Hide and Seek- Chapter One

This is a true story.

A true story, thirty years in the making.

Chapter 1 begins on Christmas Eve, in a churchyard, where a mother hides with her two children and pretends they are playing hide and seek.

This podcast combines storytelling, personal reflection and lived experience of domestic abuse, family court and survival after leaving.

It is not perfect. It is not polished. But it is true.

Christmas Eve. A churchyard. Two small girls who think they are playing a game.

This is where the story begins — not with a dramatic escape or a single decisive moment, but with a mother crouching behind a gravestone in the dark, whispering to her daughters that Father Christmas won't come unless they are very, very quiet.

Episode One introduces Vanessa, her daughters Charlotte and Molly, and the man who made hiding feel like the safest option. It takes you inside the moment abuse becomes impossible to ignore — and the Christmas Day that showed her, with terrible clarity, that no one was coming to help.

 Four voices this episode:

The story of Christmas Eve and what came after.

The law on the Children Act 1989 and what the family court system was — and wasn't — designed to do.

Author's reflection on writing the hardest chapter of her life.

The stage — what hope looks like when you are still inside the danger.

Because the hardest thing about abuse is not the violence. It is the silence around it.

#ImplacablyHostile #DomesticAbuse #SurvivorStories #CoerciveControl #DomesticViolence #YouAreNotAlone #FamilyCourt #ChildrensAct #WomensPodcast #MothersRights #TrueCrime #NewPodcast #Podcast #HealingJourney

And if it helps one woman, one family member, one friend, or one professional recognise what is happening sooner, then it is worth sharing the steps to safety and a new way of being.#ImplacablyHostile #HideAndSeek #TrueStoryPodcast #DomesticAbuseAwareness #DomesticViolenceAwareness #CoerciveControl #FamilyCourt #FamilyCourtReform #PostSeparationAbuse #SurvivorStory #WomenSupportingWomen #MothersAndChildren #TraumaRecovery #LeavingAbuse #LivedExperience #PodcastLaunch #MemoirPodcast #TrueStory #AbuseRecovery #BelieveWomen#realcrime

