Never a Hero to Me (26 page)

I was still shocked when she told me where Dad was – it wasn’t the place I’d expected, it was the Royal Edinburgh Hospital. Despite its name, this wasn’t an ordinary general hospital – it was known as one thing by locals: the loony bin.

My mum’s response was hardly sympathetic to me or him.

‘The doctor sent for an ambulance when you left, he had no choice. You must have known,’ she said.

‘Known what?’ I asked.

‘About him – about him being . . .’ she made a twisting gesture at the side of her head. ‘Not
right
, there’s something not right with your dad.’

She said it in such a matter-of-fact way but, to me, it was a complete revelation. I knew he was a bastard. I knew he was evil. I knew he was a paedophile. But I had always assumed that these were choices he made. I had never, for one moment, suspected he was mentally ill.

When I left Mum’s bedside, I went to a café. I needed to be alone and I needed to think. What did this mean? If he was unhinged or mad or had some condition that had always been there, did that mean he wasn’t responsible for his actions?

I could hardly bear to think about it as I sat there with a cup of tea getting cold, and the baby asleep in the pushchair.

The same question was going round and round in my head – what did this mean, what did this mean, what did this mean?

Was he absolved of all he had done?

People didn’t go into the Royal Ed for fun; in fact, people fought with all they had to avoid the place. If he was in there, it was because there was something terribly wrong, and it was something which had worried medical experts enough to have him detained. I never found out if he had been sectioned, but it was likely. Very few people walked into that place voluntarily. If he was there, it was through necessity, not choice.

I felt nothing for him – in fact I was hoping this breakdown was in some way payback for what he had done to me.

Nothing really happened for about three weeks as Dad needed to be assessed. As my mother was ill, I was able to see his doctor and he explained things to me. He said that he
thought
it was paranoid schizophrenia and they were giving him medication accordingly, which seemed to be helping him. I was told he would have to always take the medication and, as long as he took it, he should be balanced and not suffer psychotic episodes again.

My head was buzzing with questions.

Paranoid schizophrenia was such a major thing and it had brought so many questions to my mind.

‘How long has he had this?’ I asked.

‘I have no idea,’ the doctor said. ‘It’s impossible to know – I’d only be guessing.’

‘Then do that,’ I urged. ‘If that’s all there is, do it – guess.’

I needed an answer. Had he suffered from this all through my childhood?

‘A number of years,’ was all he would say.

‘What’s the number? How many years?’ I probed.

‘I really don’t know, but probably about ten to fifteen.’

Not long enough.

Not long enough for it to be a valid excuse – not that there could be a valid excuse for what he had done.

The doctor was watching me and now it was his turn to ask the questions.

‘Why do you want to know? Why are you so interested in how long he’s had it?’ he questioned.

I shook my head and didn’t reply.

‘Is there any particular reason you’re asking?’ he went on.

I had been insistent in asking my questions, but the doctor turned the tables on me. I wondered whether he knew something, was he prompting me? Perhaps Dad had said things while he had been rambling or perhaps he had talked to someone when lucid; I had no idea but I felt as if I was the one being watched now. My mouth was dry and my heart was pumping but no words came out. I wanted to tell the doctor what had happened but the memory of some of my previous cries for help and the way they had fallen on deaf ears until I found CO Stewart stopped me. Fear of not being believed prevented me from talking – I also didn’t want to give my dad an excuse for all the abuse he’d inflicted on me. The very thought of him saying, ‘I was ill, I didn’t know what I was doing’, made me feel sick.

I went back and told Mum what the doctor had said. She asked me if they knew what caused it and I retorted, ‘Maybe it’s his badness coming out.’ She didn’t ask me what I meant and only said, ‘We all have badness in us.’

I wanted to scream at her –
not when we’re five, not when our fathers are raping us and ruining our lives and our futures.

‘Have you spoken to him?’ she asked.

‘No – and I don’t intend to.’

