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  ‘I’m not sure. In his room I think.’

  ‘Right. You stay here, Cass. You hear me? Stay right here till I get back.’ And she stormed out of the room and up the stairs.

  A moment later, I heard her banging on Uncle Rupert’s door, and I crept guiltily out into the hallway. After all, I reasoned, this was my disaster, not my mother’s. I had a right to hear the outcome.

  Muffled shouts came from (presumably) Uncle Rupert’s room and I listened breathlessly. I had rarely seen my mother angry, and never as angry as this. What would she do? Would she kill Uncle Rupert? Should I call an ambulance, or the police, or maybe a neighbour? Supposing Uncle Rupert attacked Mum? Should I try to rescue her?

  As I stood dithering, I heard Uncle Rupert’s door open again, and my mother’s voice on the landing.

  ‘You promised!’ I heard her cry. ‘You promised! I trusted you. I took you into my home, I left you alone with my children. And look how you’ve repaid me! I want you out of here first thing in the morning. Do you hear? First thing in the morning!’

  It was a very long time before I heard of Uncle Rupert again. I was packed off to a friend’s house early the following morning, and by the time I returned home, every trace of him had gone. His room was clean and empty. Even the curtains had been removed from the windows. It was as though he had never lived in our house at all.

  Three

  The months following Uncle Rupert’s departure were difficult for all of us. I was still traumatized by my experience, and yet old enough to reason that it didn’t make sense to mind so deeply about what had happened. After all, I had suffered no harm, I hadn’t been attacked, the source of my upset had been removed. Life could and should go on as normal. And yet everything had changed.

  Worst of all was the feeling of being unclean; of being soiled. That was the only way to describe it. Something had been dirtied; something that no amount of washing and bathing (and I did plenty of both) could reach. Something clean and wholesome and good had been taken from me, and young as I was, I knew that I could never have it back.

  Nowadays, no doubt, I might have received counselling, but my mother knew nothing about psychology, and it certainly wouldn’t have occurred to her to seek that kind of help. She did, however, recognize the depth of my distress, and tiptoed round my feelings with great tenderness, offering me little treats, letting me off household chores (much to Lucas’s disgust) and generally treating me with kid gloves. She cooked my favourite meals, bought me the expensive coat I longed for (I never did find out how she managed to pay for it) and, in a bizarre moment of inspiration, sent a note to the school to excuse me from PE.

  I have no idea how this was supposed to help, or indeed what she told the school, but I was delighted. I was not an athletic child, and I did not — and still do not — have the slightest idea how the ability to climb up ropes or do handstands could possibly equip anyone for life.

  I’m not sure what my mother told the rest of the household, but they too seemed to treat me with new consideration in the weeks that followed. Lucas, the only one who knew the whole story, made an effort to be nice to me, although I could see that he couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. Greta made soothing noises whenever she saw me, and gave me presents of the Swiss chocolate sent to her by her cousin. Having apparently finally run out of alternative refuges, she was now permanently installed in Uncle Rupert’s bedroom, which she set about embellishing with flowery curtains and pink wallpaper and faded photographs of her family (usually against a chocolate-box backdrop of hygienic-looking cows and snow-topped mountains). She invited me up to see her handiwork, and I admired it from the doorway, but I wouldn’t go in, and she seemed to understand.

  ‘Poor you little girl.’ She patted me kindly. ‘Better soon I think?’

  The nice man from the chemist brought me violet bath salts and a new hot water bottle, and even the Lodger, a bespectacled college research student with enormous feet and acne, offered me chewing gum and asked after me when our paths happened to cross.

  Taken up as I was with my own problems, I still couldn’t help noticing the effect Uncle Rupert’s departure had had on my mother. I had never thought her especially fond of Uncle Rupert. Although, as I later discovered, he was more a distant cousin than a proper uncle, she had known him all her life, and he had lived with us for almost as long as I could remember. While they had led largely separate lives, and I had never seen any signs of affection between them, there was no doubt that Mum missed him sorely.

