A Sister's Secret Read online

  David and I sat there for hours. When Uncle came home he ignored us.

  ‘What’s the little one done to her head?’ I heard him ask.

  ‘Oh, the stupid girl fell over on the way back from the shops,’ she told him. ‘It’s just a graze.’

  We sat there for so long that eventually David wet himself. Auntie was furious that he’d peed on her stairs and we were sent back to our bedroom in disgrace.

  One morning Auntie came in to see us and I noticed that she was carrying the checked holdalls that we’d brought with us when we’d first arrived.

  ‘You’re going back to your mother and father’s today,’ she said matter-of-factly.

  I couldn’t really believe what I was hearing. Was she playing a nasty trick on us?

  ‘Is that man taking us home?’ David asked.

  ‘No, I am,’ she said. ‘Come on, pack your stuff.’

  That only took a few minutes as we hardly had anything. I still didn’t believe it, even in the car.

  ‘We’re going home to see Mummy,’ I heard David say to Laraine. ‘Daddy might be there this time.’

  Laraine just stared into space and didn’t react. She was so withdrawn now it was as if she had just switched herself off from normal life.

  I didn’t know where ‘home’ was any more but eventually we pulled up outside a big Victorian building. The new house Dad had promised us turned out to be a scruffy three-bed council flat in Abbey Wood, southeast London. But I didn’t care, especially when the front door opened and I saw Mum and Davina, who was crawling around by her feet.

  ‘Fred, they’re back,’ I heard her shout.

  ‘Yay, Daddy’s here!’ yelled David, running in.

  Even though I was in no rush to see Dad, I took Laraine inside as I wanted to get as far away from Auntie as possible. I heard her chatting to Mum on the doorstep.

  ‘If ever you need me to take the children again, then I’m more than willing,’ she said.

  I never wanted to see that woman again and I didn’t dare believe that she had really gone until I stood at the window and watched her drive away.

  Dad was full of it.

  ‘My beautiful girls,’ he said when he saw Laraine and I. ‘We’re going to be a proper family again. It’s a new start for all of us.’

  I could tell Mum was on edge. She always was when Dad was around.

  The new flat was cold and damp and the wallpaper was peeling off the walls but at least we were safe. Laraine and I shared a big bedroom with a door that led to the back garden.

  Mum said we had been at Auntie and Uncle’s for six months but believe me, the memories of living in that house have lasted a lifetime. None of us ever talked about it. David and I didn’t have the words to explain what had happened to us and I prayed Laraine was too little to remember.

  I tried desperately to forget but sometimes when I closed my eyes at night I’d dream that Auntie was in bed with me and I’d wake up screaming. Mum never asked us about it – I think she felt guilty about the suicide attempt and she just wanted to forget that time in her life.

  I still had that knot of anxiety in my tummy and for months afterwards I was always on my guard, half expecting Auntie or a social worker to turn up and take us away again.

  Laraine and I were asleep in our bunk beds one night when I heard tapping on the door in our bedroom that led to the garden. I ignored it at first but eventually it got louder and more persistent. I was absolutely petrified.

  It’s Auntie and Uncle come to get us, I thought.

  ‘Who is it?’ I asked, not daring to even open the curtain. ‘My mum won’t let you take us away.’

  ‘It’s Daddy, for fuck’s sake,’ said a voice. ‘The bloody front door was locked and no one could hear me knocking so I thought I’d sneak round the back.’

  He’d been at the pub as usual but as Dad staggered in, I’d never been more relieved to see him in all my life.

  We might have all been back together again, but it was never going to be happy families with Dad around. The fresh start didn’t last long and soon he was up to his old tricks – drinking and disappearing for days on end. He’d found work as a removals man and sometimes he did painting and decorating.

  ‘Too much temptation for a light-fingered so-and-so like him,’ Mum would say, even though I didn’t know what she meant.

  But as usual, Dad would always turn up like a bad penny and try and charm his way back. One afternoon he came home with a big smile on his face.

  ‘Mo,’ he shouted. ‘I’ve got a present for you.’

