Tash's Story

Natasha’s birth was a really big event. Mum said that four boys was enough. It was a shock to find herself pregnant again five years later, but having a girl made it all worthwhile.

It was difficult for Tasha’s mother to look after the new baby, as well as four growing, energetic boys and her husband. She always seemed to be doing several things at once, but when the boys were at school and there was just her and Natasha, she had more time to enjoy looking after her. However, Tasha didn’t seem to stay a baby for long.

Once she could walk she got into all kinds of mischief and Mum had to be on her toes. It was also hard for her to grow up with four brothers who always played so rough.

Sometimes she would cry when she was left out, but when they let her join in, she often got hurt. They always said she was a cry-baby and Mum said if she wanted to play with them she would have to learn to be tougher.

When Tasha started school, Peter and Nick made a big fuss about having to take her, but were secretly proud. Natasha couldn’t get there fast enough. For as long as she could remember, her brothers had always gone off to school; first to the school that Tasha was now at, and then by bus to the big school in town, where Jason and Darren now went.

She couldn’t wait to get home and tell Mum all about it. The novelty didn’t wear off and each day after school, when Mum was cooking dinner, she would sit in the kitchen and tell her about it.

Dad was home more often at the moment. There was less work around for him to do this time of year. He spent hours in his shed out the back, and in the evenings and weekends Natasha would go out and help Dad fix the lawnmower and work on the car. She would sit on Dad’s knee while he listened to the races, and he would give her sips of his beer.

It was fun to be in the shed. There were lots of old cars to hide in, and tyres to roll and all sorts of junk to play with. Her brother Darren was old enough to have his own car now. She would often try and help him but she seemed to only get in the way with Darren. He would yell at her to get away and she would run back to Dad. She could snuggle up against her Dad and his big arms would make her feel very safe. Sometimes when she was snuggling up to him he used to put his hands in her pants and play with her vagina with his big fingers. One day he took her pants right off, unzipped his pants and rubbed his penis up against her. He went funny in the face like it was hurting him, but he didn’t stop. When he did, she felt all wet and sticky on her legs. He told her this was a new way they could have fun together but they had to keep it a secret. It was something special for only the two of them to know about.

School continued to be a place Natasha really liked to be. She liked the work in the classroom but best of all she liked to be outside. She was the best runner out of her whole year at school. She also knew that she was even better than some of the older pupils. She liked her teacher, Mrs Anderson, and often stayed and helped after school to try and please her.

The secret between her and Dad continued. She wasn’t sure why he didn’t want her to tell, but he often reminded her that it was their secret.

Once, when he was rubbing up against her, he started to force his enormous penis inside her vagina. She said it hurt. He told it would hurt for only a little while but it wasn’t just a little while. It hurt for a really long time. She cried and cried.

Afterwards he said he was sorry and held her till she stopped crying, and again reminded her that it was their secret. Natasha didn’t feel like telling anyway. All she wanted to do was hide. Her best hiding place was at the school but that was too far away and it hurt to walk. She knew she couldn’t possibly climb her favourite tree, so she crept into the little wardrobe in her bedroom.

Natasha stopped going out to the shed after that. She didn’t think it was a very nice place anymore. Sometimes when she was hiding she would hear her Dad call, but she pretended she didn’t hear.

Peter was chasing her around the yard one day when she fell and scraped her knee. Dad came and picked her up and carried her into the shed to put a bandage on it. He gave her a cuddle to make it better. He said it had been such a long time since he had had cuddles from her and he wanted a big one. Tasha struggled as Dad forced her to have sex again but was unable to fight against his weight crushing down on her. It hurt just as much as the last time and she said she didn’t want to do this anymore. Dad said it was really nice for him and since she hadn’t told about it, he would make it nice for her too. He would buy her some new roller-skates and maybe even the horse she had always wanted.

Back in her hiding place, Natasha thought about what a big and scary world it was out there. She seemed to be in a world of giants. She often felt as if she had been trampled under their feet. Night times were scary too. Monsters kept coming into her room and she would have to run and run to get away but in spite of going through the motions of running, she often didn’t seem to be able to move. She would go from one place to another to hide but just as she thought she was safe, they would jump out, smiling their wicked smiles, showing their huge yellow teeth, and stretching their awful claws.

She often woke in the night and wanted to go to the toilet. The house was dark and enormous and made horrible creaking noises. The end of the passage seemed miles away.

Sometimes she would creep along it shaking all over, her heart pounding so loudly she knew the monsters would be able to hear it and know she was there. At other times she had wet the bed because she couldn’t bring herself to get up.

