He knew I had. But I hadn’t been believed.
Then I had a brainwave. ‘I’ll cry rape!’ I told him. ‘I’ll scream and cry rape. I’ll call the police and make a formal complaint.’ He seemed surprised that I was standing up to him. ‘Even if I am only believed for this one time, it will be worth it!’
This seemed to stop him in his tracks. He knew I’d taken a man to court before. I took it all the way. He didn’t know that prosecuting Phil had been my mother’s doing. I had never seen him look so worried. I hoped and prayed that this would make him go away forever. That at last it would end. At last I really would be safe.
But after a few minutes he said, ‘If I am accused of rape I’ll tell everyone that we had a relationship and this time I only came round here to end it.’ He seemed to be thinking on his feet. ‘Yeah, that’s what I’ll say. I was trying to end it and just to get your own back on me you cried rape!’ He was grinning. ‘Anyway, how many people would believe you, if you now say it had happened again with someone else after you’ve already accused Phil?’ He was really pleased with himself.
I was scared. Would people doubt what had happened with Phil if I now accused Bill? What would everyone think? What would my husband think?
I was shattered. He had won again.
‘I’ll go now,’ he said, ‘but I’ll be back and the games will start again. Have no doubt about that!’
He left me feeling absolutely destroyed. I knew he couldn’t use the defence that we’d had a relationship, because then he could be prosecuted for incest. But what if people just plain didn’t believe me? They might think I was a hysteric who accuses men of rape after hardly any provocation. And did I really want Edward to know about all this? Did I want him to know about all my guilt and shame?
I became very stressed about the situation, and that made it even more difficult for Edward and me to try and have a normal sex life. One evening, after talking about it at length, we decided that I would go to the GP and ask for a referral to a psychiatrist who worked with sexual issues. I agreed in the hope that it would improve my marriage. I really wanted things to get better, with all my heart.
On the day of my appointment with the psychiatrist, Dottie came with me, as Edward was working and I’d been told I had to have someone to look after me after the session. I saw the consultant for about five minutes and he explained that they were going to use a technique called abreactive psychotherapy. You would have thought I would have asked what this meant but I didn’t. I trusted that whatever it was, it was going to help me lose my fear of sex and make my marriage work.
I was taken into a small room and told to lie on a couch, then the doctor injected something into my arm. After what I thought was a few minutes, but was actually about an hour, I
awoke to find a nurse offering me a cup of tea. And then I was sent home.
This went on every Tuesday for six months. On the evenings after the therapy I used to feel great. Relaxed and happy. It was after one of these sessions that Edward and I finally managed to make love. I didn’t enjoy it, but it wasn’t horrendous. He was kind and gentle and made me feel loved throughout.
After about five months of treatments, I asked to see the consultant to find out more about the injection I was being given. He explained that it was like a truth pill. He would ask me questions about my worries and I would offload them onto him. I was terrified. Had I told him? Did he know? How much had I said?
I quizzed him about what I had said but the only thing he revealed was that it was evident that I missed my dog.
If I
had
told, what would have happened? Would they have believed me? Would they want to know who my abuser was? Surely I must have mentioned the abuse and the fear of Uncle Bill? I must have done.
But nothing changed; I felt the same as I had always felt. Sex was still a dirty word. A few days after my last visit to the psychiatric unit, one morning I felt a bit strange. Not sick, just strange. My period was late. It couldn’t be, could it? It had only happened once, so how could I be? But I knew I was. I knew I was pregnant.
I was overjoyed. That one time when I had managed to have sex with my husband had brought about this wonderful new
life inside of me. We had never spoken about babies. Because of the sexual problems, I suppose it wasn’t relevant. I didn’t know how Edward felt about a family. I didn’t know how he felt about babies and being a dad. But I knew I was having his baby and I was over the moon.
I didn’t tell him straight away. I wanted to be sure so I went to the GP, and when the test eventually came back positive I was crying with joy. My own baby. My own real-life china doll. My child.
