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(aka Bike) Part 1647 by Angharad Copyright © 2012 Angharad
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Tempted, though I was to poison Simon’s fish, I decided against it–I might need him to babysit. So about forty minutes later we had baked salmon with new potatoes dripping with butter–actually, it was low fat stuff–and a green salad which included chopped spring onions and chives. Simon and Tom grumbled–perhaps their colons don’t need roughage but mine certainly does, and I’m the cook.
After dinner, Henry phoned to say Jacquie was on her way home and he’d just wined and dined her. I had some questions for her–sadly. Ones which wouldn’t be pleasant for her to answer but I needed confirmation of the two names I had.
Simon and I were chatting with Stella and Daddy, Julie was in the bath prior to going out and the kids were watching telly. “So who are these two monsters, then?” demanded Simon.
“What monsters?” I had no idea what he was talking about.
“The two who abused Jacquie,” he rolled his eyes and I clenched my fists instead of saying something I might regret.
“The priest was Fr Daniel Donleavy, the doctor was, Dr Dennis O’Connor.”
“Do we know anything about them beyond their names?” asked Simon.
“No, other than they were at the unit at the same time as Jacquie.”
“Do we know where they are now?” asked Stella.
“Not as yet, Jim is working on it.”
“Are they still alive?” Simon asked a reasonable question.
“No, I know nothing other than the names–age or anything else is yet to be discovered.”
“Isn’t there a copy of the Medical Directory in the local reference library?”
“There’s probably one online, somewhere?” Simon answered his sister’s question.
“If there was, I suspect Jim will find it, of course, he might not be practising any longer,” I mused.
“It’s only seven or eight years ago,” Simon challenged, “So unless he was elderly, isn’t he likely to need to make a living.”
“Why don’t ye jes’ wait until Jacquie comes hame?” I’d almost forgotten that Daddy was here he was so quiet.
“Tea, anyone?” I decided to busy myself.
“Yes, I’ll help you make it,” Stella followed me to the kettle. “He’s a bit crabby today,” she remarked about Tom.
“I think he’s tired.”
“I’m awa’ tae ma study,” Tom rose and left the kitchen presumably to have a glass of whisky. Simon reached for the bottle of wine and poured the remnants of it into his glass.
There was very little so he asked for a cuppa. Stella and I carried them back to the table. He thanked me for his, then added, “If we assume these are the correct names and we find the characters using them, what d’we do next?”
“I’ve got Jim looking for evidence, if there are any other victims of their abuse, it might make life easier.”
“How do we do that?” he asked.
“We don’t, Jim does. If you want to help, you can contribute to his fees, it’s time consuming stuff, looking through records, especially ones he’s not supposed to have access to.”
“Ah, good old bribery and corruption–okay, I’ll split the bill with you. If we get evidence we do what–go to the police?”
“Yes, if they’re not interested we ask Jason about a private case for damages.” I was now looking at a mental list of processes we could follow.
“Aren’t you both forgetting one thing?” Stella said putting her mug down on the table. “Doesn’t this depend upon Jacquie wanting to prosecute these two–she might have to deal with media interest and not consider it’s worthwhile.”
“Yes, I was assuming she’d want to go after them, she might not.” I heard a car pull up into the drive–we were still waiting for parts to repair the gates. I looked out of the window and Jacquie was walking towards the door. The car beeped and drove off.
“Hello,” she said giving me a big hug, “Henry is absolutely lovely, so is Monica.”
“Have you been up in Hampstead, then?”
“Um, and the cook, she’s wonderful–taught me how to make pastry.”
“You heard the news?” I asked her.
“Yes, thank you for dealing with that crazy copper.”
“That’s okay, did you hear that Micky was his son?”
“No I didn’t–oh, no wonder he was so awful. How sad.”
“Yes, it is but that was no reason for him to set you up like he did. Anyway, he can’t hurt you anymore.”
“He’s not dead is he?” she looked shocked.
“No, he’s under investigation and they have loads to go on.”
I made her a cup of tea, and she sat next to Simon. “So you enjoyed yourself at the family home, then?” he asked her.
“Oh yeah, it was brilliant, Monica took me out clothes shopping, and Henry took us out for dinner to a wonderful restaurant–I had a fab time.”
“Tell me,” he continued, and I had a feeling I knew what was coming, “do you remember the name of the priest who assaulted you and the doctor who performed the operation?”
“Why?” she asked and looked very anxious.
“Because we’d like to help bring a prosecution against both of them.”
“I hate them,” she said burst into tears and ran upstairs, leaving me holding her mug of tea as she went past.
“Well done, Si,” Stella shook her head.
“What did I do wrong?” he asked shrugging.
“You could have been a bit more gentle–she’s only just come back from hiding from oppression and you walk straight into it with your size twelve boots.”
“Oh c’mon, she’s had a wonderful time, Dad and Monica have spoilt her to death.”
“So couldn’t you have let her have one more night of indulgence.”
“We need to find these bastards so they don’t touch anyone else ever again.” He stood up in disgust, “What is it with you women? You claim men are the weaker sex–the human race would have died out with Adam if men had to have babies–and all that shit, then just run off in tears as soon as the pressure’s on?”
I didn’t wait for Stella’s response, I went up the stairs after Jacquie, still clutching the mug of tea. I knocked and entered her room, she was sitting on her bed weeping, her face in her hands. I placed the tea on the bedside cupboard.
“I don’t want to see them again, Mummy, they did horrible things to me–I’m frightened of them–I hate them.” I sat beside her and put my arm round her and she sobbed on my shoulder.
“If you don’t want to face them, you don’t have to. Simon was a bit heavy handed but he wants to clear your name and prosecute those who abused you. He wants to help, Jacquie.”
