Читать книгу Nowhere to Run: Where do you go when there’s nowhere left to hide? - Judy Westwater - Страница 12

Within a few months I fell pregnant again. I was excited but also scared in case anything went wrong. At nine weeks I bled again and while I lay on the floor, filled with despair, Roger called an ambulance once more. This time I kept the pregnancy though I was told to stay in bed and rest as much as possible. As I lay under the sheets, I willed that baby to be fine with every fibre in my entire being. Thankfully, the bleeding stopped and the doctor gave me instructions to take better care of myself. Under these orders Roger’s regime slackened a little and although I still had to account for the housekeeping money, make meals to his instructions and prepare his clothes for him, I noticed that he flew off the handle considerably less frequently.

Still, I was deeply unhappy. I desperately wanted to share my whole soul with my husband but however hard I tried he simply didn’t accept me. And though the beatings were less frequent, nothing I did was ever good enough. Roger constantly changed the goal posts so I never knew quite what he wanted and over the months his jealousy and possessiveness remained as powerful as ever.

He repeatedly demanded to know all about my life before I arrived at Belle Vue. Anyone else would have seen how much it upset me to think about my past and left well alone, but Roger was a natural bully and in that house he had absolute power.

‘You’re hiding something seedy, aren’t you? Something sordid, you filthy bitch,’ he persisted. ‘You can’t have grown up without a family. Why did they chuck you out then? What did you do?’

I couldn’t answer—I just wasn’t capable of talking about it, and I’m sure he wouldn’t have believed me anyway. My refusal to tell him about my past often led to yet another tirade about the evils of women. But how could I begin to tell him? How could I explain that my father was a monster, that he’d torn me away from my mother and sisters, that I’d endured years of violence and abuse? Roger would never understand what that felt like. He’d only ever use it as ammunition against me. At least, I thought to myself, if I can just show him I am not like all these women in his head, he’ll stop.

So I stuck with it. I thought it was the right thing to do. I was not one to give up just because the going was rough. I had been severely conditioned all my life to be subservient and made to feel that everyone else was right. As Roger shouted at me, I could have been right back in Johannesburg with my father playing his sadistic power games, or even further back to the day when Freda beat me with a curtain rod after my shoe fell down a grating. I had no real sense of myself, but I was tough and determined to keep trying. Once we had a baby, maybe he would calm down. Surely he would?

The labour, when the time came, was harsh, but pain never bothered me—I was inured to it. I was only afraid that something would go wrong for the baby. In the end, my beautiful daughter was a forceps delivery. I held her in my arms and enjoyed the proudest and happiest feelings of my whole life. In that moment it was impossible to understand how my own mother could ever have given me up. The love I felt for my baby burned deep inside me. I would have done anything for this tiny bundle. If she had been snatched away, I would have followed her to the ends of the earth, fighting tooth and nail to keep her.

With this child in my arms, I remembered my own mother’s coldness. I thought about the day when I was ten and I had come to visit her, after years of no contact, and she didn’t give me a proper hug or ask how I was. It was as if even as she faced me, my mother had her back turned. I had never been wanted.

‘What will we call her?’ Roger asked, calling me back to the moment and my own, precious baby.

I stared at the tiny bundle in my arms and felt the enchantment of her lovely, blue eyes. ‘Helen?’ I suggested.

He nodded. ‘All right.’

Even in that matter, though, Roger wanted to let me know that he was the boss and later, when he went to register the birth, he gave the baby the name Judith Helen. In his family it was traditional to give a baby a family name, but it hurt that he hadn’t discussed it with me. It was hardly the worst thing that Roger had ever done but still, it demonstrated his need to have complete control of everything.

‘Little Judith Helen,’ I tried it out.

Just before my fifth birthday, I’d been sent to live in an orphanage for a couple of years and the nuns there believed in a harsh regime that would train us to be obedient. One nun in particular, Sister Bridget, had been very cruel to me and I remembered how she almost spat the ‘th’ sound at the end of my name. Every time I said the word ‘Judith’, it brought back that horrible memory of her voice and the way she used to hit me with her cane for tiny infractions like putting a spoon in the kitchen drawer the wrong way round. I didn’t want my daughter’s name to bring such nasty associations into my head, so I soon started calling her Jude.

