Escaping Daddy

I wanted Brendan to have nicer memories of his grandmother than that. I could never understand why Mum’s parents had wanted nothing more to do with us once Mum had left. Why had they not even sent us cards at Christmas or on our birthdays? Why had they acted as though we didn’t exist? What could I possibly have done to offend them so terribly by the time I was six years old that they would want nothing more to do with me? Their disappearance had served to reinforce the idea in my head that Dad must be right, that I must be worthless and unlovable and that he was the only one who was ever going to care for me. I never wanted Brendan to think such thoughts about himself for even a second.

I have to admit that Mum could be good company on these family outings, if I could forget about all the resentment I had stored up inside me about what had happened in the past. When we were all together as a family and everything was buzzing it was often possible to ignore the little voices in the back of my head that were goading me on to ask her why she treated us the way she did. While part of me longed for us to all get on like one big happy family, another part always wanted to punish her in some way for her crimes against her children. The logical part of my brain would tell me that there was no point thinking like that. Rodney was right; what was past was past and there was no point dwelling on it. But those voices were always there, even if I managed to drown them out with noise and distraction for most of the time.

I’m not saying Mum’s life was easy, but then whose life is? Once I was a mother myself I couldn’t understand how she could bear to let eight years drift by without even trying to do something to help her own children. When you have children of your own running around it focuses your mind on what happened to you when you were their age and makes you see things afresh. There was no way I would let Brendan anywhere near a monster like my father, not even with me there to protect him, so how could she have left us completely alone with him like that?

I didn’t ask her, though. Not then, at least.

Chapter Four Rodney and Me

Rodney was a brilliant family man. His commitment to his children was total and from the first moment we got together he included Brendan in that. Whenever the kids were with us he would be coming up with ideas for things to do with them, like driving off into the countryside, all of us piled into the cab of one of his trucks together, and having a picnic. Or we would go for a barbecue on the beach. He would always include Mum in these outings as well, arranging to pick up her and my young half-brother Adam who had been born in 1981, when I was fifteen.

Rodney might have been a bit stricter with discipline sometimes than I thought was absolutely necessary, but the kids all appeared to forgive him the odd smack and had grown used to being shouted at when they didn’t obey him immediately. He insisted on instant obedience from all of us, but I was more than used to that. I had spent endless hours locked in the coal shed at home when I was small for some petty or imagined misdemeanour: sitting shivering in the dark, terrified by every sound but too frightened to call out to be released because it would result in a terrible beating, and desperate to win back Dad’s approval. I knew all about the tyrannical ways in which some fathers chose to rule over their families. Although Rodney’s kids were always respectful of him, and cautious about upsetting him, I could see they weren’t actually frightened of him in the way Terry and I had been of our father. They could have a laugh and a joke with him in a way I could never have dreamed of with mine.

There are always people in any extended family or group of friends who are keen to stir up trouble for a newcomer to their social circle, as much for their own entertainment as anything I guess, and malicious voices were quick to tell me that Rodney’s ex-wife Sue and I were bound to end up clashing. They told me, with mock concern for my welfare, that Rodney was still in love with her and that Sue was certain to resent me having anything to do with her children. I didn’t like having this threat hanging over my head and I couldn’t get a straight answer out of Rodney about any of it, so I decided to take matters into my own hands.

Plucking up all my courage I went round to her house to see her, wanting to set the record straight, to clear the air and make sure she didn’t think she could take any liberties with me just because I was young. If there was one thing I had learned during my years of going in and out of care homes, it was that you had to stick up for yourself from the first moment you arrived in a new environment if you didn’t want to end up being walked all over. In the past it had led to me getting a bit of a reputation for being hard in some of the institutions I had been in, when inside I had been no more than a scared, confused and insecure child.

The moment Sue opened her front door to me with a beaming smile on her beautiful face I knew we were going to get on. She invited me in as if it were the most natural thing in the world, as if she had been looking forward to getting to know me ever since she first heard I was on the scene. The moment I voiced my worries she assured me there was no way she would ever consider going back to Rodney, however much he might want it, and it was easy to believe her.

‘To be honest,’ she told me, ‘I’m really glad that he’s found someone else. Now perhaps he’ll leave me alone and stop pestering me to go back to him.’

