‘Thief! Thief! Liar, liar, pants on fire!’ he chanted childishly. ‘I ate all your food – there’s none left, nah nah!’ Then he burst into laughter and slammed the door.
A week later I was doing my Saturday chores. One of my jobs was to take an old grey Hoover round the house and vacuum everywhere. I had to take it all the way upstairs, one step at a time, and vacuum the whole house top to bottom. This did mean that I could go into rooms I didn’t usually go into – as I wasn’t usually allowed anywhere other than my bedroom, the bathroom, toilet and kitchen. This meant I actually went into Barbara and Ian’s bedroom. I had to hoover round the beds very carefully. I wasn’t allowed to open any drawers in her tallboy or dressing table, which were all in matching dark wood. I also couldn’t open the wardrobe, it was forbidden. It did mean I could hoover up any poo that had crumbled under the bed – and I always checked how things were going down there. I also had to polish the surfaces with Pledge and a yellow duster.
Barbara never wore make-up or perfume, and didn’t have any jewellery like Maisie (bracelets, necklaces or beads). But she did have a little glass tree on her dressing table, which had three gold rings hanging on it. I polished the glass on the mirrors and the surface of the dressing table, and then I put down my duster and the Pledge. In my childish curiosity I slipped the rings onto my fingers and held my hand up to the mirror and put it against my face. Just like I had played with Maisie’s rings. I stared at myself in the mirror and liked what I saw – three gold rings on my little fingers. I had had a taste of jewellery now at Maisie’s and I loved the idea. Barbara hardly ever wore these rings, and I wondered if they were her wedding and engagement rings.
Just then the door flung open. There was Kevin. He saw me with the rings on my fingers. I jumped and put them back on the glass tree and felt very scared. Kevin disappeared as fast as he had appeared. I held my breath and listened. I could hear his footsteps going along the landing to his room. He wasn’t going straight down to the kitchen to tell on me, so maybe it was all right. The threat of the police was still hanging over me. I didn’t want to be whacked again with Barbara’s Cuban-heeled shoes either. So I carried on dusting and Pledging and hoped everything would be all right.
Next morning, Sunday, I was waking up and Barbara shot into my bedroom, dragged me from the bed by my arm and pulled me to standing.
‘You little thief,’ she hissed. Ian was wandering along the landing in his pyjamas, and stood in the doorway. ‘Don’t hurt her,’ he said meekly.
‘Mind your own bloody business,’ she snapped at him. ‘I’ll do as I see right!’ Then she turned back to me, dragged me out the door, past Ian, down the stairs and into the kitchen. I was shaking. I didn’t know what was wrong, or what had happened, but I knew it would be really, really bad. Barbara bent over towards me and grabbed my chin tight in her left-hand grip.
‘Now look at me, you little bitch. Tell me the truth for once – where ha
ve you put my ring?’
I felt sick. The room started turning. I began to stutter, ‘I haven’t…’ when her right hand appeared and punched me hard across the face. A tooth flew out along with a spurt of blood. My mouth was suddenly full of bitter hot liquid. She hit me again across the face, the other way.
‘Where is my ring, you little lying, thieving bitch?’
I had blood and spit dribbling down my chin and my mouth was sore. I shook my head as tears bubbled over. She punched me again in the face, not holding my chin with the other hand, and this time I went flying across the kitchen and hit the larder door.
‘Get up. Get up, you little bastard!’ She was coming for me again. I was hurting everywhere – my mouth was full of blood, my face stung, my lips swelling. I lifted myself up off the floor and she came over and stood in front of me. She bent over to face me and I could smell her hot, musty breath as she spat out her words.
‘You’re playing it like that now, are you? Go to your room this instant.’
I went out the door, up the stairs, along the landing with my heart racing, my hand clamped on my mouth. I knew I had tried on the rings, but I also knew I had put all three back. I knew I had. I’d been careful this time. I felt terrified. What was she going to do with me? Were the police coming to get me? Was I going to prison?
I spent the whole of Sunday in my room. No food. No drink. No nothing. My mouth was hurting where the tooth had come out, and I had dried blood on my lips and face. I listened to life going on downstairs and in the street. I heard Ian go out the house to the garage, doors opening and closing, hosepipes spraying, lawn mowers revving. There were car doors opening and slamming, dogs barking, and voices wafting up from the garden. I even heard Sean say, ‘Mornin’, Ma’am,’ as he did to Barbara as he passed by the house. I guessed she was out in the lane doing something.
I was very hungry and very scared. I looked out the window, over the back garden, looking for a sign of Sean. I eventually heard Kevin call to Ian, ‘Dinnertime,’ and, much later, ‘Tea’s ready.’ I wanted to go to the toilet, but I was scared – too scared to go outside. Eventually I thought I would wet myself and I opened the door a crack. On the floor was a glass of water and one slice of dry bread. I peeked my head out of the door and, seeing the landing was clear, tiptoed to the toilet. I didn’t flush, as I was scared of making a noise.
