New start, no chance.

Nearing the end of my 8th year, my father got a job in a different city. It was a long way across the country and involved a big move. Our family packed up our belongings and my father, my Mum, our dog and I set off on the long journey in our pickup truck. We stopped along the way as the drive was long and tiring but the following day we arrived.

Our new home was Cape Town and as we headed over Sir Lowry's Pass, my Mum asked my father to park up so I could take in the view. I had been there before when I was three years old but I could not remember it. It was beautiful. Nearby you could see the shimmering sea at Gordon's Bay and the Strand and in the distance you could see Cape Town and Table Mountain. That afternoon we visited a minister we knew and I had fun playing with his daughters. Our dogs played together. My Mum had a relaxing time in the garden catching up with the minister's wife, a close old friend of hers. The men had disappeared to chat in the study.

We left their house after supper and ventured to our hotel to stay the night. I thought this was a real treat. I could not ever remember staying in a hotel so I was excited. It was a night I would never forget. As soon as the door was shut and the world was locked outside, my father turned into what could only be called a raging maniac. The aggression, anger and viciousness that spilled out of his whole being was terrifying. We were in one small room with a double bed. I had to sleep on the floor as I was never allowed in my parents' bed...ever. [Even when I was very sick, I always had to stay in my own bed. Sometimes my Mum would lie next to me but mostly I was on my own.]

But there was no chance of rest or sleep that night as my father was in a tormented fury. The sounds coming out of him were thunderous and deafening, I had seen him in rages many times before but this one was the worst. My Mum was trying her best to calm him down but nothing would help. The dog was in the truck overnight and I was glad about that as I think my father may have hurt him if he had tried protecting my Mum and me. I remember uncontrollably sobbing whilst cowering in a foetal position in the corner of the room opposite the door. I really wanted to get out of that room but the bed was in the way and the door was locked. There was another reason I could not escape. My body was shaking with fear, I had wet myself when he hit me and I could not move as my body had tensed up. I had known fear in relation to him many times but this time it was on a whole new level.

He shouted and screamed at us incessantly for hours and hours. This was in the early seventies and no one came to help. They must have heard him but they did nothing. I would hope someone would have tried to help if that happened today.

I do not remember the rest of the night. I remember walking out of that hotel in the morning with my father marching ahead as usual like nothing had happened and my Mum and I tiptoeing out after him with our heads hanging down in shame. I wondered if his exaggerated rage would become part of our lives in this new city. If so, I wanted to go back to my old friends and the school I had just left behind.

I found out much later that the minister had told him he would not be going to work in the big city church that he favoured but instead he would be the minister at two much smaller suburban churches instead. That had caused his crazy rage. He had managed to hold it in at the time with the minister but vented his explosive fury on my Mum and I as soon as the rest of the world was locked out.

I still feel the terrified anquish in my stomach as I write this. I can also see the image of the room and the three of us within it. He was like a wild animal with huge scary eyes, a scarlet-coloured screwed up face and twisted mouth & hands. My Mum was a trembling wreck with a little mouse voice held up by the wall and I was squeezing myself as tiny as I could into the corner of the room so I could be as far away from him as possible.

PS The hotel was in a distant part of town that I never got to know. About twenty five years later, I went back to that building and forged a wonderful, new happy memory of the place. My husband and I got married there surrounded by love and happiness with family and friends. <3