Nowhere to Run: Where do you go when there’s nowhere left to hide?. Judy Westwater

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      I missed the excitement and glamour of the circus but that wasn’t where my duty lay now. I wanted to be there with a meal when Roger got home. I wanted to be the loving homemaker, a good wife, cooking and washing and doing all the things that I’d always dreamed about. It even crossed my mind that I would love to have a child. I knew things didn’t have to be the way they had been when I was growing up. I wanted everything to be different and I was determined to do my best.

      However, I didn’t realize then that my best would never be good enough for Roger. From that first moment the house on Compass Street became a prison and Roger was my brutal jailer. Life became a series of rules that he dictated and the punishment for coming up short was extreme.

      We hardly ever went out. The lazy days of wandering around the rides at Belle Vue were gone and Roger relentlessly bullied me and told me how worthless I was. He wanted to control me completely yet when I let him take charge he seemed to despise me for it. It was as if, having married him, I had lost everything.

      ‘You are disgusting,’ Roger raged. ‘Why would I want to take you anywhere?’

      If I started a conversation or voiced an opinion he would cut in immediately. ‘You have nothing of importance to say, Judy, so shut up.’

      It quickly became clear that Roger had a temper as foul as my father’s and that the consequences of not following his orders were a beating that was all too familiar. It may sound strange but I can’t even remember the first time he hit me. If you came from a decent family where you hadn’t ever been beaten up, I’m sure your husband hitting you would come as a huge shock, but I just accepted it. I believed that’s how relationships were. I remember Freda once saying to me, ‘You go to the ends of the earth for your husband,’ and I’d witnessed at first hand all the abuse she took from Dad. So this is how it was going to be. If I just tried harder, surely I’d get things right and then Roger wouldn’t have any reason to hit me?

      Each morning I had to rise early and make breakfast. Roger insisted on having this in bed. I was to make fried eggs on toast perfectly to his specification. The eggs had to be whole and the yolks had to have a white surface, no yellow showing. I was terrified of those eggs breaking in the frying pan not least because I didn’t have much money to buy food. If the eggs were broken Roger would attack me and make me cook more, and then if there were no more left God knows what he might do. The toast also had to be just the way he liked it. No burnt bits whatsoever. There were many times when one way or another the breakfast was unacceptable and it was hurled at me viciously, hot tea and all.

      After breakfast, Roger’s clothes had to be laid out in a particular way for the morning and once he’d finished eating I was expected to dress him. This was a daily ritual and he would not get up for work until I had performed it. All the while he criticized and mocked me, telling me how useless I was. I tried to keep silent and not provoke him in any way but that wasn’t always possible. If Roger was in a bad mood then there was nothing I could do.

      ‘You useless bitch!’ he screamed when I dropped a cup one morning, and he lunged to grab my hair and hit me round the face, back and forwards, over and over again. ‘Do you think I’m made of money?’ Close-up his eyes glowed with hatred, just like the devil eyes my father used to have when he beat me senseless as a little girl. I’d feel his hot breath and drops of spittle on my cheek and I became as passive as I could, not even raising my hands to protect myself, just waiting for the rage to diminish. As a child, I had learned not to answer back, not to struggle, and now I reverted to the same behaviour.

      I was horrified to find that I had married a man with remarkable similarities to my father but at the same time I had the sinking feeling that it must be my own fault. If only I could manage things properly then surely Roger would be pleased with me. I wanted to turn things around, to go back to something like the relationship we had before we were married. I desperately believed it was possible but no matter what I did Roger was relentlessly suspicious of my motives. I sat downstairs, bewildered, for days on end, completely alone apart from my husband’s vicious company, going over the vow I had made in Church. I had promised to obey and that’s what I had to do.

      Then there was the daily round of endless accusations. When Roger got home he’d want to know where I had been, who I had spoken to, and who had been to the door. He forbade me from going to the shops alone; nor was I allowed on a bus by myself but had to wait until he was able to accompany me. If I wanted to go out I needed his permission. He accused me of having affairs behind his back, and told me that I was nothing but a whore who slept around. I remembered the questions he’d asked me when I used to go touring and how jealous he’d seemed and I realized that this was the same feeling that had now escalated out of control. I remembered how he’d once made a comment about a dress I’d worn or how he’d browbeaten me a couple of times to tell him about my family or spoken over me when we were out for dinner. These were the early shadows of more extreme behaviour, and I couldn’t understand how it had got so out of hand. Still he was my husband, he was bigger and stronger than I was and the truth was I had nowhere to go. If I ran away to the circus, after all, Roger would already be there.

      ‘If you ever leave me, I’ll come and get you,’ he threatened. ‘If you leave me, I’ll bloody kill you.’

      I knew he meant it. I felt trapped and instead of making an escape plan I determined to fix it by being better at everything I did. If only I could be a good-enough wife, everything would be fine.

      One day, when I’d still only been married a couple of weeks, I took our washing to the laundrette. Roger had said this was all right. ‘You’re a scrubber anyway,’ he sniped.

      At that time no one did laundry at home. I packed all our dirty stuff into two big carrier bags and set off down the road. When I got there it was busy. Women were standing round chatting as they waited for their loads to finish. Up at the back there was a kettle and someone had made a pot of tea. I got in the queue.

      It was certainly better than when I was growing up and I used to have to go to the washhouse with Freda. Even when I was under school age she made me haul a heavy steel bath full of laundry for her. Washing the linen would take her all day. In Openshawe, where Roger and I lived, there was a brand new laundry with big, steel machines. You just had to wait for the machine to do your washing and then transfer your load into one of the driers.

      In front of me there was a cheery woman who was sorting out masses of kids clothes.

      ‘Looks like you’ve got quite a brood there,’ I said.

      ‘Yes,’ she smiled. ‘Keeps you busy. How about you?’ she glanced over at the contents of my bag.

      ‘No. Just married a fortnight ago,’ I said, trying to smile bravely.

      ‘Oh that’s a good time of your life. You savour it, love. I’m Kathleen McAvoy.’

      I shook her hand. ‘Judy Lethbridge.’ My married name still sounded foreign when I said it.

      ‘Well, Mrs Lethbridge,’ she said, ‘it’s nice to meet you.’

      Kathleen helped me operate the machines and showed me how much washing powder to use. She told me about her sons, Brian, Gary and Mark. Mark, the youngest, had only just started school. The older boys, she said, were wild.

      ‘They’re good kids though. Mind you, the noise sometimes! Still, it’s lonely round the house without the little one there,’ Kathleen said. ‘But you never know. I hope I’ll have a little girl next. What are you planning?’

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