The Little Prisoner by Jane Elliott Read Free Book Online Page B

orders. It looked as if there was going to be no way out of getting a smack at the very least.
    Eventually a man came along who lived opposite us and I begged him to help me, promising that I was buying the cigarettes for my parents. He seemed to believe me, got the cigarettes for me and then asked if I wanted a lift home. We’d been told never to accept lifts from strange men, but I often played with this man’s daughters and knew his wife. There didn’t seem to be any danger and I was eager to get back as quickly as possible in the hope of avoiding a punishment, so I accepted his offer, assuming he would park in the car park round the corner and my stepfather wouldn’t see me getting out of the car. To my horror, however, the neighbour, presumably thinking he was doing me a favour, dropped me off right outside the house. As I came in through the front door Richard went berserk, shouting and screaming, hitting me around the head and kicking me.
    ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ I kept saying over and over again, but I couldn’t make him stop.
    ‘Stand against the backroom window,’ he ordered, ‘and put your arms down by your sides.’
    There was no one else in the house to intervene. I did as he told me, terrified of what new torture he might have thought up but equally terrified of moving and angering him still further. So when he pulled back his fist I didn’t flinch, taking the punch full in the face.
    ‘You deserve that,’ he shouted, finally happy that he had taught me a lesson. ‘Never get in anyone’s car again.’

    As the boys grew older my duties towards them increased. I didn’t mind that too much because I loved them when they were little and they were very affectionate back. The younger ones used to call me ‘Mum’ a lot of the time, which would make me laugh. I liked it when they did that; it made me feel they were grateful for what I did for them.
    Richard kept wanting more children because he was trying to have a girl of his own. Even when Mum got ill and lost a kidney, he insisted that they went on trying.
    Mum and Richard would stay in bed in the mornings once I was able to get the others up and sort out their breakfasts. I was always turning up at school with safety pins all over my clothes from changing nappies.
    If the boys woke up early they would come into my room. All of us were terrified of making a noise and disturbing the sleeping adults. To entertain them and keep them quiet until it was time for breakfast I would sit them in a line and dress them up in my clothes, doing their hair as if they were my dolls. They loved it, but when Richard found out he went mad, saying I was trying to turn them into ‘poofs’. If Mum got up, Silly Git would stay in bed and I would be sent up to give him cups of tea. On each trip I would have to do him some horrible little ‘favour’. He would make me come right up to the edge of the bed, lifting up my skirt and tugging my knickers down so that he could touch me. I would then have to play with him under the covers for a few minutes until Mum called me back downstairs again.
    ‘Bring me up a fag,’ he would say as I went out the door, and the same thing would happen again when I returned. He always insisted on having two cups of tea before he got up, both brought to him by me.

    As the years went by we all used to confide in one another how much we hated Richard, but never when he was in earshot. Mum used to tell us how she was just waiting until the boys had finished school and then we would all be off. Sometimes, when he had given her a beating, she would tell me that once the boys were grown up they would all turn on him for her.
    On a few occasions Mum did pluck up the courage to leave him, with all of us walking along behind her like a parade of baby ducks. But he always did whatever was necessary to drag her back, regardless of who might be watching.
    On one occasion he was driving his car when he came for her, winding the window down and