The Game of Shepherd and Dawse (27 page)

Penny had looked after her mother ever since she was nine years old when the accident happened and hadn’t led a normal childhood from that date onwards (and neither a normal adulthood for that matter).

Maude had at times been very cruel to Penny before the accident and in some ways even crueller afterwards. Even though Penny was a very lovely, sweet and well behaved child, that wouldn’t stop Maude from showering down doses of cruelty in the same way a loving mother showers her child with doses of love. Maude always looked for the slightest of excuses to give her child a dose of the dose, which would have made having a dose of the sexual kind look like a walk in the park.

Maude’s favourite form of punishment was to make young Penny stand in the corner of the front room totally naked for hours on end. Twelve hours straight wouldn’t be uncommon – no loo breaks, no food breaks, not even so much as a glass of water – with plenty of lashings upon lashings of endless insults about what a dirty, filthy child she was or how she had the look of the devil about her and that one day all of her sinful deeds would catch up with her and teach her a real lesson, as if the endless cruelty being dished out by mother wasn’t enough.

Mother Maude’s endless rants were something Penny had managed to get used to. It was the same old insults and same old lectures. What really scared the hell out of this delicate little child was the thought of someone coming to the house and seeing her in her naked, pitiful state. She would pray to God time and time again, “Please God! Please! Don’t let anyone come and visit today”, nearly every hour on the hour. Fortunately for Penny, the God who she spoke to had a much more sympathetic ear than that of Maude and would be gratefully thanked when Penny was finally released from the torturous corner of naked hell.

After one of these such punishments, the following theme would always be the same: the malevolent Maude would give Penny two choices – either more of the same the next day or to be put on shankers for the rest of the week. Shankers was an old war term that had been coined in the prisoner of war camps of Germany that held the British POW’S. When someone had really screwed up, they were made to do all of the menial tasks that everyone else hated doing as punishment. This was being put on shankers.

Penny was always so very grateful to her mother for allowing her this choice and saw it as her mother being compassionate. She found being on shankers for the week a thousand times more enjoyable than being stuck naked in that corner for hours on end. Little did Penny know at the time that Maude knew full well which Penny would choose and would then keep a great big tally of to do’s that her own great big-boned, idle arse couldn’t be bothered with. The only upside to all of this was that Penny had in her own right become a domestic Goddess and very efficient at doing pretty much everything that she turned her hand to even at such a young age.

The day that malicious Maude had her fateful accident was the day that changed both of their lives, some parts for the better and some for the worse. For Penny, it got better – as never again would she be made to stand in that corner. To Penny, this was like a gift from God herself and for this she was eternally grateful. However, the real reason her mother had stopped this punishment was because she had so many more visitors these days – doctors, support workers, social workers and such – and Maude couldn’t take the chance of someone stumbling across the sheer cruelty that she so loved to dish upon her daughter – all for the greater good, of course.

Penny also had a new sense of freedom, as it would be her who would have to run all the errands and do all the food shopping and such. Though many a child would have found this such a burdensome task, Penny very much enjoyed being outside the walls of the concentration camp council house, even though Maude always set strict time limits for which she had to complete each task and be back home.

Surprisingly, Penny had a good reputation at school for being a dedicated student and was indeed a quick study, especially for a child with the enormous weight and burden her mother placed upon her on a daily basis. As Penny grew older, she learnt very well how to deal with her mother’s tyrannical ways and in fact had effectively become her mother’s mother. To some degree, this had given her the whip hand. Although there would be no more physical violence from this time on, Maude made up for lost ground in other ways with her constant put-down comments about how nothing Penny did was ever up to scratch – even though Penny’s standards were so much higher than anything her mother could ever have achieved. Over the years, Penny had learnt how to block out the constant bile oozing from her mother’s mouth and by and large was a lot happier than she had been when so very young.

Malicious Maude was ecstatic when Penny finally left school with a rather impressive four A grades and five B’s, though not because of her daughters rather impressive marks, mind you. It was because now Penny would become her full time carer, attending to her every whim and need, and not disappearing for the six to seven hours each weekday that every child does while going through the educational brainwashing system called school.

Penny was five foot four with a wispy build; she had big blue eyes and natural blonde hair. Her tiresome mother and absentee father were both dark haired, so no one really knew where her rather angelic features had come from down the Crabtree gene code. At first glance, you probably wouldn’t take a second look at Penny if you saw her walking down the street, even though she had the classic features most women would love to have. Her dowdy sense of dress and the constant slightly-strained look on her face that she had inherited from years of nagging from not-so-dear mother Maude gave her a rather drab look, some might say. Penny’s hairstyle didn’t do her any favours either. It was a plain bob that came just past her jaw line, which was about as racy as she dared go for. There would have been, no doubt, endless insults about looking like the devil’s tart from not-so-motherly Maude had she experimented with anything more daring.

Penny’s carer’s allowance wasn’t up to much either especially considering the hours she had to put in, not to mention the overtime on the overtime. It really was quite a pittance. Had Penny been part of a workers’ union, the likes of which managed to get so many industries shut down in the north, she too would have no doubt been put out to strike. But there were no unions in Penny’s life: not the working kind, the loving kind or even the sexual kind. Penny’s life consisted of me myself and I – mother Maude with Penny by the side.

The year Penny turned 18, mother Maude had very kindly decided to make herself incontinent. As if having her arse wiped twenty-four seven wasn’t enough already, she had literally decided to get it wiped on a daily basis. And, when Maude was feeling particularly neglected, she would make at least three trips to the missed loo.

