Читать книгу I Remember, Daddy: The harrowing true story of a daughter haunted by memories too terrible to forget - Katie Matthews - Страница 7

Chapter Four

The first time I remember my father hitting me with his belt was when I was two years old. I soon learned that his word was law. If I didn’t do what he told me to do, it was as though something snapped inside him and, whatever his mood had been, it would change instantly to one of blind, raging fury. Nothing ever excuses hitting a child, and it’s beyond belief that anyone could bring themselves to thrash a two-year-old with a belt. But, as my father was only ever really physically violent towards me when I disobeyed him, I thought that his anger was my fault.

He didn’t need a reason to punch my mother, though, or to attack her viciously; he sometimes did it just to make it clear to her – and perhaps to my brother and me, too – that he was in charge. And there was certainly no doubt in any of our minds that he was in charge, totally and utterly. It seemed that he controlled every breath we took, and I learned always to think about whether something I was going to do might make him angry, which meant that I lived in a constant state of almost unbearable anxiety.

To my father, my brother and I were nuisances who had to be taught to respect and obey him, but could otherwise be ignored. I think his only reason for having children at all was because it fitted in, peripherally, to his idea of the life he aspired to as a successful businessman living in an expensive house in an affluent and prestigious neighbourhood, with an attractive wife from a good family, and children who could recite poems and fables in French to order before they were whisked away out of sight by their nanny.

Surprisingly, perhaps, of all the countless things that hurt and terrified me during my childhood, it was often my father’s violent bullying of my mother that was more frightening than anything else, and there were many occasions when I thought he was going to kill her.

One night, when I was five years old, I was woken up by the sound of someone sobbing. I lay on my back in my bed, listening, and after a few moments I realised that it was my mother. I released the breath I’d been holding – and, with it, a small, frightened whimper – and then I started to count. One, two, three … When I got to ten it would stop, and if it hadn’t … I paused in my counting and listened again.

Perhaps my parents were playing a game. I’d heard my mother shout out in the night before, and when I asked her about it the next morning, she told me that she and my father had just been ‘messing around’. So, maybe, if I listened for long enough, I’d hear her laugh and then I’d know that everything was all right.

But, in my fiercely thumping heart, I knew it wasn’t a game.

I heard my father shout something harsh and angry; then my mother cried out again, and this time there was no mistaking the terror in her voice. I pulled the bedcovers over my head, trying to block out the sound, and attempted to swallow the solid ball of fear that had lodged in my throat. I knew, though, that I couldn’t just abandon my mother when she might need help.

I squeezed my eyes tightly shut for a moment and then, in one quick movement, sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bed. Then I tiptoed out of my room and crept along the thickly carpeted landing, counting my footsteps silently in my head to try to focus on something other than my own fear.

Crouching at the top of the stairs, I pushed my head just far enough through the balusters to be able to see my parents, who were standing on the staircase between the ground and first floors. My father was wearing a suit, but the top button of his shirt was undone, his tie was loose and askew and there was something about the way he looked that made me realise he was well past all of the first stages of drunkenness.

My mother was standing a couple of steps above him, wearing only a nightdress, and the fingers of my father’s left hand seemed to be twisted in her hair. He was pulling her head backwards and punching her repeatedly on the side of her head, while she tried to cling on to the banister with one hand and protect herself against his blows with the other.

For a moment, I was transfixed by the sound of my father’s humourless laugh, the cruel, thin-lipped expression on his upturned face and the brutal force of his attack on my mother. Then I noticed a young woman standing at the foot of the stairs. She was dressed in a short black skirt and a low-cut, wine-red coloured sequined top and she was looking up towards my parents with a small, vague smile.

I felt a wave of relief. Clearly, it was some sort of game after all, because I knew that no adult would simply stand and watch without intervening while my father beat up my mother.

Suddenly, my father ripped his fingers out of my mother’s hair, placed his hands against her shoulders, and gave her one hard push. As she fell backwards, her scream drowned out the sound of my own as I stumbled down the staircase towards her.

When I reached the bottom of the stairs, my mother was lying motionless on the marble-tiled floor of the hall. I was certain she was dead. I threw myself on to my knees beside her, calling ‘Mummy! Mummy!’ and gripping her shoulders with my hands as I tried to shake life into her.

The young woman had taken a step backwards, away from the foot of the stairs, as my mother fell, and she was teetering unsteadily on her stiletto heels towards the living room when my mother moaned and moved her head. The woman stopped, swaying slightly as she turned to face us again, and at that moment my father took one bound down the stairs, grabbed my arm and pulled me roughly to my feet.

‘Get up! Get on your feet,’ he shouted at my mother. ‘There’s nothing wrong with you. And maybe next time you hear me come home with a guest, you’ll stay in bed and mind your own fucking business. I will decide who I entertain and who I bring into this house, and if you don’t like it, you can fuck off.’

He leaned down, grabbed my mother under her arms and lifted her into an almost-standing position. Then he half-carried, half-dragged her through the hall and propped her up against the wall beside the front door. She staggered and almost fell, and I ran to her side and tried to put my arm around her waist.

‘Go on, get out!’ my father shouted, flinging the door wide open. ‘Both of you!’

The snow that had started to fall before I went to bed that evening was still drifting silently and steadily from the sky. It had already covered the road and pavement outside the house with a layer of white that sparkled in the light from the open doorway. My mother looked at my father and I could tell that she was trying with all her might not to cry, because she knew her tears would only irritate him even more.