Back in Compass Street when I got home from the hospital, I hit my stride straightaway. When Jude smiled my heart melted. Somehow motherhood came naturally to me; it was almost feral. Instinctively I just wanted to gather her up in my arms and hold her close to me all day long. I loved looking after her and spent my days organizing feeds, bathing her, changing her, talking to her and taking her out for fresh air in the park. Roger only gave me permission to take the baby as far as the clinic but I would stretch the route to include a walk in the sunshine whenever I could. He was out a lot—sometimes I’d see him in the distance, playing the slot machines in the local café. Money was very tight. I know he earned a decent salary from his daredevil rides in the Globe but he didn’t increase the housekeeping money he gave me even when there was a baby in the house and in those days there was no child benefit from the government until you had your second child.

Roger’s tirades about my incompetence continued in one long stream from the moment he opened the front door until the moment he left the house again. It was clear that he was disappointed that Jude was a girl. ‘Just some moronic shell,’ was how he described any female. I wanted to protect my baby from this and I tried even harder to keep out of Roger’s way and have everything set out the way he liked it.

‘Oh you’re too good to be true, you are! I mean is this baby even mine?’ he’d shout in a temper.

Sometimes I really feared what he might do to her. I could take anything for myself, but I was worried sick that he’d lose it one day and not realize how small and vulnerable Jude was.

When I got pregnant again quickly I was delighted on the one hand, but very worried about how Roger might react. After all, he was so determined that I was sleeping with every man in the district that to him another pregnancy was just an opportunity to let accusations fly. If the baby was another girl I knew that he’d be even more upset. These fears were well and truly brought home when I did eventually tell him.

‘This baby isn’t mine,’ he raged. ‘I’ll bet you’ve been with every man you’ve ever spoken to, you slut.’

It went on for hours and nothing I could say or do calmed him down.

I had no idea at this stage how I could ever change my situation but I willed myself to believe that if I could just keep going somehow I would find a way out as soon as it was possible. I was beginning to accept that I didn’t have the power to change Roger but I was completely isolated, with no family to turn to and no friends to talk to. I had no money and nowhere to go. It felt as though I was well and truly caught in a trap.

Having a toddler, it was difficult to take enough rest during that second pregnancy but Jude was a good kid and somehow I made it work. Over the months, as my bump grew larger, I planned for the birth. I was very grateful when Roger’s mother offered to look after Jude when the time came for me to go into hospital. Roger had never looked after our daughter on his own and I was afraid of leaving her in his care but Mrs Lethbridge, on the other hand, knew how to look after babies, having had ten of her own. However much she disliked me, she would never take it out on her fourteen-month-old granddaughter.

The second time I went into labour very late—it was three weeks after my due date according to the doctor. In the end, I suffered a thrombosis and they decided to induce the birth. Under the circumstances it was no surprise that it was touch and go throughout the whole labour. After several hours the baby was born, but he was blue from a deficiency of oxygen in his blood.

‘It’s a boy,’ the nurse smiled, ‘but we need to put him into the special care unit for now.’

I felt a huge rush of love swiftly followed by a wave of concern. My second baby was here, and the fact he was a boy would please Roger no end. But would he be all right?

The nurses didn’t even want to let me see him because they thought his colour would distress me, and he was taken away immediately while the team turned their attention to patching me up. I was exhausted.

‘You need some sleep, love,’ the sister said, but all I could think about was my baby.

‘Will he be OK?’ I asked anyone who would listen.

‘With God’s help,’ the sister told me.

That didn’t reassure me at all.

In the end both the baby and I stayed in hospital for a week or so. He was given excellent care but for years afterwards the tip of one of his ears remained blue and from that very first day he had difficulty breathing. The nurses showed me how to prepare a steam inhaler and gave me instructions for his care. It was a lot to take on. I was still only twenty-one myself and struggling to keep my head above water in a grim marriage, but I listened carefully and made sure I understood everything I had to do.

Roger arrived well after all the action was over. As expected, as soon as he heard the baby was a boy he was pleased as punch. ‘He’s got my eyes,’ he said proudly. ‘So, what name will we give my little man?’

We decided on David. ‘How about David John?’ I said, remembering what had happened with Jude’s registration.

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘David John it is,’ but then he registered the baby with his own name as a middle name anyway.

