Anne's Song by Anne Nolan Read Free Book Online Page B

I was his wife or his girlfriend and we'd had the equivalent of a lovers' tiff. But I was his daughter; and he was an adult. It was a strange, inappropriate way for him to behave. It wasn't natural. My younger sisters got the same treatment in time, but less frequently and less pronounced. I always felt I was the pioneer in anything to do with my father because I was his eldest daughter.
    If he was talking to me, and we disagreed about something, he'd turn to whoever else was around. 'Oh, Anne won't agree with me,' he'd say, 'because she hates me.' This was pretty accurate, as it turned out. 'If I say something's white, Anne will sav it's black.'
    He knew perfectly well the reason why, of course, but he could never admit it. What surprises me, looking back, is that no one else in the family picked up on our antagonistic relationship. You'd have thought my mother might have been curious about it, but she never said anything. My father was in charge and she wasn't about to question his behaviour. Later, as I moved into my teens, when things got too much for me, maybe once, possibly twice, a month, I'd go and stay with Aunt Teresa. I never told her what was happening at home and she never asked. I just needed to get away. I'm sure my mother didn't like me doing that. I could sense she was a bit hurt that I'd prefer to be with her younger sister but, typically, she never said anything.
    If only I could turn back the clock, and have had the courage not to keep his dark secret to myself. My mum would have been shattered, although I wouldn't have properly understood that at the time because I didn't yet realise the full depravity of his actions, but just a chance remark about Dad stroking me down there would have put a stop to everything. Then I wouldn't have had this lifelong cloud following me around. However, a mixture of embarrassment and guilt somehow combined to hold me back.
    I'd long ago made the decision to tell no one what my father had done to me when we were alone together. I still didn't properly understand the full ramifications of it but I was increasingly sure that it was a bad thing and a bad thing, moreover, of which I had been a part. By this stage, anyway, the school holidays were approaching so there'd be lots of people in the house and my dad would never be alone with me. After that, I'd be going to school every day.
    I remember starting at that secondary school and feeling very vulnerable. I was put in a class where everyone else seemed to know each other. They were laughing and joking; I felt a complete outsider, the new kid with the Irish accent who didn't know a soul. Some of the girls would mimic the way I spoke, which I hated. Then Denise came across a girl called Jacqui who was also new to the school and, it turned out, was in the same class as me, so she approached this girl and told her about me. It was the best thing she could have done.
    They used to call me Little John and Jacqui Friar Tuck. I was tall and skinny; she was small and a bit chubby. She had dark hair, dark eyes, pale skin, just the same as me. She was an extrovert, but not in an overbearing way. We were a week apart in age. There was an immediate bond between us: she didn't know a soul in the school and nor did I; each of us was naturally a bit apprehensive. It was inevitable that we'd start going around together, but it was more than that: we clicked. To this day, she remains one of my closest friends. But I was never tempted to tell her my secret. By then, I was pretty sure what had happened was wrong so I was worried she might think that I was in some way to blame. I never told anybody because the older I got, the more ashamed I became.
    Jacqui and I would talk, as girls do, about the facts of life, or our sketchy understanding of them, at least. There was a girl in our class who got pregnant at fourteen, a real scandal back then, and I remember discussing with Jacqui how babies were made. A lot of it was guesswork. We hadn't a clue