The Dealer was a Bit Dodgy

By Mary M Page

The inside story of my life surviving with complex PTSD.

Argyle was my angel on earth. His presence in my life for almost 14 years helped me deal with Complex PTSD. This half bred Bengal I saved as a kitten was someone I could talk to, cry to, be with and hug and hold. He helped me through many years of traumatic thinking and troubled times.
I will be forever grateful for this beautiful fur child and I will miss him until we meet again in the hereafter.
Thank you my darling boy Mama loves you!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Oct 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9798369493823

Book preview

Next chapter

I was born August 21 as I’ve said before..but 1957 was the year. I am the youngest of three children to Graeme and Lorna York

My Dad didn’t know if I was a boy or a girl as he jumped in his truck and went off on his weekly trip the day I was being born so he didn’t know he had another daughter until he got home a few days later.

My brother Corey was the eldest but born to a different father so we found out when he was about 17…so I was 11…what a fucking big shock that was..my mother was a pious catholic woman who wouldn’t say shit to save her life. Family secrets well kept!

My sister was born over a year after my parents got married so was a "legitimate child of the marriage as was I born four years later.

My father was a trucker so wasn’t home much..and was constantly drunk and very abusive to my mother when he was home.

My sister Annette was always his favourite, he mostly ignored Corey and picked me up and I got a cuddle from him occasionally. But Annette could twist Dad around her little finger..even as a child. Dad and Mum would be blueing and Annette would get Dad to stop somehow..don’t know what it was but she could calm him.

I slept in my parents bedroom in a cot until I was about 5 because a bed wasn’t in the budget…like food. Never any money for that either. Dad pissed away his wages before he got home every week.

Most of our furniture was was old crap but Mum was scrupulously clean..so didn’t matter what it looked like..it was clean. And so were all us kids. I used to light the wood fired water heater by the time I was five to heat the water for a bath at night or the copper for the water in the laundry. Corey and Netty (Annette) hardly ever did such things as they were never relied on for anything.

I used to tie their school ties for them as they never learned how. I remember as a kid standing on the stool doing up their ties for them. Me the baby of the family taking on things they should have been doing for themselves…

I have to put in here that as toddler Corey developed polio and was in hospital for months..this of course pre dated my birth so am only going on what Mum said. He came home with a calliper on his leg and was still in that when he started Catholic school when he was 5and a half. So I’m guessing it cost him a bit of grief from the other kids back then..kids were and still are mostly hurtful critters. He also suffered from meningitis when he had the polio..not sure about the extent or damage from that.

All I know he was a right mongrel from as far back as I can remember. Always hurting animals and torturing me at any given moment. I’m pretty certain he and our darling sister hated the sight of me from the minute I was born. I was simply there for their amusement and torture. That being physical, mental and sexual. The later one from my brother.

He abused me sexually from when I was aged 5 until I was around 11 or so. Intermittently because he was an inmate of the now notorious boys home in the city.

Many boys suffered at the hands of others in that institution and I’m sure my brother was no different. I know each time he got out he was worse than when he went in.

I never told Mum any of this for fear and shame. Narcissists have that power over you. I did try to tell her once when I was about 40 years old..she said don’t be so stupid he did not. So I never brought the subject up again. She died a year or so later in 1999.

I did tell two nuns at school when I was about 8 or so, they found great delight in asking me all the sordid details and making me cry. They said they would speak to Mum about it and pray for me. Nothing changed so I’m guessing they just got off on my story. Bitches. One was, maybe still is alive and was questioned by my detective during the lead up to the charges being laid against my brother..she remembered me but none of that business at all. Don’t think she will be going to her God when her time comes.

Next chapter

My sister found great delight in beating me when Mum was at work. Mum had to go to work when I was 8 because Dad left…sat me on his knee one day and said and I quote. Dads leaving today and I’m never coming back so you won’t see me anymore..unquote.

And it was a few years until I did see him again. It was the first time I’d ever uttered a swear word out loud. I was playing by myself as usual on the front lawn and I saw a car pull up on the empty block next to our house. My Dad got out of the drivers side and some woman I didn’t know got out the passenger side.

They stepped over the little wooden rail fence onto the front lawn and Dad said hello baby girl this is your Aunty Margie. I took one look at this tall slender well dressed young woman, she was very attractive too. And I said very loudly to my Dad…she’s not my fuckin Aunty. I think he was shell shocked as he muttered something about my language and went into the house to see Mum. They were only there five minutes and they were gone again. He never brought another woman to our house again. And there were many others.

Apparently before he left Mum and us he was getting about with the ladies. Somewhere out there I have a half sister who is four years younger than me.

I don’t care to know who she is nor do I ever want to meet her…imagine if she was like my older sister..shit no..not two of them.

I saw him again on and off over the years. I told my school friends he was dead. Didn’t talk about him. But gee I missed him. Little girl wanted and needed her Daddy to protect her.

He lived in the city with his brother, who by the way ended up throwing out his de facto wife and his 3 children’s mother and telling her to take her brats with her. Poor love could only take one the youngest so the other two a girl my age and a boy a bit younger we’re left with their father and mine. . Anyway this Uncle ended up marrying one of my Dads girlfriends. Nice lady too. I liked her a lot but was sad for the kids mother. I’d liked her also.

There was 10 kids in Dads family as was usual in those days but his brother was just two years younger than Dad..so they were good pals.

Dad used to come up to our town where home was, on a lot of weekends and spend most of it in the Bottom Pub drinking with his mates.

Netty used to say she had seen his car there so would go in the bar and he’d throw her a few coins and a cuddle and say he would come see us later. Later rarely happened. If Netty said or I even suspected Dad was in town I’d go sit down the pub outside under the old Peppercorn trees where he used to park his car…and I’d sit and wait..and wait..and wait for him to come out. Sometimes I’d be under that tree on my arse in the dirt for hours just waiting for a glimpse of him. Mates of his would see me now and then and say they’d tell him I was there waiting, but he rarely came out. A few times he did but he was so drunk by then he’d just say gday and promise to come by the house tomorrow before he went back to the city..he rarely came by the house. I was too shy to go into the pub bar like Netty did..so I was just sitting and waiting. She used to laugh and say Dad had given her a few shillings or so and I was a sook for not going into the pub. Mum never knew about any of this..she was always at work cleaning the church getting it ready for the Sunday masses.

If my friends saw me there… I was just playing in the dirt.

Was same with lunch at school..friends would ask where my lunch was..I’d say I didn’t want any. Fact was there was no damn lunch to bring and I’d