As far as I remember, apart from the odd shove here and there, he never hit her again. He didn’t need to any more. The threat was always there. Dad only had to raise his voice and clench his fists to make Mum back down in an argument. Once beaten, twice shy and all that.
He may have stopped beating Mum, but it was around this time, when I was eleven, that he started lashing out at me a lot more than he ever had before. Now that I didn’t have any other family members around to witness his cruelty, he was freer with his slaps, kicks and punches. He didn’t have to worry about me telling anyone as I no longer had contact with anybody other than him and Mum–and Mum didn’t count because she didn’t seem to care what he did. He’d be careful not to mark my face, because it might get noticed at school, but I always had bruises over the rest of my body. Someone had to bear the brunt of his temper when his horse came in last, and it looked as though it was going to be me now.
At the same time as he was getting more violent towards me, Dad also started to become more affectionate. It was as if he liked to hurt me and make me cry as an excuse to pull me onto his lap and smother me in scratchy kisses.
‘You know I love you, don’t you, Lisa?’ he’d say, stroking my forehead. ‘You’ve always been my special girl, ain’t ya? Have been ever since you were little.’
I knew this wasn’t quite true because when I was younger he saw me as nothing more than a nuisance, not special at all. He was always calling me a ‘useless spastic’. I remembered how he used to banish me to my bedroom and instruct everyone not to talk to me for weeks on end. It was only since we moved to Nunhead and away from the rest of the family that Dad had begun to show me anything approaching genuine affection. But I nodded in agreement anyway.
‘I love you, too,’ I said automatically, knowing it was what he expected me to say. If I appeared the slightest bit unfriendly it could set him off in a bad mood. Besides, when he was in a good mood, he could be nice. He was far from perfect but he was the only dad I’d ever known, and ironically, now that the rest of my family had gone, he was the only person to show me any affection whatsoever. Mum remained as cold and distant as ever.
Everyone knew that Dad was incapable of maintaining any one mood for long. He blew hot and cold with people. He was known for changing like the wind. Soft and warm one minute, a cold hard tornado the next. As I grew older, this hot and cold treatment became ever more pronounced. At times he treated me better than he ever had before. Everything I did was brilliant, everything I said made him laugh. He couldn’t kiss and cuddle me enough and, much to Mum’s obvious irritation, he would lavish me with praise.
‘You’re a fucking diamond you are, looking after your little sister, cleaning the offices and helping round the house. Ain’t she a diamond, Donna?’
Mum would grunt something noncommittal without so much as looking at me.
‘You’re going to be a heartbreaker when you grow up. All the boys will be trying to get into your knickers,’ he’d cackle, and he’d give my bum a sharp squeeze.
I knew that now we had moved, Dad wasn’t worried about Uncle Bob beating him up again. He was starting to go back to his old ways. I didn’t like it when he spoke about rude things, but I had to be careful not to react in the wrong way in case he got angry. It felt strange receiving all his attention and praise, not only because it made me feel uncomfortable a lot of the time, but also because I could sense it made Mum angry. Once I overheard her asking why he paid so much attention to me and ignored Kat. ‘After all,’ she said, ‘she’s your
own
daughter.’
‘How can you be jealous of your fucking daughter?’ Dad barked back. ‘You’re one twisted bitch.’
‘I ain’t jealous. It’s just peculiar, that’s all.’
‘I tell you what’s peculiar,’ he snapped. ‘My fucking fist’ll be peculiar in a minute when it knocks you spark out.’
I couldn’t work out why Mum didn’t like Dad being nice to me, especially as she knew as well as I did that no matter how nice he was being, it wouldn’t last and soon enough I’d be the odd one out again. I knew that I would eventually make a mistake, and cause Dad to lose his temper. I might forget to stir the sugar in his tea, or have the ‘wrong look’ on my face, and then all hell would break loose and his sharp slaps and kicks would knock me to the floor.
Mum would simply tut and roll her eyes and say ‘What a fucking life!’ She obviously blamed me for starting him off on one. ‘You always do it, don’t you?’ she’d mutter through gritted teeth.
But I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong. It was just Dad and his moods. My whole life became characterised by his hot and cold treatment. I never knew what to expect from one moment to the next.
