Living With Evil by Cynthia Owen (ap literature book list txt) 📗

hit me. It was tar black in the room and I couldn’t make out what was happening. What was he going to do with the belt if he wasn’t going to beat me?

Next I felt the leather shift across my back, and then the buckle tighten on my chest. He had tied his belt around my arms and chest.

‘Try struggling now!’ he snarled, climbing on to me and hurting my whole body. As always, the pain was unbearable, but I had to endure it. There seemed no way out. It seemed worse than ever, because I was tied up like a prisoner. I cried myself to sleep after many hours. He left me tied up all night, and in the morning the buckle had left a deep imprint in my chest, reminding me of the horrors of the night before. I struggled and wriggled free when he undid it, but inside I still felt like a prisoner.

During the daytime, whatever the day brought, it felt as if everything I did was spoilt by memories that flashed in my head, reminding me what Daddy did in bed. He frightened me and hurt me so much I couldn’t ever stop thinking about it or worrying about what was to come.

I had always loved escaping from the house to play on the street, yet everything I did felt tainted.

The boys mostly played football, but sometimes we would all hold hands in a circle and play ‘The farmer wants a wife,’ ‘Little Sally saucer’ or ‘Ring a ring a rosie’.

We played skipping-rope games too, like ‘I’m a little girl guide all dressed in blue’, using a rope begged off our neighbour. It was such a happy-go-lucky song, but how could I sing like I didn’t have a care in the world? I was sore and scared. I had an itchy head and dirty nails and scruffy clothes. I’d love to be a little girl guide all dressed in blue, but I knew I never would be. I was Daddy’s slave, and that was all I was ever going to be.

The egg man called every week and told us the eggs could talk. I’d be in stitches as he put on silly voices and made the eggs dance around, saying: ‘Good day to you! How are you this fine day?’ I wished Daddy would make me laugh like that, but he never did. He just made me cry.

Once the rag-and-bone man came down the street on his horse and cart shouting, ‘Any old rags, any old rags!’ like he always did.

In exchange for bits of old cloth and materials he would give us a brightly coloured balloon. Normally, I had nothing for him, but I hated Daddy so much that day I gave the rag-and-bone man one of his best shirts, in return for three huge balloons.

I didn’t care if I got a beating. Nothing could hurt me as much as Daddy hurt me in bed, or as much as Mammy hurt me by ignoring what was going on. I might as well have a bit of fun, and for a few minutes I did, as I ran down the street with my three red balloons dancing behind me. Moments like that stopped me going mad, I was sure.

My ninth birthday was coming up, but I didn’t expect it to be special. Martin’s birthday was just a couple of months before mine, and Mammy had sent me to the Golden Gift shop in the village to buy him a yellow truck and a big card. ‘Martin’s my favourite child,’ she told me. ‘Make sure you get a great big card!’

‘It’s my birthday next week,’ I informed Mammy one afternoon. I knew it was in October. I’d remembered from the year before.

‘No it isn’t,’ snapped Mammy, without looking up at me. She was making the beds, and it had become her routine to ask me to help her make them in the afternoons, after Granny had called round for a cup of tea at 4 p.m.

‘You’re wrong. You’re lying,’ she snarled.

I knew Daddy kept all the birth certificates downstairs in a box in the dresser. I wasn’t going to let Mammy get away with this. She didn’t have a clue about dates, because she couldn’t read or write, and we had no calendar or diary, but I ran downstairs defiantly and pulled the box out. I found my certificate at the bottom of the pile, and I was right. It was my birthday next week.

‘See, Mammy, I wasn’t lying! It is my birthday! Can I have a present like Martin…’

She didn’t answer me, and so I carried on poking my nose around in the dresser. Mammy kept her photo album in there, and she looked through the pictures quite often, adding little keepsakes. She liked to keep a lock of hair from dead relatives and weird things like that.

I leafed through the book quickly, in case Mammy went mad if she saw me. The album fell open on a photograph of me and Esther. Mammy had drawn a big red heart around Esther’s head, and scrawled a thick black cross over my face.

Mammy walked up behind me and made me jump. ‘Why have you done that, Mammy?’ I asked nervously. I wasn’t really that shocked, because Mammy had told me lots of times I was her least favourite child, but it still hurt me deeply.

‘I did that because you’re an evil bitch, Cynthia Murphy! You’ve got the devil in you - didn’t you know?’ she taunted.

I didn’t react. I’d heard it all before. I simply showed her the birth certificate and told her I was right about my birthday. ‘Look, I didn’t lie. Please can I have a present?’

‘No,’ she barked, ‘you cannot! Nosy little bitch. Here’s a few shillings to get yourself a card, but that’s your lot. Bring me back every scrap of change.’

I raced to the shop, glad to escape, and picked out the prettiest and most expensive card I could afford.

When I