Escaping the Darkness (17 page)

During his lifetime my sons had adored their grandfather, and they still tell me they miss him – he still has a hold on me through each of them. They often talk fondly of times they spent with him here by this beautiful lake, and I have to take part in those conversations. During each one I feel sick with worry about what they would say if they knew anything about what their grandfather had done to me. I kept my secret hidden very well; no one would ever know from looking at me what my past held or the things I have lived through. To the outside world and those who know me I am quite simply, Sarah.

Many of the days, months and seasons that followed held much the same for me as they had always done. I lived a busy life as a mother, wife and friend. I continued to bring my sons up in a way I thought was fitting, and as always, Sam and I were truly blessed by the love we shared. We had a bond that grew stronger than anything I had ever known in my life before. As each new day was lived, each new season passed us by more rapidly than the last.

I loved to see the seasons change. Spring was one of my favourites, a time when I could watch things uncoiling and blooming into life. A different, more unique and exquisite picture seemed to evolve each day. No two days were ever the same. Summer brought the end of the school term. We went on camping holidays, and did lots
of walking and saw all those beautiful sunrises and sunsets that all seemed to be in a competition to be better than the last. I have seen many sizzling sunsets during our time spent in Cornwall, and just when I think they don’t get any better, they always do. I don’t know what it is that entrances me so about them, but I always feel as if I am safer at that time of day. That may not make sense to most people because over the years I have dreaded going to bed in case the dreams start. Yet a sunset seems to bring such calm into my life, and lifts my spirit to a point where I truly feel I can relax.

I used to love autumn and its rich tapestry of colours, but there was a point where, as each tired leaf fell from the trees onto the ground, I was transported back to when I was eleven again. It was autumn when Mum and I first used to walk past the old cemetery to get to the bingo hall she frequented. I would run through the leaves that lay on the ground. I used to imagine that each leaf was telling me to kick it up high so that it could reattach itself to the branch it fell from, and thus live a little longer. I never quite managed to kick those leaves high enough, and as I ran through them expending all my stored energy on a kick, each leaf fell back onto the ground behind me, quietly accepting its fate to the mercy of the elements.

Winter was a season when the boys waited in anticipation for the snow to fall so, if they were lucky, they could build snowmen. I always had to make sure a carrot was available, and that I still had the right sized pieces of coal in the coalhouse for eyes and buttons. I specifically
remember one coal delivery just before Christmas when every piece of coal was like a boulder; perfect for fires but not much good for buttons on a snowman. If we weren’t lucky enough to have snow to build snowmen, at least they all knew that the arrival of Christmas was a true certainty. As each Christmas knocked on our door, a perfect real Christmas tree graced our lounge and the scent of pine lingered in the air. Having a real Christmas tree was a tradition I have carried with me since I was a child, when my granddad would always bring one for us from his home in Westmorland. Sam and I watched the boys’ eyes light up with bewildered joy, as parcels containing presents they had only ever dreamed of were opened up. I remember one year when Sam and I decided to buy the boys a bike each.

Five shiny new bicycles were wheeled into the lounge one by one. Even Timothy, who was only four, got one. He loved that bright yellow-and-red bike, with its little yellow stabilisers. He continued to ride it until it fell to pieces many years later, when he had long outgrown it. Michael had his first racing bike whilst James, Andrew and William were given mountain bikes.

They spent most of the day circumnavigating the patch of grass that lay in front of the row of houses we lived in. As the day grew colder, damper and darker they all wanted to stay out, but after a while Sam and I managed to rein them all in by promising them all they could go out again as soon as possible on Boxing Day.

As the New Year began, I started thinking about our
last trip to Cornwall. Sam’s questions and his quest to know the truth had stirred up emotions and memories I was desperate to forget. I had lived with the secrets and lies for a very long time and had wanted to keep them buried. I tried to forget everything: the conversations in Cornwall, the memories recurring and the visions of Bill in my home. I remembered each one had been as clear as the glass in a new mirror. I felt I had reached a point of no return and knew that if I didn’t do something soon, then my past would interfere with my future.

As the years passed us by and the older boys grew up and left home, we decided to leave the people we knew and the familiarity of the town I had lived in my whole life and move closer to the coast. We headed towards a new start and a new beginning, moving into an old Victorian house that was our own. This place was perfect: it had space, huge windows that let light fill the rooms and, more importantly, it felt like I was home, really home. Life by the sea was idyllic, un-rushed and carefree. The only downside was that my memories had moved in, too.

One late summer’s night I sat up writing all my thoughts down on paper. I wrote in the tiniest handwriting for two solid hours and then folded the paper up tight and put it inside my dressing gown pocket. The following morning the sentiments behind the words woke me at six, and I knew I had to go to the beach and bury the piece of paper in the sand. It was a beautiful morning, the sun was rising, and I could see the tide had already been and gone a good few hours earlier. In my heart I knew I needed the tide
to be in. I didn’t want anyone digging up, or accidentally discovering my piece of paper and knowing my secrets.

I convinced myself that I had done a good job with the burial, and that the only thing that could uncover my piece of the past would be the new incoming tide. I wanted to wait around and see my paper get swept away out to sea, but after I had walked down to where the tide table was displayed I realised I would have to wait eight hours for the tide to return. I had more pressing things to deal with. I had to get home – I remembered that I hadn’t left a note for Sam, and I knew he would worry if he woke up to find me gone.

But I managed to reconcile my fears with one thought: no one would find my slip of paper buried that close to the old pier. I knew it was safe from discovery, and also I realised how daft I was to think anyone would be interested in a sand-covered, damp, scrunched-up piece of paper like that anyway.

On Monday, the day after I knew the tide had taken away the record of my past, unusually I felt far better than I had done recently. The sun was shining and with it came a sense of freedom I had never encountered before. My whole body felt like it was floating into a new life.

