What on earth are you thinking now? A care home? Absolutely not! Im not leaving my house, no chance! My father hurled a mug at my head, aiming squarely for me. I dodged as I always did, instinct kicking in.
Its impossible to go on like this. Sooner or later, hell find a way to hurt me, and Ill never be able to see it coming. Yet, as I filled out the paperwork to admit him to a care home, all I could feel was gnawing guilt. In truth, what I was doing for him now went far beyond anything he ever did for me.
I watched from the window as the car drove away, taking him with it. My father shouted and fought, cursing everyone involved in moving him out of his house.
Standing alone, I was struck by déjà vu. Id had a moment just like this as a child, unsure what life would bring next.
Im Elizabeth Harris, an only child. Mum never dared have another; Dad was a tyrant who made every day of her marriage a living misery.
DadJohn Harriswas already well into his forties when I was born. His motives for marrying were clear: not for love or family, but for the boost it would give his career. He never loved anyone more than himself. A model family man would climb further at work, so he sought out the perfect candidate: Mary, a young college student, daughter to ordinary factory workers. For Marys parents, linking their family to an up-and-coming civil servant was quite the coup. No one asked Mary what she thought. They held a big, showy wedding, but her parents werent even invited not nearly the right sort.
After marrying, Mum moved into Dads house. To ensure she developed into the proper wife for a public figure, he hired someone to school her in etiquette and in knowing when to keep her mouth shut.
How was your day, then? John would ask each evening as he dropped into his armchair.
All fine. Ive learnt proper table manners and started on my English classes. Mums first lesson: never give him a reason to be displeased.
And? Thats it? Who ran the house while you were learning all that?
I did. The cook and I planned the weeks menu, I did the food shopping myself and I tidied the house too.
Hm. Not bad for today. But mind you always look presentable, not like some country girl. Behave well and maybe Ill get you a driver and a housemaid. But not yet you havent earned it.
Calm days like this were few. Mostly, Dad came home late, angry and exhausted. His wife was the only target for his temper who couldnt fight back or leave. Not that Mary had anywhere to go.
A month after the wedding, he first raised his hand to hernot over any particular wrong, but just to teach her her place.
It happened more and more. Dad knew exactly how to hit her so thered be no marks and nothing obvious for anyone outside to notice. Mum hid the bruises under clothes, forced smiles for his friends and colleagues she had to entertain in their home.
A year into their marriage, Dads friends started teasing him about the lack of children. John, mate, you ought to have a proper family by now! Whats wrong? She shouldnt still be at college her place is at home.
From then on, Mary became subject to endless check-ups. To avoid arousing suspicion, John had to stop hitting her for a while at least.
Months passed. No one found anything amiss; she was perfectly healthy. The doctor suggested, tentatively, that John be tested too.
Me? You must be joking. I know people; a few calls and youll be working as a vet in the most godforsaken corner of the country.
You can fire me if you like, but that wont solve your problem, the doctor replied, unruffled by threats.
At last, after many uncomfortable tests, John got the verdict his chances of ever fathering a child were slim. He fumed at everything, turning away from Mum, whose tears and fear now left him cold. To amuse himself, he found a mistress.
Two and a half years later, Mary finally fell pregnant. I was born a spitting image of him. But Dad felt no fondness for me. All my childhood, it was Mum and my nanny who raised me. Dad could go weeks without so much as seeing me.
As I grew, I only seemed to annoy him more. The first time he hit me, I was five, whining for something after hed come home from a tough day at work. He flung me across the room into a wall. Terrified, I didnt even cry; he just sank onto the sofa, turned on the telly and ignored me.
I learned then and there not to provoke him, but even that wasnt enough. From then on, if I so much as breathed incorrectly, hed snap: call me names, slap or shame me in front of guests, and revel in my humiliation.
John, I hear Elizabeths quite the talented violinist! Will you have her play for us?
She? She still doesnt know which way to hold the thing! Ask her, but I warn you for your own comfort. Lizzie! Didnt you hear? Fetch your fiddle and play for the guests!
Red-cheeked and trembling, I would fetch my violin and stand before our guests. I dreaded playing in front of people; that fear never left me. Despite obvious promise, I never touched the violin again after finishing music school.
As a child, I wondered: Did all families live this way? Looking at books filled with pictures of happy families, I wondered why Id been so unlucky.
Mum wasnt a model of happiness either. She never could love a child by a man whod made her life so hard. When I was thirteen, she died in a car crash. Or so they said. I never learned the truth. After that, I retreated even further into myself.
When I finished school, Dad chose my university and course the last thing he ever decided for me. By then, he was up to his neck in trouble at work. By the time I graduated, hed lost most of his influence and almost everything he owned. The rest went on making sure he never saw prison for everything hed done. Luckily for him, he managed to slip quietly into retirement and move to a cottage in the countryside. I never came to visit. I had nothing to say to him, and no desire to be his punching bag.
Alone, Dad had no one left to pour his venom on, and his mind slipped. Neighbours started phoning, telling me he was behaving erratically. My hand was forced: I had to take him in.
Given the chance to torment me again, Dad seemed to perk up. He raged and screamed, hurled insults, smashed up the house. I put him in one room and fitted a lock, so his chaos was at least contained to four walls. But as the signs of dementia grew and nothing else worked, I faced the hardest decision: putting my father in a care home.
I never did have a family of my own. Broken by the past, painfully uncertain of myself, I avoided building ties with anyone, even at work. I spent the days in quiet solitude, yet the shame about moving Dad into a care home gnawed at me.
Leaving him at home was simply too dangerous, and doctors confirmed the dementia. Hed lost his sense of reality, but the rage and hatred toward me lived on, even once he stopped recognising me.
I called round every home in town until I found one suitable, but the cost was enormous. Nearly all my wages went to cover the bill, so I took on a second job.
The days after he left, I felt hollow. The same feeling came to me as the day Mum and I once tried to leave the last time she ever stood up to him, the time she died soon after.
Even now, when visiting him, I dissolved into tears of guilt and pity the only emotions Mum and Dad ever taught me.
On top of guilt, my own health soon began to slip.
