As he was doing this, he was saying words I knew were bad. He’d been calling me a little bitch all day, but now he was saying that I was dirty too. I wasn’t. I really wasn’t. I’d been cleaning all day and I’d always washed my hands, so why was he saying this? As he got more and more out of breath, his hand kept my nightdress pushed up over my front bottom and my back bottom. His words were getting faster and faster and he seemed to want to just tell me I was a
dirty little bitch
over and over again. He said it quicker and quicker, his voice got deeper and deeper, then, suddenly, he let out a moaning sound and flopped back, letting my nightie fall down.
He let out a huge breath and lay there with his eyes closed. What was I meant to do now, I wondered?
‘Dad?’ I whimpered, completely confused by what had just happened. ‘Dad? Are you OK?’ I didn’t know if he was ill or sick; I already had one parent in hospital and now the only one I had left was in such a strange state that I wondered if the doctors would soon be coming for him too.
He opened his eyes and looked at me as if he hated what he saw.
‘Get up,’ he snarled, pushing me off the chair.
I hurried away from him, pulling my nightdress down as far as it would go as I headed towards the door.
‘Where the fuck are you going?’ he asked.
‘To bed,’ I replied, confused again. It seemed as if every time I did what he said, I got it wrong.
‘No, you’re fucking not. Dirty little bitch like you needs to get a wash. Now get to that bathroom and run a bath. Get in it and wait – don’t close the door, don’t lock the fucking door. You’re filthy, absolutely fucking filthy. Get in there and wait for me.’
I did as I was told.
I did as I was told that time and the many, many times which were to follow. I had no way of knowing what was happening, that my father was laying down the ritual he would stick to for so many years. Looking back, I’m glad I didn’t know. Glad I didn’t know the horrors which were to come.
We were allowed to go and visit Mum in hospital the next day. On the way up the stairs to the ward, Dad waited until Gary was ahead of us and pulled me back slightly. ‘Remember what I told you,’ he hissed. ‘Your mum wants you to be a good girl – but she doesn’t want you bothering her with all sorts of nonsense. If you want her to get home, you keep being good for me, and you speak only when you’re spoken to.’
Mum looked slightly better, but the doctors still had no idea what was wrong with her. She said she hoped to be back home that week, but our visit was a short one. Gary spoke about football, while Dad walked around the room a lot and kept his eye on me – I sat quietly in a chair, terrified to say anything. There was no tearful reunion – we weren’t that sort of family – and I heard no words of affection between my parents. I would have thought Dad would have paid more attention to his wife, told her he was missing her, but there was nothing like that. He didn’t hug or kiss her, and we left within half an hour.
‘Good, you did well,’ he said to me, quietly, as we walked to the bus stop to get home. Gary was running ahead, kicking a can along the street, and couldn’t hear him. When we got home, Dad made dinner. Maybe I was doing things right? However, every time I thought of the night before, I felt ashamed and sick.
What had happened on the Saturday night was awful. When I had run the water for my bath, Dad came into the bathroom after me. I thought he would be checking to see if the water was fine, as that’s what Mum always did, even though she was the one who always got it ready in the first place. He didn’t do that. Once the bath was full, he put the lid of the toilet seat down and parked himself on it.
I waited.
I didn’t want to take my nightie off in front of him. Even at five I was too old for that, and I certainly felt uncomfortable about it given what had just happened.
‘Get in,’ he snapped.
‘Are you going away?’ I asked.
‘Get in,’ he repeated, ignoring my question.
I was so ashamed as I slid out of my nightie. Ashamed that he could see me. If he had been a normal daddy, it would have been fine. He would have checked the water, helped me in, kept the door open a little to make sure I was safe; but none of this was normal, none of it felt like it was to look after me. It felt as though it was all about what he wanted and needed. As I washed myself, he stared at me, and I felt his eyes burn into me as he leaned closer. He kept looking at the door, as if to confirm to himself that it was closed – to this day, I always keep the bathroom door ajar when I’m having a soak.
I tried to get out after a few minutes, but he poked my shoulder with his finger. ‘You’re going nowhere,’ he said, ‘dirty little girls need to make sure they’re properly clean.’
