Can't Anyone Help Me? Page 4

  Later, it was the man who lifted me and placed me in the same position that the boy had been in.

  My head was held by adult hands and something hard pressed against my mouth. I wanted to move, but I was too sleepy to try.

  At last it was over and I fell asleep. Voices entered my dream. I saw the man’s face swimming towards me, felt something in my mouth, something I wanted to spit out but had not the energy to do so. Once again I fell asleep.

  When I woke, only my uncle and I were in the room. I was fully dressed. The curtains were still closed, but the television was off and there was no camera equipment. My mouth tasted sour and felt sore, my head pounded and I wanted to be sick. My uncle handed me another drink but this time it was not so sweet. ‘This will make you feel better,’ he said, although I had not told him I felt ill.

  ‘Where are they?’ I mumbled.

  ‘Why, Jackie, you’ve been asleep all afternoon,’ my uncle told me, without answering my question. ‘You’ve been dreaming.’

  For a while, I believed him, believed that nothing had happened, and, like my nightmares, I pushed the events of that afternoon to the back of my mind. That belief lasted until he introduced me to another friend and then another.

  But that first time I still felt I could trust him. I picked up Paddington, who was now sitting beside me, walked on shaking legs out to the car and climbed in.

  7

  The day I had been dreading was fast approaching. All week my mother had rushed me to shops to buy new clothes and shoes. ‘You’ll like school,’ she said, with an assurance I didn’t share. ‘You’ll make lots of little friends there.’

  School. Just the word made my stomach churn.

  I didn’t want to be with strangers, to have to talk to them or sit with them.

  Strangers frightened me now.

  The week before I was due to start, my sleep was constantly disturbed by nightmares. I dreamt of trying to escape from something I had no name for, of feeling pressure in my throat and of choking. When I woke it was to tears running down my face and the taste of something thick and sour in my mouth. Once I screamed so loudly that my father came running into my room.

  ‘What’s the matter, Jackie? Another bad dream?’ he asked, and put his arm around me.

  I stiffened and froze – the thought of moist lips touching my cheek repelled me. I managed to whisper, ‘Yes.’

  He pulled the duvet gently up around me, brushed my hair away from my face and I felt him standing beside my bed, watching me. He sighed deeply before he left me huddled under the bedclothes, pretending I had already slipped back into sleep. And when I did, other dreams slid into my subconscious, dreams that made me twist and turn. When the morning sounds of the household rescued me, the remnants of those nightmares still lingered. My head felt heavy, my stomach hollow, and a sinking feeling of dread ran through me.

  No matter how much I complained or how dark the shadows under my eyes from lack of sleep, nothing was going to stop my mother getting me ready that first morning.

  Unceremoniously she pulled the bedclothes off me when I tried to cling to them, jerking me on to the floor. I clutched at the door jamb, wailing that I didn’t want to go, but she took no notice of my distress and just prised my fingers away. ‘Jackie, you’re going to school whether you like it or not so stop your nonsense now,’ she shouted, in exasperation. I sobbed and told her I didn’t want to, but she just became angrier.

  My new clothes were pulled over my head, my hair was brushed roughly and plaited, a ribbon tied to the end, my shoes were forced on to my wriggling feet, and then downstairs I went, propelled by a firm hand.

  Breakfast was a meal I seldom ate with both parents. My father relished a peaceful breakfast when he was at home – he had told me so. ‘Sets me up for the day,’ he explained. ‘Bad start, bad day. Remember that, Jackie.’ He sat with a slice of toast or cup of tea in hand, the morning newspaper obscuring much of his face. Occasionally when a headline caught his attention he commented to my mother who, notepad in front of her, was writing one of her many lists of things to do.

  The start of my schooldays marked the end of the calm time my father had told me he needed. I did try, but my resolve didn’t last for long.

  My breakfast of a lightly boiled egg and a slice of brown toast was placed in front of me. I pushed it aside. There was something in my throat, something blocking it, and I knew that if I tried to swallow, the food would choke me.

