Daddy’s Little Earner: A heartbreaking true story of a brave little girl's escape from violence. Maria Landon

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СКАЧАТЬ prettiest, softest things I had ever seen. I got sunburnt playing outside during the day and she gently rubbed calamine lotion onto my skin in the evening to try to cool me down and prevent me from peeling. At that moment I felt so cared for and so normal, although all through the holiday I still felt like the odd one out in the group, like an observer merely there to see how a normal family worked. I believed that I didn’t deserve to be loved and cherished like the Bunn children were, although I wasn’t sure why not. I believed that everything horrible in my life was my own fault; that I was a bad person and didn’t deserve any better. I knew that was right because Dad was continually screaming it at me, although I didn’t know why or what I should do to become a better, more lovable person.

      Many years later, when I was in my thirties, I bumped into Ann when she came into the B & Q store where I was working and we chatted about that holiday all those years ago.

      ‘I’ve never forgotten that time,’ I told her.

      ‘I’ve got some photographs at home somewhere, and some of you playing in our garden too,’ she said. ‘I’ll pop them in to you if you’d like to see them.’

      I was so pleased I could have kissed her, but at the same time I felt a stab of pain to think that this woman, who was really no more than a neighbour, had thought it was worth keeping some photographs of me when my own family had never cared enough to do that. It had always hurt me that no one valued me enough to take any pictures of me and the fact that Ann Bunn had some made me realize all the more how little my own parents had cared for me. When she brought them in a few days later it was like looking at a stranger. I’d had no idea what I looked like when I was small. I was surprised to see that I was really quite cute, not fat, ugly and unlovable as Dad was always telling me I was.

      There were always plenty of new opportunities coming along for Dad to mock and humiliate me. I loved music lessons at school and I enrolled to learn to play the violin. You had to be on a waiting list to be allowed your own instrument and it was a great privilege when you were eventually given one to learn with. When it was finally my turn to be allowed a violin and I was told that I could take it home for a week or two to practise I was thrilled. I felt so proud as I stood in the front room and started playing a few notes for Dad. I was eager for praise and encouragement but instead he just laughed and belittled me.

      ‘You’re pathetic,’ he sneered. ‘You’ll never be able to master that.’

      And then he grew angry at the noise I was making.

      ‘Don’t ever bring that bloody thing home again!’

      He never wanted me to do anything that would be outside his control, outside the little world where he was the undisputed king. I desperately wanted to go to Sunday school like my best friend at the time, because it would have been a chance to get out of the house and because I knew the children who attended used to be given milk and biscuits and would come back home with pictures they had painted, but Dad wasn’t going to allow that. He was the same about me joining the Brownies or the Guides or doing anything else that other little girls did. It was as if he thought that as a family we were too different and special to behave like everyone else, reinforcing in me the idea that I would never be able to fit in or be as good as everyone else.

      There was a lovely church called St Catherine’s a few streets from where we lived, which was used by our school for their Christmas and Easter festivities. When I was eight they asked me if I would like to be an angel in the school nativity play and I was over the moon but as usual Dad forbade me from taking part. He didn’t give any reason – he didn’t feel he had to – and I was left with the feeling that such things were too good for someone like me. Each time I asked to be allowed to do something he would tell me that I wouldn’t be capable of it, that I would make a fool of myself, and I believed him. I believed I was useless and didn’t deserve to have any of the things other children had or do any of the things they did.

      I used to have a recurring nightmare during the years we lived with Dad. I would feel like I was caught in the centre of a spiral of colourful circles. As the spiral gathered speed I would feel trapped, falling faster and deeper into nothingness, certain that if I didn’t get out I was going to die. I would try to scream for help but no sounds would come out of my mouth and I would wake up feeling dizzy and nauseous. The nightmares went on for many years, both waking and sleeping.

      Chapter Six

      upsetting nanny

      One winter morning when I was about eight, Dad, Terry and I were relaxing indoors watching television and eating chips. It was snowy outside but the sun was streaming in through the windows and the doors of the coal-burning stove were standing open, making the room feel warm and cosy in the light of the flames. At moments like that I loved our family life, just the three of us together and safe from the outside world in our own home. Eager to maintain the peaceful mood and keep Dad happy I stood up to clear away our plates after eating, thinking I was being a good girl, when something caught my attention on the television. As I watched the screen my concentration slipped for a second, my hand tilted without me noticing and some grease slid off the plate onto the carpet. Dad saw it first and bellowed at me, startling me so much I froze on the spot and the grease continued to flow, making him even angrier, as if I was deliberately disobeying him.

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