This Heart Within Me Burns - From Bedlam to Benidorm (Revised & Updated). Crissy Rock
I was shaking like a leaf. I tried to get my head around what had happened, and, pathetically, thought for a moment or two that I may have been to blame.
My head was thumping, as if a drum was pounding inside, as I dragged myself on to all fours, and then groaned as I struggled to my feet. I walked gingerly to the bathroom, where I turned on the light.
Who was that girl in the mirror?
Whose was the disfigured face staring back at me caked in dry blood, bruised and battered beyond recognition?
When he finally came back, he acted like nothing had happened. He dropped himself into his favourite armchair and turned on the TV. I stood like an idiot staring at him. He had the cheek to say, ‘What are you looking at?’
‘Have you seen my face?’ I asked in astonishment.
‘What about your fuckin’ face? It’s still as fuckin’ ugly as when I fuckin’ married it.’
My mouth fell open. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and why there were no apologies from this monster sitting before me. Where was the man I married? Had his personality changed, or had there always been an ogre inside him, ready to be unleashed?
My lip trembled and I felt like bursting into tears all over again. I felt I could cope with the physical hurt he’d inflicted upon me, but with those few well-chosen words he’d torn my heart into a million pieces.
I had to get out, had to go… right there and then. I turned to walk towards the door.
‘Where the fuck do you think you’re going?’ he sneered from his armchair.
I didn’t reply. I just kept on walking. Before I could escape, he was up on his feet in a flash and caught me.
‘You’re going fuckin’ nowhere, you fuckin’ slut.’
He grabbed my hair and pulled me back, balled his right hand in a fist and propelled it towards me, catching me on the side of the mouth. I felt my jaw crack, and two of my teeth fell towards the back of my throat. I flew through the air and landed on the threadbare carpet. Lying on the floor, I managed to gather the fragments of teeth from my windpipe and spat them out. As I gazed at them, lying in a pool of my own spit and blood, I heard my husband growl, ‘From now on, you do as I fuckin’ say. Is that clear?’
I whimpered like a stricken dog and apologised to him. I actually fucking apologised to him!
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry… sorry… sorry.’
Those words still haunt me to this day.
Since then, at an uncertain hour,
That agony returns,
And till my ghastly tale is told,
This heart within me burns.
I was born on 23 September 1958 at Sefton General Hospital. It was on Smithdown Road, in the Liverpool 8 area of the city.
My mum’s name was Margaret and she was 20 years old when I was born, only five foot tall with brown hair and eyes that changed from blue to green in a certain light. I could never figure that one out but I swear by almighty God they did.
Dad and Nan used to say that Mum suffered with her nerves. She would disappear off to the hospital every now and again for treatment, sometimes for weeks at a time. Those damned nerves attacked her for years, but I didn’t understand then what nerves were. Sometimes she would shout, ‘Move – you’re getting on me bleedin’ nerves!’ and yet we were standing nowhere near her! And sometimes Dad would shout out the same thing, as would Nan and little Nin too, but they weren’t supposed to have ‘the nerves’ so how could we get ‘on them’?
(I’d better explain. Little Nin was actually me dad’s nan, not my nan. Dad had grown up thinking that ‘little Nin’ was his mother, but my own nan – Ninny Lizzie – who he thought was his sister was actually his mum. Nan was only 16 when Dad was born, so little Nin (his nan) brought him up as her own son. She called him Teddy, so because her last name was Ash, Dad was known as Teddy Ash, even though his real name was Eddie Murray.
God, I’m confused now and I’m part of the bloody family.)
Anyway, back to my mum. She was funny, a lovely woman who, it was said, would never hurt a fly. I’m not surprised: if one came within a foot of her she went bloody hysterical, screaming blue murder. If I ever asked her why she was so afraid of such a small creature, she would reply, ‘It’s me bloody nerves, girl.’ Those damned nerves again.
She could be such fun. Her dancing eyes could sparkle like the crown jewels. She would spend hours making up games with us, and playing hide and seek. Well… playing seek at least, because, as you’ll discover, we had nothing in the house to hide behind. But, whenever her nerves returned, she’d withdraw into herself for long periods, like she was lost.
Dad, five foot seven and very handsome, worked as a coalman for Buller Mills Coal, at a coal yard just off Crown Street. He met Mum while she was babysitting for a friend of his, Maggie O’Hare. He married Mum in March 1958 at St Nathaniel’s Church, after she found out she was pregnant with me. Six months later, in September, I was born. Mum has described the wedding as a low-key affair; not only were the two of them brassic but my dad was just getting over the shock of finding out that his ‘sister’ was in fact his mother. (Nan and little Nin… remember?)
Married life for Mum and Dad found them at Mum’s mum’s two-bedroom flat on the fourth floor at 11D Windsor Gardens, in one of Liverpool 8’s many tenement blocks. If anybody asked us where we lived, we’d reply, ‘With me nan in Liverpool 8.’ It was perfectly normal back then for a young couple to start their married life under their parents’ roof or, if not, with an older sister or brother. The plain fact was that they didn’t have enough money to furnish their own place, but they hoped that, if they lived cheaply and saved money, they might eventually afford furniture for a house of their own.
It was only a two-bedroom house and, when I was young, I slept with my nan and granddad in a big, lumpy but cosy bed that seemed to take up most of the room. I’d sleep next to the wall, and snuggle up against Nan in the middle of the bed, while Granddad slept on the outside. Today, sleeping with your grandparents would be considered a little strange, but back then it was perfectly normal. Also, in the depths of winter and with no heating in the house, I’d still be as warm as toast. I was one of the lucky ones; a girl I used to go to school with shared a bed with five others!
I don’t remember an awful lot of details about my early life, but I can recall the arrival of my brother Brian, who was born on 5 February 1960. Brian and me were very close. I don’t remember us ever fighting, but, there again, I suppose we must have done sometimes. I mean, all brothers and sisters do, don’t they?
Our Brian was always a live wire. He loved sugar butties, and I blame all that bloody sugar for giving him the energy. One of my earliest recollections was of him standing at the table nearly drooling as Mum sprinkled the sugar on to the bread. At the same time he would tap his leg and twitch. It drove our mum crackers trying to get him to stop. But he never did, and the more excited he got, the worse it would be.
As soon as Brian was old enough, I introduced him to the incredible adventure playground that was the streets of Liverpool 8. At the time, the Liverpool council had decided to move people out of the area’s many slums, and so there were lots of derelict houses waiting to be pulled down. These houses were dangerous, and therefore the greatest play areas in the world, so I wasted no time in introducing our Brian to them. Every time we went into a house we shouldn’t have been in, I got goosebumps on the back of my hand. Brian would just stand there with his gob open, twitching and tapping his feet.
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