The Little Prisoner_ A Memoir - Jane Elliott [8]
There was a ledge in my room too and I remember being made to stand on it, but I can’t remember what happened next. One day that memory will probably return as well, but I’m not looking forward to it.
These physical humiliations and discomforts, however, were not as unsettling as the mind games, which started almost immediately I came back home.
‘Go and turn the hot water on for me, Janey,’ Mum would say and I would run upstairs to the immersion.
‘Go and turn the hot water off,’ Richard would tell me as soon as I got back from turning it on. I would know to obey without saying anything.
‘Why didn’t you turn the water on when I asked you?’ Mum would want to know a little while later when she went up for her bath.
‘I did,’ I would protest. ‘He told me to turn it off again.’
‘You bloody little liar!’ he would explode and I would have no chance of convincing Mum that I was telling the truth once he started ranting and raving. If I’d argued any further I would have got a beating, so I just stayed quiet, knowing it wouldn’t be long before he thought of another game.
When it came to the beatings Richard liked to vary the implements he used. Sometimes it was a slipper, or a hand or a bamboo stick. He would make me choose which it was to be. As I got older the beatings got less, perhaps because they had served their purpose in training me to obey him. Instead I would just be punched or smacked around the head or thrown across the room or made to pay a forfeit by doing a favour. Whatever happened, I would never be let off a punishment.
‘Do you want breakfast, Jane?’ Mum called through from the kitchen one morning to where I was sitting on the sofa in the front room.
‘Yes please,’ I called back.
‘No, you don’t,’ my stepfather hissed from the nearby armchair. ‘Tell her you don’t want any.’
‘No, I don’t want any really,’ I shouted.
‘Why not?’ Mum asked, appearing in the doorway.
‘She must be fucking mad,’ he yelled, jumping up from his chair. ‘She doesn’t know what she fucking wants. Do you want fucking breakfast or not?’
‘Yes, please,’ I said in a small confused voice.
‘What do you want?’ Mum asked, shaking her head in puzzlement.
‘Toast,’ I said and she went back to the kitchen to make it for me.
The moment she was out of sight Richard’s fingers closed painfully round my face like a clamp and he was whispering again, his face inches from mine. ‘I told you, you don’t want any fucking breakfast. Now fucking tell her.’
‘I don’t want any toast, Mum,’ I obediently called out to the kitchen. ‘I don’t really want anything.’
‘Stop messing me about, Jane!’ she shouted.
‘Stop messing your mum about!’ Richard screamed, hitting me hard around the head. ‘She’s fucking mad,’ he called out to Mum. ‘She just likes stirring up fucking arguments!’
He was always playing these mind games to make Mum angry with me and to give him an excuse to smack me around. I just ended up so confused.
I know which memory is the first one I can find which has a sexual connection, but I think there may be even earlier ones lying in wait beneath the dust somewhere. This one must have happened a couple of years after I came back home because I remember I was sharing a bed with my brother Pete. My next brother, Dan, was also in with us in a separate bed. I’d been turned out of my room because it was having one of its routine redecorations and Pete and I were lying top to tail in his bed. The reason I think something must have happened before is because I remember I was awake and listening that night, terrified of what was about to happen. I’d heard my mother going out, the front door shutting after her, and I’d known that Richard would soon be upstairs to get me.
Every sound told me a story. The living-room door opened downstairs and I could sense Richard’s stealthy footsteps