Love That Lasts Forever

by Pat Barrow

  Dad kept on with the same theme over the next few days and it seemed as though he really wanted to make sure that we understood what he meant. It certainly worked as far as Jonty was concerned. “I am going to tell Mum I really don’t care what she says or what she thinks my Tae Kwon Do is most important and I’m going to it. Right?” It was so unlike Jonty, he just wasn’t usually so emphatic. I guess when I thought about it, I knew that there was no way that I wanted to give up the Pony Club or horse riding, but somehow I wanted to make it better between Mum and Dad. Of course if I was honest, I was equally sure that wasn’t likely to happen. Mum never said anything nasty about Dad, but Dad just seemed to be happy if Mum was sad or disappointed about something and that something usually involved me and Jonty.

  Chapter 17

  It was a few days before Mum was due to come home from Aber, this time home for good and wasn’t I glad. I’d really, really missed her even though I still had this niggle about what Dad had said about maybe she didn’t really love us if she didn’t want us to do all the things that we enjoyed doing. Then Dad suggested that we went with him to the new sports club that had just opened up. It was only about ten minutes from home and they had a free open evening with trials of different activities and sports. So, we went along. I don’t know how it happened, I really don’t know but before we left, somehow Jonty and I were signed up to the new junior tennis club which was starting in a few weeks’ time, indoors at first and then moving to the outdoor courts, and guess what – it was at six o’clock on Sundays – six till seven. “Your mum will take you, it will be really good, won’t it? I’ll just send her the details.” I felt cold water running down my spine. How had we got ourselves into this now? It had just happened so easily, one minute we were chatting about tennis and how we both liked to play and the next minute we were signed up and… Oh, what had I done? How could I possibly tell Mum that… Oh I don’t know, I just didn’t know any more. But what I did know was that usually on Sundays, we went out somewhere and we’d get back during the evening and have a meal together and then a lovely relaxing time just chilling out and she would take us back to school the next morning. But now, we’d have to dash back from wherever we were and have our tea early or else have it late when we came back from tennis. Dad patted us both on the head. “I’ll have a chat to your mum and tell her about all these things and just make sure she understands what’s arranged.” That smile of his hovered across his face.

  All thoughts of tennis went out of my mind, I was so pleased to see Mum that weekend and have a proper weekend with her instead of what seemed like a small amount of snatched time. On Friday evening, she came along to the Pony Club and of course Jonty came too, although he moaned about having to hang around waiting for me and was even crosser when he had to come along to the riding lesson the next morning. There wasn’t really time for Mum to go back home again and then come back so once again, they hung around whilst I was doing my lesson and this time, it was partly inside and then we went on a proper ride. I guess Jonty got bored. He was quite grumpy when we came back. And then we had no sooner got home than we had to have an early lunch because he was off to his Tae Kwon Do. At least that was in town and Mum and I could have a bit of a wander around the shops but we were clock watching so we couldn’t really enjoy ourselves.

  I guess it was convenient that tennis wasn’t starting right away, I don’t know how I could possibly have told her about that. As it happened, I didn’t need to because sure enough during the week, Dad announced that he was going to give Mum a ring. “Just to set her straight on what’s organised for you both,” he told us. But he somehow looked, well, like he was looking forward to upsetting Mum. Anyhow, after I’d gone to bed that night, I heard him in the hall. I guessed he was going to ring Mum from there. I crept out of my room so I could hear, well at least I could hear some of it. I think he started by telling her what we’d got arranged. I don’t know what she said in response but he sort of laughed, a nasty sort of laugh. “Well, what do you expect?” I heard him say. “The kids don’t want to be with you, of course they don’t. They couldn’t wait to fill up your time.” So he was making out it was all our fault, that we’d chosen not to be with Mum and that just wasn’t true and it wasn’t fair. But what could I do about it? Nothing, really ’cos I couldn’t say anything to Dad, I couldn’t disagree with Dad, ’cos well, it just wasn’t possible. But Mum, she’d be so disappointed. Perhaps she would stop loving us, perhaps she would get a boyfriend who’d got kids and like, replace us, have somebody new. Perhaps it’s true what Dad said, perhaps that was what she went to Aber for, perhaps it was ’cos that’s where she’s going to go and live, Perhaps she’s just going to leave us, perhaps she doesn’t want us.

