Unseen Darkness

2014 Selina Sra. All rights reserved.

Cover by: WKD Design

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Published by AuthorHouse 03/27/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4918-8152-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-9416-3 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

About the Author

About the Book

1.   Myths and Fairytales

2.   Trick or Treat

3.   Bride for Sale

4.   Olivia’s Web

5.   Heaven and Hell

6.   Big Man’s Chess Game

7.   Keeping Your Enemies Closer

8.   Floating Like a Butterfly, Stinging Like Me

9.   Toni Speed Report v. Her Majesty’s Constabulary

10.   The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

11.   Tribunal

12.   Handshakes and Snakes

13.   Silver Tongues and Lodges

14.   Tribunal: Defence

15.   Tribunal Aftermath

16.   Tribunal Footnote

17.   In Sickness and Health

18.   Bermondsey Boys

19.   Sony v. Yardi Rock Bands

20.   Smart Play: The Losing Game

21.   A Con, a Curse, a Blessing

22.   Richie

23.   The Rape

24.   Junior Delgado: Wanted Dead or Alive

25.   Gillingham: Garden of Kent

26.   Final Closure

27.   Breakdown: I May End Up Killing My Children

28.   Help Me—They’ve Taken My Children!

29.   Dave Courtney, MP, and the Little Indian Girl

30.   Free Spirit

31.   Stop, Look, and Listen

32.   Beacons Court: Jahson

33.   Gangster Rap: Richie Benz

34.   Playball

35.   Courtney’s Angels

36.   A Mother’s Love

37.   Stop the Ride— I Want to Get Off!

38.   Clouds and Silver Linings

39.   Medway Hospital and the Magic Wand

40.   Skeletons in the Closet

41.   Race for Life

42.   Trevor Sorbie: My New Hair

43.   Man Jitt—Heroes and Villains

44.   Rest in Peace, Jenson

45.   Oliver Smith

46.   Cold Turkey

47.   High Point Prison: My Tin Solider

48.   Day at Anfield-Liverpool FC

49.   Ajay’s Christmas Eve Party

50.   Trial and Even More Errors

51.   The Three Little Pigs

52.   Singh Is King

In loving memory of Dave Navasa, Gale Smartt, Junior Delgado, Smiley Culture, Joey Pyle, Roy Shaw and Ronnie Biggs.

And with love to my darling children

Charlotte Boscic, Richie Smartt and Nevan Smartt

To the late Eileen Boscic, the most inspirational female that I have had the pleasure to love and learn from.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

I am of Indian origin, forty-two years of age, single, and a mother of two. I’m a qualified sexual hypnotherapist. I have lived four tempestuous decades and survived to tell the story. I was rejected by my family at the age of three and labelled a witch. I had an arranged marriage and ran away from home to the white cultures, as the Indians would say. I then had my first mixed-race child, a girl. I became a police officer and was injured on duty with a high-profile case in the media. I then went into the music industry, working with music artists, the underworld, and celebrities. I had my second child, a boy, with a different father; he was black and was well-known to the public eye.

Sadly, after suffering rape with my children witnessing this horrific event, the event drew me to the darker sides of the underworld. I fell in love with the most notorious gangster, Dave Courtney. Whilst fighting cancer, I launched one of the biggest children’s charities in Kent, and after having a stormy relationship with drugs, sex, and violence in the underworld, whilst trying to escape, I found mysterious excitement. I felt privileged to learn both sides of the law.

With great interest from the media, I started to write my book, which took two years. I wrote this book because I was and am consistently asked about the high-profile lifestyle which I walked away from alive. People want to know how the hell I’ve done it as a single mum and all on my own. I wrote until I could see the picture of my bravery, before I could share it with the world.

ABOUT THE BOOK

T he book is about my endurance through four decades. It’s very emotional and works with readers’ emotional intelligence rather than just telling a story, leading them into a fantasy. I bring in the reader to help me answer questions which I haven’t been able to answer myself. I do believe that this book will open topics for many chat shows, women’s magazines, and organizations.

It may be not the best book, but it’s certainly not the worst, and it’s very knowledgeable to the unorthodox eye. Maybe it’s not the funniest, but it holds its own light entertainment from the real side of life. It will make you question the logic of the subconscious mind and how it affects you as an individual through real-life experiences.

1.   MYTHS AND

FAIRYTALES

T hey came to take me away when I was just three years old. It was my first taste of rejection, but far from my last. I was the happiest of little girls, but I have since been to hell and back. Make that several times.

More than once, I have seen it coming. You might think having psychic powers is a gift, but as I look back on four tempestuous decades, it has been a mixed blessing for me. Despite everything that has happened to me, I still like to think of myself as an ordinary girl from an ordinary family. All right, maybe my story is with a slight twist, but essentially I’m an ordinary girl. You may disagree after reading my story.

It’s not much fun, for instance, when your grandmother repeatedly describes you as a witch—that’s right, a witch—and when you can see all too clearly that she genuinely believes that and genuinely fears you. Maybe that fear was already permeating my family when I was separated from them at such a tender age. Looking back, I can see how I could have been regarded almost as a curse on my family. Girls were a no-no in the Indian Sikh culture. I was born on January 15, 1971, in Birmingham Dudley Hospital—as was Lenny Henry, although my story is no comedy act.

