A tear rolled down her cheek and I had to stop myself reaching out and wiping it away. I didn’t want to touch her in case it ended her share session.
“I was four when their fights turned physical. I remember it so clearly. It was the summer holidays, I was off pre-school and Dad had lost his job so we were all home. It’d gotten progressively worse and it was only a couple weeks in.”
She licked her lips and curled her legs up to her chest. “It was raining so we were inside. I was playing on the floor with my Barbie’s, trying to fix one of their legs that’d broken off. Mum and Dad started arguing over Dad’s lack of employment. He accused her of being unsupportive because he was trying and she told him he was lazy. I got up from the middle of the room where I was playing and ran to my hiding place, wedging myself between the wall and the side of the sofa. I was wearing a pink Barbie nightdress with a sparkly, frilly neckline. It was long so I pulled it over my legs and down to my feet. I felt safe when all of me was in it.” Laughing with no humour, she added, “How stupid is that?”
“It’s not.”
“They were in my direct sight but they didn’t see me. I remember holding onto my Barbie so tight her tiny fingers were imprinted on the palm of my hand. I was so scared when Mum threw the first punch.”
It came as a surprise that her mum was the first one to cross that line, when it was him that’d taken it way too far.
“I’m sorry, Nell.”
Ignoring me she continued. “At first I was stunned and so was Dad. I was taught not to hit, they’d never spanked me so it was completely out of the blue. She didn’t apologise; instead she told him he wasn’t a real man because he couldn’t support his family. It didn’t take him long to start up and he started saying ‘go on, do it again, batter me, you bitch’. I had no idea what ‘batter’ meant at the time but it was terrifying.”
She shuffled on the sofa and frowned. “I was shaking and crying. They screamed some more, calling each other names and threatening divorce. I knew what divorce was by that point; they’d mentioned it so many times. I felt really cold and really alone. I wanted Nan to walk through the door and take me away but no one came. Mum hit him again and called him gutless. That was when he shoved her onto the sofa and stormed out.”
Jesus, what the fuck had that done to her?
“Almost every argument after that resulted in physical abuse of varying degrees. I’ve watched them hit, kick and punch each other. I’ve seen my dad pull my mum’s hair and my mum throw things at my dad. Not once did they ever stop when I screamed, cried and pleaded with them to. I got used to it and could read the signs before they struck first. When they both vibrated with rage I’d run to my hiding place and cover my ears. It never occurred to me to close my eyes or leave the room. I don’t know why, but I guess I was scared that if I didn’t look, one of them would disappear forever and I wouldn’t know where. As I got older I had to push the sofa out a little so I could still fit. It’s still in the same position I moved it to when I was thirteen, and I think I can still fit in it.”
I moved off my chair, feeling the pull this woman had on me. She was hurting and I needed to be there, to make it better, but I didn’t have the first idea how.
“Did they ever…hurt you?”
Looking over at me now beside her, she shook her head. “No. Never me.”
Thank God.
“They may as well have, though. Watching it hurt no less than what they were doing to each other. I hated growing up in fear. I knew one day they’d go too far. When they broke up last year and stayed apart for five months, the longest they’d gone, I thought they’d finally broken the cycle. But then they went back to each other and well… you know how well that ended.”
“You shouldn’t have had to go through that.”
Her pretty green eyes were full of sadness. “No one should. I tried talking to Mum the next day because I didn’t understand why they’d hurt each other. God I was so innocent I said ‘Mummy, why did you hit Daddy when it’s naughty?’ How stupid. It wasn’t a parent punishing a child with a tap to the butt, it was domestic violence.”
“You were four, Nell, you weren’t to know.”
“I felt angry after that. They wouldn’t talk to me about it and I didn’t understand. I was terrified of my parents and neither of them took the time to try to make me feel better about it. There was no apology, just a feeble ‘it’ll never happen again, honey’ which was a complete lie. I stopped believing anything they said shortly after that, they never kept their promises.”