The Little Prisoner_ A Memoir - Jane Elliott [23]
If ever Mum was away for the night, which was quite often when she got ill with her kidneys or when she was away giving birth, I would have to sleep in the bed with Richard as if we were a couple and one morning one of my brothers saw me coming out, even though I always tried to get back to my own bed before they woke up.
‘What you doing in there?’ he wanted to know. I made up some excuse about having gone in there to get something and he seemed to accept my explanation without question, but then why wouldn’t he? What child could have imagined what was going on between his father and his sister?
One of my uncles had a caravan, too, just in front of Granddad’s, and we would go there as well, but when it was just Granddad and me it was the best time imaginable, whether we were in the caravan or out shopping or in his house.
It couldn’t last, of course, because nothing good ever did. Richard took against Granddad and Uncle John, just as he took against everyone. He did everything he could to stop me going round to their house because he knew how much I enjoyed it and how kind Granddad was to me. I guess he was afraid I’d let something slip if I was there too much.
Once Richard had taken against someone his vindictiveness would be irrational and petty. One moment he would be attacking my uncle in the street, the next he would be sneaking around the back, cutting through their television aerial and telephone wires.
Because I knew my way around Granddad’s house Richard used to lift me over the fence when he was out and make me break in and take things that he and Mum wanted, like food or tobacco or something from the freezer. Sometimes it would just be money or a credit card that they were after because they wanted to go shopping. I hated doing it because it made me feel that I was betraying Granddad.
When Uncle John eventually married, Richard took against his poor wife and if he saw her in the street he would try to run her over.
Granddad also had a girlfriend he was planning to marry, but Mum and Richard took against her for no reason other than she wasn’t ‘family’. If we happened to come out of our house at the same time as Granddad, I was instructed to ignore him, and I would never have dared to disobey such a direct order. I was later told that that nearly broke his heart. They eventually beat him up and drove him and my uncle away. I think there was a final argument over some money they’d borrowed off him or something, but the reasons didn’t mean anything, they had just decided to drive him away. By that time Granddad had had a stroke and Mum and Richard were worried that he would die and they wouldn’t inherit a share of his house because he would leave it to his widow.
People sometimes used to complain to the police after they’d been attacked or intimidated by my stepdad, but they always withdrew the charges after receiving a warning visit from Richard or Mum. They all decided it was easier to get the council to move them to another estate than to face the intimidation and violence that went with trying to get justice. So there was no one to stop him doing whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. To me, as a child, he seemed invincible. There was no point trying to fight him or escape from his power, because he would always win in the end and the retribution would always be worse than whatever had come before. So whenever I was asked to do something, no matter how petty or obscene it might be, I knew I had to agree with a merry laugh if I didn’t want a beating or worse.
As I grew older he would make me do him different favours. Sometimes he would drop a favourite routine for a while and try something new, occasionally going back to an old practice for a change. I never knew when some new demand was going to be made.
One