‘I am, Dad,’ I said, ‘I am.’
He snorted. ‘I’ll be the judge of that. Wash.’
I started all over again. There wasn’t much of me to wash in the first place, but I went over every part of me with the flannel and soap just to make sure.
‘Harder,’ he told me.
I did as I was instructed until he finally spoke. ‘Out. Move yourself.’
I clambered over the rim of the bath with no help, and tried to dry myself as best I could. Again, he offered no assistance and didn’t try to touch me – he just stared and stared and stared. What I didn’t know was that this would prove to be one of his requirements almost every time he abused me. His need for me to have a bath, and his need to watch me while I was in there, would be a major component of what he did to me. He would never touch me while I was in there, but he would always stare nonstop in a way I couldn’t comprehend. Was he trying to work out what had happened, what he had just done to me? Was he trying to make me feel worse, as if I had not a shred of privacy, nowhere at all to hide from him? I don’t know. I’ll never know.
When I was dressed again – in clean pyjamas, not the nightie which represented the shameful things he had done – he walked out of the room without a word and I quietly went to my bed, where I was left alone.
Over the next few days, my life acquired a pattern of sorts. I’d go to school as normal, but I wasn’t allowed to have contact with anyone outside of that time. I couldn’t have friends round, I couldn’t go to visit anyone else. I had to cook and clean, I had to tidy and organise. As my dad had told me, I was the woman of the house. He never spoke of what had happened, and I didn’t dare bring it up. I had no conception really of what had gone on anyway – I didn’t have the words for it or the awareness of how wrong it had been. All I knew was that I didn’t like it, that he was in charge, and that I never wanted it to happen again.
After a week, Mum came back home – there were no fanfares, no celebrations, she was just there one day when I got back from school. If she’d missed me, she didn’t say. If she had any suspicions over what had gone on, I wasn’t aware of them. What I did know was that it didn’t last. The sickness started up again and the sores all over her body started appearing. It would be the start of years of hospitalisations. I suppose I had been aware of her symptoms starting up again but at the same time I didn’t want to consider the possibility that she might go away as she had before. When I left for school in the mornings, she was often up being sick already. When I came back, she had a horrible grey pallor to her and I knew she was in pain. She didn’t always try to hide it and I would hear her groaning in agony. I had no idea what was wrong – which was unsurprising, given that the doctors were all perplexed too.
One day, a few weeks after the night which had started it all, I got home from school and Mum had gone. I rushed in the door and realised there was no sound of her vomiting. Dad was sitting in his chair, in his Army uniform, a can of beer in his hand, smoking as he always did.
‘Where’s Mum?’ I asked, although I knew the answer. I could sense her absence, if that makes sense; it felt different from when she was at the bingo or had just popped out to the shops.
He always took his time to answer me, unless he was shouting or telling me I was in trouble straight away. It seemed like an age passed before he told me the inevitable truth.
‘Hospital.’
There was no sugar coating or comfort.
‘Come here,’ he demanded.
‘Why?’ I asked.
Another pause.
‘What sort of fucking answer is that? I’m your father, I said “Come here” so you should fucking jump.’
I stood still.
‘How stupid are you? Come here.’
I moved forward a few steps. He was in his khaki trousers and shirt, all the usual gear. Even at home, I seldom saw him in civvies. He seemed to need that uniform, need the status it brought him even in his own house. His eyes were dark, hard, unfeeling. All I wanted was a daddy who would take me in his arms, in all innocence, and hug me as he told me that my mum would be better soon. I wanted him to tell me that he loved me, to make up for the loss of my mum and be the dad he should be, not the monster he had shown himself capable of becoming.
‘Do you know why your mum is back in hospital?’ he asked me. I shook my head. ‘It’s because of you. It’s all your fault, Tracy.’
Just as he said those horrible words, the door slammed and Gary came in.
‘Where’s Mum?’ he asked, just as I had done.
