Helen Fowler Writer

On a road somewhere outside Perth in 1977, twelve years old.

We are sitting in the car heading home for Edinburgh, not far from Uncle Paul and Auntie Mary’s house in Perthshire, where we earlier had lunch. We left only ten minutes ago, in our ageing Toyota Prius, but, already, currents of anger run through our car and its occupants. As usual, I don’t understand what’s upset Dad but sense it must somehow be my fault. Have I said the wrong thing again?

Paul and Mary’s home is set in the middle of the Perthshire countryside. Behind it are rolling hills; in front are fields, golden and yellow and green and brown. The Boltons live there full time, their children now away at university. Mum had explained to me that Mary thought Paul would do better living further away from ‘other people’. Meaning his much younger girlfriend, who apparently didn’t mind about his size and was still determined to marry him.

In the car, dad is comparing his unhappy lot in life with that of Paul. “Aye, Paul has a gid thing going wi that job. Ah should niver have lift.” Dad sinks into self-absorbed silence, growling to himself.

Mum once told me Uncle Paul was a lecturer whom Dad used to work alongside before he became a librarian. The main thing, she said, was that lecturers earnt more than librarians did.

Back in Edinburgh, Mum had also hinted that Paul was doing awful, unspeakable things to Mary in bed, but I didn’t really understand. Mum was talking about Mary needing an operation, a hissta something, because Paul had been so ‘rough’ with her.

“There are things you’ll only understand as you get older,” Mum had said, looking grim and sounding ominous. I felt scared of whatever lay ahead in life if you had to do things with men that left you needing an operation. Mum had tried to explain: “He’s really very short you see. Very short indeed. Hasn’t ever come to terms with that.” I still didn’t understand. What did being short have to do with it?

Even the marathon sex sessions with creepy Paul and poor Mary weren’t really working, confided Mum, and my mind boggled at the unimaginable cruelty involved. Did women willingly let men hurt them by putting things into them once they were married? Is that what you were meant to do? This was revolting and frightening. It was all very strange.

As a result of their scary-sounding procreation, Mary and Paul had three children; two sons, Peter and Tim, and a daughter, Rose. I had carefully considered both boys as future husbands but felt unsure about them. “Mum, I think I would like to marry Rose when I grow up,” I said. “I don’t want to marry Peter or Tim.” Rose, the eldest, had always been kind to me, didn’t frighten me like her dad did, with his big, bushy eyebrows and strange, foreign drinking implements, and used to buy me cola bottle sweeties and bags of pick’n’mix with chocolate-covered raisins whenever she took me to the shops.

Tim was too short for me; I knew this instinctively, although I had no precise explanation. Peter might have been okay, being tall, but he was sort of brooding and hard to understand. Unhappy. Paul was jealous of him, Mum said, jealous of his own son. Paul kept hurting Peter, Mum added, that was why Peter was so gloomy and wanted to be a policeman when he grew up, even though that could be dangerous work.

In one of those seemingly casual decisions of childhood that would later turn out to decide the course of my life, I privately decided I would only ever marry a man taller than me if I couldn’t marry Rose. Then I wouldn’t get hurt, like poor Mary, and there wouldn’t have to be any furtive, scary, hurried conversations with other women about hissta operations, and how they were the result of Paul being rough with Mary, who was always nice to me when I dried the crockery, and usually even actually thanked me for helping.

At lunch, a tasty affair of chicken Kiev, Paul had got out this strange oddly-shaped Spanish gourd that he’d got on holiday and that you were meant to lift high above your head and pour red wine from into your mouth. I didn’t want wine in my hair and didn’t want to look a fool like the others did when they tried it and wine slopped all over them.

After lunch I worked at learning to ride a bike, lucky enough to do so under the tutelage of Paul himself, still lightly covered in spatterings of red wine from lunch. He even put his hands on my bum to steer me – so thoughtful – and I felt awkward, confused, guilty. I was already taller than him and much, much younger. There must have been something wrong with me for liking this. Paul said he had to guide me with his hands on my bum, there was no other way he could help me. I wasn’t sure if that was true and was too scared to say to get his effing hairy hands off my bum, that he was too old, too short and too ugly for me. And, also, I was quite enjoying the touch, something was changing, coming alive in me, though it felt wrong as well as pleasurable.

Eventually, later that day, I managed at last to ride the bike on my own, cycling along the lane away from the main road, no stabilisers, no other ‘help.’ I did it on my own. It was the only way to get Paul’s hairy hands off me. A pyrrhic victory, yes, but still a victory. Of sorts, at least.