Although the girls were repulsed by their father's behaviour, Mae—having once endured Fred's throwing a vacuum cleaner at her when she remonstrated against his fondling her—developed a mechanism whereby she would tolerate Fred's sexually fondling her, then jokingly brush aside any efforts he made to take the molestation further, whereas in her autobiography, Mae recollected that Heather "was affected quite badly by all of this. more than me." A strong suspicion remains that, by 1985 or 1986, Heather had been forced to engage in intercourse with her father, as by the mid-1980s, she developed classic symptoms of the distress felt by victims of child abuse: these included habits of her biting her nails until they bled; drinking alcohol; of warily watching her father through the corner of her eye wherever she was sitting or standing; expressing nervous fragility whenever in the presence of males; her sleep being repeatedly broken by nightmares; and her repeatedly bouncing back and forth as she sat on any chair. This distressful behaviour led to Fred and Rose suspecting Heather had lesbian inclinations, and also resulted in her becoming the increasing recipient of taunts from her father (who had never particularly held a liking toward Heather) that she was "ugly" and a "bitch". On the occasions Heather remonstrated about the abuse to her mother, Rose would simply laugh at her distress.