Those layers and layers of toilet roll didn't protect me from any of the monsters who were in my life.

Those layers and layers, pushed me out of the hands of one monster, right into the hands of another.

"What is this?" My mum held the wrinkled up toilet paper in her clenched up fist. "What is this, Mary Rose?" Again, she demanded to know why those layers had fallen out from my knickers.

All I had been doing was getting into my nightie, ready for bed. As I had slowly pulled down my knickers, the tissue had fallen down onto the bedroom carpet.

I still feel that fear.

The way that my mum was questioning me, filled me with absolute dreadful fear.

Mum was angry, and my angry mum frightened me.

The more frightened she had made me, the less I could speak. Mum would get this terrifying look in both of her eyes, it was malicious and intimidating. When she looked at you that way, there was never no going back.

"Why do you have tissue down your knickers? Tell me, tell me now?! Through evilly clenched teeth, she had demanded me to speak up.

But I couldn't.

I couldn't utter one single word.

I was afraid.

Afraid of so much.

As young as I was, deep down, I think I always knew that what Ivan had been doing was wrong, and I couldn't tell my angry mother about how many times he had done that wrong.

And worst of all, something in my mum's scowling blue eyes, had told me that she already knew. In those scowling, narrowed blue eyes, I saw her shame. Detached and dark, it was there.

So frozen was I by my mum's anger and her unsaid shame, I don't actually remember her hitting me. I only remember that cold look in her eyes. That cold and unfeeling knowingness...that's all I can remember.

That night, my mother had beaten me so badly, she ended up confiding in one of her closest friends. It was that close friend, who had scooped me up in her worried arms and carried me to my nan and my gramp who lived just down the street.

It was to be the first time that I would feel truly safe. Truly secure.

It would also be the first time that I realised that I now had somewhere to run to.

That night, my nan told my mum that she would be keeping me. At least until she felt that it was safe for me to be back with her aggressive daughter again. When nan said that, I think she had drawn the battle lines between herself and my mum. Over the years, they would argue a lot over me.

But on the night of that beating, and all of what took place immediately after it, I honestly don't remember.

It has been blacked out.

Permanently numbed.

The snippets of information that I do know, were eventually told to me by nan, and sometimes, even by mum herself.

All of my memories became such fleeting memories—usually, only of the good kind.

After that beating, some things did change.

Ada Woodcock died of cancer.

I never saw Ivan again.

And my dad started being around a little more.

Nan must have told him about the beating, because I do remember him warning my mum about hitting me. He still wanted to have a physical relationship with my mother, so I think he may have used me as his reason for needing to be around a little more often.

That way, he could keep an eye on my welfare and also have sex with my mum. The thing is though, there were many other men who wanted to have a physical relationship with my mum....and she would be perfectly happy to oblige them.

After spending some time with my nan and my gramp, and being kept a very close eye on, I was eventually returned to my mother. But something in me had also changed. I now knew that I had some outside support. Somewhere, that I could run to. That gave me confidence. It gave me a not-too-distant security.

If I wasn't happy, I'd run.

If I was being hurt, I'd run.

I now knew that.

Mum, now also knew that.

And that knowing that quietly existed between my mother and I, made the seeds of our mutual resentment begin to slowly take root in our mother/daughter relationship.