'Uncle' David
Mandy Horne
©
Copyright 2024 by Mandy Horne
|
Photo by cottonbro studio at Pexels. |
This is a true story extract from my full memoir, relating to an
incident that happened shortly after my mum met my future stepfather.
It is the forerunner to 5 years of abuse. I have used alternate names
throughout my full memoir as it includes individuals I did not want
to identify by name. I am Donna in the story, at 7-years-old. It is
1973.
I
look at ‘Uncle’ David nervously, but also quite
excitedly, as he gives me a one pound note for a trip to the shop. We
call him Uncle because he has asked us to but he isn’t a real
uncle, not like Mum’s brother, Uncle George. He’s Mum’s
new friend and seems to be here at our house quite a bit, often when
Mum is out working as well as when she’s at home. My sister,
Tracey, and I don’t really like him being here that much. He
sits on our sofa in the living room and watches things on TV that we
don’t understand or want to watch ourselves, like sport and the
news. Sometimes he asks us to sit quietly with him and sometimes he
asks us to go to our bedrooms to play on our own. We both prefer it
in our bedrooms when he’s here. Today though, he seems to be
more friendly than usual which, for some reason, makes me feel a bit
nervous, but also happy at the same time.
‘Go
to the corner shop, will you Donna, and get me 20 Embassy and the
Daily Mirror and then you can choose whatever sweets you like for you
and Tracey with the change’, he tells me as he passes over the
money.
Mum
doesn’t let us have sweets that often because she says it will
ruin our teeth. I’m always jealous of my friend Lisa because
her mum gives her chocolate or sweets for snack-time at school every
day; like a Flake or a bag of cola cubes. My mum gives me an apple or
a banana. I also don’t really understand why Lisa’s teeth
are straight and white and mine are crooked and off-white, with a
brown stain on my front tooth that I always try and cover up when I
laugh. I often fantasise that when I’m older, and have my own
house and money, I’ll have a basket of chocolate bars always
available on top of the sideboard in my brown and cream coloured
living room. I like staying at Nan and Grandad’s at the
weekend, as Grandad comes home each Saturday night from work with
either a Fry’s Chocolate Cream or a Bar 6 for me. So, Uncle
David saying I can buy some sweets of my own choosing from the shop
with his money is a surprising and rare treat.
The
shop is only round the corner from our flat in Upminster Bridge and I
head off down the stairs and across the car showroom below. It smells
of stinky smoke as always because Eddie has a customer in the
showroom and is showing him how good the engine of a blue car sounds.
I shout ‘Hello’ to Eddie as I walk past quickly, trying
not to breathe in again until I go through the front doors of the
showroom. Eddie waves in return. I like Eddie. He’s really
friendly and always talks to Tracey and me when we get home from
school and while mum’s at work; checking we’re alright
and whether we need anything. We never do need anything, or at least
that’s what I always tell him as Mum says we shouldn’t
bother people.
I
skip along the road to the shop and smile at John, the shop owner, as
I walk in through the shop door. He greets me with ‘you seem
bright and chirpy today Donna, what’s made you so happy?’
‘I
need 20 Embassy and a Daily Mirror for Uncle David please John. Then
you can help me with choosing some sweets with the change please’,
I say, assuming he then knows why I’m happy. I hand over the
money to him while he’s getting the cigarettes and paper and
wait for him to tell me how much change is left.
‘That’s
a lot of money for sweets, are you having a party?’ John asks
me. I tell him about the conversation with Uncle David and how he’d
said I could use the change to buy whatever sweets I wanted for
Tracey and me and so he moves across to where the sweets are, waiting
for me to make my mind up. I know Tracey likes the sweets from the
jars behind the counter best, so I choose her a quarter each of
sherbet pips, cola cubes, pineapple cubes, flying saucers, rhubarb
and custards, fruit salads and sherbet lemons. I’d make sure
she knew not to eat them all at the same time, recalling how I had
discovered her two weeks previously eating the entire contents of the
sugar jar and then being sick after she’d been told off. Or, to
be more accurate, being told off after I’d told mum what she’d
done. I had felt a bit guilty after getting her into trouble and I
imagine now how excited her face will be when I give the sweets to
her. I was thinking maybe it was a good way for me to say sorry
without actually having to say the words.
