Innocence Revisited Read online

  Each time he leaves, I crawl back across the corridor to the bathroom and scrub my skin until it weeps. Then I pat myself dry and scrub my skin some more. I scrub like a banshee because scrubbing is the only thing I can control. Scrubbed, raw and oozing, I limp back across the lino and hoist myself back into the bed. I cover myself up and cover myself over and I lie in my bed, in a cold and spartan room with my table, my cupboard and the darkness; black and alone and in pain.

  ‘Your mother wanted me. Well who wouldn’t? But, I chose you I did. More the fool me! And you’re lucky, you’re really lucky because I do lots of things for you and they’re special. You know that, don’t

  you? And you know that your mother would be angry if she found out, very angry. And she’d never forgive you because she wants me herself, she does. You don’t want your mother to be angry now, do you?’

  ‘I can’t take this anymore, I really can’t!’ I announced during my Monday morning session. I was seeing Kate every day and phoning her frequently between visits. ‘I’m going to do something to myself.’

  I was making regular pilgrimages to The Gap. My distress had reached crisis point. ‘Cathy, should we put you in hospital?’

  Kate and I had discussed my admission into a clinic before, but I’d always resisted. I’d visited too many hospitals and clinics over the years, and besides, I might have been suicidal, I might not have been coping, but I wasn’t like those ‘mental’ patients; or was I?

  ‘What good would that do? The walls would hold me while I was locked up, but as soon as they let me out I’d do it then. Nah, there’s no point.’

  ‘But do you realise what you’re saying? What losing you would do to your children? Surely you understand the legacy you would be leaving?’

  ‘W… well I suppose that they would be sad… a bit sad.’

  ‘Cathy, listen to yourself will you? Every member of your family would be devastated. Your suicide would affect their entire lives. You, more than anyone, should know what a parent’s suicide means for a child.’

  I shrugged my shoulders. I couldn’t let those feelings penetrate.

  ‘Cathy, we’re going to have to talk to Dan. I feel as if I’m being irresponsible. What if something happens to you and we haven’t told him how you’ve been feeling? What then? Either you talk to him, or we will talk to him together.’

  I hadn’t shared any of my suicidal thoughts with Dan because, as irrational as it sounds, I hadn’t wanted to worry him. The last thing I wanted to do was to hurt him, or my kids. I loved them all way too much for that.

  I couldn’t bring myself to speak to Dan directly, so that weekend, Kate, Dan and I met in Kate’s office. Although I had given permission for the meeting, I hated every aspect of it. Her office was my space and one of the few in which I felt safe. I hated anyone invading it, even my husband. Besides, Kate was my therapist and I didn’t want to share her. What’s more, I felt like a wayward child, who was being hauled up in front of the principal; all because I wanted to end my pain.

  ‘So Dan, do you know why we’re here?’

  ‘Yes, yes of course. Cathy’s been having a really hard time.’

  ‘But Dan do you know how hard?’

  I was sitting in my armchair, doing my best to disappear. Dan and Kate were sitting opposite one another and Kate was filling him in about my mental state in no uncertain terms. I felt like an alien and being discussed in the third person was not helping, but my own discomfort faded as the shock of my husband’s reaction hit home. His face looked strained, drained of its usual tones. Witnessing his distress triggered mine and caused me to dissociate.

  Dissociating was a defence which I’d mastered early in my childhood to protect my mind from destructive assault. I would do so whenever I was under too great a threat. As I faded out from my immediate world I could still manage to perceive that my husband was struggling to hold it together. After several minutes he broke down. As he sobbed in his chair I disappeared further. While I had a sense of him crying on some level of consciousness, at that point his tears flowed in a world which was far removed from mine. As I curled in on myself in the corner of a foreign chair, I was distanced from the drama unfolding in the room around me. Every now and again, the alien I’d become would pull herself back from her cloudiness to confirm that her therapist and her husband were still talking about her. Dan’s face looked blotchy. His body was trembling. And Kate was sitting forward in her chair with her serious face on. One part of me ventured out to smile at him, but I couldn’t complete the smile. Dan looked back at me; his eyes were tortured.

