Moggy's Story

Lucy was a little girl who was blonde and had blue eyes. Lucy had a sister called Karen, and a Mummy and a Daddy. Lucy loved her Mummy because she cuddled her and told her she was her baby. Lucy loved Karen too but sometimes they would fight, when Karen teased her about being stupid and not being able to do maths, and add up properly. Lucy wanted her Daddy to love her too but she knew he didn't think she was very clever and Karen was the clever one, not Lucy who was the cute one.

Lucy went to school and played the piano. She liked the piano room, it was quiet and cool, and none of the people who pushed her head into the walls or called her ‘freak' ever came in there. Lucy didn't know why she was a freak. She tried very hard to be normal, but she read too many books and thought too much. They didn't like that, and some of the adults called her ‘manipulative'. Lucy looked that up in a dictionary, and when she saw what the answer was she went and played the piano until her fingers ached.

Lucy's Daddy didn't like her playing the piano. He didn't like her doing a lot of things, like speaking her mind, or disagreeing with him. When she did something she didn't like, he would hit her on the head, or shout. She was afraid he was very disappointed in her as she was always trying to please him but he still shouted at her. He said she was very naughty and stupid.

Lucy thought the world was very scary. She was frightened of lots of things, especially chemicals and germs. Her Mummy said she was silly to be frightened, and that things like desks and pencils and forks didn't have any chemicals or germs on them. But then Lucy remembered what happened when she washed her hands in the sink, before Mummy had flushed the bleach out completely after cleaning it. Mummy had shouted and gone all white, until Lucy had washed her hands again and again with soap.

Lucy started to wash her hands after she touched anything. There might be germs or chemicals that could kill her if she touched her face and swallowed it. Mummy was always worried about Lucy or Karen getting ill - and Mummy knew everything. If she was worried, then that meant Lucy was certain to get ill. Lucy's hands were very red now all the time, from all the washing.

One day, when Lucy was twelve, she came home from school and picked up the phone. It was Karen, saying ‘Tell Mum I won't be home tonight, I'm staying at a friend's house'. In the middle of the conversation, her mum picked up the phone and started crying, and begging Karen to come home. Karen put the phone down.

Mum and Dad took Lucy into the lounge. She sat in front of the fire and tried to listen when they told her Dad had done something to Karen. He had smacked her on the bum when she was younger. Lucy didn't understand. Everyone got a smack, when they were naughty, didn't they? She noticed her heart was beating faster and faster. She noticed the sweat on her hands and felt how cold they were. She stopped listening to what Dad was saying and only noticed how strange she felt. Later, she would often feel the same and recognize it as panic. Listening to the sounds and feelings in her body was easier than listening to bad things.

Karen telephoned later that night and asked what they had said. She told them, and she said "Go back and ask him about the other thing - what else he did". So Lucy did. They said there wasn't anything else.

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Karen called again later on and when Lucy told them what her parents had said, she swore - and Lucy asked what the other thing Dad had done, was. Karen said, "He touched me like boyfriends touch their girlfriends - for a year, every night, pretending he was just ‘tucking me in'".

Lucy's Dad told her Karen was lying, or confused, or her teachers had put rubbish in her head. He said, "Don't listen to her, listen to me". But Lucy didn't want to listen to anybody. She wanted to go away into the piano rooms and play, and play, and play.

Karen and her Mum argued furiously for a long time, about what had happened. Lucy's Mum confided in Lucy, and cried, and told her things she didn't want to hear about. Lucy didn't confide in anyone, because her Mum said people would think she was dirty if they knew. Lucy thought she was dirty. But she also knew she was the responsible one now. If she didn't do her duty and listen to Mum when she was sad, and be a good sister to Karen, then something bad might happen. If she'd been a better sister to Karen before, then she might have confided in her and the smacking might never have carried on. Lucy had no right to feel sad herself. She was the lucky one. It hadn't happened to her.

Then Lucy learnt how to make it better for a while. If she cut herself with razors where no-one could see, or scratched her hands until they scabbed up and could be scratched all over again, the sharp ache inside her dulled for a while.

The first person she told about Karen's abuse was her history teacher, three years later. She told him everything, because her teacher said he cared about what had happened. When her teacher kissed her, she felt desirable and loved - even though she knew he was lying about caring for her. This was proved right when she discovered he had another girlfriend in the sixth-form and a number of other flirtations amongst the girls of her school.

She leant to dull the pain by writing it out in a hundred different ways, in song and in poetry. She discovered she could sing, and the joy in telling her story and her survival to people who applauded at the end of every song. She didn't need to cut herself now.

Lucy had a cat called Leo, and someone who she loved and who loved her. She had scars on her arms and her hands, but they were healing. Sometimes she would hear her heart beat, and her hands grow cold, and she would shake. Scars heal and fade but always remain. Lucy had a sister called Karen.

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