  ‘Jackie, eat your breakfast,’ my mother said.

  Her face showed no trace of sympathy, only a resigned displeasure at my behaviour. Scared of her disapproval, I forced down some toast, but with the first mouthful I retched. My eyes streamed, I couldn’t swallow, and the soggy mess landed back on my plate.

  My mother shouted, ‘Jackie!’

  My father jumped to his feet. ‘For God’s sake, Dora, do something,’ he said tersely. With the paper, he left the room. ‘I’ll get breakfast on the train,’ he called, over his shoulder.

  I cringed with embarrassment and fear.

  My mother glared at me. ‘Well, that’s a family breakfast ruined,’ she said, and marched me to the downstairs cloakroom. A damp cloth was wiped none too gently across my face, my school dress was inspected for any sign of damage, and all the time her angry voice was buzzing in my ears.

  I screamed at her again that I didn’t want to leave the house. But I couldn’t tell her that my nightmare had stepped out of my sleep and that the fear it brought was sweeping through me. And even if I could have, it would have made no difference. I was going to school and that was that.

  I can’t remember what happened on the way there or when we arrived. The next thing I do remember was that my mother had gone and I was in a classroom seated at a desk. I sat looking at the door, convinced that somehow I had to reach it and escape.

  The teacher turned to write something on the board and I seized my chance. Out of my seat I sprang, and I ran as fast as my feet could take me. Behind me were the images from my nightmare and the echoes of a voice telling me I had to run.

  The teacher caught me before I reached the door. She held me against her as I wriggled and cried that I wanted to go home. In the end, unable to pacify me, she picked me up and took me to the headmistress’s office. Then there was another voice. It came from the headmistress and eventually calmed me. Gradually my breathing slowed and my fear diminished.

  Eventually I was calm enough to be returned to the classroom.

  Bottles of milk were passed round, and later we were taken to the school canteen to have our lunch. I was placed next to the teacher and I knew it was because of my behaviour earlier that morning. I didn’t mind because she was nice to me and kept trying to include me in conversations. I told her that I liked drawing and she said she would be getting us to do lots of that.

  That afternoon we played with sand in the playground before a story was read to us. Just as I was beginning to feel sleepy, a bell rang and my first day at school was over.

  After that first day I began to like school – there were days when I raised my hand to answer a question and smiled happily when a word of praise came my way. The teacher tried to encourage me to mingle more with the other children by asking me to pass round books or crayons.

  We were each given sheets of paper and told to draw something familiar. ‘Why not try and draw the house where you live? Yes, children, let’s do that first,’ she said, when twenty puzzled little faces looked at her for inspiration.

  I drew a large square, then a series of small ones within it to represent windows and the front door.

  ‘Very good, Jackie,’ she said. ‘Now, who lives in the house?’ And again I bent my head to the task. Little stick figures appeared with circles for faces. ‘Well done,’ she said, to each child in turn, as she walked around the classroom inspecting our work. She stopped at mine. ‘Who’s that?’ she enquired.

  ‘Mummy and Daddy,’ I replied.

  ‘No, that one,’ she said, poin
ting to a smaller figure standing apart from the two larger ones.

  ‘That’s me,’ I answered. She made no comment, but unlike the other children’s pictures, which showed groups of figures standing together, I had drawn myself standing alone.

  As the days went on I tried to draw animals and flowers as I had seen other children do. Once I drew another house much smaller than the one where I lived. It was in the corner of the page.

  ‘And who lives there, Jackie?’ my teacher asked.

  ‘My uncle,’ was all I said, and again she made no comment.

  I watched as a boy sitting near me drew a big yellow sun, its rays spreading right across the paper. I reached for the darkest crayon in the box and drew dark clouds followed by dots of rain.

  Over the next few weeks our teacher showed us letters of the alphabet, which were placed next to pictures she had pinned up around the room. I tried to stretch my mouth into the required shape and join in with the rest of the class when asked to repeat the sounds she made.