She was ill too, and they had never been close, but I do think she was curious about what was happening to the man she had shared her life with.

Throughout the following weeks, I started having flashbacks. My marriage was crumbling and my husband had proven to be a nasty, violent bully. The boys were taking up so much of my time but I felt I couldn’t give them the full attention they needed as I spent so much time at hospital. My dad’s hospitalisation and diagnosis had brought back the pain and shame I had experienced and still had to live with. I began to have nightmares again, which I had been free of since my boarding school days. At the time I never believed it was paranoid schizophrenia and I put it down to the guilt of what he had done to me, his own daughter.

One day as I was leaving, Mum said, ‘I think it’s all down to stress, you know.’

I told her that stress didn’t give you paranoid schizophrenia but she was adamant.

‘I’m sure that’s it, Tracy. He never did adjust to life on civvy street – and he had to cope with me being ill for all those years.’

I couldn’t help myself from replying, ‘Your illness has a lot to answer for.’

‘I can’t help it, it wasn’t my fault,’ she said.

‘You could have helped some things, Mum, you know that.’

‘Let’s not go there,’ she snapped.

‘Let’s,’ I said, staring her down. I felt guilty because she was my mother and she was in hospital but I could feel the emotion building up and I thought this might be my only chance to say something. ‘Let’s finally say it. You weren’t there and that wasn’t your fault. But he used that to get me and when I told you, you didn’t listen. Do you know what he did? He raped me, Mum, he raped a child for years.’

‘Not this again!’ she shouted, and turned away from me. ‘I won’t hear it! I won’t hear another word!’

I left.

There was no point in continuing as I’d never get what I needed.

There was only one confrontation left to have – and the time was coming.

Dad came out of hospital and returned home about the same time as Mum was discharged. While she continued to get better, his state varied. I’m not sure how good he was about taking his medication but, by early summer of 1985, he had been readmitted to the psychiatric hospital. I had spent months in a terrible state. The flashbacks and nightmares were frequent, and the rest of my life was falling apart.

I had to make a choice. I had to decide whether to let this haunt me for the rest of my life or deal with it on my terms.

I opted for the latter – Dad was getting worse and I might regret it forever if I didn’t challenge him.

I will never forget that day. I left my children with a friend and took the bus to the hospital. Due to the type of hospital it was, visitors had to be in a large room with other visitors and patients. The staff tended to be in the same room but at a distance. They didn’t go in for privacy there as they had no idea how patients were going to be from one minute to the next, but I gave it a shot and tried to position our chairs in a corner.

I asked him how he was and he seemed to be having one of his better days. He was a little distant and almost embarrassed but he always appeared like that around me. There was a long silence – actually, it probably only lasted a minute or two, but it felt like an eternity to me.

How could I start the conversation I had been working up to since I was five years old?

It had to start somewhere.

‘Do you remember everything?’

He seemed like such an old man, but he was barely fifty – and he still had the ability to try and avoid responsibility.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I took ill and they brought me here.’

‘No, I don’t mean that – you know I don’t. I mean what you did to me when I was little.’

He just stared at me then looked about the room.

‘Dad,’ I continued, ‘I’m asking you – do you remember? You hurt me. I had to be sent away because of what you did.’ I said it quietly but I was becoming angry. He began to fidget and squirm like an unruly child getting a telling-off. There was another long silence before he spoke.

‘Sorry.’

‘Sorry?’ I repeated. ‘Sorry? So you do remember?’

He nodded very slightly.

‘Why then? Why?’ I pressed.

‘I’m ill, I’m ill, it’s my head.’

‘That’s right, use that as an excuse. I bloody knew you would,’ I snapped.

‘I’m so sorry, I’m ill, I’m ill, it’s my head.’ He repeated this a few times and looked quite scared. By this time, he was attracting attention and a nurse came over.

‘I’ll have to take him to his room,’ she said. ‘He’s terribly upset about something.’

