Punished: A mother’s cruelty. A daughter’s survival. A secret that couldn’t be told. (6 page)

D
uring the school holidays, we were under Mum’s feet again and I could tell she was irked by this. She’d got used to having a bit of freedom from us kids but it had been taken away from her for the next few weeks. She was still working as a dressmaker and often had to travel into Birmingham by train to buy fabric or haberdashery, so over the holidays she would have to take us with her. Usually she left Nigel and me to play at Dad’s office in the electroplating business, where Granddad Casey, Uncle Graham and Dad all made a fuss of us. I remember the sulphurous, rotten-egg smell of the place, which must have been a by-product of one of the processes there. Among other things, they electro-plated nibs for old-fashioned pens and Dad used to give me lots of extra ones to keep. Granddad kept a spinning top there as well as at home and we would play with that, or they gave us pens and paper to do drawings, or we were allowed to make long chains with paperclips.

This was infinitely preferable to being dragged round the shops with Mum. She never actually let me come into shops with her. Instead I would be given strict instructions to stand outside the door without moving and wait for her
to come out again. They were usually fabric shops and she said I might touch the rolls of fabric with my sticky fingers and get her into trouble. I remember being very scared on these occasions, with so many strange adults milling around, and sometimes she seemed to take hours.

During the Easter holidays after my sixth birthday, I got a huge fright on the journey into town. Nigel wasn’t with us because he was playing at a friend’s house. Mum and I got on the train at Bentley Heath as usual. I was being as good as possible but I could sense she was in a testy mood. I’d already had a clip round the ear for dawdling as we walked to the station. We got on board and sat down in a carriage of our own. Soon after the train started moving Mum got up, saying ‘Back in a moment. Stay right there.’

I sat neatly as I’d been told, with my hands on my lap, feet swinging back and forwards without reaching the ground. I looked out the window then glanced back at the corridor to see if Mum was returning. There was no sign of her. The train pulled into the next station and more people got on but still Mum didn’t come back. I was so little and everyone else was so big. With mounting anxiety I got up and went to look up and down the corridor, but there was no sign of her. What if she forgot all about me and got off the train without me?

I began to hear voices in my head. ‘You’re lost, Vanessa, what are you going to do?’ ‘Tell someone where you live,’ came another voice. I could remember our address – 39 Bentley Road – so I decided that if Mum didn’t come back I would have to approach a guard at Birmingham Station and tell him I was lost. The voices continued, sometimes a mass of whispers like a breeze blowing through the leaves
on a poplar tree, so indistinct I couldn’t make out the words, then one voice would get through: ‘Don’t worry’, or ‘You’re lost’, or ‘It’ll be OK’. I had no idea who or what they were but I was getting used to hearing whispers in my head, usually when I was upset about something, and they didn’t scare me any more.

The journey took around 45 minutes and by the time the train pulled into Birmingham New Street, where it terminated, I was tearful and shaking. I realized that I didn’t have a ticket and the guard might shout at me for being on the train without one, as we’d seen happening to a boy some weeks earlier. I waited until all the other passengers had got off then I climbed down the steps on to the platform and looked around for a guard I could talk to. I’d just identified one and was nervously walking up to him when all of a sudden Mum appeared and grabbed me by the arm, her fingers digging in and bruising me.

‘There you are! How dare you go wandering off when I told you to stay still!’

My eyes full of tears, I looked up at her face and I could see that far from being angry, she thought the whole thing was a huge joke.

‘I thought you’d forgotten about me,’ I said, the tears spilling over.

‘If only I could,’ she said spitefully. ‘If only I could.’

She had obviously left me on my own just to give me a fright, and it certainly worked.

The guard came over to us. ‘Is everything all right?’ he asked.

‘I don’t suppose you’d like a little girl?’ Mum said. ‘You can have this one, but I warn you that she’s very naughty. Maybe you can send her to work in the coal mines.’

‘She’s got pretty blue eyes.’ The guard looked down at me sympathetically.

