Free Never a Hero to Me by Tracy Black Page A

clothes. The stink of his cigarettes seemed to linger and I couldn’t get away from the constant reminder of him. I had to wash Gary’s things too, and although he smelled just as much in terms of his school uniform, he had a double-edged attack to get round it – he smothered himself in Dad’s Old Spice and also threatened to batter anyone who called him names. I wish my big brother had stuck up for me too.
    I got to the stage where I couldn’t smell myself any more. When we went on the bus to Rheindalen to go swimming, it would take ages to get there and that meant I’d have to endure what seemed like hours of people sniggering, throwing things at me and making fun of Smelly Tracy. It was a lonely life. I’m not saying for one minute that I was abused every day. Sometimes now I read the stories of other people and think they couldn’t possibly have survived what they say happened to them as little children. No, it wasn’t constant, but there were precious few glimmers of light in there. Even when I wasn’t being used as my father’s plaything, it was just a miserable existence.
    It sounds absolutely ghastly, but the only time I was ever given any affection was when Dad was abusing me. After he had been doing those awful things to me for about a year, maybe slightly more, he also started using endearments when he did things – I was still a dirty little bitch, but he would also call me ‘doll’ and ‘sweetheart’. Did he say these things to convince himself that it was all fine, that our perverted relationship was actually ‘normal’? I don’t know, but I do know it was the only time I ever had any nice words spoken to me.
    Mum made it quite clear that I was little more than a nuisance. If I was upset about little childhood things, she would tell me to stop being such a bother. She’d make comments such as ‘I suppose I’ll have to clean that up’, if I scraped my knee. I once cut my hand quite badly and my request for a plaster was met with, ‘God, do you ever stop asking for things?’ Gary would play-act a lot; he’d trip over his own feet, fall down and scream that he’d broken his back, and Mum would come running as if her life depended on it. He never did hurt himself, but she was always there to console her boy, always there to make it better. She treated me differently for all of those years. I loved her so much when we lived in Germany and kept striving for her to love me back, but there was never anything to hold on to.
    Even my dad, even the man abusing me, noticed what she was like. He would often have to be careful with how he made me accept the abuse if he had seen my mum being particularly cold with me. He stuck to saying we had to keep it a secret, that we couldn’t let anyone know because then she wouldn’t get better. Yet he was probably wondering himself just how long he could get away with getting me to accept violations for a woman who would barely give me the time of day. She didn’t hate me, she just didn’t seem to be bothered. Now that I too am a mother, I can see how odd she was; I lived in eternal hope that she would love me, or even notice me and show me a few small kindnesses.
    My love for, and attachment to, her was unwavering, as is the love of many children for undeserving parents, and without it my dad would never have got away with what he did. Mum’s detachment from me meant she wasn’t even bothered about other aspects of my care. While Gary got everything new, I was given his hand-me-downs, such as school jumpers, socks and vests, or taken to the secondhand stores. Even then she was miserable in my company. My dad gave her a budget for our clothing, and she spent it all, bar a few Deutschmarks, on Gary. The other kids saw this, picked on me, and I reacted not in anger, but with emotional detachment of the sort my mother was so good at. Maybe it was genetic. You close off, close down, when you’re in the middle of a life like that, but I never really knew