Chapter 2: The Indenture

Louise

I suppose you could say I 'got out of the wrong side of the bed' that morning after not having slept too well. Actually I didn't want to get up at all but I had another job interview that the local job centre had arranged for me in Shrewsbury. Just an office job that I knew I wouldn't get but if I didn't go, my already meagre benefit payments would cease. The only good thing was that I could spend most of the day shopping in the town. The day started of really badly. When I came into the kitchen, mother had forgotten I was getting up early and hadn't put the coffee machine on, and then when I suggested having salmon for dinner that evening, she turned on me and said, "Unless you start bringing some money in, you'll be lucky to get cod and chips from the van." I couldn't accept that greasy offering and told her so in no uncertain terms. One thing led to another and soon we were in the middle of a major row. She told me to get out of the house, get a job and find a place of my own. "You clear out," I screamed back but she just kept on about my wasteful ways and she didn't want me living there any longer." By this time I was furious and my immediate reaction was to lash out at her. Almost as I swung my arm I spotted the cane in the flowerpot on the window ledge and grabbed it without thinking and with one movement lashed forward and backward across her face. She screamed blue murder and I knew I gone too far and hurt her badly but I wasn't going to admit it and I wasn't going to listen to her pathetic yelling any more so I decided to get out. In any case I had a bus to catch. Of course that nosey farm worker from next door had to poke his face in but I flew passed him.

The interview was a farce as they'd already decided on a classy looking blonde bimbo so I went to Jones & Templey lingerie shop and spent an hour or so looking through underwear and stuff until the bitch of an assistant started to get stroppy at having to put away all the stuff I'd looked at. I told her that was what she was paid for and went on to criticise her performance in helping me. Then when I went to pay, the stupid machine blocked my credit card and they wouldn't allow me any more credit so I came home empty handed and in no better mood than when I left. I guessed mother and probably her neighbour had something to do with cancelling my card so I was ready to vent my feelings on them when I walked through the door. Both of them were in the kitchen and for a moment I was shocked at the sight of my mother's face. I knew then I'd hurt her more than I intended but I wasn't about to apologise. Instead I told Eric to piss off back to his own house and swore at mother about cancelling the credit card.

Eric

Louise returned on the 4 o'clock bus, fury written all over her features. I guessed she was pretty annoyed when the pin machine refused to accept her credit card. Ernie had seen to getting it cancelled and fortunately, months previously May had lowered her credit limit to prevent Louise running up bills that would take years to pay off. May's face by this time was very swollen and sported an array of grotesque colours. Her head throbbed whenever she tried to move it but she tried not to show us how badly she was hurt. We wanted to take her to A&E but again she refused to go. Louise stormed in, paused when she saw her mother's face, and for a second it almost seemed as if she was going to say, sorry but all she actually did was to snarl at me, "You still here? Haven't you a home to go to?" To her mother she said, "If you had anything to do with my credit card being cancelled you'll really pay for it bitch." I waited for another explosion of her temper when she went into her bedroom. At least this time I would be on hand to protect May.

Louise

In the back of my mind I thought they might have something planned when sodden Eric grinned as I clomped up the stairs but nothing prepared me for what they'd actually done. Dumbfounded, I stood for a few moments at the doorway of my bedroom, then yelled and swore at the top of my voice. The room was almost bare. All my things were gone. My clothes, ornaments, jewellery, cuddly soft toys; all gone. My wardrobe was empty, tallboy empty, dressing table cleared. I stared in disbelief and swore again. All that remained was a suitcase on the bed ready packed with a few clothes and toiletries. "They are sending me away. I bet it's that bloke from next-door's doing, I'll get even with him. They're not sending me away because I hit my bitch of a mother." My foul mood worsened, my temper rose. Swearing and yelling at them I returned to the lounge with fists flying and physically and verbally attacked mother but I didn't get near enough to hit her because he-man grabbed me from behind and held me. I still gave vent to my feelings and demanded the return of my stuff.