  I talked to Suzie the following day. I hadn’t had a really serious talk with her for ages, I knew that I had sort of drifted away from all my friends a bit but Suzie was still always there for me. She put her arms around me and said, “You know your mum loves you to bits and you love her to bits and she knows that. Of course you love your dad and your dad loves you, but you’re not going to lose your mum, not in a million years is that going to happen. She’ll understand about the pony riding and the tennis and it’s not like you’ve got to go with your dad, your mum can take you.”

  I guessed it was sensible but… “It’s just that we can’t sort of do anything with her, like special stuff because there’s never going to be any space anymore.” Of course Suzie didn’t have the answers but she just reassured me.

  “Look, don’t worry. I think when grownups don’t love each other anymore that they sometimes do stuff to get the other person really upset and angry, it just seems to happen and I think grownups are often quite childish,” she said.

  “Gosh, you’re so wise Suzie, you just know so much. How do you know so much?”

  “Well, I don’t really but I guess I can see what’s happening ’cos I’m not stuck in the middle of it like you are. You’d probably be just as helpful to me if it was the other way around.” I doubted it!

  “What do you think I should do, Suzie? How can I make it feel okay with Mum? I’ve just got this horrible feeling that I’m going to lose her, ’cos she’ll think we don’t love her.”

  “Of course you won’t lose her. Don’t be silly, Hetty,” said Suzie. “Why don’t you and Jonty think of something that you could do with your mum on Sundays during the day? So that would be your special time with her?”

  “I can’t really think of anything,” I said.

  “Well, try,” said Suzie. “It’s hard for your mum too, you know.” I could see that but I was hurting so much I couldn’t think straight.

  We hadn’t seen Carol for some time and then out of the blue, she sent us a letter saying that she would like to meet us after school. She had clearly already told Dad because he didn’t seem surprised when I said that I wanted to meet her and she was going to take me to McDonald’s and that I’d be home at about half past five and was that okay?

  “Well, I suppose so, if you must. I can’t really see why she needs to talk to you again though. Just be careful and remember we stick together. Don’t let her wriggle her way between you and your old dad. Trust me, not her. She’s on your mum’s side. Don’t forget when she’s all sweet and smiley.” I couldn’t understand why Dad didn’t like Carol. She wasn’t a bit like he said, and I really trusted her.

  When Jonty told me that Carol had arranged to see him at a separate time, I was quite relieved because I wanted Carol to myself, somehow it was much easier to talk when there was nobody else there, just me and her. She sort of just made it right for me to talk and she just listened. She nodded thoughtfully as I explained about the riding, the Pony Club and the Tae Kwon Do and now the tennis and the quandary I felt that I was in. And how it felt like it was all my fault and that I was getting blamed for Mum getting squashed out. She didn’t agree or disagree but asked me what I thought could happen to perhaps make it feel easier for me. It was then that I blurted out tha
t Dad reckoned that it would mean that Mum didn’t really love us if she didn’t want us to go and do those things. Carol looked sort of surprised. “Mmm, I wonder if that’s what you think?” she pondered.

  “Well, I just don’t know. Dad’s always been right. It just seems like he wouldn’t have got it wrong this time.”

  Carol nodded. “You know mums and dads don’t always get it right, sometimes when mums and dads are too busy fighting each other, they sort of get muddled about what’s best for their children. Of course you want to do your riding and of course you’d like to do tennis, but I just wonder whether maybe tennis could perhaps be on a different night, one that isn’t a night that you’re seeing your mum? Whether that would perhaps make it a bit easier?”

  I nodded but then… “I don’t think that Dad would like that. He’d never agree.”

  “Mmm, maybe it’s something I could have a chat to Dad about rather than you doing it?” said Carol.

  “Yes, but I don’t want Dad to think that I’ve been complaining, ’cos…”

  “Just trust me,” said Carol. “I’m not going to promise anything but let’s just see if there’s any room for a bit of a wriggle around, eh?”

