Punished: A mother’s cruelty. A daughter’s survival. A secret that couldn’t be told. (20 page)

M
um came to see me once while I was in hospital, just before she was heading up to Anglesey with her sister. I guessed that Dad had talked her into it; I couldn’t imagine she wanted to come of her own accord. She was wearing a pale grey sweater dress with a cherry-red necklace and matching cherry-red lipstick, and I remember thinking how inappropriate it seemed to look so perfectly groomed when visiting your daughter who has just attempted suicide. She pulled a chair over to my bedside and smoothed her dress under her as she sat, glancing round with distaste at a noisy group of visitors clustered round a nearby bed.

‘So what was that all about?’ she asked in a low voice, staring at me with glittering eyes. ‘Were you attention seeking? Did you think a dramatic gesture would help you get your own way and you could go off and be a nun?’

I didn’t answer. I simply didn’t have the energy to deal with her.

She continued her attack. ‘You wasted the time of the emergency services. All those ambulance men and doctors and nurses had to leave other, more deserving patients to
come and treat you. Seemingly the woman you work with – what’s her name, Maggie? – almost had a heart attack when you passed out. And you’ve brought disgrace on your family – your dad, Nigel and me. Do you still think it was a clever thing to do?’

‘No,’ I whispered, honestly.

‘Are you planning to try it again? Because if so, try to make a better job of it. You’ll need two bottles of aspirin, not just one, and you should go somewhere quiet where you won’t be found for a few hours.’

Tears sprang to my eyes. I couldn’t help it. I usually tried not to cry around Mum because it gave her such gratification, but I was feeling vulnerable and her cruelty struck home.

‘Still the cry-baby.’ She smiled, pleased with herself. She plucked a tissue from the box on my bedside table and dropped it beside my hand. ‘You’ll probably do a lot more crying next week. Your dad wants to have crisis talks with you, so I’m glad I won’t be around.’ She smoothed her skirt. ‘Of course, you know that if you choose to tell him anything negative about our relationship I’ll just deny it. He’ll always believe me.’

So that was why she’d come – to warn me off. I decided not to offer her any peace of mind so said nothing at all.

‘Maybe the psychiatrists will lock you away for good this time. Make sure you tell them all about the spirits you talk to – that should do the trick.’

‘The spirits have told me I’m going to have a baby,’ I volunteered. ‘At least then I’ll have someone to love who will love me in return.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she spat, obviously irked by the idea. It was the one thing she’d never been able to do
herself. ‘First of all, you’re only a child; there’s no way you’re mature enough to look after a baby. Secondly, you’d have to get yourself a boyfriend and that doesn’t seem very likely. Have you looked in a mirror lately?’

To other patients and visitors on the ward, we must have looked like mother and daughter having a heart-to-heart chat as we spoke quietly with our heads close to each other. I began to block her cruel words, tuning in to the spirit world, and she soon got bored.

Will she kiss me goodbye? I wondered. If not, what will anyone watching think? Of course she didn’t. She scooped up her handbag, said ‘Try to be good for Dad next week,’ and clicked out of the ward on her little stiletto heels without a backward glance.

Dad picked me up the following day and drove me home. Nigel rushed out to greet me and gave me a huge hug. Under-eighteens weren’t allowed on the ward, which is why he hadn’t visited me in hospital. He never asked me why I’d taken the overdose – but then, he was the only person who knew the whole story and how much losing my job and my dream of being a nun meant to me.

For the first couple of days after I got back, I lay dozing on the sofa, watched a bit of television, ate some food and then went to bed. On the third day when Dad asked me to come out for a walk, signalling that Nigel wasn’t to come along, I knew the first of our ‘talks’ was imminent.

‘Lady Jane, I feel as though it’s my fault you did what you did. If I hadn’t been so adamant about you not
becoming a nun …’ He glanced at me for corroboration but I carried on walking, staring at the ground.

‘I’m worried that you are attracted to monastic life for all the wrong reasons – to escape from the world and from other people rather than because of your love of the Lord. What I want to suggest is that if you get a job, make some friends and try to lead a normal life for the next three years, then you come to me at the age of eighteen saying you still want to be a nun maybe we can think about it again.’

‘Thanks, Dad.’ I squeezed his hand. I knew how much that concession had cost him.

‘But I mean it. I want to see you having the life of a normal teenager. My friend Margery told me there is a youth club in the village hall on Saturday nights and I thought maybe Nigel and you might consider going along. Not necessarily this week, of course,’ he added quickly. ‘When you feel better.’

