The Little Prisoner_ A Memoir - Jane Elliott [63]
The things I’d told him must have been playing on Steve’s mind all the time, however. I know a lot of his friends got fed up with him going on about it when they all went out together and were trying to have a good time.
On the first New Year’s morning in our new house, after Steve had had a heavy night’s drinking with one of his friends, I came downstairs to find them both looking very furtive. I didn’t think it was just because they’d been so drunk the night before, because that wasn’t such an unusual event.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘Nothing,’ Steve assured me, unable to look me in the eye.
The phone rang and the colour seemed to drain from his face. It was his dad, telling us he’d had a call from my mum saying that I had to contact her, that it was really serious.
‘What could that be about?’ I wondered. ‘Maybe she’s going to tell me Richard’s dead.’
‘I’m really sorry, Janey,’ Steve said, realizing he had no option but to confess. ‘We had a bit to drink last night and we rang your mum and I gave her a piece of my mind.’
‘You told her you knew?’ I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. This was my worst nightmare come true. Now my stepdad would know that I’d told other people, that I’d broken his golden rule. ‘You stupid git!’
That call, coming out of the blue, must have been a hell of a shock to my stepdad, when he’d always been so confident that I would never find the nerve to disobey him. We heard through other friends of Steve’s, who still lived in the old neighbourhood, that my mum was going round all the houses the next day saying that I was making accusations against my father (they were still keeping up the pretence that he was not my stepfather) and that they wanted to make sure no one said anything.
‘Janey’s spreading rumours,’ she was telling them, ‘and we don’t want to hear anyone talking about them.’
I knew that anyone who had had a visit from my mum would be anxious not to do anything to upset her or my stepdad.
When my anger at Steve had subsided enough for me to be able to talk straight, I gave Mum a ring, my heart thumping, wondering what would happen next.
‘Is it true?’ she asked.
‘Is what true?’
‘You know what. Is it true?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘You wouldn’t have believed me, and if you had, he would have ended up killing both of us. Where is he now?’
‘He’s out. He’s going fucking mad. He’s looking for the person who made the call.’
‘He knows who made the call,’ I pointed out. ‘He’s just looking for an excuse to do some damage. Don’t ever let on that you believe it’s true.’
For years after that I had dreams that the police had come knocking on my door to tell me that they’d found my mother dead in a pool of blood because she’d let Richard know that she believed what I’d said about him.
Very soon afterwards Richard and Mum moved to the other end of the estate.
From the moment he’d learned the truth, Steve had thought I should go to the police and report what had happened to me. His parents were the same and I had to tell them that it was never going to happen, that I was never going to be able to find the courage to stand up in court and accuse my stepfather openly of the things he’d done to me, that the repercussions would be too terrible. They could all see that they were putting me under more pressure by going on about it, so they stopped, but I knew they still believed it and in my heart I knew they were right.
When I looked at my two girls, I wondered what I would say to them if they came to me one day and told me someone had attacked them. If I said they must go to the police and they turned round and said, ‘But you never did’, what would I say to them?
It’s terrible to know that you should be doing something but not be able to find the courage to do it. It makes you feel bad about yourself every