Читать книгу No One Listened: Two children caught in a tragedy with no one else to trust except for each other - Alex Kerr - Страница 10

In some ways at the beginning I liked the idea of being special to Dad, of being the only one in the family he was nice to. When he encouraged me to misbehave at school or not bother to go in at all, he made it sound much more interesting and exciting than it ever turned out to be, particularly as he was always generous with his bribes, giving me sweets or money if I did what he wanted. The more he could encourage me to misbehave, the more he knew he would annoy Mum and undermine all her efforts to keep me working hard and in the top classes for every subject. Annoying Mum and Isobel was the primary aim of almost everything he ever did in the house. I never stopped to question why; that’s just the way it was.

At the same time I also discovered that however much he might pretend to me that we were allies when we were alone, he couldn’t be trusted not to betray me as soon as he had an opportunity. He would encourage me to do something bad when it was just the two of us together, but as soon as Mum came home he would sneak on me and tell her what I had been doing, without confessing that he had suggested it in the first place. He would gloat over how badly behaved her precious little son really was, and how he had managed to sabotage all her good work in bringing me up. I never protested in my defence because I didn’t want to provoke his anger and make him hate me as much as he hated the others, and because I was never one for protesting about things generally. I was always pretty philosophical about life, even as a small boy.

I soon learned that everything Dad did was part of some spiteful mind game he had dreamed up in the long hours he spent on his own in his room. If ever he gave us a present there was always a reason, a hidden agenda behind it. He heard Isobel asking Mum for money for something one day and so he put forty pounds in her room for her to find. Not knowing what to say, Isobel spent it and then a week or two later he demanded it back. Since Isobel only received a pound or two a week as pocket money, that took a long time and was something else for him to hold against her, another way to keep control and prove to her what a bad daughter she was.

He gave us both CD players one time, but only so he could smash Isobel’s up in front of her and enjoy the look of disappointment on her face. He must have planned it from the start because the one he bought me was far more expensive than the one he intended to destroy. When he first gave it to her Isobel sensed there was something wrong and was hesitant to even touch it for fear that it would prove to be a trap. When he smashed it he didn’t even bother to say why, but I knew he wouldn’t touch mine. I think he was always hoping to turn Isobel and me against one another, but that never worked.

Whatever he did to us Isobel and I were always a team. We had been together since the day I was born and we understood each other perfectly. No one could ever come between us, no matter how devious and cunning they might be. Although we had our own separate friends, we were often together socially as well. Isobel was always a bit of a tomboy and quite happy to hang out with groups of boys, playing football or climbing trees. She wasn’t interested in whatever it was most of the girls wanted to do, which usually meant staying indoors as far as she could see. As we got older Mum didn’t mind letting us go out to play with other kids in the area so long as we had finished our homework and so long as we were together. Not that we had very much spare time to just play around, because she filled virtually every waking hour with activities. If we did have a few spare hours, however, playing outside was always preferable to being indoors and worrying about disturbing Dad if we made any sort of noise at all. We didn’t often take friends back home either because we could never be sure if he would be there or not, and if he did emerge from his room and find other people in the house he would always make a scene to ensure they felt as uncomfortable as possible.

‘Our Dad might be there,’ we would warn them on the odd occasions when we did bring friends back to the house. ‘If he’s there, just ignore him. Don’t say anything to him if he talks to you.’

It was like warning children not to pet an unreliable dog in case it suddenly turned nasty and bit them. It was obvious that our friends couldn’t understand why we were issuing warnings like this and I dare say they went back home to their own parents with some colourful descriptions of what the atmosphere was like inside our house, with the invisible bogeyman of a father hiding away upstairs, a bit like the wicked giant in ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’. Most of the people we met during our after-school activities didn’t even realise we had a dad since they only ever saw us out and about with Mum. He would never come to see us playing in a concert or competing in a sports match. Just like Mum, neither Isobel nor I would ever talk about him to other people if we didn’t have to.

If Dad did make an appearance when there were other people in the house he would usually appear quite alarming. He seemed to take pride in making himself look as much of a thug as he could, and he wouldn’t say much, just looming there, silent and threatening. On the rare occasions when he came to one or other of our activities he would be deliberately aggressive and abusive to everyone else there, as if he wanted to embarrass us and Mum, to teach us a lesson for taking an interest in something that was nothing to do with him and to show us who was in control. He liked to demonstrate his contempt for anything any of us did, to make it look as though Mum was wasting her time rushing around doing things that he thought were pointless and laughable. If you can’t see the point in anything then there really isn’t any reason to come out of your bedroom, especially if someone else is willing to pay the bills and provide you with food.

Mum would cook big meals when she had the time. Most Sundays she would do a family roast, although Dad still wouldn’t want to come down to eat with us. He didn’t even eat with us on Christmas Day. It didn’t bother Isobel or me because we couldn’t remember anything different, and it was always nicer when he wasn’t around to create a bad atmosphere anyway, but it must have been hard for Mum. She must have wished she had a normal husband who was part of the family. She pretended not to notice that anything was wrong, keeping herself and us so busy that we didn’t have too much time for introspection, but it must have been wearing her away inside.