‘Nonsense. Look at her! She’s ugly as sin!’ Mum marched off with me trailing in her wake, trying to grab hold of the fashionable swing coat she was wearing. I begged her to lift me up, scared of losing her again, but she ignored me. A tearful, snotty little girl trying to cling on to her favourite coat must have wound her up no end.

I wonder if she might have liked a pretty, sociable daughter she could show off to strangers like a fashion accessory, or if she would have preferred not to have had kids at all? All mothers have their days when the kids drive them crazy, with whining and being clingy and getting in the way. However, for some reason my very existence seemed to drive Mum crazy. She just couldn’t bear me being around. At least once a week, usually more, God would tell her about some crime I had committed and I would be beaten and locked in the spider cupboard until bedtime.

When Nigel and I had been out at school all day, mealtimes became a flashpoint, an opportunity for Mum to take out the frustrations of her day. She played a despicable trick one night when I’d just finished eating a stew she’d made for dinner.

‘Did you enjoy that?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ I said warily.

‘Was it delicious? One of your favourite meals ever?’

‘Em, yes.’

‘That’s interesting.’ Mum’s eyes glinted. ‘Do you realize you’ve just been eating Whirly? I made a rabbit stew.’

Nigel reacted first, spitting out the last bite in his mouth. ‘Ewwwuuh, that’s disgusting.’

I jumped to my feet to run out into the back garden but Mum extended a hand to stop me. ‘What do you say?’

‘Please may I leave the table?’ I mumbled, and she gave permission. I rushed straight out to the rabbit hutch and was devastated to find it empty. There was just a hollow in the straw where Whirly had been sleeping when I looked in on him that morning. The stew rose in my throat and I retched violently, and began to cry. Mum came out to watch, and Nigel followed close behind.

‘How could you?’ I demanded through my tears.

‘You silly girl. It was only a stupid rabbit.’

‘You shouldn’t have done that, Mum. It’s wrong. That was Nessa’s rabbit, not yours,’ Nigel complained.

‘Shut up! I’m fed up with both of you. Get out of my sight. Go to your beds now.’

I lay in bed wide-awake, thinking of the bits of Whirly in my stomach and feeling utterly sickened. I remembered his twitchy nose and trusting eyes and the way he liked his head being stroked and I burst into a fresh wave of crying. I hoped against hope that Dad would come home that night so that I could tell him – he had bought Whirly for me after all – but he didn’t appear. I hardly got a wink of sleep and crawled out of bed the next morning weighed down by grief.

I was sitting at the breakfast table unable to swallow a morsel of my cereal when Nigel burst in the back door
looking excited. ‘Nessa, guess what? Whirly’s back. Come and see.’

We ran out to the hutch and sure enough, there he was, nose twitching, looking up to see if I had brought any carrot tops.

Mum was laughing her head off when we trooped back indoors. ‘Got you!’ she crowed. ‘You should have seen your face when you thought you’d eaten him. That was hilarious!’

She was triumphant after each malicious victory of this kind. Far from infuriating her in the way I used to as a pre-schooler, I got the impression that she couldn’t wait for me to get home from school so she could inflict her next sadistic punishment on me. Caning didn’t give her the same satisfaction because although it still hurt, it didn’t inspire the abject terror in me that it used to when I was younger. When she locked me in the spider cupboard now, I knew that the spiders weren’t going to eat me up. I could just sit quietly, listening to the voices in my head while thinking my own thoughts. It took more ingenuity on Mum’s part to make me cry.

But her next punishment would be the worst one she had ever inflicted on me.

D
uring the summer term of my first year at school, I got home one day to find a new window cleaner washing our windows. He shouted ‘Hello, sweetheart!’ at me as I walked up the path, which made me very self-conscious and embarrassed, especially since he’d taken his shirt off and I could see his naked, suntanned back. When he’d finished, he rapped on the front door and Mum tottered down the hall in her high heels to pay him. I’d seen her freshening up her lipstick in the kitchen first.

‘I hope you’ve done an extra-special job for me,’ she said coyly, head on one side.

