It breaks my heart to think what I was willing to put up with for a woman who treated me like a stranger. I know there are others who have lived with cold mothers, but, thankfully, their fathers often step up to the plate and give those poor children what they need. What my father gave me, what he forced on me, was no compensation for what my mum withheld. But the saddest thing of all was that when he did those awful things, it was the only affection I was given. When he kissed me, when he stroked my hair, when he held me – all of which he would do before abusing me – that was all I had. That was what I knew of love.
All that had changed was the geography – Dad was still the monster he’d always been.
We spent two years in Northern Ireland. For some reason, Dad had thrown out his tape recorder some time before we left Germany. He still read voraciously though – that is one of my strongest memories of him. He drank, he smoked, he treated me appallingly, and he always, always had a cowboy book or a thriller on the go.
Gary and I read a lot from an early age too, mainly the annuals which came out every year –
Jackie
,
Sparky
and
Bunty
for me,
The Broons
for Gary – and I also loved Enid Blyton books. My favourite of all, however, was
Black Beauty
, which I read time and time again. I adored the happy ending.
Mum stopped wearing her short dresses due to constantly getting ulcers on her legs and the resultant scarring. She continued to wear bell-bottoms but replaced her short skirts for maxi dresses. She used to wear tights but changed these for pop socks, which I also wore under my jeans. Fashion and music was changing as always, but parts of my life never altered.
Mum was still buying from Avon when she could but she had to get friends to post things to her as there didn’t seem to be any Avon parties in Northern Ireland. The house was covered in Avon tat – Cinderella shoes, bells, candles, small cottage houses and rocking chairs (made from pegs) with smelly pot-pourri cushions. Maybe she was trying to get rid of the smell of stale beer which seemed to permeate everything. I also remember she bought a mood ring. I was fascinated by it and truly believed it showed what you were feeling. The changing colours had different meanings; blue was happy, purple meant moody, and black suggested you were down in the dumps. I would often try it on just to see what my mood was and hoped for the happy colours.
Mum changed her hairstyle shortly after we arrived in Northern Ireland. It was still long but she got herself a curly perm which she liked very much. I remember she bought two large pictures of a crying boy and crying girl, which she put up in the sitting room. She always used to say that the crying girl and I were the same: ‘bloody miserable’.
After we had been there about a year, something happened which made me very happy. We got a dog.
One day, Gary came back from school with a little scrap of fur in his arms. I was already home, being on my own personal curfew, but he had been playing football with friends. On the way back, he had found this little puppy shivering by the roadside. She must have only been about three months old, and was a beautiful spaniel and collie crossbreed. That might just be a mongrel to most people, but to me she was the loveliest dog I’d ever seen.
I looked at her in wonder when Gary brought her home.
‘Do you think we’ll get to keep her?’ I asked him.
‘We’d better,’ he replied, with a steely determination in his voice.
‘Can you ask?’ I knew he would have a much better chance than me. Luckily, he felt the same way.
‘No problem. I’ve always wanted a dog,’ he told me.
He was right. It was no problem, because it was the ‘right’ child asking for something. Gary played it absolutely perfectly by going to my mum first. He turned his own puppy-dog eyes on her and she was powerless to resist. By the time Dad got in and had settled himself in his chair, drinking, the deal was done. Mum took the puppy through and simply said, ‘Harry, we’ve got a dog.’
‘What do we want a dog for?’ he asked.
‘We just do,’ she told him.
‘I don’t want a dog. I’m doing nothing.’
His retort didn’t bother her – I’m sure all that was in her mind was that Gary wanted this puppy, so she’d fight for it if she had to.
‘I’m not asking you to do anything, am I? What are you calling it, son?’ she asked.
Gary was standing at the doorway in front of me, both of us wondering if we really were going to get to keep it. I whispered to him, ‘Betty, I want to call her Betty.’ He shrugged. I suspect it was the getting of the dog which mattered to him, not the naming of her.
‘She’s called Betty,’ he told my mum.
‘What?’ asked my dad, steadily getting more drunk as the conversation went on. ‘Bay? That’s a fucking stupid name for a dog.’ It seemed that the drink was finally having an effect on his faculties. He couldn’t pronounce it with his slurred, drunk voice, and no one wanted to contradict him.
