The Little Prisoner. Jane Elliott
friend.
If Mum was in the house when Richard wanted to punish me he would whisper in my ear, ‘Watch this.’ He would then start shouting at me about something and shouting at my mum about what a moody cow I was. Seeing the sort of temper he was in, Mum would agree with him, tutting sadly at what a tiresome girl I was. Richard would then kick me and slap me and drag me upstairs by my ponytail, making me lose my footing so that I was literally being dragged by my hair. He would tell Mum that he was going to put me to bed and give me ‘a good talking to’ and would then beat me even more viciously once we got there.
‘Wait till your Mum goes out,’ he’d tell me as he crushed my face between his fingers, ‘then you’ll get it.’
In the beginning when he used to hit me with his hand, a slipper or a stick, I would always cry. Quite soon, however, I decided that I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction any more. I couldn’t stop my eyes from watering up with the pain, but I found that if I just clenched my teeth and stared at him I could stop myself from actually crying. It was the only little bit of defiance I could find the courage or strength for, and it often made the beatings worse.
‘Not crying?’ he would say. ‘Isn’t it fucking hurting enough then?’
But then when I had cried he would become even angrier and tell me he was going to ‘give me something to cry about’. I guess he was always going to do whatever he wanted, regardless of what I did or said.
I think Mum knew that he was going too far sometimes, because after he had put me to bed she would sometimes creep into my room to check that I was still breathing. I used to breathe really shallowly, just to give her a fright and to punish her for letting him hurt me. It was a mean thing to do, but I was cross with her.
‘Janey, Janey,’ she would whisper and I would open my eyes suddenly, as if I had been asleep. ‘Breathe properly,’ she would scold me, angry that I had frightened her. She never raised her voice because she didn’t want Richard to know that she had come up to check I was alive. Although I was angry with her for not helping me, I was also relieved that she wasn’t getting beaten up herself.
Other times Richard would tell me what he and I were going to do later and if I didn’t look pleased, or turned away or cried, he would say, ‘Right, you ungrateful bitch, now look what I’m gonna do. I’ll teach you.’ He would then start rowing with Mum and beat her up in front of me.
‘The only reason your mum and me ever argue is because of you,’ he would tell me over and over again, and I believed him, the guilt weighing heavily on my soul. I learnt that I must always agree with him, always smile and always be grateful for everything or there would be terrible punishments for me and my mum.
Like a small boy pulling the wings off insects, or stuffing them into jam jars and watching them starve or suffocate, Richard seemed to enjoy making me suffer for no reason at all. The airing cupboard for the house was in my room and he used to like to make me strip my clothes off and crawl inside amongst the piles of towels. I don’t know how long he left me in there, because time is immeasurable when you are small and frightened and sitting in the dark, and I don’t know if the door had a lock on it, because I never had the nerve to try to get out until he told me I could. Disobeying orders would have brought a far worse punishment down on my head. The rule was to endure whatever he told me to endure, and to do so with a cheerful smile and gratitude. Being a ‘sulky cow’ was one of the worst ‘crimes’ I could commit. He would sometimes come back just to check I hadn’t fainted from the heat, then he would shut the door again and leave me in the dark once more with no idea how much longer I would be there.
There was a ledge in my room too and I remember being made to stand on it, but I can’t remember what happened next. One day that memory will probably return as well, but I’m not looking forward to it.
These physical humiliations and discomforts, however, were not as unsettling as the mind games, which started almost immediately I came back home.
‘Go and turn the hot water on for me, Janey,’ Mum would say and I would run upstairs to the immersion.
‘Go and turn the hot water off,’ Richard would tell me as soon as I got back from turning it on. I would know to obey without saying anything.
‘Why didn’t you turn the water on when I asked you?’ Mum would want to know a little while later when she went up for her bath.
‘I did,’ I would protest. ‘He told me to turn it off again.’
‘You bloody little liar!’ he would explode and I would have no chance of convincing Mum that I was telling the truth once he started ranting and raving. If I’d argued any further I would have got a beating, so I just stayed quiet, knowing it wouldn’t be long before he thought of another game.
When it came to the beatings Richard liked to vary the implements he used. Sometimes it was a slipper, or a hand or a bamboo stick. He would make me choose which it was to be. As I got older the beatings got less, perhaps because they had served their purpose in training me to obey him. Instead I would just be punched or smacked around the head or thrown across the room or made to pay a forfeit by doing a favour. Whatever happened, I would never be let off a punishment.
‘Do you want breakfast, Jane?’ Mum called through from the kitchen one morning to where I was sitting on the sofa in the front room.
‘Yes please,’ I called back.
‘No, you don’t,’ my stepfather hissed from the nearby armchair. ‘Tell her you don’t want any.’
‘No, I don’t want any really,’ I shouted.
‘Why not?’ Mum asked, appearing in the doorway.
‘She must be fucking mad,’ he yelled, jumping up from his chair. ‘She doesn’t know what she fucking wants. Do you want fucking breakfast or not?’
‘Yes, please,’ I said in a small confused voice.
‘What do you want?’ Mum asked, shaking her head in puzzlement.
‘Toast,’ I said and she went back to the kitchen to make it for me.
The moment she was out of sight Richard’s fingers closed painfully round my face like a clamp and he was whispering again, his face inches from mine. ‘I told you, you don’t want any fucking breakfast. Now fucking tell her.’
‘I don’t want any toast, Mum,’ I obediently called out to the kitchen. ‘I don’t really want anything.’
‘Stop messing me about, Jane!’ she shouted.
‘Stop messing your mum about!’ Richard screamed, hitting me hard around the head. ‘She’s fucking mad,’ he called out to Mum. ‘She just likes stirring up fucking arguments!’
He was always playing these mind games to make Mum angry with me and to give him an excuse to smack me around. I just ended up so confused.
I know which memory is the first one I can find which has a sexual connection, but I think there may be even earlier ones lying in wait beneath the dust somewhere. This one must have happened a couple of years after I came back home because I remember I was sharing a bed with my brother Pete. My next brother, Dan, was also in with us in a separate bed. I’d been turned out of my room because it was having one of its routine redecorations and Pete and I were lying top to tail in his bed. The reason I think something must have happened before is because I remember I was awake and listening that night, terrified of what was about to happen. I’d heard my mother going out, the front door shutting after her, and I’d known that Richard would soon be upstairs to get me.
Every sound told me a story. The living-room door opened downstairs and I could sense Richard’s stealthy footsteps on the stairs. I closed my eyes, trying to stop my body from shaking so that I could pretend to be asleep. I thought maybe I would be safe because Pete was lying beside me and Richard wouldn’t want to wake him up. I was always clutching at straws like that to