I ignored him – I was rarely defiant at that stage, but it was Christmas and, given that he wasn’t actually shouting at me, I thought it was worth chancing my luck.
‘Do you fucking hear me?’ he asked. He stormed over to where I was sitting on the floor and grabbed the Barbie out of my hands. ‘Give her back!’ I shouted. I’d only just been given my pretty doll and didn’t want him to confiscate it already. ‘Please! I’ll be good! Please give her back, Daddy!’ I begged.
‘No fucking chance,’ he sneered, and threw her into the fire. I couldn’t help myself – I screamed. As I watched my lovely new present – the only decent thing I’d been given that year – melting in the flames, Mum came in. ‘What’s going on here?’ she asked.
My dad looked at me, and I could see the warning in his eyes. ‘Tracy’s been stupid – she was having a tantrum, throwing her doll about, and she dropped it in the fire.’
‘Tracy!’ Mum exclaimed. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake! That’s just typical of you – you’re such an annoying little girl.’ She stamped out of the room and my dad smiled. ‘You’ve upset your mum, Tracy. She chose that doll for you.’
‘But it was you, Dad . . .’ I started to say, but he cut me off.
‘No. No, it was you, Tracy. Your fault. And now, now your mum is very upset. You’ll have to make it up to her, won’t you?’
I nodded, the tears running down my cheeks. This was so unfair, but I knew I couldn’t fight. He always won.
‘I’ll go and say sorry,’ I said to him.
‘No, no, don’t do that. I’ll tell her – but, Tracy? You’re going to have to be a very, very good girl to make up for this. Do you understand?’
By this time, I understood. I understood only too well.
The families on the base lived on streets which were about a mile long each. There were always lots of people about and the area was quite large, but I kept myself to myself. After the abuse began, Dad was keen to keep me indoors as much as possible (although Gary was allowed much more freedom), so even if I had wanted to mix, I didn’t really have the opportunity.
It was strange the way in which my new life acquired a pattern so quickly. I would say that, within six months, everything had been turned upside down. Dad wasn’t trying to hide his anger nearly as much as he had to start with. When Mum had been hospitalised on the night of the storm, he had become violent and verbally abusive the very next day, but when she came back from being an in-patient, he didn’t swear at me around her or hit me when she was present. However, as time went on, and her periods in hospital became more and more frequent, he gained confidence in being the man he wanted to be – perhaps the man he had
always
wanted to be. He would swear at me in front of Mum, and although he saved particular words for when he was sexually abusing me, he wasn’t shy about telling me to ‘move my arse’ or ‘stop being so fucking lazy’. Mum raised her eyebrows at him a few times to begin with, but I suppose she had more to contend with given the unpredictability of her health. Dad had also started to give me the odd backhander when she was around – which increased in frequency throughout the next six months.
All I can think now, is that once Mum started going into hospital more, and as her illness got more severe, she was more dependent on him than ever and so he could really stamp his authority on the household. He tried little things at a time, a swear word here and there, a slap to me every now and again – when he got away with it, he tried a little more the next day. Mum never stood up for me. He never hit her, though, and on the one occasion when she did see him give Gary a whack, she hit the roof. It happened about four months after her first hospital admission; she had already been back in a few times. Dad was in the kitchen making a cup of tea – a rare occurrence in itself – and Gary came in. He pushed past my dad as he was reaching for a snack. Dad’s hand came out automatically – he probably thought it was me – and he whacked him across the cheek. Mum, who had been in the living room, appeared in a flash as Gary cried out.
‘Never do that again!’ she exclaimed. ‘You never, EVER lift a finger to him! Do you hear me?’ she shrieked.
My dad could do nothing but nod.
‘Not him,’ she said. ‘You don’t touch him.’
The message couldn’t have been clearer had she spelled it out in flashing lights. I could be slapped whenever my dad’s fancy kicked in. I was fair game, but Gary was protected. I certainly never saw my dad hit him again. On that afternoon, Mum took Gary back through to the living room, leading him by the hand as if he had just been battered to within an inch of his life. Gary played on it, and they sat wrapped up together for the rest of the day while my dad shouted at, and threatened me, as compensation.