My first home was a large, detached Victorian house in Oldbury in the West Midlands. I was the second of two daughters; the first, my sister Sasha, was just ten months older than me. My mother became very ill, very anaemic, after having me. Then a holy lady visited the house, as was customary in all Sikh households, and advised that I should be sent away because I would bring bad luck into the family. I never did know the names of my replacement parents—I was just told to call them Mum and Dad. Everything is a blur now, but I do recall my bags being packed and my new parents taking me away to their own home, another large Victorian house in Oldbury.

Just six years later, however, I was on the move again, returning to my original home. Once more my bags were packed for me, and this time my mum and dad even put me into a brand-new dress. I became very excited and asked what it was all about, but they just told me, You’ve got a visitor coming to see you. My mum kept cuddling and kissing me.

They were lovely people, and I have no bad memories of them at all. But their status, and their relationship to me, was about to change from Mum and Dad to Aunt and Uncle. I was with them in their living room when the door opened. In walked a very tall, vaguely familiar man. He just stood there looking at me. His face initially struck me as scary, and I was immediately apprehensive, but I also quickly noticed that his eyes had a special warmth about them. There was a little smile there, which slowly grew. He closed the door behind him, and my dad of the previous three years gently explained to me, This is your real daddy, and he’s come to get you.

I was in total shock at this point—and still scared. I had not recognized him. He had lost some weight and had apparently also suffered an eye injury in an accident at the factory where he worked. But I quickly lost my sense of fear as that little smile in his eyes grew. Through that scary look, I could sense a warm, caring feeling. Then he stepped forward and held out his arms as if to say, Come to me. I looked back at my parents of the past three years. They nodded encouragement, and it seemed right for me to go to him and be hugged. I found myself happily moving towards him and then running into his arms.

He felt very strong, and I felt safe in his arms. Then the four of us ate and drank together, but I remember staring and staring at my real dad. Then this big, strong man carried me back home on foot—fully a twenty-minute walk, carrying both me and my big suitcase! Every so often I felt him nudge his face against mine. I was still feeling apprehensive and shaken but also very safe, and I continued to warm to him.

And so I returned to my real family’s home, where my mother was now pregnant again. I never learnt the circumstances behind this return—why my parents took me back again after first having me sent away. But I do know that as I grew up, I came to idolize my dad—which is truly ironic and tragic, given how I was to suffer, and how we were to become estranged in later years. I was such a happy child, and I would follow him around wherever I could. He told me some wonderful stories and called me and my sister my little princesses. I even sat next to him when he ate. Maybe that partly explains why, from a young age, I became a tomboy. I knew I wasn’t the boy he had wanted, but I was determined to make him proud of me.

In my childish innocence, I believed I had everything. This was despite our family being poor and my father having to do various jobs. He worked in a factory, painted and decorated, and spent nights cooking in an Indian restaurant. Because of his size and height, he was often called in to assist with debt collecting—a bit of knuckle exercising, which eventually became his main income. For long periods, I wouldn’t see him at all, so I would seize on every change to be with him, even helping with his work. With his decorating work, for instance, I would hold paper for him to cut with string, which he held between his teeth. Then there were the treats. From the Indian restaurant, he would bring home for us what he called his three-course meal, which was in fact a collection of leftovers from the meals served to diners that night.

Once he brought home a whole dead lamb and announced that we were going to cut and freeze it. But Mum began to cry—she could not cope with this prospect. And so, ever the anxious helper, I stepped in to hold the legs while Dad cut them off. After all, I was the tomboy who wanted to be tough. I did the job, but the noise of Dad’s saw cutting through that flesh stayed in my head for an awfully long time.

My mother also worked very hard whilst looking after me and Sasha. One day she bought me a pair of Superman pants to make me feel special, and I really appreciated them and the thought behind them. We were poor, but she knew I loved Superman, so that is why she bought me the knickers. I loved them and wore them whenever I could, even though they were boy’s pants. I used to turn them inside out when changing at school for physical education. Her work was never really spoken about, but I do know that she used to sew raincoats and dresses—thousands of them—and a man would come on Friday to collect them and pay her. Occasionally when Mum was ill, Sasha and I would help her, threading the strings through the raincoats and putting on the bobbles. It was hard, tiring work, and sometimes it felt as though we were up most of the night doing it, but we had to meet the deadlines.

My dad always used to tell us that we were the princesses of our own little worlds; in these worlds, we could do and have anything we wanted. These kingdoms were full of love and pretty things, and Dad had made them for us in order to protect and guide us. It followed that if ever we were scared or had a dream and wanted it to come true, we were to go to these kingdoms. This is what he told us, and it made us feel protected and safe. I was always visiting this kingdom of mine; it seemed as if I lived there more than in my actual home or any other place. I became a dreamer because that way I knew in my kingdom, all my dreams would come true.

In my happy state, I would run all the way home from school, and I would be very conscious of how the cool breeze would blow in my face and through my hair, and how the sun would warm it up. I used to be so excited to share my day with whoever was listening (I also had two brothers by now) as soon as I walked in through the front door, and then I would escape back into my dream kingdom again. I didn’t have a care in the world.

