“Yes I do; Julie is my oldest friend; she and Mark are like my brother and sister. I’m sorry about that business back at mum’s house, but I had to make sure you really were her family, and that you weren’t going to hurt her. She and Mark have been through a lot, and my mum and I were protecting them. I think I’d rather wait until your aunt arrives, she’s probably going to want to hear what I have to say, and I really don’t want to do this twice, so if you don’t mind…?”
Lena smiled that serene, placid smile of hers.
“Not at all. Emma will be here shortly, but in the meantime, would you like some tea? Or coffee?”
Everyone plumped for coffee, and Nia offered to help Lena, so the two girls disappeared into the kitchen while Jamie and I chatted about nothing much. We got to talking about children. Jamie told me they had twins, a boy and girl, two years old now, and like any proud father, he pulled out pictures of them to show me. He admired the pictures of David and Mo-Mo on the mantelpiece, and seemed particularly taken with Mo-Mo.
The girls came back in then, chatting like old friends, and just then the doorbell went again, so Lena went off to answer it while I entertained our guests. Emma came in, followed by Lena, and once again we made introductions, before getting down to why we were all here. Nia kicked off the discussion.
“I’m sorry about deceiving you when you came and saw us; we didn’t know too much about you, and, given the history of Julie, Mark , and their mother, we thought it best to keep them under wraps a while longer.”
Emma looked puzzled.
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand, what ‘history’?”
Nia looked at her levelly, chewing the inside of her lip, then exchanged glances with Jamie, who nodded, so Nia plunged on.
“Julie and Mark were abused, terrorised, and injured by their mother; she never physically mistreated them when they were young, at least, not that I know about, she just ignored them from the time they were little. Mark had to bring up Julie, but he was only a little boy himself; she left him to care for Julie because she didn’t want to. Can you imagine how scared he was? How alone? He was just a small boy, and all the weight of the world was left piled on him.”
She paused to dash the back of her hand across her eyes.
“It was even worse for Julie; you said you found a report at St. George’s that she’d been in a sports accident. That’s not true; that’s what my dad told them to stop the police taking them into care and probably splitting them up forever. The truth is, Julie’s mother attacked her; she punched her so hard she knocked her flying; she broke Julie’s cheekbone and almost cost her an eye. My dad and I sat with her in the hospital while they treated her; they even had to give her an MRI, because they were afraid she’d sustained brain damage, because her mother had hit her so hard.”
Emma was open-mouthed at this revelation, as was I. Lena took Emma’s hand and squeezed it, then looked up at Nia.
“Why did she do that?” she whispered, “I remember the report; I remember Darryl telling me she was thirteen when she was injured; she was just a little girl, why did her mother do that?”
Jamie took Nia’s hand as she bowed her head, but we all saw the tear roll down her cheek. When she spoke, her voice was so low we all had to strain to hear what she was saying.
“She was an alcoholic; every day, all she did was drink; that’s why she left Mark to bring up Julie; he was just a small boy, and she was even younger, but she just left them to one side while she drank…”
Emma was openly crying now, and I didn’t blame her; this was her deepest fear made fact, that she’d left those kids to their fate, and now this…
Lena hugged Emma as she wept, and even Nia had tears in her eyes as she watched. Emma finally got herself under control, and once more faced Nia.
“There’s more, I know this isn’t the whole story, please, finish it…”
Nia tried to speak, but she seemed to have trouble swallowing, so Jamie hugged her, then took up the tale.
“When they were older, their mother accused them of being… together, went into a frenzy and kicked Julie out, but what she did to Mark…”
He looked away for a moment, tugging his collar, obviously uncomfortable with what he had to say, but he ploughed on regardless.
“She told him that if he didn’t leave immediately, she was going to the police to have Julie arrested and charged with… with incest, and threatened to petition to have her placed on the Sex Offenders Register, to get her sacked from her job, to ruin her and throw her to the wolves, so Mark left. But she kept him in a stranglehold; every day he had to call her from his office here in Bristol, every night she called him at his flat, seven days a week; if he missed one call, she was going to the police to have Julie arrested and charged. Mark brought Julie up, he was all she had, and he wasn’t going to abandon her, so he did what she wanted.”
He paused to clear his throat, an expression of distaste on his face.
“It got so the poor guy started thinking about killing himself just to get away from under her thumb. She almost drove him mad, and yet she kept on doing it. She was going insane, you see; Alcohol Related Dementia, Korsakov’s Syndrome, call it what you like; she blamed Julie for her husband leaving; she even told Julie she should have used a twisted coat-hanger when she found out she was pregnant, any way it took to get rid of her. How can you tell your own child something like that?”
Lena and Emma were immobile, open-mouthed, shock and outrage on their faces as the whole shocking, terrible story unfolded, just as I was shocked and horrified; no wonder Nia and her mother had disavowed all knowledge of Julie and Mark, given the monster their mother, my aunt, had been; for all they knew, we were just like her.
I felt I had to say something in the silence that had fallen.
“How long had all this been going on?”
Nia shook her head and flicked her hair back over her shoulders.
“For Julie? All her life, but at least she had us; any time she needed to, she could come running, and mummy, daddy, me, we were all there for her; it’s Mark who was hurt the most. She never allowed him to have friends; how could he bring friends home when she was sprawled drunk on the couch? He was lonely and alone all his life, and that’s how she abused him. Even when he came here, he couldn’t go out, he couldn’t find a girlfriend, have a life, make friends, because he had to be here to take that damned phone call every night to prove he was here and keep Julie safe! Even when he was grown the abuse didn’t stop, he couldn’t make it stop, not if he wanted to keep Julie safe!”