Her mother got really angry when this happened, but that only made it worse. Tasha would lie in bed knowing Mum would be angry, but if she got up the monsters would probably grab her before Mum got to her anyway.

Everything seemed so big and overwhelming. During the next few weeks she spent hours in her cosy, warm wardrobe. It was small, only a little bit bigger than her, and it was the only place in the world where she filled up the space.

It was dark in there, and to begin with that had scared her and so after a while she started to take a torch in with her. She knew the light would keep the monsters away. She didn’t really like the dolls and teddies her Dad kept buying her but sometimes when she really wanted some company, she would take them in too.

One time, when Dad was having sex with her in the shed, Darren came in. He stopped suddenly. He moved to the other end of the shed behind his car, but he didn’t go right away. He didn’t say anything to her but she knew he and Dad were talking afterwards.

A few days later, Darren called her to come and hold down the brake pedal for him while he did something to the engine. As soon as she was in the car he told her to move over because he was getting in too. He knew what she and Dad had been doing and it wasn’t fair for Dad to keep her all to himself. Natasha tried to get away, but Darren held onto her. She said she would tell. He told her she’d better not or he would give her the biggest hiding she had ever had.

She didn’t tell, but it didn’t seem long before Jason and Nick knew as well. They wanted to have a turn with her too and made all kinds of threats about what they would do if she didn’t agree.

The family were all at the races on New Year’s Day. It was the first time for ages that they had all gone out together – usually the boys went out with their friends and Mum, Dad and Natasha hardly ever went anywhere these days. No one had made any money and they were all feeling a bit disgruntled. When it was time to go home Natasha started to get in the car but all of a sudden she felt a volcano well up inside her. She knew there was no way she was going to get in the car. The volcano erupted in shrieks and yells.

‘I won’t, I won’t. I am not getting in. You can’t make me’.

The family told her not to be so stupid. It had been a long day and they were tired and wanted to go home. Tasha screamed louder than ever and when Darren and Jason tried to force her to get in, she bit and kicked and scratched. She screamed at them the whole way home, ‘you’re always hurting me, I am sick of being hurt, I hate you, I’ve had enough.’ Mum told her not to be so silly and Dad, Peter, Jason and Nick all winked at each other and told her to stop all of the imagining she was doing. Only Darren stayed silent.

Tasha sobbed the whole way home.

The volcano didn’t go away. Sometimes it even erupted at school. Often something quite little caused the eruption. Tasha knew she was being unreasonable but then explosions just seemed to take over her. She spent a lot of time being sent outside the classroom door and having to stay in after school. Being kept in didn’t always seem like a punishment though. In spite of the fact that Ms Shaw gave her extra work to do, she was often kind to her and Natasha felt good inside when Ms Shaw praised her work. She was trying not to think about next year when she would be at secondary school and wouldn’t see Ms Shaw any longer.

Eruptions became more frequent at home as well. One day she heard Mum telling Auntie Norma, ‘I never thought I would have a problem child like Tasha.’ Dad talked about ‘Tasha’s little fits’ and Darren and Jason and Nick made comments like ‘danger zone area’, ‘approach with caution’ or ‘beware of missiles’. She felt like firing missiles and often she did. She hurled abuse at them and sometimes objects as well. Once she threw an empty wine bottle from the recycling at Jason. It smashed into the wall and Jason got glass fragments in his face. Mum came running and screamed at her how hateful and horrible she was. Tasha spent hours cleaning the floor and the wall. She kept cutting herself as she picked through the mess of glass, blood and tears.

Mostly though, she was really scared of the boys. They kept threatening what they would do if she ever told. She knew they weren’t kidding. They hurt her enough as it was.

The night before she started high school, Nick had kept coming into her room. She had had a horrible nightmare and had woken in the early hours of the morning dripping with sweat and shaking all over. In the morning, when she was already feeling really uptight about school, Darren and Jason had started giving her a hard time.

She left the house carrying her new backpack, a present that Dad had given her. She felt very angry with her new bag because it was from Dad, and arrived at school feeling angry. Right from the first day she got a reputation for being a trouble-maker.

The new school was huge and unfamiliar. She wanted to be somewhere where she filled up the space. All day she felt like a dwarf in a place filled with giants, and thought about her old school and her space in the wardrobe.

She hadn’t heard the teacher speaking to her, and by the time she realised it was her he was talking to, he was staring at her very angrily. ‘What did you say?’ she asked. This seemed to really annoy him. It was like he was on her back as well and that was definitely one load too many. The volcano overtook her. She snapped back at him and then stormed out of the classroom before the volcano had a chance to cause major destruction.

