Escape From Evil - Cathy Wilson [49]
On the plus side, even at eight, I was mature enough to reason that at least I’d reached rock bottom. Life can never be this bad again. How wrong I was.
NINE
Trying to be Brave
I’d become so accustomed to Mum disappearing for days and then suddenly popping up that for weeks after her death it just seemed like another one of those periods. I’d go a couple of days, getting on with life, having fun, and then it would hit me like a kick in the stomach.
She’s not coming back. She’s never coming back.
Granny and Grandpa were more pragmatic than me and certainly more efficient than Mum had ever been. Within a few days of her death, I’d been enrolled in a local Saltdean school. I’d been staying with them in their Tremola Avenue bungalow and it seemed logical to start rebuilding my life from there. That was fine by me. Settling into a new school was a chore, but tolerable. It was the order I hated, being told what to do and where to be at a specific time, although I never had a problem with the people in authority.
Ever adaptable, I just slotted into life with my grandparents. Then they dropped the bombshell: I might have to move out.
In a way, I was taking life a day at a time. On the other hand, I’d assumed I’d be living with my grandparents now. I probably would have preferred to live on my own in Telscombe Cliffs, but that was obviously not an option, despite the fact that I’d been doing virtually that since we’d moved in. As far as the authorities were concerned, I needed proper grown-up care and as Granny and Grandpa were my closest relatives, I’d naturally stay with them. Or so I thought. Technically, though, there was someone else who was biologically closer to me. Someone I had no recollection of ever existing. My father.
Granny broke the news. There was going to be a court hearing. Lawyers and magistrates would decide what was to be done with me.
I knew she was talking about something important, but the words didn’t mean much to me. As far as I was concerned, it was adult business. In any case, I’d already moved around so many times that choosing where to live seemed less of a permanent decision than it actually was.
‘Can’t I stay with you?’ I asked.
‘Of course you can,’ she replied. ‘But it’s not up to me.’
If it’s not up to you, then who is it up to?
It turned out to be me.
Courtrooms are intimidating at the best of times. Whether you’re a witness or a member of the jury, you somehow feel that you’re the one on trial. There’s an aura about them that really puts you off guard. That’s what I feel as an adult who has seen the very worst of them. Imagine how it felt as an eight-year-old?
As I remember it, I had to tell the magistrate where I wanted to live. There were two choices on the table. Legally, my father had the strongest claim. Then there were my grandparents, whom I’d stayed with so often and with whom I was living now. Did I want to live with them?
My father didn’t appear in court. Or if he did, I can’t remember. I sat with Granny and Grandpa and then, when the magistrate called me forward, I went and stood near a lawyer. He asked me: ‘Who would you like to live with as your official guardian or guardians?’
It was a lot of pressure on an eight-year-old who’d just lost her mother. The law doesn’t seem to worry about things like feelings though – as I would discover again and again many years later.
I didn’t hesitate. If there was anything of the romantic in me, I would have chosen my dad. But there wasn’t. I was an impossibly practical child; I’d had to be. The fact that he hadn’t even shown up confirmed my instincts: ‘I want to live with Granny and Grandpa.’
I don’t know what the court knew about my domestic circumstances, but it was as if that was the last thing they’d expected to hear. A child choosing her grandparents over her own father?