Escape From Evil - Cathy Wilson [36]
The next few seconds passed in slow motion. Somehow Mark got Mum’s head right next to the flame and, just as I thought he was going to put her face in it, he twisted her round so her hair trailed across the fire. It went up in an instant.
I’d thought I was all screamed out, but I found a new voice. So did Mum. We were both wailing and I was convinced she was on fire. But suddenly she slumped to the floor and I could see she wasn’t. For a moment I thought Mark had let her go. Then I saw that he was still clutching about a foot of Mum’s beautiful, beautiful hair. The second the flame had burned its way through her tresses, she’d fallen forward. As she knelt sobbing on the floor, I studied the back of her head. She looked terrible. But at least she was alive.
Three days good, one day bad, two days good, one day bad. That was an average week – except there were no averages. We couldn’t predict when Mark and co would arrive. If we could have, maybe we wouldn’t have been there.
I’d really like to think that Mum would have been strong enough to avoid them. Yet even as a child I was aware that there was something that made her keep seeing them. Something that stopped her from going to the police after the hair-burning incident. Something that they had and she wanted.
Just reliving the hair episode now has had me in floods of tears. I wish I could forget the memory, but it just won’t fade, the sight of my mother, dragged around like a rag doll, then terrorized near that naked flame. I can still hear her screams. They’re always with me. Sometimes I wake up at night, shaking, with her fear searing through me as though it had happened yesterday. And every time I remember, I hate myself for not being able to stop it. She was my mum. Why couldn’t I save her? And why did she let them come back?
That whole period is full of pain I’ve tried hard to forget, but two other incidents have stayed with me.
Looking back, realizing what these men were capable of, I question why Mum or I ever dared to argue with them. I guess the answer is, we had to. If you give in blindly, the game is over. I didn’t understand the rules as a seven-year-old, but that’s definitely how it was. If we hadn’t fought with them, then maybe they would never have left. It might have been seven days on, no days off.
Fighting back every so often is what kept us alive inside, I’m sure of that. I hated myself at the time for not being able to stop the vicious bullying, but at least I tried. Time after time, I tried. Even when they held a knife to my face.
One of the men had asked Mum to do something. I didn’t hear what, or at least I don’t remember – maybe this is my brain being kind to me. What I do recall is shouting out ‘No!’ and rushing to her side. One of them pulled me back by the arm, so I tried to bite him. I didn’t make any impression through his leather coat, but he was annoyed. He wrapped his arm around my neck and whispered in my ear, ‘If you don’t behave, you’re going to suffer.’
I was so intent on breaking free from his grip that I didn’t notice what his other hand was doing. Then I saw a glint of light out of the corner of my eye. A second later, I felt something cold on my cheek.
A knife!
It was the Stanley knife I’d cut the kitchen vinyl with. This blade had sliced effortlessly through tough plastic. I knew exactly what it could do to me.
Instinctively, I pushed back into the man’s body, twisting my head, trying to put a few millimetres between my face and the knife. I felt his grip tighten, but at least he pulled the knife back.
That’s when Mum saw what he was doing. The look on her face told me how much danger I was in. This wasn’t a game.
‘Put it down,’ she said calmly. ‘I’ll do anything you want.’
‘You hear that?’ the man said to me. ‘Your mum’s going to behave. The question is: are you?’
‘She’ll behave,’ Mum answered for me. ‘Won’t you?’
I nodded as best I could.
‘Good,’ my captor grunted. ‘Because I don’t want to have to remind you what will happen if you don