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As most of the girls in my class were heading for early motherhood or the Cowley Road – where there were gangs of nasty, gropey men wanting to drool all over them – I started trying to hang out with the girls in the ‘top’ classes at school. I was drawn to the cleverer girls, and wanted to be part of their gangs, but at first it was impossible. So I watched them. I began to copy them, and then began to create a new image for myself.
I did go round for tea one day to one of the posh girl’s houses and it was a complete revelation to me. Miranda’s family lived in a big red-brick house with lovely front and back gardens. They had huge white lampshades from a shop called Habitat, which were all the rage. They had lovely Moroccan carpets, wooden floors (no swirling orange carpet, like at ours), and big beautiful Indian cushions made of velvet and little mirrors. I was in awe of this house. I also watched the parents let the children speak. Miranda was allowed to join in the adult conversation – something I had never been allowed to do (I was always told to ‘Shut up, you little bitch’). Even though Miranda was in the middle stream (not the top), her parents let her talk about things on equal terms with them. I was shocked. I was always told that only the adults had any say in a matter. All decisions had been made for me, and I’d never been asked about anything.
After this, I wanted to voice my opinions more. For years I had been silent. Whatever happened, I bit my lip and put up with the punishment or the slagging off. I was amazed that Miranda’s parents were interested in what she had to say, and never missed a parents’ evening. Barbara and Ian had never shown up at any parents’ evenings at any of my schools. It was only the difficult meetings with social workers that Barbara actually turned up for – because she had to.
I began to steal make-up from local shops and use it. I wanted to try fashion, to create my clothes, to change my appearance. I began using colour on my eyes, lips and hair. Of course Barbara forbade it and shouted at me, or slapped my face, calling me a ‘slut’ or a ‘whore’. But I’d heard it all before. I was getting tired of her violence and her attitude. I was beginning to think for myself, just a little bit. I didn’t know why she thought she could slap me about and starve me all the time like she did. I began to create a whole personality for myself, a new persona. I started to play her like she played me. I would tell her what she wanted to know, so she wouldn’t ‘kill’ me, as she constantly threatened to. I began to tell lies, to create stories. Some were complicated lies. Some were sad. Some were just to survive. Sometimes I told them to Barbara to get out of being punished. Sometimes I told them to new friends, to make them like me, or to reduce Barbara’s oddness.
One girl at school said to me, ‘Your Mum is really scary,’ and I just said, ‘Oh, she used to be a nanny and believes in discipline.’
Of course, this was the truth, Barbara had been a nanny, but it wasn’t just discipline she believed in; she was out to destroy me. She hated me. I never confessed what was happening at home – I was too ashamed. Sometimes I turned my mother into a wonderful ‘happy hippy’ mother, or a ‘Waltons’ type of ‘mom’, and I described how wonderful she was to the other girls. I made out she was a fabulous mother, and home was great.
I was so desperate to fit in, to stop being the odd one out, that I almost starting believing in these fantasies myself. I gave the impression that my parents loved me, that I mattered, that they would do anything for me. It was a complete pack of lies, but I began to need to believe it. I told some new girls that I was from a large, happy family, a bit like the Osmonds, and I had a lovely bedroom with white furniture and a white phone. I told wonderful stories of the travels we’d had to faraway places. The other girls lapped it up. I was rich, a princess, and nothing was too much for me. They believed it, or so I thought.
One day I was embellishing on this, out on the hockey field at the back of the school. Somehow it got back to the headmistress, who called Barbara and me in to see her. We sat in her office (once the traffic light went green) and I was told to stop telling lies. Barbara sat there saying, ‘I have no idea what to do with her, she is such a liar.’
I said nothing, but I remembered all the years when she had told everybody how wonderful she was to me, and then beat me up at home. Inevitably, once we got home from school, Barbara ripped off my clothes and whipped me with a wet, smelly floor cloth. She kicked me in the belly, spat on me and I was utterly humiliated. After this punishment I didn’t speak to her for days. She starved me completely too, but I didn’t care, as I now refused to eat.
From then on, every time I said anything at school I was accused of being a liar by the other girls, and it was an embarrassing situation to be in. Whatever I now said, it was a lie, so no one believed me about anything. I had cried wolf once too often. The upshot of all this was that I was furious. I was livid and boiling with rage underneath, but I didn’t realise how much. I wanted to change myself, my image, my life, but it was all too slow. By inventing things I had tried to create a better me, but it had all backfired. Everything I tried always came back to Barbara feeling she had the right to kick and slap everything out of me, to torture and blame me. I hated the way she twisted everything all the time. I was always under suspicion. She never took responsibility or owned up or said sorry. Never. It was always my fault, all the time. Thus, I was coming up to the boil.
One weekend morning I put on jeans and a T-shirt (I had now managed to get some younger-looking clothes from a second-hand shop), and I asked Barbara if I could go out for a ride on my bike. I had a second-hand (of course), dark-green ladies’ bike. It was very old-fashioned.
She said, ‘Okay, fine,’ and I went to the shed to get the bike. Just as I was getting on it, on the gravel drive, Ian came back from being out in his van. In front of him Barbara said to me, ‘Where do you think you’re going, young lady?’
I was straddled across the bike, foot on the pedal, ready to go, and said, ‘Out to see Miranda – you just said I could.’ Barbara looked at Ian and shook her head, dramatically.