  On several occasions I caught her going into his room and just standing there, gazing out of the window between Greta’s fluttering pink curtains, an expression of great sadness on her face. The music she played on the ironing board was sad and pensive; a Brahms intermezzo, Chopin’s funeral march, Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. The music poured out plaintively from our ancient record player as mother’s hands moved slowly up and down pyjama legs and blouses and the ridiculous frilly apron Greta wore in the kitchen. Not much actual ironing got done in the weeks following Uncle Rupert’s departure, but no one complained. Mum too was suffering, and without actually saying anything, everyone seemed to understand.

  ‘Where is Uncle Rupert?’ I asked her one day.

  She looked at me blankly. ‘Uncle Rupert?’

  ‘Yes. Where is he? Where’s he living?’

  ‘He’s gone away. A long way away. You don’t need to worry about him any more.’

  ‘Are you — are you very cross with him?’ I ventured.

  ‘Yes. Well, I was. I was very cross indeed. But you know, Cass, some people do things they can’t help. It’s — it’s a bit like an illness.’

  But try as I might, I couldn’t see that what Uncle Rupert had done could possibly have had anything to do with his health. Years later, I wondered what my mother could have been thinking of, harbouring an ageing paedophile in the same house as her children. But then Mum had always been trusting, and if, as I gathered, Uncle Rupert had given her his word that he wouldn’t misbehave, it was typical of her to have believed him. Trust was second nature to my mother. I never knew her to turn away a stranger or lock a door, and it was little short of a miracle that in a house with four outside doors, all of them unlocked, we were never once burgled. The only occasion upon which someone entered the house illegally, they crawled in through the larder window, and Mum was so entertained by the thought of the effort they must have gone to (it was a very small window) that she refused to report the intruder.

  ‘After all, he only took a bottle of wine. Not a very nice wine at that. He’s welcome to it!’ she said. And the doors remained unlocked.

  In addition to my other problems, Uncle Rupert’s bewildering performance had done nothing to foster in me a positive image of the opposite sex. In the street or on buses, in shops and even at school (it was an all-female establishment, but we did have two male teachers and a caretaker), I was constantly and fearfully aware that every man had the same equipment as Uncle Rupert, and that presumably they were all capable of the same dreadful antics. How could any woman want the body of a man near her, let alone have close physical contact with it? Mother’s searches for buttons took on a whole new meaning, and I shuddered.

  ‘I shall never have sex,’ I told my mother. She was lying in the bath, and I was sitting on the edge. I always found that this was the best time for confidences, partly because her nakedness made her somehow more accessible, and also because being locked in the bathroom with her made me feel safer.

  ‘Of course you will. Why ever shouldn’t you?’ Mum’s milky limbs shimmered under the water as she turned on the hot tap with her toe.

  ‘Because of — you know. I just couldn’t. It’s horrible!’

  ‘Actually —’ my mother picked up a flannel, and began slowly soaping her arms — ‘it’s rather nice. You’ll enjoy it when your time comes, Cass. Believe me.’

  ‘No, I shan’t. I can’t understand how anyone can enjoy that.’

  ‘When
you love somebody, it’s the most wonderful thing in the world.’ Mum’s voice was dreamy. ‘Lying together, feeling so close. You wait, Cass. You’ll be surprised.’

  ‘Did you love all the people you had sex with?’ I asked curiously.

  ‘Oh, Cass! What a question!’ Mum laughed.

  ‘Well, did you?’ I persisted.

  ‘Probably not,’ she confessed, pausing with the flannel in mid-thigh. ‘I should have, but no. I didn’t always.’

  ‘Then why did you do it?’

  ‘That’s a good question.’ Mum stepped out of the bath and reached for a towel. ‘I suppose I wanted to feel needed.’

  ‘But we need you! Lots of people need you! You don’t have to have sex to be needed.’

  ‘There’s a particular sort of needed that I want to be.’ She laughed again. ‘You’ll understand one day, I promise you. Anyway, you don’t want to bother yourself with any of this now. You’re much too young.’

