Standing on the edge of the platform, I could see the bright lights of the thing closing in. It was now or never. The yellow illuminating blaze looked like huge round owl eyes, glaring in, suffocating me, apparently telling me there was no way out. Inviting me to join it on the journey it was about to embark on, a journey which would give me a sense of freedom and take me away from this angry world I had tolerated. I’d come this far, it only took one more step. The train loomed to a halt in front of me and the doors opened.
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It all began on a normal morning in September. It was the first day back of my last year at school. I was sixteen. As usual, my mother had dropped me off at the gates, something which I’d pleaded with her not to do, but as usual she had not listened. I found it embarrassing, but thankfully there was one other parent there with his son, doing the same routine as my mother. He had looked across at us, and I can remember exactly what he looked like that day. But it was the smile that haunted me the most. One corner of his lip curling upwards, yet the other curling downwards creating a rather odd looking expression. It was more of a snarl, only emphasised further by his glassy eyes staring directly into me, adding to the eeriness of his presence. My mother gave her cheerful smile back, oblivious to the strangeness surrounding this man, but I only put my head down and walked into school. There was something not quite right about him, and I didn’t recognise the young boy he had dropped off either.
However, I did notice him later that day. The young boy I mean. He was stood queuing in the school canteen. He had looked over at me and that’s when I noticed the smile. The exact same smile as his father yet he didn’t seem as cold. My friend said he was in her geography class, and he sat at the back on his own, barely uttering a word to anyone. His name was Ben.
It was my Mum who first mentioned it. We were having dinner and she asked how I would feel if Graeme were to take her on a date. I was shocked. Who the hell was Graeme? Since my father died when I was four, she hadn’t been on any dates or even mentioned any blokes. Now she was like a giddy schoolgirl, exhilarated by the idea of going on a date with this man. It didn’t make sense. Graeme was Ben’s dad. I debated whether to tell her of my doubts about him, but I didn’t want to burst her bubble. In the end I decided not to. She seemed so happy, and deserved to feel that way, besides she’d soon notice and realise that there was something dangerous and peculiar about him.
However, months passed and she didn’t notice. After she dropped me at school, I could see them talking from the window. Bodies an inch from each other, my mother throwing her head back in laughter, and every now and again he would lean in and touch her face. I knew she would be blushing. I was seething with anger inside, but what could I do? I would sometimes catch Ben staring at me as I looked out at them; he smiled if I looked at him. Though not the smile of his father, a smile that indicated he understood. I sometimes hesitantly smiled back, it seemed like he needed some reassurance.
I began to realise it was becoming serious. They spent every day together, either at his or we would go to theirs. When she didn’t see him for a day or two, she would get moody and snappy. Our relationship was plummeting. She was engrossed in his game. He had complete power over her and knew it.
It was a few days before my seventeenth birthday when the bombshell was dropped. Almost a year after they had first laid eyes on each other, my mum had picked me up from school and told me she needed to talk. My heart did a backflip, and a sickening sensation suddenly overwhelmed me. I knew this involved Graeme and I feared the worst.
Obviously...my mother and Graeme were moving in together. They had been looking for a house for months apparently, something that suited them both, but also something that would suit me and Ben because ‘we mattered in all this too’. They’d found a cute little cottage in the countryside of Lancashire, over an hour’s drive from where we lived now. My mum said it was perfect. Totally secluded from the outside world, peaceful, quiet, tranquil...but most importantly it was theirs, something they owned together as a couple. He’d asked her to give up work and stay at home. Cooking, cleaning, and generally looking after the place. His wage could support us all and she didn’t need to work, he would provide everything. She had agreed...of course.
And so my birthday was forgotten and we moved into the cottage with Graeme and Ben, also resulting in me and Ben having to change schools and begin a new life. Ben kept glancing over at me on that first day at Wheatley Lane Sixth Form. We were both nervous and didn’t know what to expect. I put my hand on his shoulder on that first day, signalling I knew how he felt. He nodded.
There was no familiarity to surround us, give us a sense of normality-just endless green fields, cold damp weather and the continuous harsh winds which shattered against the windows of the cottage every night. There was a real frightening presence about the place, and it only made me wonder why my mum had agreed to move here.
We had been living there for around two months when I started to notice the change in Graeme. He was constantly angry and would shout at my mother for the most insignificant things. If the house wasn’t up to his standards or his meals weren’t on the table when he arrived home or his shirts weren’t washed and ironed for work the next day. She was his slave. He was a very dominating man, and his way of emphasising this power to me, to Ben and to my mother was to show us that we were to do exactly what he said. One night, I pleaded with her to leave him, said he wasn’t treating her right and she didn’t deserve this, but she only pushed me away telling me she loved him and he was just stressed and these ‘moods’ would soon pass.
Moods? This wasn’t a mood, this was Graeme’s personality. I could see it in Ben’s eyes, he would flinch every time his father raised his voice or came near him. A tired look would consume his face whenever his father spoke to my mum. He’d seen this behaviour from his father a thousand times over. He had seen what it had done to his mother.
What Graeme did next made me realise that I had to get out.
He had come home from work in the foulest of moods. He screamed at my mother the moment he walked through the door because the dinner wasn’t ready, and dragged me and Ben into the kitchen to help her. There had been a deafening silence. No one dared move, speak or even whisper. The man was lethal and there was a dangerous look in his eye, nothing like we had seen before. From out of nowhere came an almighty roar and shriek, and in a flash he had my mother pinned up against the fridge with a knife to her throat. I screamed and ran for them, but Ben grabbed me and pulled me back. He shook his head at me. Fuck. Was he involved in this in some way?! My mother was crying, pleading with him to stop, telling him she loved him. He laughed in her face.
I charged at him with every ounce of strength in my body. Every smile, every word he had uttered seized me like venom and the hatred raged through my blood. I grabbed his arm as tightly as I could and my mother grabbed the knife. She screamed at him, whilst I punched and kicked till I was blue in the face. Ben only stood and watched.
The train was about to depart. Perhaps this was my fault? I should have stopped my mother becoming involved with him. I should not have left her in that house with him. The final whistle went and I took a step forward about to get on the train and leave, however a tap on my shoulder held me back. I spun round and there was Ben, standing awkwardly with blood seeping from his lip.
‘Don’t go, your mother needs you...I need you’, he said pleadingly.
For Victoria's biography see her other story, A Good Eye.