The Little Prisoner_ A Memoir - Jane Elliott [20]
I tried pleading once more. It was no use. ‘Just fucking get on with it,’ he instructed and I knew there was no getting out of it.
I went back to Tracy with a heavy heart. ‘What did you be nasty to Tom for?’ I asked.
She looked puzzled.
‘Go on then!’ my stepfather shouted from the patio, impatient for the fight to begin.
‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered and gave her a gentle push.
Confused by all the shouting and the sudden end to our game, Tracy pushed me back and a few seconds later we were rolling on the floor punching, scratching, pinching and pulling hair. My stepfather was cheering me on from the sidelines like a proud parent watching their kid performing in a school match. It wasn’t long before Tracy had managed to pin me to the floor and was laying into me with quite justifiable anger. There was hair everywhere and our faces were covered in deep scratches. We were both crying because of the pain we were inflicting on one another and because we’d been having such a good time a few minutes before and now it was all spoiled. My stepdad was becoming furious with me for losing and letting the family down, screaming at me to beat Tracy up, but she was too strong for me and I didn’t want to hurt her any more anyway.
Both of us had tired ourselves out, but Richard hadn’t seen nearly enough sport yet. He dragged Tracy off me, grabbing both our collars and hauling us inside the house, excited by the fighting, furious that his fighter was losing and determined to get revenge on Tracy. He pulled us roughly up the stairs and into one of the bedrooms, pushing two of my brothers’ beds apart to make a boxing ring. ‘Now you’re fucking gonna do it properly,’ he ordered. I knew he meant we had to box and kick and abide by rules he laid down, two little bare-knuckle fighters. There was to be no more girlie hair-pulling or scratching. And this time he knew I would win, because he’d trained me, along with my brothers, in how to box.
We started out by hitting each other softly, but Richard knew we were pulling our punches and shouted that I’d get a good hiding from him if I didn’t get on with it and beat her up, so I started fighting for real because I was far more scared of him than I was of poor Tracy. We fought for him like pit-bull terriers for what seemed like ages before Mum couldn’t take it any more and split us up.
Tracy was sent home after that. She got such a telling off for the ‘trouble she’d caused’, but there was nothing I could do about it. Maybe my stepfather was jealous, wanting to have his family all to himself and to exclude any outsider who didn’t understand that he was to be feared and obeyed without question. Eventually he fell out with Tracy’s parents and they steered clear of us for years, just like everyone else.
Richard used to like to make us fight each other as well, even when the boys were tiny. If we were arguing about something, as brothers and sisters always do, he’d order us to fight it out properly. I was made to kneel down, because I was so much taller than them, and I wasn’t allowed to scratch, but those were the only rules.
I didn’t want to hit the boys, because I loved them and they were just little kids, but Richard would make us punch each other as hard as we could. We could also pull hair, bite and strangle one another, but the boys always had shaved heads so I had nothing to get hold of. We’d all be in tears because we didn’t want to do it, tufts of my hair would be pulled out and there would be blood and bruises on all of us. Although I would try not to hurt my brothers, they would be forced to hurt me and sometimes I would lash out automatically because I’d been punched in the face or one of them had his hands tight round my throat. If I did as I was told and really punched one of them in the hope of ending the fight