Later, he gave me Medea to read and Macbeth. ‘You see what she made him do? He was a weak man. That’s why a man has to be in charge. We have to show our superiority.’
I asked Dad why he didn’t have my mother arrested. She could go to jail or a mental hospital. He stared at me for a long time and then said, ‘I couldn’t put my own wife in jail. It would be too cruel. You have no idea what goes on in places like that.’ If Denise was of no use, why didn’t Dad let her go? ‘A man has needs,’ was all he said in response to that.
‘Dad, she said she’s been here since she was eleven. Is that true? Did you marry her when she was eleven?’
He tossed his head back and laughed. ‘She is so stupid, she doesn’t know what age she is.’
‘What age is she? Her teeth have fallen out, so I guess she must be old.’
‘Exactly.’ He grinned at me.
I was beginning to discover for myself what a man’s needs might be. I had a certain reaction when I saw beautiful girls on TV and I knew it had something to do with my penis, because when I thought about those girls on my own in bed, I couldn’t help playing with myself, resulting in what one of the encyclopaedias called ‘ejaculation’。 I even did it in my sleep. I was afraid of asking Dad about this. I wasn’t sure what his reaction might be. He had mentioned in passing a few months previously that masturbation was against the laws of God. I hadn’t known what the word meant then, but I certainly knew now.
I kept my new discovery to myself, but in Dad’s library I discovered books on human anatomy with drawings of naked men and women, arrows pointing to their various body parts. I was going through puberty. The only naked woman I had ever seen was my stupid mother. Vulva and vagina were the words that stayed in my mind. I learned how babies were made. Dad put his penis into her vagina and vulva and pushed his seed into her. Why would he do that when he hated her and she disgusted him so much? He must have done it twice. ‘A man has needs,’ he’d said. Now I understood.
That was not the only thing that changed that year. Everything did. One spring afternoon, I was at my desk in the sitting room studying some Greek texts when, from my window, I saw a man climb through the undergrowth below the high wall on the left-hand side of the garden. I was startled. I had never seen anyone enter our grounds before without it being prearranged. Occasionally, the oilmen would make deliveries to the tank at the end of the garden, and Dad would advise me to stay in my room. On those days he said he’d had to gag Denise Norton and the child, so that they could make no noise. He said it was an embarrassment to have a mad wife and a stupid child. They were ‘our secret’。 That was strange. Who could I ever tell?
The long-haired man, wearing denim jeans and a black jacket, slid along the tall trees at the edge of our property, and then made a dart towards the back of the house, crouching low to the ground as he ran across. A burglar!
I stepped gingerly out of the room in time to hear glass breaking. I ran to the annexe to lock myself in my room but before I got there I heard her screeching, louder than ever before. She must have been lying on the floor, screaming through the tiny gap at the bottom of the door. ‘My name is Denise Norton, I’ve been kidnapped! I’m locked in. I’m Denise Norton. Please, break down the door! Let me out!’
I heard brief scuffling from the kitchen and then ran to the sitting-room window again. The man must have jumped back out through the window, and I could see blood pouring from his hand as he sprinted across the lawn, dived into the hedge and over the wall. I ran back to the annexe. She was still shrieking her name over and over. I knew by now where Dad kept the key and I reached up to the kitchen cupboard and took the key out of the mug. As I opened the door, she was straining towards it, still chained by the ankle, clutching the small child by the hand.
‘Oh, thank God!’ she said, sobbing, and then she stopped abruptly. ‘It’s you? Peter? I thought they were different footsteps. You’ve got so tall.’
Her face crumpled and silent tears coursed down her cheeks. I looked at the girl by her side, who was staring at me from behind her mother’s hip. She was silent, and thin too, with huge eyes, but paler than any child I had ever seen. Her skin had an almost blue tinge. She clutched the bear, my Toby, in her other arm. Denise was cleaner than the last time I had seen her. Still thin, but without the bulge in her belly. She was wearing an old dressing gown of Dad’s. Her hair, though clean, was hanging limply down her back, tied with a rag. I looked around the room. She had a bright lamp now, and on top of the fridge there were a few potatoes and apples. She had three blankets, and the mattress behind her looked a little fresher than the one I remembered. There were no visible bruises this time.
‘Peter –’ her chest was heaving as she tried to get the words out – ‘is he here? Whose were those footsteps? They weren’t yours or his. And I heard glass breaking. What happened?’
I took a step backwards. She put her arms out to me. ‘Please stay, please. You should meet your sister, Mary.’ I stopped and looked back at the girl. Her mother babbled on. ‘I promise I won’t ask any questions. I must have been mistaken about the footsteps. I’m so sorry. I’ll never do that again. Don’t tell him.’ I darted forward and grabbed the bear out of the girl’s hands. The girl started to squeal and cry. Her mother raised her voice then. ‘That’s her only toy. It’s the only thing she owns. Peter!’ I edged backwards to the door.
‘Please don’t tell him! He’ll kill me this time. He’ll kill your sister!’ She dropped to her knees.
I was stronger now than I was on our last encounter. I aimed a kick and connected with her face. ‘Don’t talk to me.’
‘Oh God,’ she gasped as blood poured from her nose. ‘You’re just like him. He’ll kill me and you don’t even care.’ I was shocked at the blood, shocked at what I’d done. I turned and left, bolting and locking the door behind me.
I took the bear, stepped over the broken glass and went back into my room, slid the bear under my pillow and kept vigilant watch on the hedges until Dad came home.
Dad went into a rage when I told him what had happened. He made me repeat every part of the incident word for word. ‘She definitely said her name?’
‘Yes, over and over again, she kept shouting it.’
‘You think he heard it?’
‘Definitely.’
I had never seen him so angry. ‘I’m fucked! That stupid bitch. The burglar will tell someone.’ And then he ran upstairs and he shouted at me to pack a suitcase. I’d never heard him use the ‘f’ word before. I didn’t have a suitcase. I followed him to his room upstairs where he was frantically rummaging through drawers. ‘Where are we going?’ I asked, my voice trembling.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘What shall I pack?’
He threw a holdall bag at me. It glanced off my head. ‘Stop whining like a girl. Pack what you need … No, wait, pack everything you own. Leave nothing behind. Don’t just stand there. Hurry up!’
I ran to my room. ‘How long are we going for?’ I shouted.