Read What Daddy Did for Free Online Page A

home, I'd usually be in my bedroom, having been sent there at some point during the day. On some days I might have been in my bedroom for hours, alone and starving. On other occasions I was sent to my room just minutes before my Dad came in so he wouldn't see me standing in the bath, naked, freezing, facing the wall. Generally, I'd be sitting on my bed, having been crying my eyes out, and my Daddy would come in and stand over me. Over and over again he'd ask me: 'Why? Why? Why?'
     
How could I answer him?
     
I rarely knew what had brought about Helen's punishment in the first place, so how could I work out why I would deliberately choose to be bad? I didn't want to disappoint my Daddy though, so I always said that I'd be good, even if I didn't really know what I was agreeing to. I wanted to be. Whatever being good would involve, I wanted to be that way. I wanted to be good like my new brother; I wanted to be hugged and played with; I wanted to be brought home a toy car on a Friday night by my Daddy, just like little Gordon was. When I asked him through my tears why I was always getting rows and punishments, why I was always being sent to bed, he said he had to 'chastise' me because it would help me to be good. But the 'chastisement' increased. The smacking got harder and harder as my Dad got angrier and angrier – and, in time, he moved on to using his belt against me as well. I couldn't defend myself. I was tiny and any protests were ignored. Finally, I wasn't even allowed to voice any murmurs of dissent at all.
     
I don't ever remember him 'chastising' the children he had with Helen, although I do know that she encouraged him to hit my elder half-siblings too. Of course, I now realise that this violence was a direct reaction to what Helen told him every time: I had been bad all day; I had been horrible to her; I was a vile child; I hated my younger brother; I was the catalyst. It was all me, and his version of chastisement increasingly became a way of him venting his anger and frustration.
     
Looking back, I can only imagine how it must have been for this man. He must have hurt after my mother left him, and he must have been doing everything in his power to maintain his relationship with Helen. I was there putting a spoke in the big wheel with my badness, and he believed her – why wouldn't he? He didn't know me. On top of that, practically every day he had Helen in his face straight after work, telling him the stories she had made up about me. How ironic that it was actually Helen who had been up to all sorts, things he had absolutely no idea of – if she'd been having one of her parties, she'd be trying to hide the fact, or coping with being a bit drunk.
     
My Dad always worked long hours, leaving really early in the morning before we were even up, and not returning home until after 4pm. When he worked overtime, which was more often than not, he sometimes wouldn't return until about 10 o'clock at night. He hardly seemed to be home.
     
The times we saw most of him were during the summer holidays. He would usually take off the 'trades' fortnight', the first two weeks in July when, in those days, most of the factories and businesses in the city would close for two weeks. Everyone knew that during these two weeks you couldn't get a workman for love nor money, and it was the time when most families would leave for their annual trip to the seaside. In our case, we would go to Kinghorn in Fife, where we would stay in a wooden chalet and spend the days exploring the beaches and caves. These times were, on the whole, good but, as always, Helen had to retain control. Even on holiday she took a belt with her to use on me. I was forced to stand for hours in the bedroom with its two sets of bunk beds. The curtains would be closed and I could hear the sound of children whooping and laughing outside.
     
I have to ask myself what my Dad was doing on those days. He wasn't at work and he didn't have the excuse of not seeing how