and their high ceilings and tall, elegantly proportioned windows looked out on to the leafy square across the road.
My father loved paintings, and there were two in particular that I remember. One of them was of him as a child, aged seven years old, and the other was of his mother. The painting of my father was in a heavy gilt frame, with his name, age and the date engraved on a plaque at the bottom. It hung on the wall above the Georgian fireplace in the drawing room – and in equally prominent positions in every other house he ever lived in. I don’t know whether it was actually painted when he was a child. Apart from the fact that his parents had very little money, they didn’t really seem to be the sort of people who would commission an oil painting of their son – however much his mother might have adored him. Perhaps my father had had it painted himself, from a photograph, when he was an adult. Having a portrait in oils of himself as a child would have fitted in with his aspirations to become someone of substance and with his idea of who he really was – or who he felt he should have been.
My father was very strict with me and my brother Ian, and I don’t remember him ever playing with us or taking us out anywhere when we were children. When he wasn’t at work, out playing tennis or socialising, he was sleeping, and he had no time and certainly no inclination to bother much with us. In any case, he believed that children should be seen as little as possible and never heard. So he rarely spoke to us, although he shouted at us constantly, particularly at my brother, who he called a wimp and a cry-baby.
My mother used to try to hustle us out of the way as soon as she heard him coming home from work. Then he’d vent his bad temper on her instead – and it did seem as though he was almost always in a bad temper when there was no one else in the house except us. He’d criticise my mother and sneer at her until he reduced her to tears, and as soon as she was crying, he’d be more annoyed than ever.
He was totally different with other people, though. He had a loud, infectious laugh and could be charming when he wanted to be; and he loved giving parties. So, while my brother and I were looked after by the au pair of the moment, my mother would shop, cook and clean and then fix her hair and make-up, put on a pretty dress and smile as she handed round food to my father’s friends and colleagues, their wives and girlfriends.
Despite his love of parties, however, my father didn’t believe in celebrating our birthdays or even Christmas – I can’t remember one single Christmas Day of my childhood – and he didn’t believe in presents. On the one occasion when I did have a birthday party, all the gifts that had been bought for me were collected into black bin bags as soon as the guests had gone home, and then they were given away.
The only time my father showed any interest in me and my brother was when he made us perform for the entertainment and amusement of his guests. We were like little puppets, only really coming to life in my father’s eyes when he decided to tug at our strings and show us off. From the time I was three years old, he used to teach me fables in French, which I had to recite on demand to his friends. They’d all stand around me in a circle, sipping their whisky from crystal glasses and smiling benevolently as I spouted words I didn’t understand, which my father had taught me, parrot-fashion.
I can’t remember the fables now, although I can still remember clearly how afraid I used to be of my father’s sudden impatient anger whenever I made a mistake while he was teaching them to me. I can remember how my whole body used to shake and how I’d clench my little fists until my hands were damp with sweat and my fingernails were digging into my palms, and how my father towered over me like the embodiment of a threat as the strange, incomprehensible sounds tumbled from my lips. The fear I felt was well founded, because if I made just one mistake, my father would tell me to pull down my pants and lie across my bed and then he’d beat me with his belt, shouting at me that I was useless, before sending me to bed without any supper.
One of my earliest memories is of something that happened just before I turned three. My brother and I weren’t allowed in the rooms on the first floor of the house. We had a playroom on the floor above, which was the only place we were supposed to play. But, when my father was at work, my mother used to let us do more or less what we wanted, and one day we decided to play trains in the drawing room. Ian was leading the way, making a very satisfactory steam-train noise, and I was holding on to his waist, following behind him and singing out ‘Oooh-Oooh’ every few minutes, in a not quite so realistic imitation of a train’s whistle.
Suddenly, Ian tripped and fell headlong against one of the huge windows. There was an ear-splitting roar as the glass cracked and then dropped, in a massive sheet, to the ground, only just missing decapitating him. I screamed, but Ian just stood there in silence, too shocked to react. After a few seconds, he touched his hand to his forehead and looked at the blood on his fingers as though he couldn’t understand what it was.
I was still screaming when I heard my father shout and, at the same moment, the drawing-room door flew open and he burst into the room, followed closely by my mother.
We found out later that he’d been walking home along the edge of the leafy square when he’d seen my brother fall against the window and had watched as the glass splintered and smashed. But, instead of being concerned about the long, deep gash on my brother’s head, which was now spurting forth what looked like pints of blood, or about the fact that Ian had come very close to being killed, my father was almost ballistic with fury because we’d been playing in the drawing room.
Ian was still standing, dazed and completely still, near the empty window frame when my father came into the room. Finally, though, as the initial numbness of the shock began to wear off, his whole body started to shake violently. And it was at that moment that my father almost ran across the room and grabbed him by the shoulders.
‘What the fuck are you doing in here?’ he bellowed into my brother’s blood-covered face. ‘You are not allowed to play in the drawing room!’ With each shouted word, he punched Ian on the arm and then he screamed, ‘How many times do you have to be told something as simple as that?’
My brother flinched and leaned away from him.
‘Please, Harry,’ my mother said, touching my father’s shoulder and then quickly pulling her hand away again. ‘We need to get Ian to the hospital. It’s a really serious cut.’
‘The hospital?’ My father’s face was a deep-red colour and I knew he was on the verge of losing control completely. ‘The fucking hospital?’ he shrieked again. ‘Get to your room! Both of you!’ He swung round, took a step towards where I was cowering on the floor at the side of the chintz-covered sofa and shouted, ‘Now!’
As I fled from the room, I heard my mother pleading with him again, ‘Please, Harry.’ Then she gave a sharp cry, and I knew my father had punched her.
I sat on my bed, sobbing with shocked distress because of what had happened and because I was terrified of what was to come. A few minutes later, my father walked into my bedroom and slowly undid the buckle of his belt. Without having to be told, I pulled my pants down to my knees and lay on my stomach across my bed while he gave me ‘ten of the best’. Then I struggled to my feet and tried to pull my pants back up over the bleeding rawness of my buttocks.
‘Go to your brother’s room.’ My father spat the words at me, his face a contorted mask of hatred and fury.
I limped along the corridor and stood helplessly beside Ian, who was sitting on his bed crying, his tears diluting the blood that was still seeping from the cut on his head.
When I looked up, my father was standing in the doorway, surveying us both with an expression of disgust. ‘You will stay there without food or water until Monday morning,’ he said coldly, and then he turned and left the room, locking the door behind him.
It
