Free Living With Evil by Cynthia Owen Page B

to sleep in the big bed meant I wasn’t in the bad books for a change? Maybe it was meant to be a treat?
     
    I desperately tried to imagine myself at the beach, my favourite place, to make myself feel less scared. I pictured myself jumping in the waves, with Mammy holding my hand and Daddy smiling on the beach. Nobody was shouting. Nobody was arguing. Nobody was calling me names or hitting me. I could smell fresh air, and I could taste tangy salt in the sea breeze. I was clean and I was happy. The scene was very hard to imagine, and my head hurt as I desperately tried to cling on to the image. It felt so unreal and so unbelievable I just couldn’t hold it, and the picture slipped away, leaving my head full of dark clouds, like it usually was. Even dreaming of happiness was impossible, and I slowly dropped off to sleep, feeling as terrified as ever.
     
    Daddy’s buckle hitting the hard lino woke me up. The clank of the metal triggered a reaction in my brain even when I was in a deep sleep. It was a sound that always came before a beating, but when I peeped through my half-closed eyes I knew straight away that I wasn’t going to get a beating. I remembered I was in the big bed, and I told myself it had to be some kind of privilege, even if I didn’t know why I was there. Nobody was going to beat me, Daddy never beat me in bed. Bed was the one place you were safe from a beating.
     
    I sighed sleepily to myself when I heard Daddy get into the bed. I was lying on my side, and I felt the mattress give a little ripple beneath me as he tucked himself in behind me. It had to be past midnight, because Daddy never came home from the pub until that time. I shut my eyes tight and pretended to be fast asleep.
     
    Daddy was breathing very loudly. Even when he tucked himself up close to me when I had slept in the same bed as him before, I hadn’t heard him breathe so loudly. I wasn’t used to feeling him quite so close.
     
    In the daytime, he never came near me. I’d never sat on his knee or even held his hand. The only time he touched me was when he grabbed hold of my arm to hold me still while he beat the back of my thighs with his leather belt.
     
    My heart started to beat a bit faster, like it did when I could tell Mammy was cross and was going to hit me. I knew Daddy wasn’t going to hit me though, because I was in the big bed and the belt was on the floor now. No, Daddy wasn’t going to hit me. He was going to snuggle up behind me.
     
    Daddy was naked except for his shirt. I could feel the rough cotton and the cold buttons on my back. It felt strange to feel him so close. I could feel the bare skin of his legs pressing against the backs of my own little legs. His skin felt hairy and sweaty, and I didn’t like it. It made the scabs on my legs twitch and itch, but I was afraid to scratch them in case Daddy knew I was awake. I could smell Daddy’s breath now. It smelled like old beer and the stale ash I had to clear from Mammy’s ashtray. It wasn’t nice. It made me wrinkle my nose, even though I was trying very hard indeed to look like I was fast asleep. I wished he would move back a bit so I didn’t have to breathe in his smell.
     
    I couldn’t seem to escape it though. Daddy’s smell and the sweat on his skin felt as if it was clinging to me, from the back of my heels to the top of my scalp. He had packed himself in so closely behind me I felt trapped. I couldn’t complain though, could I? Mammy would call me an ‘ungrateful little bitch’. She always called me that if I dared to grumble about anything, like the watery, gristle-filled stew she cooked, or the ‘new’ clothes she gave me with sleeves down to my fingertips and holes under the arms.
     
    I hoped Daddy would fall asleep soon. I’d heard him fall asleep so many times after I’d waited for him to get in from the pub or I’d listened to him fight with Mammy. I normally found it hard to get to sleep myself until I’d heard his chesty,