Even when I’m very young I know that he’s using drink as an excuse to unleash the sadistic side of his nature that he can hide very well if it suits him, and that he enjoys inflicting pain – physical and mental, on people who are weaker than him.
There are many, many nights when I get dragged out of bed at three or four in the morning because Dad has beaten Mandy, and if he leaves, I have to leave as well.
Dad is a very sneaky man where women are involved. It’s like he plans the beatings at certain times of the night, when the world has gone to sleep. And he will mostly aim for areas that can be covered up with clothes the next day. You’d know when he’s really been pissed the night before because Mandy’s face will be in a hell of a mess. I look at her sometimes, sitting on the couch with black eyes or burst lips, while he’s whistling in the kitchen as if nothing has happened.
The bond that I have with Peter and Paul will never be broken. I may not see Paul for many years but I know he’s always there for me and we’re still like brothers when we meet up again. Mandy has always been there for me to talk to – but after she finally manages to get away from Dad I don’t really see her that much, as my face is probably a constant reminder of what she went through at his hands.
Dad did a lot of bad things to Mandy in her life, but there is one particular night that scares the life out of me, a memory that I’ll take to the grave. I’m staying in Mandy’s house, and Dad wakes all the kids up including me, and tells us to come downstairs and watch.
‘Everybody up, git up yi fuckers.’ He’s staggering around, pulling the bed covers off the beds. ‘GET UP!’
He turns and walks back out of the room, while the four of us jump out of bed and run downstairs, where I can hear Mandy crying and pleading.
‘No in front o’ the bairns, please.’
We find them in the bathroom, where he has filled the bath to the top, and has Mandy by the hair, pushing her head under the water. We all realise at once that he’s trying to drown her and he makes no secret of it either.
‘Look at yir mum drooned.’
We all jump on his back and try to get him off. He pushes us away, but his rage seems to have subsided, as if he’s achieved what he wanted – to scare the daylights out of Mandy, and us children too.
He leaves Mandy in the water, blue faced and bruised, and wanders off to the kitchen. I stand there in shock as I think she’s about to die right in front of me. She eventually climbs out of the bath, shaken and shivering and hugging herself, grabbing a damp towel and retreating to her bedroom, as far away from him as possible.
I feel dreadful and guilty and ashamed, as if I’ve somehow colluded in what my dad has done to Mandy – after all, I am the spawn of this devil. I can never understand why nobody comes to help her but maybe he’s got a spell over them like he has over me. He’s so clever at concealing the truth. Maybe Mandy loves Dad that much that she never tells anyone – or maybe she’s just like most women in Dundee and is used to being treated like a punch bag.
All in all Dad’s with Mandy for five years – between when I’m two and seven. He finally beats her up once too often and she never comes back.
I miss her, as she’s been like a mother to me. But I can’t imagine how her children must be feeling, and even years afterwards I feel embarrassed even saying hello to her daughter in the street. I do stay in touch with Paul, though. We’ll always be like brothers – and I still see him at school, as he’s in the year above me.
Dad’s beaten me many times between the ages of four and seven, but then Mandy’s always been around to absorb some of the worst of his punches while I’ve been on what you might call the reserve bench.
Dad thought he had got Mandy where he wanted her. That’s the kind of man he is: power mad, always wanting to be in control, and bullying people weaker than him. He’s a hard man who will take on anyone, but as he gets older he seems to direct his obvious hate and anger at people who can’t hit back.
And now that Mandy’s gone, that can only mean me.
In the tenement block I live in with Dad in St Fillans Road there are six flats in each block and three blocks joined onto each other. Everybody knows everybody; people will come to the door asking to borrow some sugar or you will be sent upstairs to borrow milk or a fag until Monday when the giro comes swooping through the letterbox.
Dad is on the dole but works as a roofer-come-chimney sweep – obviously illegally, but he never gets caught as the social never come into our area. I don’t think they really give a monkey’s about poor areas, as they have nothing to gain from them. The only people that knock on the door are debt collectors, people in suits looking for Dad. I’m turning into the best liar in Scotland, as Dad will send me to the door to tell them stories about him being at the hospital, or at the dentist. Then I’ll come back into the living room, where Dad will be kneeling under the windowsill, looking out of a tiny gap in the curtains.
‘They believed me, Dad.’
‘Keep yir fucking voice doon, yi half-wit,’ he’ll whisper. Then he’ll start the questioning, once they’re out of sight.
‘What did they want? What did you say? Then what did they say?’
I’m six years old by this time and I never really pay attention to what they’re saying. I am more concerned about keeping them from pushing past me.
Between the age of five and seven, I learn how to keep on the good side of Dad. I will tell lies for him, keep lookout for men in suits when I’m out playing, and run to the shops for anything he needs. But I never know when he’s going to give me a beating and they’re getting worse. The first one he ever gave me – that meant I missed my first day at school – was just a taste of things to come. But today he takes it to a whole new level.
Dad has asked me to go and pick up his family allowance. He gives me the book for me to take to the post office and I then have to hand it over to the woman who’ll tear a page out and give me his money. On this particular morning I am waiting in the queue among all the old biddies and single mums, right behind an old man in his sixties who has obviously lost control of his bowels, and must have eaten sprouts this morning. The air is toxic around me, and my height isn’t helping at all. He smells like my neighbour’s dog after it rains.
‘Next please!’
Great, my turn. Thank God that windbag has gone – the air is so rife from his farts I can hardly see. I pull the book out of my pocket and hand it to the woman behind the counter.
‘There yi go, misses.’
She is peering at me over her National Health glasses, with a plaster in the middle holding them together.
‘Thank you son!’
She’s now looking closely at the cover of the book.
‘What’s up with your dad’s book?…All this black stuff on it, did he drop it?’
‘No he left it in his pocket when he was sweeping chimneys.’
The place instantly goes silent. Well, how am I to know he isn’t supposed to be working and claiming dole at the same time?
The woman behind the counter starts laughing. ‘You’re lucky I know your dad. You should be more careful who you say that to.’
Then all the people in the queue start laughing as I skip out of the door thinking I’m some kind of comedian. But I soon realise that Dad has a completely different sense of humour to me. I get back to the house white-knuckled from holding the money extra tight so I don’t drop it, then go into the kitchen and hand it to Dad.
‘There you go, Dad – sixty-nine