I ran through as quickly as I could, and when I got there I was surprised to see that he was lying on his bed completely naked. He was rubbing his ding-a-ling up and down and looking at the pictures in a magazine. I could see a naked lady on the front. She had blonde pigtails like Claire at school and was sucking her finger.
‘Come and park your little arse over here,’ he said. ‘I want you to look at something.’ He laughed and took a swig of lager before letting out a loud belch.
I didn’t want to go over to him, but I was frightened not to. I climbed up onto the bed beside him, trying not to look at his ding-a-ling, which was sticking straight up in the air.
‘What do you reckon, Lisa? Who’s got the best tits out of these two–the blonde or the nig-nog?’ He flicked the magazine with his middle finger. ‘Get it right and it’s tickle time, get it wrong and I might just have to bend you over my knee.’
My eyes filled with tears and I pointed at the black lady, hoping I’d got it right.
Just then we heard the front door opening and voices in the passage. It was Diane and Cheryl. Dad seemed annoyed and hurriedly covered himself with a sheet. He slammed the magazine shut and threw it on top of the tall pile of others beside his bed. The whoosh of air made a cloud of ash fly up from the ashtray and some of it settled on top of his drink.
‘We’ll have to play this game another time,’ he said. ‘Go on, piss off back to Scooby fucking doo or whatever shit you’re watching.’
I ran back to the front room, my cheeks wet with tears.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ asked Diane.
‘Nothing,’ I said quietly. I didn’t even think about telling her what had happened, because already I was too scared of what Dad might do.
He was always telling me that I was his favourite, his special one, and in some ways that made me happy but it meant that he wanted me at his beck and call more than the others. When he was watching TV, he liked me to sit by the set so I could turn the dial to change channels when he wanted me to.
‘It’s like having one of the seven fucking dwarves as a slave,’ he’d laugh. ‘Which one are you?’
‘Dopey,’ I’d say, as he’d taught me to.
I didn’t mind helping Dad because usually it made him friendlier towards me, but it wasn’t always easy. When he was watching TV, I had to sit as still as I could because he hated me fidgeting.
‘I’m trying to watch the film, here,’ he’d shout, throwing a shoe at me when pins and needles finally forced me to shift position. I would have preferred to play in my room but I knew I’d have to wait until Dad told me I could leave.
During the ad breaks, he liked to play horsey with me. I had to climb up and straddle him as he bounced me up and down vigorously on his lap, and this made me giggle.
One day, he stopped in the middle of bouncing and said, ‘You like sucking things, don’t you, Lisa?’
I shrugged, unsure of what he meant, then blushed as I realised. Mummy had taken away my dummy ages ago and I’d started sucking my thumb as a substitute comforter. She kept telling me I’d end up with teeth like Goofy’s so I had tried my best to stop but I was always forgetting.
‘Would you like to suck mine?’ asked Dad.
I looked at his thumb. It was stained brown from all the cigarettes he smoked and his nail was dirty and needed cutting. I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to suck a thumb like that.
‘Well, would you?’ he asked again.
I shook my head, and pressed my lips firmly together.
Dad laughed, and then licked his lips.
I knew I shouldn’t but I started to wriggle off him. He grabbed me firmly with one hand, digging his nails into the top of my shoulder, and reached up to hold my nostrils closed with his other hand. He always did this when he wanted me to eat something nasty, like an old cigarette butt, for a joke. I held my breath for as long as I could, but eventually I had to gasp for breath. Before I knew it, he had rammed his dirty thumb into my mouth and was moving it back and forth really fast.
‘Go on, suck it,’ he said playfully. The taste was so bitter, I started to cough and splutter. I thought I was going to be sick.
‘What’s so funny?’ asked Mummy, suddenly appearing in the doorway.
‘Look at this, Donna,’ he sniggered. ‘She’s good for a beginner but she’ll have to go some to compete with you.’
Mummy thought it was hilarious. ‘Oh, you do make me laugh,’ she said.
I knew he was only trying to be funny, but I didn’t like his jokes very much and I knew that he could suddenly turn from laughter to rage in a split second so I always had to be on my guard. Sometimes he would scare me with a sudden shout or move and I would have to cross my legs quickly to stop myself peeing. I wasn’t always successful, though, and on occasion I’d let Eddie take the blame. I felt guilty about that but when I saw the beating Dad dished out in punishment, I didn’t dare own up.
Mummy had got Eddie from Battersea Dogs’ Home when I first moved in. He was a black, white and tan mongrel of labrador stock, always playful and boisterous but gentle with it. Like most dogs on council estates in the 1970s, Eddie used to take himself for a walk. He’d be let out in the morning and he’d be gone for hours until hunger and thirst forced him home. But once Dad had started beating him, he began to chase cars and cause a commotion down in the square, barking at everyone, especially men, so Mummy decided he wasn’t allowed out on his own any more. The only trouble was that she didn’t make arrangements for anyone to walk him on the lead either, which made Eddie’s behaviour even more manic. He was desperate for the freedom he’d always known. Whenever somebody opened the front door he would attempt to charge through their legs. On the occasions when he did slip out, his behaviour was even more out of control, and the local kids, and some adults, would throw stones at him. I tried to take him out myself once but he was so strong on the lead that he pulled me the whole length of the road on my belly, grazing my face and knees, before I was forced to let go and watch as he nearly ran under the wheels of a bus.
So poor Eddie wasn’t taken out much, and he had no choice but to leave puddles of his own alongside mine; puddles and mounds of poo as well. It wasn’t unusual to step in it on the way to the bathroom as the passage was dark and even if you could smell it, you couldn’t see it until it was too late. Unfortunately for Eddie, it was often Dad’s bare foot that found it first.
One evening I was sitting on the floor behind the sofa in the front room. Dad was lying stretched out watching television. Eddie crept up, sniffed around and proceeded to urinate beside me. I wasn’t shocked because I was used to seeing him do this, but it made me want to go too. I had been desperately crossing my legs for a while, unwilling to venture out from my place of relative peace and safety because earlier Dad had been in a bad mood and had put a foot through my dolls’ house. I didn’t want to have to walk between Dad and the TV and risk starting him off on another rant and maybe getting a smack on the bottom.
Eventually I could hold it in no longer. I slipped my knickers down to my knees, squatted and let it go, just on the spot where Eddie had done his wee, reckoning someone would have to clean there anyway. But as I did so, the sound on the television dipped for a moment and the hiss and splash I made on the floor could be heard clearly.
‘What’s that noise?’ Dad demanded, pulling himself up into a sitting position. By the time he got up to investigate, I had just managed to pull up my knickers. Terrified at being discovered, I darted out in front of him and ran as fast as I could to try and find somewhere to hide.
I heard him bellow to Mummy, who was in the kitchen: ‘’Ere, Donna. The kid’s pissed herself. Dirty little cunt.’
Mummy managed to find me first, hidden amongst