It must all have been pre-arranged because bloody policeman Ernie arrived in full uniform. "Louise Elizabeth Redman I am arresting you for the grievous bodily harm you have inflicted on your mother. You don't have to say anything..." Shaking myself free, I spun and aimed a fist in Ernie's direction but bloody Eric caught my wrist in mid flight. Despite my struggles, kicking and invective, the two soon overpowered me and forced into a wooden chair and locked my hands behind my back and through the slats with a pair of handcuffs.

Even when forced to sit in a chair and more or less immobile, I continued to abuse them verbally until Eric stuck strip of packaging tape across my mouth. They left me like that for ages, 'to cool off a little' they said and adjourned to the kitchen and sat around drinking tea while I chafed at my bonds. I could hear them discussing what to do with me and, from what I could make out, they were hell bent on getting rid of me one way or the other. I heard that pompous copper say, "It is now even more imperative that Louise be kept away from her mother, either by locking her up, which I suggest is the best way, or one of the other alternatives you've put forward. I couldn't hear what the alternatives were but I was soon to find out. Old Hargreaves, I knew, wanted to put me in prison and with his influence I expected he could. Even then I suspected he had the hots for mother and probably saw this as a way of getting rid of me. I wondered how I would cope with the notoriety of having it reported in the press and how I would find life behind bars. My bloody mother, would no doubt, paint the bleakest picture of my behaviour and make out she was a saint.

Eventually they came back. Eric, pretending he was some sort of TV lawyer, stood in front of me and spoke like a judge pronouncing sentence, "Louise, look at your mother's face. Try and feel some of the pain she is going through. Imagine what would have happened if the strokes had been only a tiny fraction higher and she was blinded. This is not the first time you have beaten her. We all know that and can testify to the fact. Yet you show no remorse, only anger that you cannot get your own way all the time. PC Hargreaves has every right to take you into custody and charge you with GBH for which you could get a prison sentence of at least three months, more likely a year. Your mother even though you have hurt her so badly, doesn't of want this but she now has little say in the matter. It is up to PC Hargreaves whether or not he charges you with the offence. A criminal offence has been committed and your mother has no rights as to whether or not you are charged. Nod your head if that is clear." I looked at them with all the hate I could muster. "Is that clear?" he insisted I answer. This time I nodded.

Old Ernie interjected his two pennyworth. "After your shameful behaviour to your own mother I am very willing to see you put away. Prison might do you a lot of good or it might make you worse. On my visits to various prisons one thing very noticeable is an excessive politeness to others - unless you are top dog. Top dogs are the roughest, toughest and meanest inmates and all others defer to them. If they don't they are often severely beaten, sometimes permanently damaged. Even killed. With your temper that could easily happen. Out of respect for your mother, not you, I may decide not to press the charges but I will need a lot of convincing that it will be in both her and your best interest. Whatever you decide, I can override it and arrest you for having committed a criminal offence."

They obviously had the upper hand and my prospects looked grim. Tears flowed freely down my face and with the tape over my mouth, made breathing a little difficult. Eric continued in judge's mode. "We discussed this at some length while you were away and decided that it would not be safe for your mother if we allowed you to stay. Therefore a case of essential items has been packed for you. All your other stuff has been removed and stored and will not be returned until you have a place of your own. Your leaving this house is not negotiable. You are going." I was right earlier when I guessed they planned to kick me out of my home, the home I'd lived in for all of my life apart from the few times I got a job away.

"However, we are giving you three choices. One as you have just heard is for you to be charged and held on remand until your trial and sentence. The second is for you to take the packed case from your bedroom and leave this house and make your own way in life. You will not return here. It will be up to you to find work, and a place to stay away from the village. As you've found out, we've stopped your credit card. Your mother is the primary cardholder so we were able to do that. Your third choice is more unusual. It started with an idea your mother had that you needed a strong man to take control of you and she deemed I was to be the strong man."