“I don’t want anything to do with it, it frightens me, Mummy–I don’t want them near me ever again.”
“Okay, darling–I’ll tell him.”
“I’m sorry, but I couldn’t bear to see either of them ever again–I’d rather die.”
“Now, now, I thought we had an arrangement about such things.”
“I’d kill myself before I’d let them near me again, I mean it, Mummy, I will.”
“Message received loud and clear, sweetheart, now drink your tea and have an early night.”
“They won’t come here, will they?” she looked terrified.
“Who, sweetheart?”
“Those men, they won’t find me, will they?”
“No they won’t and besides, you have Simon and me here to protect you–but I suspect they’re probably more afraid of you at the moment.”
“I doubt it,” she said quietly and shuddered.
“Promise me you won’t do anything, and I’ll promise to protect you.”
She gave me a strange staring glance and nodded.
“Is that a promise, Jacquie?”
“Yes,” she sighed and nodded again.
“And I promise to do all I can to protect you from those men.”
“Thank you, Mummy.” She hugged me.
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Comments
Easy As Falling Off A Bike pt 1647
Such a damaged soul needs lots of TLC to even BEGIN to heal
May Your Light Forever Shine
Have to agree with that
But sometimes she seems to be on the level of the kids and other times she reminds Cathy that she's an adult. Guess she needs a little of both.
Time for the Phalanx Vulcan on the property corners?
I just can't imagine her having to endure one more thing. It is unimaginable to me that those two would ever face the courts. Perhaps one of their victims will off them?
Gwendolyn
Pursuing the perpetrators
It's quite understandable that Jacquie doesn't want to see them again - the same could probably be also said of any other victims Jim manages to track down.
If there's a means of bringing them to justice (either criminal or professional - as in GMC) without the victims needing to attend court or be in the same area of town as the perpetrators and without revealing the current names and/or addresses of anyone, find it and pursue it!
As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!
I would
I would pursue them with a lorry. Street justice, you know?
That's four times in this one episode
that Jacquie has used the 'M' word. Could this mean that she becomes child No. 8?
And you wonder why we keep coming back for more 'Bike'?
Susie
Well it makes sense
Emotionally she has really never grown beyond that five year old little girl *sigh*.
Certainly she has not been nourished emotionally by any people around her up to this point. Consequently she is as emotionally needy as any five year old and ask for a mothering relationship is the only way she can be assured of what can be expected from her caregiver; defines the parameters and expectations. I doubt any less would not be sufficient for her.
BTW great characterization of Simon as touchy feely consideration and tact seems alien to a lot of men sometimes.
Kim
Regression is fairly common.
Here I'd raised a family of three, and been married for 40 years, and when the end of it all came it was completely unexpected. All of a sudden, I was rejected, and completely unloved and it shattered me completely. At one point my shrink said I had a pre-adolescent emotional age. She also said that I had Borderline Personality Disorder and Submissive Personality Disorder that I had kept submerged for my whole married life.
I must say that in spite of the fact that Jaquie is a construct for the purposes of this story, I believe that this sort of evil mistreatment is more common than I want to think about.
Not being a therapist, I can see her perhaps regressing and it being quite a long process to draw her back out. My heart goes out to her.
Much peace
Gwendolyn
Yep. She's traumatised.
The girl is too traumatised to behave as a 'normal' person would. She's too frightened, too resigned, to disinterested because her expectations of justice are zero. But all importantly it's the fear that continues the destruction after the initial event and the initial damage. Self loathing, zero self esteem, constant self questioning ... is it me? Do I give out some sort of signal? Am I subconsciously inviting abuse. Then there's the reinforcing, self-fulfilliong answers.
The worst aspect of abuse in care is that the 'carers' know just what buttons to push, just what strings to pull; even to the extent of driving the victims to suicide!
Nuff' said Bev. TMI!
Good chapter Angie. Painful but good.
Bev.
And that's...
And, that's how people like that get away with doing so much damage and don't get punished for it. :-(
Perhaps Jacquie will feel differently after she's had a few months in a safe place! I just hope nobody's hurt in the mean time.
Thanks,
Anne
Getting away with it
They get away with it because they are protected. They may be Freemasons, or friends of powerful people. They may, as in Kincora, be the providers of 'entertainment' in the form of children to be raped by visiting powerful people. As in the case of a UK politician, Cecil Parkinson, you can find his illegitimate child and her mother gagged by the courts to avoid embarrassing him. In the case of a certain well-known church, a policy can be applied (this church now has as its head the organiser of that policy) you can have paedophile rapists simply moved to another job in another place where they are free to graze on a whole new shelf of sweets, none of whom are aware of their man of god's more interesting hobbies until it is too late. That particular policy got them into all sorts of trouble with their public liability insurance, because the current man in Rome was actively covering up multiple rape.
That is how so many lives end up ruined. My 'Sweat and Tears' was an attempt at getting some of that evil out onto paper; Angharad, I assume, is mining the same filth, just with more restraint and better words.
Perhaps for the first
time in her life Jacquie is finding out what it means to be with people who care for her. With the sort of life she has experienced so far its little wonder that this fragile flower is not prepared to face the people who caused all of her problems, So given that situation it is quite understandable that Cathy will not do anything to jeopardize any chance of a normal life for Jacquie...
That of course still leaves the problem of what to do with Fr Daniel Donleavy and Dr Dennis O’Connor, Like Cathy says chances are they have done the same to other poor unfortunates, So lets hope Jim finds some evidence, People like that should never be allowed to get away with their crimes and should be made to understand the sort of fear they once caused in those poor defenceless children....
Kirri
Another kid,
Cathy keeps collecting them.