Lisa sat on her bed and listened to the sound of her parents arguing downstairs. Their voices became louder and louder until she covered her ears with her hands, desperate to block out the noise of her mother's vitriolic onslaught on her father. She had heard them so many times before, and she knew what would happen next. He would walk out and leave her alone in the house with her mother.
 
     Lisa didn't know where her father went, but she suspected the big leather sofa in his office in town was his place of silent refuge. Only there could he escape the nightmare of being told how pathetically useless he was when his wife had, as usual, drunk too much. Her father was lucky. Lisa had neither the means nor the transport to escape, so she became the recipient of her mother's bitterness after her father left - every time. For the most part, it was only verbal abuse when Lisa would be told how ugly, fat or useless she was, but recently the stinging words didn't give her mother enough satisfaction. She’d had to vent her anger on Lisa's body as well.
 
      It seemed as though, since Lisa reached puberty, her emerging beauty had become a constant reminder to Fiona Collins that the admiring looks which she had commanded wherever she had gone before were now few and far between. The more it happened, the more her resentment had grown over the last two years. Lisa's dark auburn hair and flawless skin only confirmed that Fiona’s own youth and beauty were fading…and sadly, however many lotions and expensive potions she applied to her face and body, they would never return.
 
     Lisa knew from past experience the best way to avoid confrontation was to stay in her room and keep away from her, but her mother’s anger was such that she needed to carry on the argument. In her father's absence, Lisa had become her mother's new victim, and Fiona's appetite for inflicting pain knew no bounds, especially after she had drunk enough to fuel the discontented bitterness she felt growing greater and greater with every passing day.
 
     Lisa suspected her father had no idea just how much her mother drank after he left on these occasions, or how she vented her ongoing anger on Lisa. If he did notice, he chose to ignore it, and he never spoke disrespectfully about her in front of their children. Even Lisa's older brother Scott was ignorant of his mother's behaviour because they had bought him a flat near the University where he was taking his degree in accountancy, so he only came home once a week for Sunday lunch.
 
     On these occasions Scott's mother was happy... and never drank in front of him, so Lisa couldn't blame him for not realising the abuse she had to tolerate on a daily basis. When she'd tried to tell him about their mother's vindictive behaviour, and the misery she had to endure when she was home from boarding school, he assumed she was exaggerating and told her to grow up, having never seen any indication that his sixteen-year-old sister was mistreated in any way, or that his mother was anything other than a loving parent.
 
     Lisa cowered in her bed, the duvet pulled up under her chin, the light turned off...and prayed her mother would go to bed after her father left. But unknown to her, Fiona Collins drank yet another bottle of red wine, oblivious of the quantity she had already consumed. After that, she kept coming into Lisa's bedroom, switching on the light, and shouting obscenities at her daughter's duvet-covered form. When she got no reaction, her temper boiled over, and the next time Fiona went into Lisa's room, she rained blows on her daughter's quilt covered body with a metal stick. Lisa tried frantically to protect herself by pulling the duvet over her head, but it didn't make much difference, and only served to dull the impact. Each blow became increasingly vicious as Fiona's need to exorcise her own personal demons took over.
 
      At first Lisa implored her mother to stop from under the covers, but the onslaught continued. The darkness and pain she endured under her duvet seemed to go on forever until at last, secure in the knowledge that she had inflicted sufficient pain, Fiona gave up, and Lisa heard the dull thud of something being thrown to the ground.
 
     Lisa's mother felt better having released her drunken, frustrated anger, and snapping out the light, she closed the door behind her.
 
     Lisa didn't move from under the duvet until the house was quiet and she knew for sure that her mother had gone to bed. She knew from past experience, once her mother was asleep, she would be safe, and in the morning, she would have forgotten what she had done. It was always the same. So many times, Lisa had looked at her mother the next morning, expecting some kind of apology. It never came.
 
     On one occasion Lisa had returned home from a friend's house twenty minutes late to find most of her clothes lying by the front door, cut to ribbons with a pair of scissors. The following morning Lisa's mother seemed confused as to how it had happened and simply went out and bought her daughter a whole new wardrobe, thinking her generosity absolved the crime. It didn't…and this time she had gone too far. Lisa had never feared for her life before, but she did now... she knew she had to get help, or the next time her mother might kill her.
 
