TRUE LIFE
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Especially when social workers told her Dad reckoned the rape was his way of showing me how much he cared.
My skin crawled during those visits back at the old family home.
They were supposed to be supervised visits.
Only, the minute the social worker left us alone, Dad would touch my leg, put his hands up my school skirt. I was terrified.
Eventually, Mum managed to put a stop to his visits.
But in summer 1986, aged 14, I got chatting to our neighbour, Jack McGarry, then 57, in his garden shed.
‘Pop round to see my budgies,’ he smiled.
He’d always seemed harmless, only, in his shed, after feeding his birds, he plied me with cigs.
‘I’ll tell your mum,’ he threatened, before sexually assaulting me.
‘Your dad’s already done it, no-one will believe it happened a second time,’ he sneered.
I’d escaped one monster only to run into the clutches of another.
Believing he was right, so kept the abuse a secret.
After that, almost every other day, Jack would get me to go around to his shed and have sex with him.
When I turned 15, he lost interest.
Meanwhile, I tolerated Dad, although I rarely saw him.
I left school and got a job at a butcher. But at 17, I had a row with Mum and moved out.
Sofa-surfed before Dad convinced me to move in with him and his mum, my Nanny Rosie.
I believed him when he said he’d changed, and besides, sharing a room with Nanny, I felt safe.
Dad woke me up for work each morning with a fry up, and cooked egg and chips for dinner.
That year I met David, a few years older, fell madly in love, and on my 18th birthday, in April 1990, he took me out to celebrate.
Getting home around midnight, I tiptoed into Nanny’s room, only Dad stopped me.
‘You stink of alcohol, sleep in my room, I’ll sleep on the sofa,’ he whispered.
Nodding, I crashed out in Dad’s bed.
I woke to his weight pressing down on me, and heard his horrible grunting. Dad was raping me. Again. Clamping my eyes shut, I prayed for it to end.
Then, like before, he pulled up his pyjama bottoms and left the room. This time, I blamed myself. I trusted him, I thought. I should’ve known better. That morning, Dad woke me for work like nothing had happened.
Days later, I packed my bags and left.
Moved in with Alison, then 20, and vowed never to tell a soul.
Only, the following month, I missed a period and a test confirmed my worst nightmare.
I was pregnant with Dad’s baby.
In complete denial, I kept it secret.
Stopped eating