Dad’s response was always warmer towards him, and he didn’t swear at Gary nearly as much as he did at me. ‘She’s in hospital, son. Now, go through to your room, get changed and get your homework done.’ Gary did as he was told, leaving me alone with Dad again. ‘Now, where was I?’ he pondered, falsely. He knew exactly what he had been saying to me. ‘Ah, yes. Your mum. In hospital again. Thanks to you, Tracy, all thanks to you.’
‘I didn’t do anything, Dad, honestly I didn’t.’ Even to my own ears, my voice sounded pathetic.
‘Are you sure?’ he asked.
‘I’ve been a good girl.’
‘No. No you haven’t. And do you know how I know that? It’s because, if you’d been a good girl, your mum wouldn’t have had to go back into hospital.’
Just as he said this, Gary came back through with his school bag and sat down at the table.
‘What are you doing?’ asked my dad.
‘Er, homework,’ Gary stated obviously.
‘Not in here you’re not.’
‘But you told me to do it,’ he responded, much more bravely than I ever would have done.
‘I told you to go to your room and do your homework. And that’s where you’ll go,’ he said, as Gary sighed dramatically and picked up his things. ‘Take these with you,’ he added, throwing his Army boots at my brother. ‘Get the polish and bull the buggers until I can see my face in them. I’ll come through and check on you when I decide. You stay there. You understand?’
Gary nodded, sighed some more and left the room. This, I would soon discover, would be one of my father’s strategies. When he wanted Gary to be distracted and focused on some petty task that he had to get right for fear of incurring my dad’s wrath, he’d get sent to his room, usually to bull the boots. This meant the boots had to be rubbed with polish or beeswax until they were as shiny as possible, and Dad always liked to get a bit of glory for how well they had been done – from this point on, I don’t ever remember him doing them himself, he always got one of us to do it for him, usually as a punishment for me or a distraction for Gary.
He turned his attention back to me once Gary had closed the living-room door behind him.
‘Come here, Tracy,’ he said, quietly. I walked towards him, my heart heavy with the knowledge that whatever was going to happen was inevitable. I couldn’t get out of anything my dad decided to do to me, and there was no one there to save me. ‘What is really important is that you understand what is going on.’
I could feel myself wanting to argue with everything he said.
I understood nothing
.
‘You’re a big girl now.’
No, I’m not
, I wanted to say.
I’m little, I’m only five, and I want you and Mum to look after me
.
‘You need to start realising that you have responsibilities and that when bad things happen, it’s your fault.’
I don’t want responsibilities, I want Mum to be OK, and I want you to stop hitting me and doing those horrible things to me.
‘Listen to me, Tracy – this is really important.’
I held my breath as he pulled me towards him.
His hands travelled up my body and he wrapped his legs around the side of me.
‘Your mum is ill because of you.’
No! That can’t be right
, I thought,
I haven’t done anything to Mum
.
‘But you can make her better too. Do you understand, Tracy? When you’re a good girl, it makes Mum better. When you don’t do the . . . things that make you a good girl, Mum ends up in hospital. She got home, didn’t she?’ I nodded. I couldn’t argue with that. ‘She got home because you had been a good girl, but then you started being bad again. And now she’s back in hospital and only you can sort that out. You need to be good. You have to be good.’
I may have only been small, and I may have previously worried that I wouldn’t understand, but I understood all too clearly now. The only times he had told me to be a good girl was when he had done nasty things to me, when he pushed himself on me, and rubbed himself on me, and touched me. When he panted and breathed strangely, when he watched me in the bath and he called me a dirty little bitch.
When all of that happened, and when I let it happen, I was a good girl.
When I was a good girl, Mum got better.
‘It’s easy really, Tracy,’ he whispered, his hot, smelly beer breath in my ear. ‘You need to be a good girl. There are things to do that will make you a good girl. It’s really important to remember that good girls keep . . . the secret, because, if you tell, Mum will get ill. She’ll become more ill than she’s ever been before and it will be all your fault. I’m sure you don’t want to be the one who puts your mum into hospital, do you, Tracy?’ I shook my head as he spoke. ‘But you will – you will if you don’t keep the secret and do what you need to do. There’s nothing wrong with it, you just shouldn’t bother your mum. It’s up to you, it’s all up to you.’