  ‘A is for apple,’ we chanted, ‘B is for book,’ but by the time a picture of a cat was held up, my mind had wandered and the letters were blurred. By the end of the first week of trying to learn the alphabet, I had hardly progressed beyond ‘A is for apple’. Simple arithmetic confused me, but when she showed us a large cardboard clock and turned the hands round, I was able to give her the right answers.

  We learnt to sing songs and the teacher kept time on a triangle. I tried to remember the words to ‘The Wheels On The Bus’. When we heard it start, we all stood up and raised our arms to make circles in the air in imitation of wheels turning. Twenty little bodies swayed to the beat as we sang with more enthusiasm than tunefulness.

  But it was drawing I liked best, and gleefully I stuck on the gold stars that showed how well I had done. I was the first child who managed to draw a face with not just a nose and eyes but a bright red mouth full of rather large teeth. For that particular picture I was given more praise. Some of my drawings were pinned to the classroom walls alongside other children’s. Others I took home to show my parents. But, unlike my classmates, I knew my pictures would never adorn the fridge or kitchen walls.

  At the end of each day, as soon as my coat was on, I would pick up my satchel and go to the gate where my mother was waiting.

  ‘Well, Jackie,’ she would say, ‘I hope you’ve been good.’ Then, smiling at the other mothers, who were at least a decade younger than her, she would walk slowly away, with me at her side.

  ‘What did you learn today?’ was the one question she always asked as soon as my coat was hung up in the hall. I would show her the drawings I had done. ‘Very nice, dear,’ she would say, before she folded them neatly, then handed them to me to keep in my room.

  After the first day I had stopped protesting that I didn’t want to go to school. Each morning, after washing and brushing my teeth, I dressed myself in the clean clothes my mother had laid out the night before. I took pride in the fact that, apart from plaiting my hair, I could get myself ready without help. Once breakfast was finished, it was time to leave the house. I would walk beside my mother until we reached the gates, where groups of mothers chatted as they watched their offspring walk into the playground.

  But those days, when I knew my mother must have breathed a sigh of relief at my improved behaviour, were not destined to last long.

  They dwindled away when my uncle introduced me to his next friend, who, for the first time, came to his house.

  8

  I never knew the name of my uncle’s friend, a chubby little man with twinkling eyes and an easy manner. When I met him, I wasn’t scared. Certainly there was nothing about him that would have alerted anyone to what lay behind the pleasant exterior.

  ‘Look, Jackie, I’ve brought you a present,’ he said, as soon as he sat down. His pale, podgy fingers, with a sparkling ring on the smallest one, disappeared inside his jacket pocket and came out holding a small parcel. Inside, there was another soft toy: a pink pig with a key protruding from its side. ‘You can add that to your collection,’ he said. At the time I didn’t question how he knew about the other furry animals my uncle had given me when we played ‘the game’.

  He showed me how to wind it up and how, once I had placed it on the floor, it ran around in circles. Watching it, I was just a child enjoying a new toy, a child who clapped her hands together with delight. Wanting to share my enjoyment of the pig’s antics, I turned to the two adults with a wide smile that lit up my face.

  ‘Pretty little thing, isn’t she?’ the chubby man said to my uncle, who murmured his agreement. I felt a mixture of shyness and pleasure, as small girls do when they hear a compliment that they know is for them.

  I was given some lemonade and, forgetting about the time when I had been made to drink it, I swallowed it eagerly. Again, it was sweet and syrupy, and just a few sips made me giggle.

  The chubby man produced a pack of cards from his pocket. Quickly he shuffled them and then, to my delight, showed me a couple of tricks before laying them down on the table. ‘Do you like playing games?’ he asked.

  Not knowing what was expected of me, I looked at him with growing wariness.

  It was then that my uncle mumbled a few words about having forgotten something my aunt had asked him to buy. ‘I’d better pop down to the shops quickly, won’t be long. You be good, Jackie,’ he said. ‘Look after my guest.’ He left me sitting with a man whose smile never left his face as he explained the game we were about to play.