‘All right, I’ll give it a try,’ I promised without enthusiasm.

During another talk, later in the week, Dad broached a rather more difficult subject. ‘I know you and your mother haven’t always seen eye to eye,’ he said, ‘but you should know that she loves you very much.’

I wished I could believe this but nothing about it rang true. I’d never seen or felt an ounce of love from the woman I called my mother. Our whole relationship had been one long struggle, and my only ambition had been to survive it. The idea that she might have loved me all along
seemed ridiculous. The bleakness of my depression was lifting and I couldn’t pretend to him that I agreed with him, even if it would make him feel better.

‘Dad,’ I said, ‘she doesn’t love me. She never has. I honestly don’t think she ever wanted me. Maybe she would have liked a beautiful, obedient daughter who she could dress up in pretty clothes and show off but she didn’t bargain on getting an ugly duckling who is antisocial and talks to spirits. I get on her nerves. I always have. I can’t help it, but I do.’

Dad suddenly looked very old and sad. For a moment, I wanted to take the words back and let him carry on living with his illusions that all the awful things that had happened to me were just accidents, or misadventures, or self-inflicted.

He said quietly, ‘Your mother has had a lot of disappointments in her life. She really wanted to have children of her own but we tried for five years before her health problems meant she had to have a hysterectomy. How do you think that felt? She said if she’d known how it was going to turn out she’d never have given up modelling, but after the operation she couldn’t get back into it again.’

‘It wasn’t your fault, Dad.’ I wanted to comfort him. ‘These things happen.’

It wasn’t my fault either, I added silently, hoping that he would say this himself – but he didn’t.

‘Yes, but it was me who talked her into adoption. She found it very difficult to bond with you two. I should never have done that to her. I suppose I thought women have a natural maternal spirit that takes over when you hand them a baby, but that was naive. Your Mum’s always been very proud of her looks and she complained they were
being ruined by exhaustion after getting up with you two in the night. No sooner would she get one of you settled than the other would wake up.’ He shook his head. ‘Then it was a huge blow when we found out about Nigel’s epilepsy.’

‘It must have been very frightening and very sad.’

‘You don’t know the half of it.’ He sighed. ‘But you’re wrong to think it wasn’t my fault. It was. I asked too much of your mother and I shouldn’t have done it. Some things should never be asked in a relationship.’ He seemed lost in thought for a minute. ‘But everything settled down when we moved here to the cottage, didn’t they? You two seemed to get on better.’

I couldn’t believe my ears. ‘Dad, you weren’t here all week. You don’t know what you’re talking about. I …’ It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him about sleeping in the pigsty and the beatings and standing in icy water and the frying pan – so many unthinkable acts of cruelty. But he looked lost and sad, with huge bags under his eyes, and I made a decision not to hurt him any more for now. He had aged a decade in the week since I took my overdose and I couldn’t do it to him. It wasn’t fair.

Towards the end of our week of talking things through, Dad asked me if I would like to visit his friend Margery. ‘I know you miss your Nan and you’ve been telling me that you’re still not close to your mum. I wondered if there are any things it would help to talk to a woman about, things you can’t discuss with me? Margery’s very nice and she was very upset when I told her what you had done.’

‘OK,’ I said curiously. I couldn’t think of anything I would want to talk to her about but I had always liked her when we met outside the pub, though I hadn’t seen her for a while. The walks with Dad had stopped as I got older and once Nigel came back, I didn’t need to escape quite so badly. But I could tell Dad was keen on this meeting.

He took me up to Pear Tree Cottage that afternoon and when Margery answered the door, smiling nervously, Dad said he would wait in the pub until we had finished our girl talk.

‘I hope your dad didn’t force you into this,’ she said, leading me through to a sitting room that was incredibly messy, with books and cardigans and bits of paper on every available surface. ‘I just wanted to say hello to you and see how you’re feeling and let you know that you should ask if there’s ever anything I can help you with. I mean …’ She swept some books on to the floor to make room for me to sit down. ‘You probably think I’m a nosey old bat, but I wondered if you’ve thought about what you want to do with the next bit of your life?’

I couldn’t understand why she seemed so agitated, even upset. ‘Dad wants me to get out into the world a bit and make some friends so I’m going to do my best.’

