Daddy's Little Earner (7 page)

The Bunns must have known that things were tough
for us because when I was seven or eight they even invited
me on holiday with them to Hemsby, on the Norfolk
coast, one summer. I don’t know how they got Dad to
agree but I was glad they did because it was one of the
happiest times of my young life. Ann bought me some
pink cotton pyjamas with stripes on the bottom and polka
dots on the top and I thought they were the prettiest, softest
things I had ever seen. I got sunburnt playing outside
during the day and she gently rubbed calamine lotion
onto my skin in the evening to try to cool me down and
prevent me from peeling. At that moment I felt so cared
for and so normal, although all through the holiday I
still felt like the odd one out in the group, like an observer
merely there to see how a normal family worked. I believed that I didn’t deserve to be loved and cherished
like the Bunn children were, although I wasn’t sure why
not. I believed that everything horrible in my life was my
own fault; that I was a bad person and didn’t deserve any
better. I knew that was right because Dad was continually
screaming it at me, although I didn’t know why
or what I should do to become a better, more lovable
person.

Many years later, when I was in my thirties, I bumped
into Ann when she came into the B & Q store where I was
working and we chatted about that holiday all those years
ago.

‘I’ve never forgotten that time,’ I told her.

‘I’ve got some photographs at home somewhere, and
some of you playing in our garden too,’ she said. ‘I’ll pop
them in to you if you’d like to see them.’

I was so pleased I could have kissed her, but at the
same time I felt a stab of pain to think that this woman,
who was really no more than a neighbour, had thought it
was worth keeping some photographs of me when my
own family had never cared enough to do that. It had
always hurt me that no one valued me enough to take any
pictures of me and the fact that Ann Bunn had some
made me realize all the more how little my own parents
had cared for me. When she brought them in a few days
later it was like looking at a stranger. I’d had no idea what
I looked like when I was small. I was surprised to see that I was really quite cute, not fat, ugly and unlovable as Dad
was always telling me I was.

There were always plenty of new opportunities coming
along for Dad to mock and humiliate me. I loved
music lessons at school and I enrolled to learn to play the
violin. You had to be on a waiting list to be allowed your
own instrument and it was a great privilege when you
were eventually given one to learn with. When it was
finally my turn to be allowed a violin and I was told that I
could take it home for a week or two to practise I was
thrilled. I felt so proud as I stood in the front room and
started playing a few notes for Dad. I was eager for praise
and encouragement but instead he just laughed and belittled
me.

‘You’re pathetic,’ he sneered. ‘You’ll never be able to
master that.’

And then he grew angry at the noise I was making.

‘Don’t ever bring that bloody thing home again!’

He never wanted me to do anything that would be
outside his control, outside the little world where he was
the undisputed king. I desperately wanted to go to Sunday
school like my best friend at the time, because it
would have been a chance to get out of the house and
because I knew the children who attended used to be given
milk and biscuits and would come back home with
pictures they had painted, but Dad wasn’t going to allow
that. He was the same about me joining the Brownies or the Guides or doing anything else that other little girls
did. It was as if he thought that as a family we were too
different and special to behave like everyone else, reinforcing
in me the idea that I would never be able to fit in
or be as good as everyone else.

There was a lovely church called St Catherine’s a few
streets from where we lived, which was used by our school
for their Christmas and Easter festivities. When I was
eight they asked me if I would like to be an angel in the
school nativity play and I was over the moon but as usual
Dad forbade me from taking part. He didn’t give any reason
– he didn’t feel he had to – and I was left with the feeling
that such things were too good for someone like me.
Each time I asked to be allowed to do something he would
tell me that I wouldn’t be capable of it, that I would make
a fool of myself, and I believed him. I believed I was useless
and didn’t deserve to have any of the things other children
had or do any of the things they did.

