I Know What You Are: Part 2 of 3: The true story of a lonely little girl abused by those she trusted most. Jane Smith
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would feel in that situation, or if anyone else would keep going back the way I did. Because Rajan wasn’t kind to me in any way. He always insisted that I had to have a shower at his flat before we had sex. And as the water was always cold and he wouldn’t allow me to touch his towels, I had to stand, naked and shivering, afterwards until my body had dripped dry. I wasn’t permitted to eat in his flat either, I assumed for the same reason – because he thought I was dirty and didn’t want me soiling his plates and cutlery. Looking back on it now, I think it wasn’t only me that disgusted him. I think he was disgusted by himself too. That would explain why he was always angry with me after we had had sex, and why he sometimes pushed me around aggressively and said nasty, hurtful things.
It’s unnerving not being able to understand other people’s reactions. There are lots of things very young children can’t make any sense of. But because they don’t yet have any conscious concept of cause and effect or of being able to work things out for themselves, they don’t even try. For someone with autism, however, knowing that you need to be able to read and interpret people’s reactions but not being able to do so is frustrating, and often very disheartening. So I was confused by the contradictory way Rajan treated me: on the one hand, he often said unkind things to me; on the other, I knew that he must care about me, otherwise he wouldn’t want to have sex with me. Ultimately though, because I believed he was my boyfriend, I simply accepted it all and told myself it was stupid to allow any of it to upset me. But even if you manage not to be actively upset by something like that, you can’t do anything about the fact that it creates a little empty hole in your soul.
It was because I believed Rajan and I were in a relationship that I pushed Tom away when he came round to our house one day and tried to kiss me. ‘It wouldn’t be right,’ I told him, probably echoing something I had heard someone say on the TV. ‘I’m going out with someone else now.’ That’s how grown-up I thought I was. I had learned what I knew about ‘love and relationships’ from the TV and magazines and, at the age of 12, I was worried about cheating on one abuser by kissing another.
I don’t know how Rajan justified our relationship to himself. Perhaps he didn’t even bother trying. I do know that his friends objected to it. Although they always spoke their own language in front of me, they gesticulated a lot when they were talking and I could tell the first time they met me that they disapproved and were arguing with him. But Rajan just shrugged his shoulders and said something that made some of them laugh.
I often caught his friends looking at me after that, usually with expressions of contempt, and they used to send him texts telling him to meet them in the park, but always on his own. I know they wanted him to stop seeing me and I resented them and felt hurt at the time. Looking back on it now though, I realise that his friends had a morality Rajan didn’t share.
One day, he told me that he was going to take me to a nightclub. I was incredibly excited. Somehow, I managed to persuade Mum that I needed some new clothes, and her friend Sid offered to take me shopping in town. Sid was quite a bit older than Mum and a genuinely nice man who was always very good to me. I think I told him I had been invited to a party with some friends who were a couple of years older and that I wanted to impress them. He was obviously a bit worried about it and when he quizzed me, quite gently, I admitted that they could be as old as 15 or even 16, which didn’t sound great when I was just 12, but was considerably better than the truth. I don’t think Sid approved, but he still took me shopping.
I really enjoyed spending that day with him. It was just the two of us, and after he had bought me some cropped cargo pants and make-up, he took me out for lunch. We didn’t ever do it again though, because when we got home Mum accused Sid of ‘sniffing around’ me and they had a huge row. ‘Why on earth is he spending money on you? What does he really want from you?’ she shouted at me afterwards, as if it had all been my idea for Sid to take me shopping, when in fact she was the one who had set it up so that she didn’t have to be bothered with it herself. Her reaction was ironic too, when you think that she didn’t ever ask me where I had been or who I had been with when I was having sex with Rajan at his flat.
Mum’s anger ruined what had otherwise been a really nice day for me. And although Sid was very offended by what she was implying, it did make him think about how it might appear to other people. And I suppose it was because he was wary of being labelled a nonce that he never took me out alone again. It was a shame, for both of us – for Sid because he wasn’t able to have children of his own and had obviously enjoyed playing the role of someone’s dad, and for me because I didn’t have a dad and had enjoyed being treated like a daughter.
The other bad thing about that whole incident was that Rajan didn’t take me to a nightclub after all. I don’t know what made me think he would. I’m sure I wouldn’t have been allowed in anyway, being a 12-year-old who looked even younger, even when I was all dressed up in my new clothes and make-up. But I didn’t realise that at the time, and I was very disappointed.
Mum didn’t have real boyfriends, as far as I’m aware. So she and Sid were only ever friends. At least, that’s what she always swore was the case, with Sid and with all the other men who drifted in and out of her life. Most of them didn’t stick around for very long. Mum does a lot of banter with men and insults them in a way I think they find amusing at first, but that eventually starts to get under their skin, so they stop seeing her. But Sid was different from most of the others. He had a sarcastic sense of humour and could easily hold his own with Mum. In fact, some of the things he said could be quite harsh and he made me cry on at least a couple of occasions – once, by calling me fat. It wasn’t malicious at all. He was a middle-aged man without a wife or daughters and he didn’t realise how sensitive girls of my age are about things like that. I know he was devastated when I burst into tears. In fact, he was so upset that he went out and bought me some chocolates to try to make amends – which was a very kind gesture, although perhaps not the best choice of present for someone you’ve just called fat!
Mum had another long-term friendship, with a guy called Derek who ran a charity shop. In fact, it was Derek who provided me with most of my clothes when I was a child, except for the ones Mum bought for me on the rare occasions when she took me shopping in town. Mum spent a lot of time at Derek’s shop and when I went down there with her, he would let me rummage through the bags of clothes that had just come in and pick out any odds and ends I wanted. Most of the clothes I chose were too big for me, so made me feel less self-conscious about my body. Because I thought I had boobs – although it was actually just puppy fat – I wore push-up bras and low-cut tops, either with cargo pants or maxi skirts, to cover up my legs, which I was really self-conscious about.
I had only been seeing Rajan for a few weeks when social services began to take an interest in me. I think Mum got a letter asking why I wasn’t attending school. There were periods during my childhood when I don’t remember Mum being there at all. It’s possible that she was there, physically if not emotionally, and I just don’t remember the things that she said and did. But I do know that I rarely saw her at that particular time. I used to go out – to the park or to Rajan’s flat – as soon as I woke up in the mornings and come home on the last bus at night. So I don’t know if she actually had a visit from social services. All I do know is that she told me one day that a taxi would be coming to the house the following morning to pick me up and take me to school. I can’t remember whether she actually threatened me with the care home on that occasion – as she still often did when I refused to do something she had told me to do. But I do remember realising that it wasn’t something that was open for discussion, and that, this time, I didn’t have any choice.
I hated that school. It was a special school for children with a whole range of learning difficulties and physical disabilities. Asperger syndrome is at the lower end of the autism spectrum, and although people with it can have specific difficulties such as dyslexia, dyspraxia or attention deficit disorder, they tend not to have the same kind of learning disabilities that accompany many other types of autism. But, despite the fact that I didn’t have any problems with learning, I was put in a class for severely autistic children. I suppose no one knew what else to do with me. The schools for ‘naughty’ kids won’t take anyone who hasn’t been in the care system or in trouble with the police. And as I didn’t