On weeknights Isobel and I made sure we’d done our homework by the time Mum got home, and sorted out something to eat. We got through a lot of pasta in those years because there was never any time to cook anything more elaborate. There was certainly no space in our lives for just sitting down and relaxing over a meal. Mum drank endless cups of strong coffee throughout the day – sometimes as many as twenty a day – just to keep herself awake. Dad never ate the meals we prepared, of course. From what I could make out, he seemed to survive on takeaway kebabs or chips.

Mum was a great believer in the importance of exams and achieving things academically. During the daily car rides back and forth between after-school activities she would constantly bombard us with questions about school, getting us to go through every lesson and tell her what we had been learning and then she would fire questions at us, testing us on our times tables or our French vocabulary. She was always enthusiastic in the early days before tiredness started to overpower her, wanting to exercise our brains to the full at every opportunity. During half terms and holidays she would give us her own work projects and tests on top of anything our teachers might have set us. We never complained because we were so used to it and we knew she would always let us go out to play as soon as we had finished our work. We enjoyed most of the tasks anyway.

We certainly never had any time to chill out in front of the television as many of our friends did after school. None of this bothered us because we had never had a chance to get into the habit of watching television and whenever we did tune in the programmes seemed boring compared to the pace and variety of our own lives. The only time we might watch anything would be on a Sunday morning, but even then Mum wasn’t that keen if there was something else she thought we should be doing, and we weren’t interested enough to go against her wishes. About once a week we would catch an episode of The Simpsons, which was the only show we really liked.

From as early as I can remember, Mum would enrol us for every after-school activity imaginable. It didn’t matter how much it cost (and they were virtually all private lessons), or how many hours of her evening she had to give up to ferry us from one place to another. She was determined that we should be given every possible opportunity to try everything, even if we decided not to follow it up later, and that we would never be unable to do something just because we couldn’t afford it. Almost the moment she arrived home each afternoon, having driven for at least an hour back from work, she would be piling us into the little Metro she’d had for years and driving me to one place and Isobel to another.

The activities she enrolled us for covered virtually every skill she could think of. It wasn’t just the musical instruments – piano, violin – and singing in the choir; there were also the physical activities like swimming and gymnastics, ballet and karate. If we tried something and didn’t like it she would be happy to let us stop, but would immediately suggest something else instead. We must have belonged to every single club within a ten-mile radius of the house. At one stage I tried learning the trumpet but the teacher said I would do better changing to the French horn, which was a big instrument for a small boy to have to lug around with him all day. I joined the scouts but somehow Isobel escaped brownies and girl guides; I think maybe she didn’t have enough hours left in her day to fit them in, although she did do woodcraft.

Isobel’s favourite activity was running and she was brilliant at long distance and cross-country. She actually enjoyed going through the thickest mud and deepest puddles. She was so good she went all the way up to compete at county level. She was always a real tomboy, preferring football to ballet. Mum was willing to indulge her in anything that she showed an interest in, even though she was the only girl on the football team, until things got too rough and Isobel broke her finger at one match. After that, Mum decided enough was enough.

When we got a little older and started to have minds of our own, one or other of us might announce that we wanted to give up one of our activities. Sometimes Mum would react badly to this. Maybe she didn’t like the idea that we were growing up and not totally within her control any more. When Isobel said one evening that she wanted to give up swimming in order to have more time for her running Mum went completely ballistic.

‘All the money I’ve spent on swimming lessons,’ she shouted, ‘and you want to give it up just like that?’

She seemed to hate the idea of us limiting our options in any way, even though there obviously weren’t enough hours in the week for us to do everything properly. I think Isobel’s swimming costume got hurled out of the window during that row, which seemed a bit out of proportion. It may just have been Mum’s exhaustion and pent-up frustrations about other things that made her explode like that rather than the actual announcement itself. Isobel was determined not to change her mind, although she felt very guilty about letting Mum down and upsetting her.

When I announced I had quit the church choir she went even more over the top. I was around eleven years old and going through a bit of a rebellious phase at the time. I had actually sworn at the choirmaster during the practice that evening, which had resulted in me being ordered out of the room. I stormed off and disappeared for a few hours. The choirmaster phoned home and so Mum knew exactly what had happened and started ranting on to Isobel about me.

‘I’m going to call social services,’ she raved. ‘I’ve got to get something done about that boy!’

By the time I finally walked in through the front door she had lathered herself up into a real state of fury, but I stuck to my guns about leaving the choir and refused to go back. I think I might have provoked the whole confrontation deliberately in order to give myself an excuse to leave, so Mum was right to be angry with me, but I was still shocked by the sheer force of her disappointment.

Part of Mum’s motivation could have been to get us all out of the house and out of Dad’s way as much as possible, which was fine by us. There were certain times of the day, usually in the later part of the afternoon, when he might wake up and emerge unexpectedly from his room, coming down to the kitchen to make himself some food. At those times he didn’t want us anywhere around. He believed it was ‘his time’ and ‘his space’ and we would have to make ourselves scarce. The mere sight of Isobel or Mum would remind him how much he hated them and didn’t want them around.