The one thing I did not dream was that this happy little girl would have to endure so many daunting, painful experiences and fight so many wars. These experiences were balanced by rewarding moments when my heart was positively bursting with great joy and happiness. I guess you could say I was put on the ultimate roller coaster from a young age.

My dad’s debt-collecting activity became more apparent to me when he would come home with several other men, and they would adjourn to a room which Dad called his meeting room. He would lay out bottles of whisky on a table outside this room, and each of the men would help himself to a glass of the golden stuff and take it into the room, repeating the process on the way out. At the end of the meeting, they would come out grim-faced and bow their heads to Mum as they filed past her, sitting at the fireplace.

One night I had not been feeling very well, and I came downstairs from my bedroom, remembering my mum’s instruction to call her if I needed anything. I was met with the sight of Mum washing Dad’s bloody knuckles and face. On another occasion, I asked Dad what it was that he and these other men did, and he replied, We help people who can’t help themselves. I pressed him about the blood, and he explained, Sometimes you have to do that. Having done the necessary, he would return to the house with money, and we would be treated to presents. The whisky, I learnt, was to give the men the extra courage necessary to do the business they had to do.

These men clearly feared my father, but he was not a violent man—and he loved my mother to bits. Sometimes she would suffer from cramps, and he would tickle her. In connection with his work, he would sometimes have to go away for weeks. Mum and Dad’s love was very strong, and at that time there were no mobiles to keep in touch when he was away. One day I found Mum’s dirty washing in the bathroom, and I picked them up and put them in the wash. My mum was upset because she used to give him her clothes to take with him when he was away so that he could smell her. Not once did I ever see them arguing. I’ve turned forty now and have experienced so much, and I would definitely have picked it up retrospectively if there had been anything other than total love between my parents during my childhood.

This was one of the fundamentally enduring memories that helped to keep me going: the thought that I must do all I can to find a man with whom I could enjoy a similarly happy relationship. It is said that the woman will seek the man who most closely resembles her father, and I guess that is pretty much what I have done. Sadly, I have had relationships which haven’t worked because the men have not measured up to my dad, or is it that they haven’t measured up to me? Have I been looking for all the wrong things? I don’t know so I’lll carry on writing, and maybe the answers will come.

My father imparted many words of wisdom to me. One of my favourites was, Always learn from my mistakes, and make your own. He would urge Sasha and me, Never forget that you are women. Always be able to support yourself, as your mother has, so that you always know that if your man falls ill, you can still look after the family. He also advised, Never find a man who is weaker than you.

I may have been a dreamer, but I have long since known that I don’t want to be rich and famous. The most important thing for me is to be rich with my family—that is the core for me. I am a people person, and that’s why I love to share me! When I was six, however, I suffered the first fracture within my own family, and it followed the first of what was to become a series of psychic experiences in my life. Mum was pregnant again at this time, and several times I had the spooky experience of waking up in the middle of the night and saying, Mum, you’re going to fall and hurt yourself.

One day we had some visitors in the house, and we all went upstairs for some reason. As we were coming back down the stairs, my mum did have her fall. The moment before she fell, I had this terrible feeling again, just as I felt when I would wake up in the night, and I instinctively grabbed the banister as if I were falling myself. Instead, it was my mum, pregnant with my little brother Anton, who careered down the twenty or so steps. I can still vividly see her face wracked with pain, and I can hear her screaming as she lay in agony at the foot of the stairs. As a result, she was in Dudley Hospital for many weeks.

She remained there for the birth, never coming home in the meantime. I wasn’t allowed to visit her because her mum, my grandmother, was convinced I was a witch, and she told me so. My grandmother claimed I had been scaring my mum by saying she was going to fall, and for a long time afterwards I was convinced that I had been the cause of that catastrophe.

Before that, I hadn’t even known my grandmother that well, but after that episode I really hated her; sadly this was a relationship that never recovered. She constantly told me that I was the cause of that fall. When she came to the house to see Mum, she would say she did not want to be in the same room as me. Anything which she knew I had handled, she would not touch, as if I were some sort of germ. I would often look up and catch her staring at me. I last saw her when I left home at the age of twenty-one. She died six years ago, and I will never know whether she actually hated me, or whether she genuinely believed that I was a witch. I strongly suspect the latter.

That fall and its aftermath, meanwhile, amounted to a big landmark in my life twice over: it was my first spooky experience, and it represented my departure from the world of total happiness as a carefree child.

When Mum and little baby Anton came home from hospital, my grandmother declared that she wanted me out of the house, announcing, Everyone in the house will die if she stays. I heard her say this, my dad, who completely lost it as a result. I have never known him shout so much. His voice boomed like thunder as he read her the riot act, and I felt once more that he was protecting me. My grandmother cried. I looked at my mother, but her face was devoid of any expression; she simply looked very ill, and it was haunting.

2.   TRICK OR TREAT

M y grandmother did not get her way. I remained in the family home and was the senior child. I was attending Rood End Primary School in Oldbury. My parents had my brother, Anton, who was eight years younger than me. Tim was six years younger, and Sasha was just ten months behind me. I was emerging as the leader of the pack.

