Read My Secret Sister: Jenny Lucas and Helen Edwards' Family Story for Free Online Page A

out, so there was nobody to protect me from their escalating rage. I was on my own.

CHAPTER 4
    Helen
    A Walking Heel
    Hardly a day passed without a forceful reminder of my father’s dominance. Without any reason that I could see, he would suddenly turn on my mother or me. We might be sitting at the table, eating our tea, when perhaps my mother would make some remark, or I’d drop my fork. He’d abruptly push his plate away with such force that food shot across the table and onto the floor, his face as dark as thunder and his eyes staring. A typical scene would be like this:
    ‘Go on, then,’ my mother would taunt him. ‘Let’s all see what a big man you are. What an animal, more like!’
    ‘I am master of this house,’ he would roar as he stood and pushed his chair back so hard it fell against the dresser. ‘And don’t you forget it. You will do what I say.’ He stressed the ‘I’. ‘I will not allow . . .’ Then he would turn on me and jab his finger into my chest. ‘You’ll never get away from me. Not if you want to stay alive.’
    I would sit as still as I could, trying my hardest not to cry.
    ‘Ee, yes,’ my mother would say, adopting a sarcastic tone. ‘Let’s bow and scrape to the master.’
    ‘Shut up, you slut!’
    ‘What are you then? The big I am?’
    I would shrink in my chair as he turned to hit out at her.
    ‘Oh aye,’ she would smirk. ‘You are the big man now, aren’t you?’
    He would bend his face towards hers in a menacing pose. ‘You will be quiet, now !’
    ‘Ee, master, we’re all so scared of you . . .’
    Stepping back he would take a swipe at her again, harder this time, probably on the chin.
    She would throw her cup at him. It would miss and shatter against the wall, and the tea would slowly drip in tracks down the wallpaper. I would slide quietly off my chair and creep towards the door.
    He would catch me and pull me back. ‘Where do you think you’re going? This is all your fault.’
    ‘Yes, Dad. Sorry, sorry . . .’
    ‘You come back here and clear up this mess.’
    ‘Yes, Dad.’ I would try to gather the peas or whatever they were from where they’d rolled across the floor, and clear the plates away to the sink. I was only five years old and I had to clean up after them while they carried on with their sparring. It was always a battle-ground in our house.
    My mother escorted me to school for my first few days at Seghill Infants. After that, I was on my own. It was a typical village school, just a short walk away. Most of my cousins had been there before me, so I soon settled in.
    School became my refuge, until one lunchtime that winter when I slipped on an ‘ice-slide’ in the school yard. As I fell I heard the crack that set my ankle ablaze. I felt sick and faint as I lay on the snow, surrounded by gawping classmates. I sobbed as older children helped me to hobble back past the outside toilets to the Victorian school building.
    ‘Just sit down and keep it up on there!’ My teacher scowled as she slammed my foot down on a spare chair to elevate it. The pain seared up my leg and I stuffed my fist in my mouth to stifle my scream. My ankle swelled quickly and throbbed so much it was hard not to cry out. The slow afternoon dragged on around me.
    At home time I tried to walk, but was unable to put any weight on my ankle. Nobody came to fetch me and the other children had run off straight after school, including my cousins in other classes who knew nothing about it, so I had to make my way home alone in the dark. I hopped on one foot, glad of the support of garden walls along the way. I tried to hurry so that I wouldn’t be in trouble for being late home, but my broken ankle jarred with every hop and it was the longest, slowest journey I’d ever made. By the time I got home my ankle was bulging and straining against the strap of my shoe.
    When my mother pulled off my shoe, my ankle exploded like a suet pudding, and my mother took me for another agonizing