Free Nobody's Child by Michael Seed Page B

she said.
    I think the devils who had such easy access to Daddy’s mind must have had a special dislike for Mammy and me, because I never heard of him hitting anyone else when he was drunk.
    After the fish incident, Daddy made a point, at least once a week, of bringing home for my tea something that he knew I didn’t like. Brawn was his next choice. This cold meat dish, not eaten much outside the north of England, is made from all the unwanted and unmentionable bits of animals that no one would ever dream of eating. Guts, fat, gristle, bone and skin are cooked up and disgusting brown jelly holds it all together in a lump.
    Mammy had once tried it out on me and my stomach had rebelled after just a tiny taste. Knowing this, Daddy bought some sliced brawn for my tea. He put two whole slices of the revolting concoction on a plate, which he ordered me to eat. There was lots of goodness in it, he told me with a nasty sneer.
    ‘So why aren’t you eating it as well?’ I asked him, and instantly regretted it. Daddy was the very last person who needed any provocation.
    ‘Don’t be so bloody cheeky,’ he snarled. ‘Get it downyou now or I’ll have to force it down and you won’t like that, I can tell you.’
    This time I didn’t have Mammy for support or even as a silent witness. She had scuttled away downstairs to the shop moments after Daddy had appeared on the landing.
    I didn’t blame her, because given the slightest chance I would have disappeared out of his way myself, and I knew quite well that she couldn’t have helped me anyway. It was just that, if she was sitting near by, even when she was drugged up and barely conscious, I didn’t feel quite so utterly alone and vulnerable.
    I cut a small piece from one of the mosaic-like slices and speared it on the end of my fork. In the jelly were bits of skin with hair still on and it made me feel sick just to look at it. My stomach heaved at the thought of swallowing it, and I knew there was absolutely no way I was going to be able to put that horrid muck into my mouth.
    So I simply sat there staring at it on the end of my raised fork, and I began to cry. Big tears tumbled down my cheeks and splashed on to the table. From experience, I knew that something very bad was going to happen and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I was very scared.
    Daddy carried on glaring at me across the little table and then slowly, without looking, he reached down below table height as though he was feeling for something. Moments later, my dread leaped up several notches, when his hand reappeared holding his shiny black baton. He raised it all the way to shoulder heightand suddenly slammed it down on to the table with a bang. My plate jumped several inches in the air and I leaped up from my chair in sheer fright, then slowly sat again as Daddy placed his baton on my shoulder and pressed me down.
    ‘Now, are you going to eat your tea or do I have to find a way to feed you?’ Daddy asked in a fairly normal voice.
    ‘I can’t,’ I cried. ‘I just can’t eat it. I’ll be sick. Please don’t make me eat it.’
    I didn’t expect him to take much notice of my pleas because he never did. But I certainly hadn’t anticipated what happened next.
    My left hand was still holding the fork and my right hand was palm down on the table beside my plate.
    Daddy simply raised the baton and, in one swift, deliberate movement, brought it crashing down on the back of my hand.
    The shock forced all the breath out of me with a whoosh. Then came the pain, which seemed to race up my arm like something alive. I tucked my injured hand under my left armpit and began to cry with the agony.
    ‘You’re not eating,’ shouted Daddy over my sobs, his face inches from mine. ‘Better get started or I’ll give you something to really cry about.
    The pain in my hand was already almost more than I could bear. ‘Please don’t hit me again, Daddy. It hurts so much,’ I begged.
    ‘Well, you know what to do