I used to have a recurring nightmare during the years
we lived with Dad. I would feel like I was caught in the
centre of a spiral of colourful circles. As the spiral gathered
speed I would feel trapped, falling faster and deeper
into nothingness, certain that if I didn’t get out I was
going to die. I would try to scream for help but no sounds
would come out of my mouth and I would wake up feeling
dizzy and nauseous. The nightmares went on for
many years, both waking and sleeping.

O
ne winter morning when I was about eight, Dad,
Terry and I were relaxing indoors watching television
and eating chips. It was snowy outside but the sun
was streaming in through the windows and the doors of
the coal-burning stove were standing open, making the
room feel warm and cosy in the light of the flames. At
moments like that I loved our family life, just the three
of us together and safe from the outside world in our
own home. Eager to maintain the peaceful mood and
keep Dad happy I stood up to clear away our plates after
eating, thinking I was being a good girl, when something
caught my attention on the television. As I
watched the screen my concentration slipped for a second,
my hand tilted without me noticing and some
grease slid off the plate onto the carpet. Dad saw it first
and bellowed at me, startling me so much I froze on the spot and the grease continued to flow, making him even
angrier, as if I was deliberately disobeying him.

The tranquil mood of a few seconds earlier vanished
forever as he leapt from his chair and came at me in a
fury, throwing me round the room like a rag doll, sending
the plates smashing in all directions, making the mess a
hundred times worse. I was terrified as I hurtled through
the air that my head would shatter against the walls as
easily as the plates.

As his rage became more controlled he snatched up his
stick and gave me ten whacks on my bare backside, and
still his anger didn’t abate. Pushing me aside he stormed
upstairs, stripping the blankets off all our beds and scooping
up towels wherever they lay. I stood trembling, no
idea what was going to happen next but sure I wouldn’t
like it. He found everything he possibly could that needed
washing, forcing it all into two large black bin bags until
they bulged at their fragile seams.

‘Right,’ he shouted when he’d finished, throwing
them down at my feet. ‘Walk up to Nanny’s with that lot.’

I knew exactly how hard it was to carry a single bin liner
full of washing that far, I had done it a hundred times
over the years, but never two at the same time and never
with this much stuffed into them. I knew it was at least a
three-or four-mile walk and I could hardly lift the bags
they were so heavy. Panic-stricken and unable to stop
myself, I burst into tears. I knew from long experience that
when he got this angry there was no point arguing with
him or pleading, that it would just make him more eager
to hit me. I also knew that crying was going to make the
situation worse, but I couldn’t help it. The logical part of
my brain was telling me that I was going to have to do it,
so I could choose either to get another beating as well or
just get on with it.

He opened the door and pushed me out through it.
The cold winter air was a shock after the warmth of the
room and I asked if I could get my coat.

‘No, you fucking can’t,’ he roared, ‘just get on with it.’

He threw the bags out onto the path and slammed the
door behind me. My knees gave way beneath me and I sat
down in a crumpled heap, wondering what to do next,
knowing that I really only had one option but uncertain if
I would be physically strong enough to do it. I was already
shaking with cold and sore from the beating. I desperately
wanted to go back indoors into the warm, but I knew
better than to knock on the door or to beg through the letterbox.
There was nothing for it but to accept my punishment
and get on with the task he had set me. Pulling
myself to my feet I did my best to gather up the huge, slippery
sacks and took the first few stumbling steps on my
seemingly impossible journey.

It seemed to take forever, the bags getting heavier and
more cumbersome with every step. The thin plastic kept
splitting wherever I gripped it, making it harder to keep a hold on the escaping laundry and impossible to drag the
bags along the ground. I prayed someone in a passing car
would see me struggling and offer me a lift, but no one
stopped. To distract myself from the pain I devised a
game, scoring the houses I passed for their tidiness. Then
I set myself little goals to reach between each rest, breaking
the journey down into manageable stages. As I passed
other people’s windows I seemed to see nothing but happy
smiling faces and I longed to be inside in the warm
with them, to be part of a normal family where everyone
was nice to one another. I knew I didn’t deserve to be that
happy because Dad was always telling me so, shouting at
me about how bad I was and how it was all my fault Mum
had gone away, but that didn’t stop me from fantasizing
about it.

