ‘So do you’ – while the waiter prepared to take the order.

A few brief words were said to me, before the two women settled down to chatter. Bored with their conversation about fashion and the details of the latest boyfriend, I tried to block it out. It must have been about an hour later when they looked at their watches. ‘Work calls,’ said the bouffant blonde, and ‘Husband’s dinner too,’ responded a giggling Sue. More air-kisses, then we were outside and on the way to the car.

The following week the summer holidays ended and it was time for me to start at another new school. On the first day Sue drove me there. ‘After today you can catch the bus,’ she said, and showed me the stop where I was to find the return bus that afternoon.

When we arrived she told me that the headmaster was expecting us and led the way to his office. She greeted him warmly, then introduced me. He was a tall, thin man, with flinty eyes and sparse grey hair. He looked at me coldly through large horn-rimmed glasses when Sue informed him that I was the stepdaughter she had told him about.

‘I’ll leave her with you, then,’ she said, giving him one of her wide flirtatious smiles. ‘You be good now, Sally,’ were her final words to me before she disappeared through the door, leaving me standing in my too-big uniform, facing a man who had already judged me as a potential troublemaker. I felt a sinking sensation as I heard her echoing steps receding down the hall. For all her faults, at least she was familiar.

‘Well, Sally,’ he said, taking his seat behind the desk but leaving me standing. ‘Your stepmother and father have told me of some of your problems. Let me tell you this. That sort of behaviour will not be tolerated here. Girls who tell lies about others are punished. Do you understand me?’

My heart sank even more. This was not as I had been told – a fresh start: I had simply been removed from the local children who might repeat anything I said and cause my father and Sue embarrassment – or worse.

‘Yes.’

‘Yes who, Sally?’

‘Yes, sir,’ I said.

His face did not change expression as he continued, ‘I’ll be getting regular reports from your teachers and will be monitoring your progress.’

He paused then, waiting for some response, but receiving none he continued his lecture in the same dismissive tone. ‘Now, as you can’t do sport, you will spend those lessons studying extra English and maths in the library, so don’t think you can slack off. Do you understand what I am saying?’

‘Yes,’ I said. He raised an eyebrow quizzically, reminding me of what he expected to hear. ‘Yes, sir,’ I whispered and, satisfied with my meekness, he escorted me to my classroom.

At the first break I looked nervously about as children had already formed their groups and stood around me chatting. No one looked friendly, only curious when they glanced in my direction. I saw their heads lower, heard muttering, and instinctively knew it was me they were talking about.

One boy sauntered over to where I stood and I could feel his friends watching with interest as they crowded round. ‘Heard you make up stories,’ he said, with a smirk.

‘Yes,’ chimed in another voice, which belonged to a thick-set little girl, ‘and the teacher told us to tell on you if you do it here.’

I felt my face redden and tears prickled behind my eyes as I tried to say I didn’t.

‘You speak posh, don’t you?’ jeered another, but I couldn’t explain that was because of the therapy I’d had to improve my speech impediment. I knew he would only laugh at me more.

At lunchtime when, with the other children from my class, I walked into the bustling canteen, no one moved to make room for me to sit so, taking my tray, I perched alone at the end of a table. All around me was the buzz of conversation, but none of it was directed at me.

It was no better at the end of the day when I was leaving.

‘Hey, Sally,’ yelled one of my classmates. ‘Got a big sister, have you? She given you her cast-offs?’

‘What’s that you’re carrying, then?’ called another, pointing at my briefcase.

‘Yeah, you’re a snob, aren’t you? Think you’re better than us,’ shouted another, and I heard hoots of derisive laughter following me as I walked to the gates. I knew then that, no matter how long I was at that school, I was never going to make friends.

Within a few days of the start of term my eczema returned in full force. Once again the rash covered my arms and crept up my neck to my face. The same words that had been hurled at me when I was five – spotty, stinky and dirty – were now repeated, but this time the children were older and injected more venom into their voices. ‘Spotty-spotty Sally,’ they chanted whenever the rash was visible. Wanting to escape my tormentors I would disappear into the toilets during my breaks, praying that they wouldn’t guess where I was. Teachers sometimes came to my rescue, but as soon as their backs were turned, the taunts started again. Miserably, I would wonder what it was about me that roused my classmates to dislike me so much.

Maybe each believing that the other had informed me of some of the rudimentary facts of life, neither Sue nor my grandmother had told me about periods. I was eleven when searing stomach cramps woke me early one morning; doubled up with pain, I forced myself to get out of bed and go to the toilet. Blood flowed into the bowl and I screamed in fear.

It was Sue who heard me and, to be fair, she lost no time in rushing up the stairs. ‘What’s the matter now, Sally?’ she asked, with a look of irritation on her face, which disappeared when she saw my white face.