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:25

Chapter one Hide and Seek Christmas Eve Vanessa crouched behind the headstone, her arms wrapped protectively around her two girls. She pressed a finger to her lips, signaling for silence. The sky was darkening, pulling long shadows across the churchyard as the last light of Christmas Eve faded. Tears streaked her face, smudging her mascara. Her breath came in shallow, frightened gulps that she fought to suppress. We're playing a game, she whispered hoarsely, forcing a smile. You know, like hide and seek? She held her daughters close, feeling the small, trusting weight of them against her body. It was Christmas Eve for God's sake, a night for carols and mince pies and the half believed magic of a child's first waking. Not this, not hiding in a churchyard in the dark while a man who called himself their father stood somewhere behind them, drunk and dangerous. Charlotte, almost five, and Molly, just three and a half, were oblivious to the gravity of their situation. To them, it was a grand adventure. Tomorrow was Christmas, and tonight they were playing hide and seek with their mum among the gravestones. They were not afraid. They had played here often with their friends Lydia and Thomas, who also lived on Church Walk. Church Walk had always been a haven, a small path running parallel to the graveyard that led to their house, bordered on one side by a quiet car park, and on the other by the school entrance. No cars, no strangers, just the safe enclosed world that children need. The simple rule for all the children who lived along it was to never stray beyond the railings into the car park, or pass the kissing gate that opened into the field by the school. Within those boundaries, life had felt safe. Until it hadn't. Vanessa glanced at the gravestones. God wouldn't mind, she thought. He wouldn't mind the children playing here, just as he wouldn't mind them taking refuge tonight among the still and the silent. Maybe we'll see him, mummy, Charlotte squealed, her voice loud for the supposed game of hide and seek. Look, it's Father Christmas. Vanessa followed her daughter's pointing finger and saw the tail light of a plane moving silently through the darkening sky. The absurdity of it hit her, her child looking for Father Christmas in an aeroplane light, while her mother crouched behind a gravestone with bruises forming under her coat. Hush, darling, Vanessa whispered, squeezing them tighter. He won't come unless we're very, very quiet. The girl's eyes widened as they looked up at the darkening sky. For a brief, merciful moment the terror receded. It was just three of them, and the stars beginning to appear, and the girls' bright faces. Then Vanessa thought Lindy. Her sister in law lived ten minutes away, down the high street. Lindy had always known how to calm him down. Lindy had been Vanessa's lifeline ever since they had moved down south, away from the friends and family who knew her, the woman she had been before him. She had tried making new friends at the playgroup, but as soon as Clive caught wind of them, they vanished, disappearing from her life like steam from a kettle, driven away by his moods and his possessiveness and the subtle grinding control he exercised over every corner of her world. They could slip past the pub, cross the car park, and walk to Lindy's house. It was a plan. It was something. Flashback. The beginning of the end. Clive, why did you send my resignation letter? Vanessa's voice trembled with disbelief. She had just come off the phone with her managing director, who had called to express regret at her decision. Vanessa had not made any decision. Clive had made it for her. Her job had been sought after. She was the best at what she did, and that was why they had called. Not because they were being polite, but because she had genuinely been good at her work. She remembered what it had felt like to be good at things. She could barely reach the memory now. She had been studying for her professional exams when she first met Richard. They had been at college together. He with his easy laugh and his way of making her feel as though her ideas were worth something. He was in her life now, only as a presence she kept privately, like a photograph in a drawer, the version of herself she had been before Clive, the woman who had been valued for her mind. Her name had appeared on the cover of a published textbook by the time she was twenty three. A senior bank executive had approached her at the launch party, assuming she was just another pretty face, and she had introduced herself as co author of the book in his hand. His embarrassment had been a kind of private, complicated joy. She could barely reach that woman now. How things had changed from then to now how very far she had fallen from that woman. Charlotte was asleep in Vanessa's arms when Clive approached. He was unemployed, having lost his job over a spat with his boss. They were burning through their savings. Sweetheart, you need to be a proper mum to Charlotte, he said, his charming smile in place. I'll start my own business, and you can stay home. I'll take care of us. Vanessa did not want to fight. She knew with the animal knowledge of someone who has learned to read the weather in another person's face what was coming, but she said it anyway. No, Clive, we really need the money. The smile disappeared. Without warning, he struck her. His fist hit her mouth hard enough to make her stagger. Blood dripped onto Charlotte's bib. By telling him she intended to return to work, Vanessa had bruised his fragile, furious ego. He wanted her to play the obedient housewife while he, a failed entrepreneur, pretended to be the provider. But she was the breadwinner. She always had been, and he hated her for it with a hatred that surprised even him sometimes, she thought. You're my wife, he shouted, the words barely concealing the threat beneath. Do as I say. Vanessa saw Clive's father in him at that moment. Grumpy, the nickname the girls would give their grandfather. His mother, Pam, had always catered to the man's every whim, enduring years of emotional control. Vanessa made a private vow. That is not me. That night she ran to a hotel clutching Charlotte. She could have gone to one of her sisters or her mother, but then they would know. They would know that her perfect marriage was not perfect at all. Christmas Eve. Who wants to go to Auntie Lindy's? Vanessa asked the girls, forcing lightness into her voice. Me They chorused with delight. All right, this is the game. We go as quiet as mice through the churchyard. Then we stay close to the wall, sneak past the pub, and make it to Auntie Lindy's. If we see anyone, we hide. They nodded eagerly, ready to play along, and so they went. They dodged James, one of Clive's drunk friends, slipping unnoticed to Lindy's front door. Inside there was warmth and paints for the girls and the possibility of safety, and for a few minutes Vanessa allowed herself to feel it. Lindy