During the service I prayed that I could be cleansed of the horrendous happenings of the past years. I prayed with all my heart that now I was a full member of the church, God would look after me. That at last he would start to listen to me. Surely he would.
M
um was furious when she got a letter home to say that I had failed the second part of the Eleven Plus because of collapsing in the middle of the exam. She charged up to the school for a crisis meeting with my teacher, cross that I was going to be sent to the secondary modern rather than the grammar school. She had never taken an interest in my education up to this point and had always failed to turn up for any meetings at school to discuss my progress, but now, all of a sudden, she seemed to feel that the school I went to next would reflect on her. She wanted the status of having a daughter who was bright enough for grammar school, and she wasn’t giving in on that point.
‘The stupid girl could at least have finished the exam paper,’ she complained. ‘Then at least she’d have stood a chance.’
‘It wasn’t her fault,’ the teacher reasoned. ‘She was ill on the day. It’s just one of those things.’
‘I don’t care about that. She’s failed me and she’s failed the whole family. How could she?’ Mum shouted, while I cowered behind her, mortified.
The teacher raised her eyebrows. ‘Cassie has always done very well at school. She’s a hard worker. Since you feel so strongly about this, I’ll have a word with the headmistress and we’ll see what can be done.’
I did well at school because it was my respite from home. School was where I felt normal, felt I belonged. I could engross myself in my lessons and blot out thoughts about the nasty events in the rest of my life. I strove to do my best and win praise from my teachers. Of course, what I really wanted was praise from Mum, but that wasn’t going to happen. I never asked for much out of life and so wasn’t disappointed when I didn’t get much. But now I had failed her. Now I would never win her approval.
When Mum saw the headmistress, she explained that it was possible to re-sit the Eleven Plus and that she would be happy to enter me for the re-sit if that was what I wanted to do. This was at the end of the school year and in the September I would have to start at the local secondary modern, but I could take the re-sit in November and transfer to the grammar later on if I passed. She assured Mum that I had every chance of doing well, but added that it was up to me and that she and my form teacher would discuss it with me and ask what I preferred to do when the time came.
My mother left the meeting very angry and upset. She had never let me decide anything for myself before and didn’t see
why she should start now, as she told me in no uncertain terms that evening.
In the autumn term I started at the secondary modern, along with Claire and all my friends, and straight away I liked it there. The teachers were nice, the subjects we were taught were interesting and it had a good atmosphere about it. Then one evening I heard my parents talking. The school had been in touch with Mum to say it was time for me to make my decision about resitting the Eleven Plus. I heard her moaning to Dad about the fact that the teachers thought I should make the decision myself. She’d made up her mind I should go to the grammar, whether it was the best school for me or not, and that was that.
The following day the headmistress summoned my teacher and me into her office. The suggestion of a re-sit was discussed and I was asked what I wanted to do.
I asked if I could think about it and, because there was a deadline for applications for the exam, I was told I had to make my decision by the end of the week.
That evening I decided to try and talk to Mum and Dad about it. I really didn’t want to move schools, because I felt safe where I was, where Claire and all my friends were. I didn’t want to go to a big new school full of strangers with high academic standards and high pressure to go with it. But if it would make Mum happy, I thought maybe I should go along with her wishes. Maybe she would at last be pleased with me.
Just after I got home from school, I was on my way up to my room when I heard Mum and Dad arguing and my name being mentioned, so I stopped in the hall to listen.
‘She should be grateful that she’s in school at all,’ Mum was screaming. ‘Ever since she was born she’s caused trouble. She’s brought me nothing but pain and unhappiness.’
I couldn’t begin to understand what she meant. What had I ever done to upset her so much? I hadn’t played truant, as Tom often did, or stolen sweets from the local shop, or broken windows. Tom was always up to mischief, yet Mum just laughed off his pranks and stood up for him. But I’d never put a foot wrong. I was always too scared of her to break the rules or do anything remotely naughty.
Dad was trying to point out my achievements and telling her she should be proud of me, but she laughed harshly at that.
