Don’t Tell Mummy: A True Story of the Ultimate Betrayal. Toni Maguire

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ of old mouse droppings led to the only built-in cupboard. The walls had been painted white but from the floor to the height of my waist they were speckled with the dark green of damp.

      A black peat-fuelled range stood at one end of the room and under a window was the only other fitting, a wooden shelf with a metal bowl on top and a tin bath underneath.

      Two doors at opposite ends led into the bedrooms. By the front door a staircase, not much more than a ladder, provided an entrance to the attic. When we climbed up to explore we found a large dark space where only the thatch protected us from the elements, and a damp musty smell made me wrinkle my nose.

      My mother set to work on her dream immediately, vigorously sweeping the floors as the men unpacked the van. Peat was brought in; a fire was lit in the stove and water drawn from the well at the bottom of the garden. My first task was to remove all the frogs that came up in the bucket, carrying them carefully back to the grass near the well.

      ‘Then they can choose whether they want to rejoin their families or stay above ground in the sun,’ my mother explained.

      As warmth seeped from the stove, familiar furniture was arranged around the now cobweb-free room and the battery-driven radio played music my mother could hum along to, a cheerful atmosphere pervaded the previously desolate room.

      Tea and sandwiches were prepared and I took mine outside to sit with Judy on the grass. I shared my corned beef sandwich with her while she sniffed the new smells with a twitching nose and her head cocked on one side, giving me a hopeful look.

      Kent seemed a world away and I, like her, felt like exploring. Seeing the grown-ups were all busy I put Judy’s red lead on and slipped out through the gates. As we strolled up the nearby lane the early spring sun beat down, taking away the lingering chill of the cottage. The unclipped hedgerows were bursting with wild flowers. There were clumps of primroses and early wild honeysuckle. Purple violets peeked out from underneath the white hawthorn. Bending down I picked some to make into a posy for my mother. Time passed unheeded as the new sounds and sights caught my attention and more flowers tempted me to wander further down the lane.

      Stopping to watch fat pigs in a nearby field with their plump pink young running alongside, I heard my father shouting, ‘Antoinette, where are you?’

      I turned around and trotted trustingly towards him, clutching my posy of wild flowers. But the man I saw coming towards me was not the handsome smiling father who’d met us from the boat. In his place strode a scowling, red-faced man I hardly recognized, a man who suddenly appeared huge, with bloodshot eyes and a mouth that trembled with rage. My instinct told me to run but fear kept me rooted to the spot.

      He grabbed hold of me by the neck, put his arm tightly around my head and pulled it against his body. He lifted my cotton dress to my waist and wrenched my pants down to meet my cotton socks. One calloused hand held my semi-naked body against his thighs while the other stroked my bare bottom, squeezing one cheek hard. Seconds later I heard a crack and felt a stinging pain. I wriggled and screamed to no avail. One hand tightened its grip around my neck while the other rose and fell time after time. Judy cowered behind me and the posy, now forgotten, lay crushed on the ground.

      Nobody had ever hurt me deliberately before. If ever my plump knees had knocked together, making me fall, my mother always picked me up and wiped away my tears. I screamed and cried in pain, disbelief and humiliation. Tears and snot streamed from my eyes and nose as he shook me. My whole body shuddered with terror.

      ‘Don’t you ever go wandering off like that, my girl,’ he shouted. ‘Now get back to your mother.’

      As I pulled my knickers up over my stinging bottom, the choking tears making me hiccup, his hand gripped my shoulder and he dragged me home. I knew my mother had heard my screams, but she said nothing.

      That day I learnt to fear him, but it was another year before the nightmare started.

      The second Easter had arrived at the thatched house and the bitter cold of our first winter was almost forgotten. The barn had been repaired, incubators installed in what had been my bedroom and I, against my wishes, had been moved to the attic.

      Our original chickens, which my mother saw more as pets than income, scratched happily in the grass outside. The cockerel strutted in front of his harem, proudly displaying his brilliantly coloured plumage, and the incubators were filled with eggs. Unfortunately, numberless rabbits had helped themselves many times to the flowers hopefully planted beneath the windows, and potatoes and carrots were the only survivors of the vegetable patch.

      Holidays, now that I was twelve months older, brought more household jobs such as using a strainer to remove frogs from water buckets, collecting kindling for the stove and searching for eggs. Unwilling to use the coops provided, the free-range chickens hid their nests in far corners, some in our yard, others tucked away under bushes in the adjoining fields. The deep litter barn housed the majority of them, and every day baskets would be filled ready for the grocer’s twice-weekly visits, when he bought our eggs and provided us with groceries.

      Each morning I was sent to the local farmer to collect milk that came in metal cans; those were the days before people worried about pasteurization. Each day the farmer’s wife would invite me into her warm kitchen and give me milky tea and warm soda bread before I headed home.

      During the days I was too busy to worry about the changing atmosphere in our home. The apprehension I’d felt a year ago had become a reality. My mother’s happiness was controlled by her husband’s moods. Without public transport, with no control over money and not even a public phone within walking distance, the happy woman who once sat laughing in Kent teashops seemed a distant memory. Only Judy and a very tattered Jumbo remained as reminders of those days.

      Once dusk fell I would sit reading my books in the orange light of the Tilly lamps, while my mother waited for my father to come home. I would sit quietly, hoping that quietness made me invisible.

      Some evenings before I went to bed his car could be heard as it drove into our gravel yard. Then she would leap up, placing the kettle on the stove, putting his previously prepared dinner on a plate and a smile of welcome on her face. Butterflies would knot my stomach as I wondered which father would appear at the door. Would it be the cheerful jovial one flourishing a box of chocolates for my mother and chucking me under the chin? Or the scowling man I’d first seen in the lane and who had appeared more and more frequently after that?

      The former could change into the latter at any imaginary slight. My mere presence, I knew, annoyed him. I could feel his gaze on me as I kept my eyes glued to my book, feeling the silent tension build up.

      ‘Can you not help your mother more?’ was a question he would put to me repeatedly.

      ‘What are you reading now?’ was another.

      My mother, still in love with the handsome man who had met us at the docks, was oblivious to my plight. If I put any questions to her in the daytime, as to why my father was often so angry with me, she just told me to try and please him more.

      On the nights when the car had not returned before I went to bed my mother’s brightness would fade and I would be awoken in the middle of the night by raised voices. The arguing would continue until his drunken shouts finally subdued her. The mornings following these nights would be strained as my mother silently went about the house and I made any excuse to leave it. Those nights were frequently followed by the return of the jovial father the next day, bringing sweets home for me and asking how his ‘wee girl’ was. He would hand flowers or chocolates to my mother, kissing her on the cheek, bringing her momentary happiness.

      I СКАЧАТЬ