When I was a child, my mother would come up with the best games. We’d play them in the car, on the way home from school, or after visiting a relative or a friend. If she spotted a For Sale sign, she would propose a mission. How many more could we find within a ten-block radius? At the right time of year, we’d count Christmas trees. We had checkpoints all over town - a particularly steep hill, an old bridge - that we would have to pass in a certain order before turning in. Sometimes she would let me choose the directions, asking me to shout ‘left’ or ‘right’ at each junction. It made every journey an adventure. But as I grew older I came to realise that it wasn’t a game at all. My mother just didn’t want to go home.
Today’s front page of The Sun newspaper contains a news story involving Jorge Arantes, the ex-husband of JK Rowling. In an essay published online earlier this week, in which the Harry Potter author expressed her controversial views on trans issues, she stated that she was a victim of domestic abuse. The Sun decided to track down the supposed culprit, ask for his corroboration, and demand an apology. He gave the former - he concedes that a slap occurred, on one occasion - but declined to offer the latter. He is quoted as saying: ‘It is true I slapped her. But I didn’t abuse her. I’m not sorry for slapping her.’
In my mind even slapping once is evidence enough that there was abuse. I don’t know why the team at The Sun thinks abusive spouses deserve a right of reply in a national newspaper. I don’t know why they felt ‘I’m not sorry’ was a responsible message to drape across the front page, especially when so many people are currently suffering at home, 24/7, with their domestic abuser. I have seen some argue that the public have the right to know that such a man walks among us so that we can avoid dating him ourselves, even though he lives in Portugal. Whatever the logic, I fear it may cause many readers indelible amounts of pain.
My father was violent. My mother tolerated several years of beatings and various degrees of mental abuse. Sometimes the motives were established. She would have been ‘too nice’ to another man at a party, or she talked back, or she was ungrateful about how hard he’d been working. As is so often the case, it got passed down a generation, like an heirloom you didn’t ask for. Childhood misbehaviours - being too loud, cheeky, ungrateful (ingratitude was the key one) - were punished with force. A slap here, a slap there. Sometimes worse. The occasional call into school to say I couldn’t make it in today due to a bug, if there was any bruising.
The Sun is doing what friends of domestic abusers do in real life: they have given ‘his side of the story’, handing those who dislike Rowling the opportunity to downplay her suffering.
In the grand scheme of things, we were lucky. We left, in the end, and began our lives away from him. But abuse doesn’t go away when you unpack your things in a new house. It doesn’t disappear when someone new shows you kindness. It is with you forever. A friend giving you a playful cuff on the arm is enough to make you flinch, your instincts preparing you for the next blow. An everyday tiff with a partner - a slightly raised voice or just a whisper of confrontation - goes straight to your stomach: you will always expect them to hit you, even if they’d never dream of it. Pictures of people with their own fathers, arms around each other, smiles wide, is an arrow to the heart. And worse, the guilt. You wonder if he was abusive before the added stress of fatherhood? Did your presence exacerbate things? Would your mother have left, and flourished, if she hadn’t had a family to support? That just never goes away.
People think my father is a character. He is wildly popular and well-liked. Over the years I have made occasional, half-formed attempts to point out to family members that he wasn’t always so nice to everyone, actually, but they never seem to land. People think he’s a good guy. They say that parenting is hard and you can’t judge others until you have kids yourself. They’ll imply that you’re remembering things wrong. But they’re just saving themselves the hassle of an argument. The Sun is doing what friends of domestic abusers do in real life: they have given ‘his side of the story’, handing those who dislike Rowling the opportunity to downplay her suffering, to dismiss her claims as melodramatic, exaggeration or hysteria.
I could, perhaps, confront my father personally, like The Sun has done with Jorge. But what’s the point, if his reaction mimicked the one expressed today? ‘It was just a slap’, he might say, even though it wasn’t. ‘I’m not sorry.’ Hearing a hurtful and prolonged period of my life, but especially that of my mother’s, laughed off in such a way, would cause deep pain. So I leave it. Healthy or otherwise, it is my choice to let those particular words to my father remain unsaid, to never know what his excuse or apology or rebuttal would sound like. It is my right to keep that box firmly locked. Rowling has had that right taken away from her. There are a lot of people reading their newspapers today who will be hurting to see a pain that sounds just like theirs trivialised in such a way.
Domestic abuse is not gossip fodder. It is destructive and sad and traumatic. It is a lightning bolt scar that never quite fades. Whatever your thoughts on Rowling - and boy, do I have thoughts on Rowling - dredging up such things so publicly, so explicitly and so callously, shows nothing but contempt for the countless unnamed women and men who have done something miraculous: they have survived.
If you need help you can contact Women’s Aid, which also has an online chat service, which runs from 10-12, Monday to Friday. You can call the National Domestic Abuse hotline on 0808 2000 247. Refuge charity has online services and a helpline.
READ MORE: Visits To Domestic Abuse Sites Have Now Risen By 950% Since Lockdown
READ MORE::a[Maxine Peake Stars In Domestic Abuse Film To Remind Victims: ‘Services Are Available Wherever, And Whenever, To Support Them.’]{href='https://graziadaily.co.uk/life/in-the-news/maxine-peake-refuge-domestic-violence/' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer'}