I told Edward that evening, but instead of being thrilled he was confused. He didn’t understand how it had happened. We had only made love once. He wasn’t sure how he felt, as he knew nothing about babies and had certainly not thought of having one. He wasn’t unkind or angry. He wasn’t being nasty or trying to hurt me. He was just shocked. But however he meant it to come across, I was mortified. Suddenly the joy of knowing I was to be a mother had taken a severe downturn. I tried to reassure him that nothing would change, that we would be OK. He was a good man but he just wasn’t quite ready for the commitment of having a child.
Dottie, on the other hand, was overjoyed. My pregnancy was wonderful, my hair and skin looked great and I was very healthy throughout. I couldn’t wait to be a mum. Only one thing stood in the way of true happiness and that was the fear of Uncle Bill returning. Not only was I afraid for myself, but I was also desperately scared for the child I was carrying. Would he ever try to hurt my child? Would he claim him or her as a grandchild?
Then one day, when I was about three months pregnant, I got a phone call at work and I was astonished to hear Mum’s voice on the line. What’s more, she was crying.
‘It’s Bill,’ she sobbed. ‘He’s had a stroke and he’s in a coma. You must go and see him,’ she pleaded. ‘I can’t, can I? What would people think?’
Go and see him? Was she mad? And then she began to declare her love for this man, the man who was my father, the man who had abused me for the whole of my life. The evil, nasty man with whom she had continued to have an affair for over twenty years, ever since the war.
‘I love him, you know I do. I always have. You must go and see him for me and give him my love. Comfort him.’
I didn’t speak. I couldn’t speak. What could I say?
Could I have told her that at last I could see an end to my pain and fear?
Could I have told her that I was happy? Happy that the games, the toys would soon be a thing of the past.
Should I have told her that I wasn’t sad, because his death would protect me, would stop it all?
Should I have said all of this?
Probably I should have, but I didn’t. I didn’t, because the pretence that had protected him and her for all the years of my past, that pretence would stop me from saying any of these things. The people who knew us, who thought that I loved this evil man, would expect me to visit him. They would expect to see me crying and heartbroken. They would expect me to be at his side.
‘Yes, I’ll go,’ I said with a heavy heart. ‘I’ll give him your love.’
And so I went to see him.
He was lying in a side room, on his own. The doctor asked if I was a relative. I couldn’t say I was his daughter—in my heart he had never been my father—so I told him I was his goddaughter. A while after I arrived, a nurse came in and looked pleased that I was there. She reached under his pillow and brought out a small photograph of me. I was shocked. I recognised the picture. It was one I’d had taken for college a few years before. Mum must have given it to him. Apparently they asked his wife, Gwen, if he had a daughter. When Gwen said no, they changed the subject. Some of the staff thought that perhaps I was a girlfriend, a younger, much younger girlfriend, so they’d hoped I would visit him.
I explained who I was and said there had been a family rift and that I didn’t want his wife to know I had been to see him. Even on his deathbed I was protecting him. Or was I? I like to think I was protecting her.
Over the years, after learning more about men like him, I often shuddered at the thought that perhaps he used to look at my picture and pleasure himself. But I had to stop these thoughts and tell myself that I don’t know he did this. I didn’t know, I only wondered. Wasn’t it bad enough to know and live with what he
had
done?
I sat by his bed and he looked so small. So frail. So bad, so evil, so nasty. Illness had not changed who he was. I cried, and the tears were seen as tears of grief for this man they thought
I loved. I suppose I was grieving in a way. But not for him or his impending death. I was grieving for my childhood and the innocence that he had stolen from me when I was just a little girl. I cried a lot that day, but mostly tears of relief.
As I cried over him, I was careful not to touch him. I didn’t ever want to feel that touch again. I cried for the little girl that was me. His lying in this hospital bed, waiting for death, hadn’t changed any of that. Dying hadn’t made him good. Only death would make it stop. It was then that I decided to tell him.
I had been told during my brief nursing training that even in a coma a patient could hear. This was the last sense to go. So I told him.