‘Course I have, darling,’ he replied cheekily. ‘I’ve always been one for the ladies, and you must have been a real looker in your day.’

I could sense Mum stiffening with fury. Even I could see that she would take this as a terrible insult.

She gave him his money without another word, slammed the door and disappeared into the dining room for a while. When she came out, there was a crackling energy around her and a scary expression on her face. She
sent Nigel to the family room and called me into the kitchen where she was preparing dinner.

‘I’ve got something very important to say to you,’ she told me in an ominous voice, folding her arms and staring down at me. ‘Stand straight with your arms by your sides.’

I obeyed.

‘Someone has stolen something in this house and God tells me it was you.’

‘I didn’t, Mum. It wasn’t me.’

‘So you know what I’m talking about, do you?’

‘N-n-no …’

She took a deep breath and placed her hands on her hips. ‘Mrs Ferguson came round for a fitting today. I made her some tea and went to the biscuit barrel to lay out a plate of biscuits and what do you think I found?’

I’d gone red, not because I was guilty of anything but just with nerves and fear of what was coming next. I shook my head slightly.

‘One of the pink wafers was missing. The good ones that cost sixpence a packet. I couldn’t believe my eyes. There’s a thief in my own house. I didn’t want to think it was true but I spoke to God this morning and he confirmed that you took the wafer.’ She was quivering with self-righteousness, her eyes dark and staring.

‘Mummy, it wasn’t me.’ I was terrified of being accused of this very serious-sounding crime. This was worse than dropping crumbs on the floor or getting a spot of paint on the sleeve of my school cardigan.

‘Are you saying that God is a liar?’ She was winding herself up, getting more enraged all the time. Behind her a pot of potatoes was boiling fiercely, spitting droplets of hot water on to the cooker top.

‘N-n-no …’

‘So you admit it’s true. Do you know what the Bible says is the punishment for liars and thieves?’

I shook my head and stared at the ground, more scared than I could remember.

Mum looked at me with narrowed eyes for a moment, then she turned and lifted the pot of potatoes off the spiral electric ring, which glowed bright orange. Boiling water sloshed over the edge. She grabbed me viciously by the wrists, dragged me over to the cooker and placed my hands palm down on the ring, holding them there for a few seconds before letting them go.

I screamed in shock although I didn’t feel the pain at first. Nigel came running in from the family room.

‘What happened? Are you OK, Nessa?’

I couldn’t speak. ‘Get out!’ Mum ordered him sharply. ‘This doesn’t concern you.’ When he didn’t immediately move, she screamed ‘Go!’ and took a step towards him in a threatening manner. He turned reluctantly and went back into the next room.

I looked down at the palms of my hands. The skin had gone all white where it had touched the searing heat and neat patterns of the rings had been transferred on to my palms and fingers. I could smell a sweetish smell like meat cooking on a barbecue. My hands felt strangely tight and it was hard to move my fingers. I just stared at them and started shaking.

‘That should stop you next time you’re thinking of thieving.’ Mum’s voice was quieter and gentler now, her rage dissipated. ‘I’m doing this for your own good so you don’t end up in jail one day. No daughter of mine is going to be a jailbird.’

I couldn’t move or speak. I suppose I was in shock. I just stared at my hands.

‘You’d better go to bed now,’ Mum said, almost kindly. ‘So long as you learn your lesson from this, we need say no more about it.’

As I walked slowly up the stairs, my hands were beginning to throb with a dull pain that got worse by the minute. I suppose the nerve endings had been damaged in the initial contact but as feeling returned I began to get very nauseous and dizzy. I crawled into bed, pushing my hands under the cold pillow in a vain attempt to cool them down. It hurt to have anything touching my palms, though, so I rested them on top of the covers and lay very still, very shocked. My teeth were chattering.

It was obvious to me that Mum had crossed some boundary and I was scared to death. If she could burn my hands like that, what wasn’t she capable of?

When I closed my eyes, whispering voices came into my head: ‘She shouldn’t have done that’; ‘You’re not safe here’; ‘You’re not going to be able to do your schoolwork tomorrow’; ‘You have to run away’.

