Helpless: The true story of a neglected girl betrayed and exploited by the neighbour she trusted. Toni MaguireЧитать онлайн книгу.
smile suddenly appeared on my father’s face, one that scared me as much as his scowl had. He stood so close to my mother that his body forced her to step backwards until her back touched the wall. Fear drained the colour from her face, leaving it a ghostly white. I heard her try and say his name, heard his harsh breathing, saw his hand snake into his pocket and withdraw a cigarette lighter. It only took a few seconds to flick it alight with his thumb. Before my mother had a chance to realize what he was going to do, to my horror he bent down and put the naked flame to the lace hem of her slip. His other hand was pushed against her stomach, stopping her moving.
‘Burt,’ she screamed, ‘please let me go.’ She tried to shove him away but he just laughed and held her in place. Panic made me leap from my chair and do what I had seen her do when a spark from the fire had landed on clothing drying in front of the stove. I picked up an old newspaper and, pushing in between them, started beating at the small flame that had taken hold. He sniggered at us and let her go. She rushed to the sink and drenched her skirt with water, and just for a moment I forgot how afraid of him I was.
‘You are bad. You are a bad, bad, mean daddy,’ I yelled, looking up into his surprised face.
‘Who do you think you’re shouting at?’ he roared back. ‘Don’t you be cheeking me, you little brat. Get up to your bed now, do you hear?’
His hand cracked against the back of my head and black spots floated in front of my eyes and I nearly fell with shock at the power of that blow. But some sense of dignity made me keep my balance and walk out of that room, up the stairs and into my room.
I kept my tears for when I was alone.
When the rows seemed to continue from one day to the next, my tiny bedroom became my haven.
There I could burrow under my bedding – a mixture of old coats and torn sheets – and pull them over my ears. With eyes tightly shut and my body trembling with fear, I tried to block out the noises that frightened me. Those shouts, screams and blows that I knew came from downstairs or my parents’ bedroom and not from my dreams.
But no matter how deep I wriggled under the bedding or how high I tried to pull it over my ears, the bellows of my father’s fury always reached me.
‘Bitch! Whore!’ he would shout, and although I did not understand the words, the ferocity of his rage always made me shudder.
My thumb would creep up into my mouth as my body shook with silent tears and my free hand clutched my rag doll with the painted face. Each time I would also hear my mother’s shrill pleas for him to stop followed by her heart-wrenching sobs.
Please make them stop, was the chant that repeated over and over again in my head; but when they did, the thick silence terrified me even more.
But there were days when the blackness of my father’s temper lifted. His scowl turned into a smile and he spoke in gentler tones. The trips to the pub, he told my mother, were a thing of the past; he was going to stay in after dinner. She had heard it all before and knew deep down that the period of sobriety would not last, but that did not stop her hoping every time that they would.
On those days, the premature lines that worry had etched onto my mother’s face lightened and the basket full of the various materials that made up a rug-making kit would appear. The only sparse flashes of colour in our home came from those homemade rag rugs which, apart from the cold brown lino, provided covering for the floors.
My parents would sit in front of the blazing log fire with the tools, necessary to turn the most basic of material scraps into floor coverings, spread out in front of them. Assortments of threadbare clothing, thrown out for rags by the farmer’s wife, a pair of scissors and a pile of sacks were mainly all that was necessary. My mother cut the salvageable material into long strips and sorted it into different colours, then passed it to him to patiently weave into the sacking. Wanting to be useful as well, I silently picked up scraps that had fallen onto the floor and placed them in another bag.
My father would take a long thin piece of metal with a curved hook at one end and a sharp point at the other that resembled a huge crotchet hook, and laboriously thread it with the strips of fabric. His second step was to pull it through what had once been Hessian potato bags from the farm. Then, finally, each fabric strip was knotted into place. My father’s calloused hands shook from the absence of drink as he repeated that exercise time after time until colourful rugs of various sizes appeared.
‘There’s one for your bedroom, Marianne,’ he once said gruffly to me when he had finished working on a particularly colourful one. ‘Stop your feet freezing when you get out of bed,’ and he tossed the completed rug to me.
‘Thank you,’ I said, grateful not just for the rug but for the unexpected attention. I smiled tentatively at him and received an answering smile back.
That night when I went upstairs I proudly spread the rug beside my bed, and when I woke in the morning I simply gazed down at it, admiring its warm glow. All I wanted then was for his good temper to last, my mother’s face to continue smiling and for the angry noises never to start again.
For those were the parents I wanted them to be.
But time after time I was to be disappointed.
I had heard mention of the word ‘school’ and knew that it meant I had to sit in a classroom with other children, listen to a teacher and learn how to read and do sums, but until I was told that I was due to start in a week’s time I had not paid any attention.
‘Marianne, you’re not a baby,’ my mother said impatiently when I said I wanted to stay home with her, ‘so please stop acting like one. Anyhow you’ll enjoy it once you get there. You’ll make some little friends and it will be good for you.’
But I did not see it that way. Apart from a few visits to my father’s relatives, I was not used to mixing with anyone other than my parents. The thought of being away from home made me follow my mother around the house trying to make her change her mind.
‘Stop your nonsense, you’re going and that is that,’ she said when I had repeated my protests for the umpteenth time.
My mother continued to grumble that I knew how busy she was and that I should be grateful that she was going to take and collect me every day, not just put me on a bus. She omitted to say that her reason for taking me on her bicycle was because buses cost money and I was too young to walk the two miles to school alone.
The day I was dreading, my first day at school, came all too quickly. Apart from having my face and hands washed after breakfast it began the same as any other. A dress I had worn several times was pulled over my head, my feet went into black Wellington boots and my hair was given a cursory brush. It was not until a satchel, bought from the second-hand shop, was placed on my back, and I was lifted onto the small seat behind the saddle of my mother’s bicycle and told to hang on tightly, that I fully accepted that I was on my way to school.
Feeling every bump of those country lanes, I clung to my mother tightly for that entire journey. Once we arrived at the school she leant her rusty bicycle against the wall and lifted me down. Ignoring the other mothers who stood chatting together in the playground, she walked up to a young woman who, standing with a large notebook in the centre of a group of young children and their mothers, was obviously the teacher in charge.
‘Bringing my daughter for her first day,’ my mother said abruptly. ‘Her name’s Marianne.’
‘You be good, Marianne – do what your teacher tells you. I’ll be here to collect you later,’ she said to me before turning and walking briskly to her bicycle. I stared after her, knowing her leaving me was the reason I was feeling completely bereft.
I felt my bottom lip tremble as I saw her peddling away and bit down on it, hoping that my tears would not start. I did not want to look foolish in front of the other children.
‘Marianne,’ I heard the teacher