  ‘But I had no idea. Darling, sweetheart, you know how I feel about you. Why couldn’t you tell me?’

  As he spoke he dissolved into tears and the alien disappeared into a space far removed from a therapist’s office.

  ‘Cathy! CATHY!’ Kate used her business like voice to bring me back to the here and now. ‘Cathy, what do you think about what Dan is saying?’

  I couldn’t answer; I was too far away. As I battled my way back through the layers of dissociative disconnection, I found recognition in my husband’s distress, and his anguish yanked me right back. I was able to recall how much he loved me. I remembered the wonderful family we had created together and was able to absorb the generated benefits of loving them.

  ‘Darling you know how much we all love you.’

  I nodded. How could I have pulled so far away from them?

  ‘Sweetheart, look at me, please!’ Dan was pleading. I tried to look at him, but the shame of what I’d put him through forbade me to.

  ‘Sweetheart, it’s okay. I’m here for you. We all are!’

  Witnessing Dan’s distress allowed me to reconnect with him and the kids, and acknowledge the legacy I would leave if I took my own life. I had been caught in a recurring trap. Whenever I returned there, I lost touch with reality and severed the very connections which sustained me.

  After that meeting I resolved, yet again, to hang in there no matter what.

  Another night in our marital bedroom and more memories were coming.

  I am fourteen and I can hear footsteps approaching down the corridor. The light goes on in the surgery next door, cupboard doors open and close. The light goes off, the footsteps approach; there’s a short sharp click and the flowers on the lampshade bloom.

  Acts from another horrific night of fear and pain, terror and hurt are relived.

  During my session the next day, I recoiled into the corner of the chair. I was terrified, breathing hard and no longer able to speak. I’d taken my journal in and read what I’d written down out loud. I’d read about several brutal rapes and torturous assaults and highlighted the stultifying dread I was feeling. Fifty minutes had passed.

  ‘Cathy! CATHY! You’re going to have to start coming out of it.’

  ‘Is she fucking crazy?’ I thought to myself. ‘How on earth can she expect me to leave now?’

  I couldn’t leave. How could I leave? I’d just been raped and tortured. How could Kate expect me to leave now? What was wrong with her?

  ‘Help me! Help me!’ I shouted in my inside world.

  ‘Cathy! Cathy, come on now!’

  There was no way I could leave. I was paralysed with fear. I’d just been devoured. How could I ever leave?

  I looked up at Kate longingly.

  ‘Cathy, would you like to sit quietly in another room until you’re ready to leave?’

  I thought about what she’d said. About the offer she’d made which showed me that she actually did care. I shook my head. ‘No, I’ll be alright.’ I whispered. Kate had acknowledged my distress; that was enough for now.

  I got myself together, got up out of my chair and walked up the drive to my car. I got behind the wheel, tipped my seat back and passed out in the safety of Kate’s street. By the time I came to, I was ready to drive home and go straight to bed.

  This night the routine changes. He strips me naked but leaves his pants on. Pulls several lengths of rope out of his pocke
t and ties my wrists and ankles together so tightly that the rope cuts into my flesh. Then he takes out a piece of material and slowly, ever so slowly, eases it out of his pocket like a cobra being charmed into the light of day. It’s a scarf, a crimson scarf. He holds the scarf at either end, toys with it, folds it over and then ties it around my head, covering my eyes. The festering sweat from his armpits assaults me. The edges of the scarf dig into my earlobes. He lays me on my back; arms stretched taut above my head, wrists strung together, and forces the soles of my feet flat on the bed. Ankles bound, he pushes my knees wide apart and leaves. The room goes quiet. Everything in my body aches.

  Several moments pass. Nothing happens.

  Smoke fumes; I feel warm down below.

  ‘N…no, no, thank you. No, I don’t smoke. No, not I don’t. No,

  I don’t smoke down there. Y… Yes, I’m sure. N…o, no…I don’t smoke at all.’

  Burning, smoking, smouldering heat, the smell of singed hair. He puts the burning thing inside me and takes it out, puts it inside again, takes it out. The doctor puts it back in, but this time he leaves it there, burning. I’m terrified my flesh will catch fire. As he takes it out; I can see through the blindfold that the cigarette has been inserted butt first. I breathe a sigh of relief, but my relief doesn’t last long.