I couldn’t speak.

Dad was crying when the nurse took him back to his room. She was trying to calm him down but I couldn’t hear anything that was said. After this confrontation I was never left on my own with my father, a member of staff was always present and remained close to him. I was angry, frustrated and emotional. I had waited so long to say that to him – too long. He was in no fit state for me to shout at, he was too confused to make sense. And, I realised, his words were meaningless; for him to say sorry now meant very little.

This was the first time I had challenged him as an adult. Actually, it was the first time I had challenged him at all. When I was little, as time went on, I would fight him, I would say I didn’t want what he was forcing me to do, but I had never asked him the questions which now haunted me.
Why? How could you?
Would these questions never be answered?

The next two weeks were a nightmare. I didn’t know what to think of myself. Since confronting him, I’d had a real mixture of feelings. I was confused and ashamed that I had, in effect, bullied a dying man. Was I now as bad as him? I felt very low that I had confronted him in such a way, but I also felt he had won and that ‘our secret’ would die with him. That moment was closer than I expected. I was all over the place – I was glad I had found the strength to do it though. I think people who have survived child abuse as adults – or during it as children – often fantasise about what will happen if and when they confront their abuser. I doubt it ever turns out well – how can it? I’m not sure there was anything my dad could have done to make it better. He had taken too much and he wasn’t even the same man any more. What I wanted was to confront the man he used to be, to challenge that man and get some answers. That couldn’t happen, which was presumably why I felt so conflicted.

I received a call from my mum to say that Dad had been moved to a medical hospital, the City, as he was complaining of something being wrong with his throat. He felt as if something was stuck in there and he wanted to gag all the time. Again, I thought of the irony.

The doctors at the City examined him and found he had a tumour. He was scheduled for surgery, but when they opened him up they did nothing as he was riddled with it. I remember someone saying to me that he had ‘galloping cancer’. Nothing could be done for him. When Mum and I went to see him we were told he was dying by a doctor who took us along to the day room. It was so bad he was only expected to live a few months, but within days he had become much worse and, on the Thursday of that week, we were told he wouldn’t last much longer. After we were told, Mum asked me to phone my brother. I knew Gary was in the Army now too, but I hadn’t seen him for years. The person I spoke with in his regiment said they would get in touch with him and he would be given compassionate leave. After I had phoned about my brother, I asked Mum what I should do about Dad’s siblings and his mother, my gran. She said she would phone them as it was a time to put old grudges in the past and pull together. She never did.

Most of the time he was doped up for the pain but he did have a few clear moments. On the Friday I was in his room with him on my own, while Mum was outside having a smoke. I saw he was awake and more aware of things. ‘Dad,’ I said, ‘I need you to do something for me. I need you to tell Mum what happened.’ I knew he was dying but I wondered whether he was willing to help me get some sort of closure and move forward to a healthier relationship with her. He just stared at me and said nothing.

I lost it at that point. He was slipping so quickly, had become ill so quickly, and I felt my chance was slipping away. I didn’t want him to die without trying to explain things, but he was in control as always, even in this condition. I was shouting when Mum came back into the room.

Over and over again, I was saying the same thing: ‘Why did you do it? Why did you do it?’

‘What on earth is going on?’ Mum demanded.

‘If you keep denying it, you’re making a liar out of me even after all these years!’ I shouted. ‘You’re making her hate me still – wasn’t the abuse enough for you?’ He’d had his eyes closed throughout it all, but he opened them at that point and looked straight at me. All of my pent-up emotions were flooding out and the tears were flowing down my face.

The Army did me a favour sending me away.

How could you do that to a little girl?

Why did you let your friends abuse me too?

What made you think I was so worthless?

Tell her the truth.

Tell her the truth.

There was so much to get out – I felt as if the clock was ticking and he was going to die before I had a chance to speak. I felt he was silencing me all over again. I told him he had messed up my life and that I hated him.