Mum was always kind to Gary, she had all the time in the world for him, but I was pretty much invisible. This is what my dad played on in particular. Every time he touched me, every time his hands and fingers went places they shouldn’t, he would whisper to me, ‘Good girl, you’re doing this for your mum, and this will help to keep her out of hospital, won’t it?’ It was our little secret, it was what he used to keep me in line, but he was also fully aware that I was desperate for Mum to notice me. If he could convince me that the abuse was a way of making her well again, then surely she would be grateful to me?
One day, Agnes came round while Mum was at a hospital appointment. Dad opened the door – I would never have been brave enough to do that on my own as I was under strict instructions to keep away from everyone – and she saw me cowering behind him as she asked after my mum. ‘Hiya, Tracy,’ she said, ‘I was just saying to your dad that the doctors will take good care of Valerie. They’ll do their best to make her well again.’
I smiled – but I knew she was wrong. It wasn’t down to the doctors, it was down to me. If I kept being a good girl Mum would get better. When Dad closed the door to Agnes, he confirmed what I had been thinking. ‘She doesn’t know what she’s talking about,’ he said. ‘You know what you need to do, don’t you, Tracy? You know how to keep your mum out of hospital?’ I nodded as he motioned for me to go into his bedroom. He called out to Gary to bull his boots, telling him not to stop until he was told, and made some excuse about helping me with my homework. Yet again, I was placed back in the personal hell he had created for me.
This was the circle of abuse he maintained and developed. I was always kept next door to my dad’s bedroom wherever we lived. He isolated me from friends and neighbours. He used key words to let me know what was happening without being explicit. I was his
good girl
. We had
fun
. It was time to
make Mum well again
. And the thing was, he was very clever. He timed the abuse perfectly – of course, now I know he had access to things I never thought of, he would know what the doctors were telling Mum, he would be fully aware of when she was getting worse or better, or when she was due to go into hospital for a few days. He put all of this together and made me believe it was all down to me. My behaviour, my collusion in the abuse, was what determined my mum’s health according to him – and how could a five-year-old challenge that?
One Saturday, when the house was empty and I wasn’t at school, Mum and Gary left for the afternoon, her to get some shopping at the NAAFI, him to play with his friends. I tried to sneak into my room after the door closed but Dad called on me within seconds.
‘Get through here!’ he shouted. He only ever seemed to be shouting at me these days – actually, that wasn’t quite right, but the other times, when he didn’t shout, were the times I didn’t want to think about.
I never challenged him back then. I trotted meekly through to where he sat, on ‘his’ chair as always, the stench of beer and fag smoke surrounding him. ‘Your mum’s gone out,’ he said. I knew that. ‘Gary’s out too.’ I knew that as well. He narrowed his eyes at me as if focusing on what was standing in front of him. ‘It’s just you and me.’ He paused. ‘I hope you’re going to be a good girl, Tracy, because, I have to tell you, your mum hasn’t been feeling too good lately.’ I remember thinking that I hadn’t noticed her being sick or complaining of things going wrong again. Of course, I was still believing his lies and thinking I had some control over Mum’s health, but he, as always, was spinning a web of lies. ‘So, it’s important that we – that
you
– do everything you can to change that.’
I knew what was coming – or I thought I did – but I really, really didn’t want to suffer any of that again, so I breathed deeply and said the words I suspected would make him blow his top.
‘Daddy,’ I whispered, ‘I don’t really want to do the things that you said we have to do.’
His reaction surprised me. He didn’t shout. He didn’t clout me. He just narrowed his eyes still further and leaned towards me as I stood in front of him. ‘Do you
want
your mum to be sick, Tracy?’
I shook my head.
‘Why are you such a bad girl? Why do you only think of yourself? You know that you are the one who can make mum better, who can stop her ever having to go into hospital again, don’t you? And you know that if she does go into hospital, you’re to blame.’
I was so confused. I wanted to be good, but why couldn’t I do other things to be a good girl? I wanted Mum to stay well, but I wanted someone else to be able to save her.
