Born to Fight Read Free Page B

house.The weird thing is that Mum used to laugh along with us, screaming at the people on the street. That was some crazy shit.
    We didn’t know what was happening to us was bad. We were kids, and had only ever lived in a household where up was down and wrong was right. All we knew was that Dad was away and there wasn’t any food.
    Dad came back pretty quickly, after Mum offered Victoria a new bicycle to shut up about the whole thing. I remember we all piled into the car to go and pick him up from the bus stop down at the shops.
    We all wanted to see the old man, except Victoria of course. When I first saw him, I felt sorry for him. He had hollow eyes, and a lonely, sad way about him. I’d never seen him like that before.
    As soon as he got into the car, though, he slowly started to become himself again, and after a few weeks life pretty much went back to how it had been before, except that Dad lost his job and there was even less food.
    Although we were usually in a state of friction, there were some rare moments of fraternity in that house. Steve and John, older and bigger than me, wanted to protect me and especially my sister, even though they didn’t really have the capacity. I think that’s what fucked them up, and broke something inside their heads.
    The old man was God in that house, with a wrath that could equal any ancient, vengeful deity. As little kids there was no defying that. John disappeared into himself and became a quiet, brooding, sometimes morose and often dangerous teenager. Steve started showing signs of being mental. That was what it was called then, ‘mental’. Mental wasn’t a disease, and there weren’t different types of mental, it was just a binary that you’d better fucking try to avoid being on the wrong side of, like being gay, or being dead.
    Dad wouldn’t suffer a mental son, but when he was twelve it all bubbled over for Steve. He couldn’t help but talk nonsense to himself, usually quietly, because if Dad caught him he’d cop a mighty wailing, but sometimes loudly and maniacally. Much later Steve would be diagnosed with schizophrenia. Maybe it was because he had his head slammed into the wall one too many times. I’m no doctor, but I do know about people getting smashed in the head.
    At that time, though, the one who was quickly starting to slide away from life was Victoria. Everything that was happening to her had become too much. All that torture, all the shame – she couldn’t live with it anymore.
    Vic wanted to get away from existence and wherever oblivion could be found – booze, pills, petrol, solvents – she’d go there with no hesitation. She was heading to thedarkest of cul-de-sacs until, at fifteen, she found an avenue of escape. And it wasn’t one within, but without.
    Initially she looked for ways to extend her time away from home. The school day finished at 3 pm, and when she came home Dad would usually be waiting for her, checking her pants, saying that if any of the boys at school ever had their way with her, there’d be hell to pay. After that he’d often exert his dominance, like an animal.
    Victoria thought that if she could get to 5 or 6 pm, and if the threat of boys at school was removed, perhaps things might go differently for her. With Dad’s consent she quit school and took a job as a machinist at a factory. From there a plan took form.
    With money she could escape and get her own place. She wasn’t able to keep any of the money she earned at the factory, though, as her wages went straight into Dad’s bank account. But maybe she could do some extra hours, and the company would allow her to have that money go into another account?
    Her work agreed. The escape was on. Victoria worked, earned, found a room and set a date. Then, just before she was about to leave, the old man found her second bank book. You probably know enough about the old man now to know how he reacted – but Victoria held fast. She was too close to give up.
    Eventually Dad