Sometimes his punishments would be psychological. He would call me names, or ban me from using all rooms except my bedroom and the bathroom, just as he had done with Davie. In the past I’d felt relieved when I was on his exclusion list, but it didn’t bring any real freedom. I couldn’t slam the front door behind me and go off to the park for an hour or two, because Dad was watching my every move. I’d occupy myself in my room, maybe reading a book, but then he would seem to get extra mad and change tack. Sometimes he’d make me sit me on the floor in front of him with my hands on my head for ages. If I moved a muscle before he told me I could, I’d get a swift kick and obscenities would be screamed in my face.
The mental suffering was even harder than the physical. Only an hour or a day before, he would have been lavishing me with positive attention and praise, so the sudden reappearance of Mr Hyde was confusing and upsetting on many different levels. I felt lost and lonelier than ever, but at the same time unable to help myself by breaking free and occupying myself with friends or outside activities. I may have been excluded, but my every moment was accounted for. Eventually, after hours or maybe days of relentless mental and physical bullying, he’d look over at my swollen, tear-stained face and say ‘Oi you! Come over here!’
As I shuffled towards him on my knees, I realised I was behaving just as Eddie used to do after he’d taken a few days
of continual beatings. I was grateful my master was giving me another chance. As I knelt before him, Dad would take a few moments to blow smoke rings before saying, ‘Give us a kiss, you silly little fucker.’
Relief would flood through me as I flung myself against him. I’d sob onto his chest and he’d rub his hands up and down my back and pull me tight in between his parted legs. I would sob and cry as if a dam had burst, all the pain and hurt flooding out.
‘I’m sorry, Dad, I didn’t mean it,’ I’d say, unable to remember what it was I had done in the first place.
If Mum saw me crying, even though she knew what I’d been through, she’d say ‘She’s not boo-hooing again, is she?’
Dad would make a fuss of me for a short while afterwards, being extra nice, and I’d begin to dread the time he’d change again. Every time he put a bet on, I’d do a silent prayer and ask God to let him win so he wouldn’t turn on me. And if I saw Mum polishing his best glass, filling the ice bucket and chopping lemons, which meant that Dad was starting on the gin and tonic, I’d get a pain in the tummy and have to rush to the toilet urgently, a stress reaction he often provoked in me. Whenever he sent Mum over to the shop for a couple of bottles of brandy we all knew it meant the next few days would be hell. Even Mum said that brandy made him vicious.
By now I was convinced Mum hated me. My very existence seemed to annoy her. She never talked to me directly any more, only speaking over my head to say something derogatory to Dad about me. I knew she loved Kat, because she was very loving towards her, always cuddling her and smiling and
playing with her, and even though she had turned her back on Diane, Cheryl and Davie to please Dad, I felt intuitively that deep down she loved them in a way she had never loved me. One day, something happened that proved this to me without a shadow of a doubt.
Dad found a photograph of Diane hidden in the back of a kitchen cupboard and he went absolutely ballistic. It was an official confirmation photograph taken when Diane must have been about seven or eight years old. He held it up and I could see how cute she looked in her little white dress and matching shoes.
‘What do you want this shit for?’ shouted Dad, ripping the picture to shreds as he had done with all the others.
Mum fell to her knees and started crying. ‘No, not my Diane. You bastard!’
Tears were streaming down her face and I could see Dad was momentarily taken aback by her dramatic reaction. I was too. It was the first time I had ever seen Mum cry over something like that. Usually she didn’t show much emotion over anything to do with the family. She seemed to be able to sweep up the torn fragments of her past life and consign them to the rubbish bin without a backwards glance. She had been able to turn her back on everyone but Dad. But this time I was confused. She obviously valued that photo of Diane, and I got a glimpse for the first time of just what a huge sacrifice Mum was willing to pay to keep Dad happy. It didn’t even occur to me that she might secretly keep in touch with the others. Surely there was no way she’d dare go behind Dad’s back.
I felt jealous of the strength of Mum’s feelings for Diane. Instinctively I knew she wouldn’t ever weep over a torn photo of me. More and more she treated me with a kind of disdain, as though I was a waste of space, and I couldn’t work out what I had done to deserve that. What had I done wrong? What was it about me?
