I Won't Forgive What You Did Read Online Free PDF Page B

my fault.
    Once at school the routine never varied. He’d throw me over his shoulder again, and walk laughing across the playground, while all the children stopped running about to stare at me. Once I’d reached the classroom, and he’d deposited me, the children stopped staring and resumed their running around, as if nothing had happened. This behaviour seemed not in the least strange. I’d been told for so long I was silly, stupid Faith – why wouldn’t they think I was?
    Because we were poor we didn’t have to pay for school dinners, so when the dinner register was called and the children had to pay their money, my name, of course, was never called. I felt the humiliation of this keenly. I always thought the other children would realize my name hadn’t been called and that I was having a dinner I hadn’t paid for.
    Differences such as this were piling up. At dinner time I began to notice the children around me were fussy about food and left vast amounts on their plates. I desperately wanted to be like them, but I was always hungry, and grateful to have nice food to eat, that I couldn’t ever help but eat it all. I ate very slowly though, hoping no one would notice. I couldn’t bear the thought of them watching me eating. I didn’t have any likes and dislikes; the concept didn’t exist for me – but after the meal all pleasure in it was replaced by always feeling greedy and bad. Later I realized this was because I wasn’t supposed to have any needs, even hunger.
    My sense of difference grew at the same rate I did. The school was in a middle-class area, and many of the children attending were from nice, well-off families. Having nothing to offer and never feeling good enough, my behaviour was submissive from the start, and, having picked up on this, several children bullied me.
    Looking back, it seems obvious my appearance didn’t help. My hair was dull and untidy-looking, because it was washed with cheap washing-up liquid, proper shampoo being too expensive. And because the water at home was cold, it was hard to rinse out, plus there was only one hairbrush. Toothpaste was also too expensive so my teeth were discoloured. The only thing to clean them with was a saucerful of salt that my mother would put by the kitchen sink for us to use. It was brown most of the time – I didn’t know why. Did salt go rusty? I usually had to force myself to use it because the taste of it made me retch and retch.
    But, for all that, my appearance wasn’t the main problem. For all the privations, I still looked tidy and clean – especially if the school photographer was coming, when I’d be kitted out in the best clothes possible. It was clear I’d come from a large, poor family – my clothes and shoes were sometimes too big, or too small – but practically, in terms of kitting us out well when she needed to, my mother could often be industrious. At such times, she’d sew and darn, knit and crochet, and there were always huge piles of clothes on the floor by her chair that she was going to mend at some point. There were also boxes and boxes of knitting patterns and needles, plus half-knitted teddies and dolls’ clothes. There were piles of clothes from jumble sales and heaps of old knitted jumpers, waiting for her to unpick them.
    But very little ever got finished. It was as if she lacked whatever it was she needed to see most of these tasks through and was simply stuck in this endless cycle of starting. She’d also, at such times, make piles of cakes. Many more than could ever be eaten.
    Some things, however, did get done. During these phases she’d always, it seemed, knit pink cardigans, in several sizes, to be handed down to each daughter in turn. My younger sister, therefore, spent a large part of her time in a pink cardigan, and looked as if she’d worn the same one for many years.
    But my physical difference was nothing compared with my emotional one – the one those in authority couldn’t so easily see,