On the way back I picked up the bread and water and ate and drank it very quickly in my room, despite my sore mouth, then put the plate and glass back exactly where it had been. I then heard the sound of the television going on in the best room downstairs, and canned laughter wafted up as the light began to go down on the day. A whole Sunday just in my room. She didn’t even come in and do the night routine – I was in total isolation. As the sun went down I watched the sky turn from blue to pink to orange to navy. I looked at the trees and saw birds gathering, swirling in bunches. I felt a bit calmer seeing colours in the evening sky.
Next morning, Monday, I was kept home from school, as I was ‘bad’. I didn’t care either way now, although I hated being in the house just with Barbara. When Ian left, I heard him say, ‘I want her out of that room today, Barbara, or I’ll call social services myself.’ I was amazed. He never usually stood up to her. I heard the door slam and Barbara mumbling something.
Suddenly my door was flung open. ‘Come down,’ she ordered. I was still in my pyjamas, and I trotted downstairs behind her, feeling quite dizzy and lightheaded. Theatrically, Barbara put on yellow Marigold gloves and we both went outside. I was barefoot. She went to the dustbin at the side of the house and started taking all the stuff out and throwing it on the floor.
‘Louise, why are you doing this to me?’ she said, as she threw empty cans of dog food and paper bags on the ground. It was very pongy. I said nothing. I was made to put all the smelly stuff back with my bare hands. I was eventually given some breakfast and then sent back up to my room.
When Kevin came round after school he also pushed my door wide open and shouted, ‘You’re a liar! You’ve broken Auntie Barbara’s heart, you little shit.’ I sat on my bed, saying nothing, wondering what was going on. I had Tony in my hands and squeezed him to me. Kevin disappeared, after which I could hear Barbara crying, loud howls, which was strange. She never cried usually. It sounded very dramatic. I could hear Kevin saying nice things to her: ‘It’s all right, we’ll find it.’
I was still kept home from school for the next few days, as this was a ‘crisis’. I also think the bruises on my face, which now had black fingermarks and cuts, would have made people ask some difficult questions. My lip was also split, and there was a gap where my tooth had been. Barbara ignored me most of the time. Then, one evening when Ian was home, she grabbed me near the larder and gripped my chin again with her steely fingers.
‘You think you can pull the wool over my eyes, you lying, thieving little bitch. You manipulate your dad against me, you have him round your little finger; you’re a spoilt, nasty little cow.’
She spat all this in my face and then tossed me against the wall. I pressed my back against it, trying to shrink from view. How was I manipulating him? Was she angry that he had tried to stop her locking me in my room? I never spoke to Ian and he never really spoke to me. I was just trying to survive.
Being under attack meant that I had to use my head all the time. I was constantly having to work out what was going on. I would use my head – or, rather, my imagination – to make things smaller, to shrink them down when I felt upset. I would imagine horrible things that had happened to me, or earlier to William, and then shrink them and let them float away. I used my imagination all the time: like squeezing my eyes and seeing colours, which was a great way of escaping what was going on in the room at any time. Or even during punishment. I would distract myself, and I could float out of my body and just move things around in my mind and put them away when I didn’t like them.
I had to do this because it was all too much to keep in my mind all the time – the horrible things that happened were too painful. So I learnt to wrap them up and pop them in the back of my head, like wrapping a parcel or a present. I would post them right at the back of my mind, hide them away, and not come back to them until later, if at all. I didn’t want to feel all the horrible crushing feelings, as they were too big and scary. I would slip and slide them around, turn them into shapes and colours, hide them and ignore them or paint an imaginary picture with them.
My main way of surviving was to rebel, very quietly and secretively, and when I was eight going on nine this became quite a complicated thing. Sometimes it looked like I was being very good, very nice, when in fact I was just playing being very good and very nice. Inside I felt very different, but I knew I had to keep thinking, keep working out how to survive. It would make me smile if I got away with something and she didn’t notice or find out. It would make me feel better when I got something I wanted – like nice cherry brandy or the dog’s Choc Drops – and she had absolutely no idea what was going on. For a moment I felt I had some power in a situation where I actually felt totally powerless. I went to the ‘Louise place’ in my head and nobody could see in there, not least Barbara, who was my worst enemy number one.
This ring situation went on and on for two whole weeks. I heard Barbara telling our neighbours that I was ‘a little thief’ and ‘not to be trusted’. She told my teachers and she told our local doctor. And she did actually even go and tell the police – we marched into the police station and she told the story. The policeman looked at me and said, ‘You wouldn’t do that, would you?’
I shook my head, speechless and completely dumbstruck. Barbara grabbed me and pulled me out of the station, huffing and puffing all the way home, shouting at the dog the whole time. An elderly couple came up and told her off for hurting the dog – and she told them to ‘Mind your own sodding business!’ They were very shocked and scuttled off. I felt hugely embarrassed but said nothing.