My thoughts snapped back into focus as the car turned into Churchill Avenue, an ordinary estate filled with neat council houses; a place we’d avoided for over 10 years because it evoked so many traumatic memories. As the well-trodden pavements swept past, my stomach twisted into a hard knot.
In the distance the familiar silhouette of our childhood home loomed: the box-shaped porch, the white wooden cladding, the thin paving snaking from the public footpath to the front door. Such an innocent-looking house, yet one that hid so many dark secrets. Today Number 59 looked tardy and neglected.
As we approached, we saw a police car parked opposite the house with two men inside it. With a quick glance at Paul, I could tell we both felt weird and in some ways wrong to pass by the empty house. The reality was starting to sink in, and although neither of us was sure how as victims we were meant to act, we knew that together we’d get through it, just as we did through our childhood.
Paul accelerated so that we passed the house at normal speed.
‘Well, it looks like we’ve got the ball rolling now,’ breathed Paul as he sucked long and hard on his roll-up.
‘I’ve got a feeling this isn’t going to be an easy journey.’ I sighed.
‘Can’t be any harder than what we’ve been through,’ Paul commented.
‘Don’t you wish we could have told our younger selves how things would work out?’
‘I wouldn’t change a thing; the struggles we went through have made us the people we are today. I believe if we changed one thing in our past it would change who we are now.’
I glanced at Paul and nodded. ‘True.’ I was full of apprehension about the days and weeks ahead. I was just glad we had each other.
Chapter 1
Terrie
My parents, John and Cynthia, were childhood sweethearts. Their relationship had begun like a storybook romance, but with their marriage their dreams died.
Mum intended to follow in her father’s footsteps in Northampton’s traditional calling, designing shoes, until she naively showed her designs to a local shoe manufacturer during one lunchtime, who stole them. Dad joined the parachute regiment and aspired to be part of the SAS – until he failed their selection course.
In 1968, with both their dreams in tatters, life was to change irreparably again. Mum discovered she’d accidentally fallen pregnant. To say Dad was not best pleased was an understatement, but in 1968 pregnancy meant marriage and that was that. So Mum abandoned her place in college and went up the aisle – or at least the corridor – of Northampton register office.
She didn’t tell her parents, my Nan and Pap – Gladys and George – at first. Not only had she let them down, but they believed she could do better than my dad. However, by the time she told them the damage had been done, and at the very least they felt he’d done the honourable thing.
I arrived on 27 June 1969 in Aldershot, the garrison town where Dad was based. For the first month of my life we lived in married quarters, though Dad was desperate to be released back to Civvy Street, not being able to face being returned to his parachute regiment after failing the SAS selection course. The only way he could be discharged was to buy himself out, so Mum raided her savings and stumped up the required £200 – a prohibitive sum, but a small price to pay to keep her new husband happy.
Mum and I lived my first year with my Nan and Pap in their cosy two-bedroom house. But the first home I remember clearly was a council maisonette in Moat Place. It was a bit sparse; the kitchen and lounge were downstairs and the bedrooms were up a white-painted stairway that had a thin carpet runner tacked loosely to the wood. Two wooden slats ran down the side of the stairs, with a narrow gap between them, so that as a small child I could peer through. I spent a fair bit of time sitting in nervous silence on those stairs, listening to Mum and Dad argue their way through life.
Dad worked away a lot of the time, stopping home for clean clothes and food maybe once a fortnight. When he wasn’t there to argue with Mum, I felt happy and relaxed. I had my mum all to myself and we had our routine. We didn’t have a lot of money, or many belongings, but she had time for me – even though I could be more of a hindrance than a help, as a simple trip to the shops could turn into an adventure.
At the age of four, whilst I was dawdling back from the shops with a loaf of bread for tea, I thought of Hansel and Gretel. ‘I wonder what would happen if I dropped a trail of bread slices?’ Imagining a magical creature might appear, I pulled slices of bread out of the bag and began placing them carefully on the pavement. Skipping along, I looked over my shoulder, pleased at the snowy trail … until Mum suddenly appeared, looking up the road for me. ‘Terrie!’ she cried. ‘What are you doing? That’s our tea!’
I held a slice of bread mid-air and my face crumpled. ‘Sorry, Mummy.’
She scurried to scoop up the slices and put them carefully back into the bread bag for later.
The weekends Dad came home left their impression on me. One such weekend, when I was three, I was sitting in the kitchen waiting for Mum to dish up dinner when he arrived. I looked up as he walked in, but he didn’t seem to notice me.
‘Hurry up, I’m hungry,’ he complained to Mum. Mum seemed flustered and rushed to place the plates of macaroni cheese in front of us. ‘Is this it?’
Mum looked up. ‘I have some Spam if you’d like some?’
He laughed sneeringly. ‘This’ll do.’
I was actually relieved. I hate Spam – no, I detest Spam. Poor Mum was running out of new ways to cook it. Fried, battered and deep-fried, diced and sliced. For me any way was disgusting, and I would often gag trying to swallow the pink sludge.
I hated macaroni too. I couldn’t stop thinking about slugs as I tried to swallow the slimy pasta pieces. Dad would become frustrated with the faces I was pulling and send me up to my room, telling me not to come back downstairs until they had both finished dinner.
A few minutes later, as I cautiously slid back down the stairs on my bum, I could hear our budgie was squawking loudly. Dad was standing up shouting as Mum turned to look at me. He followed her gaze and saw me. ‘Get out! This is adult talk. Get out, now!’
I ran and sat on the stairs, scared and alone, peering through the gap.
At three years old, I was confused. I still wanted and needed to be loved by my dad, but I felt anger towards both of my parents for letting him come home and ruining my time with Mum. The rage had to get out somehow, so I began destroying things Mum had lovingly made for me. I picked apart a crocheted waistcoat made with squares of colourful pansies all sewn together. I cut the silky lining out of the green felt coat she’d made. And I carefully hacked my way across my fringe.
Dad’s presence at home meant rows and arguments, slammed doors and tears. Mum never really explained why it happened; I just thought it was my fault, because I was stupid and ugly.
It may have been that Dad felt trapped at home and would rather have been back amongst the camaraderie and banter of his army friends. Dad had joined the Territorial Army after being discharged out of the service, as it was more relaxed than the regular army. I enjoyed watching him with his mates in the TA, laughing and joking, so very different to how he was at home. Drill weekends often included family gatherings, lots of delicious food and kids running about, playing games amongst the lorries and heavy gear outside the drill hall.
But Dad did let a glimmer of his home face show there occasionally. Like the time he was supposed to be keeping an eye on me while Mum was inside with the other mums setting up for dinner. I was on my hands and knees pushing my new green plastic train that had two carriages attached. He warned me not to go near a large stack of bricks by the wall, but, me being me, I pushed