I very nearly named this one “The one where I was physically assaulted by my mum – aka child abuse” but figured that would have given far too much away. At least you now know where this one is leading to, so read on Dear Reader if you want to know how I got there…well, getting there is actually quite difficult because even to his day I’m still not sure how that morning escalated to the point that it did. I guess this is my attempt [I’m fairly certain my mum would have titled this one “Well, it’s your interpretation, I remember it different actually!”]. Hi mum!
I think I’ve lost the chronology of my posts but this one would be around the 92/93 period, I would have been 15 and two fifths (or thereabouts).
Back then, my friends came in two camps: there was the “cool” group (Marcus, Liam, etc) and the…”not so cool?”…group (Blondie, Steph, etc). Read “not so cool?” with the American upward inflection in your voice on the word “cool”. Maybe “inbetweeners” group would be a better name for them? Anyway, the names don’t really matter, for the purposes of this post what does matter is the types of “activities” each group would get up to. And yes, there’s a lot “air quotes” in this one paragraph – this post is “my interpretation” of events after all!
“What type of activities?” I hear you ask (not “air quotes” this time): well, the “cool” group (air quotes) discovered the wonderful world of motorcycles (specifically, mopeds) and discovered how easy they were to steal. You remember joyriding? It was all the rage in the 90’s, spurred on by reports within the Daily Mail, The Sun, and other rather ill-reporting types of our newspaper media which also included such badly written pieces covering the Rave scene, the causes of Leah Betts death (it was brain swelling caused by excessive water intake – not that that made the headlines), and many others which probably cemented the demise of UK tabloid journalism within my generation’s mindset. Where was I? Oh yes, joyriding. On mopeds. The notion of which would fall under one of these categories when imagining the thoughts of joyriding…on a moped:
- Bloody ridiculous and possibly funny (it’s a moped!)
- Appalling behaviour (it’s stealing)
- Just stupid (it served no purpose)
Compare and contrast activities such as those with activities within the “uncool” group (air quotes again):
- Playing run-outs
- Hanging around outside three of the group’s homes (a significant number of the group were neighbours).
- Occasional drinking of Hooch, 20/20, and smoking
Now, the “hanging around outside” involved exactly that: we all hung around outside, typically leaning against the wall of a small block of garages (the “block” consisting of just two garages). So when describing to parents: “I’m going out and see friends, we’re hanging around some garages” they probably heard “I’m going out to hang around in a non-descript area out of sight of everybody to get up to some nefarious activities – in a large garage block, possibly underground or something. Oh, and yes, that’ll include sniffing glue”. The reality? “I’ll be by some garages” was quicker than saying “I’m going to go at the areas where, if you triangulated the position, would intersect between Steph’s, Natalie’s, Natasha’s, perpendicular to three other friends houses. No glue-sniffing was involved.
But what’s all this got to do with you being a victim of child abuse, sorry, I mean receiving stitches? Believe it or not, the above has everything to do with that!
You see, I loved my sleep. I’d quite happily sleep in all through the morning and way into the late afternoon. It wasn’t necessarily because I wanted or needed lots of sleep, it was mostly because:
- I had trouble falling asleep until the very early hours (4am most nights)
- My mum & John would come home drunk and argue until 4am fairly regularly
- Sleeping in the morning meant not dealing with or hearing the arguments in the morning too
- I was a teenager, it’s what we do
One of the “funny” things (yes, air quotes again!) my mum & John would encourage my siblings to do (mostly Jane and Barry) was to get them to throw cups of cold water over me in the morning. This would either be preceded (or proceeded – maybe sometimes both) with John proclaiming I was a bit of a C….U…N….T…. for being so lazy as to have the audacity to even think of sleeping in. Emphasis on the word lazy there. It probably had something to do with him being jealous, envious, or just quite plainly being a bit of a prick to me, a harmless teenager.
One of those mornings my mum decided she’d had enough and demanded I get up out of bed. I can’t recall why. Maybe she wanted to wash the bedding? I don’t know.
At first it was a bit of asking nicely. Then it was asking nicely but a bit more loudly. Then it was shouting. Then it was cups of water thrown over me. All that, and still I closed my eyes, rolled over, and slept. Then it became an argument. An argument whose basis was about me hanging around some garages (which, really, wasn’t garages, see above). The argument stemmed (apparently) from her mindset that the “uncool” group were leading me astray and were a bad influence and that I must stop being friends with them and spend more time with the “cool” group (Liam & Marcus). They were Saints you see. With my mum standing by the foot of my bed:
Me: “Mum, you don’t know nothing! What you on about?”
Mum: “I don’t want you hanging around those garages any more. They’re not good friends. They’re leading you astray.”
I’m going to hold this conversation right there because I’ve just remembered something which used to happen every night when I came home after being out with friends (as any normal teenager would do).