The only visitors who ever came to the house were members of Dad’s family. We used to see his sister Lesley because she worked for Mum and Dad as a cleaner, but sometimes she and Dad would have a row and we wouldn’t see her again for months. Lesley had a son called Charlie who was about fourteen years old and he used to come over to ours at Christmas. Dad would make us both blush by teasing Charlie relentlessly about having a crush on me. A few times my stomach tied itself in knots when I saw a dangerous glint in Dad’s eye. I could tell he didn’t want Charlie anywhere near me, and neither did I. I wasn’t interested in boys.
We also saw Dad’s elder brother, Keith, and his family once a year. Keith had a daughter who was only a year younger than me. We used to play together in a way I wasn’t allowed to do most of the rest of the year, because Dad wouldn’t let me out to play with friends. We had lots of fun, and I’d be sad when it was time for them to go home and I knew I wouldn’t see them again for another year.
Dad behaved like a normal dad when his brother was around. I once heard him telling Keith how he wanted to adopt me.
‘I love her like me own daughter, Keith,’ he said. ‘I’d adopt her if I could.’
‘I’ve always said, it takes more to be a dad than a quick bunk-up,’ Keith replied. ‘It’s the love you show ’em every day, ain’t it? You don’t need a bit of paper to tell you she’s one of your own.’
‘You’re right there,’ agreed Dad.
I knew that Keith was aware of Dad’s temper. In the past he’d had words with him for the way he’d knocked Mum about. I looked at him and wondered what he’d say if he knew I got knocked about as well, and always had a fresh bruise somewhere on my body? If that was an example of the love Dad showed me every day, I’d be happy to do without it. I didn’t want him to adopt me. I couldn’t wait to grow up and leave home, as my brother and sisters had done. Then I’d never have to see Dad ever again.
I
’d started at a new school when we moved to Nunhead and I really liked it. There were no bullies in the class, I’d made some good friends and my attendance had been much better. But whenever Dad winked and said, ‘Why don’t you stay off and we can watch telly?’ I didn’t feel I had a choice. It was more of a command than a suggestion. I didn’t want to fall behind in my school work, especially now we were doing fractions, but there was also a part of me that was elated that Dad wanted to be friends. The thought of making him angry by refusing to stay at home was too big a price to pay.
Once, I made the mistake of being honest with him. Dad had suggested I stay at home again.
‘Come on, we can have a wrestle,’ he said.
I refused, because we were doing the high jump in P.E. that day and, despite the fact I had never had any sporting prowess, I seemed to be really good at it. I had reached the final and might actually win something for the first time in my life. But the moment I started to explain this to Dad, I realised I had made a huge mistake. His face darkened and the smile slid off
his face to be replaced by his distinctive snarl. It was as if he had morphed into a demon.
‘Go on then, you cunt, fuck off with your mates.’ He coughed up a ball of phlegm and spat it in my face. I knew what was coming next, but I didn’t have time to brace myself before he landed a slap round the back of my head then grabbed me and forced my face down into the sofa.
In the end I didn’t go to school that day. When Mum came in at lunchtime she was annoyed to find me at home.
‘She’s not off school again, is she?’ she said, forgetting that she herself had kept me off school countless times whenever she needed an extra pair of hands cleaning. ‘I’ve been up since four o’clock this morning. The least she could have done is the washing-up from last night.’
‘I dunno what we’re gonna do with her,’ smirked Dad, over the top of page three of
The Sun
.
I wanted to tell her that I hadn’t wanted to stay off at all. I was hoping to have come third or fourth in the high jump by now. I could have told her that I wasn’t able to do the washing-up because Dad had made me sit in front of the telly with his legs draped over me, pinning me to the sofa, but of course I stayed silent. If ever I went to Mum for comfort, she’d mock me for crying. ‘Oh my gawd, she’s boo-hooing again. Someone turn the waterworks off.’
There was no point going to her for support as she would always agree with Dad’s actions. She seemed to relish it when I was out of favour with him, because then he would be extra nice to her and Kat. It was just another tool to make me feel like an outsider in the household.