I told him how he had ruined my life, how he had taken away my childhood and made me live in fear and horror for most of my life. I told him how I hated what he had done to me and that I would never, never forgive him. I know that we are told we should forgive. I know that as a Christian I should have been able to say it was all OK, that I forgave him for everything he ever did to me.
But I couldn’t. I couldn’t because I didn’t.
I said that the one thing that he would ever do for me that I could thank him for was to die. Wicked? Unchristian? Unforgivable of me? Yes, but honest.
Then as I stood up to leave this cold hospital room, my tears stopped and I allowed myself to feel the relief. It was almost over. I was to be truly safe. But more importantly, so was my unborn child. He would never hurt me again and he would never be able to hurt my son or daughter. All it would take was
one phone call, the call that would tell me that my prayers had been answered.
The following day the call came. He had gone. God had been listening. I was safe.
T
he pregnancy went without a hitch, even though I had to stop taking my antidepressants for the duration. I really blossomed and this wonderful time was the best in my life up to this point. Not only was I to become a mum, but the evil that was Bill was dead. Literally. Dead. For the first time in my whole life, I felt free. I no longer had to look round corners or be afraid to open my front door. He really was gone. It was over.
The labour wasn’t as straightforward as the pregnancy, though. My waters broke at 6.30 a.m. on a Saturday morning and it was 2.10 p.m. on the Monday when the baby was finally born by forceps delivery. So no picnic! On being asked by a nurse what I wanted to call the baby, I insisted that he was to be called Mark. I’d been convinced it was a boy, but the midwife laughed and suggested I might like to rethink this as ‘Mark’ was a healthy baby girl.
‘Melissa,’ I whispered. ‘We’ll call her Melissa.’
I needed surgery for repairs from the delivery, and I came round the following morning to find my mother at my bedside. She had been crying. Again, I was confused. Why was she there? What did she want?
‘Oh Cassie, my lovely Cassie,’ she cried.
I looked around. Was she referring to me?
‘I’ve been so worried, you must have had an awful time,’ came the words from her mouth, the words that sounded concerned and caring. ‘It’s over now. You just have to get well and I’ll help as much as I can. You know that, don’t you?’
Then I noticed that the ward sister was nearby, watching this woman at the side of my bed with kindness and respect, and it all made sense. Mum had an audience.
My voice was very croaky from the anaesthetic. ‘I’m fine. Have you seen my baby? Is she OK?’
‘I wasn’t concerned about the baby, I was so worried about you. But I’ll go and see her now,’ my mother said, sounding for all the world like a natural, caring parent.
Don’t be fooled, I thought. She isn’t natural or caring. I
hoped
she had changed. Maybe the baby would bring us together. Hope was alive and well.
After taking my beautiful baby daughter home, I was still quite unwell and my husband did his best to look after us. Dottie also helped as much as she could, but without an audience my own mother was conspicuous by her absence. My sisters Ellen and Rosie had both had sons by this time and Tom also had a baby boy, whom my mother adored. She spent a lot of time fussing over these grandchildren, but my child
couldn’t expect the same treatment. Mum had shown up at the hospital after Melissa’s birth because the world would expect her to come and see her new grandchild, but having done her ‘duty’ she had no more interest in us. Hope was dashed yet again. But life settled down and I loved every minute of being a mum.
Sadly, as time went on, Edward and I grew further and further apart. I tried to make it work but knew in my heart that I didn’t love him enough—or at least, I never loved him in the right way. We had no sex life at all because I still couldn’t make love. I had tried to be a good wife, tried to let him make love to me, but I couldn’t. It always ended with me hysterical and in tears. I tried to escape the thoughts and images in my head but they were too strong. Every time he touched me, I froze. It felt dirty. Evil and nasty. I wanted it to stop.
Of course it wasn’t evil, nasty or dirty, but that’s how it felt to me. Edward didn’t understand. How could he? He didn’t know because I never told him. Never told him of my childhood traumas at the hands of the man who turned out to be my father. The legacy of the abuse I had suffered was very much still there. It haunted me and still had the power to ruin my life. The evil that was Bill was dead but the feelings and the memories were still very much alive.