  But whereas a few weeks ago I might have agreed with her, now I no longer felt too young to think about sex.

  I look back on that time now as one of the loneliest of my life. Kind as she was, my mother soon appeared too preoccupied with her own worries to pay more than passing attention to mine. Lucas was increasingly out with his friends, and seemed to think it was time I put Uncle Rupert out of my mind. And my friends, through no fault of their own, were unaware of my problem. I spent a lot of time lying on my bed, listening to music, or playing with the mangy and recalcitrant dog Mum had recently acquired (‘Dog found tied to railway line’, the headline in the local paper had screamed, followed by a phone number for anyone who might like to rehouse the unfortunate animal. My mother had found this invitation quite irresistible, and had responded without hesitation). The Dog (like the Lodger, he never acquired a name of his own) seemed as disturbed and preoccupied as I was, and we were probably good company for each other.

  ‘That’s good,’ said Mum approvingly, watching me encouraging him to fetch an old slipper from behind the sofa. ‘It’ll bring him out of himself. You too, Cass.’

  The Dog and I looked at each other in a moment of complete understanding. My mother might fantasize all she liked, but we both knew that it would take more than a slipper to sort out our problems.

  But I had underestimated my mother, for unbeknown to me, she was taking my troubled state more seriously than I could ever have imagined. And had I known what she was planning, I would have put up with any amount of neglect rather than face the ordeal which was to come.

  Four

  ‘Boarding school! You want to send me to boarding school!’ I could hardly believe my ears when my mother disclosed to me what she obviously considered to be a truly inspirational idea. ‘Whatever for?’

  ‘It will do you good to get away,’ Mum said.

  ‘I don’t want to get away! Why should I want to get away?’

  ‘After — what’s happened. You need a change. You may not want to go now, but you will when you see the school. It’s a lovely place, all green and wooded and —’

  ‘You mean you’ve seen it?’

  ‘Well, not exactly.’ Mum looked sheepish. ‘But I’ve seen the brochure and heard all about it and it sounds just perfect. You and I can go and see it together, Cass. It’ll make a nice day out for us. And they want to meet you, of course. And they’ll need you to do a little test.’

  ‘What sort of little test?’

  ‘Oh, a bit of maths and English. Nothing too difficult. You’ll sail through, Cass. It’s just a formality.’

  ‘But I don’t want to go! Mum, please don’t make me! I’m happy here, and —’

  ‘But Cass, you’re not happy. Anyone can see that. And the doctor says —’

  ‘The doctor? You mean to say you’ve been talking about me to the doctor?’ My mother seemed to have been taking her parenting duties to unusual lengths. ‘And you’ve told him — oh no! You haven’t told him about — about Uncle Rupert!’

  ‘Well, I did mention there’d been a spot of bother at home. I didn’t tell him exactly what had happened, though.’ It seemed to me extremely unlikely that the doctor would recommend boarding school as a cure for a ‘spot of bother’, but I was too upset to challenge my mother on this particular point. All I could see was that I, an innocent victim, was being punished for the disgusting behaviour of Uncle Rupert, and that it all seemed terribly unfair.

  ‘And Lucas? What about Lucas? Is he going to boarding school too?’

  ‘Of course not. There’s nothing wrong with Lucas.’

  ‘But there’s nothing wrong with me!’ I wailed.

  ‘Oh, there is,’ Mum said, patting my knee fondly. ‘And you’re the one who needs a bit of special attention.’

  In vain did I weep and wail. In vain did I alternately rail against my mother and sulk in my room behind a loudly slammed door. Her mind was made up.

  The day out to visit the boarding school involved a long and sticky journey in the ancient Rover belonging to the nice man from the chemist, who was the current occupier of the put-u-up in the living room. Of all the people who came and went in our household, he was the only one to own a car, and he obligingly offered his services as chauffeur for the day. It was his day off, and he fancied a day out in the country, he told us. Wasn’t that lucky?