‘Please, Harry,’ she pleaded. ‘You can’t throw us out in the snow in just our nightdresses.’

‘I can do what I bloody want,’ my father shouted at her. ‘Perhaps you should have thought about the snow before you tried to interfere.’

He grasped my mother’s wrist as he spoke, put his other, open, hand on my back and shoved us out into the dark, freezing night. And as my bare feet touched the icy snow, I heard the front door slam and the key turn in the lock.

I was shaking uncontrollably and I felt my mother wince as I tightened my grip around her waist. But, despite the pain she must have been suffering as a result of her fall down the stairs, she raised her arm, placed it around my shoulders and held me tightly against her own shivering body.

We spent that night at a neighbour’s house and, as I fell asleep, I remember wondering if the soles of my feet would ever stop burning.

I didn’t know who the young woman was, whose company my father had chosen that night over my mother’s. I doubt whether he even knew himself, or cared. He’d picked her up in a bar somewhere in town and she was gone in the morning, by the time my father let my mother and me return to the house.

My mother had had a comfortable upbringing, protected from the harsher realities of some people’s lives. Her father had inherited a business that had been started by his grandfather and great-uncle, and she’d grown up leading the sort of life my father had been so determined to create for himself. However, her parents were sternly religious and firmly believed that children should learn to stand on their own two feet, which is why my mother had already been working when she met my father. I think she had little, if any, of her own money left by the time I was born; although she did still own a house near the coast, which we’d go to sometimes in the school holidays.

Years after it had happened, my mother told me about something my father had done one night when we were staying at that house. My parents left me and my brother with a babysitter and went out to a dinner-dance. It was an event that was linked in some way to my father’s business and he was fussing and shouting even before they left the house. Despite being bullied and constantly told to hurry up, my mother always looked beautiful when she was dressed up to go out in the evening, and I used to love the light, flowery smell of perfume that lingered in my bedroom for a while after she’d come in to say goodnight.

It was winter and snowing again, and on the way back from the dinner my father was driving slowly through the deserted, snow-covered lanes when he got angry about something and started to shout at my mother. Suddenly, he slammed on the brakes and told her to get out of the car. She was wearing high-heeled shoes made of embroidered satin, a full-length ball gown and a short fur jacket that was designed more for decorative than for practical purposes of providing warmth and protection from the elements.

‘Please, Harry,’ she begged. ‘We’re at least three miles from home. I’ll freeze to death, and I can’t walk in these shoes.’

‘Well, take them off then,’ my father bellowed, leaning across her to open the passenger door and pushing her out on to the snow at the side of the road.

It took my mother more than two hours to trudge, barefoot, along the pitch-black lanes, and she arrived back at the house with her skin red and numbed by the cold. The car was parked in the driveway, the babysitter had gone and my brother and I were asleep in our beds. But, although she searched for him, she could find no sign of my father.

With her teeth chattering and a million tiny needles piercing every inch of her skin, my mother stripped off her soaking wet clothes and wrapped herself in a towel. She knew that she should try to thaw her frozen limbs and raise her body temperature in a warm bath, but she was so miserable and exhausted she couldn’t even lift her arms to put on her nightdress. So she just crawled under the bedclothes, and fell instantly asleep.

Just a couple of minutes later, she woke with a start at the sound of the heavy mahogany door of her wardrobe crashing against the wall. Her eyes flew open, but the room was as black as the night and all she could make out was the dark figure of a man leaping out of the wardrobe with a blood-curdling cry. She was so startled and frightened she couldn’t breathe, and for a moment she thought she was having a heart attack. She lashed out with her arms and shouted as the man threw himself on top of her, and she continued to struggle with all her might as he pinned her down on the bed, ripped the towel from her shaking body and raped her. And that’s when she realised it was my father.

When I saw my mother the next morning, I knew immediately that something really bad had happened. The fact that I lived in constant, unremitting fear of what might be about to occur had made me always alert and watchful, and I could tell as soon as I walked into the kitchen that she was very upset. And, as my mother’s distress was only ever due to the things my father did, I knew that he must be in a rage about something and therefore that we were all in danger of feeling the heat of his anger.

Usually, by the time I woke up and went into the kitchen to have my breakfast, my mother was already dressed and carefully made up, her hair shining like the polished shell of a chestnut under the electric light. On that morning, though, she was edging slowly around the room in her dressing-gown and slippers. Her face was pale and her hair uncombed, and when I spoke to her she answered in a flat, dispirited tone and didn’t look at me.

I suppose I can understand why my mother fell for my father when they met: he was charismatic and could be affectionate when he wanted to be, and it was easy to imagine him sweeping her off her feet. What does seem extraordinary, though, is the fact that she still loved him – which she did. I don’t know if he’d ever loved her or whether, for him, it had been a marriage of convenience – her family and background affording him the veneer of respectability that was so important to him, as well as the possibility that she might provide him with access to considerable financial resources. In reality, however, I doubt whether he was capable of feeling genuine love for another person. What he was good at was gauging exactly the right moment to be nice to her again so that she was always striving to please him and to win his affection and approval. It was what I did too, as both a child and an adult, and even though there were countless occasions when my father frightened and bullied me, I still just wanted him to like me.