This Heart Within Me Burns - From Bedlam to Benidorm (Revised & Updated). Crissy Rock
knives, forks and spoons sailed through the air as if in slow motion and crashed down into the street three storeys below. Panic-stricken, I looked out through the broken window convinced someone had been killed by our broken dishes. Thankfully, no one had been walking by.
‘There,’ she said. ‘You don’t have to argue now, our Brian and Christine, because there’s no dishes.’
She smiled, turned and walked away again as silently as she’d appeared.
***
When no one is in the house Granddad still plays the choking game.
‘Please stop, Granddad, please stop.’
Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat,
And, by the holy rood!
A man all light, a seraph-man
On every corse there stood.
Nan started feeling ill after having an earache that went on for weeks. I remember her standing by the fire then all of a sudden her hands would cover her ears. One day when it was really bad and the tears were welling up in her eyes Mum sent for the doctor, who came straight away. Within 20 minutes, he’d called an ambulance, and Nan was on her way to hospital. I’ll never forget the sad look on Dr Sheiff’s face as he stood with his big stethoscope round his neck. He’d known our nan many years, and it was as if he’d given up all hope.
I panicked. Suddenly, all the things that Granddad had threatened us with had come true. I loved my nan – in many ways I loved her just as much as my mum – and now it seemed she was being taken away from us.
When she had left and I was alone with Granddad, I swore to him that I hadn’t told anyone about what had happened. He just shook his head and told me to be quiet. I was angry and disgusted with myself, but confused too, because, apart from Brian, I really hadn’t told anyone.
***
Nan has been discharged from hospital but I know she is not better and I am worried. She is visiting hospital quite a lot. There is something wrong with her throat and her voice too; she can hardly speak.
Sometimes she stays in overnight and I dread bedtimes. Granddad is still making me touch his Micky. I know it is not his belly now and I don’t like it. Why do little girls have to do that to their granddads? It’s not fair. Granddad is making me sleep close to him when Nan is away to keep him warm, he says. He wants me to keep his hands warm at nights and makes me wrap my legs round his hands and arms.
But then he touches me down there, on my ‘Auntie Mary’ and it doesn’t feel nice and I know he shouldn’t do that because our mum says you should never touch your ‘Auntie Mary’. But then he tells me about the home for naughty boys and girls and calls me those horrible names again and again and makes me promise I won’t tell anyone.
‘I promise, Granddad, I promise.’
‘Swear on your mum’s life?’
‘I swear, Granddad, I swear on me mum’s life and Dad’s and on baby Jesus’s life too.’
‘Swear on Nan’s life?’
‘Yes and me nan’s as well.’
Nan looks awful. I hear Mum telling me dad she has the cancer disease and Mum is sobbing. I don’t want her to go into hospital again. I like my house when Nan is there. Granddad tells me that it’s all my fault and that Nan has caught the cancer because of those horrible things I do to him that I mustn’t tell anyone about. He says if I tell anyone Nan will die and I will go to hell.
Not only that, but, when Nan goes to hospital, Granddad still plays the choking game. When he gets that look, and has Brian and me trapped in the living room, Brian starts crying even though Granddad hasn’t said a word. It’s the look.
‘No, please, Granddad,’ begs Brian as I try to stand between them. He never picks on me, always Brian. Please God let it be me. I know it will hurt but make it be me, God.
Granddad looks at me and smiles. It doesn’t look like Granddad’s smile, not like the smile on the Pier Head, or when he gives us cooking apples with sugar all the way through. It’s not his smile. It’s not my Granddad, it’s someone else.
‘Who wants to be first?’
Brian is on his knees, crying, shaking his head and begging.
‘Please, no, Granddad.’
I don’t want to play the game but I cannot stand watching me little brother suffer any longer.
‘Me, I want to play the choking game.’
Granddad grins. ‘Are you sure?’
Brian hasn’t heard but can’t believe his luck as Granddad bundles him out of the house and comes back to stand in front of me.
I am terrified as he comes towards me but I am feeling proud that I have saved and protected me little brother. He won’t have to suffer.
I close my eyes tight like I did when I got the cane and wait for Granddad’s hands to close around my throat. I tense my neck up and all I can hear is that ticking clock. Granddad winds that clock up every night. He has a little key that he keeps in his waistcoat pocket. No one can ever wind that clock up, only Granddad. Concentrate on the clock, I tell myself: tick… tick… tick. The clock’s on the mantle, strong, sturdy and safe. All of a sudden I am the clock and I am hiding inside; the clock is my heartbeat.
Nothing happens. There are no hands around my neck and I think that Granddad might have changed back to our nice granddad again.
I open my eyes. Granddad’s trousers are round his ankles and his Micky is sticking out. He is touching his Micky and that’s not right. Mum is always telling our Brian to stop fiddlin’ with his Micky.
He steps forward with the look on his face again and reaches out and grabs a handful of my hair and forces my mouth open with his cold slimy fingers. Those fingers are not my granddad’s; they are devil’s fingers… devil’s claws.
Brian finds me in a heap on the floor sobbing and this time it’s him who comforts me, stroking my hair gently and wiping at the tears on my face.
‘We’ll take turns,’ he says, trying to make me feel better about Granddad’s game, but all I can hear is the ticking of the clock, as if someone has turned up the volume to a deafening volume. I feel as if my head is about to explode.
God forgive me.
***
Granddad controlled us both, and he degraded us. He told us it was a special secret that no one else could know about. They use the term ‘grooming’ these days, and that’s what he did: he groomed us mentally, filled our heads with so much shit and lies and fear that we were too frightened and ashamed to breathe a single word of what was going on.
So the abuse just went on and on until there came a point where it felt normal. Then self-hatred came in, the self-loathing and, when I had a feeling of hating him, I felt like I was betraying him. I hated myself for hating him. Can you understand that?
God, I have to stop writing for a minute…
It’s hard for me going back to those times. I don’t want to relive them again and it still chokes me, just like a big plastic bag has been placed over my head and I can’t breathe because I am suffocating. I am shaking with uncontrollable fear and agony of knowing that it happened. It makes no sense. For many a year, I have tried to come to terms with it, and tried to chase the nightmares away, but still they return all too regularly. I must fight hard to keep myself from going