  He made such a big deal of getting all of us kids to close our eyes as he carried in this big thing hidden under a blanket.

  ‘Ta da!’ he said, revealing his big surprise. ‘It’s a sewing machine. You was saying you wanted one for ages, so I thought I’d treat you.’

  I could see Mum was pleased. For once he’d actually bought her something that she’d find useful. But her smile soon disappeared the following day when two policemen turned up on the doorstep.

  ‘We’re here to see Freddie,’ they said.

  ‘He’s at work at the minute,’ Mum told them.

  ‘We think your husband’s been helping himself to a few things that aren’t his,’ one of the officers explained. ‘We need to come in and have a look round.’

  Mum was close to tears as they searched the flat for stolen goods and turned everything upside down. Half an hour later they left with her new sewing machine and a copper kettle Dad had also brought home.

  ‘Tell Freddie we called, won’t you?’ they said.

  ‘But Mummy, that’s the sewing machine Daddy got you,’ said David.

  ‘Your silly father took something that belonged to someone else,’ she told him.

  Nope, there was only one man in my life who I trusted and that was my mum’s father, Granddad George. He was absolutely lovely. Every week he would come on the bus from his sheltered accommodation in Charlton to see us. Laraine and I would wait at the front gate for him and our eyes would light up when we’d see him walking down the road in his long grey mac, carrying a holdall that we knew was stuffed full of goodies.

  ‘Some presents for my big girl,’ he would say to Mum, giving her all of the things we could never afford, like fresh fruit, vegetables, cheese, bread and milk. ‘And some Minties for my little ones.’

  He would hand each of us a packet of Polo mints and a 10-pence piece. Laraine and David would be itching to spend their 10 pence straight away. We’d all go down the road to Tom’s Sweet Shop and they would buy a penny mix-up – a bag of all sorts of sweets like Black Jacks and lemon sherbets. But I was happy with my Polos.

  ‘I’m saving my money for a dog,’ I told Granddad.

  When we got home, I’d carefully put my silver coin into the little china piggy bank that I kept safely in my bedroom.

  Granddad would also tell us stories. I loved sitting on his knee and hearing all about Mum when she was a little girl and her dog, who was called Judy. The other thing about Granddad was that he absolutely hated my father. In fact, if he knew Dad was going to be there he wouldn’t come round.

  He had good reason, we all did. By the time I’d turned five, I had started at the local primary school at the end of our road. Dad had been missing for a week when I got home one time, to find Mum in tears.

  ‘He’s been back and taken everything again,’ she sobbed.

  Dad would always take whatever he could find – money, toys, clothes, jewellery, food – anything he could sell to get some cash to spend on drink.

  I could see he’d been in mine and Laraine’s room this time. All of our drawers were spilling open, our socks and pants scattered over the floor. My heart sank when I realised what was missing.

  ‘My piggy bank,’ I cried. ‘He’s taken my piggy bank!’

  Eventually I found it smashed on the floor in the front room. All of the money Granddad had given me that I was saving up for a dog with had gone. It was probably only a few coppers b
ut it was my money and I was heartbroken that he’d stolen it. From then on I kept my money hidden in my glasses case in my drawer under a big pile of clothes.

  With Dad taking what little money we had, it was a constant struggle for Mum to feed and clothe us. I remember skipping along beside her to the post office one day. We’d go there every Tuesday to collect her Family Allowance, which would give us enough money for the weekly food shop.

  ‘I’m really sorry but I can’t find my allowance book,’ Mum told the woman behind the counter. ‘Did I leave it here last week?’

  She looked confused when Mum gave her her name.

  ‘Oh, that’s funny, your husband has already been in this morning to cash it,’ she said. ‘He said you were poorly so you’d sent him to collect it.’

  I could see Mum’s face drop. She was relying on that money to get us through the week.

  It was the same with the rent on our flat. Dad told Mum he would pay it directly from his wages but a few months later someone from the council came round to say we were hundreds of pounds in arrears. Mum had no alternative but to find a job, so she started cleaning houses. She could take Davina with her when we were at school and she was paid cash in hand.