I used to tease the brothers about their packed lunch—my teasing term for the way their hair was done up in a bun. Then one day a boy pulled Tim’s packed lunch, and he came home from school in tears. I got really upset at the sight of him crying and the look of fear on his face; it reminded me of my father and his bloody knuckles during his debt-collecting activities. I put my arm round Tim and told him, You have to toughen up. Without telling our parents, I formed a gang—though it was just me and my two brothers. I indulged in my own method of toughening them up. I would hit them, punching them on the arms and, without knowing anything about such things, saying, This is how they train you in the army. The harder they make you, the better the soldier you become. When I thought he had toughened up enough, I said to Tim, You are strong now, and you are a superhero. You can go and beat up this bully who pulled your hair.

The bully was much bigger than Tim, and he also had a sister. Still very much the tomboy, I set about organizing a fight. I ascertained what time the bully would be coming out of school and got Tim to wait with me outside the school’s front gates. There was some road work underway, complete with a big, deep pit and barriers all around the site. When the bully came into view, I held my brother’s hand and said, Go on, Tim, go and get him! My little Tim, by now convinced he was a superhero, went straight for him, shrieking his head off in the process. I had told him that the louder he shouted, the stronger he would become. The bully looked on in shock, a bit like the proverbial rabbit paralysed in the headlights, and then found himself being punched in the face by Tim. My brother knocked him to the ground.

The bully’s sister, who was close by (and also large) screamed. Then she made towards Tim, and I thought, She’s going to get him. I instinctively bent down, grabbed her legs, and threw her off balance, preventing her from reaching him. She ended up falling into that massive road-works hole as a result. I grabbed Tim’s hand and shouted, Run! We ran all the way home.

Tim kept saying, You’ve killed her! That was what I thought all night—I had killed her! My mum subsequently told me she had heard that an ambulance had been called to deal with an incident outside the school. I feigned ignorance whilst quietly shitting myself with worry. I was even at pains to cover up tell-tale marks on my arms—quite deep cuts after the girl had somehow managed to scratch me in her efforts to fend off my attack.

In school assembly the next morning, the head teacher grimly announced that one of the pupils had been thrown into the road-works hole the previous day, but no one had come forward to say who had done it. I am treating this very seriously, and the child concerned will be expelled, the head declared.

We felt certain we would be reported, and Tim confided in me, I don’t want to go to prison. But the witnesses were too scared to shop us. There was no more bullying after that. In the meantime, other boys with packed lunches on their heads joined our gang. We had made our mark in emphatic style, and we were growing in stature and repute! We revelled in it. There were at least eight or nine of us in the gang, and other children were in awe of us and would bring us crisps, chocolates, and sweets! I even ended up making a list of all the things we would like. All this happened with me knowing nothing about self-defence or the business of being physically strong.

But that didn’t stop me from reinforcing my regard for myself as a leader of my family, or at least of the children. I assumed the older sibling role. You can come to me, I told my siblings. That made me feel special and needed. My sister Sasha was brainy but timid; she received an award from Lenny Henry in recognition of her eleven A levels.

When I was eleven, the whole family moved to Abbeywood in London. I hated this because it meant leaving all my friends and my fan club. It was a horrible time for me, but I also liked the fact that we were moving as a family. My dad got a job in London, and for some months he had been there during the week, travelling back home just for weekends. I had missed him very badly because he was the one I would always go to with any problems. My mother was someone I wanted to look after, rather than be looked after by her. My dad cared for her so much, and anyone he cared for, I wanted to do the same. She was just five feet four inches tall and made one think of a little doll because she was very beautiful. Like Sasha, she was also very timid. They were very similar characters, and I had to look after them.

In London I went to A. B. School. I straightaway became aware of the big culture difference from Birmingham, where everything was family-based and more closely knit. Back home, everyone knew everyone, and we could leave our doors open, whereas people in London were more isolated in their nuclear families, rather than extended families. I found it a little difficult to fit in. I was the only black person in my class, as was my sister in hers. There were about thirty pupils in each class, my family spoke with a different accent as Indians from Birmingham, and we had a different colour. I was not aware of overt racism, but we felt isolated because we looked different from everybody else. I didn’t see this as a major problem because I lived in my own little world—in my head, anyway.

For Sasha, it was not so easy, and there was a girl in her class who kept picking on her. I took it upon myself to start threatening this girl, not realizing that her sister was actually in my class. I had informed the girl that I would kill her if she ever picked on my sister again. I was sitting in class one day when we were studying pie charts with the aid of five compasses that we had to share. I requested one of them from the bully’s sister. Her response was to throw the compass in my direction; fortunately it missed me.

I slipped into the tough-girl, gang-leader mode and thought, I don’t think you know who the fuck I am. To a background noise of giggles, I retrieved the compass and twiddled with it as I thought, I can’t just sit here and do nothing. I said, Oi. The girl looked up, and I threw it like a dart, catching her with a glancing blow on her face. It drew blood, and she complained to the teacher, who was evidently too scared to get involved. Why are you telling the teacher? I challenged the girl. You are a pile of chickenshit. Why don’t you fight me? She agreed to take me on after school.

