Chapter Five

      After the wedding party was over, there was no honeymoon. Roger and I moved to a small brick house opposite his Grandad’s place in Compass Street, Openshawe, and everything changed completely. We didn’t have marital relations that first night because he was too drunk but on the second night of married life he insisted. For some reason, I hadn’t made the connection between marriage and sex but now I realized I’d just have to put up with it. It was extremely hard for me because I had been raped twice as a child: once on a beach on the Isle of Man when I was eight when Freda and Dad had left me on my own all day; and then again when I was twelve and sleeping rough in an alleyway in Johannesburg. I hadn’t told Roger about those occasions but he must have been able to see how nervous I was about going to bed with him.

      As soon as our marriage was consummated, everything changed. Roger made it clear he considered himself the master of the house and as far as he was concerned it was his job to keep me in line. From the moment we first walked through the front door into the small, dark rooms inside, I sensed a difference in my new husband. He was no longer loving or warm towards me. When people realize that you’ve got no one behind you and nowhere to run, they can become very manipulative and controlling. I was his chattel, his possession. He’d made me give up the job at Belle Vue so now he controlled the purse strings and he was determined I was going to earn my keep. Overnight, my time at the circus became a distant dream and the run-up to the wedding and our courtship days seemed like an impossible fairy tale. I was back in a position of being abused, but at least I knew how to deal with that. It’s what I had grown up with after all.

      I tried to be positive. There was some furniture that had been left by the previous tenants but it was pretty sparse, and that was all we had, along with a frying pan, a pot, two plates and two sets of cutlery. That didn’t matter to me though. As I explored the place for the first time I was sure that I could turn it into a home.

      I missed the excitement and glamour of the circus but that wasn’t where my duty lay now. I wanted to be there with a meal when Roger got home. I wanted to be the loving homemaker, a good wife, cooking and washing and doing all the things that I’d always dreamed about. It even crossed my mind that I would love to have a child. I knew things didn’t have to be the way they had been when I was growing up. I wanted everything to be different and I was determined to do my best.

      However, I didn’t realize then that my best would never be good enough for Roger. From that first moment the house on Compass Street became a prison and Roger was my brutal jailer. Life became a series of rules that he dictated and the punishment for coming up short was extreme.

      We hardly ever went out. The lazy days of wandering around the rides at Belle Vue were gone and Roger relentlessly bullied me and told me how worthless I was. He wanted to control me completely yet when I let him take charge he seemed to despise me for it. It was as if, having married him, I had lost everything.

      ‘You are disgusting,’ Roger raged. ‘Why would I want to take you anywhere?’

      If I started a conversation or voiced an opinion he would cut in immediately. ‘You have nothing of importance to say, Judy, so shut up.’

      It quickly became clear that Roger had a temper as foul as my father’s and that the consequences of not following his orders were a beating that was all too familiar. It may sound strange but I can’t even remember the first time he hit me. If you came from a decent family where you hadn’t ever been beaten up, I’m sure your husband hitting you would come as a huge shock, but I just accepted it. I believed that’s how relationships were. I remember Freda once saying to me, ‘You go to the ends of the earth for your husband,’ and I’d witnessed at first hand all the abuse she took from Dad. So this is how it was going to be. If I just tried harder, surely I’d get things right and then Roger wouldn’t have any reason to hit me?

      Each morning I had to rise early and make breakfast. Roger insisted on having this in bed. I was to make fried eggs on toast perfectly to his specification. The eggs had to be whole and the yolks had to have a white surface, no yellow showing. I was terrified of those eggs breaking in the frying pan not least because I didn’t have much money to buy food. If the eggs were broken Roger would attack me and make me cook more, and then if there were no more left God knows what he might do. The toast also had to be just the way he liked it. No burnt bits whatsoever. There were many times when one way or another the breakfast was unacceptable and it was hurled at me viciously, hot tea and all.

      After breakfast, Roger’s clothes had to be laid out in a particular way for the morning and once he’d finished eating I was expected to dress him. This was a daily ritual and he would not get up for work until I had performed it. All the while he criticized and mocked me, telling me how useless I was. I tried to keep silent and not provoke him in any way but that wasn’t always possible. If Roger was in a bad mood then there was nothing I could do.

      ‘You useless bitch!’ he screamed when I dropped a cup one morning, and he lunged to grab my hair and hit me round the face, back and forwards, over and over again. ‘Do you think I’m made of money?’ Close-up his eyes glowed with hatred, just like the devil eyes my father used to have when he beat me senseless as a little girl. I’d feel his hot breath and drops of spittle on my cheek and I became as passive as I could, not even raising my hands to protect myself, just waiting for the rage to diminish. As a child, I had learned not to answer back, not to struggle, and now I reverted to the same behaviour.

      I was horrified to find that I had married a man with remarkable similarities to my father but at the same time I had the sinking feeling that it must be my own fault. If only I could manage things properly then surely Roger would be pleased with me. I wanted to turn things around, to go back to something like the relationship we had before we were married. I desperately believed it was possible but no matter what I did Roger was relentlessly suspicious of my motives. I sat downstairs, bewildered, for days on end, completely alone apart from my husband’s vicious company, going over the vow I had made in Church. I had promised to obey and that’s what I had to do.

      Then there was the daily round of endless accusations. When Roger got home he’d want to know where I had been, who I had spoken to, and who had been to the door. He forbade me from going to the shops alone; nor was I allowed on a bus by myself but had to wait until he was able to accompany me. If I wanted to go out I needed his permission. He accused me of having affairs behind his back, and told me that I was nothing but a whore who slept around. I remembered the questions