Free Handstands In The Dark: A True Story of Growing Up and Survival by Janey Godley

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    By this time, I had a sort of boyfriend. He was my Mammy’s pal’s son and we would hang out together but I avoided the contact side of the relationship as I felt I was not worthy of having affection given to me and I was scared that the sex situation might arise. I really liked and was very physically attracted to some of the boys at my school, but would never have had the nerve to ask them out. I had absolutely no self-confidence. I did not believe I could be worthy of anyone’s attention at all.
    My sister Ann already had a steady boyfriend and was working as a sewing machinist in a factory; she was 18 and in love. In that one year, she and Jay got engaged, she got pregnant and they got married.
    Dad was now living with Aunt Rita and Uncle Robert at Redcar, a small seaside town in North Yorkshire. He came up to Glasgow for Ann’s wedding and it was so good to see him, just as it was great to see Ann happy with Jay, but there was a problem. Jay was a Catholic. It was not
such
a big deal, but enough to create some tension in the family: his Catholicism hung in the air like a bad smell. When she gave birth to her son Jay Junior in July that year, I was ecstatic: he was so tiny and beautiful. I loved him on sight and would spend hours just looking at his face.
    My Uncle David Percy also got married that year. His wife Margaret was also a pregnant bride. She had a son around the same time as Ann. I liked Margaret: she was really just a teenager like Ann trying to make the best of her life. My Uncle David Percy and Margaret lived next door to his father – my grandfather – Granda Davy Percy. I would visit Margaret when Uncle David was out of the house – this was easy to do as Granda Davy would tell me if his son was at home or not. We both kept up the façade of happy families; he would make a point of being nice to me in front of his wife. When we were accidentally alone for a moment, he would mostly give me a silent, sinister stare; sometimes he would look out the side of his eyes and snigger at me. I never thought once of telling Margaret about the abuse, I just carried on as if it was all in the past and part of a big bad dream.
    On one occasion, Margaret asked me to stay the night with her; my Uncle David was away and would not be coming home. She did not like staying there alone so I agreed. They only had one bed in their flat. That night, while I was asleep, my Uncle David Percy did come home; he crept into bed beside his wife and me. I awoke in the early hours of that morning to feel fingers creeping into my knickers. I thought it was his wife; I could not believe it. I sat upright to see my abuser’s face staring at me in the early morning light. His wife was asleep beside him. He did not care and carried on trying to pull me towards him. His new baby was in a cot in the same room. I jumped out of the bed and shouted:
    ‘Margaret! Wake up!’
    The baby screamed.
    My abuser hissed at me to be quiet and looked shit-scared.
    ‘Shut up!’ he whispered at me. ‘Shush! Shush!’
    Margaret sat up in bed and I saw her eyes. She knew.
She knew
.
    ‘Are you all right?’ she asked me.
    I stood in their cold flat and pulled on my jeans. I had the words of my Guidance Teacher, Mr Burgess, swirling in my head.
Go to the police. Don’t let anybody hurt you. Always go to the police
. I told Margaret that I just wanted to go home now; she tried to reason with me to stay as it was about 5.00 a.m. I turned to my Uncle and shouted at him:
    ‘If you ever touch me again, I’ll go to the fucking Polis, ye bastard!’ I turned to Margaret. ‘He was
touching
me,’ I said and pointed at him.
    Margaret looked at him with cold eyes; I walked out of the flat and ran all the way home. I will never know what he told her but, the next time I saw Margaret, nothing more was said. Nothing more was
ever
said about it. She never asked me why I left that early to run back to my Mammy. It was as if it had never happened.
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    In