  When I turned seven, the damp in our flat was so bad that we were moved to a new place in Coleraine Road, Blackheath. It was in a nicer area, in a big Victorian terraced house divided into two flats. We had the one downstairs with the back garden. Like everywhere that we had lived, it was shabby. We never had nice things, just a few bits of old, worn furniture that Mum had been given or we’d bought from charity shops. The walls were all painted the same drab shade of beige and there was no central heating except an electric heater in the front room, so it was freezing in winter.

  David had his own room. Davina, who was two now, still slept in a cot in with Mum and Dad, and me and Laraine had our own room. But the best thing about our new flat was the neighbours.

  Living above us were a lovely couple called Estelle and Ian and they had four children who were exactly the same age as us kids. Mum got on well with Estelle, their eldest daughter Peggy was two months older than me; Barry was David’s age, Susan was five, like Laraine, and Douglas was a toddler, like Davina. We’d all play in the communal front garden together and they would come into our back garden. We were in and out of each other’s houses so much, we kept our front doors unlocked.

  We all went to the same primary school down the road. I loved school as I saw it as an escape from my troubled home life but Laraine hated it and she struggled to settle.

  Ever since we’d come back from the foster parents, she’d been quiet and withdrawn. The only people she would really talk to were Mum and I and she was terrified of strangers. She was still a tiny little thing and she hardly ate.

  Sitting in class one afternoon writing a story, a teacher came in to get me.

  ‘We need you to come and help with your sister,’ she told me.

  I could hear Laraine screaming as soon as I set foot in the corridor. She was in the girls’ toilets, completely hysterical.

  ‘What happened, Miss?’ I asked her teacher.

  ‘Your sister had a bit of an accident but when I tried to change her, she went like this,’ she said.

  When Laraine saw me, she fell into my arms, sobbing.

  ‘She don’t like no one touching her,’ I explained. ‘I’ll do it, if you want.’

  ‘Come on, Lal,’ I said. ‘Let’s get you out of these wet pants.’

  Mum was called up to school many times because the teachers were so worried about Laraine.

  ‘Is there any reason why she’s so withdrawn?’ I’d heard a teacher ask Mum. ‘Is there anything wrong at home?’

  But the truth was nothing had ever been right at home. Dad was up to his old tricks, drinking, disappearing for weeks on end, then turning up and hurting Mum.

  ‘Failure to thrive’ the authorities had called it and eventually Laraine was sent to a special school for maladjusted children in Downham. Every morning a bus would pick her up and take her there, but it didn’t stop her being a target for the local bullies.

  As she stumbled in the front door one afternoon, I knew something had happened to her. Her dark, curly hair was all matted and her pink T-shirt was wet with tears and dirt.

  ‘What is it, Lal?’ I asked.

  ‘The b-boys down the road were waiting for me when I got off the school bus,’ she gulped between sobs. ‘They called me a spacca for going to a special school and they said I-I-looked like Bugs Bunny because my teeth stick out.’

  She was crying so much, her frail little body was shaking.

  ‘They pushed me over and I cut my knee,’ she sobbed, showing me the bloody red patches seeping through her thick white tights.

  I could feel the anger bubbling up inside me.

  ‘No one speaks to my little sister like that,’ I said. ‘Where are they, Lal? I’ll go and sort them out.’

  ‘You ain’t gonna get them now, Deb, they ran off,’ she said.

  Trust the bullies to pick on the weakest. Laraine wouldn’t say boo to a goose and she’d never hurt anyone.

  I’d have done anything for my little sister. I’d failed her once at Auntie and Uncle’s when I hadn’t been able to stop them from treating her so cruelly. Now I was determined nothing bad was ever going to happen to her again. But I didn’t realise then what was in store for us. If only I’d known how far I was going to have to go to protect her.

  Chapter 3

  Summer of Hell

  The bell rang and the hum of excited chatter and laughter filled the corridors.

