I Remember, Daddy Read Online Free PDF Page B

to my brother and me, too – that he was in charge. And there was certainly no doubt in any of our minds that he was in charge, totally and utterly. It seemed that he controlled every breath we took, and I learned always to think about whether something I was going to do might make him angry, which meant that I lived in a constant state of almost unbearable anxiety.
    To my father, my brother and I were nuisances who had to be taught to respect and obey him, but could otherwise be ignored. I think his only reason for having children at all was because it fitted in, peripherally, to his idea of the life he aspired to as a successful businessman living in an expensive house in an affluent and prestigious neighbourhood, with an attractive wife from a good family, and children who could recite poems and fables in French to order before they were whisked away out of sight by their nanny.
    Surprisingly, perhaps, of all the countless things that hurt and terrified me during my childhood, it was often my father’s violent bullying of my mother that was more frightening than anything else, and there were many occasions when I thought he was going to kill her.
    One night, when I was five years old, I was woken up by the sound of someone sobbing. I lay on my back in my bed, listening, and after a few moments I realised that it was my mother. I released the breath I’d been holding – and, with it, a small, frightened whimper – and then I started to count. One, two, three … When I got to ten it would stop, and if it hadn’t … I paused in my counting and listened again.
    Perhaps my parents were playing a game. I’d heard my mother shout out in the night before, and when I asked her about it the next morning, she told me that she and my father had just been ‘messing around’. So, maybe, if I listened for long enough, I’d hear her laugh and then I’d know that everything was all right.
    But, in my fiercely thumping heart, I knew it wasn’t a game.
    I heard my father shout something harsh and angry; then my mother cried out again, and this time there was no mistaking the terror in her voice. I pulled the bedcovers over my head, trying to block out the sound, and attempted to swallow the solid ball of fear that had lodged in my throat. I knew, though, that I couldn’t just abandon my mother when she might need help.
    I squeezed my eyes tightly shut for a moment and then, in one quick movement, sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bed. Then I tiptoed out of my room and crept along the thickly carpeted landing, counting my footsteps silently in my head to try to focus on something other than my own fear.
    Crouching at the top of the stairs, I pushed my head just far enough through the balusters to be able to see my parents, who were standing on the staircase between the ground and first floors. My father was wearing a suit, but the top button of his shirt was undone, his tie was loose and askew and there was something about the way he looked that made me realise he was well past all of the first stages of drunkenness.
    My mother was standing a couple of steps above him, wearing only a nightdress, and the fingers of my father’s left hand seemed to be twisted in her hair. He was pulling her head backwards and punching her repeatedly on the side of her head, while she tried to cling on to the banister with one hand and protect herself against his blows with the other.
    For a moment, I was transfixed by the sound of my father’s humourless laugh, the cruel, thin-lipped expression on his upturned face and the brutal force of his attack on my mother. Then I noticed a young woman standing at the foot of the stairs. She was dressed in a short black skirt and a low-cut, wine-redcoloured sequined top and she was looking up towards my parents with a small, vague smile.
    I felt a wave of relief. Clearly, it was some sort of game after all, because I knew that no adult would simply stand and watch without intervening while my