Escaping Daddy. Maria Landon
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he had been Mum’s ‘favourite’, making it all the worse that she had deserted him, and making me feel all the worse for not being as good as my brother. He certainly didn’t bother about our clothes or any other aspects of our care. I got a letter home from the headmistress of my school, suggesting that it would be a good idea to ‘clean Maria up’ but Dad countered with such a string of expletives that the poor woman never dared to follow through with a face-to-face meeting.
I wished Dad wouldn’t treat Terry and me so badly, but I still adored him and was still desperate to please him in any way I could, following him around like a faithful little puppy. All his days were spent in the pubs and the bookies, with us waiting outside in the cold for him to stumble back out, while his nights were spent drinking and playing cards with his friends. Sometimes he would force us to join in till the early hours of the morning; other times we would be sent upstairs and threatened with dire consequences if we even came out to use the toilet. He would make us go shoplifting, mainly to steal whisky for him and his friends, and he even had us cashing stolen giros at one stage.
Dad couldn’t read so I always had to read things out for him. By the time I was eight or nine he had started making me read to him from his pornographic magazines while he masturbated. I didn’t understand what he was doing but I knew it felt wrong and weird. I had no choice, though, because if I refused I’d get beaten with a stick or with his slipper. Then he began to make me lie beside him so he could slide his fingers inside my pants, which I hated. He said he would teach me everything I needed to know, but if I ever told anyone about what he did I’d be sent away to live in a children’s home full of perverts who would torture and rape me. It sounded terrifying and I begged him not to make me go there.
His sexual demands didn’t stop at touching me.
‘Do you want a lollipop?’ he asked one evening when he got in from the pub.
‘Yes please, Daddy,’ I said, confused as he marched me upstairs and started masturbating in front of me.
‘Do you want a lollipop, then?’ he asked again.
‘Yes. Where are they?’
‘Come here,’ he said and as I leaned across he grabbed my head. ‘Suck this!’
I felt as though I was suffocating and I struggled to get away, which made him angry. Tears were streaming down my face and I was gagging and choking, certain he was going to kill me. I couldn’t breathe because his thing was so huge. It was a nightmare that never seemed to end.
Soon he was forcing me to take his penis in my mouth regularly and then he began trying to have penetrative sex with me, not caring how much he hurt or frightened or disgusted me, making it clear that there was no point struggling because it was going to happen anyway and I would just make it harder for myself by fighting. It hurt so much that I was convinced I was going to die. I thought I was being torn in half, but there was no point in struggling because he was too big and strong. He told me over and over that I must never tell anyone about the things we did together, terrifying me with stories of what would happen if I did.
‘If I go to prison you and Terry will be sent to a children’s home and everyone will hate you,’ he would warn. ‘You need to have your daddy here to protect you. This is our secret. No one will believe anything you say until you are ten anyway.’
I hated the things he did to me, but I still adored him and longed to please him so that he would stop hurting me and telling me how bad I was. I longed for the times when he was nice to me and told me I was his favourite. I’d do just about anything to win his praise. He was my dad and I loved him.
When I was twelve he took me up to the streets where the city’s hookers plied their trade to kerb-crawlers. This was his little kingdom where he set himself up as a pimp, the place where everyone knew who he was. I knew a lot of the girls already because they often came round our house after they had been beaten up or robbed, looking on Dad as a friend and someone who understood their world because he was a part of it. Some of them were really good to me and I considered them to be my friends too. He proudly showed me where he had put Mum to work and where he was going to make me follow in her footsteps, spending my evenings lurking in the shadows as a steady stream of punters slowed down in their cars, in search of business, taking a look at the goods on offer.
I liked it the first time Dad got his friend Lucy to dress me up in a tight skirt and stilettos. I felt glamorous, like a little girl playing make-believe, and I was happy when Dad admired my legs and said they were just like Mum’s. I didn’t let myself think about working on the streets though. I hated what Dad did to me in his bed and couldn’t bear to think about any other man doing it to me. My throat closed up in dread every time he talked about me becoming the best little prostitute on the Block.
But when I was thirteen, the day came when Dad decided I was ready to start fulfilling the destiny he had chosen for me. I felt an overwhelming sense of hopelessness as I got ready, knowing there was no way out of it so I might as well get it over with, just as he had told me a hundred times when he raped me. I obeyed him automatically, like a robot, still wanting to please him and win his love despite everything he had done to me. I had to drink a lot of vodka to build up my courage before the first time I went out on the street but I got through it somehow, trying to make my mind go blank as I spread my legs and let businessmen thrust away inside me.
Once I had serviced a few punters and earned him some money, Dad bought a bottle of whisky and took me back to Lucy’s house to celebrate. The mix of whisky and vodka was too much for my young stomach and I threw up all over Dad’s suit. I thought he would be angry but he wasn’t–he just thought the whole thing was funny and in a way I was glad that I had been able to make him happy. But I dreaded having to work on the Block again. No matter how many times I did it, I always felt terrified as the car pulled off with me inside, and I always felt as though I had been raped afterwards, even though I was clutching the punter’s money.
All the girls would use drink and drugs to help them get over their fears every time they went out on the street, or to drown out the memories afterwards. The irony was that once they had habits, they needed to go out to work more often in order to earn the money they needed to satisfy their cravings, creating vicious cycles that many never escaped from. I was no different to the rest and Dad was always happy to supply me with as much drink as it took to make me co-operative. He didn’t approve of drugs, but there were plenty of other people around who were happy to supply me with those when I asked. I started on cannabis but before long speed became my drug of choice and I took it whenever I could get my hands on some.
There were times when Dad would get caught by the police for thieving or fighting and sent to prison for a while. Terry and I would then go into children’s homes or foster homes and I was surprised to find that they weren’t as terrible as Dad had warned me they would be. But by that time he had messed with my head so much that I couldn’t settle anywhere. A lot of teachers and social workers told me that they thought I had the potential for a better life, but I always ended up back in trouble one way or another. As soon as he came out of prison Dad would order us to go back to him and I always wanted to go, hoping beyond hope that things would be different this time; that this time he would be kind to me, that he would stop doing those things to me.
But it was all a game to him. He convinced me that wherever I was taken I should run away and go back to him at the first opportunity. I never questioned this wisdom, even though I sometimes knew I was better off in the places the social workers sent me to. I desperately wanted us to be a happy little family, but he just wanted to have me in his power in the same way he had with Mum. Whatever efforts the authorities made to get me to safety he just had to snap his fingers and I would go running back to him. Sometimes I would try to explain to people what he was doing to me, but Dad always managed to get out of it, to turn everything round so it seemed as if I was the problem, not him.
Social workers were as confused as I was. One wrote about me: ‘Maria is in some ways functioning at a four-or five-year-old level and in others at a sixteen-year-old level, plus being an intelligent twelve-year-old. She is over-fond of her dad and wants him close to her, up to a certain point, and beyond that she starts complaining.’
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