Talk about beating me to it with the bad news. I couldn’t tell her now that he had sexually abused me, could I? Finding out my dad was not my real dad and my real dad was my childhood abuser, how could they have lied to me for my whole life?
So, as you have probably guessed, I was stressed out. The wedding was the last thing on my mind at the moment but we were running out of time we only had ten months left my anxiety had peaked. Maybe the answer was to cancel it with everything that’s going on?
Uncle M’s face became clearer to me now too; it was Malcolm who would visit my mum and it must have been to see me, his child. They were the same person; how did I not realise this before.
It’s funny how things come back to you, as I must have blocked it out, he would often visit when my dad was at work or Mum would take me to the park and he would meet us there. It was Mum who called him Uncle M but said to keep it a secret from my dad and I did, as he would treat me to anything I wanted. So I learnt how to lie from a young age. Something I had mastered over the years.
Dad said they were trying to protect me and didn’t want me to feel left out. The reason they had divorced too was because my dad thought Mum was having an affair and had confronted her one evening and she confessed all. I can remember that night I had woken from a reoccurring dream I used to have where I was being chased up a tall tower with a winding staircase, with one window at the top, and the only way to get away was to jump off. I would always wake up scared before I jumped. I was standing by the living room door which they used to shut so they could have the TV on and it wouldn’t wake any of us kids up. I overheard one night Mum say I wasn’t his. I didn’t know what she meant at the time. Now I do.
It all finally made sense. The expensive clothes; my mum had not bought them at all. I knew she could never had afforded them; she only worked part time in an office. My mum going into a state of depression after finding out someone had accused him of sexual assault. Why didn’t I figure this out sooner all the signs were there? The cuddle the first time me and Malcolm were alone? Why I looked differently from my other siblings, just thought I was a throwback, it can happen. The person I had thought was my dad for my whole life was not the person I thought he was at all. Standing in my mum’s hallway, looking in the Moroccan inspired mirror that I had loved as it was so detailed and ornate, but today I hated it as when I looked at my reflection, I just wanted to claw my face off—all I could see was his face. How could Malcolm be my father and my abuser? Did he know? He must have done, all the visits to mum and the clothes that she clearly could not afford, the same designer gear he would wear, even when he was working—they must have been from him. And even moving down the same road as her, that wouldn’t have been a coincidence.
He always used to compliment me on my clothes, too. I felt sick to the stomach. Now I knew why; that was because he had bloody bought them. Why didn’t my mum tell me sooner? I felt so angry, punching the wall so hard that it made my knuckles bleed. The anger I felt then turned to tears. I needed a fag or to jump off the nearest building, either or would suffice at this precise moment.
The thought that my own father had touched me in a sexual way and took away my virginity was sick. He was sick. I had his genes; did that mean that being an abuser could be hereditary? I thought back to that night and how, after it happened, I just walked the streets before heading home and stood in the back garden looking at the swing and playhouse one of Mum’s blokes had built for us, knowing I was no longer a child. He had the cheek to be round my house when I got home, knowing that if he got there first then I would not be able to tell my mum what had happened. Was that why I kept going back, because deep down I felt a connection? I had always questioned why I kept going back after the first time he put his fingertips inside my knickers. Did I know subconsciously that he was my father, so thought it was okay? Was it even abuse at all or his way of showing love? Your dad was allowed to look at your vagina, wasn’t he? But up until what age was that acceptable, I thought. It was different with my mum; she saw me naked all the time and I wouldn’t think twice about getting changed in front of her.
I thought back to the police interview room and how if I had just told the truth then, maybe I would have found out sooner that he was my dad. I had never been to a police station before, let alone interviewed, I knew it was about Malcolm as other children from the street had been called in including Spence so was expecting to be called. But it wasn’t how I imagined.