set down mugs of tea. He's drunk again, isn't he? she said, knowing already. Vanessa nodded, trembling. Yes. You've got to stand up to him, you know, Lindy said, placing a comforting hand on her arm. Vanessa couldn't answer. How could she explain that standing up to him was precisely what produced the worst of it? That speaking back only widened the gap between what was expected of her and what happened to her when she failed to meet it. She looked at Lindy, really looked at her, and recognized something she had never named before. Lindy knew exactly what Clive was. She had grown up watching it. Her own childhood had been shaped by the same pattern, the same walking on glass, the same art of making yourself small enough not to be noticed. Turning up the music was not cowardice. It was survival. Learned young and never fully unlearned. Then there was a knock at the door. Lindy's living room. Vanessa sat stiffly at Lindy's kitchen table, watching her girls happily paint with their aunt, their innocent laughter filling the air. For a brief moment she allowed herself to imagine that everything was normal, that they were safe, that the man who terrified her wasn't looming just beyond the front door. The knock came louder than she had expected echoing through the house. Vanessa flinched. It's him. Lindy opened the door, greeting Clive with an exaggerated smile and a kiss on the cheek, as if she hadn't spent the afternoon drinking with him at the pub, as if she didn't know full well what state he was in. Clive entered, swaying slightly, the smell of whiskey reaching Vanessa before he did. Daddy, Daddy the girls shrieked with delight, running toward him. He scooped them up, his drunkenness hidden beneath the exaggerated playfulness of a doting father. Vanessa watched him closely. Please, not here, not in front of them. Clive put the girls down and turned to Vanessa with that familiar smile, the one that sent cold dread creeping up her spine. I need to speak to Mummy for a moment, he said, his voice sweet and soft, like poison disguised as honey. The door closed behind them. Lindy turned the Christmas carols up a little louder. She knew. She always knew, and she turned up the music anyway. Well, we've had some fun tonight, haven't we? Vanessa said, forcing a smile, desperate to diffuse the tension crackling in the air between them. Clive's smile disappeared. The first blow came before she had time to react. A sharp punch to her stomach that knocked the wind out of her. Pain radiated through her body, white hot and immediate. She doubled over, gasping. Before she could recover, the second blow came. An open handed slap across her face, so hard that she stumbled backward. Her jaw throbbed. She tasted blood. She barely had time to raise her hands before Clive's fist connected with her chin, and she went down onto the floor. Her vision blurred. Pain exploded behind her eyes. The kicks came next. He aimed at her stomach, her ribs, her back. Each blow calculated, each one more deliberate than the last. She curled into herself, trying to protect her head. You're not even a real fucking mother, he shouted. You couldn't even give birthright. Her girls, her two precious girls born by Caesarean, that was her failure in his eyes. He wielded that shame like a weapon. He had always been good at finding the tender places. He knelt beside her when it was over, close enough for her to smell the whiskey on his breath. His voice was a low, dangerous whisper. If you ever try to take my children from me again, I will fucking kill you. Vanessa couldn't move. She believed him. She nodded, her mouth too swollen to form words. Clive stood up, brushing off his shirt as if he had just finished a chore. He glanced toward the kitchen where the girls were painting snowmen and clowns. No girls, he called out, his voice sweet again. Leave mummy for a moment, she needs to rest. Rest the word tasted bitter. Vanessa pushed herself up onto her hands and knees, her ribs screamed in protest. She had to get out. She crawled to the front door, gripped the frame, and pulled herself upright. Everything hurt. Her face was throbbing, her side ached with every breath, and her vision swam. She stumbled out into the cold night, the Christmas carols from inside the church drifting across the street toward her. Away in a manger. The bells, the dark, the silence of the village around her. Her girls. The thought hit her like a second punch. She had left them. She had run and left her daughters inside with him. She fell to her knees in the churchyard, pressing her forehead against the cold earth, sobbing. Lindy was there. She told herself. Lindy would protect them. But she had turned up the music. She had done nothing to stop him. What kind of safety was that? Vanessa did not know how long she lay there. When she finally stood again, her body trembling, she wasn't sure if she was walking away from danger or abandoning her children to it. But she couldn't stay. She had to survive. For them Christmas Day, Christmas Day arrived with its false sense of cheer. Vanessa applied her makeup meticulously, layering foundation and concealer over the swelling beneath her left eye. The bruise was a deep purple edging toward black. No amount of powder could fully hide it. She stared at her reflection, touching up her lipstick for the third time. This is what my life has become. Downstairs, Clive was bustling around the kitchen, chopping vegetables and stirring the gravy. He was putting on a show, the perfect husband, the doting father. Grandma Pam and Grumpy had arrived earlier, filling the house with their presence just as planned. Pam's eyes flicked to Vanessa's face over the Christmas table, her expression changed from pleasant to concerned. Vanessa, dear, what happened to your eye? That looks nasty. The room went silent. Clive froze, his back to them, the carving knife still in his hands. Before Vanessa could come up with a response, Molly, who had been quietly playing with her new clown doll, piped up in the innocent matter of fact way children do when they have not yet learned the survival skill of silence. Oh Daddy did it. Pam gasped softly. Grumpy shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Vanessa's heart pounded. Help is coming, she thought. Help is coming. Pam's face flushed, her gaze bounced between Clive and Vanessa. For a moment, Vanessa thought she might stand up, might confront her son. But then Pam looked down, her expression hardening as she straightened her napkin. If we had known we wouldn't have come, she said quietly, avoiding Vanessa's eyes. That's it, Vanessa thought. That's all you have? Help isn't coming. It never was. Clive turned back to the turkey. His face was expressionless. He carved a perfect slice and the meal continued, and no one said anything more about the bruise, and the girls laughed and played, and Grumpy said good turkey twice, and Vanessa sat frozen at the table, knowing with terrifying clarity that she was completely, utterly alone.