  Naturally I was relegated to the back seat, where I sat and sulked for much of the journey, annoyingly aware that since the two grown-ups had their backs to me, my sulk was largely wasted. I was hot and uncomfortable, and the too-small girly-pink frock which my mother had insisted I wear strained across my developing chest. The sulk forbade my partaking of the picnic lunch Mum had brought and which she and her companion ate sitting in a field while I remained in the car, feeling desperately thirsty.

  I remember lying on my back along the seat (no seat belts in those days), my knees drawn up, watching the tops of trees and flashes of blue sky skimming past, and thinking that I would never forget this journey or this awful day. The interior of the car had an antiseptic smell — perhaps something to do with the professional calling of its owner — and it reminded me of hospitals and the terrifying occasion when I had been wrenched screaming from the arms of my mother to have my tonsils removed, and this did nothing to improve my humour.

  Now of course I realize that I was behaving like a spoiled brat; that had I reasoned with Mum rather than screaming at her, she might well have listened to me and let me stay at home. But my furious outbursts had only served to fuel her conviction that there was something seriously wrong with me, and her eccentric reasoning had persuaded her that boarding school was the perfect answer.

  At the time I never thought about the sacrifices she was prepared to make. Lucas and I were all she had; she mightn’t have been the most consistent of mothers, but she adored us, and looking after and providing for us was her life. Too bound up with my own misery and my dread of being away from home, I never spared a thought for her feelings and how much she would miss me. As for the money involved, that never entered my mind. School had always been free, and I assumed that the same applied to boarding school. It wasn’t until years later that I discovered my mother had put by what she thought of as an emergency fund for me and Lucas, and that most of this had now been earmarked to pay the majority of my school fees. I also failed to notice that a small watercolour — the only really valuable item in the house, and one I later discovered to have been by a well-known Victorian artist — suddenly disappeared. I know now that Mum hoped for a bursary, but she wasn’t banking on it. She had learnt the hard way never to bank on anything. It was to her considerable credit that she made no reference to bursaries when she spoke of the test I was to take. She had told me it was a mere formality, but to her it could mean the difference between relative comfort and real hardship.

  Towards the end of our journey, there was much discussion and consulting of maps, in the course of which Mum and the nice man from the chemist nearly came to blows.

  ‘You said you’d
do the navigating. I’m just the driver,’ he pointed out, as they pulled into a layby to take stock.

  ‘It was fine while we were going north. North is easy,’ Mum said.

  ‘What do you mean, north is easy?’

  ‘You don’t have to turn the map round, with north. South is much more difficult. Everything’s upside down.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous! Nothing’s upside down. It’s perfectly straightforward. You’re just being a typical woman.’

  ‘How dare you patronize me!’ Mum cried.

  ‘And how dare you shout at me in my own car!’

  ‘Perhaps you’re forgetting that you are currently living in my house,’ my mother rejoined.

  ‘And perhaps you are forgetting the advantages that arrangement brings you.’

  Advantages? What advantages? I longed to ask, but didn’t want to disturb my sulk.

  ‘And perhaps you are forgetting who’s in the back of the car!’

  ‘Oh don’t mind me,’ I said, relieved to be able to break my silence without sacrificing the sulk. ‘You two just carry on fighting. I hope we do get lost, then I shan’t ever have to go to that horrid school.’

  The arguing dwindled to curt little exchanges, the navigational problems appeared to settle down, and much to my disappointment, we arrived at the school fifteen minutes early.

  ‘Sit up, Cass,’ Mum said, as smooth tarmac gave way to crunchy gravel. ‘We’re here. Look! Isn’t it lovely?’ She seemed quite carried away. ‘Imagine being part of all this!’

  In spite of myself, I sat up and looked. But what I saw was very far from lovely. The dark mock Gothic building, turreted and menacing, looked like something out of a horror film. Bleak ivy-clad walls and small sinister windows did nothing to soften the effect, and the surrounding conifers and laurel bushes all added to an impression of deepest grey-green gloom. I almost expected to hear the howling of wolves and see the dark shapes of bats flitting round the chimney pots. It didn’t help that the sun had now gone in and rain clouds were gathering above the shiny slate roofs.