‘Now, come here, come closer – and, for fuck’s sake, Tracy, think of someone other than yourself for once.’ He grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me to him, his tone of voice changing instantly. ‘Your mother is a very ill woman, and it’s your job to make sure she gets better.’ He calmed down a little before his next words. ‘You’d like her to be well, I know you would, and you
can
be a good girl when you try. So, here’s what we’ll try, come here.’
He pulled me onto the chair beside him, never once letting go of my hand. He unzipped his trousers as he sat there, and I thought he was going to start touching me while he did those odd things to himself – but, no. This was even worse. He wanted me to touch him
there.
He guided my hand towards his pants where, thankfully, he was still covered up. ‘There you go, Tracy, touch that. Go on, be a good girl.’ He forced my hand onto his penis; I was so little and so weak compared to him there was no way I could physically resist him, but I did have enough disgust to say, ‘No, Dad, no, I don’t want to.’
‘Well, you fucking will,’ he retorted. With that, he pushed my hand inside his pants. I was so shocked to feel him – I knew, just as he shouldn’t touch me in private parts, I shouldn’t touch him, but what could I do? He had pushed himself against me before and masturbated right next to me – on me, on many occasions – but this was something a step further, and it was grotesque.
I had no idea what to do, but he made sure that I did what he needed. He uncurled my fingers and wrapped them around him, holding me in place, and then moved my hand up and down. As always, he stared at me constantly and, as always, the insults flew as soon as he started to get excited. ‘You like that, don’t you? You’re a dirty little bitch really, aren’t you?’ he would say, as I could do no more than weep while he manipulated my hand back and forth. ‘Pretending that you don’t want to; you know exactly what you’re doing, don’t you? You love doing this, don’t you, filthy little bitch.’
I tried to block it all out, but my hand was getting so sore. Just as I thought I could go on no longer, it stopped. A horrible warm wetness covered my hand and my dad relaxed against the back of his chair. I was at a loss. What now? I should have known that the next stage of his abuse of me would continue as it usually did. He lay there for a few moments then looked down at my hand lying across his lap.
‘Get off me! Get to the fucking bathroom now and wash yourself, you’re disgusting,’ he snapped. I did as I was told, holding my hand out in front as if it was infected, and the same old routine continued with me washing, him watching, and both of us knowing it would happen again very soon.
No one seemed to pick him up on anything. When I went to school in filthy clothes, with matted hair and a stench of neglect, the teachers said nothing. Other children were quick to pick up on it, but the adults kept quiet. I would have thought that a child who had gone from being reasonably well looked after to one in the state I was would have elicited some comment or some concern, but there was nothing. When Mum got back from hospital, some things changed a little, but each time she returned to be an inpatient, or each time she was too unwell to do anything, it all slipped again. If I was dirty and unkempt when she got home, she said nothing. If she felt better, she’d give me a bath, but I was so terrified by that time of even being in the bathroom that I used every excuse I could think of to avoid it. When she wasn’t there and Dad made me wash in front of him, that was about the only time I saw soap and water.
Not only did these things mark me out as different, but I smelled of him. He was always touching me, rubbing himself on me, masturbating on me or close to me, and that in itself had a horrible odour. Even when he wasn’t there, he left me with those memories. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so surprised that no one said anything because, as time went on, I would try to draw even more attention to myself, through smoking and bad behaviour, through truancy and vandalism, but the attitude among adults always seemed to be one of ignoring as much as possible. It breaks my heart even to this day when I hear of children being labelled ‘bad’ because of their behaviour. I always wonder what’s behind it as I don’t believe any child is that way naturally – they are generally acting out what has happened to them and been done to them by adults.
From the age of five, when Dad started on me, I became much more aware of Mum’s illness, because I now believed I was responsible for her. I started to listen out for the sounds of her vomiting, and I looked for the tell-tale lumps and boils on her skin. If she had abscesses, I was concerned, if she said she felt dizzy, I panicked. Was she going to have to go back to hospital because I wasn’t letting him touch me enough, I wondered? Was she going to get even more unwell because I hadn’t touched him when he asked me to?