Mike kept saying “What is the man doing to her?”  Then I realised they were fully clothed.  I was relieved.  They weren’t making love.  I wasn’t peeping at my parents making love.

Ruth is re-living the scene again, her voice tight with emotion.”  She is lying on the floor and he is sitting on her legs.  Her face is very white and her head is tilted to one side, looking at me.

“I started to feel frightened.  I felt I was going to explode.  Then I saw her hair was black.  She had a sari on.  They were both young.”  Her eyes fill with tears.  “She was just looking at me.”

“Then I realised I said “She’s not moving.  She’s lying on the floor, very still, but the man is moving.” I know I am there watching these things. 

“Then I see my mothers body covered in a white sheet for the funeral.  They are bringing her body from the mortuary to the next room.  I can see her feet.  They haven’t covered her feet properly.

“Me and my brother are told to pour water on my mothers face.  It’s a tradition; John goes first because he is the eldest boy.  I go next.

“I just take a drop of water, but as I walk to the slab the sheet is off her face.  I can see her face, and she isn’t dead!  She has her head tilted to one side but her eyes are wide open and she is smiling at me.  She’s not dead.

“I ran out of the room screaming, she was supposed to be dead, but her eyes are wide open!”

The room is thick with silence.  At this stage in the therapy sessions, Ruth sat up, crying: “Oh my God!”

“Then I saw her face again, eyes wide open, head tilted to one side, looking at me, the man on top of her.  I could see myself; the back of me.  I am standing in the doorway, in the darkness.  Then all of a sudden my throat muscles began tightening up.”

Mike asked: “What are you doing?” 
 
“I am doing nothing.  Just standing there, doing nothing, watching the woman looking at me.  The man doesn’t know I’m there.  There’s a pain in my neck.  I’m screaming very loud… my throats hurting, but nobody hears me.

“I’m screaming because the mans hurting her. He has got his hands stretched out towards her head.  He is hurting her.  I just want him to stop.  Oh my God! It was my mother…. And he has killed her!

I can find nothing to say to Ruth.  What can you say to someone who, as an infant of seven, has witnessed such a terrifying scene and then repressed it for 22 years?

“Why didn’t the neighbours come?” she pleads.  “Why didn’t John get out of bed?”

She looked agonised. “How do you live with the fact that you father’s a murder, and he’s still alive?”

She sighs and explodes bitterly: “All these years I have thought I was a dirty little girl who let her father mess about with her.

“All these years I have had to put up with people being nasty to me, and the only crime I ever did was to see my mother being murdered.  I have been living with someone else’s guilt and I have been punished for it.

“All these years thinking I must be evil.  How can I live, knowing that he is alive?  He cheats me of my childhood; perhaps he cheated me of my innocence.  He is so evil.”

When the therapy session was over, Ruth had to fight the urge to get revenge.  Now several weeks later, she is having more positive feeling. 

“I haven’t lost my faith in the future yet and I feel at ease with myself in many ways.” She hopes that one day she will fall in love and marry again.

“This therapy has made me respect myself.  I know I am a good person.” she adds “Any man who gets me is going to be lucky.  I have seen so much pain, but I have always been able to give a lot of love to other people.”

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