‘Mum is feeling sad,’ I stutter out, trying to make it into something Maisie’s mum can understand. She turns and looks at me, but keeps driving. When we get home, the Escort is parked on the drive. When Barbara opens the door, I can see she is still in a rage. Maisie’s mum stands with her hand on my shoulder but speaks gently to Barbara. I can see Maisie’s mum doesn’t know what to say. Barbara leans forward, grabs my arm and pulls me into the house, saying, ‘You know what kids are like – and these ones have a chip on their shoulder.’
The door is slammed in Maisie’s mum’s face. I’m pulled down the corridor and whacked across the face for being ‘nothing but trouble’ and told to go up to my bedroom. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was confusing and humiliating, but Barbara always found a new way to torture and punish me.
Barbara never said sorry, she never explained. I was to be abandoned many times by her – being dropped places and not picked up, or simply left while she was in one of her furious rages, when she would drive off. She often got in her car when in a vile mood and drove about the country lanes. At first I thought it was because she needed to get out and get a change of view from the family home. There was some truth in that. She also liked visiting farms to check out the chickens, or in answer to adverts, as she liked getting new dogs. I learnt to be wary of her when we went anywhere in case she drove off suddenly without me, or hid from me, or suddenly disappeared.
One time she drove me to a place called Shotover Woods, a park near Cowley. Barbara told only one nice story about Ian, and it was that when they were courting he took her to Shotover and picked her a bunch of bluebells. I used to think, when she said horrible things about him, that there must have been something good at the beginning, otherwise they wouldn’t have got married. The bluebell wood sounded wonderfully romantic.
One afternoon I was off school, as Barbara had kept me home as usual. We got in the car and she drove very fast. I felt sick, as I often did in the car. If I felt sick she would stop the car very roughly, open the door and throw me
out on the kerb to be sick. She would be furious. ‘Bloody children,’ she’d be muttering. There’d be no sympathy or travel sickness pills. Then we’d be back in the car and roaring at speed down country lanes.
As we drove out to Shotover this afternoon we had to pass by my school. She shouted, ‘Get down,’ as we did, as she didn’t want anyone to see I was in the car, so I slipped onto the floor and hid as we went past; she didn’t have seatbelts. Then I crawled back up once the coast was clear. At Shotover we parked in the car park, which had only a couple of cars in it. She was in one of her spiteful moods, ranting on about Ian. She hated bloody Ian, she hated the nosy parker neighbours, the stupid social workers, the ruddy school. Barbara strode off with the dog, snapping that it was everyone else’s fault. She said I should never trust men, they were filthy, dirty bastards, and she ran through all the usual things she hated, including me. I guessed she had taken some of her tablets and was burning off her anger with a brisk walk involving me and the poor dog.
Eventually we reached a deeply wooded area. It was far away, so we couldn’t hear the traffic from the motorway or even local roads any more. I was sad not to see any bluebells but it was beautiful, leafy and green, and I loved looking up at the trees, where their leaves were rippling in the wind against the blue and grey of the sky. I could hear birds and there were grey squirrels running along branches and hopping. I wondered if I’d see fairies or elves. I’d seen them in books at school. I started daydreaming, enjoying the peace of nature.
I walked on and Barbara was behind me, still ranting to herself, but occasionally said, ‘Look at that bird,’ as a magpie went past. I guessed she must be feeling better, but I didn’t dare look. I loved the bird’s black and white markings, and thought they were amazing. I ran on up to the trees and leant against one. It was solid, with rough bark. It felt strong. I gave it a big hug and looked up at the branches and the leaves shaking in the wind. I could see two magpies now and turned around to tell Barbara, but she was gone. I blinked. Where was she? Where’d she gone? I started running back along the little path through the trees, but it soon became several paths and I got lost very quickly. I was alone, right in the middle of a wood. I didn’t know how to get out. I started crying, feeling frantic and really scared. I ran through the trees, calling ‘Mummy’ and ‘Come back’. The tears and snot were streaming down my face. I had no coat, no hankie, nothing. I was just in a light dress.
Eventually I bumped into a man with his dog. He was old, with a cap and green jacket on. I kept thinking, Men are filthy, dirty creatures, so when he tried to hold my hand I ran away from him screaming. I screamed and screamed, absolutely hysterical now. Then I found three women walking together. I was unable to speak now, as I had been sobbing and running, screaming and shouting: ‘Mummeeee!’
One of the women took my hand, but I hated her touching me. I felt so scared I pulled away, like a wild animal. She was kind and calm and eventually I was able to walk with her to the car park. She put me in her car and gave me a drink of water. I was still panting from sobbing and running so much. The woman said she would take me home and, again, I felt a stab of dread. I gave her my address and we drove in silence. I was so confused. Why had Barbara done this to me? Did she really want to leave me in the woods?
When we drove onto the gravel in front of the house, the Escort was parked and Barbara came out. She was holding tissues to her face.
‘Oh, thank you,’ she said to the woman before she could say anything. Barbara dabbed at her eyes with the tissues. ‘I was about to call the police. I didn’t know what to do. I turned around and she had just run off. She’s very difficult to look after,’ she explained to the woman. ‘She’s an unwanted child, and I’ve done my best for her. She has a chip on her shoulder – just like they all do.’
