A Family Secret

‘Can I help?’ I asked, poking my face round the door of the kitchen.

But Mum flew at me as though I’d done something wrong.

‘Get out of my bloody kitchen!’ she shouted, swatting me with a tea towel. ‘Don’t ever come in here again.’

Again, I sauntered off without giving it much thought. I was used to her. Yet after she had finished cooking she always called us in to wash up and clear away her mess. My sister washed, and I dried. The shared hardship might have brought about a camaraderie, a sense of togetherness, but somehow it drove a wedge between us kids, and our chores were done in silence, under the watchful, waiting eye of our mother.

But if I was wary of my parents, I idolised Jock. He was my big brother and I looked up to him and loved him with all my heart. Of all my siblings, he and I were the closest. To me, he was the tallest, strongest, bravest brother I could have wished for. And I was indulgent of his moods and his grumpiness, too. I knew he reserved the worst of his temper for Dad.

One day I was walking home, glued to my Enid Blyton book as usual, and one of the older boys from my school started to make fun of me.

‘You’re a swot,’ he teased. ‘What a nerd, always stuck in a book.’

And with that he punched me in the face and my nose just exploded. There was blood everywhere. Gasping with pain, I ran home sobbing, blood staining my school uniform. As soon as Jock saw me he demanded an explanation, before grabbing his leather jacket and going out to find the offender.

‘I battered him,’ he told me later, in a matter-of-fact manner. ‘He won’t be bothering you again. Don’t worry, Mo-Jo.’

Jock didn’t make a big fuss about it; he was well-known for fighting and getting into trouble in our neighbourhood and the other kids were terrified of him. It was no big deal for him to be throwing punches. He was a big lad with an even bigger attitude. The next day I spotted the same boy as I walked to school, and he ran off in alarm. He never even looked my way again. I played it cool, but secretly I was beaming and bursting with pride. I felt completely untouchable. My Jock, my protector, had laid down the law.

But whether Jock really did it for me or simply for his own amusement, I would never know. I didn’t give it much thought at that age. I just felt as though I had someone on my side for once, and it felt fantastic. But though I was in awe of Jock, I never wanted to be like him. I marvelled at him, but I did not admire him. I think I sensed, even then, that he had hidden depths and they might well be swirling with filth. But for now he was a typically wayward teenager. He wore a uniform of skinny jeans, a white T-shirt, Doc Marten boots, and spent most of his time in his bedroom, with the Sex Pistols blaring out and Mum hollering up the stairs at him.

‘Turn that crap off!’ she screamed.

It wasn’t until she was hammering on his door, ready for a fist fight, that he complied. Sometimes he took it even further than that, and he would wait until she was battering him before he gave in. One day he came home from the barbers smirking and with a shocking Mohican and, again, Mum flew into a rage.

‘What will people think?’ she screamed.

But Jock didn’t seem to care at all. He was in regular trouble, and he took it all in his stride. Authority – and the threat of authority – never seemed to bother him one bit. I wondered whether really he quite enjoyed all the fuss.

Although I didn’t have many friends at school I had lots of mates on our street. Joanne and I were part of a much larger group and there was often a big gang of us playing manhunt on the field behind the houses, or swimming up at the local pond. One time I fell off a rope swing into the pond, and after that I learned to swim pretty quickly. Now, even though I was just eight years old, I loved splashing around and diving in with the bigger kids.

Our local lollipop lady, Jane, had a heart of gold, and she would often pack a big picnic for us all on sunny days. One July day, at the start of the 1979 summer holidays, was a real scorcher, so hot the tarmac was bubbling up on the road outside. The street was swarming with wasps and kids; we were the only ones with any energy in the baking heat. There were mums in deckchairs outside their front doors, fanning themselves with rolled-up newspapers. There were dads with hankies on their heads and socks on, knocking back cans and gearing themselves up for a brawl later on.

‘Water fight! Water fight!’ screamed one of the boys.

And that was all it took. Word spread through the kids like an electric shock and suddenly we were all racing down the street to fill old Fairy liquid bottles with water. Our water supply was temperamental in the house, because of the summer drought, so we had to queue to use an outside tap further up the street. Seconds later it was all-out war. We raced up and down the paths, hiding behind fences and bins, squealing in horrified delight when we were sprayed with ice-cold water.

It was the best and the worst of shocks, all at the same time. But as the heat began to fade I found myself soaked to the skin and ready for a hot bath. Our home-made weapons discarded for another day, we all trooped inside, glowing with the excitement of the fight, shivering with the cold.

As I went upstairs I could hear Pink Floyd blasting out of Jock’s bedroom. His door was closed, as always. He was too cool and too angry for water fights. I slipped into the bathroom, closed the door behind me, and stripped down to my undies. To my surprise, the door opened again and there was Jock, standing right behind me.

