Even though mum kept working long hours, it was getting worse and worse. The bills were piling up and you could see mum was getting stressed. Eventually we got our stereo system repossessed and you know what? We only had one payment left to go but they didn't care and took it anyway. We kids were devastated, because the one thing we loved to do was to listen to music for many hours of the day in our free time. We became pissed off after a while and I think Paul must have realised then, we were starting to blame him for this. The looks of resentment on our faces were obviously playing on his mind. He knew he was responsible for our financial situation even though he would never admit it but still he chose to do nothing about it, thinking it would all blow over. Well it didn’t because we kids kept on whinging day after day because we had no music to listen to. Wrong! We should have known him well enough to know he didn’t like people thinking badly of him and by us whining he was getting pissed off because maybe he thought we hated him now. We should have just shut our mouths and accepted it but kids are kids. He now obviously felt rejected by us and because of this in turn, he took his own disappointment and turned it into anger and took it out on someone else, that being my Mum. By now the beatings were becoming more and more frequent. My Mum was enduring so much pain at the hands of this mongrel bastard and at times, I didn’t know what to do. What could I do? I was no match for him. None of us were. As usual, when this was happening, I would just run to my room crying and praying for it to stop, but it never did.
Other times I tried in my own way to protect my Mum by yelling at him to stop and to leave her alone but it made no difference, he would just yell at me to shut up. When it did eventually stop, he would always be sorry for what had happened as is typical of these perpetrators, until the next time. The phoney apologies and promises that it would never happen again, never sat well with us only because it never did stop. It was now a routine.
One night when I was about fourteen, I had my best friend Gale over to stay. Typical, Mum and Paul had had a huge fight in which led mum to escape the house and take off somewhere. This frustrated and angered him even more, so the ranting and raving continued. Gale and I were so scared we didn’t know what to do other than to stay away from him while he was like this, so we went to my room and stayed there. About twenty minutes later the house eventually became quiet. Obviously he had calmed himself down so we decided it was time for bed.
It was around 3am the next morning when we heard this bashing on my door so I got up and opened it. It was him standing there with a crazy look on his face mumbling some shit. I asked him what he wanted and he told me that he wanted us girls to help him find my Mum. What could we say? We were in no position to argue with this lunatic so we said, “Okay, we will be out as soon as we get dressed.” When we came out, he bailed Gale and me up in the hallway passage with this strange looking knife in his hand and telling us that he was going to kill my mother when he found her.
Gale and I looked at each-other in disbelief and thought, “What the fuck, how do we get out of this one?” My God! We just couldn’t believe the situation we were in. Here we were being forced against our wills to go try and find my Mum so this bastard could kill her! We knew we had no choice other than to do what he wanted. We had to because at the time we were afraid if we didn’t do what he asked, he would probably stab us to death first. That’s how crazy he was.
He then ordered us to get in the car and whilst he drove around the neighbour-hood, we were to look out for her. He even told us to take him to the places where she may be hiding; friends’ places etc.
We were so afraid that if we did see her somewhere, what would happen? Would he go crazy and kill her right in front of us?
Gale and I then whispered to each-other that we would have to bullshit as to where she could be, knowing damn well, she wouldn’t be in those places. This way we could waste time and hoped that maybe he would start getting tired and to go back home. Gale and I also knew that if Mum was walking, she would be looking out for him and the car and would hide somewhere so we were fairly confident we wouldn’t spot her anywhere. We drove around for about an hour and she was nowhere to be seen and we were trying to act really tired by yawning and maybe us doing this, helped. He was also getting tired thank God so we went back home.
Gale and I were so relieved that we had not found Mum so we then went back to bed and left him to stew. We talked for a bit by both confessing to each other that we were terrified and were now just curious as to where my mum was and hoping she was alright. It wasn’t easy falling asleep for either of us but eventually we did.
That morning about four hours later, I was awakened by something touching my arm. What was it? I was almost too scared to open my eyes but I knew I had to. Whatever it was, wasn’t giving up!
First of all I looked over at Gale but she was still fast asleep so I had to do this on my own. Still half asleep I slowly looked down at my arm and saw this fucking hand feathering my arm with its fingers. Well I certainly woke up in a hurry as it almost frightened the life out of me!
I now realised it was coming from under my bed but whose was it? It’s not every day you wake up with an arm coming up from under your bed. Shitting myself, I slowly dropped my head down the side of the bed and whom did I see? Guess who? Yes it was my Mum who was laying there with her finger on her mouth trying not to laugh gesturing me to be quiet but because I could see she was trying to not laugh, it almost got me going but I knew I couldn’t because I wouldn’t have stopped. There is nothing worse than when you are just about to fall apart laughing but you know you can’t in fear of being killed. It certainly stops you in a hurry. The whole situation just seemed funny to us because of our warped senses of humour so it was very hard for us not to laugh but then when I told her a bit of what happened and what he made us girls do, Mum realised it really wasn’t that funny after all so we had to be quiet in case he heard us. We then went back to sleep for a while but then Mum woke me up about an hour later, this time sitting on the edge of my bed. It was alright for her to sit there because he would never walk in my room without knocking. Gale was now awake too but she just lay there and listened to Mum and me. I told her I was so relieved to see her and that she was alright but I couldn't resist asking her, "Where the fuck have you been all night?"
She told me she had seen the car and had hidden in a garden until we had passed. The rest of the night when the coast was clear, she decided to go and hide in Margaret’s back yard, who was one of my school friends where it would be safer. She knew she couldn’t come home until the coast was clear and our house was quiet. It was just as the sun was coming up and she could see better, she came home and climbed through my window and hid under my bed. One has always been a heavy sleeper so I heard nothing obviously! In doing this she would feel safer, warmer and could rest, even if it was on a hard floor under a bed. I felt so sorry for her having to do this, but at least she was home and not out there on her own.
Gale and I then told Mum more in depth what had happened while she was gone and she couldn't believe someone could do this. Finally she got enough courage to go and talk with him but as she left my room I was in fear for her but I knew she had to face him one way or another. He obviously woke up when he heard her enter the room and he sounded fine as far as we could tell from where we were and that was a relief. We were waiting for him to start abusing her but all we could hear was both of them laughing about what she had done and where she had been. She didn’t dare comment on anything he had made us do just in case it set off a spark of the too well known. He never mentioned anything of what had happened the night before and neither did Gale or I. We didn’t dare in front of him but we will never forget it. That night traumatised us for life!
Another crazy incident happened, when one night I had my friend Margaret over and we were doing what normal friends