She introduced me to her new boyfriend, Kevin, who was only sixteen–a good few years younger than her. He was a gorgeous-looking lad and I could immediately see why she wouldn’t be bothered about losing Rodney to me. At the time a lot of other people believed that Sue and Kevin’s relationship couldn’t last because of the age gap, but they were obviously totally in love.

The gossips and mischief-makers were just as wrong about Sue and me clashing because we never had so much as a cross word about the kids or anything else. From that day onwards we became best friends and got on so well that sometimes she and I would actually go together to the kids’ parent/teacher meetings at the school. It made other people laugh to see us side by side but we didn’t care and, more importantly, neither did the kids. I guess she must have been about the same age I was when she first met Rodney, so she understood very well a lot of how I felt and what I was going through as the years went on. Maybe she felt sorry for me because she knew what lay in store and because she had managed to escape to a relationship that was so much better.

During that first winter when Rodney and I were together, I went to work with him at the scrapyard. That was the way with all the wives in his family and I was always ready to do what he asked, even on the days when we were working in snow and ice and I thought my fingers were going to fall off every time I had to grip some freezing cold piece of metal and lug it onto a van. Rodney was a hard task-masker, expecting everyone else to work as hard as he did himself. He got the kids working for him too as soon as they were old enough and strong enough to lift things around. If he got home late from a job he would immediately send them out to load or unload the lorry for him. He would not tolerate any arguing or complaining. It was tough for them but it seemed acceptable because he worked so hard himself. It wasn’t like Dad putting me to work on the streets and then disappearing into the nearest pub with his mates, only popping out occasionally to make sure that I was pulling in the punters and not hanging back in the shadows. Rodney managed to make it seem as though we were all working in the same family business, pulling together towards a common goal.

Sometimes during the week, when the other kids were at school or back with Sue, I would take Brendan with me when we went to work, and he and I would play together in the cab of the lorry while Rodney laboured outside. Rodney liked to have us around for company and to keep an eye on me. He always liked to be surrounded by friends or family wherever he was. Sometimes, when there was a lot for me to do at the job site, I would leave Brendan with a babysitter if I thought I wouldn’t be able to keep an eye on him while I was working. Although I loved him to bits it was still nice to have the occasional respite from continuous baby talk.

In the summer months most of Rodney’s jobs were to do with gardening, especially laying out patios and driveways; he was a skilful craftsman whenever he got the chance to show it, always doing a good job for his customers. My jobs would usually be to drive the van or mix the cement, or do any odd chore he asked of me. Sometimes we would be clearing away scrap, like the old vehicles in Dick’s yard, and my first job would be to get the wheels off. I grew strong from the physical labour of it and I liked how that felt. I felt as though he needed me, as though I had a role in his life, and it seemed like useful, honourable labour, not like the furtive, grubby work that Dad made me do with the men he made me sell my services to.

A couple of times a year Rodney and I would go to the horse market, held in the cattle market in Norwich, where all the old boys like Dick would be sitting around drinking and singing in the same way their ancestors must have been doing for centuries. It seemed very different to the sordid, claustrophobic little world of hookers, drunks and ne’er-do-wells that my dad used to live in. Dad liked nothing better than to be thought of as ‘a bit of a character’, always showing off and trying to attract a crowd in whatever pub he was in, but Dick didn’t have to try that hard because everyone was automatically enchanted by him. After the sale had finished everyone would gather in the pub, The Norfolk Dumpling, and have a singalong and a good old drink. Quite often one of the little Shetland ponies would be brought into the pub to share in the fun. The children loved it.

Dick battled for years to get permission to build on the site of the Buxton scrapyard, even taking his case to the Court of Human Rights, claiming that he was being discriminated against because he was a gypsy. His perseverance paid off and he was eventually successful, but the deal didn’t finally go through till after his death in 1989. Now they’ve built bungalows on the site and named it Drake’s Loke in his honour. It was a shame he didn’t live to see the fruits of his labours.