Because of this poor Penny had a slight pooey whiff about her, not that she knew of course, as her nasal receptors had gone on strike in that department some time ago. The unions would have been more than proud. And as all long-term strikes go, there would be a price to pay for this lack of smell that permeated from her filthy mother into every pore of poor Penny. Many times over the years, Penny had experienced people moving away from her in such situations – such as sitting on the bus or sitting on a park bench – but had never put it down to the smell that she couldn’t smell. Instead, Penny just thought that she wasn’t a very likeable person. After all, it was what she had been conditioned to believe. Because of this Penny never got close to many people and never knew much about human touch. The closest she ever got to being touched was by Fred, the elderly gentleman who would often come and sit next to her on the bus on a Wednesday whilst doing his library run.

Fred was a very well dressed and very well spoken man. He was in his mid-seventies but had a youthful vigour about him. Even at his age, he very much enjoyed charming the ladies and did it very well.

Penny liked Fred. He was a gentleman through and through and would often give Penny a little flower he had picked on the way to the bus stop. Penny kept every one of those little flowers and pressed them between the books on her book shelf and then placed them on a piece of cardboard and covered them with thick cellophane. Fred would always ask how Penny was and mostly let her do all the talking. Fred was, by default, a fantastic talker by being a fantastic listener and knew more about Penny than anyone else in the whole world. Fred would always give Penny’s hand a little squeeze when his stop came up and say the words, “Well, goodbye my dear. Keep smiling won’t you, even if just for me“.

This would always make Penny smile, even if only because it would have been rude not to, and every now and again it would glaze her eyes slightly that someone could be so compassionate with her, when so very few others would even think to try.

Penny often wondered why such a nice, well dressed gentleman took the bus. She always imagined him driving one of those beautiful classic cars. Penny often fantasised about having Fred as a grandfather and how much fun it would have been when he would have popped around the house when she was a child and also how safe she would have felt, as this sturdy, good hearted man would never have put up with her mother’s antics. Penny fantasised about many things and often slid off into many a dream world that she had created as a coping mechanism to deal with the miserable drudgery of her everyday existence.

Thus, Penny’s life was the same old, same old – the same old routine that had become the same old routine: day in, day out; week in, week out. Until that was, the day that Penny had gone to see the family doctor, Dr Saunders.

Penny had arranged an appointment with Dr Saunders to try and get some advice or help for the way that she had been feeling for quite some time now, and the feeling that she was feeling was our not-so-dear friend, Mr Suicidal. Penny had coped amazingly well with all of the misery that had been heaped upon her throughout her life, but there is only so much any human can take and Penny had reached and breached that very point.

Fortunately for Penny, Dr Saunders was a female doctor and as such was a much more caring and compassionate physician than 99 percent of the male GP’s in practice. Dr Saunders had been her family doctor for as long as Penny could remember and was fully aware of the acute situation that Penny lived in and had to face on a daily basis. When Penny was young, Dr Saunders had suspected that Penny was being abused, but never had any hard evidence she could do anything with. Dr Saunders had also witnessed first-hand the ever demanding nature of mother Maude.

That being said, mother Maude was no match for Dr Saunders and her sterner than stern yet very professional approach when it came to mother Maude’s moans and groans. After all, Dr Saunders was the gatekeeper to all of those wonderful painkillers Maude had grown to love and addict herself to over the years. Even Maude knew that Dr Saunders could cut off her well-needed supply of legal highs at any point and she certainly wouldn’t bite the hand that fed her in that arena. Dr Saunders was one of the few people who could actually do most of the talking where Maude was concerned and was certainly not going to be bullied and told what to do by this patient or any other for that matter. And Maude knew it.

“Miss Crabtree, please,” called out the duty nurse.

Penny made her way into Dr Saunders’ exam room. Dr Saunders was seated at her desk, glancing through Penny’s file.

“Have a seat, Penny,” Dr Saunders said while she finished reading over the last of her notes. Penny awkwardly sat herself down in the closest chair and began fidgeting slightly. “So then”, Dr Saunders asked, as she glanced up with a quick, easy smile. “How are you today?”

“Ohhh, not too bad, thank you,” replied Penny hastily, not wanting to seem a burden.

Dr Saunders looked back to the file and made a ‘Hmmm’ sound as she read. “Well, it would appear then that someone has been telling me little fibs, I think”, Dr Saunders replied, in a tone of voice that didn’t really imply she was being lied too but in more of a teasing manner.

Dr Saunders slowly swung her swivel chair around and placed both elbows on the arms of the chair, making an upside down V shape. She brought her hands together and rested her chin on her hands, while leaning back in the chair in a relaxed fashion. She studied Penny’s slightly worried and confused face for a brief second.

“Well, Penny. You must be telling me fibs because if EVERYTHING was absolutely ok, then you wouldn’t be here today, now would you“? Dr Saunders smiled and winked as she said this. This was one of many techniques Dr Saunders had learnt over her many years in practice to break the ice with her more nervous patients she had on her books, and it worked well.

Penny suddenly felt rather relieved to know that she wasn’t lying to Dr Saunders after all and her face that had gotten a little more intense looking than usual now relaxed slightly.

“So, then what is it really that you’ve come to see me about today, Penny”? Dr Saunders voice sounded a bit more caring and motherly now, as she rested her chin atop her left hand while placing her right arm gently across her belly.