Having a reputation was difficult. Some kids tested her to see how tough she really was and others didn’t want to have anything to do with her. Teachers expected her to be tough, so often jumped on her before she had even done anything. It meant she constantly had to be angry and defiant. Although it was often a relief to get rid of some of her anger, she felt worse and worse inside.

There was a group of kids though that she fitted with. Only tough kids were a part of this group and Tasha managed to become a member pretty quickly. Together they got their own back by hounding other kids, being super disruptive in class and refusing to show up to detentions.

They hung out together after school as well. They were good at making the people that walked past them feel uncomfortable, they got really good at shoplifting without being caught and could get the teachers to ignore the fact that they were smoking outside school.

After a while they met up with some of the older kids who had fake ID’s and could get them alcohol and some drugs too. Down by the river, after school, they would spend hours lying in the long grass, drinking and smoking weed. This meant that Tasha often missed the last bus home.

Nick and Jason had their own cars now too, and sometimes they would give her a ride. ‘One good turn deserves another,’ they would say. At other times she wouldn’t go home at all and often didn’t go to school either. This caused enormous fights but she didn’t care.

Being with her friends often felt just as unsafe as being at home. Sometimes fights broke out, especially fights over girls. Bludge needed 30 stiches when Rat had attacked him with a broken bottle for sending too many Snaps to his girl. Taking some of the harder drugs the others had was sometimes scary, but at least her friends cared about her.

Once she’d had a really bad trip on some ecstasy. Even though she knew she must have looked awful, and been really annoying, they hadn’t gone away. When she’d gotten past the trip, she’d been able to appreciate how much they had looked after her. She felt she had found somewhere to belong, a place where she fitted.

The first time one of the boys tried to kiss her, she wanted to throw up. She tried to pull away. He told her not to be such a tease. She had been holding out all this time but he knew that she really wanted him. Sex with him was just the same as with Dad and her brothers, but she had got used to blocking it out by now. Having sex with Pox wasn’t what she wanted, but it was nice to have someone around who cared about her.

By now, Tasha was away from school more than she was there. One day the Education Welfare Officer called round to see her parents. Mum was furious with him for checking up and interfering, and furious with Tasha for causing the family’s privacy to be disrupted. The arguments got worse and worse every time Natasha didn’t arrive home.

Her parents started to lock her in her room. This stopped Tasha getting out but it didn’t stop Dad, Jason and Nick from getting in. Tasha started barricading the door with furniture but this made them more determined still, and Natasha angrier than ever.

One night when she was really furious she put her fist through the window. She cut herself badly getting out but she didn’t care. She decided she was never going to be imprisoned again.

Being on the run wasn’t easy. It was hard to find places to stay. Some nights were spent in the open, sometimes there was not enough food and when there were no drugs to relieve the cold and the hunger, Tasha was miserable. Having Rat to look after her helped though. She felt uncomfortable whenever she saw Pox, but, after all, he hadn’t struggled too hard to keep her once Rat had made his intentions clear. Belonging to Rat felt safe. When he put his arms around her Natasha felt like she fitted in. She didn’t like having sex with Rat, but maybe it didn’t matter. She already felt used and dirty. It was like wiping dirty hands on a white towel – the first time, you ruined it, but the second and third time and times after that it didn’t matter anymore.

Besides, it was what she was used to doing – trading her body in order to get some caring. It wasn’t the kind of caring she really wanted, but it seemed the only kind she could get and some was better than none.

The day the police caught up with her, she knew she hadn’t been as careful avoiding them as she should. Rat, knowing how good she was at escaping, couldn’t believe she hadn’t done it deliberately. She wasn’t altogether sure herself.

When her parents drove away from the girls’ centre, she felt amazingly lost and lonely. She hadn’t really expected them to welcome her back with open arms, but as much as she’d tried not to let herself hope, some part of her though they would take her back when they saw how sad and miserable she was. As far ahead as she could see, in whatever direction she looked, there was nothing but an enormous unfamiliar sea. She felt no bigger than a piece of seaweed being tossed about in the ocean. Waves washed over her, battering her, and then there were periods of calm.

Cold, empty, unending calm.

That feeling lasted most of the first week. Natasha didn’t even think about her volcano. It seemed to be extinct. She was really surprised when it suddenly erupted and she shrieked and swore at one of the staff members. Afterwards, she felt bad, but also relieved in a funny kind of way.

