LITMIR.BIZ

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me if I’d refused. The only thing I could do was hope that the sugar bowl was somewhere near the table, so that I could drown my porridge in sugar to disguise the taste. To my disappointment, it wasn’t there. Dad was in the next room and I hoped that he wouldn’t hear me whisper, ‘Mum, Mum, can I have some sugar, please?’

      But he did. I’m sure he used to listen out for us, waiting for an excuse to come in and slap Carl and me around the room. ‘Sugar, sugar, weh you want de sugar fa, heh?’ He spoke in his West Indian accent; he mostly spoke to us like that when he was very angry. ‘Sara, yuh nah go to school and yuh better eat all a yuh porridge too.’

      Although I knew that I’d probably throw it all up again, I rushed it down, eating every drop while retching and trying not to let him see. He kept on coming back into the room; it was hardly worth him leaving, he was coming in and out so fast. Pacing up and down, winding himself up, checking my every move, at last he caught me retching. His eyes widened as he pointed at me and shouted, ‘Yuh still nah go to school, do yuh hear me?’

      His actions left me confused and asking myself why I didn’t just eat it without the sugar. I was telling myself, He’s going to hurt me again, I know it. Then the dreaded time of day arrived when everyone left the house, leaving me alone with him. So I was overwhelmed with joy when he said, ‘Sara, we’re going down the bingo hall. Go get dressed.’

      I skipped to my room, thinking, Yeah, I like it there, and Dad seems to be much nicer to me when he is around his friends who own the bingo hall. Most of his good friends go there too. They always look after me, they sometimes buy me nice treats; I hope they do today. I just hope he wins, otherwise he’ll be in a foul mood, and he’ll probably take it out on Carl and me when we get home, like he always does.

      I used to hate it when he would get drunk and gamble away the food money, then come home and beat us, as though it was our fault. He often forced Mum to go and ask Nana for money for food. Luckily, Nana always helped us and we would get to eat a decent meal most of the time.

      At the bingo hall, I don’t know if it was the porridge or the fear of him losing money there, but I was feeling ill again. Desperately wanting to throw up that disgusting stuff that was still lodged in my throat, I started to retch again. Before I knew it, there was a big pool of sick all over the floor of the bingo hall. Dad’s face screwed up like a monster’s. I knew he was angry with me, but he was putting on his usual act, pretending he cared like a real father. I went along with him and acted as though everything was normal, but the truth of the matter was I knew that when we got home he would beat me again.

      ‘Are you OK, Sara?’ asked Shelly, who owned the place.

      I remember thinking that if anyone should be angry it should be her. After all, it was her carpet that I’d just spilled my guts all over.

      Dad put on his plastic smile again. Then he started with his lies. ‘She’ll be just fine, Shelly! Don’t you worry. I’ll take her home feh clean her up.’

      I could tell by his tone of voice that he wouldn’t be cleaning me up at all. He was angry; I could feel it as he grabbed my hand and dragged me towards the door. Looking back at Shelly, I hoped she would see the fear in my face, but how was she to know what my dad was really like? Everyone loved him; they all thought he was a good man and a loving, responsible father. I suppose they were right: he could be sometimes. I used to enjoy his company when he was drunk at home with Mum. He would sometimes let us have some cider and we would all have a dance around the front room. I loved his Bob Marley records. Sometimes I used to wish that Bob Marley would come out of the speaker and be my dad, thinking just how much I wouldn’t mind having him for a dad, because he had such a nice smile. He looked so loving and kind compared with my dad.

      While I was daydreaming my way home, my father was dragging me across the high street, tugging at my arm, telling me to hurry because ‘You fucking stink like the sewers’. As we approached the estate, I could see our front door in the distance. I started to feel myself wanting to cry, but I knew not to, as Dad would have hit me really hard if I’d dared. The communal hallway looked so long, the stairs so steep and gloomy. I didn’t want to go upstairs to the front room. I didn’t want to be alone with him in that room ever again, yet I had no choice.

      ‘Sara, go run yourself a bath now, get up dem stairs and tek off yuh clothes,’ he said.

      I was right: he had no intention of cleaning me up at all, only an evil intention of putting me through more pain, as if, in his eyes, I had done him wrong in a big way. He did the same things to me again and again, telling me that I was naughty and that I deserved it. At the same time, he was also telling me how much he loved me. I was so confused, scared and alone, with nobody to turn to.

      Mum would have confronted him if I’d confided in her, but then, I felt sure, he would have killed her. That’s the one thing that he promised me he would do if I ever told anyone, which is why I had to keep my secret for so long. It was three more years before he stopped treating me like a lover instead of his little girl. The only reason that he stopped then was because he’d found someone else to abuse. His second cousin, Marie, was a lovely little girl. Her mum rang him out of the blue one day to ask for help. Apparently, her husband had been accused of sexually abusing Marie. She felt that Marie was a handful and didn’t want her living with her any more. My mum and dad agreed with her that Marie would be safer coming to stay with us, because she wanted to work at saving her marriage. In fact, both the girl’s parents felt that they couldn’t do so with her hanging around.

      Marie was 13, very vulnerable and in desperate need of someone to trust and confide in, especially as her mother had effectively abandoned her, choosing a paedophile over her own daughter. Dad soon got very close to Marie, mostly by sitting with her and talking about how she felt. He would always call her dad a ‘sick bastard’ and ask, ‘What kind of a man would do that to his own daughter?’ They got so close that one night he came into my room, where she slept, and their relationship progressed from there. I know it sounds shocking but I was happy he’d chosen to have a sexual relationship with Marie, as it meant that he left me alone. The fact that he was sneaking into my room and having sex with her in front of me didn’t bother me at all. I was just so glad it wasn’t me.

      My mother knew that he was creeping out of her bed to be with Marie, but by that point in their relationship she had totally lost her freedom of speech, fearful of the beatings that she got from him whenever she opened her mouth. She couldn’t even ask what time it was without him launching into either a verbal or a physical attack. He would accuse her of snooping into his business and tell her, ‘You don’t ask me anything. Who the fuck do you think you are asking me the time? I’ll come in when I like; you can’t control me.’

      I’m sure my mother never meant it like that but he was so paranoid that he always jumped to conclusions. She knew it was best to keep her mouth shut.

      Two years later, Marie fell pregnant with my dad’s child. He hadn’t touched me at all in that time, but just when I thought it was over Marie decided to go and stay with her sister because she didn’t want to rub the fact that she was pregnant in my mum’s face. I hoped my dad would leave me alone after she’d gone, but deep down I knew it wouldn’t last for long. She had only been gone a few hours when I heard his footsteps creaking on the stairs, coming towards my room. I was lying there frozen stiff, thinking to myself, If I cover my face with my duvet, he just might go away. But my duvet wasn’t working. I wanted to die. This is so unfair, I thought. Why didn’t Marie stay? Why can’t somebody help me?

      I had been allowed to go to school every day for the two years Marie was with us, but he came into my room the night after she left and said, ‘You have to stay home tomorrow. We’re moving home next week and I need your help packing.’

      I knew he had no intention of making me help him pack; he had a need to be with me alone, because his other little girl had gone. I was right: he took full advantage of our being alone together the next day. Not a thing was packed when Mum got home from work. Eight hours of abuse is what I endured that day. He said it was because he’d missed me so much. I remember wishing that he’d never stopped abusing me in the first place, because it hurt so much. If he’d

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