The next thing I knew, word about the upcoming clash had spread all around the school. During a break period, I met up with my sister, who broke down and started crying, telling me, Everyone knows you’re going to be in a fight with Susan. Sasha threatened to go home and tell Dad there and then.

I told her, You can’t do that. You just go home as fast as you can once school is over today. If they beat me up, they will then go for you, so you just get yourself home and leave me to deal with it. Sasha couldn’t wait, though. Before the end of an afternoon lesson, I looked out of the window and saw her leaving through the school gates, evidently making an excuse to go home early.

I got the backlash. Someone in my class said, Look, that’s her sister leaving—she’s got no one now. By now I was shitting myself, and I must have looked anything but brave. From that classroom, I could go up some stairs and then be at the playground. When the time came, I let the rest of the class go out first. I could see them all outside waiting for me; the teacher had disappeared. There must have been scores of children up there at the playground, waiting for me. I was at my wits’ end to work out how I was going to deal with this. I needed some sort of master plan.

Then I thought I could maybe do something similar to the time I got that girl thrown into the road-works pit. There was no escaping the need for a fight, not least because I had told my brothers that I was tough—and what would my dad think if I didn’t stand up to these kids? The girl at the centre of it all, Susan, was wearing a bomber jacket. With memories of that road-works pit incident acting as a spur, I went up the steps and charged right into her at the top. As we became entangled with each other, I could hear all these voices shouting, Fight, fight, fight! Kill her, kill her, kill her! I had gone for her legs, but as I grabbed her, my hands initially went for her bomber jacket instead. The momentum forced the jacket over her head, and we both ended up rolling back down the steps, to the bottom, with that bomber jacket stuck over her head the entire time. Her arms were immobilized, trapped in it at either side. After coming to a halt at the bottom of the steps, I kicked the fuck out of her. I could not stop myself and became more and more excited.

Then another pupil grabbed my hair from behind, through the fencing. I was pulled back against the fence and held there while Susan’s sister proceeded to punch me hard in the side of my face. When I was let go, I slumped to the floor. There was still a lot of shouting and screaming, but the mob had moved away from the top of the stairs, and so I ran up those stairs and all the way home. My face was throbbing and bleeding, and I began crying because I had been winning the fight until someone had grabbed me from behind.

My dad opened the door, and the first thing he said was, Did you win or lose?

I explained what had happened. I expected him to yell at me for not winning, but instead he handed me a frying pan with the instruction, Now go back and win. Even though I was still very scared, I turned back and walked to the school with the frying pan in my hand. I somehow found new strength and courage; my pain receded, and I even began to run.

Susan was there with others, standing outside the school gates. I went up to her and bashed her across the back of the head with that pan. She fell to the floor, and I ran back home once more. I was aware of boys chasing me, but gradually their voices became more distant as I outran them. That’s when I discovered that I was a fast runner—and I did a lot of running that day, bearing in mind the distance between school and home was two miles.

My dad opened the door to me again and asked, Have you won this time?

Yes, I said.

He replied, That’s good, because dinner is ready. My school uniform was ripped, and I was cut and bruised, so I went upstairs and changed into my pyjamas for dinner. I joined my family at the table and gave the thumbs-up to my sister and brothers.

When my siblings had gone to bed, Dad told me, Once you lose one war, you will lose every war. You must never let anyone know that you have failed. If you keep fighting, you will never fail. He showed me his hands. I have fought for my family with these. He loved us all, and I suspect he still felt very guilty about having given me away when I was little. At that stage, there was still a very strong bond of love between us.

The next day, my sister and I went back to school, even though she had suggested I stay at home, for fear of getting beaten up. As I entered the school, I could hear whispers. That’s her, the one who… I couldn’t tell exactly what they were saying. No sooner had I entered my classroom than the teacher told me that the head teacher wanted to see me.

I reported to the head’s study, and she told me, We understand there was a fight here last night, and Susan and you were involved. Susan had to be taken to hospital with her injuries, and you could be in serious trouble. She explained that she would await Susan’s return from hospital and hear her side of the story before deciding on the outcome.

A week later, Susan and I found ourselves in the head’s study with her parents and my dad waiting outside. We each gave our own version of what had happened, but we agreed on one thing, which was that Susan had thrown that compass, and I had thrown it back. We looked at each other; we both looked scared and knew we had done something very wrong. I also admitted to the head that I had returned with the frying pan. Susan confirmed that someone had pulled my head back by my hair against the railings. All of a sudden it seemed as though we were in collaboration with each other, rather than arch-enemies.

Then the head called in our parents separately, after which we all sat outside the study awaiting our fates. It came in the form of letters to our parents delivered by the secretary who had been taking notes all along, confirming that we were both to be suspended from the school for three days. Then we would spend a week in a class known as A8, which was for errant pupils. The upshot was that this cemented my reputation as a toughie. I became the flavour of the class; I told everyone how I had led a gang back in Birmingham, and I now found myself with a new gang. I felt very much at home once more. And somehow, Susan and I became best friends!