The months that followed were particularly difficult. Despite his pride at having produced a male heir, I was bewildered by Roger’s apparent lack of care for his children. I would have laid down my life in a heartbeat for either of them. In contrast, Roger simply wasn’t interested. He thought looking after the children was woman’s work and wouldn’t even push a pram.

‘I’m no sissy,’ he said.

David was a needy baby—his bronchial difficulties took a lot of my time and I was very worried that Jude wasn’t getting enough attention. I felt hurt on her behalf when I was busy giving David medical care and her father wasn’t on hand. It wouldn’t have taken much for him to sit and tell her a story or give her a cuddle on his knee. In fact, I think Roger resented the fact that my attention was focused elsewhere and I wasn’t merely his slave any more. If anything, his temper tantrums and violent outbursts were increasing around that time.

In November 1966, a few weeks after David was born, things reached crisis point. Roger lost his temper, and this time it was with the children. They were typical babies—noisy and needy—and he became angry and frustrated and began to physically discipline them. One day Jude crawled towards the fire and I pulled her back.

‘No silly. Hot. It’s hot,’ I gently chastised her.

‘You have to show her!’ Roger snapped and, grabbing her, he pressed her little hand onto the grille in front of the flames. She screamed at the top of her voice with pain and acute terror. Nothing like that had ever happened in her young life and she had no way of understanding it. As I rushed to run her wound under cold water and try to calm her down, Roger looked on mockingly and I felt hatred towards him for the first time. How could anyone do that to a child?

I had a sudden flashback to the day my father tied me to a kitchen chair and forced me to eat spoonfuls of soot from the fireplace. I was choking, my eyes streaming, my chest heaving for breath, utterly and completely petrified. It was that incident, when I was four years old, that led to me being hospitalized and then taken into an institution for the next three years. I couldn’t help but see the parallels between Roger’s and my father’s behaviour and I was completely devastated.

Jude cried for over an hour, and that night something in me hardened. He could hit me all he liked but I couldn’t stand by and watch him injure my children. I couldn’t risk them being taken away from me if social services thought I wasn’t protecting them properly. I couldn’t risk them being hurt any more. The very next day I took my life in my hands and contacted the police. If Roger had found out where I had gone, the beating would have been merciless, but I had to do something. I didn’t want my children to suffer the kind of bullying that I had endured from my father and that was that.

I wheeled the pram to Openshawe police station on Ashton Old Road and furtively darted inside. There were no female officers but I was put in a room and told to talk to the sergeant on duty, a huge man who hardly seemed to be listening to me, even when I showed him Jude’s blistered fingers.

‘Look, love,’ he said, once I had blurted my story out, ’this is a domestic situation.’

‘But please,’ I begged, ‘I’m afraid of what he might do.’

The officer wasn’t sympathetic. ‘He pays the rent does he, your husband?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well he’s master of the house then.’

‘He said if I left, he’d kill me.’

The policeman shrugged his shoulders. ‘He wants you to stay,’ he said, as if it was only a natural reaction.

And that was it. I left the station devastated.

The following day I tried again to get help. I wheeled the pram to Ashton social services department and repeated my story.

‘You could go to a shelter,’ the lady said, ‘but there’s a good chance your children might be taken into care.’

I looked at Jude and David in the pram and realized that wasn’t even an option. I wouldn’t be able to bear it. I could never desert them.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘Thanks.’

And I left.

I didn’t know where to turn next. After another sleepless night I realized that I had to find someone to talk to. That alone would be a big help and in desperation I took a big step. I phoned my mother.

I hadn’t seen my mother since I got back from South Africa five years earlier. I’d stayed with her and my sisters for two long weeks, trying desperately to fit into a family I hadn’t been part of since I was three years old. But the stay descended into bitterness and suspicion on her part, as she and my sisters accused me of ‘stealing their things’ and tried to hide me away from the neighbours like a guilty little secret. I’d left to start work at Speedy’s and hadn’t seen her since so she’d never even met her grandchildren. I sent her a note after each birth, but she hadn’t shown any more interest in Jude or David than she had in me when I was growing up. Nonetheless I hoped that maybe she might be able to help me now. After all, we were both mothers. Jude and David were her grandchildren. Surely she would want to be involved?

‘Hello, it’s Judy,’ I started, awkwardly.

‘Oh yes,’ Mum said coldly. It was not the response I’d hoped for, but at least she didn’t hang up. Grudgingly, she arranged to meet me in Manchester.