The woman handed me over and gave me a strange look. I knew I had to play the game. I went in and nothing was said – not a word. She didn’t explain; she didn’t say sorry. This time I was told to go and feed the chickens. I never said a word to Ian; not even to Sean. It felt so scary that she could do that to me that it sort of shut me up and made me cling onto what I had. The idea of the night in the wood alone was terrifying, but worse was to come. And these incidents triggered memories of similar things that had happened when I was even younger.
The first time I was dumped I was about six years old. She had actually abandoned me before in many places, like Debenhams, local shops or playgrounds. I usually got home with the help of a nice adult or a school friend’s mother. Then, when I was eight, she drove me, again at high speed, to a place called Wytham, just outside Oxford. I had never really met people from Barbara’s family, although she did have some relatives still living. This was yet another day I should have been at school, but I’d been kept home as usual because I was ‘coming down with something’. I wasn’t, as I had done chores all morning.
We parked up the car and she got out and started striding towards a stone cottage on a bend in a country lane. There was an elderly couple, Rene and Fred, in the cottage, and we went in. I was sent outside to the back garden but Barbara stayed and sat with them. I had no idea who they were or why we were there. I knew Barbara had worked for years for an Oxford couple as a nanny – she was proud of that time in her life – and maybe these people were old friends from back then.
She had recently begun to mention things about my birth mother, who came from the Oxford area. I didn’t get any clear information but she kept talking about her, getting me quite interested. I didn’t know if this couple had something to do with my birth mother. Then Rene came outside with a metal tin filled with custard creams. I took a couple and sat outside in the garden, on the cobbles in a little courtyard, while Barbara had tea and biscuits with them inside. I always amused myself by looking at things, especially flowers. The garden was full of lovely blooms – red, blue, yellow, white. Big daisies, roses, tall purple flowers, like bells. I was lost in looking at everything. I wanted to draw them but had no paper. So I set about memorizing the shapes and colours for later. When she was ready to leave, Barbara shouted, ‘Louise’, and I scrambled up and we said our goodbyes.
On the way back I enjoyed the view out of the window over the fields. I loved seeing the big fat cows nibbling on the grass. I said, ‘Hello, cows,’ to myself as we passed. I always loved animals and liked to wave to them. I felt Barbara was in a dark mood now, worse than when we arrived, and I didn’t know why. She wasn’t speaking at all, and she was gripping the steering wheel so hard her knuckles were white with a pink glow.
Suddenly she turned the car abruptly and we were bumping up a narrow lane through the trees. We turned right and left, and were then in the middle of woods. I was confused.
‘Get out,’ she ordered. So I did. We walked with the dog through the woods for a while but it was getting chilly. Then Barbara did something strange. She sat down on a big stone and started crying. She cried and cried and I stood watching her, not knowing what to do. The dog and I sat down next to her. I leant over and put my hand on her hand, which was icy cold.
‘Get off me, you stupid little girl,’ she snapped through her tears. I felt foolish. Stupid. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. What had I done now? What was wrong? Barbara began talking to herself and hitting herself on the head with her fists. I felt scared watching her doing this. I didn’t know why she was doing it. It was usually me she was hitting, so I actually felt sorry for her. I knew how much it hurt. Still I stood watching, not knowing what to do. She looked up and saw me looking.
‘Go away and leave me alone,’ she shrieked. ‘Get out of my sight!’
I turned around and started walking. I didn’t know where I was going but I was crying now. I was scared of her. What would she do to me? Why was she hitting herself? I’d never seen Barbara like this, and I walked a little way away, hoping she would feel better. It was beginning to get dark. I looked back and she was still on the stone, pointing to a path. ‘Keep walking,’ she shouted. So I did, saying, ‘Mummy, stop’ to myself in a quiet scared voice.
When I turned around to look again, she was gone. I froze on the spot. What should I do? I knew she didn’t want me to run back towards her, yet I didn’t know where I should go. She had told me to keep walking, so I kept walking. The whole situation was very scary. I walked and walked. The sky was still blue, although the light was fading. There were lovely trees. I climbed over a wooden stile, and then slipped on a cowpat and got all dirty. I got up and ran through a field of big red cows, who turned and looked at me, chewing the cud. Then I realised I could see the cottage we were at earlier, the one with Rene and Fred. I ran through the field and eventually got to the house. When I knocked on the door, Rene and Fred were there but they were not that pleased to see me. I was ushered through the house and out into the back garden where I’d eaten the custard creams earlier.
Rene gave me a glass of squash and I drank it, as I was very thirsty. She went to the telephone and eventually came out and explained she’d had to call social services, as she couldn’t find Barbara, and they would come and get me. I was extremely upset. Where was ‘Mummy’? Rene told me she was not coming. I started pulling out my eyelashes, pulling out my hair. Where was I going? What was happening? Would I see Sean again? I was really frightened as I sat and looked at the flowers in the garden. I willed them to help me.
When the social worker arrived it was a man wearing a leather jacket and jeans. I usually saw women in twos. He was about the same age as I
an and had brown hair and a crinkly face, but I found him a bit scary. He had a big brown moustache.
I said, ‘Thank you for the squash,’ and the social worker put me in the back of his green car. As we drove off I had no idea where we were going. We were driving along with me in the back seat looking out at the fields and cows again. Where was Barbara now? Where were we going? I could see the man’s brown eyes shining in the driving mirror.
‘Well, Louise,’ he said, smiling. ‘You’re a pretty little girl, aren’t you?’
I didn’t say anything and just looked out the window, hoping to see more cows. I liked cows.