That was not my last fight at A. B. Secondary School! When I was fifteen, I got involved in another humdinger of a scuffle after Sasha, as captain of the school’s netball team, found herself and her teammates facing a group of fifteen to twenty girls from another team, whom they had beaten on the field of play. The price for this victory against that school was to get beaten up. However, I was ready for them with my own gang! We armed ourselves with metal dustbins, and as the rival team’s captain made for Sasha, I grabbed the lid of one of these bins and whacked this girl across the head with it.

In the confusion that followed, the police, who were very quickly on the scene, detained Sasha. I shouted at them, She’s not done anything! It’s me, you cunts. Leave her alone. An officer continued to march her to the police wagon, so I kicked him in the leg, ensuring that we both got taken away. We were placed in separate cells and locked up. My father was called in, but because we were juveniles, we were released with a warning; Dad had to sign something, and we were set free. That was the first and last time I was behind bars. I was in that cell on my own for several hours. It was a daunting experience, but all the time I could hear voices outside, and so I never panicked. At school I had been sent into a window-less room on my own several times for bad behaviour. The only real difference was that the police cell smelled of Jeyes Fluid.

3.   BRIDE FOR SALE

I t’s time you got married. That’s what my parents told me when I reached the grand old age of twenty. My sister had already had an arranged marriage, and now it was my turn—or so my parents intended. This was the custom, but I was neither ready nor willing. I always felt that I would rather run away than be forced to do something against my will. I was brave enough to stand up for what I wanted or didn’t want. This was just another war to fight. I was a warrior and a gang leader, after all. My parents duly informed me that they were ready to start searching for my husband. They said a man had already approached my father, declaring that he was seeking a bride for his son. I called these people the Pedigree Chums.

My initial thoughts, however, were that it was no use in arguing over something that had not happened yet. If I were to moan now, it would only open up other issues. If they showed me a man, I would simply say no. It was a bit naïve of me to think that way, bearing in mind that all the wars I had won had been waged in the heat of the moment, rather than having time to think about things. My parents were putting the word around—indeed, I felt as though I had a for sale tag on my head—and they were also starting to get things together for my dowry.

Part of the dowry would be jewellery, and for this I had to go to the Punjab in India for four weeks with my mother. It was my first real visit to India. My parents told me they had taken me there as a child, but I had been too young to remember it. Mum and I travelled around, visiting lots of relatives, buying lots of jewellery and lovely clothes, and eating delicious food. It was a very cultural experience, and before long I had found myself another gang! I told a cousin how I was famous back in England, and how I had led gangs and fought with my contemporaries. My growing Indian audience regarded me as some kind of hero and began to follow me around and do things for me, such as putting on my slippers. There were about six of them in my Indian gang. But I didn’t meet any man. Perhaps anyone studying me would have been frightened!

That fright might have been exacerbated if they knew about my spooky experiences, and I had one such while in the Punjab city of Jalandhar. My mother had insisted that we visit a sacred place, as it was known: a little brick building of special family significance, passed down through the generations. Mum felt she had a duty to go there with me, to wash it down. I had told her the previous night that I had not been feeling very well; I was feeling a lot of that sixth sense inside me.

As my mum opened the door to this hut, a great swarm of white butterflies flew out past us. This was a truly remarkable experience. My mother screamed and moved to one side. I stayed quiet and calm, and I felt a great sense of peace wash over me. It seemed so right that I should be there at that moment and see those butterflies; I was meant to be there. As a child, I used to tell my mother how I could see white butterflies, but Mum would reply, Don’t say that—people will say horrible things about you. Once the butterflies had flown out of the sacred place, Mum went inside and set about frenetically cleaning the place. I went inside with her, looking in vain for more butterflies.

Mum said, Don’t talk to me. From that point on, her attitude towards me changed and she became more withdrawn. I strongly suspect that this butterfly experience, my sixth-sense feelings the previous night, and my childhood sightings of these creatures prompted to make her suspect what my grandmother had said about me—that I was a witch—may have been true. Or maybe she was just very scared that other people would think this of me if they learnt of this experience. It was all the spookier for the fact that the sacred place had no windows, and because it was made of bricks, there was no obviously way these butterflies could have gotten inside.

When we returned to England, I told my father about all this, but he urged me to see it as a blessing, although Mum still looked scared at any mention of the subject. That was another time when I suspected there was something odd about me, although not in a horrible way. I believed everyone was special—maybe I was just a little bit more special!

My parents stepped up their hunt for a man for me. The result was my introduction to a stockbroker from a family known to mine from many years back. I said I liked him and would like to marry him; I had known him as a child and had fancied him. I even felt I could manipulate him! Therefore I told him that I would like to marry him, but that I would want to live with him and get to know him better before we eventually had sex; I hadn’t said yes at this point. Of course we can work it that way, he agreed. I announced these wishes to my parents. For some reason, they were not so keen on the idea, but they eventually approved, and with me still just twenty years old, I got married in a fabulous ceremony in a London temple, with my father spending more than thirty-six thousand pounds on the big occasion.

