Being so young I had no idea why I was so afraid of the dark, nor why I hated being in my bedroom quite as much as I did. I didn’t question why I felt like this, I just accepted, this was life, I assumed everyone felt the same. It was to be many years later I realised that that was most definitely not the case. At this point I should explain I was brought up in a very Christian household, although looking back, my mother never went to church on a regular basis. She would only attend the family services where there was no communion. I was brought up to fear God and his punishments. Everything was very old testament, Jesus and his great love for people was not exactly frowned upon, but not given much airtime either, because after all, look what happened to him. God had given him the ultimate punishment of death. The bit where he rose from the dead and was given everlasting life was brushed under the carpet somewhat. No, God was to be feared, very much like my father was. This all seeing, all knowing being, that was all around me at all times, scared the hell out of me…. figuratively speaking. It also, rather perversely, gave me the need to question everything, this was to be my ultimate downfall. Even now I still have questions. I have left it too late to find out the truth. The real truth. I just have my mother’s version of the truth. Which, if I am honest, must be fairly close to the truth, as it shows her in a very bad light, which is not something she would admit to freely. She was afraid I had been told the whole story and as I said earlier when I brought the subject up and asked awkward questions she had to come up with something very close to the truth. I had actually only been told the year when my Godfather died. The fascinating back story my mother told was news to both of us, but I shall get to that later.

I started Sunday school around the same time my sibling was born. The story goes, the older of the two spinsters who ran it, called upon my mother one afternoon and asked if I would like to join. I don’t remember this, but when asked if I would like to take up the offer, I agreed it would be fun. What an odd thing to ask a child of just four, who had no experience of ever being anywhere without her parents or grandparents, but this was to be the first of many opportunities my mother took to free herself of me. All of them would be linked to the church, so in essence, it appeared, I was a lovely, well behaved, God fearing child. When in reality I was scared. Forced into submission by the awful threat of God’s punishment, I never did get to the bottom of what that was, but just the thought of it was enough to keep me quiet. Every Sunday, the older spinster would call for me and we would walk, not a particularly long way, to the younger spinsters house, then on to church. I am going to refrain from using names, places etc. wherever I am able to, as these would have to be false and the story wouldn’t sound right to me. I am not writing this to lay blame at anyone’s feet, no, I am writing this more for me. To try and unpack what really happened, to make sense of something that very few people knew about. Gradually, year by year I am fitting the pieces of the puzzle together. There will always be pieces missing though. People have died, without ever speaking of what happened. I, by my own selfish quest for carnal gratification, during lockdown, may have changed the course of history. By my still constant need to question everything, I may have blown new life into something that should have been left to rest, if not in peace, at least forgotten in the bottom of a very dark cupboard.

Anyway, back to Sunday school. I enjoyed it. We listened to a lot of Bible stories, did some colouring, sang hymns and ended with a prayer. We then did the reverse of the morning’s walk and I was delivered back home, by which time my father had left for the main church service. I think he must have travelled to church in the car, because we never saw him on our walks home from Sunday school and I never saw him arrive at the church, so began my systematic indoctrination, a constant drip, drip of veiled threats, disguised as friendly teachings. Very quickly I learnt, I must put others before myself. Each day I had to say my prayers, to give thanks for everything I had and to pray for those less fortunate than myself. Fair enough, but it appeared I was the only one doing this. I was putting others before myself, but nobody was putting me first. I was the one constantly in trouble for tiny childish things, knocking over my drink at the table, not finishing my dinner….that was a great sin, I was constantly being told of the poor starving children in Africa who would be grateful for my dinner. I had no concept of other countries, of time or space, of distance or size. I did know that if they wanted my meal of gristle, tinned carrots and peas, then they could have it. However, I quickly learnt that giving it to them was not actually an option and a punishment would be meted out for my insolence. The favourite one was a fair few smacks on my behind then being sent to my bedroom.

A bedroom, the one place in the house that should be special to a child. Where they have their special things, where they should feel safe, where nothing will harm them. It should most definitely not be filled, by want of a better word, ghosts. Ghosts that have made it clear the room is theirs and no one else is welcome. Please don’t be fooled into thinking these were harmless, see through apparitions in old style clothing. I know I have described how they were dressed, but I couldn’t see them, I felt them, they were the shapes I saw on the walls when there was no light to make shadows, the feelings of absolute terror I felt when waking up abruptly in the dark, they were the touch I felt in-between, but just lower than, my shoulder blades. A firm pushing, twisting to and fro, maybe a finger. I can not move away from it, the feeling grows and stays even after I have woken up. I have felt this a few times in adulthood as well. It leaves my whole body cold, shaking and the pain, if I can call it that, is impossible to describe. It is a feeling, no more than that, as no one is with me when it happens, it is so real, yet it can not be so.

I told my mother of what was happening, each time she told me I was just dreaming. Even if I had been dreaming, was it not a really disturbing thing for a young child to dream of such things she had no knowledge of? I was forbidden to speak of it to anyone, I was told I was lying and God punished liars. My door was now firmly closed again at night and no light was left on. Living deep in the country there were no street lights, I didn’t have a torch, or anything that lit up. My only source of light was the moon and the stars. I blamed my broken sleep for my bad behaviour, because I honestly had no other explanation back then. Who in their right mind, however old, misbehaves on purpose, when they know what the consequences will be? I know differently now. I know a child starved of attention will try to grab attention in any way they can. Most commonly through bad behaviour, especially if they believe a sibling is taking the attention away from them. Even if they are being punished by a parent, they have taken the attention away from their rival sibling.

I have no memories of my baby sibling. I do not remember a baby in the house, a toddler in the highchair. My first memory is of my mother, sibling and myself walking back from town. I was walking, my sibling was in the pushchair, so he would have been around two and I would have been six. We met a friend of my mother’s outside a sweetshop. We both had a bag of sweets. As my mother and her friend chatted I heard her say “Oh, yes, he will only have one, after offering them to everyone. Meike, will just eat the whole bag”………Even to this day I am transported back to outside that sweetshop. To the confusion I felt about my bag of sweets, was I not supposed to eat them?. I recognised from my mother’s tone, I had done wrong. I stuffed my hands in my coat pockets and scuffed the ground with my shoe. This only made the situation worse and within seconds I was struck on the shoulder and told to take my hands out of my pockets and stand still. My mother apologised to her friend and I was marched the remaining mile home at a very brisk pace. When my father came home the tale was retold and I was given the usual punishment of a few smacks and sent to my room. To again rum the gauntlet of my ghosts.