‘Excellent. I’m so glad. Are you going to try the Hadzor youth club? Your father said you were thinking about going there.’

‘Why not?’ I shrugged.

Margery perched on the arm of a chair. ‘I’m sure it’s not very sophisticated but it’s a start. Tell you what,’ she suggested, ‘why not get a nice smart haircut and maybe some new clothes? There’s a brilliant hairdresser in
Droitwich and I’m sure your dad would give you the money.’

‘I’ve got some money of my own, saved up from the monastery.’

Margery nodded thoughtfully. ‘Can I make a suggestion? Let your dad buy you some things. He’s feeling very guilty about all this business and you know what men are like – they want to do something practical to make amends. I can suggest it to him if you like. Hang on – I’ve got something that might be useful.’

She pulled an American magazine called
Cosmopolitan
from under her chair and passed it across to me. ‘Why not have a look and see if there are any hairstyles you like in there? Or clothes? You would suit the same kind of warm shades that I suit, like olive green or terracotta, or mid-blues to bring out your eyes.’

She came over to sit beside me and we flicked through the magazine together, commenting on styles we liked and groaning at those we hated and gradually she seemed to relax more with me. I felt a bit uncomfortable at first but she was making such an effort to be nice that it seemed churlish not to cooperate. I glanced surreptitiously round at the mess of the room; Mum would have had a blue fit if she’d seen it and that made me warm to Margery even more.

‘I know you had to leave the monastery office,’ she said. ‘Do you think you’ll get another job?’

‘I suppose so. I haven’t decided what, though.’ I made up my mind to trust her. ‘I’d like to have children one day.’

‘I believe children can be a great blessing. My only advice would be to make sure you do it with the right man – someone kind, who will take care of you and stick by
you.’ She had a frog in her throat as she said this and I wondered again why she had never married. Maybe she’d had an unhappy love affair.

‘Why didn’t you have children?’ I asked.

She gave me a strange, piercing look that I couldn’t interpret and said, ‘Oh, it just didn’t happen that way.’

An hour or so later, we walked over to the pub to meet Dad and Margery warned him: ‘I think you’d better get your wallet out, Derrick. Your daughter needs you to take her shopping.’

He gave a pretend groan but I could tell he was pleased. That afternoon, he drove me to Droitwich and hung around while I got a layered haircut like the one Margery and I had picked out from the magazine. He hovered uncomfortably in a trendy boutique while I chose a pair of trousers and two T-shirts and a little necklace with a ceramic flower on it. I used my own money to buy a pink lipstick in Boots the chemist. On the way home, I kept sneaking a look at myself in the mirror, pleased with my new hairstyle and the way the lipstick made my lips shine.

‘You won’t mention to your mother about seeing Margery, will you?’ Dad asked. ‘Women, you know. She might feel it wasn’t Margery’s place to talk to you.’

‘I won’t say anything. But thanks, Dad.’

I
began to recover from my suicide attempt and the bleakness that had engulfed me. Margery had given me a bit of hope, somehow, and I started to feel better.

On her return from holiday, Mum was predictably scathing about my new look, calling me ‘mutton dressed as lamb’ but, undeterred, I persuaded Nigel to come with me to the youth club on the following Saturday night.

I don’t know what we had expected, but it was a tame affair. Girls sat on one side of the hall giggling and chatting, while the boys lined up to play in table tennis tournaments. On that first occasion Nigel and I stood together and no one attempted to talk to us, apart from the woman at the soft drinks stand who asked if I wanted a straw in my ginger beer.

Over the next few Saturdays, I got to know a few of the girls and began to enjoy myself. Mum tried to put a dampener on it, without fail telling me how ugly I looked as I set out, but I learned to ignore her. At the end of the evening, they used to dim the lights and put on some dance records and I nearly died of fright the first time a boy asked me to dance – what on earth should I do? – but
he just shuffled from one foot to the other and by the end of the record I had worked out a few moves from watching the other dancers in the room. Nigel never took part in the dancing. After a few weeks he stopped coming at all; it wasn’t his kind of thing.

One night, a group of boys I hadn’t seen before came in carrying motorcycle helmets. It created quite a buzz amongst the girls and I was overjoyed when one of them made a beeline for me as soon as the lights were dimmed. Funnily enough, his name was Nigel. He had a harelip, but to me he was gorgeous and desirable, mainly because he had a motorbike. Usually I walked the mile and a half home but he offered me a lift and I accepted with great excitement.