I’m the first to admit, I used to smoke a bit of pot. Quite regularly in fact. I’d come home in the evening and before going to bed I’d go to the front room, take a seat on an armchair and watch the remainder of whatever John & mum were watching for half an hour or so. Each night my mum would just stare at me intensely: “what you been on tonight!?” I’d be asked. Now, usually, she’d ask this on the nights I hadn’t actually smoked anything. The night’s when I had? I wouldn’t be asked. That’s either down to the fact she thought I was “normal” (air quotes – hah!) on the days I did smoke something, which would suggest I did it more regularly than my 40+ year old brain remembers (a good possibility) or that it was just a coincidence as to when she asked and/or she really had no clue. Some might ask why I bothered going to the front room when I came home anyway, why not go straight to my room? The answer was because if I didn’t go sit in the front room then I’d get a Spanish Inquisition session on what I’d been up to? It would be like this:
I’d come home, I’d pop my head in the front room: “Hi, I’m home, going to bed now, night”. I’d go to my room and I’d hear them talking to each other upstairs (town house, front room was middle floor, my bedroom on ground floor): “He’s on something again, go see him”. John would come down, open my door: “What you been up to?”. I’d reply “nothing, just hanging around with Steph & co by the garages?”. He’d go upstairs and I’d hear: “he’s high as a kite, you can tell, he can’t even remember what he’s been up! Look at his eyes! They’re like saucers!”. Then my mum would come down and repeat the whole routine. It became tiresome very very quickly. So that’s why I just thought it’d be easier to sit with them in the front room at night.
Anyway, I digressed a fair bit there….back to that fateful morning:
Mum: “I don’t want you hanging around those garages any more. They’re not good friends. They’re leading you astray. Spend more time with Liam and Marcus, they’re much better and you won’t get in trouble if you’re with them!” she pleaded.
Me: “YOU DON’T KNOW ANYTHING!” I replied in typical teenager fashion, “If I spent my evenings with Liam & Marcus I’m going to end up arrested! I think you’ve got my two group of friends completely mixed up. Do you want me to get arrested!?!?! Liam and Marcus are stealing mopeds every night!”
And then in that moment my mum just become enraged. She marched towards me with her face scrawling and teeth showing. Quite literally, like a rabid dog she was ready for a fight and her target was very firmly set on me, she lurched towards me and proceeded to hit and slap me around my head. I put my hands up over my head to protect myself. She stopped, my hands remaining on my head still in a defensive pose, I looked at her between my arms with such confusion and shock. And at that moment she grabbed a mug off of my bedside table and whacked me over the head with it. She promptly stormed out of the room and ran downstairs.
Left shocked (and in a bit of pain) I patted my hands on my head, then moving them, palms facing inwards and looked at them: they were covered in blood. The shock kicked in some more, then the reality; I ran off to the bathroom to see what was going on. Blood was pouring everywhere and my head really began to start stinging.
I threw some clothes on as quickly as I could, ran down the stairs (I’d been relegated to the “boys” bedroom at this point – my mum had rented my ground floor bedroom to her friend, Karen) and I left the house with my mum in the distance behind me shouting “Roy, I’m so sorry, please don’t go”.
At first I ran to Natasha’s house but no-one was in. Then I went to Natalie’s but her parents were out and Natalie didn’t really know what to do, “maybe try Steph’s, her dad might be able to help”. So off I went across the road. Thankfully Steph’s dad was in “What the hell has happened to you? Come in…let’s get you cleaned up”. The bleeding had slowed and Steph’s dad had cleaned me up as best he could. Then my mum’s friend Karen came knocking at the door:
Karen: “Oh Roy, what your mum has done is appalling, are you ok?”
Steph’s dad in reply: “I think he’s going to need stitches”
Twenty minutes later after Karen drove us to Northampton A&E, I was being seen by a nurse and she was putting in the four stitches my head needed. She asked: “Tell me again, how did this happen?”
I sat there re-thinking my pre-made excuse up, debating with myself as to whether to tell the truth:
“I was making my breakfast and the cupboard door must have been open, I stood upright and hit my head on the door” was my unconvincing reply.
The nurse asked if that’s the story I wanted to stick with, concluding, “I don’t think a cupboard door did this”.
I stuck with the story.
Why?
Because if social services were to get involved, my mind had processed these two possibilities:
- Nothing would have come of it and John would have continued to be in the family. Our lives could (somehow) end up being worse than it already was – just because I’d finally done what Jane and I had been threatening to do for a long time and got authorities involved, or;
- My mum would have to make a choice and finally kick John out, leaving her without a man in the house for a 2nd time.
Reflecting now and I see how my mum’s mental inability to function without a man by her side was somehow already projected and ingrained upon me: she had been able to push that psychological thinking onto me, I’m not sure how. Regardless, my decision was made, I lied to the nurse and nothing ever came of it. Or, to put another way, rather than put my mum through the emotional trauma of being single, I put her first and covered up the physical attack she had inflicted on me. And by doing so that split-second decision enabled John to continue to inflict his emotional and physical abuse to Jane, Barry and possibly Patrick. I’m sorry to you three for what you ended up going through.
It’s a decision I alone have a live with and is one which I’m reminded of whenever someone asks about my scar.
Leave a Reply