‘What do you want?’ I said, hugging my arms around myself, suddenly self-conscious.

He didn’t speak. Instead, he leaned towards me, put his hand down my knickers and started to touch me. I was scared and anxious. It didn’t feel right, but I didn’t know what it was. Fear overwhelmed me and, though I tried to shrink back, he just pushed himself further into me.

‘Stop,’ I pleaded, my voice wavering. ‘Please, stop.’

It felt like a lifetime before Jock took his hand away. He looked me in the eye and said: ‘If you breathe a word, we will all go back into care, and it will all be your fault.’

He stomped back to his room without saying anything more and I was left, shivering now with shock, wondering what on earth had just taken place. Suddenly nauseous, I ran to my bedroom, slammed the door, and cried on my bed for hours.

When Mum came in, she tutted impatiently and said, ‘What are you crying for? What’s the matter, for God’s sake? Shut the bloody noise up now.’

I shook my head and said truthfully, ‘I don’t know. I really don’t know.’

‘Well, I’ll give you something to cry about if you don’t stop,’ she snapped.

I had no name for what had happened to me. And even if I had, I couldn’t have confided in her. She just wasn’t that sort of mother. I had the responsibility, too, of keeping the rest of my family safe, for hadn’t Jock threatened that we would all go back into care if I told anyone? Instead, I pushed it to the back of my mind, convinced it was a one-off, some sort of aberration in Jock that he would not repeat. And when I saw him the next day he acted completely normally. I could almost imagine it had never happened in the first place.

It was a couple of weeks later that Mum sent us out blackberry picking, so that she could bake a pie. She was a walking contradiction; on the one hand, she would attack us for the slightest transgression, yet she would also bake and cook wonderful meals and insist that we all ate around the table together at 5 p.m. each night. And again, we were left to our own devices, fighting and running wild. Yet there were also things expected of us; we had responsibilities. She was impossible to predict, and that made her all the more tricky to deal with.

On this particular day we were packed off to Black Bank, an area near our house that was famous for plump blackberries. The path took us past the pond, through ferns and grasses to a large banking. To me, as a little girl, it was like a forbidden forest. There was a whole gang of us from the street searching out the best berries. It was like a day out. But as we picked and chatted I suddenly noticed Jock creeping up behind us. And then he grabbed my arm and steered me into the ferns, away from everyone, where it was quiet. None of my friends even looked around, but of course they all knew Jock, so they presumed he just wanted to talk to me. Besides, they knew his reputation, too, and none of them would have dared question him. I could feel his nails digging into my flesh. My heart was in my mouth. I felt my insides churning.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked.

But my voice was smaller and thinner than I’d hoped. I was no match for him. Once we were away from the others, he pushed me heavily onto the grass, lay down beside me, and pulled up my skirt. I screwed up my eyes and held my breath as he forced my knickers down and thrust a finger roughly inside me.

‘You’re hurting me!’ I squealed. ‘Leave me alone! Please, Jock, stop. Please!’

‘I’m enjoying it too much,’ he grunted.

I tried pushing him off, but he was too strong. His breathing was loud, rasping and uneven. He didn’t even look like Jock. My Jock. In my child’s mind he looked like a monster, a ghoul, a bogeyman, and nothing like my brother at all. On the other side of the brambles, I could hear the rest of the kids laughing and playing. But they might as well have been on the other side of the world, they were so out of reach. For me, it lasted hours. In reality it was a matter of a few minutes. When he was finished, Jock just got up and walked away. With shaking hands, I pulled my knickers up, the long grass itching my legs, as the tears streamed down my face.

I couldn’t face the other children, so I stumbled off in the other direction, my thoughts clouded by the physical agony Jock had inflicted. I felt like I was burning inside. But I eventually detoured back to get some blackberries, because knew I would be in trouble if I went home empty-handed.

To a little girl, a beating from my mother and a sexual assault by my brother were both much the same. I was too young and too innocent to understand the distinction. I knew simply that they brought pain, and I would try to avoid them at all costs. Afterwards I made my way home, but the attack dominated my thoughts. It never occurred to me to tell anyone, though; Mum was not someone I could approach. I knew that from bitter experience.

I had once come home from school crying because another child had hit me. Instead of the sympathy I was kidding myself she might show, Mum had shouted:

‘Get out there and belt them back or I will give you a good hiding. And stop crying, for God’s sake. Your face will stick like that if you’re not careful.’

So I knew it was pointless to ask her for help.

The blackberry pie stuck in my throat like shards of glass as we sat around the table in silence. Jock didn’t even look at me, but then, he never usually did. He kept himself to himself. As time went on, I managed, once again, to shut it out. I still didn’t know what it was. I didn’t have a way out either, so the only option open to me was to block it out entirely. I no longer felt safe with Jock. But he was still my brother, and I still loved him. I couldn’t change that, whether I wanted to or not.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.