It was best for all of us if we weren’t in the house at that time if we didn’t want to risk inciting his anger. If we had a day off sick from school we had to be very careful not to be in the kitchen during periods that he considered to be ‘his’. He spent as much of his life behind the bedroom door as possible. Isobel and I never ventured through it – we had barely even glimpsed through the crack when it was opened for him to go in or out – so we had no idea exactly what he did in there to entertain himself all day. We just dreaded the times when he was forced to come out into the real world in order to eat or go to the bathroom.

There were so many things for us to do outside the house that it wasn’t a problem most days. As we got better at our various sports and activities Isobel and I were entered into competitions that were further away from home, and before I left the choir we would sometimes go on trips at weekends to sing at weddings in other churches or even cathedrals. Then we got paper rounds, which got us out of the house for a few hours on a Sunday morning and gave us some spending money of our own. Isobel got the round first, being older, and used it as another opportunity to go running, hauling a trolley behind her as she pounded the streets. When her weekend running commitments got too much, she handed the paper round on to me. The people who ran the newsagents were happy with that because it meant they could go on delivering the papers to the same address each week and they knew it was likely I would be reliable because Isobel had never let them down. The Sunday round was the best one to have because we didn’t have to get up as early as the weekday people, who had to finish their deliveries before going to school, but we still got paid the same rate. Part of the job was to insert advertising leaflets before delivering them. I managed to convince Mum that it was harder for me to do that because I was left-handed so she used to help me, much to Isobel’s annoyance.

Although doing so much meant our days often ended up being a bit of a rush, both Isobel and I were always happy to do whatever Mum suggested. It was the only way of life either of us could remember and large parts of our social lives revolved around the activities because that was where we made many of our friendships.

Compared to most boys my acts of rebellion were pretty minor, like talking in class or swearing at the choirmaster. I did bunk off school for a day now and again, but very seldom. To Mum, however, with her strict regime of education and self-improvement, this was a cardinal sin. She couldn’t bear the thought that I was wasting even the smallest opportunity to get a good education. On one of the few occasions I did wander off, she came home early one day to get her car serviced and caught me and my friends outside the school. She marched us all firmly back in through the gates, even though it was nearly the end of the school day by then, which was not good for my street credibility. She almost always came home at the same time, so I couldn’t believe my bad luck when I was caught on that occasion.

The school occasionally sent her letters about my general behaviour. She left before the post arrived in the mornings, so Isobel and I would try to intercept as many as we could before they reached her. Mum knew that I wasn’t concentrating fully on my work, even though I was still in the top set for just about every subject, and she became more and more exasperated with me the further I dug my heels in and rebelled against authority. At one stage she threatened to move me to her school, knowing how embarrassing it would be to have a mother who was on the staff, and knowing that I wouldn’t want to leave my friends. I knew it was an empty threat because she would never have done anything that might have endangered my education, so then she began threatening to send me to boarding school if I didn’t behave better. Even though I knew the cost of it would have been completely beyond her means, I never wanted to call her bluff on that one. She could be very determined when she set her mind on something. As well as not wanting to leave my established group of friends, I wouldn’t have wanted to be separated from Isobel.

‘I’ll go to boarding school,’ Isobel piped up in the middle of the argument about me leaving the choir, which deflected Mum’s wrath away from me for a while. Because of that interruption Isobel got kicked out of the house that night instead of me, even though she didn’t have any shoes on at the time.

Mum must have been bottling up so much anger and resentment that when some little thing like the choir incident happened she would completely lose her cool. She even kicked the dog out with Isobel, as if that would teach us all some sort of lesson. Alfie must have thought it was a bit of an adventure to be allowed out for an extra walk without his lead. At moments like that I think the whole world must suddenly have seemed to be against her and she imagined for a moment that she wanted to be rid of the lot of us. Her moods never lasted long, though – not like Dad’s endless, snarling misery.

Whenever Dad got to hear about me doing anything remotely naughty or rebellious he would be delighted and would encourage me, deliberately going against everything Mum was saying. He seemed determined to make me more like him and less like her and Isobel. I don’t know that his encouragement made much difference to me. I think I would have been behaving the same anyway, but it did give me a bit more courage to be cheeky at school, knowing that it won his approval. Every small boy wants to please his dad, even when he’s as weird as mine was. Once or twice I even went back to the house during the day with my friends when we should have been in school, and Dad seemed to approve, which impressed them. But as soon as Mum came home he told her all about it, wanting to rub her nose in how much she had lost control of me, I guess, and how her children weren’t always the hard-working little angels she would have liked them to be.

The strain on her during those years must have been enormous, and we didn’t know the half of it at that stage. I feel guilty when I look back now, but I was just being a normal, spirited teenage boy. In retrospect I guess her life was hard enough without that additional pressure.