‘You bloody little liar,’ she said. ‘You open your sodding mouth and out comes another lie.’
I was amazed. Usually I would say nothing, but I suddenly felt really upset. ‘But you said—’
‘I said nothing of the sort. One day you’ll end up dead in a ditch with all these lies.’
I was flabbergasted. But suddenly I’d had enough, and got off the bike and started to walk past her. I heard Ian say, ‘Barbara, stop now,’ but she was on her mission. As I walked down the gravel to the gate, pushing the bike, she was behind me saying, ‘Little bitch, little liar…’
I just kept on walking, wheeling the bike, but she wouldn’t leave me alone. I was determined to open that gate. I could hear her saying, ‘You always make trouble between Ian and me; you’re a nasty piece of work.’
By now she had got to the gate and nipped in front of me, blocking my way. Usually I would turn around and go back obediently, waiting to be beaten, kicked or slapped. I was used to being punished; I expected it. But in this moment, out on the gravel, about to get on my bike and leave to see a friend, something snapped. I saw Barbara in front of the gate and I threw my bike aside and ran at her. I grabbed her shoulders and shook her, and started shouting: ‘You fucking cow, you evil cunt,’ (I’d seen ‘kunt’ written on the school toilet doors, so I knew it was rude) and every bad name I could think of. I pushed her against the gate as hard as I could, and then ran to the dustbins at the side of the house, pulling them over, spilling the rubbish everywhere. I suddenly felt I had superhuman strength and I went over to a climbing rose on the side of the house (Barbara’s pride and joy), and wrenched it violently off the wall. I cut my hands on the thorns but didn’t care.
I was raging. I wa
s beside myself. I was powered by such fury as I had never experienced before. I was shouting and swearing at Barbara all this time, and she was now cowering behind the front garden gate. I was showing my strength, my depth of feeling. I was wild with shouting. I had had ENOUGH! I went on and on and on; I was a volcano. I was exploding – it was my turn! All I wanted was a bike ride and I was sick of being stopped, sick of being called a liar, sick of all the mad twists and turns in Barbara’s head, sick of all the nasty evil. Sick of being blamed. I was experiencing the endless fury that I had seen Barbara display so many times over the years, which she threw straight at me for the slightest thing.
I didn’t know it then, but while I was on the rampage Barbara had slipped inside and called the police. I was still running about, ranting, when two policemen eventually turned up on foot. They were both quite old and both very polite. When I saw them, I began to calm down. All this time Ian was hovering in the background, looking very pale and awkward. The two policemen just talked to Barbara. She played the whole thing as a sob story in her favour: ‘You don’t know how hard it is to look after these sorts of difficult children,’ she said, dabbing her eyes. ‘They have chips on their shoulders. They are such hard work.’
Ian listened and said nothing. I looked at him and saw finally how weak he really was. He didn’t explain anything to the policemen about what had really happened. Ian had seen everything, and yet he said nothing at all. He knew what she was like and he never, ever, protected me. I hated him in that moment, even more than I hated Barbara. He was weak. He was useless and he had never done anything for me. Barbara was saying she had tried everything but someone like me was always angry and ungrateful. I was now much calmer, but I looked at the two policemen and I thought, You are such idiots. They didn’t ask me a thing and then just went on their way.
After this incident I felt like I was enveloped in an invisible cloak. I had finally seen exactly what the situation was that I was in: Ian would never help me, and Barbara would always twist everything so I was in the wrong. Even the police would do nothing to her, no matter what she did. There was nothing I could do about it. All I could do was protect myself. I had to survive. I had to create a new self. I had to create a me that could go out into the world and get on. I realised that I would have to leave as soon as I possibly, humanly could. I was living in hell and I no longer wanted to be there. I had to be clever. I needed a campaign to save my own life. I had to find some way out.
For years I had been taking my little red suitcase round the landing, pretending I was going on a journey. Today I had actually wanted to go on my bike and instead I’d been stopped maliciously for no reason. My explosion helped me to begin to find myself. I found something inside me that was ready to say, ‘ENOUGH’ and ‘NO’ and ‘SHUT UP’.
I was surprised at the level of anger I’d felt, and how much destruction I’d caused, but it was also a good feeling. (Of course, I had to clear up my mess and be punished as usual.) However, I realised I would have to put all my attention on preparing myself for the real world – the world of white paper lampshades and people in offices, of putting on work clothes and earning money. I would have to be big enough to be that person. I had never wanted anything so much in my whole life and I was going to do everything in my power to make it happen. I would have to create my new self and leave as soon as I was able. And that was that. Little did I know, things would get even worse before they got better.
16
Broken Promises
The doorbell rang one afternoon. Barbara answered and I listened from the safety of the banisters, vigilant as ever. I couldn’t see who it was and then I heard Barbara say, ‘Well, you’d better come in.’
Straining to see, I was amazed to witness Julie, of all people, walk into the hall followed by two smallish children. They all followed Barbara out to the kitchen and the door closed. I had been confined to my room for yet another punishment but my curiosity was burning. Why on earth was she here? I tiptoed halfway downstairs to my usual listening place. Ian and Kevin were both at work. I was supposed to be at school, but was home ‘sick’ as usual and actually about to clean out the chicken run.