I opened my eyes again because the room was spinning. I felt very cold and shivery, as if I had the flu. I lay on my back, trying to keep as still as possible. I was scared to move in case I was sick on the bed, which I knew would make Mum even madder.

An hour or so later, Nigel managed to sneak up to see how I was.

‘Mum said you touched the cooker. Are you OK?’

I shook my head very slightly.

‘Was it her?’ he asked.

‘She did it,’ I whispered. ‘She held my hands down on it.’

Nigel sat on the edge of the bed and looked at my upturned palms, with the fingers curled into claws. ‘They look really bad, Nessa. It’s all gooey under the skin.’

I shifted my head to look down. Huge blisters were rising on the whitened areas and oozing pus out the sides. ‘It really hurts.’ A few tears trickled down my cheeks but I didn’t cry properly.

‘I’ll try to get help. If Dad comes home, I’ll tell him what happened. Don’t worry.’

I slipped in and out of a fevered sleep and wakened when the bedroom door opened and Dad came in and switched the light on. He was still wearing his grey outdoor coat so he’d obviously just arrived home. He put a hand on my hot forehead then gave a loud gasp when he saw the state of my swollen, weeping palms.

‘For God’s sake! What on earth were you playing at, Lady Jane? You know better than to touch a hot cooker.’

‘Mummy did it,’ I said dully, and for once he seemed to believe me.

He gave a sharp intake of breath and gently picked up one of my hands to look more closely. I winced.

‘We’ve got to get this fixed,’ he said, pulling back the bedcovers. ‘Let’s put your slippers and dressing gown on. I’m taking you to Nan Casey’s.’

It hurt a lot getting my hands into the sleeves of the dressing gown. My arms felt stiff from the shoulders down. Dad was as gentle as possible. He found my pink fluffy slippers and put them on my feet then he picked me up and carried me down the stairs, being very careful not to let anything touch my damaged hands.

Mum came out of the kitchen and said, ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

‘I’m taking her to my mother’s. These hands need medical attention. Would you rather I called a doctor out here?’

‘You’re over-reacting, Derrick. She’ll be right as rain in the morning.’

Dad just gave her a look and said, ‘Muriel, you’ve gone too far.’

She shrugged her shoulders and went back into the kitchen.

I remember that drive very clearly. I sat in the front of the car beside Daddy, the street-lights flashing past outside. It felt very late because there was hardly any other traffic on the road. He seemed angry and didn’t say anything except to ask occasionally if I was all right, or if I thought I was going to be sick. My hands were throbbing terribly now with pulses of white-hot pain, but I felt relief inside. Nan Casey would look after me. She would make it better.

When we got there and she opened the front door and held out her arms, my tears started to flow. I just cried and cried. Granddad phoned a friend of his who was a doctor in their village and he arrived at the house within ten minutes, despite the lateness of the hour. He was a kind-looking old man, about Granddad’s age. He tutted and frowned when he saw the state of my hands but didn’t ask me anything about how it had happened. I think they must have had a word with him beforehand.

I sat on Nan’s lap while the doctor abraded some of the dead skin, which made me cry out in fresh pain, then he dressed my palms and gave Nan a prescription for various
creams to prevent infection as well as sterile gauze dressings and junior aspirin. I was to refrain from using my hands at all, he said, and the dressings were to be changed every morning.

While he worked, Nan, Dad and Granddad looked on. Their silence somehow intensified the seriousness of the situation. When the doctor left, Granddad made me some hot milk to sip through a straw – it tasted funny because I think he had put some painkillers in it – then Nan carried me up to bed and tucked me in. I lay there, drifting in and out of sleep, and I could hear the three of them arguing downstairs but couldn’t make out what they were saying. At least I felt safe, though. Maybe now I would be allowed to stay at Nan Casey’s and I wouldn’t have to live with Mummy any more.

