Warning: adult material which may offend. (This warning is, of course, hugely ironic - but hey ho, protocols must be followed... :)
If
you were to see a photograph of my grandfather you’d probably smile. He had what people call a ‘kind’ face. He had, apparently, been a very good-looking
man when he was young. Even in his
eighties he was a striking figure: his hair was soft and white, his posture
upright and direct. He had a great sense of humour – his mouth easily curling
into a smile; his eyes crinkling when he told a joke. And, so they say, he was a highly intelligent
man, and also deep-thinking. My mother
used to tell me how, when she was little, he and his friends would sit around
the table discussing religion, psychology, philosophy, music, literature,
politics… everything. Oh, and he was
brave as well – a soldier in the First World War.
It
was just a shame really that he was an abuser.
A paedophile. A perv.
I
can’t tell you all of this tale – it’s not mine to tell. But I can tell you about how he
affected me – that is mine to tell. When
I was very little apparently I refused to sit on his lap – I used to run away
and hide behind the sofa. A child’s
instinct? Of course everyone was
horrified. ‘Your poor grandfather.’ ‘How can you be so cruel?’ ‘He loves you so much and you run away? You horrid little girl!’
His
first wife – my grandmother – had developed religion. Not just a case of
prayer-fests and arranging flowers in church. She’d gone hardcore - joined the
Plymouth Brethren and basically turned her back on her family, including her young
children. She died at 32 when my mother was
just two – having refused treatment for pneumonia. My grandfather had allegedly 'adored her'. He married pretty swiftly: the ‘girl next
door’; my ‘Nan’ (‘to look after the children’) - not much more than a child herself when they wed.
I
used to go and stay with them for holidays, down in the Somerset countryside –
and here’s the strange thing. Their
cottage had two bedrooms. My
grandparents usually slept in the smaller bedroom, which had twin beds. Yet, when I stayed, my Nan would move out and
sleep in the larger bedroom, with its double bed, while I was put in with my
grandfather. Why? ‘Because he snores,’ she said. Huh?
I
can remember that room so clearly. My
bed next to the window; my grandfather’s bed next to the inner wall. The two separated by two small bedside tables. There was wallpaper with a pattern of flowers;
a window seat; my grandmother’s dressing table with its three mirrors that
fascinated me – the first time I’d ever seen my profile; the back of my
head.
But,
come bedtime, I used to panic. I
remember desperately trying to get to sleep before he came to bed. Do I remember being abused? No, I
don’t. But when, years upon years later,
I heard what he had done to other girls, I questioned. I wondered.
I figured this was obviously what lay behind my ‘issues’; my incapacity to have
relationships; my reticence about sex. I
tried everything to find out, to bully my unconscious into giving up the
information – I even had hypnosis to take me back. I wanted to know. I like to know what's what - to look things straight in the eye; to know the worst. But I drew a blank. At a certain point, the curtain would come
down each and every time.
‘Does
it really matter?’ asked one psychotherapist.
‘I mean... Whether he did or
whether he didn’t, he very probably wanted to. So the psychic intent was the
same… and the psychic damage.’ I couldn’t
really argue with that.
So
that left me as…what? A victim. For a while that felt okay – it was good to
have someone to blame. I was part of a
tribe, the huge silent shameful tribe of the abused.
But
it didn’t take long for that to wear thin.
I’d seen how buying into victimhood was pretty pernicious. If you become a victim, if you wear that
label, then you have let the bully, the abuser, the one in power, win. Fuck that! I thought. ‘Fuck you!’ I’d be
damned if I’d let him win. And that was
fine, that lovely righteous pure anger. I swore that this ended right here and now, in this generation. That the pattern damn well wouldn't continue, sick and swept under the carpet, down through the bloodline.
And
then I went through that too; and – you may find this hard to believe but I actually
felt sorry for him. Because really, what kind of place are you in if you want
to touch up little girls? If you want
them to give you blow-jobs? If you want to screw them? I mean, really, how appallingly sad is
that? What kind of hell was in his head?
But,
y’know, I don’t even feel like that anymore.
I was talking about this the other night, to my quasi-guru, and I realized
that what I actually feel now is... nothing.
Nothing at all. It’s just
history. I simply don’t care. Because whatever happened or didn’t happen, is
actually immaterial. The only reality is
how I let it make me feel here and now; the emotions and thoughts I choose to let it stir.
We
cling onto our stories, don’t we? We
allow them to dictate how we feel, what we do, how we live. For years I clutched grimly onto beliefs
fostered by my father’s death, my grandfather’s perversion, my family’s
relative poverty. I watched myself
become ill and miserable. I psycho-analyzed myself into tighter and tighter
knots. What a bloody waste of time and
energy. And please...I'm only talking about me here...your reality may be very different and I am not judging, not remotely. How could I?
Anyhow. Why am I telling you this?
I have absolutely no idea. Just
that I was sitting in the garden just now, smelling the roses (literally) and
watching the dogs sprawl in the sun and I felt…the urge. Make of it what you
will. :-)
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