Tainted Love by Hope Daniels & Morag Livingstone

Author:Hope Daniels & Morag Livingstone [Daniels, Hope and Livingstone, Morag]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

PART THREE

SECURE

Hope. 1999.

I’m shattered after my day at the CAB, but still I go back to my files and look at my life.

Mr D – was himself in care from age three to sixteen. Unhappy childhood. No experience of being parented.

As I slowly read these files and my notes again and again, I receive confirmation that the things I thought were secret were already known. I research and research the files and, despite only finding pain in the truth revealed when all I was looking for was solace, I carry on.

My parents were offered help to stop drinking, support in how to care for us, but they were addicts and they chose to live with addiction. Like a disease, what power addiction must have? They chose addiction over us.

I take notes to help me remember and, when I look at them again in the cold light of day, this only serves to remind me that my parents were offered help, when I assumed they had not been.

Shit! They refused help for their addictions. Why did neither of my parents care enough to fight their addiction and learn to care for us?

Reading the files again reinforces this.

My parents cared more about their addiction than they did about us.

It’s here in black and white, Mr and Mrs D unable to cope or support the development of their children. They turn up drunk to Social Services meetings, to court, telling the authorities what they think of them for taking their children. For keeping them.

But they didn’t take us. I walked into Stokie nick and insisted that me and my brothers weren’t going home any more. Home was attacked. Home was not safe. I needed to protect us.

Sitting back on my knees, the realisation of what I’ve just read runs through my body. Tear-filled eyes overflow and my pain finds another deeper level to burrow inside of me.

Wine flows into me, trying to fill the confused, empty void that, no matter what I seem to do, soon finds itself isolated and alone again.

Yuck, it’s warm. Do I care? No, I don’t. Finish this, then bed.

Maybe if I sort the papers by location it will help me find the answers I’m looking for.

I pull all the piles together and start again. The beige carpet, with small red and black triangles scattered equally across it, is once again revealed, but not for long.

I spread out my family’s history. It is overwhelming, but still I go on.

Somewhere in here is the answer. Was I a disgusting child? Did the staff hate me? How do I keep my kids with me? I must keep my kids with me.

Tonight I read the locations in my head as I place one piece of paper on top of another, to make new piles showing the places my family lived:

Hamilton Road, Hackney, Calakow House Secure Unit. What? This isn’t a file about me. Oh my God! This is about Mum.

I read quickly taking it in. Mum – Calakow House Secure Unit as a teenager.

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