‘Don’t you swear at him,’ snapped my mother. ‘It’s Betty. That’s settled.’
I couldn’t believe my luck. We were getting to keep the dog, and I had chosen her name. Mum shoved her into Gary’s arms as she went to make dinner, and he, in turn, gave her to me. Food was more important than the puppy. I slipped away to my room, closed the door quietly – Dad had said that I wasn’t really allowed to shut it – and lay down on my bed with her. I whispered her name over and over, as she licked my face. She was so loving already and I was bursting with happiness that she was going to be part of my life. My dog!
I don’t think you can overestimate the comfort any child can get from a pet, but for an abused child it is magnified a hundredfold. As time went on, I’d tell her my worries, I’d cry to her, I would pour all of my frustrations out to her. She was a wonderful outlet for me. Dad always called her Bay, as that was all he could manage when he was drunk. Ironically, that ended up being the only name she responded to – she knew who was in charge too, I suppose.
Towards the end of our two years in Northern Ireland, I would say that Dad became more subdued. I still couldn’t count the number of occasions on which he abused me. While this seems an odd thing to say, given that the whole situation was horrific and degrading, I don’t think he got as much enjoyment out of it as he had in Germany. That’s why I think he had to take it up a stage.
One night, I came in after taking Betty for a walk. Not only did I now have someone to talk to, but I had actually been given more freedom since we’d got a dog, because Gary got fed up with her very quickly, so I was given the responsibility of exercising her. Mum was at bingo, as usual, and it was starting to get dark, so must have been after 9pm. When I came in, I went straight to the kitchen to get a towel for Betty as it had been raining and I wanted to dry her off. Dad was standing there. I had hoped he would be in the living room, drinking, and I would have been able to get Betty sorted and then sneak off to my room before he knew I was back.
‘Come here,’ he said, as I tended to the dog.
I pretended I hadn’t heard him and soon felt his palm hit my head.
‘I know you can hear me, you little bitch,’ he said, ‘and we both know you’ll do as I fucking say. Do you not want to come here?’
I knew it was probably a trick, but I still shook my head and whispered, ‘No.’
‘Fair enough,’ he replied. ‘No problem.’
I waited. There was no way that would be the end of it.
‘You don’t want to come over here, that’s fine – that’s your choice. We’ll do it your way,’ he threatened. ‘Get up those fucking stairs to my room, now.’
‘I don’t want to,’ I said, although I have no idea where I got the strength from.
‘Is that right?’ he replied.
‘You said it was my choice, Dad,’ I reminded him.
‘Aye, aye, it is I suppose,’ he pondered. ‘Fine. You’ve made your choice.’ With those words, he leaned over and put the tap on. ‘I’ll just drown this little fucking rat, then.’ He grabbed Betty as I screamed.
‘You will do as I fucking tell you,’ he shouted at me, ‘and if you don’t, you’ll suffer the fucking consequences.’
‘No, Dad, I don’t want to go up there, but please don’t hurt Betty!’
‘Then say goodbye to this!’ he shouted back at me.
There was a lot of screaming going on between both of us, and poor little Betty was barking furiously in the middle of it all while trying to get out of my father’s arms, he was squeezing her so tightly. Suddenly, I heard the front door open and Mum shouted, ‘What’s all this racket?’
She came into the kitchen just as Dad had crossed the room. He threw Betty into the bin as she walked through the door. ‘What on earth is going on, Harry? Tracy?’
‘False alarm, Valerie,’ he said, scooping the dog out of where he had thrown her seconds ago. He handed her to me and I hugged her with all my might. ‘Tracy thought she’d lost the dog but the silly wee bugger had just climbed in the bin and was hiding there.’
My Mum just accepted his explanation. She didn’t seem to think it odd that a little puppy had climbed into a really high bin and squashed herself in a tiny opening, and she didn’t question why there had been so much screaming when my dad had presumably found Betty very quickly. I suppose that was just how she was with everything – she never questioned what he said.