  The doctor puts the cigarette in my mouth and holds it there. The smoke floods my nostrils, filling my lungs until I splutter and gasp. He whisks the cigarette away as my lips start to smoulder.

  ‘N…no, thank you. I don’t smoke. No, not in my mouth either. No, I don’t smoke. No, thank you.’ The smell of smoke lingers with the doctor’s pungency admixed. Raw, silent fear stupefies me as the doctor revels in every ounce of my disquiet.

  He hammers away inside me, shredding the little of me that remains. Then withdraws and everything goes quiet. Several minutes pass. Cupboards open and close in the surgery next door. More footsteps; he rams an instrument of cold hard metal high up inside of me. I grit my teeth as the rod splits me in two, shearing me from myself. ‘Please, please let me die!’ But I don’t die; my mind splits me in two.

  From this time on, whenever the doctor violates me, my mind splits into two. One half I name; ‘Little Half’. Little Half is the victim part of me whose role it is to be a passive receptacle. ‘Other Half ‘ is what’s left of me while Little Half is being brutalised and it’s Other Half ‘s job to scamper to safety, regardless of what Little Half has to endure.

  *

  I was lying in my husband’s arms when I first relived splitting into Little Half and Other Half and started to cry. ‘Daddy, why did you have to die? Why, when I miss you so much? Why did you have to leave me, Daddy? You would have protected me. I know you would have. I love you so much Daddy. Why did you have to die?’

  I was sobbing as though my Daddy had only just died and as my grief plummeted to new depths, I visualised Daddy and me sitting on the couch in our lounge room. Daddy’s arms were around me and we were nuzzling close. ‘Don’t worry, princess. Everything will be all right. Daddy’s here. I’ll look after you.’ That’s when I learned about the mechanism by which Other Half had kept us alive; she would conjure an image of my father, the one person who had nurtured me in my early years.

  From then on, Little Half and Other Half performed their jobs every night of our remaining stay in Sydney. As Little Half withstood whatever punishment the doctor dished out, Other Half took refuge. And so by virtue of a psychological defence mechanism, a young girl in mourning survived the acts of a psychopath which would have otherwise destroyed her. Without it, I don’t believe I would have survived.

  The doctor drags me into the middle of my room and leaves me there, naked and exposed. I’m bound and blindfolded. Although the room is quiet I know he’s still there; I can smell him. I wait and I shiver. He pounces on me from behind and spins me around until I’m dizzy. Then he instructs me to get back into bed. I know better than to argue. ‘Yes master, yes master.’ I lurch forward, knocking into walls and furniture. I fall over and get up. I can still smell him; he’s watching. I’m getting closer and can feel the end of the sheet. I grab onto it and start to pull myself up, but the doctor rips the sheet back out of my hand. I drop back down and lie on the floor, as helpless as an upturned beetle. I lie there trying to anticipate his next move, but that’s just the point. I never know what he’ll do next.

  When after several minutes no-one appears, I start to turn over, but as soon as I move he pounces. He drags me backwards across the familiar cool of the lino and the prickles of the raffia mat, then he lets go. His smell fades as his footsteps retreat and I painstakingly begin the journey back in search of my bed. I crawl; my whole body is shuddering. Some bits throb, some ache. Others I can’t feel at all. I catch hold of a corner of the sheet and wait, but he doesn’t come. I pull myself back onto the bed and slowly writhe back between the sheets. Just as I do, the bed starts shaking. I feel a tug on my ankles and then a pull, and within an instant I am dangling in mid-air. The doctor leaves me hanging and hanging. He leaves me for so long that my back starts to ache. Then footsteps, and then the too familiar agony as my insides are ripped apart again. Poor Little Half!

  My memories had reached the last night of my fortnight’s holiday in Sydney. I reasoned that if I’d made it this far, surely I would be able to survive the rest.

  Footsteps down the hall. The click of the lampshade.