‘How can I ever be proud of her after all she has done to me?’ she shouted.
I was so confused, I wanted to rush in and ask what they were talking about, but a part of me was too afraid of finding out the answer. I knew she felt differently about me from the way she felt about the others, but I couldn’t imagine why. I just felt that I must be bad inside to make her feel this way.
Mum was becoming hysterical with rage, but still Dad persevered. ‘I think they’re right to let Cassie decide whether she retakes the exam or not. She seems to be doing well at the secondary modern, and if she wants to stay maybe we should let her.’
Mum yelled, ‘At least if she had a good education she could get a good job and start to repay me for her keep.’
That was confusing. Should I be paying Mum for my keep? Didn’t parents usually pay to bring up their own children?
Before overhearing this row I had been ready to say that I would re-sit the exam and try to get into the grammar. Although I didn’t want to leave my school, I had thought it might be an opportunity to make Mum proud of me. But now I knew this wasn’t going to happen. No matter what I did, this woman would never be proud of me. At that moment I changed my mind. If I couldn’t please her anyway, I might as well please myself. I was happy at the school I was in. The teachers liked me and my friends liked me. I was doing OK. If I got into the grammar I would lose all of this and still not gain the one thing I wanted—my mother’s pride and love.
I decided to tell my parents my decision first thing the following morning, then I could escape to school straight after dropping the bombshell.
The next morning, after disturbed sleep, my courage was waning. I came down to breakfast feeling very nervous and I was relieved to see Dad still at the breakfast table. Perhaps he would support me in my decision.
‘Have you thought about what your teachers asked you?’ he questioned me.
‘I’ve decided I would rather stay where I am,’ I said nervously. ‘You do understand my reasons, don’t you?’
Before he could answer, Mum started to scream at me. ‘It has nothing at all to do with him.’
I frowned. ‘Why not? He
is
my dad.’
Mum slapped me round the face, harder than she’d ever slapped me before. I fell to the floor with the force of the blow and lay there, too stunned to cry. Mum leaned over me and
began slapping me over and over again where I lay, with a ferocity that terrified me.
Dad pushed in front of her to protect me. ‘That’s enough now, leave her alone,’ he said firmly.
Mum shouted, ‘I will do what I want to her. I have every right to do as I please. Get out of the way. You have no rights as far as she is concerned!’
What on earth did she mean? I didn’t understand the implications of what was being said. I only knew that once again I was in the wrong, for reasons I couldn’t begin to understand, and I sensed that there was some kind of grown-up argument between Mum and Dad that I wasn’t party to. Why did Mum have rights over me while Dad didn’t? It made no sense at all.
As soon as I could escape, I ran upstairs to the bathroom and bathed my stinging face in cool water, then I tidied myself up and hurried off to school. Tom and Anne had left already and I didn’t want to be late.
That morning I told my teacher that I had decided to stay at the secondary modern and she agreed that it was for the best. At least I wouldn’t have to go through the trauma of changing school and making a whole new set of friends.
I was very wary of going home that afternoon but realised that if I were late it would give my mother yet another reason to be angry.
I walked into the kitchen and said hello to Mum and my sister Ellen, who was sitting chatting to her, but neither of them so much as acknowledged my presence. My heart sank. Mum could keep up these silences for weeks, and when she
wasn’t talking to me none of my siblings would speak to me either. To be fair to them, Mum was a force to be reckoned with, and if they had dared to talk to me they would find themselves on her bad side as well—a fate they didn’t want to risk. But it meant I was totally isolated in the house. Dad retreated out to his shed after tea every evening, and I got the cold shoulder from everyone else right the way through to bedtime.
The deadline for re-sitting the examination came and went and still no one was speaking to me, but then Mum became ill with anaemia. She had to lie on the sofa all day long, and when I wasn’t at school I was expected to wait on her hand and foot, making endless hot drinks, checking that she was comfortable, reading to her and generally caring for her. She was supposed to eat raw liver, and the job of chopping it into little pieces and feeding it to her with a fork fell to me.