When I woke the next morning my hands were locked rigid – I couldn’t move them at all – and very, very sore. Nan had to feed me my breakfast with a spoon, as if I was a baby.

‘Can I stay with you now?’ I asked her.

‘Don’t worry. You’re not going back there,’ she said with determination, hugging me fiercely.

This was a huge relief to me, but I still slipped into a severe depression that lasted some weeks. It was as if I had a huge weight pressing down on my shoulders and a lump in my chest that made it hard to talk. I didn’t enjoy any of the things I used to like before, such as jelly or sweets, or Granddad’s spinning top. For the first time in my life, I remember thinking that I wanted to die, and the only thing that held me back was that Mum had told me that when I died I would go to hell, where the big fire was. ‘You’ll just burn in agony for the rest of time,’ she’d said. I
didn’t want to go there, especially now I knew what burning felt like, but I genuinely wanted my life to be over. I felt weary and scared and very, very bleak.

Dad brought my schoolbooks over and Nan started giving me daily lessons at the kitchen table. I think she knew how depressed I was because she and Granddad went out of their way to bring me treats, entertain me and cheer me up. I heard them talking about me when they didn’t realize I was listening, trying to think of ways to bring me out of the black hole I’d slipped into.

The turning point came one day when they took me to the farm down the road. A new family had recently moved in and they had a daughter, Fiona – known to all as Fifi – who was six, like me. We looked at each other shyly. She had blonde curly hair in bunches and a cheeky freckled nose. There were smears of mud all over her dungarees and I thought how much trouble I would have been in with Mum if I had got dirty like that.

‘Have you ever fed lambs before?’ Fifi’s mother asked me. ‘We’ve got a couple of orphans who need to be bottle-fed. Their mums didn’t want them. Why don’t you two go and do it?’

I looked down at my hands, which still had sterile dressings on them. ‘You go and watch,’ Nan said. ‘You’ll be able to help soon.’

Fifi’s mother gave her a couple of big milk bottles with rubber teats on top. We ran out of the farmhouse and across the courtyard. Two funny, woolly, black-faced creatures pranced up to the gate on their spindly legs. Fifi upturned the bottles and pushed them through the bars of the gate. The lambs bleated with excitement and jostled each other as they tugged at the teats, slurping down the
milk. In the next field, the other, bigger sheep burst into a chorus of bleating.

‘Why didn’t their mums want them?’ I asked Fifi.

‘They’re the runts. Too small and too ugly. We tried to get another sheep to take them, one that didn’t have any lambs, but it didn’t work out so now we have to look after them till they’re bigger. Their real mums would try to kill them if we put them back in the field.’

‘Why would they do that?’ I was all ears.

‘They want to save their milk for the lambs they like, the ones they’ve chosen, and they don’t want these little ones bothering them.’

I wondered if this was why Mum was so cruel to me – maybe she was just saving herself for Nigel, the child she really liked.

After that Fifi and I started seeing each other every day. The school summer holidays began and the days were long and sunny. Nan made us picnic lunches in the back garden, spreading out a huge checked cloth and covering it with little sandwiches, fairy cakes, dolly mixtures, biscuits and juice.

Fifi and I didn’t talk much about anything – I certainly didn’t tell her what had happened to my hands – but we had a warm friendship based on our mutual love of animals and the outdoors. She was my first-ever friend, apart from Nigel, and before long I was wakening in the morning actually looking forward to the day ahead.

Dad brought Nigel to visit and Fifi and I let him join in our adventures. My bandages were finally taken off and,
although my hands remained stiff and I had to be careful to keep the skin from drying out, I could join in most of the games. Granddad bought us some fishing nets and we went fishing for minnows in a nearby stream. Every day we rode on the ponies and helped to groom them and muck out the stables. We collected the eggs and fed the lambs. I tried to milk a cow once but just couldn’t get my hands to grip hard enough.

I didn’t see Mum at all for two or three months and no one even mentioned her name, so I assumed I wouldn’t ever have to see her again. But a knot of anxiety at the back of my mind told me that she was my mother after all, and it might not be as simple as that.