Helpless by Marianne Marsh Page B

in to a sports programme, it seemed to have blunted the lure of the pub for my father.
    Maybe without realizing, the man next door had timed the taking of his final step well. The effect, however, was the same as though he had carefully orchestrated it.
    That particular interlude of peace was coming to an end.
    It was my father’s simmering rage that I first became aware of.
    Since the age of three I had become accustomed to his bursts of temper. They came with very little provocation as though fuelled by something dark that was out of his control. But as the weeks went by with little sign of them, I had grown accustomed to his lack of his outbursts.
    Then, without me understanding why, they returned even worse than before and, with them, my fear of him returned.
    There was pent-up anger in the way he hunched his shoulders, the way he walked and even the way he ate. His expression was truculent, the tone of his voice always vicious. More and more I tried to avoid him, and that became easier as once again my father spent his evenings in the pub. At night when I lay huddled up in bed, I could hear his unsteady steps on the gravel, the slamming of a door, his roars of rage, the sound of a blow, the creak of the stairs and then finally the rumbling sound of his snores.
    But at that time I wanted my mother to see my own depression, ask me what was wrong, but she, having other things on her mind, failed to notice my need and I was left to carry my weighty burden alone.
    I tried as much as I could to avoid being alone with the man next door. I made excuses that I had to get home quickly to help my mother with the children, but every time I wriggled out of one situation another one came up.
    I pleaded with my mother not to go shopping with Dora on Saturdays, for the man next door did not work on those afternoons. But my pleas fell on deaf ears.
    ‘Oh, don’t be so selfish,’ my mother said impatiently when I protested at having to stay behind with all the children, for Dora would leave her two with me as well. ‘You know it’s the only day we can go and you only have Dora’s children until her husband comes over to fetch them.’
    I knew that, and that was what I did not like.
    No matter what the weather was on those Saturdays, I tried to keep the children inside the house. I wanted their presence to protect me, but of course it never did. No sooner had the women caught the bus to town than the back door would open and he would be in the room with me.
    ‘Got off work early,’ he would say with a triumphant grin.
    The children, seeing the open door, shot through it and rushed to the swing next door. Once again I knew I would hear the word ‘fuck’.
    ‘You are to stay out in the garden,’ he would call out sternly to the children before locking the front door.
    Down on the floor behind the sagging settee was his favourite place. ‘Out of sight from the windows’ was the reason he gave as I lay back on the cold hard lino. But I think that my very discomfort added to his enjoyment.

    My mother had always told me that I could not hide anything from her, that one look at my face told her everything she wanted to know. So somehow I thought her increasing lack of time for me was my fault. I deduced that she already knew that I was doing something very bad.
    But I still wanted my mother to acknowledge that something was wrong in my life. Did she not see my depression, how my laughter never rang out and my face seldom stretched into a smile?
    I wanted her to ask me what it was I did when I walked in the fields or went down to the pond. Did she not see him following me; did she not notice the times he called me into his workshop?
    ‘Mum …,’ I would start.
    ‘Not now, Marianne,’ she would reply, and that tiny seed of courage that may have made me speak out withered and died.
    Each time the man next door met me in the fields or waited for me to leave school and I was made to do something I did not want to do, my guilt