Free Daddy's Little Earner by Maria Landon

husband, who had hisown decorating business, used to offer to give Dad a job,but Dad never bothered to take him up on the offer soeventually they both seemed to give up on us totally. Ithink that’s what happened with all our relatives; ourproblems were so huge that they couldn’t see a solutionand they just kind of gave up on us.
    My cousins were always quite kind to me but I was tooshy to know how to respond to their attempts to includeme in their games. We would play together in the emptyhouse next door to Nanny’s but it was awkward for me.They had such posh accents I never felt good enough andI always felt different to them all.
    Nanny might have been keen for Dad to marryMum at the beginning, but once Mum had gone Nannydid nothing but slag her off for being a terrible motherand for dumping her four children. She never got overthe shame of having one of her grandchildren found eatingthe contents of his nappy, which wasn’t surprising. However much I disliked hearing her being horribleabout my mum, I couldn’t really argue since I agreedwith most of what she said. I was furious with her forleaving us as well. But it still wasn’t nice for Terry and meto have to listen to the constant harangue.
    None of us had heard a single word from Mum sinceshe’d gone, not a birthday card or a Christmas card oranything, so we didn’t need our Nan to be continuallyreminding us how hurt we felt and how badly we hadbeen let down. She didn’t blame Dad for any of it,although it was mainly due to him that Christian andGlen were locked in their bedroom and ignored, sometimesfor days on end, and it was him who had forcedMum out onto the streets and made her life so unbearableshe felt she had no choice but to leave. Dad was never inthe wrong for anything as far as Nanny was concerned.Whatever he did that she disapproved of, like drinkingtoo much or not working, she put down to the fact thathis cruel wife had deserted him and broken his heart.She’d tell him off herself sometimes, but she wouldn’thear anyone else criticizing him without sticking upfor him.
    I sometimes wonder if she was also jealous of my closerelationship with her beloved son. Could that explainwhy she seemed to take against me from an early age?Whatever the reason, she never missed a chance to giveme a slap in passing. It wasn’t systematic beatings like Dad handed out, but however hard Dad hit me I alwaysknew he loved me, because he told me so and because hewas still there for me. Nanny would never have told methat she loved me and I was completely convinced shedidn’t. Sometimes she was just behaving like a lot ofwomen of that generation did when it came to discipliningchildren. I used to bite my nails, for instance, andwhenever she caught me she would give me a whackround the back of the head. If it had always been for specificthings like that I might have understood it, even if Ididn’t like it, but wherever I was in the bungalow Ialways seemed to be in her way, particularly in her tinykitchen, and would always get a slap for it. I didn’t questionit at the time because I thought she must be right,that I must deserve every slap she gave me. I was very shyand convinced that I was in everyone’s way anyway. Iknew I couldn’t be any good otherwise why would mymother have left me and why would my dad have to beatme so often?
    Now, as an adult, I think that maybe part of the reasonwhy Nanny hated me was because I reminded her ofMum, the woman who had reputedly ruined her son’slife. In the end I fulfilled all her worst thoughts and feelingsabout me by betraying my father as completely asMum had done – at least that would be how Nanny cameto see it.

Chapter Seven

dad’s broken heart
     
    D ad never truly recovered from the shock of Mumwalking out on him. Partly that may have beenbecause he had lost his main source of income, but thereis no doubt he also believed he had lost the love of his lifeand would never be able to replace her. Every night hewould go