Читать книгу Tell Me Why, Mummy: A Little Boy’s Struggle to Survive. A Mother’s Shameful Secret. The Power to Forgive. - David Thomas, Mark Schultz - Страница 14

The first twelve months at Ludden Vale with Reg seem like a kind of paradise to me. Reg has provided us with a beautiful home and he and Mum seem to get on well. He is a practical man, having worked with his hands all his life, and is always doing something to make our home a nicer place. On one of his monthly visits Dad even says that he owes Reg a debt of gratitude for providing his son with a home. At the time he is absolutely right: we are able to experience life in a new, richer way, through the various seasons. And because of the beautiful location, our quality of life is as much to do with the landscape as the house.

Our first autumn and winter at the house are different from anything I have experienced previously. Bonfire night is the second best day of the year after Christmas. With all the woodland around our house, we go plotting for wood to make a bonfire in the garden. There is always an endless supply to create huge bonfires and all the neighbours join us for Bonfire Night. Mum goes wild, making food and loves being hostess, making traditional bonfire food like hot dogs, toffee, parkin and flapjack – an absolute feast. I find myself stuffing my face, as it is so much better than our usual plain diet. Mum has bought a big box of Standard fireworks and Reg puts on a cracking show. Because of the size of the garden, we can accommodate all the different fireworks – sparklers, rockets and standalone fireworks as well as Catherine wheels attached to the bird table. The garden is a blaze of colour and sound and it’s a truly magical night.

Winter is always the best season at Ludden Vale. Living on the side of a valley, we have the perfect landscape for sledging. We have snow in the first year, and Reg’s grandson Andrew and I spend hours getting soaked going up and down the hillsides. We can’t afford a plastic sledge like some of the other kids but that doesn’t matter because Reg has made us a sledge. In fact, I am very proud that we have a ‘dad’ or ‘granddad’ who cares enough to want to make us a sledge. It is concocted from old pieces of wood with plastic runners on the bottom. It works perfectly well and if it gets damaged at all, Reg will just fix it back up again.

Christmas Day is the best day of the year, especially as everyone makes a big effort and I feel like they’ve put me at the centre of the occasion. Mum not only doesn’t drink excessively but she really pulls out all the stops when it comes to presents. She never spends a lot of money but she will take small gifts and wrap them up and make sure I have a sizeable pile. I soon work out that I’m not getting a lot of ‘proper’ gifts and that some are quite small but it’s still a lot of fun to open them. Reg and Mum work hard all morning and in the afternoon we have a fabulous traditional Christmas meal. On two occasions Grandma comes for Christmas and just sits in a chair without moving all day.

Living in the house is wonderful, but no amount of holly or bonfire toffee can mask the real issues that are about to smash the dream.

* * *

The first major change I notice is in Reg. He seems to have lost interest in me and has become offhand and surly with me. It is as if he doesn’t like me any more and doesn’t want me in his house. This isn’t good, especially as I’m at an age where I’m still keen to learn about the world around me. I like to ask questions and Reg doesn’t want to answer them. He’s supposed to be looking after me when I come home from school as he has now retired and Mum is working full time, so when I come through the door he’s the first person I see.

‘Guess what we learned today, Grandad,’ I say excitedly, taking my raincoat off and hanging it on a hook by the front porch.

Reg sighs wearily, but otherwise doesn’t reply.

Undaunted, I carry on. ‘We learned all about rainfall. Do you know where rain comes from, Grandad?’

He has already sat down by the fire and now has his face buried in the local evening paper, checking the race results.

‘It comes from the sea and then the sun heats it all up and that’s called evaporation and then it all turns into clouds and then when there’s lots of clouds you get condensation and then you get rain!’ I finish triumphantly, but Reg hasn’t even bothered to look up, let alone reply.

The penny soon starts to drop: he’s not interested in what I’ve learned at school. In fact he’s not interested in anything I have to tell him. It soon becomes obvious that he just wants to do the bare minimum in his dealings with me. His sole interest is in Mum. I know that he and Mum have an odd, imperfect relationship but they certainly seem to love each other. I, on the other hand, am surplus to requirements as far as Reg is concerned. And soon after this I discover just how surplus to Reg’s requirements I really am.

One day, I’m playing in the house after school and watching television. Out of the blue, Reg starts shouting at me, saying I have done something wrong. I have never experienced this before from him. He has never shouted at me. I have seen him shout at Mum in an argument but never at me. I’m still not sure what I’ve done but from this time onwards one thing that definitely winds him up is when he calls me and I don’t come immediately – just like it makes Mum angry when he doesn’t immediately do what he tells her.

I look at him in horror. I don’t quite know what’s going on but I do know this is really bad. Reg shouts at me again and starts coming towards me, eyes blazing, fists clenched. I jump up and run upstairs to my bedroom, shutting the door and putting my back against it, hoping in my childlike innocence that I can hold him back if he comes up the steps.

