Mummy Knew by Lisa James Page B

cigarette she would light for him, but other times her attempts at reason failed miserably. A few days after he was released from prison, he beat her up very badly.
    I came down to the kitchen the next day to find her standing there, her face bruised and the flesh around her mouth looking like a deflated Yorkshire pudding. She held her purse in shaking hands and asked me to go over to the shop.
    ‘I want two packs of cigarettes, and two pounds of King Edwards,’ she lisped. Her voice sounded funny. She couldn’t pronounce the words properly, and it was then I noticed her two front teeth were missing.
    My jaw hung open with shock and my eyes filled with tears, but neither of us commented on the state she was in. She hated it if I ever mentioned her injuries. I just took the money without a word and went to get them for her.
    Later on, when I was hanging over the banisters, I heard Mum say, ‘You’ve knocked me fucking teeth out, you bastard. That’s nice, ain’t it?’
    ‘I’ve told you I’m sorry, Donna,’ he said in his low, rasping voice. ‘I’ll never lay a hand on you again.’
    The next day she went to the dentist, and by the end of the week she had two new front teeth, which looked much better than the old ones had done, except these were bright white and strangely at odds with her other nicotine-stained teeth.
    Even though Mum had been through a terrible ordeal, she looked almost happy as Dad fussed over her for a few days.He had hurt her badly in the past but she had never lost any teeth before and for the first time ever, Dad was contrite. It was as though the previous black eyes, split lips and bloodied noses meant nothing compared to this atrocity.
    As far as I remember, apart from the odd shove here and there, he never hit her again. He didn’t need to any more. The threat was always there. Dad only had to raise his voice and clench his fists to make Mum back down in an argument. Once beaten, twice shy and all that.
    He may have stopped beating Mum, but it was around this time, when I was eleven, that he started lashing out at me a lot more than he ever had before. Now that I didn’t have any other family members around to witness his cruelty, he was freer with his slaps, kicks and punches. He didn’t have to worry about me telling anyone as I no longer had contact with anybody other than him and Mum–and Mum didn’t count because she didn’t seem to care what he did. He’d be careful not to mark my face, because it might get noticed at school, but I always had bruises over the rest of my body. Someone had to bear the brunt of his temper when his horse came in last, and it looked as though it was going to be me now.
    At the same time as he was getting more violent towards me, Dad also started to become more affectionate. It was as if he liked to hurt me and make me cry as an excuse to pull me onto his lap and smother me in scratchy kisses.
    ‘You know I love you, don’t you, Lisa?’ he’d say, stroking my forehead. ‘You’ve always been my special girl, ain’t ya? Have been ever since you were little.’
    I knew this wasn’t quite true because when I was younger he saw me as nothing more than a nuisance, not special at all. He was always calling me a ‘useless spastic’. I remembered how he used to banish me to my bedroom and instruct everyone not to talk to me for weeks on end. It was only since we moved to Nunhead and away from the rest of the family that Dad had begun to show me anything approaching genuine affection. But I nodded in agreement anyway.
    ‘I love you, too,’ I said automatically, knowing it was what he expected me to say. If I appeared the slightest bit unfriendly it could set him off in a bad mood. Besides, when he was in a good mood, he could be nice. He was far from perfect but he was the only dad I’d ever known, and ironically, now that the rest of my family had gone, he was the only person to show me any affection whatsoever. Mum remained as cold and distant