Escaping Daddy. Maria Landon
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at home when I was small for some petty or imagined misdemeanour: sitting shivering in the dark, terrified by every sound but too frightened to call out to be released because it would result in a terrible beating, and desperate to win back Dad’s approval. I knew all about the tyrannical ways in which some fathers chose to rule over their families. Although Rodney’s kids were always respectful of him, and cautious about upsetting him, I could see they weren’t actually frightened of him in the way Terry and I had been of our father. They could have a laugh and a joke with him in a way I could never have dreamed of with mine.
There are always people in any extended family or group of friends who are keen to stir up trouble for a newcomer to their social circle, as much for their own entertainment as anything I guess, and malicious voices were quick to tell me that Rodney’s ex-wife Sue and I were bound to end up clashing. They told me, with mock concern for my welfare, that Rodney was still in love with her and that Sue was certain to resent me having anything to do with her children. I didn’t like having this threat hanging over my head and I couldn’t get a straight answer out of Rodney about any of it, so I decided to take matters into my own hands.
Plucking up all my courage I went round to her house to see her, wanting to set the record straight, to clear the air and make sure she didn’t think she could take any liberties with me just because I was young. If there was one thing I had learned during my years of going in and out of care homes, it was that you had to stick up for yourself from the first moment you arrived in a new environment if you didn’t want to end up being walked all over. In the past it had led to me getting a bit of a reputation for being hard in some of the institutions I had been in, when inside I had been no more than a scared, confused and insecure child.
The moment Sue opened her front door to me with a beaming smile on her beautiful face I knew we were going to get on. She invited me in as if it were the most natural thing in the world, as if she had been looking forward to getting to know me ever since she first heard I was on the scene. The moment I voiced my worries she assured me there was no way she would ever consider going back to Rodney, however much he might want it, and it was easy to believe her.
‘To be honest,’ she told me, ‘I’m really glad that he’s found someone else. Now perhaps he’ll leave me alone and stop pestering me to go back to him.’
She introduced me to her new boyfriend, Kevin, who was only sixteen–a good few years younger than her. He was a gorgeous-looking lad and I could immediately see why she wouldn’t be bothered about losing Rodney to me. At the time a lot of other people believed that Sue and Kevin’s relationship couldn’t last because of the age gap, but they were obviously totally in love.
The gossips and mischief-makers were just as wrong about Sue and me clashing because we never had so much as a cross word about the kids or anything else. From that day onwards we became best friends and got on so well that sometimes she and I would actually go together to the kids’ parent/teacher meetings at the school. It made other people laugh to see us side by side but we didn’t care and, more importantly, neither did the kids. I guess she must have been about the same age I was when she first met Rodney, so she understood very well a lot of how I felt and what I was going through as the years went on. Maybe she felt sorry for me because she knew what lay in store and because she had managed to escape to a relationship that was so much better.
During that first winter when Rodney and I were together, I went to work with him at the scrapyard. That was the way with all the wives in his family and I was always ready to do what he asked, even on the days when we were working in snow and ice and I thought my fingers were going to fall off every time I had to grip some freezing cold piece of metal and lug it onto a van. Rodney was a hard task-masker, expecting everyone else to work as hard as he did himself. He got the kids working for him too as soon as they were old enough and strong enough to lift things around. If he got home late from a job he would immediately send them out to load or unload the lorry for him. He would not tolerate any arguing or complaining. It was tough for them but it seemed acceptable because he worked so hard himself. It wasn’t like Dad putting me to work on the streets and then disappearing into the nearest pub with his mates, only popping out occasionally to make sure that I was pulling in the punters and not hanging back in the shadows. Rodney managed to make it seem as though we were all working in the same family business, pulling together towards a common goal.
Sometimes during the week, when the other kids were at school or back with Sue, I would take Brendan with me when we went to work, and he and I would play together in the cab of the lorry while Rodney laboured outside. Rodney liked to have us around for company and to keep an eye on me. He always liked to be surrounded by friends or family wherever he was. Sometimes, when there was a lot for me to do at the job site, I would leave Brendan with a babysitter if I thought I wouldn’t be able to keep an eye on him while I was working. Although I loved him to bits it was still nice to have the occasional respite from continuous baby talk.
In the summer months most of Rodney’s jobs were to do with gardening, especially laying out patios and driveways; he was a skilful craftsman whenever he got the chance to show it, always doing a good job for his customers. My jobs would usually be to drive the van or mix the cement, or do any odd chore he asked of me. Sometimes we would be clearing away scrap, like the old vehicles in Dick’s yard, and my first job would be to get the wheels off. I grew strong from the physical labour of it and I liked how that felt. I felt as though he needed me, as though I had a role in his life, and it seemed like useful, honourable labour, not like the furtive, grubby work that Dad made me do with the men he made me sell my services to.
A couple of times a year Rodney and I would go to the horse market, held in the cattle market in Norwich, where all the old boys like Dick would be sitting around drinking and singing in the same way their ancestors must have been doing for centuries. It seemed very different to the sordid, claustrophobic little world of hookers, drunks and ne’er-do-wells that my dad used to live in. Dad liked nothing better than to be thought of as ‘a bit of a character’, always showing off and trying to attract a crowd in whatever pub he was in, but Dick didn’t have to try that hard because everyone was automatically enchanted by him. After the sale had finished everyone would gather in the pub, The Norfolk Dumpling, and have a singalong and a good old drink. Quite often one of the little Shetland ponies would be brought into the pub to share in the fun. The children loved it.
Dick battled for years to get permission to build on the site of the Buxton scrapyard, even taking his case to the Court of Human Rights, claiming that he was being discriminated against because he was a gypsy. His perseverance paid off and he was eventually successful, but the deal didn’t finally go through till after his death in 1989. Now they’ve built bungalows on the site and named it Drake’s Loke in his honour. It was a shame he didn’t live to see the fruits of his labours.
Dick’s funeral was an amazing event, with travellers and relatives arriving in lorries from every corner of the country to pay their respects, partying long into the night to celebrate the life of a man who everyone seemed to have loved. No one could find a bad word to say about him, living or dead. According to the traditions of gypsy law, Dick’s caravan should have been burned after he died but it never happened for some reason and Rodney’s younger brother moved in and took over running the yard. Phoebe moved into a house in Buxton and Rodney and I got on with our own lives and our own family.
Anyone meeting me during those years would have assumed I was a full-blooded gypsy wife. I jangled with the gold jewellery and sovereign rings that Rodney would give me. I would be tanned from working in the outdoors and I hardly ever bothered to wear shoes when we were out and about, enjoying the freedom of bare feet, feeling like I was being a bit of a rebel. Rodney didn’t allow me to do anything that might attract other men, like wearing make-up or skirts, but that didn’t bother me too much as I had no sense of personal identity at that stage anyway. I only really existed as his woman and the kids’ mother. I also liked the fact that it was very different to my days with Dad, when he used to make me get all dressed up in his prostitute friends’ clothes and heels, and paint my face when I was as young as twelve. He would take me to parties like that to show me off, flirting with me as though I was his girlfriend, paying me compliments, pleased to see other men eyeing up the goods that he was soon going to be selling, or helping himself to as soon