  ‘You’re never going home, you know. Never! Hmmm, you thought you were going to get away from me, didn’t you now? We’ll, guess what? You’re not! And you know why? Well, let me tell you, eh? Now look at me when I’m talking to you!’

  ‘Y… yes master. Sorry master!’

  ‘I’m going to lock you up, I am. Yes, that’s right, all locked up, you’ll be. I’m going to lock you up in a room under the house, a secret room that only I know about, a place where no-one will ever find you. And do you know what? Even your precious mother won’t know what’s happened to you. At first she will ask after you, but then she’ll stop asking. And then she’ll forget about you and so will everyone else!’

  That last night the doctor delivers his threat and disappears. He returns much later and without saying a word, he goes about his business. He strips me naked, binds my wrists and ankles together, blindfolds me and ties ropes to my lashed ankles. Then he levers me off the side of the bed and drops me bottom first onto the cold lino. With the rope he drags me across the cold lino and onto the raffia mat. And off the mat onto the lino and lifts me up and stops in front of the cupboard which has my velour blue dressing gown inside. He lifts me up, throws me into a cupboard, slams the door shut and leaves.

  He leaves me locked inside the cupboard; the rain is pelting down onto the roof outside. I listen for his footsteps, but the sound of the rain masks them. Instead I smell his arrival. The door opens; a shaft of light enters. The doctor doesn’t touch me; nor does he speak. There is no human contact; it’s all done with rope and metal instruments. The shaft of light, the tug on the rope, the clunk and pain shooting through my spine as my bottom crashes to the floor. The doctor uses all his accessories that night: ropes and blindfold, a range of metal instruments and a leather whip, which he cracks inches from my toes. That night he obliterates me and obliterates me again. Then he dresses, throws me back into the cupboard, closes the door and leaves.

  The cupboard is tiny and when the door is closed, no light enters. It smells musty; it couldn’t have been aired in years. I’m all scrunched up, twisted in on myself, wracked with the pain and the hurt of the parts the doctor has devoured, and the agony of the contortions he has forced my joints through. I try to sit up but I can’t; the lightest of touch causes spasms to shoot from my nether regions which double me over. Kneeling also squashes my swollen and lacerated bits, but a little less when I keep my feet to the side. I ooze freely from down below and the ooze freshens each time the doctor does what he does. After it is over and I rest as best I can, the ooze slows and dries but when it
dries, the skin of my nether region sticks to the wood on the floor of the cupboard. And when I try to shift even an inch, my flesh gives way and oozes afresh. I try not to move, but I have to move for fear that I will seize up altogether, though when I do the rawness throbs more and Little Half cries.

  Little Half tries to be brave and she is, but when Little Half cries, Other Half gets scared and doesn’t know what to do. And Other Half cries with the pain and she cries with the fear. What if he locks us away? What if no-one knows where we are? What if our mother forgets that we ever lived? What then?

  Other Half finds our Daddy and she clings to him tighter than ever before and she tells him what the doctor said and they cry and sob together. And Other Half tries not to look down and see what is happening to Little Half but sometimes she can’t stop herself looking. She wants to help Little Half but she can’t because she has to save both of us. Only if Other Half stays protected and cared for can we survive.

  The doctor shoves a long fat metal instrument high up Little Half; Other Half passes out. We all pass out. When we come to, we’re back in bed. We don’t know how we got there, but we’re grateful that we did. I wake up and try to pull the sheets up, but I can’t because I’m tied up and my head goes fuzzy with the pain of trying to reach beyond where I can. I pass out again.

  ‘I’m here, wrists! I’ll come as soon as I can.’

  My wrists are lashed together and my arms are strapped to my sides. A rope encircles my chest and I can’t separate my arms. I lift my fingers up and they feel all pins and needles and I try to wiggle them and I can. And I can move my fingers and my hands and my wrists and maybe yes, they do come apart and could it be? The ropes have been removed. And I can lift my arms cautiously away from my body and straighten them. They’re tingling as the blood rushes through them but they’re alive and they’re mine and I have my arms back. And my hands can stroke one another and my wrists and arms can connect with one another and they’re all attached to me and to Little Half who’s attached to Other Half and me and we’ll all be okay.