SPEAKER_04 17:42

Writing this in the third person was the only way I could get near it. To write, I hid with my children behind a headstone on Christmas Eve still feels almost unbearable because the sentence makes the terror solid. Third person gave me just enough distance to tell the truth without collapsing under it.

SPEAKER_00 18:02

What stays with me most in this chapter is not only the violence, but the social choreography around it. The smiling Christmas table, the family silence, the child's plain truth, and the way nobody truly intervenes. That is one of the most devastating parts of abuse. It is not just what the abuser does, it is what everybody else permits, minimizes, explains away, or steps around. Pam's response, if we had known we wouldn't have come, is not the response of a woman who has seen nothing. It is the response of a woman who has decided not to see.

SPEAKER_04 19:07

But she genuinely believed that staying was what a wife did, even when it was awful, because that was what she had done. That knowledge doesn't excuse her silence, but it explains it. The churchyard setting is not incidental. Vanessa is surrounded by the dead on the night she most fears joining them. The girls are fearless because they have not yet learned to read the darkness the way she has. That gap between what the children see and what the mother knows runs through the whole book.

SPEAKER_03 19:43

The legal landscape, family court in 1990's Britain. The family court in 1990s, Britain, what it was and what it felt like. For anyone encountering the English family court system for the first time in the 1990s, one of the most disorienting things was the discovery that it was not, despite its name, a family-friendly place. It was a court of law. It operated on rules of evidence, procedure, hierarchy, and adversarial argument. It had its own vocabulary, injunctions, residence orders, contact orders, ex parte hearings, welfare reports, the paramountcy principle, and it used that vocabulary without apology or explanation. The Children Act 1989, which came fully into force in October 1991, reshaped how the courts approached disputes about children. It introduced the concept that the child's welfare was the court's paramount consideration, a principle that sounds compassionate in the abstract, but whose practical application was far more complicated. At this period, legal aid was more broadly available than it later became, but the process of obtaining it was itself a bureaucratic ordeal. Solicitors varied wildly in their understanding of domestic violence, their willingness to take the client's account seriously, and their capacity to translate fear into legal strategy. Courts moved slowly, hearings were adjourned, welfare reports took weeks, children grew older and more frightened while the machinery turned. None of this felt like family. It felt like a system that had been designed for the resolution of property disputes and had been asked, somewhat reluctantly, to also adjudicate the safety of children.