I put the kids in the pram and headed for the city centre, a couple of miles away. I was running over things in my mind. If anything happened to the children I would never forgive myself. Perhaps this was Mum’s chance to help me. If she could lend a sympathetic ear maybe I would find a way out of my disastrous marriage. She had got away from my Dad, after all. Surely there was some advice she could offer?

It was already dark and it had been a cold day. I blew on Jude’s fingers to keep them warm and bundled them both up tightly in a blanket.

‘We’re going out now. Keep that blanket round you,’ I said as I wheeled them along.

We met outside a restaurant in the centre of town. Mum was with my stepfather, Paddy, who had driven her into the city. She gave me a half-hearted hello.

‘So these are the children,’ she said.

I could tell straightaway that she viewed this meeting purely as a hassle. She wasn’t glad to see us. She barely glanced at Jude and David, who were staring with wide-eyed curiosity. There was an awkward pause.

‘I just really need to talk to you, Mum…’ I started, but my voice trailed off.

She looked at me with a perplexed expression. I could see her wondering what on earth I wanted from her. ‘Maybe you’d better come home with us,’ she said. ‘We’ve got a car.’

The journey was silent. Back at the house, my youngest half-sister Lily was in the living room.

‘Shall I take these kids upstairs?’ she asked.

Jude and David were tired because it was getting late and I was very grateful that they would be taken out of hearing. Mum went into the kitchen to make some tea and I followed her. I felt like a stranger in this house but I needed her to listen to me and this seemed like my best chance.

It was not to be. Before I had a chance even to say a word, I heard a commotion at the front door. There was hammering and then raised, shouting voices. My blood froze as I realized that it was Roger. I’ve got no idea how he found me but I can only think that he either followed me that day, or he had found Mum’s address on one of my letters and when he discovered I was missing he came straight round there.

‘Where is she? Where is she?’ Roger was yelling.

Mum continued to put on the kettle and completely ignored what was going on.

‘I’ve done it now,’ I thought, and my whole body shook as Roger launched himself into the kitchen in a fury. He didn’t say a word to Mum, just pushed me up against the sink threateningly while screaming abuse and shaking me hard. I looked towards her for some kind of protection but, to my horror, she avoided my eyes and deliberately turned her back on me. I was on my own.

When Roger finally stopped shaking me, Paddy came into the kitchen.

‘She’s a nightmare! You don’t know what she’s like,’ Roger told him.

Paddy shrugged. ‘I don’t want anything to do with this. Here,’ he reached into his pocket and brought out a £5 note. ‘Take this and get her out of here,’ he said to Roger. ‘And I don’t want either of you to come to my house again.’

My heart sank. Here I was, betrayed and abandoned again. Slowly I went upstairs, rubbing my arm where he had gripped me. I picked up my children. Why did nobody care? Why could they not just have listened? I hadn’t wanted much from them. As we left the house Roger shouted for everyone to hear, ‘Just wait till I get you home.’

The last thing I saw was my mother shutting the door behind me. She wouldn’t meet my eyes.

Back at Compass Street a wave of nausea hit me. It didn’t feel like my own home any more. It was difficult to accept that my mother had abandoned me yet again. Worse still was the fact that she had let down her own grandchildren. I had no money and nowhere to go. I was terrified of what Roger would do. I’d tried everything I could think of.

After I had put the kids to bed, I crept downstairs. Roger was working on his bike in the back room. He cast a glance at me through the open door. There was a smug expression on his face. He had, after all, come through the whole thing £5 richer and the undisputed winner. The look in his eyes said, ‘You belong to me. There’s nothing you can do.’

It was the first time he had met my mother but he showed no interest in her at all. He just said, ‘None of your shit family wants you, not even your own mother. You must have done something really bad for them to throw you out.’

From that day on, I began to live in the kitchen. I felt utterly hopeless, and in the depths of my depression I shrank inside myself. I closed the living room curtains, too afraid to be seen by neighbours. I didn’t answer the door to the window cleaner, milkman or postman. There was no point. No one cared. No one was going to help. The kitchen was tiny and there was hardly enough room for the two children to crawl around. I could open the back door, but bad weather often kept us inside. There was no radio or TV and I spent the day keeping busy as best I could until Roger came home and started his tirade yet again.