  ‘We’re off to Margate for a week and we’re staying in a caravan.’

  ‘Well, my dad’s taking us to Spain and we’re going on a plane.’

  It was the last day of school before the summer holidays and swarms of happy children ran to the gates, comparing notes about their plans.

  But all I felt was a sense of dread because I knew there would be no treats or day trips or holidays for me. Just six long weeks of boredom while Mum went to work and we tried to keep ourselves entertained.

  I waited patiently outside for my little brother, David. Most of the other kids had gone by the time he came strolling out.

  ‘Last one out as usual,’ I sighed, but he just flashed me a big grin.

  ‘No more school for six weeks, Deb,’ he grinned.

  His excitement was infectious. Now that I was nine, Mum had promised that she would let me go down to the local park on my own. That was something to look forward to at least.

  ‘Come on, I’ll race you,’ David said suddenly before tearing off.

  He beat me easily and waited at the end of our road for me to catch up. But as we turned the corner into our street, I saw something that filled my heart with dread.

  A familiar blue car was parked outside our flat. A clapped-out old Humber.

  My father’s car.

  David rushed up the front steps while I hung about outside, not able to bring myself to go in. A few seconds later he came flying out the door.

  ‘Debbie, Dad’s here!’ he yelled, his face filled with happiness. ‘He’s inside. Come on.’

  I walked into the porch and slowly took off my school shoes, putting off the inevitable for as long as possible.

  ‘Dad says he’ll take us to the seaside,’ said David, his whole face lighting up. ‘Isn’t that brilliant, Debbie?’

  ‘And you believe him?’ is what I really wanted to say, but I bit my tongue as I could see how excited he was to have Dad home. His latest disappearing act had lasted three weeks.

  So instead I took a deep breath and said, ‘That’s nice, Davey.’

  He literally dragged me into the front room but I knew Dad was there before I even saw him. The smell of stale alcohol and roll-up cigarettes hit my nostrils as I walked through the door.

  He was sprawled out on the sofa and, I was relieved to see, asleep. I turned to walk away.

  ‘Hi, Princess.’
r />   I stopped dead in my tracks and turned around.

  ‘Hi, Dad.’

  ‘Are you going to give your dad a hug?’

  Reluctantly I walked over and sat down next to him. My body tensed as he put his arms around me.

  ‘How are you doing?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m OK, Dad,’ I said.

  ‘Where’s your mum?’

  ‘She’s out cleaning,’ I told him.

  ‘Well, I’ve got a couple of days off work so I thought I’d take you kids to the seaside.’

  My heart soared. The seaside. Just like my friends. That would be something to tell everyone about in September.

  ‘Will you really, Dad?’ I asked. ‘Do you promise?’

  ‘Anything for you, my little princess,’ he replied.

  They were words that I’d heard a million times before and I knew his promises were always broken. Yet this time I so desperately wanted it to be true.

  David wandered into the room again.

  ‘I’m starving, Debbie,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll make you a sandwich to keep you going until Mum gets home,’ I told him.

  David was always hungry and he ate like a horse despite being all skin and bone.

  ‘I’ve got an idea,’ said Dad. ‘When your mum gets in, how about I go out and get us all fish and chips for tea?’

  My mouth watered at the thought of steaming hot fish and chips, smothered in salt and vinegar and wrapped up in newspaper. We could never normally afford anything like that and it felt like it was Christmas.

  ‘That’d be lovely, Dad,’ I said. ‘Do you promise?’

  ‘Of course, love,’ he replied. ‘I’ve had a few week’s extra work.’

  He opened his wallet to show me a big bundle of notes. That would explain why we hadn’t seen him for the past three weeks.

  Before long, the school bus pulled up outside and dropped Laraine off. Her face lit up when she saw Dad and she threw her arms around him.

  ‘How’s my favourite girl?’ Dad asked her.

  I went into the kitchen and made him a cup of tea. Maybe he had changed. Maybe the summer holidays weren’t going to be so bad after all.

  ‘Here, Dad,’ I said, handing him his cuppa.