Please, Daddy, No. Stuart Howarth
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him and he told me to put his penis in my mouth. Then he started masturbating himself over me, hurting me while he did it, pushing my face down so hard into the pillow that I had to struggle to get enough air, hitting and shouting abuse at me at the same time as relieving himself: ‘You dirty little scum! You fucking maggot bastard!’ The power he had over me with his great strong hands seemed to drive him to a frenzy of excitement.
Having started with checking my underpants he went on to inspecting my bottom whenever I came in, making me bend over so he could see if I was clean. I was always sore because of the worms and bad hygiene and he got some cream to treat the sore patches. He insisted on applying it, as if he were really a caring dad, but he actually played roughly with me with his fingers while he did it, which made me bleed when I went to the toilet. He started putting his erection between my legs and then moved on to pushing it inside my bottom, spitting into his hand to provide himself with the necessary lubrication. The sound of men hawking up phlegm still makes me shiver. The pain was immense and made me cry even though he wasn’t being as vicious as before, as if he was trying to coax me into letting him do new things. Whenever I went to the toilet, once he had started penetrating me, there was usually blood in the bowl, which frightened me.
When he was doing things to me I would detach myself from what was going on, staring at the footballs on the wallpaper, just wanting it to be over as quickly as possible. I wished I wasn’t such a bad boy all the time, so that I didn’t always have to be punished.
After he had finished he would usually be quite nice to me for a while. He would sometimes put me in a warm bath and even to this day I still find it comforting to be immersed in warm water. Some nights he would take me with him in the van to pick Mum up from work at the bakery where she did her shifts. I used to like sitting between them on the engine cover on the way home because it was warm and it soothed my soreness through my pyjama bottoms. I would try to cuddle up as close to Mum as possible on the way back, without him seeing, just touching her arm or trying to smell her. It felt wonderful to have a bit of softness and kindness, even though I knew by then that she couldn’t protect me from him.
There was a hatch in the floor under the stairs at Cranbrook Street, leading down to the cellar. Sometimes when I came in from playing and deserved to be punished Dad would beat me and strip me off and send me down the concrete stairs into the cold and damp room below instead of sending me up to my room. It was dank and there was always a puddle of stale water at the bottom of the stairs, which I had to paddle through in bare feet, trying to find a dry patch.
‘You stay down there with the rats,’ he would shout, before slamming the hatch shut, extinguishing the last sliver of light. I would feel round in the darkness with my bare feet, trying to find a dry patch to stand in. I would try to hug the walls for comfort but the damp made the plaster flake and it would come away to my touch, crumbling in my hands. It felt like even the wall was rejecting me and I would cry uncontrollably, realizing Dad must be right and I must be really, really naughty.
I had no way of knowing how long I was left down there, but it felt like hours. The chill would spread through my bones as I crouched there, hugging myself for warmth, teeth chattering and muscles trembling, waiting for the moment when he would decide I had learned my lesson and could be allowed back up into the light.
He started bringing things that he could use to hit me home with him from the rounds – a heavy buckled belt one day, a brass fork the next. He would keep these weapons beside him as he sat in his chair, lashing out at me with them whenever I displeased him, claiming he’d asked me to turn over the television or make him a drink and that I had ignored him. I knew it was all lies because I listened for every word, terrified of making a mistake. He didn’t care how hard he hit, leaving bruises all over my legs.
He had his booty on display on the walls, everything from brass plates to ornamental swords with jewels in the handles, and nearly all of it could be used to inflict pain when he wanted it to.
‘See this brass crocodile?’ he’d say when he got home with some new trophy. ‘It’s for you.’ And then he’d hit me with it.
The buckle on the belt used to cut my skin so deeply I would have to sit in a cold salt-water bath afterwards to bring down the marks he’d left. No matter how hard I fought to keep control the salt would sting and make me cry.
‘See,’ he’d say, standing over me as I shivered and sobbed in the cold water, ‘this is what happens when you’re a naughty lad. Why can’t you be good?’
The teachers at school used to ask me where my bruises came from, but I didn’t want them to know what a naughty little boy I was in case they sent me away to a special school. ‘I’ve been out,’ I would lie, ‘playing army, climbing trees and that.’
It was easy for them to believe, I guess, because I used to fall over a lot at school, banging my head. Sometimes I even did it on purpose because I liked the attention it got me from the teachers when they put me on their knees and rocked me to comfort me and stop my tears.
Bath times were always frightening because I felt so vulnerable, being wet and naked. Sometimes he would come into the bathroom, tell me to open my mouth and then pee into it, thinking it was funny. Or he would grab hold of me, shove me under the water and hold me there. I would thrash around in panic, trying to get back to the air, certain he was trying to kill me.
Often he would pee in the sink in the kitchen; sometimes he would do it while Christina was trying to wash up, doing it all over the pots and all over her hands. She used to make a huge effort to be cleaner and tidier than the rest of us, scrubbing her trainers and socks every night. She was mature for her age.
At other times he would make me eat some of the swill he had made for the pigs, or he would make me come downstairs in just my underpants.
‘Sit there.’ He would indicate the floor. Then he would feed the dogs next to me and ask if it smelt nice. I didn’t know what to say because I knew he would hit me whatever I said. I would try to nod and shake my head at the same time, so it wasn’t a yes or a no. Then he would rap his knuckles on top of my head over and over and say, ‘You’re a naughty little bastard. Nobody likes you.’
Sometimes I would just be sitting at the table and he would ram my face into my dinner with no warning. ‘You’re a naughty little bastard, aren’t you?’ he would say as I sat there with food all over my face.
‘Yes, yes I am. Sorry, Daddy.’
If Christina had angered him he might punish us together, like the times when he would feed the dogs and then make us eat bread and milk out of the same bowls. ‘This is what you would be eating if you were in prison,’ he’d tell us. ‘Make sure you eat it all up. Lick the bowl clean.’
He didn’t seem to punish Shirley in the same way he punished us. I would see her crying sometimes and would wonder why, but I would never ask; we all knew better than to talk about personal things like that. Besides, I wouldn’t have known how to start.
At night I used to make Christina tell me stories before I went to sleep. She had always been a bit of a reader when she could get hold of books, particularly at school. ‘Tell me a story, Christina,’ I would wheedle. ‘Tell me about Goldilocks.’
If she didn’t tell the story exactly the same way each time, forgetting some tiny detail, I would pick her up on it. If she tried to get out of her storytelling duties I would threaten to tell Mum and Dad that she’d been swearing, because she always was. ‘I’ll go downstairs and tell them,’ I would threaten, although she must have known I would never have dared. She was always there for me, Christina, at home and at school, and I will always be grateful to her for that.
She was becoming like the mother of the house, especially when Mum was out at work, but she still cried a lot, like a little girl. She would try to cook my tea while I was out playing, heating up beans and stuff even though she couldn’t really reach the stove properly. It always tasted pretty bad but I was happy to eat it; all the food in our house tasted bad so it made no difference. If you are hungry enough and you know there is nothing else coming, you’ll eat whatever you’re given. We used to pick chewing gum up off the streets and pop it