The Little Prisoner_ A Memoir - Jane Elliott [60]
‘He spotted me when I got back in the car,’ he said. ‘He drew up beside me as I parked, so I couldn’t get away, and indicated he was going to park because he wanted to have it out. When he got out of the car I just stood on the horn, over and over. I wanted to attract your attention and bring everyone else to their windows. I couldn’t get my car window open because the handle was broken, so I was shouting through the glass at him, pointing at the faces: “See all this? Everyone knows about you!” There was a real look of panic on his face, but he was still coming at me. I didn’t hang about. I could see what he had in mind. I took off, with him after me. I wanted to draw him away from the area, so he wouldn’t go in looking for you. I went up towards the police station and he turned off. I was afraid he was coming back here, so I did a U-turn in the road and then he was behind me again. I slowed right down to ten miles an hour and he just drove off.’
Another morning we woke up to find the tyres on Steve’s car had been let down and so we had to start hiding it in other streets. Life obviously couldn’t go on like this.
One day there was a knock at the door and I found my brother Dan there. I hadn’t seen him since I’d taken my stand against Richard. He must have been about fourteen by then.
‘Alright, Dan?’ I said.
‘Dad wants all his jewellery back,’ he told me.
‘All right then, mate,’ I said, holding no grudge against him. ‘Do you want to come in while I get it?’
He shook his head and his eyes went to the ground. I could tell that Silly Git must be watching from his car somewhere. As I was keen to get rid of anything that had anything to do with him, I happily gathered up everything he or Mum had ever given me for birthdays or Christmases.
‘Tell him he can keep the lot,’ I said as I handed it back, ‘because I don’t want it anyway.’ I was surprised at my own courage in being so mouthy.
‘I really miss you,’ Dan mumbled.
‘I still love you, Dan,’ I said, giving him a kiss and a cuddle. ‘I miss you, too, and I’m sorry about everything, but it’s not my fault.’
I could see he was holding back the tears. He wouldn’t want his father to see he had been crying when he got back to the car.
Even though we were laying plans to escape from the area, Steve was still all for going to the police, believing that Richard only got away with the things he did because everyone was afraid to stand up to him. He tried his hardest to convince me, but he could see that I was not in a fit state to do anything like that. We were going to have to slip away in the night if we wanted to build any sort of normal life for ourselves and the children. We were going to have to accept that, like it or not, my stepfather had succeeded in driving us away from our home and our friends.
But how do you choose where to live when you can go virtually anywhere? And how would we find a house we could afford? It was bound to take a few weeks to arrange. The one stipulation was that Steve needed to be within about three-quarters of an hour’s drive of his work, but that covered a huge area. The only places I didn’t want to go were anywhere that I’d been to with my stepdad, like the DIY stores he was always taking me to in other towns. I didn’t want to go anywhere where there was the slightest chance I might bump into him when I was out shopping.
So we were aiming to find a place that I’d never heard of and where you could get the cheapest houses possible, since Steve wasn’t earning all that much. I had actually been in council housing long enough to qualify for help with buying a property and could have got £14,000, which would have helped Steve a lot, but we couldn’t take the risk of anyone in the council knowing where we’d gone. We needed to disappear completely, so we had to sort the house out on our own.
Buying your first property is a big enough step for any young couple without having to do it under