Читать книгу Stolen Voices: A sadistic step-father. Two children violated. Their battle for justice. - Terrie Duckett - Страница 10

I realised Peter was Mum’s boyfriend way before she admitted it, but I didn’t really mind. Compared to our real dad there was no awkwardness; Peter was always up for a game or a chat.

Soon after Peter moved in, Mum told us Dad was back in Northampton. We saw him every Tuesday after school, but things were tense. We never felt relaxed; we’d have to play strategy games like chess, Risk and Monopoly or sit and complete 30-minute IQ tests, which he’d expect us to pass every time. Dad would even ask questions while cooking up dinner.

‘Who knows what herb this is?’ he’d ask, holding up a multitude of green leaves. ‘What ingredients go into a curry?’

Dad had all of our family photo albums set out on a shelf, but we weren’t allowed to look at them, or take any home. Paul and I had barely any pictures of us as kids and it upset me to think Dad wasn’t giving them back to Mum just to be mean.

‘He’s got our memories and I wish he’d give them back,’ I said to Paul. It was hurtful.

But Mum was much happier with Peter than Dad, that was for sure, and that’s all that mattered. She’d started to rely on Peter for childcare, too; another strain taken off her shoulders. And the fact Peter had time for us meant the world, even if sometimes he took things a bit too far. He always seemed to have bits of rope or tape to hand and he knew how to tie proper knots as well. I often found myself tied up with rope as they both tickled me. Paul loved it, though.

Earlier in the week he’d floored Paul with what he called the ‘salt cellar’ move, placing two fingers on Paul’s neck and pressing hard. When Paul collapsed, he started crying, but Peter laughed at him.

‘Oh, you’re a bit of a wimp,’ he said. ‘I thought you were a big strong boy!’

Paul tried to look brave after that, but I could tell behind his smile he was in pain.

Things calmed down by the evening, thankfully, and we cuddled on the sofa as we watched Escape from New York, another of Peter’s films. Afterwards, Paul asked me if I wanted a game of ‘Guess Who?’.

‘Sure,’ I said. Our version of ‘Guess Who?’ was much better than the one set out in the instructions. Rather than play with just one card each, we’d often play with two, three or four. It was much more interesting to try and guess multiple people.

As we set up the board, Peter appeared at the door and told Paul to go to his room.

‘But Peter,’ I said, ‘we were just about to play “Guess Who?”’

Peter grinned at me. ‘How about you play it tomorrow? Come on, kids need their own beds or they don’t sleep properly.’

‘I’ve told you a few times,’ Peter said, as he followed Paul to his room. ‘I won’t tell you again.’

Peter came back into my room afterwards, sitting back on my bed, making himself comfy. ‘Little brothers, eh?’ he said.

‘Yeah,’ I laughed. ‘I don’t mind, though. Paul’s fun.’

It was Saturday the next morning, and Mum had already gone to work, leaving Peter to look after us again.

‘Hey Terrie, Paul,’ he called. ‘Come and join me?’

We scrambled into bed with him, just like we did with Mum when she wasn’t working, which was rare these days. I snuggled under Mum’s brown candlewick bedspread, bought to match the swirly aertex wallpaper coated in beige paint. She said she’d been going through a ‘brown phase’ when she’d redecorated after Dad left.

As we hunkered down, chatting, Peter glanced playfully down at Paul.

‘Oooh, Paul,’ he said. ‘I bet you don’t have any hairs down there yet, do you?’

Paul shook his head.

Peter reached over and pulled down Paul’s pyjama bottoms.

‘Ha ha,’ Peter cried. ‘No, you don’t, do you?’

I felt a bit sorry for Paul as he pulled up his trousers, but he was smiling shyly so I hoped he didn’t feel too bad.

Then Peter turned to me.

‘Bet Terrie has got some, though!’ he cried.

Before I could react, Peter reached and pulled down my pyjamas too. Quickly I pulled them straight up as Paul giggled.

‘Oooh, yes, I saw some hair down there, did you, Paul?’ Peter laughed.

I tried to laugh, but my face burned bright red. Next Peter wiggled his hips and pulled down his own pyjamas.

‘Look,’ said Peter cheerfully. ‘I’ve got a plaster on my willie!’

I glanced down and saw Peter’s privates with a big plaster stuck around it. Paul’s hand flew to his mouth and he laughed furiously behind it. He looked to me, his eyes wide. I laughed to join in, but inside squirmed. Why on earth was Peter showing us his willy? Peter laughed the hardest, jiggling himself up and down a little as he looked at me. Then he pulled his trousers up again, still chuckling, as if it was the funniest thing he’d ever seen.

And then just as quick he changed the subject. ‘Right, kids, let’s go and get some breakfast. Terrie, go and get some toast on.’

We rushed off to get dressed and quickly munched our way through a pile of Marmite on toast. I didn’t think twice about what happened; it had been a bit weird, but Peter was always a joker and I was already looking forward to the day we had planned in the park.