Dick’s funeral was an amazing event, with travellers and relatives arriving in lorries from every corner of the country to pay their respects, partying long into the night to celebrate the life of a man who everyone seemed to have loved. No one could find a bad word to say about him, living or dead. According to the traditions of gypsy law, Dick’s caravan should have been burned after he died but it never happened for some reason and Rodney’s younger brother moved in and took over running the yard. Phoebe moved into a house in Buxton and Rodney and I got on with our own lives and our own family.

Anyone meeting me during those years would have assumed I was a full-blooded gypsy wife. I jangled with the gold jewellery and sovereign rings that Rodney would give me. I would be tanned from working in the outdoors and I hardly ever bothered to wear shoes when we were out and about, enjoying the freedom of bare feet, feeling like I was being a bit of a rebel. Rodney didn’t allow me to do anything that might attract other men, like wearing make-up or skirts, but that didn’t bother me too much as I had no sense of personal identity at that stage anyway. I only really existed as his woman and the kids’ mother. I also liked the fact that it was very different to my days with Dad, when he used to make me get all dressed up in his prostitute friends’ clothes and heels, and paint my face when I was as young as twelve. He would take me to parties like that to show me off, flirting with me as though I was his girlfriend, paying me compliments, pleased to see other men eyeing up the goods that he was soon going to be selling, or helping himself to as soon as we got home. Because Dad spent so much time telling me how fat, ugly and unlovable I was, I partly enjoyed it when he seemed pleased with the way I looked, but at the same time I already knew it was wrong and spooky for him to be paying me that sort of attention.

With Rodney it was completely the opposite and I liked that protectiveness to start with. I felt pleased that he loved me enough to be jealous of other men, instead of being happy to sell me to anyone with the price of a few drinks in their pocket, as Dad had been. Despite my low self-esteem I had always been good at putting on a brave face to the outside world and was always happy to chat to other people. Although I was pleased that Rodney was protecting me, I began to get confused when he was angry with me for talking to other men in normal social situations like pubs or shops. If I even put on a bit of lipstick when we went out together he would immediately accuse me of having an affair and would turn it into a big argument.

‘I saw the way you were looking at him,’ he would shout once he got me back home. ‘You were leading him on, flirting with him.’

‘I was just talking to him,’ I would protest, completely unable to understand what was going wrong between us and why he didn’t trust me.

As time went by it started to make me mad because I had never given him the slightest reason to think that I would ever be unfaithful to him. I hated people who messed around like that because I had seen how unhappy Mum and Dad had made each other. Although it was intimidating sometimes, his possessiveness did in a way make me feel secure, but this self-confidence that I was beginning to build was badly shaken one day when I discovered that Rodney had slept with the babysitter, Tina.

Tina and I were friends and used to take turns babysitting for one another. I first felt uneasy about her relationship with Rodney one evening when we went round to collect Brendan, and Rodney commented on some semi-naked photos of her that were stuck on her fridge door. They had quite an intimate giggle about them and a few days later Rodney picked a fight with me and stormed out, saying he was going to stay at his caravan.

Walking past Tina’s house a bit later I spotted his truck outside, which was odd because I’d talked to her earlier and she’d told me she was going out for the evening.

I let myself into the house as I normally would when I was picking up Brendan, and there were Rodney and the children sitting round the table having a meal. The kids were all in a state of undress, having had a bath, so it was obvious they were planning on staying over. Rodney and Tina made no secret of the fact that they were having a fling and I felt doubly betrayed, by my man and by my friend.

This was exactly the sort of pain that I had been hoping Rodney would protect me from and it brought back a million memories of my time with Dad, reminding me of all the reasons why I hated the way he and his friends behaved so casually about sex. We had an incredible row and from then on I kept Brendan with me nearly all the time rather than hiring another babysitter and putting temptation in Rodney’s way. There was never any question that I would take him back–I needed him too much–but once someone has betrayed you, however, you can never feel quite the same about them again. Trust in a relationship, I believe, has to be an absolute; you either have it or you don’t; there are no degrees in between.

In my heart I knew he had been unfaithful to me at other times too and I realised that since I didn’t have the courage to leave him I’d have to put up with it and try to ignore it. He didn’t even seem terribly concerned about hiding it from me after that. Perhaps he felt it was his right as a man. It certainly wasn’t a subject he was prepared to discuss with me. All the confidence that had been building inside me, when I thought I had found a knight in shining armour to protect me, was draining away, leaving me feeling vulnerable and worthless all over again.