     She thought momentarily about trying to contact her father, but she knew it was useless; he was as scared of her mother as she was, and unbelievably, would probably take her mother's side because, irrespective of what she did he was totally devoted to her. It seemed the more Lisa's mother abused him, the more he loved her for it. Unlike Lisa, he chose to endure the misery an alcoholic inflicts upon the very people they love. But it was different for her. Lisa was trapped... and she needed help.
 
     She dragged herself out of bed and stiffly pulled on some clothes. It was at times like these she wished she didn't go to boarding school because all her real friends were scattered around the country for the holidays. The only people she knew in Glasgow were the daughters of her parents' friends, one of the reasons she had never been able to confide in anybody her own age when she was home. Socially, Fiona Collins was a perfect parent and never drank in public, so Lisa knew turning to any of them was useless; they would never believe her.  She decided her brother was the only one who might be able to help her now. This time she would try to make him understand…                
             
     Lisa pulled on her coat, wincing at the pain and feeling like an intruder in her own home, made her way silently down the dark stairs and slipped out into the night through the French doors in the dining room.
 
     Her bag caught on the arm of a wrought iron garden chair on the patio, knocking it over with a loud clatter, the vibration of the metal against concrete filling the night air, freezing Lisa to the spot.
 
     Terrified the noise might have woken up her mother, she leant against the wall as her whole body trembled. A light went on in the house next door which panicked Lisa even more, thinking they might call the police because there had been recent burglaries nearby. She made her way quickly and as quietly as she could round the side of the house, across the front garden, and out of the large gates at the end of the drive, stopping momentarily as she tried to work out which way to go.
 
     Lisa looked down her suburban street and felt as though she was the only human being on the planet who had ever experienced the loneliness and rejection she now felt. What her mother had done made her feel anger towards the adult world, and parents who used their children as their own personal crucifixion for their disappointments in life. At that moment in time, she cursed her mother for forcing her to seek refuge in the cold and friendless night.
 
     She made her way through the tennis club, over the fence and down the embankment towards the housing estate below, determined to stay away from the road where she might be seen. The only light was that of the moon and everything seemed eerily silent around her. The trees, which during the day had been gentle givers of shade after Lisa had played tennis, now looked frighteningly alive. Their trunks now looked like legless bodies, their branches waving arms - poised to grab her as she passed and prevent her escape.
 
     Gradually the spaces turned into houses, the houses into tenements, as she made her way towards the street lights which heralded civilisation. She tried to stay calm, naively believing nothing she might encounter could possibly be worse than the torture she had left behind at the hands of her mother, but at sixteen years of age, Lisa didn’t really have a clue.
   
     As she approached the street lights, Lisa heard footsteps coming up behind her, but she was too frightened to turn round and see who it was. After a few moments, they were within inches of her back, and Lisa cried out when she felt a hand on her shoulder.
 
     "Have you got the time, Hen?"
 
     Fear gripped Lisa's body like a tightening noose as she franticly pushed the man's hand away and started walking even faster in the hope that he would leave her alone… but within seconds he caught up with her again.
 
     "Come on, Hen … I only want to know the time!"
 
Lisa broke into a run and managed to make it to a piece of wasteland before he caught up with her again, but this time he grabbed her arm and stood in front of her, blocking her escape.
 
     "Are ye no ‘talkin' to me?"
 
The smell of alcohol on his breath caught in her nostrils and triggered her conditioned fear. Lisa tried to get away from him, but whatever age the man was, and however much he had drunk, he was faster and stronger than she was. He grabbed both her arms and pushed her to the ground, pinning her down with the weight of his body while he stared into her eyes, a sick smile on his face. Lisa screamed over and over again, her voice echoing around the houses like a lost soul, but it was to no avail.
 
     Unlike the street where she lived, the noise found no one. Not one light went on. There was just her, the drunk, and upwards of eight hundred apparently sleeping souls on that housing estate... and nobody gave a damn. Her screams were reduced to a pathetic whimper as she felt the air being forced from her lungs by the weight of his body. It was as though everything was in slow motion, her arms and legs drained of strength with the effort of trying to push him away. The drunk's hands seemed to be everywhere, on her breasts, her crotch, ripping at her clothes like someone frantically trying to open a present, eager to enjoy the contents so carefully wrapped. She knew she was going to be raped, but somehow it didn’t matter anymore because nobody cared...and in the haze that comes just before unconsciousness, it just felt like one more violation of her young body which she felt she must deserve…