We got home that afternoon exhausted from racing our bikes around the park. Peter started tickling Paul again, but this time Paul ended up running off to his room in tears after he’d crunched his fingers together, squeezing the joints very hard until they cracked. I ran off after him to his bedroom and found him in tears.

‘I’m not gonna play with Peter any more,’ he sobbed angrily. ‘He hurts me every time.’

‘I’m sure he doesn’t mean to, Paul,’ I began. Although, as I was speaking, I could feel the aches in my knees from where Peter had wrapped a rope too tight.

‘Maybe it was an accident. You know how we get excited playing “bash up” and we accidentally hurt each other.’

Paul didn’t look sure. ‘Maybe,’ he said hesitantly, ‘but you don’t accidentally crunch my fingers so hard that they feel like they’re broken.’

Mum came home around 6 p.m. and cooked fish fingers and mash for us all. As we ate dinner that night, Peter was rather quiet. He stood up and went to the kitchen cupboard. I thought he was just getting some ketchup but he returned with a jar of peanut butter. He twisted open the lid and slowly moved it around the room so we could all see inside.

‘Can you see what’s been done to it?’ he asked.

‘What?’ I replied, confused. It looked like a fairly full jar to me, which made sense, as Mum had only been shopping days earlier.

On a closer look, inside there was hardly any peanut butter at all. It had been purposely scraped at such an angle, so it was only left on the glass sides, so it looked full.

Mum’s lips tightened into a thin line. ‘This isn’t on, kids,’ she said, exasperated. ‘Which greedy little fucker has cleared the jar out? One of you little shits has scraped the jar so it still looks full up. You know how little money we have.’

Knowing it wasn’t me, I thought: ‘Paul, you little pig!’, but then we both started speaking at once.

‘It wasn’t me,’ I gasped.

‘Nor me,’ frowned Paul.

Mum sighed. ‘Well, I didn’t do it and I’m pretty sure Peter has got better things to do!’ she said. ‘I think you should both know better.’

Peter carefully screwed the lid of the jar back on.

‘Neither myself nor your mother will accept this kind of devious behaviour,’ he said slowly. ‘You have three meals a day and helping yourself to things like this is just not acceptable.’

We said okay and slipped off into the living room. The air vent in the kitchen meant you could hear everything in the living room and vice versa. The adults didn’t appear to realise this though, and we clearly heard Peter still talking to Mum.

‘You can’t let them pull stunts like that, Cynth. I mean, money is tight all round, isn’t it? There’s no need for them to be so greedy and finish off food like that. They need to learn to share.’

We pretended we’d not heard them when they came into the living room.

‘Right, who wants to watch a film?’ asked Peter. ‘And shall we have some ice cream too?’

Paul jumped up on the sofa, kicking his legs high. ‘Yeah!’

I rolled my eyes at Paul, he could be so excitable.

After the film I helped Mum clear up as Peter went upstairs to have a bath.

‘Cynth, we’ve run out of soap,’ he yelled.

‘Ted, would you be a good girl and pop up and take him this new bar?’ said Mum, passing some Imperial Leather from under the sink.

I took it from her and ran upstairs. Opening the bathroom door ajar I slid my arm in, holding the soap so Peter could grab it from me.

‘Thanks,’ he called. But he didn’t take it. So I moved my arm in further, twisting my head in the other direction. The last thing I wanted to do was invade Peter’s privacy. But he still didn’t reach for it.

‘Hurry up, I’m shrivelling up,’ he laughed.

So I pushed open the door and moved a bit closer in, craning my neck towards the hall so I didn’t see anything I shouldn’t.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Peter. I wasn’t able to hold the position any longer and stepped inside slightly to quickly throw him the soap. As I glanced in Peter hauled himself half out of the bath, his privates for all to see.

Quickly, I slammed the door shut. Peter was chuckling to himself.

‘Thanks, Teddo!’ he said.

I felt extremely embarrassed. At 13, anything about nudity or sex made me cringe. Mum had already bought me my first bra; Paul had laughed saying my shoulder blades were bigger than my boobs. She’d also shoved a book about birds and bees under my bedroom door. I didn’t really understand it, so I tossed it in my bottom drawer out of sight.

We were settled in the lounge, a film just about to start, when Peter pulled out a strange-looking box and plugged it into the back of the TV.

‘It’s a computer game,’ he said. ‘Tennis.’

We watched, mesmerised, as he played this game with two straight lines for bats and a flicking blip for a ball.

He handed us a joystick, explaining how it worked.

‘This is brilliant,’ I said, as I was busy trying to beat Paul.

‘I know,’ said Peter. ‘Good, isn’t it?’

Peter was always bringing new equipment into our house. He said he liked all the latest technology as the computer world was changing so fast he had to keep up. We had video cameras, cameras, dark-room equipment and loads and loads of cassette tapes and videos all neatly piled in the garage now. Alongside that was his army stuff too. He also always kept a camera on the dining room table. We assumed it was just in case he saw something fun to film, but I never saw him put it on.