Weekday Blog - Friday October 19, 2012

“Take your time,” Trish said. “This could be important.”

I got to my feet and paced the room as I dug into the inner recesses of my mind.

“Think back to your childhood,” she said. “Your formative years. Were you blamed for something you didn’t feel you should be blamed for? And were you punished for it?”

That stopped me in my tracks. “Yes,” I said. “Yes to both questions.”

She pointed to the chair I had been sitting in. “Sit down and tell me about it.”

“It must have been in my early teens,” I said, sitting down. “My sister would do something she shouldn’t, and when my father asked who was responsible she would blame me. My father always believed her. It didn’t matter how much I protested my innocence, he always believed her.”

“And did he punish you for it? Whatever it was?”

“Not that I recall. Perhaps a telling off. Don’t do it again, that sort of thing. But I do remember my father using a leather belt on my bare backside on a number of occasions.”

“That sounds a bit severe. Were you in trouble with the police?”

“No, I’ve never, ever, been in trouble with the police. When I’ve looked back on it I having been able to imagine what I could have done to warrant the beatings he gave me. I was a little boy, for heaven’s sake.”

“Did he hurt you?”

“Hell, yes. He wasn’t pussyfooting around.”

“How long did this sort of thing go on?”

“I can’t remember.”

“Do you recall what you did to warrant such punishment?”

“I remember one incident,” I said. My mouth went dry at the thought of it. I took a sip of water. “I remember sitting at the breakfast table with my mother and my sister. I remember being in short trousers, which will give you some idea of how young I was. My father was away. His work took him away. It was a Tuesday. God knows why I should remember it was a Tuesday after all these years, but it was definitely a Tuesday.”

“And what happened on this Tuesday? Try to remember.”

“I remember that my mother had stopped smoking, again. She stopped smoking often, and when she did she got very bad tempered. I must have said something to annoy her because she aimed a slap at me. She missed, but she tore the collar off my shirt. I remember that the look in her eyes scared me.”

“And what happened then?”

“My mother was a master of the long silence and she hardly said a word to me for the rest of the week. Then, when my father came home on the Friday evening, I heard him walk into the house and ask my mother how she was. Then I heard him say: ‘What’s he done now?’ I knew from the tone of his voice I was in trouble. I was so scared I wet my pants.”

I felt my eyes fill up.

“Are all right?” Trish said, eyeing me with concern. “Do you want to stop?”

I shook my head. “Just give me a minute. God, every time I think of it …”

“Try and go on,” Trish urged. “We need to get this out.”

Extract from my book WILL YOU TELL HER, OR SHALL I? A true story. My story. The story of how I lived with the ten-year terminal illness of my wife. Available on Amazon Kindle. www.amazon.com

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