In summer, and sometimes other times, my father would often take us to the beach after work. Sometimes it was my brother and I, sometimes just me. Though I stopped going as I got older, maybe 12, I didn’t want to be with him and I didn’t want anyone to see my body in swimmers or getting changed.

Thats also when he would stop at the pub on the way home. Waiting for him in the car, sometimes cold because I was still wet. And thinking that any moment someone was going to try to get in the car and ‘get me’. Quite irrational really. I hated him at those times. I knew he was lying to my mother, it wasn’t that, more that I was so scared that a man was going to come and do something to me.

Alcohol worked for him. Made him less angry, less distant. Though I really disliked the smell of it on him. He was more relaxed. Freer. Which was better but he was more touchy with his hands too.