We said we were going to have a good day, didn’t we?’
Jodie nodded sullenly.
‘I tell you what,’ my father said. ‘Why don’t you help me feed the fish? They haven’t been fed yet, because they were waiting for you to arrive. We can all do it together, if you like. How does that sound?’
Jodie liked that idea, so she took Paula’s hand, and the two of them followed my father into the garden while Cosmo watched from a safe distance. Adrian and Lucy, who considered themselves too mature for this kind of entertainment, sat in the living room, listening to their mp3 players, which had so far kept them mute since Christmas.
I joined Mum in the kitchen, and helped her prepare lunch, as we caught up on the latest news. As usual, I was soon doing most of the talking, and it was mainly about Jodie. I found it very cathartic to discuss abnormal behaviour in the context of my mother’s very normal existence, and it helped that my mother was a good listener.
‘Anyway,’ I said at last, ‘hopefully we’ll turn a corner soon. So tell me, what have you two been up to?’
She recounted the various hobbies and interests which filled their very active retirement. Eventually the girls and my father streamed in through the kitchen door, while Jodie loudly enthused about the Golden Orbs which had come to the surface to feed. Mum and I served lunch, and I seated Jodie between the two of us. Her plate was piled high with chicken, roast potatoes, three vegetables and gravy.
‘I wish I lived here,’ she said, gazing adoringly at Grandma. Mum believes everyone needs ‘feeding up’, even when it’s obvious they really ought to be on a diet.
As the meal progressed, I noticed Jodie taking more than a passing interest in my father, who was seated opposite her. She watched him intently, as he peered down through his spectacles at his plate, then over them to retrieve his drink or to talk to one of us. I assumed she was wondering about the way he used his spectacles, which were only for close focusing. Mum offered us second helpings, and I limited Jodie’s. She sulked at this, resenting the fact that my father had filled his plate, but he needed it: age had thinned him down, rather than piling on the pounds.
‘Granddad?’ she asked suddenly, setting down her cutlery.
He looked up over his glasses. ‘Yes, dear?’
‘Are you Cathy’s daddy?’
‘That’s right. She’s my daughter.’
She thought for a moment, clearly trying to work something out. ‘So, you’re their granddaddy?’ She pointed at Adrian and Paula. I smiled at Lucy, hoping she wouldn’t be offended at Jodie’s faux pas.
‘Yes, that’s right,’ Dad replied. ‘Well done.’
She glowed at the praise, and I was impressed that she’d finally made the connection, which she’d struggled with since she first met my parents. ‘So if you’re their granddad,’ she said, still watching him, ‘did you do naughty things with your willy to them when they was little, like my granddaddy did to me?’
Everyone fell silent. My father stopped eating and looked at me.
‘Jodie! Of course not!’ I said sharply. ‘I’ve told you before, normal families don’t do those things. Granddad is a good man. Now finish your dinner, we’ll talk about this later.’
Jodie, blissfully ignorant of the shocking impact of what she’d said, picked up her knife and fork, and carried on eating contentedly.
My parents were shocked; I could see it on their faces. Jodie had asked her question with such ease, as if it were a perfectly natural assumption. We quickly changed the subject, and talked loudly of other things, but meanwhile I was thinking about what she’d said. Her grandfather? I wasn’t even aware she had grandparents; there was no reference to them in the records. I wondered if she was confusing Dad and Granddad, or if there really was a grandfather involved? Did this mean there was yet another abuser present in Jodie’s life? Was there anyone who hadn’t had a part in destroying her? I glanced at my father, who was still subdued after Jodie’s bombshell, and wondered again at the great divide between healthy and abusive families. Could her perception ever be changed? Perhaps one day she’d be able to accept that what happened to her was abnormal and wrong, and that most families functioned very differently. But at times it seemed a forlorn hope.
I kept a close eye on Jodie for the rest of the afternoon, and Mum helped her with some colouring and cutting out. We were never able to leave my parents without a final cup of tea and slice of homemade cake, and we didn’t say our goodbyes until just after six. There was an accident on the motorway, so it was well past Jodie’s bedtime by the time we finally arrived home. I decided to leave asking her about her granddad until the following day, but as I tucked her into bed and dimmed the lights she suddenly asked, ‘Why didn’t Granddaddy do naughty things to Adrian and Paula? Doesn’t he love them?’
I looked at her in the half-light. She was snuggled deep beneath her duvet, with only her blonde hair visible, falling in strands across the pillow. How could I begin to unravel the confusion between normal affection and the warped gratification that she had known?
‘It’s a different kind of love, Jodie. Completely different from the one between two grown-ups. And what was done to you wasn’t love of any kind. It was cruel, and very, very wrong. You’ll understand more when you’re older.’
I wanted to leave it at that, to go downstairs and make a cup of coffee, then maybe sit in the lounge and read the paper. But if I didn’t follow this up now, Jodie might have forgotten it in the morning, sucking the awful memory back into the black abyss of denial.
With a now familiar surge of anxiety at what I was about to hear, I turned up the light a little, and sat on the chair beside her bed. Her eyes peered over the duvet, and I stroked her forehead.
‘Jodie, pet, did your granddad hurt you in the same way your daddy and uncle did?’
She shook her head. ‘No, Cathy. They was nicer.’
‘They? How many granddads did you have?’
‘Granddad Wilson and Granddad Price.’
‘So there were two then. And how were they nicer, Jodie?’
She thought for a moment, as the lines on her forehead creased, and I hoped she was about to tell me that they’d taken her to the zoo, or bought her an Easter egg, the kind of things normal grandparents do.
‘They lay on top of me, but they didn’t hurt. They just peed in the bed. It was because they loved me, Cathy.’ She said it so matter-of-factly, she might as well have been recounting a trip to the zoo.
‘No it wasn’t. It was wrong, Jodie. Adults don’t show love like that. What they did was cruel. It’s got nothing to do with love.’ But I could see how ejaculation without penetration might have seemed kinder to her, when compared with the other abuse.
‘Were Mummy and Daddy in the room when this happened?’ I asked.
‘Sometimes.’ She nodded. ‘And Uncle Mike, and someone I didn’t know.’
I held her hand and stroked her forehead. ‘Is there anything else? Can you remember any more?’
She shook her head. ‘Can I have a story