When I finally fell in through Nanny’s front door she
was obviously shocked by the state of me and by the flimsy
clothes I’d been sent out in. When I told her what had
happened, expecting her to be cross with me for spilling
the grease on the floor too, she was remarkably sympathetic.
Normally I would have expected her to give me a
telling off as well, maybe even an extra clip round the ear
for good measure. Having someone be kind to me opened
the floodgates and I couldn’t stop crying. Although she
still didn’t cuddle me, because she never could bring herself
to do that, she did at least sit me down and make me a
hot drink, assuring me everything would be all right, and that she would sort Dad out. She rang him in front of me
and gave him a good telling off for what he had made me
do. It felt so nice to have someone actually speaking up
for me, although as I listened I wished she would stop
before she made him even angrier with me. I knew I was
going to have to go back soon and I didn’t want him to be
waiting at the door with the stick again. My backside was
still stinging from the previous thrashing.

I had such a lovely afternoon with Nanny I didn’t
want to go home, but she assured me Dad wouldn’t hit
me any more, and even gave me some money so I could
take the bus back. I left her bungalow weighed down
with two carrier bags full of groceries and another bin liner
full of clean laundry from the previous week. I was
pretty sure Dad would be pleased with the free food and
that going through the bags would calm him down a bit
and maybe even make him forget how angry he was with
me. I started to feel a little better as I sat on the bus,
although still apprehensive about what I might have to
face when I walked in through the front door.

It had been an exhausting day and I must have closed
my eyes for a second in the warmth of the bus and drifted
off. When I opened them I realized I’d missed my stop
and immediately panicked. I didn’t want to have to walk
miles back with all Nanny’s bags when every muscle in
my body was still aching from the first trip. I hauled
myself out of my seat and lurched down the moving bus to the platform at the back, waiting for an opportunity to
get off. When the driver slowed down at some traffic
lights I took a chance and jumped. As I stumbled onto the
cold pavement, landing in a heap, one of Nanny’s carrier
bags split open. I stared in dismay at a bag of sugar that
had exploded across the pavement, mingling with the
snow and slush. I felt physically sick at the sight of what I
had done. How was I going to tell Dad that I had made
yet another clumsy mistake? He would be utterly furious
that I had wasted a whole bag of free sugar.

I sat on the ground for what seemed like ages, wondering
what to do, just wanting the pavement to open
up and swallow me. I even considered turning round
and running away, leaving all the bags where they had
fallen rather than facing his wrath yet again; but I
couldn’t think of anywhere to run to. I could hardly go
back to Nanny’s now that I had spilled her sugar and I
didn’t have any money left for another bus anyway.
There was no option but to go into the house and face
the music.

As I packed everything back into the bags I thought
maybe I would be able to get away with it since Dad had
no idea what had been in them when Nanny first sent me
off. I decided to just pretend nothing had happened and
hope for the best.

The moment I came through the door Dad told me
he’d been on the phone to Nanny, asking when I would be home. She’d told him she was sending groceries and
he’d asked exactly what she was sending. My heart sank
as he told me this while he unpacked the bag greedily,
praying that he wouldn’t miss the sugar.

‘Where’s the sugar?’ he demanded.

Panic overwhelmed me and I lied before I could stop
myself. ‘Nanny didn’t give us any sugar.’

‘She told me she did.’

Dad was determined to get to the bottom of the mystery.
He did not intend to be cheated out of a free bag of
sugar. I desperately wanted to take back my lie and tell
him the truth but I’d left it too late and become trapped
by my own panicked words. I’d made things even worse
for myself because now if I was found out I would be in
trouble both for spilling the sugar and for lying. It would
have been so much better to have owned up from the
beginning and taken my punishment – after all I
deserved it, didn’t I?