As we drove to work I told Sam how different I felt and I explained to him what I had done the day before. Sam looked at me and there was compassion in his eyes. As I met his gaze, I spoke quietly:

‘It’s okay, I know it was the right thing to do, it just felt so right.’

‘I know, Sarah,’ he replied. ‘I can tell. You just seem so different, it’s as if another person is carrying you along. How do you feel now you have been to the beach and buried that piece of paper?’

I thought for a few seconds before I replied to Sam. How did I feel? Relieved I think is the word I was looking for and that’s what I told Sam.

He already knew that what I had done had been the right thing for me, just as much as I did, too. This feeling of freedom lasted for ten wonderful months, and then one night my past returned, carried in on a strong, ill-gotten wind. It arrived complete with the box full of dusty memories it had left with, shattering my sleep once more.

Chapter Twenty

I DIDN’T KNOW what to do or who to talk to. Was this really happening all over again? Why could I not get rid of this vile mental rubbish as easily as I got rid of the physical rubbish each week from the house? I wanted answers. I tried harder than ever to dig them out of the deep crevice they had become entombed in.

In my head a carousel was starting up again, but instead of it going at a gentle speed, it was whirring round like one of those waltzers in the fairgrounds that used to visit our town in my youth. My elder sister used to love the fast rides but I never went on one, not until I was older, because they used to make me sick. I was much more at home on the Ferris wheel. I decided to write out my thoughts again and try burying them in the sand again, but this time I’d dig the hole a little deeper. I went to the beach the next morning and did exactly the same thing as
I had done before; the only difference being that now the hole I dug was substantially deeper than before.

It was no good. As each hour passed and the next day approached, I continued to feel uneasy regardless of the turning tide. What could I do? How was I supposed to think of something else to try when my mind was already past exhaustion and heading towards meltdown mode at an alarming rate? That night I sat up in bed working on my laptop. I had been doing some planning, which I had started earlier that evening, when I decided to open up a new Word document and write down my thoughts, about whatever came into my mind.

In front of me was this bright, white, blank screen screaming out at me, begging me for words. Words that would cover it to make it useful, rather than useless. I started pressing the keys, willing the letters to appear; as each one was pressed down in slow succession, I suddenly found every one of my finger movements gathering speed. The words left my aching head, made the journey down my tired arms and left me through my fingertips. As each word appeared on the screen, I was surprised at my ability to write all my thoughts down, especially when they appeared with such startling clarity after all this time.

As each one of my thoughts appeared on the screen in front of me, I gave way to the memories I had kept hidden and my heart wept. As I read the words back, I was amazed at what I had been through. Why had I never stood up and told my story before now? Where had this strength come from that was now holding me upright?
This fortitude seemed to me like a single finely carved oak leg supporting a table top alone before the three others joined it and spread the load. How had I been strong enough to survive all I had been through?

Just as always, I couldn’t find the answers. All I knew was that I was relieved to be writing and removing the memories that had haunted me, like the most evil of spirits, for the best part of my life. I continued to write over the next few nights, typing late into the night and into the early morning hours. Once I started it was like a new adrenalin-type drug I couldn’t get enough of, carrying me forward in time. I wanted to be free and the more I typed the more anxious I was to achieve freedom. I told Sam what I was doing and why. He was amazed to hear just how much better I seemed to be and the relief I now felt.

At first I think Sam may have been a little sceptical, but he never said it in as many words. He worried about me, and the fact that I was staying up long into the night to write and then still going into work the day after. I don’t know where the strength came from that visited me and stayed by my side for the whole four months I was writing my story,
Sarah’s Story.
I was just glad of its company and the understanding that Sam gave me, too. He kept me topped up with lots of fresh tea and stayed awake with me throughout. He never once complained or asked me if I thought I had written enough yet. He just stayed patient. Not sleeping, just waiting.

One night I wrote four thousand words. The sheer volume of my inner thoughts and feelings amazed me. I
became aware that every word that ended up appearing on the screen was precious and was there for a reason. The hardest words to read or even look at were the words that carried with them the more serious parts of the abuse that I had been subjected to. Seeing the words ‘oral sex’ made me want to scream out as loudly as I could and shout it from the highest mountain, but I couldn’t understand why this was. After all, I had spoken about it with Bess and I thought this had been enough to rid me of my memories, but I found it wasn’t. Seeing it there, two little words, fixed to the screen, each one staring back at me, brought all of the memory visions clearly back to life.

My father and Bill were two men who were similar in lots of ways. They each took parts of me that were mine, and should have always been mine. I had wanted to keep my life intact but instead, each valuable, precious piece of ‘me’ had been chipped at and damaged, and had remained damaged for far too long. Yet who cared? Sam cared, and he let me know it.

But did anyone else?

Throughout my adult life I have shared my experiences with people I love and people I have got to know. One of the saddest things is when I have decided to tell the details of my abuse to people I have grown to know and feel comfortable with, especially those I feel are my friends, some have handled the knowledge in a way I find totally unbelievable. Once I have told them, they usually appear surprised and very supportive. Some of them, however, have subsequently gone out of their way
to avoid me. It is almost as if I was carrying the plague. But I wasn’t. I’m not.

I’m not sure why some people reacted in this way, but I found it very distressing, particularly since I never wanted these memories to be part of my life. I have told people, not in order to shock them, but because talking was supposed to be one of the ways in which I could feel at ease with my past. Instead of that, certain people’s reactions just made me believe that I was still to blame for what had happened. Bess’s words during our counselling sessions had become worthless. I know what happened to me was not my fault, yet somehow the people I knew, the ones I shared my past with, have made me feel like it was always my fault.