I can hear Reg, nearly 70 years old, fat and wheezing, climbing the steps. He stops at the top to regain his breath and balance, then slowly plods towards my room, pushes down the handle and tries opening the door with his arm. He can’t do it as I am pushing with all my might on the other side. He leans against the door a second time but this time puts his shoulder and all his weight into it. My weight is no match for his and he sends me flying into the middle of the room, falling into a heap on the floor, as he crashes through the open door.

I look up into his eyes and can see that he’s really mad. I have no idea what I’ve done to make him so angry but know I need to get away from him. I fling myself into the far corner of my bedroom, crouching down as low and far away from him as possible, instinctively curling up into a tight ball. I don’t know why I am so scared. After all, he has never hit me before. I just assume he’ll shout at me but I want to put myself into a protective position, just in case. He comes across the room and leans over, his eyes raging, and slowly inches towards me.

‘Think you can get away from me, do you?’ he puffs, still out of breath from climbing the steps.

‘No,’ I say, not daring to look at him for fear of making him even more angry.

‘Well, you can’t, so take that.’ He raises his fist and swinging it fast, brings it crashing down on top of my arm near my shoulder.

I let out a cry. ‘Stop, Grandad,’ I plead, ‘please stop.’

‘I’m going to teach you a lesson,’ he says.

I will hear these words many times again.

Reg then swings his left arm and punches me in the stomach. I move my arm to protect my stomach but then he punches me again on the arm. As he keeps on punching me I do my best to protect myself, but I can’t do so everywhere and he keeps punching me where I’m not covering myself. After ten or fifteen punches rain down, he stops and looks at me.

‘Right, don’t cause any more trouble or you’ll get it again.’

It’s as though whatever I’ve done to switch on his anger, it seems to be all but burnt out by the time he has finished cornering me and giving me a good hiding.

He wanders off downstairs. All the way down I can hear him trying to regain his breath.

From this time on when he beats me I come to wish he would stop breathing altogether and keel over. He always looks like he’s about to have a heart attack or a stroke when he’s hitting me and I sometimes think that that would be a suitable punishment for someone who picks on and hurts a young boy for almost no reason at all.

I stay in the bedroom, waiting for him to calm down, not daring to go downstairs until I feel at least a little confident that he won’t hit me again.

In my mind, I’m trying to work out what is going on, trying to understand what has triggered his anger and the violence. And I want to wait until the pain has gone away. No-one has hit me like that before and I’m hurting really badly. My arms throb and my stomach hurts. I sit there in the corner of my bedroom, quietly sobbing to myself, nursing my bruised and painful body, rocking myself back and forth.

* * *

I am eight years old and I don’t know what has triggered this assault. I have done nothing wrong. As a child, I have learned to be highly submissive with my mother and I’m the same with Reg. I am keen to please and often look to do something to make him happy, not make him mad. Besides, Mum has already given me the hard word, telling me I must behave when she isn’t there as she is having to go out and work to earn money for the family. I understand this and don’t want to rock the boat. I just assume I’ve been a naughty boy and deserve to be punished.

When I have time to think about what’s happened I start to wonder if it’s because of Reg’s upbringing and background. He is a fat man but also big and strong, even for his age. He has done hard manual labour all his life, working in farming, joinery and mill work. He lost the sight of one of his eyes as a child after an accident with a bike pump and has even chopped one of his fingers off in a circular saw. His fists are huge and rock hard.

As a child he lost his mother at the age of twelve and was brought up by his father on a working farm. He has already told me how he had to work very long hours as a boy and has spoken about fights he used to get into as a young lad and even though he was quite a fanciful storyteller, it’s obvious he has learned to handle himself. He’s come from the school of hard knocks and I’m a very soft boy. Maybe he thinks I need toughening up. But one thing’s for sure. It can’t have been because I am habitually naughty. Like all kids, I do something naughty occasionally but I’m never malicious or nasty and I’m not a naturally feisty or argumentative child. My school reports indicate that I’m well behaved at school, never rude or cheeky.

Maybe I blame myself for being too weak and submissive; maybe deep down I believe that I somehow allowed Reg to beat me up, almost invited him to, just as I wonder if it’s possible that in some way I have allowed what goes on between Mum and me to happen. Maybe my lack of self-esteem has something to do with my Special Time with Mum: I want to please her but I also fear displeasing her.

In the regular beatings he gives me from now on Reg never hits me in the face. I presume this is so that Mum won’t find out. Considering she might see me with no clothes on at some stage, I hardly think this is a guaranteed way of keeping my beatings hidden, but that isn’t the point. Reg can’t control himself when his inner rage spills over. When he feels the need, nothing less than punching the hell out of me will do. The look says it all as his eyes reveal the disgust, malice and venom he feels towards me. Whatever I have done to make him feel like that isn’t going to go away by his counting to ten.

But even he knows that letting Mum see me with a smashed-up face will be too much.

* * *

The beatings start slowly and gather pace. He never does it on a daily basis but they are regular and painful. He will never hold back from hitting me and it leaves me scared to be alone in the house with him. Despite all my previous issues with Mum, she never beat me and Reg never does it when she is there. So I often sit in my bedroom after school, watching for her coming up the road in the car and running downstairs to meet her. This reassures me that a beating isn’t going to happen for this day at least.

