Free I Did Tell, I Did by Cassie Harte Page B

deliberately to hurt me, haven’t you? You’re such a selfish child.’
    I didn’t see how catching pneumonia could possibly be my own fault. Being stuck at home for weeks on end with Mum looking after me was a horrific thought and not something I would ever have chosen deliberately. I wouldn’t be able to escape by walking the dog or going to choir practice or confirmationclasses. I would be at the mercy of her tongue-lashing all day, every day, and I felt far too weak to deal with it. I kept having hacking coughing fits that left me drained and exhausted. Everything was an effort, even breathing.
    Then, when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, Uncle Bill came round to visit. ‘You need a bit of time off, Kath,’ he said to Mum. ‘You’re a saint for looking after her like this, but if you want to nip out to the shops or to get your hair done, I don’t mind sitting with her. In fact, it would be a pleasure.’ He winked at me.
    ‘No, Mum, don’t go!’ I protested weakly.
    ‘Bless her, she wants her mum.’ She smiled at Bill and raised her eyebrows. ‘Don’t be silly, dear. Your uncle is perfectly capable of looking after you. You’ll be just fine.’ And off she went with a clip-clop of her high heels down the path.
    Bill sat on the edge of the bed, his eyes glittering, and he felt my forehead, which was burning with fever. ‘Now we can have some fun,’ he grinned. ‘I’ve missed my little Cassie.’
    I tried to jerk away as his hands dived under the covers, pulling up my nightdress, but there was no escape. He tried to climb on top of me but I began to wheeze and cough.
    ‘Please don’t,’ I rasped. ‘I can’t breathe.’
    I thought this would stop him and was relieved when he got off me.
    ‘OK,’ he said, ‘we’ll have to try something else.’ He was very red in the face and seemed to be in a hurry. He opened his trousers then pulled me off the bed and tried to get me to kneel in front of him, but I couldn’t balance.
    ‘For goodness sake, just stand up and take this into your mouth.’
    Not that again. Please, God, no. ‘I can’t,’ I moaned desperately, shaking my head from side to side. ‘Please, I can’t.’
    But he forced my mouth open and pushed inside, making me gag. I couldn’t breathe because my nose was blocked with the cold. I thought my mouth was going to rip at the sides, he was so big. I kept gagging and gagging but still he wouldn’t stop, and the coughing was trapped in my chest so I felt as though I was choking. The back of my neck hurt where his hand was gripping me. It was horrible, disgusting, nasty, awful.
    As soon as he took it out of my mouth, I was sick all over the bedcovers.
    ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ he spat. ‘I suppose you expect me to clear that up. Well, you can finish what you started first of all.’
    He forced my hands around his ‘love toy’ and made me move them up and down until the white stuff squirted out, as it always did. I was completely at his mercy. There was nothing I could do. I lay helpless on my pillow, gasping for breath, too weak even to try and push him away.
    ‘There! Wasn’t that nice?’ he commented after it was all over, and I looked at him aghast. Did he genuinely believe it was nice for me? How could he? It made me sick to my stomach. How was that nice?
    From then on, during all the weeks I was ill, Bill came round regularly ‘to let Mum have a bit of time to herself for a change’. That’s what he said. But really, he came round so he could do whatever he wanted with me, while I was captive in my ownbed in the middle of the working day, with nowhere to hide, nowhere to run.
    In front of the rest of the family he would shower me with affection, bringing little presents such as my favourite sweetie cigarettes, but now I never ate them. They disgusted me because ‘he’ had touched them. In front of the others he would tell me how brave I was being, but as soon as we were alone he did exactly as he wanted, no