The Little Prisoner_ A Memoir - Jane Elliott [30]
Sometimes I would have to go in there with him to ‘help him sort out his tools’ and he would lock the door behind us. The door had four or five bolts and a chain on the inside, so there was never any chance of us being disturbed. It was only later, when I thought back to those times, that it occurred to me how weird it was that no one else questioned why he was so keen to secure the door from the inside. To me it was just the way things were.
I remember that on this occasion he took me in there while the boys were playing in the garden outside, locked the door and made me stand in front of the window and watch for anybody coming.
‘Make yourself look busy,’ he instructed, pulling his trousers down to his ankles and standing behind the door. He crouched down and I felt him sliding his hand into my knickers, playing around with me while he masturbated himself. Just a few yards away I could see Mum washing up in the kitchen. Every so often she would look up out of the window and shout at the boys to stay off the grass and on the patio, away from the shed, which was strange, as it was summertime and they were usually allowed to play on the grass at that end of the garden.
I was staring straight into my mother’s eyes as I pretended to be tidying up the work surface.
That night I had to hide my knickers inside my dirty clothes because Richard’s hands had left big black grease marks and I was frightened Mum would see them and know what was happening.
Richard’s mum seemed to hate me almost as much as he did and was always pinching and poking at me when we went round there. She and Mum got on quite well, going to Bingo together and everything, but when I was tiny Mum used to make sure she stood between Nan and me.
Nan lived about five miles away from our house to begin with and Richard often used to take me with him on visits because it involved long walks through the woods. We would always have to stop on the way there or back so that I could do him a favour. If there were too many people around and he wasn’t able to get me alone he would become really angry and we would have to keep walking until we found a secluded spot. Sometimes he got so carried away with it all we wouldn’t have time to go and see his mum and would have to go straight back home after doing it.
On one of these occasions we were meant to be borrowing some sugar or something and when we got back Mum asked for it. When she saw we didn’t have it, she asked if we had actually been to Nan’s.
‘No,’ Richard said, obviously worried she might ask Nan.
‘Yes,’ I said simultaneously, assuming he would want me to lie.
‘I mean, no,’ I corrected myself quickly, pretending not to see Mum’s perplexed expression.
When Nan said she needed a fireplace building in her front room Richard agreed to do it for her, and of course I had to go with him every day. Nan had gone away while the work was being done but one of my cousins was living there and wanted me to play with her when I went round.
One day Richard said I could play out for a bit. ‘As long as you don’t go too far,’ he warned.
After a while he called me back in and I knew what it was for.
‘I’ll come in with you,’ my cousin said.
‘No, don’t,’ I begged her. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’ But she wouldn’t listen. She was getting annoyed with Richard and me because she didn’t understand why I always had to be with him.
When he saw her coming in with me he became angry, just as I knew he would. He told her to go back out.
‘No,’ she replied. ‘I live here. I can do what I want.’
My blood would always run cold when other people argued with my stepfather, as I knew that he would be taking his anger out on me later. Now he wasn’t going to climb down and