Life in my shoes - pt4

In 1987,when I was 8 years old, my Mother gave birth to His daughter, my sister & several months later went on to marry Him. It was the birth of my sister that lead to my mother getting a babysitter so that she could start to go out to the pub with Nigel,despite the fact that she was aware of the fact that his drinking was a huge contributor in the abuse that she received.
Mary was several years older than me and was the daughter of my mum's old school friend, she seemed nice and I quickly took to her, it was like having an older sister who payed an interest in me and I relished the attention.
One particular night that Mary was babysitting she told me that she had to go and meet her boyfriend at a nearby school, and said that I had to go with her, I was concerned that my baby sister was going to be by herself but Mary reassured me that she was soundly asleep in her cot and that we would be back in 15mins, before she woke up.
Reluctantly I went with her and ended up sat on the old wooden fence that surrounded the school whilst she chatted with the two men that were waiting there for her.I reminded her of the time but she didn't seem too bothered.It must have been half an hour or more by the time we started to head back to my house.On arrival the house was quiet and I felt relieved that nothing bad had happened, however as I was taking off my coat my mother suddenly appeared and started screaming about us leaving my sister,Lara,alone.Whilst Mary was trying to defend herself about going out I slipped up stairs and hid in my room.
Under my bed I lay sobbing, feeling guilty and scared,unaware that my mother had come upstairs. She dragged me out from under the bed and repeatedly slapped and threw me about the room, screaming at me, telling me that I was stupid,that I didn't care about my sister and that anything could have happened to her.Mary had gone home and I had no one to back me up when I said that I hadn't wanted to go. Alone in my bed that night, I cried so hard, for my sister that I hadn't cared enough about and for myself that life was so unfair and the pain I was in.The next day nothing was said, if it hadn't have been for the stinging of my scalp from where my mother had pulled at my hair, I would have sworn that nothing had happened.
This was how it was, anger and violence on the night time and back to normality during the day, as if the falseness would disguise what was really going on, I guess to an extent it did, my friends and teachers were never aware of my home-life and I was never questioned by anyone in authority even when the police were involved as my mother always dropped the charges against Nigel.