My first marital home was with my mother-in-law and his two younger brothers, in Coventry. This was at his mother’s suggestion. My parents asked why we couldn’t live with them, but his mother explained that he had not got a job in Coventry yet (he would come up from London every weekend), and I subsequently learnt the truth of the matter. My mother-in-law needed someone to look after her, with her husband dead, and she and her son felt that marriage to me would be good because of my father’s great wealth.

I learnt that my husband’s eldest brother was married to a white woman from Dubai, and her father was very wealthy and had set them up in a business in Dubai. They wanted my husband with them in that business—hence the convenience of marriage to me and the related benefit of my father’s wealth. They anticipated that my dad would help finance this business. In what was rapidly to turn into a marriage from hell, I discovered that my husband was in love with a white woman, and that upon marrying me, he had realized that he simply could not leave her. Then my mother-in-law began saying all sorts of unpleasant things about me, and she, my husband, and his two brothers cold-shouldered me. I was being sent to Coventry—in Coventry!

I also learnt that this family had lost a lot of money and that they were cashing in on some of the jewellery from my dowry in order to help pay off their debts. I didn’t know how to tell my parents this because I was the one who had been so keen on the marriage in the first place.

Things got worse. One weekend when my husband came home from London, I was emptying out his trouser pockets prior to putting them in the washing machine. I found an open packet of condoms. I challenged him on this, but he just laughed and then tried to jump on top of me on the bed, declaring, This is what you want, isn’t it? My husband, with whom I’d never had sex, tried to pin me down, but I resisted and struggled fiercely. All the time he was saying, I have never loved you—I have always loved someone else. Marrying you has been a huge mistake.

I said, You have used me and my father!

He said, Yes, I admit it. If you want to go back home, you can.

All the time, my six-foot husband was on top of me and trying to rape me, but he did not succeed. I managed to summon up strength I did not know I had and pushed him off. He tried to come back at me, but I was off the bed in a flash, and I knew I had a still-hot iron on the ironing board. I picked it up and threw it at him. It hit his shoulder or neck, and he let out a great scream of pain; I didn’t actually see the strike because I was already running downstairs. His mother was standing at the bottom of the stairs, and she tried to halt me, but I pushed her aside.

They had a shop adjacent to the house, with a door connecting the two. I ran through it and into the shop, and then I bolted the door so that they could not follow me. Now I was locked in the shop, which was closed. I picked up the shop phone and contacted my dad. Please come and get me, I cried into that phone. All the time I could hear my husband and mother-in-law banging on that door and trying to reason with me. They were very scared of my father.

I remained in the shop for several hours while my dad drove up to Coventry from London. When he arrived, I unbolted the door and joined them all. For all to hear, I told my dad that I wanted to go home. He told me to go sit in the car. He eventually emerged looking ruffled, and he joined me in the car. We travelled back to London in silence; we were both in shock. That night, I told my parents as much as I could about what had happened and the background to it all. I told them about my husband’s ongoing affair with the other woman, but I stopped short of telling them about the attempted rape—that was simply too disgusting. When I was on the phone to my father in that shop, I had simply told him that he had been violent towards me, and I repeated this when I got home that night.

To my alarm, my mum declared, I don’t believe her. In my childhood, she had known that I had played games, occasionally living in a dream world. She didn’t even believe that I had an army. Now this daydreaming backfired on me. She thought I was imagining it all and playing another game. In fact, it became apparent that neither of my parents believed me, because my father went all quiet.

That was just the start. For at least five days, neither my mum nor my dad spoke to me at all. It seemed they didn’t know whether to believe me, and Dad was no doubt very conscious of how much money he had spent on that wedding. Eventually he asked me, Do you want this marriage or not?

I was so hurt. I thought, They just do not believe me. They just think I want to get out of an arranged marriage. I said no, I did not want this marriage anymore. My father phoned up my mother-in-law and made some arrangements, and on a Saturday we returned to Coventry and put my possessions into a big moving van to take back to London. There was no dispute over what I should have; I took all my sentimental items. My father asked for the jewellery but was told that it was in the bank. At that point my mother simply said, Let them have it—we just want to go home, we just want to get out of here. My parents clearly felt insulted, and my father in particular felt he’d had to humble himself before these people. This had all happened just five months after the wedding. My husband, on reflection, must have felt he had landed the proverbial cushy number: fucking his girlfriend in London all week, and then benefiting from my father’s wealth through marrying me and ultimately (he’d hoped) taking my father’s money with him into the Dubai business.

4.   OLIVIA’S WEB

M y parents duly informed me that they would have to have me deported to India now, because no one else would want to marry me. All of a sudden this beautiful, happy family of mine began to fall apart. I became very ill with severe diarrhoea; I could not get out of bed and began to lose a lot of weight. I was eventually taken into Queens Hospital, London, to be treated for dehydration. This was where I had my next spooky experience.

I was in that hospital for several days, and one night a Mexican man wearing a white coat, and with the same height and build as my dad, came to my bedside. He had a tray in his hand and explained that he had come to take a blood sample. He began the process, talking to me all the while. He said I looked sad, and at that I burst into tears and told him everything. I needed someone to listen to my story, and he did while holding my hand. I felt great warmth as he listened. I was able to tell him exactly how I felt when my husband tried to rape me and when my parents had told me I would be deported to India.

