The Little Prisoner_ A Memoir - Jane Elliott [55]
Not having heard anything from Richard for a while and being with someone friendly made me feel safer than usual and I agreed. We took a couple of chairs and sat just outside the door. I had my back to it, so I could see the entrance to my flat, and was talking to my friend as the kids played around at our feet.
Suddenly she turned white.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.
‘Your dad,’ she said, her voice trembling, ‘he’s just picked up Emma and walked into the flat.’
I couldn’t believe it. How could that have happened in just a few seconds with us sitting right there? Along with the fear that I felt rising inside me, a surge of anger roared up at the thought of him taking my baby.
‘Go home quickly,’ I told her, and she knew from my voice I was serious. She scooped up her child and hurried away. As I went inside I wedged the door curtain into the door to keep it open.
Richard was standing in the kitchen with Emma in his arms, just waiting for me.
‘Give her to me and get out,’ I said.
‘I told you you’d have to watch her all the time,’ he taunted. ‘This is how easily I can get to her.’
I picked up the Stanley knife from the side where I’d left it.
‘Give her to me now!’ I screamed.
‘I’m taking her,’ he sneered. ‘There’s nothing you can do to stop me. If you try, I’ll be contacting social services and telling them what a bad mother you are.’
‘Give her to me!’ I screamed, refusing to allow myself to be intimidated any more.
He just smiled.
‘Give her to me or I’m calling the police!’
Still he didn’t move and I stormed back outside, relieved to be out from under the same roof as him, but frantic with worry that he might just walk away with Emma and there would be nothing I could do to stop him. I didn’t have the phone with me and I’m not sure I could have dialled the number anyway, the way my fingers were trembling.
‘Someone call the police!’ I screamed for all to hear. ‘He’s taking my baby! Call the police!’
Suddenly he was beside me, yelling and swearing at me. But at least he had put Emma down.
‘I’m gonna get you,’ he repeated over and over, and I thought he was going to hit me, but I didn’t care. What would one more beating matter after so many? This time I kept shouting back.
To my amazement, there was a look in his eyes I’d never seen before, as if he was worried. In seventeen years I’d never stood up to him, never challenged him seriously, and he wasn’t sure where to go next. He had already used every weapon in his arsenal. There was nothing that he hadn’t done to me already and I had survived it all. If he wanted to shut me up now, he was going to have to kill me.
The neighbours were beginning to come out of their doors to see what all the fuss was about. They too seemed to be emboldened by me taking a stand against Richard. It felt as if the tide was finally turning. He obviously wasn’t sure if the police had been called or not and so, after one last bravura rant, he turned and left.
I was boiling with anger and I needed to let it out somehow ‘Please,’ I said to a neighbour, ‘take Emma for a few minutes.’ The woman nodded, seeing that I was almost out of my head with rage, and picked Emma up, hurrying her away from the scene.
I stormed back into the flat and started smashing everything in sight, hurling plates and cups and glasses and ornaments to the floor, feeling better with every explosion of breaking china. I wanted to throw out everything Richard had ever touched or sold me or given me. I even managed to heave the three-piece suite he had made me buy off him out into the street – God knows how I found the strength, because it had taken several people hours of pushing and shoving to get it in through the door in the first place. But having been suppressed for so many years, my anger now roared out of me like a tornado, giving me super strength, and there was no point in trying to stop it until it had spent its force.
Eventually I had nothing