Handstands In The Dark: A True Story of Growing Up and Survival by Janey Godley Read Free Book Online Page B

door and let me in!’
    I just sat there, frozen in fear, saying: ‘No, no. No!’
    No amount of reassurance could get me to open the door. I sat there, crying, terrified. I sat tight.
    ‘What is it you’re afraid of, Janey?’ he asked. He was getting angry because he couldn’t understand why I would be scared of him. His voice was starting to have an edge: ‘Janey! It’s me – yer Dad! Open the door!’
    He eventually had to borrow a ladder, come up the side of the house and climb in through the bathroom window. I sat staring at the floor as he tried patiently to coax me out of my terror. I was relieved when he just sat on the floor and held me for what seemed like hours. I was clinging to him like a life raft. Somewhere inside of me he felt my fear but could not rationalise it. I sat thinking:
I should have known my Dad would never hurt me
.
    He only frightened me slightly when he was drunk, not because he was violent but because I was convinced he would fall over, bang his head on something sharp and die. In some of my nightmares, he fell and cracked his head open. In others, I was chased down dark streets by demons, I screamed as I ran with dead legs dragging me through invisible toffee that slowed me down; I would stop struggling, turn round, face the demons and shout: ‘I know this is a dream! I can wake up!’
    Then one dark demon’s mouth would stop snarling and smile. The jaws would open and, slowly, it would taunt me: ‘Wake up, then!’
    The conscious part of my brain struggles to awaken:
    ‘Please, please wake up, please wake up, please wake up!’
    But nothing happens
    I turn and face the dark demon.
    It sniggers, reaches over and grabs me by the throat.
    I can hardly breathe.
    I can feel my life drain out of me.
    Blood pulses behind my eyes.
    I scream so loudly.
    Eventually my own screams wake me up.
    In my childhood, my nightmares never woke my parents. My sister Ann would waken, but not my parents. Major was my protector. Whenever Uncle David Percy came into our home, Major would attack him, snarling and biting, and get beaten for his aggression towards a close family member. He would be kicked under the kitchen table and I would crawl under with him, rubbing his kicked ribs and whispering, ‘Thanks, Major,’ into his black pointy Alsatian ears. He would look at me, blink and lick my face, then bury his head into my armpit and stay there for a while until his sore bits mended. For all the kickings he got, he never once gave up attacking David Percy. I would often sit with Major in my bedroom at home and plan a way to kill my Uncle but, of course, I knew it would not happen. Each time he demanded I obey him, I would comply in terror like a silent lamb to the slaughter. He would tell me I was a ‘bad girl’ and said I liked the things he did to me.
    ‘Say you like it.’
    I would be forced to put my head down and tell him to ‘do it’ because I ‘liked it’. When I was being physically held down or punched or raped or suffering extreme pain inside my body I would try to shut off my mind or focus on a ripped piece of wallpaper or, in my mind’s eye, still try to believe I was standing in Disneyland watching all the colours of the bright parade and those flying Dumbo elephants I had seen on television.
    * * *
    My brother Vid knew nothing about the abuse, but, one day, he tried to sell me to a wee man with a lame leg who was caretaker of the local Catholic chapel and who told Vid that he would pay him £1 if he brought him girls. To my brother, a pound was a fortune. Vid had never shown much interest in me – I was too young and silly to be in his gang – but, later that same day, he started brushing my hair and wiping my face because, obviously, he did not want to deliver shabby goods on his first day of trading. My eagle-eyed Mammy spotted Vid in mid-brush and asked him why he was getting me all dressed up. He, in all innocence, told her:
    ‘The wee limpy man at St Barnabas told me he