Overwhelming anger was really scary, but anything was better than the nothingness of the past week. During the calm times the staff tried to talk to Natasha. They wondered about her anger, but as soon as they started asking her questions, she instantly became angry and they gave up. She hated people prying and questioning her. She had never given anything away when her family had tried to check up on her, and she certainly wasn’t going to do so now.

She hated the staff. She fought with the girls too, but at times when the staff were being a real pain, the girls stuck up for each other. Often groups of them went on the run together. When they were caught, it always meant being locked in the secure room which she hated, but at the time the freedom seemed worth it.

At other times she was locked up on her own for several hours because she had got out of control. Staff members would come to bring her meals. They would often try to talk to her about what made her so angry, but Natasha said nothing.

One day, when Ms Latta came back to collect her plate, she didn’t go away immediately, but just sat with Tasha. It felt kind of nice, but after a while Tasha snapped, ‘Why don’t you just say something?’

Ms Latta said ‘I wasn’t sure you wanted to talk.’

Natasha said, ‘I don’t’ and turned her back.

Ms Latta said, ‘It is okay with me if you don’t. When I am really hurt I don’t always feel like talking either’.

Tasha was startled. She suddenly wanted to cry. She didn’t think anyone could possibly have known about the hurt. How could Ms Latta know when she had worked so hard to hide it? Tears sprang up in her eyes. She had an overwhelming urge to share the pain with Ms Latta, but as soon as she let it surface she became really scared. The hurt was too big to bring out into the open. It would overwhelm her and probably Ms Latta too. She quickly blinked back the tears and hoped Ms Latta hadn’t noticed.

‘What hurt?’ she said.

It was several more months before Natasha was able to really talk about the hurt. She started to a couple of times, but got scared. She quickly became angry. That helped to stop the hurt taking over her. It also kept Ms Latta at a distance and that was important because letting her get too close would mean she might not be able to control the urge to talk about the hurt.

When it did happen, Natasha hadn’t meant to say so much. It was just after her parents had visited. They talked about how good things were at home. Tasha felt sure things must have changed because she wasn’t there. Sometimes they phoned and gave hints about missing her and wanting her back but whenever they came to visit, they made it clear that she was too much trouble and they couldn’t go through all that again. Tasha wasn’t all that sure she even wanted to go home now, but whenever they left, the sea of loneliness seemed to take her over.

She was still feeling this way when Ms Latta came along and all of a sudden she found a flood of words and tears pouring out all over the place. Ms Latta, put her arm around her shoulders and after the words and tears had stopped they sat that way for a long time.

Afterwards Natasha did feel very exposed and vulnerable. At times she really did think the hurt might overwhelm her.

During the next few days, however, Ms Latta often sought Tasha out when she was on her own. Sometimes they just sat together but at other times Natasha did manage to talk about how awful she felt – misunderstood, rejected, and unwanted. She could understand how her family felt though. It wasn’t surprising they didn’t like her. She didn’t like herself either.

Gradually she stopped feeling so overwhelmed and strangely enough, Ms Latta didn’t seem overwhelmed either.

At first she kept expecting her to say ‘that is enough, Tasha,’ or to rush off because she was busy.

She was less angry nowadays too, although at times there were still flare-ups.

She had become angry with Mr Henderson one day and had started to throw the book she was holding across the room. Mr Henderson had grabbed her and held her arm. The feeling of being pinned down was terrifying and Tasha fought like a wild cat.

Later, Ms Latta commented on how angry Tasha had been with Mr Henderson. She said she had noticed that Tasha often gave the male social workers a hard time and she had been wondering about that. ‘They piss me off,’ said Natasha.

When she thought about what Ms Latta had said, she knew she was right. Some of the women staff members got up her nose too but she didn’t react in quite the same way. The more she thought about it, the more she realised she didn’t like men at all. They were all the same. You could never feel safe when they were around. Once, being with Dad had felt safe. She had really trusted him and loved him but she hated what he had done to her. If you couldn’t trust the man who was supposed to look after you the most, how were you supposed to trust any other men?

She hadn’t really explained this to Ms Latta. At the time, she hadn’t been able to explain it to herself. She wondered if she should tell her. She wasn’t sure she could. Ms Latta might tell her family she had told, and the storms would start all over again. She also wondered how it would be for Ms Latta if she knew. Tasha knew she couldn’t cope with it, she couldn’t even bear to think about what had happened. Ms Latta might not be able to cope either.

On the other hand, Ms Latta hadn’t been overwhelmed when she had shared her hurt. It had felt good to know someone else understood.