The Little Prisoner_ A Memoir - Jane Elliott [80]
By the time the police had made it across the street my family had finished and run away. I lay on the ground, unable to see or hear anything. I knew that I had wet myself. Someone had opened the door to the pub and they started pulling me back into the room. I couldn’t stop myself from screaming and crying, terrified that they would make me go back out the front where I was sure my family would be waiting for me. The girl who had shut us out in the alley was almost as hysterical as I was, but I found it hard to be sympathetic, having begged her for help and received none. I was more concerned about who was waiting for me outside.
‘Janey,’ someone tried to reassure me, ‘half the police force are out there now.’
Eventually they managed to calm me down enough to get me out to the waiting ambulance, but the first thing I saw was some of my cousins circling around on their mobile phones, reporting what was happening to the ones who had run away. There was also an abandoned car outside the police station, surrounded by policemen.
Later, I fitted the pieces of the jigsaw together. My attackers had arrived in such a hurry they had driven straight over the roundabout outside the police station and the police had been called out to deal with the dangerous driving before they had known anything about what was happening to me. When my attackers had run back to the car, leaving me for dead, they were unable to start it and had to scatter on foot, leaving the abandoned car with their mobile phones buzzing for the police to pick up the calls.
Later that night two of my brothers, realizing that their phones had given them away, turned themselves in to get their phones and car back.
As I was loaded into the ambulance I saw the wedding party groom on the steps of the church, trying to enjoy the day, and I felt so guilty. It seemed that it was all my fault that their day had been ruined. I was also afraid I’d ruined the school reunion, but I discovered later, as I was being X-rayed and patched up in hospital, that they had kept the party going and gone on to the club as planned. I felt terrible that Al had taken such a kicking on my behalf, but apparently he was able to keep going for the night.
I called my dad, hoping that he would come down to the hospital and give me some moral support, but it turned out he’d had a few drinks and couldn’t drive. I rang Steve’s parents and they were at the hospital by the time I arrived and sat with me throughout the night. The staff wanted me to stay in, but I wanted to get out of the area as soon as possible and back to the kids. I didn’t want them to have to spend Sunday without either of their parents around.
For the next few days, whenever I looked in the mirror, I was reminded of all the times that I had seen my mother with her head swollen out of shape, her eyes closed up and the bruising coming through.
But despite everything I know I was right to speak out.
About the Author
JANE ELLIOTT is a pseudonym. The author first decided to tell her story to the police after taking inspiration from Dave Pelzer’s powerful memoir A Child Called It and becoming convinced that she could no longer remain a silent victim of the stepfather who had kept her a virtual prisoner for so many years.
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Copyright
HARPER
First published in Great Britain in 2005 by HarperElement, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
THE LITTLE PRISONER. Copyright © 2005 by Jane Elliott.
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