I can’t get out

After a short stay in the temporary care home for a while, the wise old people at social services decided it was time to give my mother her umpteenth time to show her parental skills. My memories of that last stay with her were again not the best. I remember what you could call my step father, a huge man always tanned and weightlifting when he was home huge hands but a soft nature. He worked in the parks department  for the council so lucky guy was out of the house at least. My older brother was visually like me just a bit bigger and my year younger sister reminded me of crystal tips off the television with her curly ringlet hair and my younger step brother who  was just one or two at the time. The tower block was a maze of steps and corridors and the usual lovely smell of urine in them. So routine was like any ordinary child school home and play if we were allowed but with the mental and physical abuse when you got home. My brother and i shared the same room and every morning were locked in till mother came home from her early shift from work. Which i suppose wouldn’t be allowed these days, which lead to another reason for a beating, i want to go to the toilet, which was easy if you wanted to wee, you just went out the window, but what if you wanted the other well, did you go in your pants at 6 years old and get a beating or did you try to have some kind of respect for yourself and try to think of a way to minimize the forth coming abuse you knew was going to come. So the only place was the waste bin in the corner of the room, job done now just sit and wait on the bed for the sound of the front door and then hope beyond hope that it wasn’t that bad and she had been made happy by something. But alas no fear of that. She would walk in and smell it and then once again it would start, may have as well just shit myself as i did anyway. Years later when i met her, the answer to the locked bedroom door was i couldn’t reach the knob, mmm funny that my 7 year old brother couldn’t either and a key was always turned from the other side. But again my burns were caused by me turning on the taps on the bath, god i was a clever baby and must have had arms like Garth. But the penance for going to the toilet in the bedroom was having to wear a nappy on holiday and yes i remember the looks of the kids my age and the finger pointing a fantastic punishment to help with your self esteem and best of all a family photo was taken with me wearing it. I wonder if that was ever put on the mantle piece in preparation for a future girlfriend to ask when was that taken.