Then
I give some thought to what I would like. I prefer chocolate bars. I
haven’t tasted many but know that I like Fry’s Chocolate
Cream, so I choose 2 of them, one green one blue. Then I choose the
bars I’ve seen Lisa eating: Flake, Crunchie, Mars and, to make
it up to 7 (the same number of things I’d bought for Tracey), I
add the only non-chocolate things I like - a sherbet fountain and a
packet of Refreshers. I like the zing they give me in my mouth. John
says I have a bit of change leftover from all of that, so I top my
selection up with a few LemFizz; thinking that maybe I deserve one
more thing than Tracey, as I’m the one who has run the errand
for Uncle David. John puts them all in a bag for me and hands them
over the counter with the few pence change that remains. I figure
that we probably have enough chocolate and sweets to last us a good
few weeks, especially if Mum finds out and doesn’t let us have
something every day, so I think Uncle David will be happy with a bit
of change, even though he’d told me to spend it all.
When
I get in and Uncle David hears the door shut behind me, he shouts out
from the living room, ‘you took your time, why were you gone so
long’? He then pops his head round the living room door to hear
what my reason is. I reply that I don’t get to choose sweets
that often, so it had taken me a while to think about what to get,
and I hand him over the bag and change.
I
knew something was wrong as soon as he looked in the bag. His face
looks really angry - his eyes bright and glaring - which puzzles me
as I’ve done exactly as he’d asked and am really happy
with my purchases. ‘How much have you spent, you stupid girl?’
he shouts, looking at me in a shocked way that makes me feel really
frightened. ‘I only said you could buy some sweets with the
change, I didn’t mean for you to spend the WHOLE of the bloody
change on buying out the shop’s entire stock of sweets and
chocolate! You’re useless and greedy, that’s what you
are.’
I
hadn’t heard anyone talk to me like that before and I didn’t
think I’d done anything wrong, but his voice scared me so much
that I started to cry. Tracey was looking worriedly at us both
through the doorway, not understanding what was happening, but
knowing that it was something bad and that Uncle David was really
cross with me. He grabbed hold of my arm, hurting me as he pulled me
out of the room, his fingers gripping on tight. He held me that way
until we reached the car showroom downstairs, telling me to stop
being such a crybaby and that we were going back to the shop to take
all the sweets back. Also saying that I was so stupid I didn’t
deserve anything, but Tracey could have one of her bags of sweets
because she hadn’t done anything wrong like I had. I saw Eddie
look over at us as we passed him and then look away.
I
follow Uncle David into the shop with my head down, so that I don’t
have to look at John, as Uncle David explains to him that there has
been a complete misunderstanding and asks if John can give him back
the money for everything other than the cigarettes, newspaper and bag
of sherbet pips. John seems a bit quiet and confused but does as
Uncle David asks.
When
we get back to the flat, Uncle David says that I should go to my room
and then asks Tracey to come and sit with him, giving her the
remaining sherbet pips. Despite her earlier worry, this seems to make
Tracey happy.
As
I sit in my room going over the situation in my head, not truly
understanding what I had done to make Uncle David so angry but
thinking, like he had told me, that I was obviously stupid for
getting it wrong and buying too many sweets, I roll up my sleeve
where my arm is hurting and notice there are bruises in the shape of
Uncle David’s fingers. I pull down my sleeve and lay down on my
bed, not doing much other than thinking to myself. Mum’s due
home soon and I don’t want her to know that I’ve upset
Uncle David, so I decide that I’m not going to tell her
anything, or show her my arm. I am, however, a bit worried that
Uncle David might tell her about it and that might make her cross
with me. Mum only really gets cross when we are very naughty and that
doesn’t happen that often. When she does, she’s never as
scary as Uncle David was today. Mum seems to like him a lot though,
so I guess she won’t be very happy with me if she knows I upset
him.
I
decide that I need to try harder to do exactly as Uncle David tells
me to do in future, as I don’t want to ever be shouted at like
that again.
I’m 57-years-old, live in Suffolk, and have been writing poetry
and stories for the last ten years, but have only recently been able
to focus on making a career out of it. My writing relates mostly to
experiences I have had in life: loss, mental health problems, and my
interest in the environment. This I write in poetry, prose, short
story and memoir format, but I am also writing a science-fiction
novel with my partner. I have not published anything yet, nor won any
competitions. I am hoping this will be a first!
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