He got on the bike first and showed me how to swing my leg over to sit on the seat behind him. Of course, you didn’t wear helmets in those days. Shyly I put my arms round his waist and rested my feet on the footrests and we were off. I clung on for dear life but made the classic mistake at the first bend in the road when I tried to straighten up to counteract the way the bike was lowering to the ground.

‘Don’t do that,’ he shouted. ‘Lean into the bend like I’m doing.’

Next time I got it right.

All too quickly we turned into the bumpy lane that led up to the cottage and it was then I realized how noisy the engine was. I’d been hoping Nigel would stop for a chat in the garden and maybe ask me out on a date before he
disappeared off into the night. Instead, I saw Mum’s face at the sitting room window and seconds later she was charging out the front door in high dudgeon.

‘How dare you make such a racket in a quiet area!’ she snapped at Nigel. ‘Get out of here before I call the police.’

Nigel looked at me uncertainly. ‘I’ll see you around, Vanessa,’ he said.

‘No, you won’t,’ Mum told him. ‘You’re common as muck and no daughter of mine will have anything to do with you. Get out of here.’

I tried to intervene but Nigel didn’t want the hassle. He stamped on the bike’s throttle and roared off.

Mum slapped me hard round the head. ‘You little slut!’ she hissed. ‘I shouldn’t have expected any better.’

‘But we didn’t do anything.’

‘I don’t care. What will the neighbours think? You’ve crossed the line and I want you out of here. Go and stay in your beloved pigsty tonight and I’ll have your belongings packed and at the back door tomorrow.’

I was astounded. After everything that had happened between us, this was the final straw? It seemed unbelievable that something so innocent should incense her to the point where she would throw me out.

‘You can’t do that! Where will I go?’

‘It’s not my problem any more.’ Mum stormed back into the house, slamming and locking the door behind her.

I knocked and shouted for a while but I knew that she wouldn’t relent. Nigel would never waken because his medication made him sleep very soundly. I was outside for the night. At first I was filled with fury that she was making me go through this again, that she still wanted to
control me and make me suffer. Then I calmed down and went to the pigsty to see what I could find.

It had been so long since I’d been there that I wasn’t sure what I’d left behind. Luckily I found a pile of sweaters and a coat. It was not a cold night and I’d slept there so often that it felt familiar and comforting. As soon as I had settled down I began talking to spirits.

‘Is she really going to throw me out?’ I asked. ‘What will I do if she does?’

‘Call your Dad at work on Monday,’ one suggested. ‘He won’t let her get away with this.’

I liked the suggestion the Clown made better. ‘Go and see Father John. He’ll know what to do.’

I also considered going to see Margery because she’d been so kind to me before, but then Mum might find out. I’d promised Dad I wouldn’t say anything about meeting Margery. Mum might be cross with him and I didn’t want that.

When I woke the next morning there was a small brown suitcase of clothes on the back doorstep. I looked in the window to see Mum smoking at the kitchen table. I tried the back door but it was locked. Mum made a shooing motion with her hand, urging me to go away. I packed the old coat and sweaters in my case then set out across the fields to St Joseph’s.

I was too embarrassed to go to the monastery office – I hadn’t seen any of them since my overdose, although I had called Maggie to apologize – so I sat in the graveyard with my bag by my side. Father John saw me from the window and came out.

‘How are you?’ he asked, his eyes full of compassion.

I felt desperately ashamed. ‘I’m so sorry for what I put you all through. I couldn’t see any other way out.’

‘You could have tried talking to me.’

‘I know, I know. I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say.’

‘Vanessa, I know a little about your home life from our conversations, so I think I can understand to an extent. I want you to know that I will always help you in whatever way I can.’

I felt so guilty I couldn’t meet his eyes. ‘That’s why I’m here today. Mum has thrown me out of the house and I don’t know what to do.’

He looked at the suitcase on the ground. ‘Yes, I wondered what that was doing here. You poor thing.’

‘No, it’s all for the best. It’s time I found a job and somewhere of my own to live.’

‘But you’re only sixteen. It’s very young to fend for yourself.’ He smiled. ‘I have an idea though. A friend of mine has a hotel called The Raven in Droitwich. She’s always looking for young girls to waitress and be chambermaids. You get room and board and a little money but she’s quite strict about the time you get home at night and she keeps a close eye on her girls. Shall I give her a ring?’

I agreed straight away. What other choices did I have?