Then a very strange thing happened. He pulled out a ten-pound note from his pocket and gave it to me. I want you to take this, and when you are out of here, I want you to buy envelopes and stamps. I want you to buy newspapers and apply for jobs. You will succeed in applying for jobs. I want you to rest now and fall asleep, because everything is going to be okay. Then he left, and I fell asleep.

When I awoke the next morning, I looked beneath my pillow, and the ten-pound note was still there. I realized that I had forgotten to thank him. That wasn’t me, so I was desperate to find him and express my gratitude. I asked for help from the nurses, but they said there was no such person there and that no one had come to take my blood during the night. I asked the sister, who said she would look for me, but she, too, returned with the answer that no man could have taken my blood that night. There was no man of that description working here. I went downstairs in my gown, looking for that man, only to be met with denial at every turn. But that ten-pound note was real enough! More than ever, I began to believe that there really was something different about me.

Once out of hospital, I did exactly as this man had told me, with precisely the outcome he had predicted. I got a job as administrative officer and personal assistant at a company called Business Equipment and Supplies in Woolwich. Alas, on my application form I had stated that I could do a number of things which actually I could not do, including shorthand. I will learn it when I get there, I had thought. On my first day, Miguel Boscic, a director of the company, called me into his office to take notes for correspondence. It quickly became apparent that things were not as they were supposed to be. What are you doing? he asked.

Taking notes, I replied.

Yes, but do it in shorthand, please. He immediately challenged me regarding several other aspects of the job. Upon realizing that I had told lies, he called in the man who had originally hired me, an executive officer called Eric.

This girl can’t do what she’s supposed to do! said Miguel.

But Eric surprised me by springing to my defence. There’s something special I have noticed about her. She may not be able to do some of these things on her job description, but I think she will make a very good salesperson. My heart was in my mouth at this point, because I realized my job was the only thing keeping me stable, with the threat of banishment to India staring me in the face.

Miguel acknowledged that I had two options: to be sacked, or to be trained as a salesperson. I had no sales experience—I was not even sure I knew what would be involved—but I opted to stay with the company. Miguel explained, To learn about sales, you will need to learn about our company and its customers. He even felt it necessary to add, I don’t particularly like you, apart from the fact that you are an attractive girl. Consequently, I accompanied Miguel on jobs, and he quickly concluded that I did indeed have a good rapport with customers. He and I began to get closer on a personal level.

In the meantime, pressure was resuming at home for me to go to India and to get married there. Miguel couldn’t help but notice how down I often appeared to be. He said I was good at my job, but things were slipping through my fingers after I had landed big contracts for them. I cried my eyes out again and told him how desperate I was to avoid being deported to India.

At this, he said I could move in with his mother, who had just suffered a stroke and needed someone to live with her. I knew I could not stay at home anymore, and let them eventually send me to India, so I confided in my little brother Vince, telling him what I was going to do. While my parents were attending a wedding on a Saturday, Vince helped me bring my possessions out of the house and into Miguel’s waiting car.

I ended up at Miguel’s home, and he lit up a cigarette. I had never smoked before, apart from the odd experimental venture as a child, and he never encouraged me to do so. But he did suggest it might help with my anxiety now, which it did—and I have been a smoker ever since.

A few months later, my mother came to my workplace crying her eyes out and demanding to see me. Miggie told me of this and asked if I needed his help, adding, "You do need to see her."

I joined her in the reception area. She said she needed me to return home, but I said no way. I also explained to her that Miggie and I were now in a relationship—and that I had become pregnant. Straightaway she said I must have an abortion. Then she said that she and Dad would buy me a house and a car, and that I would never have to go and live in India. But I knew this was all lies. My sixth sense left me in no doubt that they would still send me to India if they had me back in their clutches. I thought, It’s not me they care about—it’s their reputation. It might have been different had she said, Leave Miggie, and we will help you raise the child.

I politely asked her to leave the premises, and I told a colleague I needed to go out for lunch. I got into a car with another salesman at the wheel. My passenger’s window was open, and my mother put her head through it. I said, Drive!

My colleague said, She will be swinging off the car.

Just fucking drive! I repeated. I had to make this move.

When my mother said, Kill your child, that did it for me. I had been brought up with so much love, but all of a sudden happy memories became horrible memories. She fell from the car as it moved, and I saw her rolling on the ground. I could see colleagues coming out to help her, and I learnt later that they had arranged for a taxi to take her home. My salesman colleague was very angry with me, but he was also a bit scared after I had told him to drive and swore. I phoned Miggie and told him I was going to his mum’s. He said I had done the wrong thing in the way I had just treated my mother, and I reacted emotionally. I had no alternative—don’t tell me what is right and wrong.

As I write this, that moment was some twenty years ago, and I have spoken to my parents all of three times since then. Perhaps not surprisingly, after all these traumas, my first child, my daughter Olivia, was born prematurely at thirty-one weeks, and she weighed an incredibly tiny one pound, fifteen ounces. It was heartbreaking to see her in her incubator. She was very ill and was not given long to live. I phoned my