Not long after that, when Dad demanded I go upstairs to his room, I knew I really did have no option. I couldn’t lose Betty, and I would just have to face up to what he always did to me. I was getting older and I hated everything about his control over me. Of course, I’d always been terrified and sickened by the abuse, but as I grew up I was starting to question things. Mum seemed a lot better – couldn’t we stop? Why couldn’t the doctors make her well rather than it all depending on my accepting my dad’s violation of me? And, as always, if I was helping, why didn’t she love me more? On top of all that, though, was the moral belief that this was just wrong. Dad had said it was our secret and it was a secret that lots of little girls had with their daddies, but these were such horrible things to do that I didn’t think other, nicer daddies would put their little girls through it.
By this time, I was quite friendly with Hilary, the girl who lived across the road from us and who sat on the kerb playing on her own quite often. I would never have dared tell her what my dad was doing, but that wasn’t just because I was terrified of him; it was also because I suspected the same thing was happening to Hilary. The only ‘evidence’ I had for this was that she seemed sad a lot of the time and her mum was ill. Maybe Hilary and her dad had the secret too?
Looking out of our window one day, Dad saw me chatting with Hilary as we both sat on the pavement. He knocked on the glass and beckoned for me to come inside. I ran in, more obedient than Betty ever was. ‘What are you talking to that girl about?’ he demanded.
‘Nothing. School. Stuff,’ I replied.
‘You seem very cosy.’ He stared at me. ‘You do remember what I’ve said, Tracy? You can’t tell anyone about helping your mum. If you do, she’ll get ill again. She could die, Tracy – and it would be your fault. Just remember that next time you’re gossiping with your little friend.’
‘I’ll remember, Dad,’ I said and turned to go back outside with Hilary.
‘Where the fuck are you pissing off to now, you stupid little bitch?’ he snapped. ‘Get upstairs. Your mum’s not been feeling too well at all – move it.’
The look on his face told me it would be pointless to argue. I walked up to his room with him close behind. He muttered his usual litany against me –
filthy, whore, bitch, dirty, slut.
He pushed me towards the bed and when I made to lie down, he said, ‘No, sit up.’ I did as I was told and perched on the end of the old divan. He removed his trousers and pants immediately then positioned himself in a sitting position too, up by the headboard. I tried to keep my gaze away from what was between his legs. It was horrible, as always, and I thought that, as he wasn’t touching me, he’d want me to masturbate him this time. He leaned over and grabbed me by the wrist. I couldn’t help but blurt out, ‘I don’t want to, Dad, I don’t want to touch it,’ and tried to pull my hand back.
He smiled. ‘Is that right? Well, it’s about time you started using your mouth for something other than complaining.’ With that, he grabbed me by the hair and pulled me towards his penis. My hair had only recently grown long again. In Germany, he had been so keen on pulling me about by it that it used to come out in clumps. One day, when Mum said she was going to the hairdresser, I asked if I could get mine done too. When I came home with it all chopped off, like a boy, Dad went mad but I was willing to take his shouting as I had removed one of his weapons. He couldn’t get a grip on my hair for ages after that, and it was only since we had been in Northern Ireland that it had started to grow long as Mum hadn’t found a hairdresser yet. As he dragged me towards him by it, I regretted that I hadn’t taken scissors to it myself.
‘No!’ I shouted when it dawned on me what I was expected to do. I didn’t have a full realisation though, as the worst thing I could think of was that he might want me to kiss it – how could I have known what he was really after?
‘Go on, you’ve been fucking desperate for that,’ he snarled at me. ‘You know exactly what you want, don’t you? My little prostitute. That’s what you are, my little whore. I bet you’ll know just what to do as well, won’t you?’ He had my hair wrapped around his hand and was holding it close to my scalp so he had a strong grip with which to control my head. He thrust his hips up towards me and manoeuvred my mouth onto him. I kept my lips closed and struggled. ‘Open it! Open your fucking mouth!’
I tried to shake my head but could hardly move. I thrashed around, but he was so strong. He pulled my head up to look at him and glowered at me. ‘Listen. Your mother will fucking die if you don’t do this. Do you even understand? Get your fucking mouth open and get it round that – you’ll know what to do when you start.’