‘It makes me feel squeamish,’ she claimed. ‘If you feed it to me, at least I don’t have to look at it.’
It used to make me feel ill too, but I’d do it to try and help her get well again. I never got any thanks, though.
Visitors remarked on how caring I was—‘What a little angel,’ one friend said—but to my mother I was just someone to order about until I fell into bed each night exhausted. No matter how hard I tried, I could do nothing right. It was a huge relief when she eventually recovered and things got back to normal in the house. My choice of school was never mentioned again and Mum never once enquired how I was getting on. She really didn’t care now that I had failed her by not getting into the grammar.
And then, in the middle of the school year, I became ill again. I think I hadn’t ever recovered fully from the pneumonia and I was still very weak. I was constantly tired, with aching joints, sores in my mouth, and I felt sick most of the time. At first the doctors weren’t sure what was wrong with me. They thought I was anaemic, as Mum had been, and treated me with iron supplements, but that didn’t seem to help. Nana C told me I had ‘growing pains’. I spent a lot of time on the bed settee downstairs, so that whoever was looking after me didn’t have to keep coming up the stairs with my meals and drinks. Uncle Bill had been round to visit but so far I hadn’t been left on my own with him, which was a huge relief.
For a long time I had wanted to tell somebody about my ordeal at his hands, but who could I tell?
One day, after hearing that I was ill, the vicar of our church came round to visit me, and as this very kind holy man sat by my bedside chatting I seriously considered confiding in him. If I told a vicar, it would almost be like telling God. He’d have to do something to help, wouldn’t he?
But then the doubts crept in. I’d told Mum and she hadn’t believed me, had she? What if the vicar didn’t believe me? He might think I was a liar who just wanted to hurt my Uncle Bill, the man who’d been kind enough to pick me up from confirmation classes and drive me home. I didn’t want the vicar to think badly of me, so in the end I decided against confessing. It seemed too much of a risk to take.
While I was ill Mum didn’t change the pattern of her life at all. If she had to go out, or wanted to go out, either Auntie
Mary who owned the fish and chip shop came in to look after me, or I was left on my own.
One afternoon while Auntie Mary was there, Uncle Bill came round. ‘I thought I’d come and cheer you up,’ he said.
I stared at him. Cheer me up? What did that mean? I didn’t want his kind of cheering up. But at least I thought I would be safe because Auntie Mary was there. And then I heard the awful words.
‘I don’t mind looking after Cassie until her mum comes home,’ Uncle Bill said, smiling.
I was terrified. I didn’t know what to say to stop this from happening. Everyone thought they knew how much he loved me. Everyone thought they knew how kind he was to me. In fact, they knew nothing at all about what went on between us. No one knew.
Auntie Mary said, ‘Well, I do have some shopping to do, and if you’re sure, I’ll leave you to look after her.’ She left, happy that I was in safe hands. I was once again at the mercy of my abuser.
At first he sat by the side of the bed settee, reading a newspaper. I thought that if I pretended to sleep, he would go into the kitchen and leave me to rest. I closed my eyes and prayed that my deception would work. But God wasn’t listening.
Suddenly I felt the blankets being pulled back. I kept my eyes closed tightly, as if the tighter I held on, the safer I would be. Then I felt my nightie being tugged. I held on to it even more tightly. I was cold with fear. I simply didn’t know what to do. If I screamed, he would know I was awake, and then it
would happen. Surely if I kept my eyes closed and held on to my nightie then it wouldn’t happen?
His huge hands were roving all over my poor sick body, my body that was still recovering from the last time I’d seen him. I started shaking with fear. He was groping and hurting me again, then he tried to get onto the bed settee with me, and suddenly I could take no more. I started to kick out at him, but he grabbed me even more tightly.
‘No, no, please don’t,’ I cried.
He laughed, and the laugh sounded eerie and menacing. ‘Come on,’ he urged. ‘You know it’s good. You know you like me doing it.’
How could he think that? Couldn’t he hear me crying out? I hated it passionately. I couldn’t
bear
what he did to me.