Despite whatever he might be up to himself when the opportunity arose, Rodney wanted to have me somewhere where he could keep an eye on me every hour of every day, and he would become more and more possessive if he thought I was even passing the time of day with any other men. Although I was still mistaking his behaviour for a kind of love it was making life difficult, making me feel stifled and restricted, as though I had no more freedom than I’d had when I was in Dad’s power.

One day I had been out shopping for hours and when I came back I discovered that my period had started and I’d forgotten to buy any tampons. Rodney was home by then, outside in the garden with a couple of mates.

‘I’m just nipping up the shop,’ I told him as I headed back to the car, not wanting to go into any more detail in front of the other men.

‘No, you’re not,’ he replied. ‘You’ve been out all day.’

‘You can’t tell me I can’t go up the shop,’ I said. ‘I need to go.’

‘You’re seeing somebody,’ he shouted. ‘You’re not going out again. What could you need when you’ve already been out shopping all day?’

‘I need some fucking Tampax,’ I screamed at the top of my voice, no longer caring about being discreet, wanting to embarrass him in front of his mates to make him realise he was being stupid.

But he still wasn’t having it and told one of his mates to go down the shop and buy them for me, which made the whole thing even more embarrassing for all of us.

‘Get back in that house!’ he ordered me.

There were days when I didn’t feel like going to work with Rodney, just wanting to stay at home and look after Brendan rather than sitting around in the cab of the van in some unknown part of town, but he was always adamant.

‘You’re not staying here on your own,’ he said. ‘What are you planning to do anyway?’

‘I could take Brendan out in the pushchair for a walk,’ I said, fed up with being bossed about all the time, needing some space away from Rodney and his mates. ‘It’ll be nice for him to get some fresh air.’

‘No, you’re bloody not! I’m taking the pushchair with me,’ Rodney said, snatching it up before I could get to it. ‘So if you don’t come with me you’ll be staying in all day.’

That made me cross. I might have liked Rodney’s possessiveness at the beginning, but this was stupid and felt more like bullying than love, more the way I remembered Dad behaving, bringing a thousand ugly memories to the surface. I started to shout back at him, genuinely angry, not for a moment expecting what was to come next. Rodney was used to total obedience from all of us. He was only willing to put up with my back-chat for so long before his temper snapped. I pushed it too far this time and suddenly he punched me in the face with all his strength in order to put a definite end to the conversation. I didn’t see the blow coming and for a moment I was too shocked to even register the pain as I hurtled backwards off my feet.

In that split second everything changed and I became a victim once more. Everything good that he had done for me was shattered with that one blow. There was nowhere I could be safe, not even my home, and no one I could feel safe with. I lay there feeling betrayed and destroyed, cowering in case he tried to hit me again, too shocked to respond in any way.

Leaving me lying there he stormed out of the flat to work, carrying the pushchair with him, no doubt feeling that he had succeeded in making his point.

I don’t know why I was so shocked because I had yet to meet a man who didn’t end up wanting to hit me, but I remember feeling suddenly trapped and scared as I lay there waiting for the pain to subside and trying to clear my thoughts. All the things that had become good about my life were due to Rodney being there, but this punch immediately made them worthless. The moment I knew that he was capable of hitting me so violently, using all his strength, I should have walked away from the relationship, but if I did that I would have lost the whole family that I had just found. I would have taken Brendan with me, but I wouldn’t have had any claim on Fred, Roddo and Billy. I would have been deserting them just as surely as Mum had deserted us.

There was also a part of me that believed I deserved to be hit. All my life Dad had been telling me how worthless and unlovable I was and how he would be the only one who would ever love me and a large part of me believed him. The way I had been treated by the dozens of clients I had serviced for him on the streets of Norwich had reinforced everything he ever told me about myself. From the first time that Dad sold me to that mate of his, holding me down to be raped on the floor amidst the scattered remains of a cheap Chinese takeaway, I had believed that I didn’t deserve anything better. If I was so worthless my own father was willing to do that, why should I be surprised that Rodney would hit me when I was giving him so much grief?

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