Peters Anya - Abandoned : the true story of a little girl who didnt belong

Abandoned

The true story of a little girl who didnt belong

ANYA PETERS

To Mummy,
whose love was always there
as the dock leaf to soothe the sting of himAnd
to Brendan, for never letting go.

Although the world is full of suffering,
it is full also of the overcoming of it.
(Helen Keller, 1880-1968)

Table of Contents

I ts after an argument. Mummy stands at the kitchen table counting out plates. Its roast chicken, which means its a Sunday. And I know its after an argument because she calls Daddy him.

She runs through us all in her head, tapping out numbers against her palm, then slides that number of plates along the counter from the stack she has taken from the shelf.

Waitwho have I missed?

I look up, nervous that its me. My two eldest sisters, Marie and Sandra, arent there that day so there should be seven.

Him, Michael, Liam, Stella, Jennifer, you, me, she says, counting us out again by name.

She always counts the plates out like that, in that order: almost by ages, except she puts the girls before me, and herself at the end. I like the way she puts me with her at the end, the way she says, you, me Always like that.

Mummy never leaves me out; she treats us all the same, but every mealtime Im waiting for the same thing, for there to be one plate short, or not enough of something to go around. And for my uncle, or even one of the others imitating him, to look around at me and say, She can do without. She doesnt belong here anyway.

Its what Daddy is always saying, screaming it out week after week in drunken arguments.

Shes not wanted here, right! She doesnt belong here. I want her out.

I feel my brothers and sisters stiffen on the settee beside me, rolling their eyes at each other. I know theyre all thinking the same thing: thinking that Im the troublemaker; wishing I wasnt there; that Daddy wouldnt shout and argue half as much if I wasnt, that they could watch TV in peace.

Shes not wanted. They dumped her over here with you because they didnt want her over there and shes not wanted here either. I want her out, he says, snapping open another beer, she doesnt belong here.

I hold my nose to stop the tears, trying to lean back behind the others on the settee so he cant see me, staring hard at the wires at the back of the TV, not daring to watch the screen in case something on it triggers my tears. Hell hit me harder if he sees me crying. He always does.

Shes only a child; none of this is her fault. Leave her alone, you bully. Go and pick on someone your own size. Shes no trouble at all. This is my home, and if I want her here, shell stay, Mummy yells in the background.

I wish she would just stop, not argue back. Mummy is worn out trying to stand up for mebut usually she just makes it worse.

Shes wanted nowhere, right!

Yes she is, you cruel drunkDont listen to him, Anya.

But I have to.

Why did they leave her over here then? Who wants her? he screams. No one! he says louder, slamming the words into me.

Yes they do! I want her! Mummy hollers into the room.

I try everything to keep my tears in, but eventually they burst out, hiccupping as they come, my shoulders heaving, and he is over me, his fist raised, ready to give me something to really cry about.

M ummy wasnt my real mum. Her younger sister, Katherine, who everyone called Kathy, was my real mum. I cant remember a time when I didnt know that. Anyway, my uncle, who I grew up calling Daddy like the rest of my brothers and sisters, would never have allowed it to be kept a secret. He took every opportunity to remind me that Mummy wasnt my real mum, that I didnt belong with them, and that any day Id be sent over to that whore of a mother of yours in Ireland.

Kathy was twelve years younger than Mummy, and beautiful. She was slim and elegant, with long, soft-red curls like shiny new pennies down her back, and eyes that were almost navy blue. She had the tiniest hands I, or any of my brothers and sisters, had ever seen on a grown-up, little dolls hands, with long oval nails always painted a deep dark red. I was fascinated by her: by her beauty and calmness and easy laughter, by her soft Irish accent and her gentleness with me. But I was fearful of her too, always on my guard with her, determined to keep her at a distance. Determined to let Mummy see that she was my mum, not her sister Kathy.

For years Kathy wore a heavy, gold charm bracelet that clattered noisily at her wrist, and on each visit thered be a new charm or two. My brothers and sisters would gather around her, choosing their favourite. One of my earliest memories is watching, out of the corner of my eye, my brother Liam sitting in stripy pyjamas in her arms as we all watch TV in the small front room of our flat. He holds up her bare arm and sleepily goes through the charms one by one, trying to choose his favourite between a miniature of the Houses of Parliament and a cat with tiny, diamond-encrusted eyes. I watch her small hand stroking the back of his blond head, her red curls falling down across his chest, and feel suddenly cold and stiff, too young to put words to the mixture of jealously and hate I feel as I look on. I am eight months younger than Liam, but my uncle doesnt allow anyone to hold or touch me like that.

Kathy lived at home with her and Mummys parents in Ireland, but I was born in England, on one of the beds in the long back bedroom in Mummys flat. But ten days after I was born she had to go back to Ireland, and left me there for Mummy to look after.

It was only supposed to be a temporary arrangement, just until the day she could come back to get me. But that day never came. She did come backfour or five times a year on visitsbut she never took me with her, though every visit I was terrified that she might, that my uncles constant threats that this time he was going to see to it that she took her baggage back with her would be carried out.

Mummy had three other sisters. She was the eldest and Kathy was the youngest, still a child at the time Mummy left Ireland to make a life for herself over in England, and the only one left at home to look after their parents if ever they needed it.

She hadnt even had a boyfriend before she met my father. I didnt know who he was but I soon found out that he was a married man, and that they had been having an affair. Mummy told me that much one night after my uncle had stormed off to bed following one of their drunken arguments. My brothers and sisters had been herded off to bed earlier in the evening, but, as he often did, my uncle made me sit there and listen. It was on those nights, once hed gone to bed, and before my brothers and sisters tiptoed back down one by one, that Mummy would tell me all her stories about growing up in Ireland.

Sometimes when we were on our own she would tell me stories about Kathy, and how she came over to England on her own on the ferry to have me in London, stories that only part of me wanted to hear. But layer by layer, argument by argument, year by year, as I, or more usually my brothers and sisters, asked more questions, I pieced together the details of my life story.

Mummy always made the stories sound romantic and exciting and sad, and we all felt sorry for Kathy not being able to be with her baby or with the man she had fallen in love with. I tried to forget that I was the baby they were talking about.

My feelings towards Kathy were always complicated, but I was shocked when I found out my father was a married man. In those days, extra-marital affairs were absolutely taboo. I looked at Kathy differently after that. I blamed her even more for the trouble Mummy was going through to keep her secret for her, and for being the centre of most of the drunken arguments in our home.