This time, he’d left, had been missing for days. Not the usual few hours until things had calmed down. And he must have taken what little money we had, because the house had turned an icy cold and there had been no food in the cupboards. Me and my sister had been left to our own devices, forced to fend for ourselves.
Normally, when they’d gone too far and their arguments had turned to physical violence or after the anger had been taken out on us, my mother would do her bit of collateral damage. Plying us with bowls of hot cornflakes the next morning, making a special effort to warm the milk up for us. To do what mothers do for their children. Sitting there, among the mess and clutter of the filthy, sticky kitchen table, the nourishment was more an unspoken reward for not telling anyone what had happened than an apology for what we’d endured the night before.
And we always lapped it up. Knowing that this was as good as it was ever going to get.
But this time was worse. This time, things had changed forever. Because Mother hadn’t left her room for days and there weren’t any cornflakes. There was no milk. There was no anything. The cupboards were bare. Our shrunken stomachs ached so violently, and we were so weak and dizzy that we were forced to steal another child’s lunch box at school one morning. We were caught red handed, hiding under the coats in the cloakroom, devouring the contents by our teacher and of course, she rang my mother.
We anticipated the punishment we’d receive when we got home. Not for stealing the food though, only for getting caught. Our crime would be for bringing attention and shame to our door.
So, when my mother called me into her bedroom, I stood close to her bed, bracing myself for a slap or her scream to rip though the darkness at me.
Only what I got was something far scarier. Her voice was tiny. Quiet. Unnerving, as she whispered her instructions to me. I was to ask one of my friend’s mothers at the school gate tomorrow if me and my sister could go around there for tea. I was to tell them that my mother was sick.
Which I guess, now I look back, wasn’t a lie. Though back then, I had no idea how just how sick my mother was.
I didn’t want to ask my friend’s mother, but I was seven years old and we were starving, and I knew what would happen if I disobeyed my mother, so I did what I was told. Brazenly putting the woman on the spot at the school gate the next day, tears of humiliation filling my eyes.
Looking back, I think she simply took pity on me. And even though me and my sister were welcomed into their home, I remember overhearing the hushed whispers about us, the look of disdain as we entered their pristine home, so unlike our own. The hushed conversation between my friend’s mother and father as they stood huddled together in the kitchen, talking about us, about how skinny we looked, how feral. I didn’t know what that meant at the time, but I guess they judged us fairly, because we were unwashed, and we stunk. Our hair matted from where it was so very rarely brushed. Our clothes caked with dirt and stains and the acrid stench of piss from where we rarely washed. But they made us feel welcome to our faces and I’d never sat at another family’s dinner table until that day. It caught me off guard. Sitting there, like a stranger peering in from outside, at this weird family all laughing and chatting among each other as they ate their food. As if they were friends. As if they liked each other. The room so full of noise and chaos and something else that I’d not felt in our house. Warmth.
It should have filled me with joy I guess, to be part of this household, even if only for a short while, but in that moment, I’d never felt more as if I didn’t belong.
Part of me wondered if maybe these people were acting too, pretending that their lives were perfect in the way that our mother lied about the reality of our existence behind closed doors.
Maybe none of this was real, I quietly observed, waiting patiently for one of them to slip up and give the game away. But they didn’t. They kept talking and laughing and smiling until the meal was finished.
Sitting at that kitchen able, eating a hot, home-cooked meal, the likes of which I’d never tasted in my short life, I just knew.
This was how other families lived.
This was how other families behaved.
There was love, laughter, chaos, mess. But mostly love. A stark contrast from how we lived.
It left me feeling cheated. I vowed that one day, when I had children, I’d do things differently. I’d be better than the parents I was given.
And later, when the police came, they promised we’d be okay. That we’d be safe. That they would help us.
But they were wrong.
We wouldn’t be okay, and they couldn’t help us.
Nobody could.
Chapter Six
The medication the doctor gave her isn’t working.
It can’t be, Rebecca thinks as she grips the cot with both hands and stares down at Ella, whose face is bright puce as she screams loudly, huge droplets of tears streaming down her face as she lays there, kicking her legs defiantly.
She’s already taken two antidepressants, double the recommended dose, and two paracetamols on top, but her mood is still sombre. It hasn’t lifted. If anything, she feels as if she’s only sinking down further. She’s losing it. The tablets haven’t even so much as taken the edge off the dull constant thudding inside her head.
And Ella isn’t helping.
She’s roaring, the noise of her high-pitched sobbing crippling Rebecca. She’s squealing so loudly that Rebecca is convinced the sound has gotten inside her skull and penetrated her brain. So much so she can’t think straight anymore.
‘Please stop,’ she begs, but Ella just continues, selfishly oblivious to the distress she’s causing Rebecca. She screams at the top of her lungs and nothing Rebecca says or does will calm her.
She’s worked herself up into such a state it’s as if she doesn’t even see Rebecca now, it’s like there’s no one there behind her eyes.
‘Please, Ella. For Mummy, please stop.’
Rebecca can feel herself losing control.
She can feel that bubbling heat spreading through her.
The familiar rage she’d felt before.
‘SHUT UP!’ she screams back. Defeated, she lets her body slide down the bedroom wall. Burying her head in her hands, joining in with her daughter, she screams too. Over and over again. Weak and dizzy and completely exhausted, Rebecca feels as if she might pass out. Or throw up.
Breathless now, it’s like she’s suffocating, unable to breathe, and suddenly the walls are closing in around her.
Ella is still crying. Louder and louder, and Rebecca can feel her temper swelling inside of her. The fury that she’s been fighting to subdue the past few days is starting to win.
She needs help.
She needs to get the fuck out of here, to get the fuck away from Ella before she does something she knows she shouldn’t.
Dragging herself up from the nursery floor, she runs through her bedroom and into the en suite.
Locking the door behind her, she runs the bath. Sitting on the edge, she embraces the loud gush of water that flows from the taps, the sound instantly blocking out the noise that Ella is making. She can’t resist the urge to just get in. To sink down into the water and let all her worries and fears float away. Rebecca undresses quickly, letting her clothes fall to the floor before stepping into the bath, forcing her feet to stay cocooned as the scorching hot water laps up around her ankles.
She needs to feel the pain. The heat. Anything to stop another panic attack from trying to take her over.