They say that there are three sides to a story. Your side, the other person’s side and there was the truth. I’m not going to pretend and say that this is a true accurate representation of my past; I’m not an omniscient protagonist in a fictional novel dreamt up by its author. This is the raw truth of my side. Memory becomes golden as we grow old and age is against us, from day one every breathe we take is numbered; the tragic truth that we may lose the grip on our memories we collect that keep us safe and sane is enough to terrify me.
At a young age I sat in the school courtyard reminiscing good times with my friends, even at a young age I wanted to escape.
When I sit down and think hard the very first memory I have, it is not one that I want to remember, but as habits die hard, so does this particular memory. I didn’t understand it at first. It was normal.
The exact date is unknown but I remember my father had come home from working away. Ironically I don’t ever actually remember my father ever working, but I was told that he used to work away in a demolition firm. I think he made the demolition job his whole life; he destroyed everybody around him, slowly.
My mother always prepared us meals, cleaned and looked after us. We were stuck in a time-loop. The mother’s work was the family. It was late evening and my father had come home to a Pasta Bolognese meal on the table waiting. Still piping hot, I remember the steam rise. He didn’t look the faintest pleased. The famous words ‘Ger upstairs’ meant I knew what to do, and what was coming.
As I lay on the floor of my box bedroom I heard a loud smash against the wall that didn’t follow the usual pattern of noise, at the time I didn’t know what it was until later that week. My father’s oval plate, the only oval plate in the house and he had it, had been hurled across the room. My father shouted at my mother and I heard my mother being choked and strangled. The sound of her oesophagus being squeezed so tightly that only a gurgling noise was heard. The sobs and shrieking is what I remember the most, harrowing for a first memory eh.
It was always uncomfortable to go downstairs the morning after. As if I had dreamt what happened. Looking back in hindsight this ‘normal’ routine was always kept within the house. My father used to say when I was younger, ‘whatever happens in these four walls, stay in these four walls’ and he was right. It did.
Did my father know what he was doing was wrong? The brainwashing and the physical, violent outbursts did he see this as the day-to-day task of a husband and father?
They were not exclusive to my mother. His violent streaks breathed fear into my sisters and even me.
I can’t speak for my sisters, but the thought of telling somebody didn’t cross my mind. I don’t know why but I didn’t.