But even since he has started beating me, Reg can still be nice when he wants to be and if the mood takes him, he is great to be around. The problem is I can never second guess what mood he’s going to be in when I get in from school. I pray it is the nice man who will be making my tea when I walk through the door. My mother’s split personality has already made life very difficult for me – and now Reg is doing exactly the same. It’s not knowing what mood he’s going to be in that causes me such anxiety and fear. The constant listening and trying to gauge what Reg is thinking is almost impossible for me at my age.

I will never forget the thumping of my heart as I walk through the door every night, wondering what might be coming my way.

Mum has settled down in her relationship with Reg and is being a pretty good mother. She can be loving and affectionate, and for me as a child who needs that, it is great when we’re close, especially as she isn’t asking me to do things to her any more. On the other hand, I’m always on the lookout for her drinking, because I know what that means – a massive, immediate change in her behaviour.

In spite of everything that’s happened between us, she tries to be a responsible parent, making sure I have everything I need. She encourages me to join the Cubs in the next village and I go there every Friday night. I love it so much I join the Scouts at the age of eleven. I go away on weekend trips, campfires, orienteering and staying up all night. Whereas camping as a family feels like a cut-price holiday for poor people, combined with having nothing to do when we get there, scout camping is the opposite. It’s exciting being with a bunch of lads staying up until the middle of the night with games and activities all day.

My school reports are scrutinized down to the last detail; if anything is slightly unsatisfactory she’s onto the school immediately to put it right. I find this a bit of a mixed blessing. It’s good that she cares, but I’m always anxious about her seeing my reports, and sometimes I find her interventions on my behalf – the way she makes a fuss at school – over the top and embarrassing. But I put up with it, because I’ve got no choice, and I know she has my best interests at heart.

At school one week we’re doing history and the teacher tells us all about people called dictators. There was Adolf Hitler who was the leader of the Nazis who Britain fought in the last war under Winston Churchill. And there’s Joseph Stalin who was a ruthless dictator in the Soviet Union though he wasn’t quite as bad as Hitler. Then there was Mussolini, who my teacher calls a tinpot dictator. They want to be big and powerful like the really bad dictators but they don’t quite make it.

And there are others, says my teacher, who are good dictators. She calls them benevolent dictators because although they’re very strict they want to make life better for people. One of these, she says, is a Cuban leader called Fidel Castro and she shows us a picture of him. I decide that Mum must be a bit like a benevolent dictator. I wonder if Fidel Castro also gets drunk at night.

Mum’s like a benevolent dictator over my reading. She’s an avid reader herself and she takes me down to the local library every week, telling me I have to choose a book. She gives me complete freedom to choose any book I want, but I’ve got to choose it and I’ve got to read it. My favourite is Billy Bunter.

Mum’s a benevolent dictator about my health. It seems to nag at her. She’ll stand over me to make sure I clean my teeth properly every day and I never miss an appointment at the dentist or the doctor. And every Saturday we go to Halifax town centre. Reg never joins us, which makes it better too.

We go first to the Good As New shop on Clare Road. Mum always gets me secondhand clothes, a simple, effective way to ensure I always have plenty of clothes. As long as they’re in decent condition, that’s fine by her. She is also an incredible knitter and on evenings and weekends knits me many jumpers to wear. The only things she always buys brand new are shoes. During this period – the mid-1970s – plastic shoes are popular as a more cost-effective option, but Mum makes sure I have leather shoes because they mould to the shape of my feet properly even though they cost more money.

After a swim in Halifax pool we go to the library and then it’s time for lunch at a café. I spend ages pondering over the menu, deciding what to have. There are lots of meals I never have at home or at school. I always have bread with margarine: at home we only have butter and I much prefer the taste of margarine even though it’s considered the poorer option. Finally we go to Halifax indoor market to buy fresh meat, fruit and vegetables. I love the hustle and bustle of market traders with their patter and special offers.

Those days are special and I feel like a son should towards his mother, like she’s the best mother in the world. But as much as she has the ability to give, she can also take away without a moment’s hesitation or warning. I know this from our time at Calder Bridge as I can still vividly remember the Special Time and the drunkenness. Mum’s behaviour can turn in an instant and the contrast can be as different as night and day. But I also know that alcohol is the trigger for all the bad things that happen, and she hasn’t been drinking much recently as far as I am aware.

But that is all about to change.

* * *

Even though I have often feared it, I haven’t really appreciated until now that the dark side of Mum’s personality is never far from the surface and it’s certainly too much to hope that it has gone away for good.

I don’t know what has triggered her drinking again but suddenly it’s back with a vengeance. She has never developed the ability to control her alcoholism and it is now time for it to reappear. Once it does, it’s back for good: for the rest of her life she will never again get it under control. By now she has developed a definite drinking pattern and I know exactly what she does.

When I arrive home from school these days, she has very occasionally already started drinking – even if only in small amounts – and I have learnt to tell the signs. She will be slightly unsteady on her feet, her speech fractionally slurred, but only in a way that I would notice – I have no idea whether Reg also notices as he never speaks to me about this or anything else. More often than not, though, she is still quite sober and remains so until after supper.