trying to hold back the tears, she told me he had threatened to kill her if she ever left him. Right then it helped me to realise why she couldn’t rid of him. She didn’t have a choice because she was so frightened and what he might do to her or even us. I never questioned her again and had to trust that my prayers would be answered one day.
Paul, believe it or not, began working soon after his release at a furniture factory and everything between Mum and him seemed to be going smoothly for once. Gee he actually had a job! Feeling guilty areshole? Even so, he appeared to be a lot happier because he was working and contributing towards expenses but then he started gambling for no reason. Why? Obviously he found this was an easier way to try and make money rather than working. None of us knew but his job was now starting to take second place due to his gambling addiction and finally he was fired because he wasn’t going to work. So now unbeknown to us, all he wanted to do was to stay home all day and every day and sit on his fat lazy arse and gamble on anything that moved. We never thought much of it because we only thought he was gambling in the afternoons because that’s the only time we saw him doing it. Like hello? We were at school all day so we wouldn’t or didn’t know this was going on. We just thought during the day he was out looking for another job and until he found one, what he was doing, was just harmless fun. But how could he get another job if he never looked for one? Did Mum know that he wasn’t looking for a job? Did she know he sat around and gambled all day? Obviously she didn’t! None of us did until:
One afternoon when Mum left for work, he couldn't get out of the house quick enough and race down to the local betting shop. When he came back he asked us not to say anything to her when she got home and we assured him we wouldn't and didn’t. But I don’t think any of us realised how serious it was at the time. At first, we just thought it was a big joke but then money started to get tighter and tighter. My Mum was still working hard through the day and going to another job in the evenings but what she earned was still not enough to survive when it should have been. Why wasn’t it? Something wasn’t right! What we kids didn't know but soon found out that she was giving him money every day on top of trying to pay the bills. He was making excuses that he needed money for cigarettes and to get to and from job interviews. What a pile of shit! It was to feed his addiction and she never knew a damn thing. The penny dropped. He obviously wasn’t telling her and that’s why he told us to keep quiet about it in the first place.
Even though mum kept working long hours, it was getting worse and worse. The bills were piling up and you could see mum was getting stressed. Eventually we got our stereo system repossessed and you know what? We only had one payment left to go but they didn't care and took it anyway. We kids were devastated, because the one thing we loved to do was to listen to music for many hours of the day in our free time. We became pissed off after a while and I think Paul must have realised then, we were starting to blame him for this. The looks of resentment on our faces were obviously playing on his mind. He knew he was responsible for our financial situation even though he would never admit it but still he chose to do nothing about it, thinking it would all blow over. Well it didn’t because we kids kept on whinging day after day because we had no music to listen to. Wrong! We should have known him well enough to know he didn’t like people thinking badly of him and by us whining he was getting pissed off because maybe he thought we hated him now. We should have just shut our mouths and accepted it but kids are kids. He now obviously felt rejected by us and because of this in turn, he took his own disappointment and turned it into anger and took it out on someone else, that being my Mum. By now the beatings were becoming more and more frequent. My Mum was enduring so much pain at the hands of this mongrel bastard and at times, I didn’t know what to do. What could I do? I was no match for him. None of us were. As usual, when this was happening, I would just run to my room crying and praying for it to stop, but it never did.
Other times I tried in my own way to protect my Mum by yelling at him to stop and to leave her alone but it made no difference, he would just yell at me to shut up. When it did eventually stop, he would always be sorry for what had happened as is typical of these perpetrators, until the next time. The phoney apologies and promises that it would never happen again, never sat well with us only because it never did stop. It was now a routine.
One night when I was about fourteen, I had my best friend Gale over to stay. Typical, Mum and Paul had had a huge fight in which led mum to escape the house and take off somewhere. This frustrated and angered him even more, so the ranting and raving continued. Gale and I were so scared we didn’t know what to do other than to stay away from him while he was like this, so we went to my room and stayed there. About twenty minutes later the house eventually became quiet. Obviously he had calmed himself down so we decided it was time for bed.
It was around 3am the next morning when we heard this bashing on my door so I got up and opened it. It was him standing there with a crazy look on his face mumbling some shit. I asked him what he wanted and he told me that he wanted us girls to help him find my Mum. What could we say? We were in no position to argue with this lunatic so we said, “Okay, we will be out as soon as we get dressed.” When we came out, he bailed Gale and me up in the hallway passage with this strange looking knife in his hand and telling us that he was going to kill my mother when he found her.
Gale and I looked at each-other in disbelief and thought, “What the fuck, how do we get out of this one?” My God! We just couldn’t believe the situation we were in. Here we were being forced against our wills to go try and find my Mum so this bastard could kill her! We knew we had no choice other than to do what he wanted. We had to because at the time we were afraid if we didn’t do what he asked, he would probably stab us to death first. That’s how crazy he was.
He then ordered us to get in the car and whilst he drove around the neighbour-hood, we were to look out for her. He even told us to take him to the places where she may be hiding; friends’ places etc.
We were so afraid that if we did see her somewhere, what would happen? Would he go crazy and kill her right in front of us?
Gale and I then whispered to each-other that we would have to bullshit as to where she could be, knowing damn well, she wouldn’t be in those places. This way we could waste time and hoped that maybe he would start getting tired and to go back home. Gale and I also knew that if Mum was walking, she would be looking out for him and the car and would hide somewhere so we were fairly confident we wouldn’t spot her anywhere. We drove around for about an hour and she was nowhere to be seen and we were trying to act really tired by yawning and maybe us doing this, helped. He was also getting tired thank God so we went back home.
Gale and I were so relieved that we had not found Mum so we then went back to bed and left him to stew. We talked for a bit by both confessing to each other that we were terrified and were now just curious as to where my mum was and hoping she was alright. It wasn’t easy falling asleep for either of us but eventually we did.
That morning about four hours later, I was awakened by something touching my arm. What was it? I was almost too scared to open my eyes but I knew I had to. Whatever it was, wasn’t giving up!
First of all I looked over at Gale but she was still fast asleep so I had to do this on my own. Still half asleep I slowly looked down at my arm and saw this fucking hand feathering my arm with its fingers. Well I certainly woke up in a hurry as it almost frightened the life out of me!
I now realised it was coming from under my bed but whose was it? It’s not every day you wake up with an arm coming up from under your bed. Shitting myself, I slowly dropped my head down the side of the bed and whom did I see? Guess who? Yes it was my Mum who was laying there with her finger on her mouth trying not to laugh gesturing me to be quiet but because I could see she was trying to not laugh, it almost got me going but I knew I couldn’t because I wouldn’t have stopped. There is nothing worse than when you are just about to fall apart laughing but you know you can’t in fear of being killed. It certainly stops you in a hurry. The whole situation just seemed funny to us because of our warped senses
