taking your mother out with some work colleagues shortly, but as your brother is officially 16 today I thought I’d give him a welcome to adulthood before I go out.’
It had been the same when I had turned 16. Once my masculinity had kicked in with me growing taller in stature and broader in muscles, my father’s beatings had increased in strength and duration. Almost as if he was proving that no matter how big or strong his sons would grow he would always be the one in control of us.
For a good 20 minutes that night, I had to lie on my bed and listen to the aggressive grunts of my father as he repeatedly hit Nicholas with God knows what implement in the room next door. To his credit, Nicholas only cried out twice, probably on the first two blows, but after that, my brother had remained painfully silent.
Finally, I heard the click of my brother’s door closing and my father’s footsteps passing my door on the way to the master bedroom. The noises of my mother and father changing and moving downstairs went on for a further half an hour or so until finally I heard them leave the house at a little past nine o’clock. Waiting for at least ten minutes to make sure they were definitely not returning I then crept from my room to check on Nicholas.
The sight that met me turned my blood cold and caused me to instantly drop to my knees in shock. Curled on the floor in the foetal position was Nicholas, his hands tied to the radiator and his entire torso covered in long, angry welts and bluing bruises. A cane was tossed casually on the bed, but it was neither of these sights that shocked me into crying for the first time in years. No, it was my brother’s deathly pale face and the deep red blood pooling around Nicholas’ slashed wrist that broke me.
The scissors that my brother had obviously used to cut his own wrist lay discarded next to his bloodied body and I used the exact same scissors, slippery with his blood, to cut Nicholas’ unresponsive arm from its restraints before hurriedly tying a makeshift bandage around the wound, scooping him up and carrying him downstairs to my mother’s car. I didn’t care that I hadn’t passed my driving test because my father hadn’t allowed me to take any lessons, I’d be damned if I was wasting precious minutes waiting for an ambulance when my brother was bleeding out in my arms, so I climbed in the car and did what I’d watched my mother do a thousand times.
Ignition, clutch, gear, accelerate.
Miraculously it worked, after several juddering gear changes and a near miss at a junction I had an unconscious Nicholas in hospital within eight minutes.
Our father never beat us again after that night. In fact, our father would never see us again after that night, because the police had picked our parents up as soon as they arrived home and taken them directly to the police station.
For reasons I couldn’t fully explain I had always had a grudging respect for my father and initially this had made me reluctant to admit everything to the doctors and policemen that fought to save my brother that night. But when Nicholas came around and looked at me with such complete desolation in his eyes I had known there was nothing else for it, I couldn’t allow my brother to suffer any longer.
The whole story was told. My parents were arrested, my father for child abuse, and my mother as an accessory and that was it, the Jackson brothers were now alone in the world. Nicholas was 16, technically able to go his own way, but because the psychiatrist that treated him deemed him to be a ‘vulnerable young person’ it was decided that he would be put up for fostering whilst he stabilised.
My brother was everything to me, so there was no fucking way I was letting him go and live with strangers. I immediately applied for, and was eventually granted, guardianship over him until he reached 18. Some social worker busybody told me I could claim benefits to get us a little cash each week, but I wasn’t
It had been the same when I had turned 16. Once my masculinity had kicked in with me growing taller in stature and broader in muscles, my father’s beatings had increased in strength and duration. Almost as if he was proving that no matter how big or strong his sons would grow he would always be the one in control of us.
For a good 20 minutes that night, I had to lie on my bed and listen to the aggressive grunts of my father as he repeatedly hit Nicholas with God knows what implement in the room next door. To his credit, Nicholas only cried out twice, probably on the first two blows, but after that, my brother had remained painfully silent.
Finally, I heard the click of my brother’s door closing and my father’s footsteps passing my door on the way to the master bedroom. The noises of my mother and father changing and moving downstairs went on for a further half an hour or so until finally I heard them leave the house at a little past nine o’clock. Waiting for at least ten minutes to make sure they were definitely not returning I then crept from my room to check on Nicholas.
The sight that met me turned my blood cold and caused me to instantly drop to my knees in shock. Curled on the floor in the foetal position was Nicholas, his hands tied to the radiator and his entire torso covered in long, angry welts and bluing bruises. A cane was tossed casually on the bed, but it was neither of these sights that shocked me into crying for the first time in years. No, it was my brother’s deathly pale face and the deep red blood pooling around Nicholas’ slashed wrist that broke me.
The scissors that my brother had obviously used to cut his own wrist lay discarded next to his bloodied body and I used the exact same scissors, slippery with his blood, to cut Nicholas’ unresponsive arm from its restraints before hurriedly tying a makeshift bandage around the wound, scooping him up and carrying him downstairs to my mother’s car. I didn’t care that I hadn’t passed my driving test because my father hadn’t allowed me to take any lessons, I’d be damned if I was wasting precious minutes waiting for an ambulance when my brother was bleeding out in my arms, so I climbed in the car and did what I’d watched my mother do a thousand times.
Ignition, clutch, gear, accelerate.
Miraculously it worked, after several juddering gear changes and a near miss at a junction I had an unconscious Nicholas in hospital within eight minutes.
Our father never beat us again after that night. In fact, our father would never see us again after that night, because the police had picked our parents up as soon as they arrived home and taken them directly to the police station.
For reasons I couldn’t fully explain I had always had a grudging respect for my father and initially this had made me reluctant to admit everything to the doctors and policemen that fought to save my brother that night. But when Nicholas came around and looked at me with such complete desolation in his eyes I had known there was nothing else for it, I couldn’t allow my brother to suffer any longer.
The whole story was told. My parents were arrested, my father for child abuse, and my mother as an accessory and that was it, the Jackson brothers were now alone in the world. Nicholas was 16, technically able to go his own way, but because the psychiatrist that treated him deemed him to be a ‘vulnerable young person’ it was decided that he would be put up for fostering whilst he stabilised.
My brother was everything to me, so there was no fucking way I was letting him go and live with strangers. I immediately applied for, and was eventually granted, guardianship over him until he reached 18. Some social worker busybody told me I could claim benefits to get us a little cash each week, but I wasn’t
Similar Books