  And as he told me the rules, I clutched Paddington closer to me.

  It was called Happy Families but, he explained, he wanted to make it more fun. So when I picked the right card a sweet would come my way. If he picked the right one a kiss would be his reward. But whenever either of us got a wrong card, a piece of clothing was to be removed.

  The cards were dealt. Innocuous pictures of bakers, postmen and members of other families smiled up at me. He dealt me another card. It was the right one and, true to his word, he gave me a sweet. But when he dealt the next one to himself, he gave a small triumphant shout. This time he had won. He pulled me towards his seat. ‘Kiss,’ he said, offering his cheek, and dutifully I did as he asked. I didn’t like the feel of his face for he hadn’t shaved as closely as my uncle did and the stubble was prickly against my lips.

  ‘Now, Jackie, you must take something off.’

  I shook my head – and that was when the twinkle left his eyes.

  He grabbed me and undid the bow that tied my hair. ‘There now – there was no need to make a fuss, was there?’

  I wriggled away from him and nervously sipped some more lemonade. The room swam, and I heard him say that I had chosen the wrong card again. It was my shoes that he told me to take off next and my fingers were clumsy as I fumbled with the buckles.

  Within the next few minutes, he was down to his vest and underpants.

  I stared at my cards to avoid looking at him. I didn’t want to see the greying hair that was growing on his chest or the thick blue veins on his white legs – and especially not the outline of something that appeared to be growing in his underpants.

  It was when he dealt me another wrong card that he moved. ‘Your turn again, Jackie,’ he said, and pointed at my dress. ‘Put your hands up over your head and I’ll help you.’

  Reluctantly I did so. It was as though I had no will to protest, no ability to resist. The dress was pulled over my head, leaving me standing in just my white knickers.

  They went next, then his underpants – and all I could think of was, Where’s my uncle?

  He picked me up, cradled me against him, then laid me down on the rug. He rubbed cold ointment of some kind into me before his finger went between my legs and inside my body. I lay there unable to move and it was then that I switched my mind off from my body until I was floating somewhere above it. From there I watched a little girl lying on the floor, her arms held stiffly at her sides and her skinny legs pushed wide apart. I could see her
white face, her blue eyes staring blankly at the ceiling as a grey-haired man, with rolls of pale, flabby flesh hanging from his stomach, grunted and groaned with pleasure as he violated her.

  It took him no longer to destroy the last shreds of her innocence than it would have done to boil a kettle or toast a slice of bread. To him she was insignificant, merely a vessel for his enjoyment. When he had finished he left her there, a broken doll with her child’s white knickers lying where he had thrown them.

  The passage of time might have made his features grow faint in my memory, but I can still see his eyes that, once the twinkle had left them, were cold and indifferent, hear his rasping voice – even the smell of him lingers in my memory. I have often thought that if evil has an odour, it was Chubby’s. It crawled into my nose, mixed with my tears and left a permanent stain deep within my body’s memories. Even now just a tone of voice or a certain laugh brings it back and, once again, my mouth fills with the sour taste of my childhood. Nothing has ever erased it. Chubby is trapped for ever within the labyrinth of my bad memories.

  9

  That first time when my uncle returned and saw my pale, dry-eyed face – the shock had dried my tears before they had even fallen – he made the chubby man leave.

  ‘You shouldn’t have been so rough with her,’ I heard him say angrily.

  ‘She’ll be all right,’ said Chubby, dismissively. ‘They always are.’

  My uncle picked me up, pushed a small tablet between my lips and held me as I dozed. As I slipped in and out of sleep, his voice kept murmuring how sorry he was. Later he bathed me, then dressed me again. I refused to put on the same clothes that the man had taken off me, so he took my pyjamas out of my overnight bag – the top was patterned with pretty little pink mice – and slipped them on to my torn body.

  Why, after what happened that day, did I not talk? I often ask myself that question. But, then, even if I could have formed the words to explain, who would I have said them to? My uncle was the only person who told me he loved me and he already knew about it.