  “Dad says it shouldn’t be Mum’s time and his time, but it should just be our time,” I blurted out. “Like it shouldn’t matter when things are arranged, but we just want to have some time to do special things with Mum and Mum had been talking about us going away like some weekends and now I’ve gone and messed that up, so that can’t happen.”

  “There’s the holidays, you get a holiday every six weeks,” said Carol.

  “But we never seem to have much time with Mum because Dad gets something organised and then the holidays all go.”

  “It seems to me that we need to get something a little bit more definite in place about holidays so that Mum and Dad don’t need to argue. Do you think that would work better?”

  I knew, or perhaps hoped, that Carol would get it sussed for me. “Yes, a million times better,” I whispered.

  I don’t really know what went on between Mum and Dad and Carol over the next few weeks. Dad seemed to be in quite a grumpy mood so I guess Carol had talked to them both. I held my breath hoping that something would change but nothing happened. And then, he announced one day. “Like I said kids some weeks ago, we’re going back to court to get this sorted out once and for all. We can’t have your mum messing everything up, demanding her time and stopping your fun.”

  I looked surprised. “What do you mean, Dad?”

  “Oh never mind, I don’t want to be talking about that now,” said Dad. “Talking about her gives me a thumping headache.” I looked startled. “Come on, let’s go and kick a ball around the garden for a bit.”

  Chapter 18

  Of course, Carol came to see us again. She saw us by ourselves and then together. I don’t know why but I just cried when she arrived, I just crumbled, I didn’t know what was happening. I didn’t know how to sort it out any more. It just seemed so muddled up. “I just want it all, well just running smoothly and Mum and Dad to get on and I don’t want it like this. I just feel like there’s a war going on all the time and I don’t know which side I’m supposed to be on,” I sobbed.

  Carol understood, of course she did. She smiled at me and said, “I wonder what we can do? How you would really like it to be if you could just wave a magic wand?”

  “Well, I want to see Mum and I want to have time with her and now we’ve got all these things arranged, well I want to do them, but they’re always in Mum’s time and there’s never any chance to see her just on her own and I get sort of sad and then Dad says Mum’s got a boyfriend and he’s got children and she’s going to not want us anymore and –”

  “Hey, whoa, whoa let’s take one thing at a time, shall we? Of course your mum and dad will both probably meet somebody else one day, but from what I’ve heard and from talking to your mum and your dad, they’re not ready to do that at the moment, they just want to get it right for you. Yes really, Hetty, that’s what they both want – the trouble is they aren’t very good at working together to get it right for you. They both think that they have the perfect answer.”

  I looked at her and gave a sharp intake of breath, should I say about Dad’s girlfriend? Of course not, I couldn’t say anything bad about him; it would be disloyal, it would be unfair, ’cos, ’cos… I pushed the vivid memory of his bottom waving in the air out of my mind, I couldn’t think about it, it was too horrible. I felt a tiny bit reassured by what Carol was saying and then I heard myself responding, “Well, what I’d really like would be to spend a couple of nights in the week with Mum, staying over so it isn’t always such a rush. That is as well as alternate weekends’ otherwise it’s such a long time before I see her again. And then in holidays, I’d like some proper time with both her and Dad. He arranges really good things for us but he doesn’t give Mum any chance at all.”

  Carol looked thoughtful as she said, “I guess what I’m hearing is that you want to get it fair for everybody, but this is about what works best for you, Hetty, and what’s right for Jonty, whether you two always want to be together or whether you think you want to have some time on your own with Mum or with Dad.” She made it sound all so sensible and easy and talking to her that was easy too, but the reality was that Mum and Dad would never ever agree and I was just so no, I couldn’t think of it – this nagging doubt, this other parrot on my shoulder that, if I didn’t please Dad, he might stop loving me. I couldn’t contemplate that it would be worse than anything, worse than dying.

  I don’t know how Jonty’s meeting with Carol went but he was certainly in a bad mood when he came back. He banged and thumped around, “I’m not going anywhere,” he said, “why can’t this all stop? I hate them, I hate them.” Then he burst into tears; I put my arms around him. I knew exactly how he felt but I guess because I was that bit older at least some of the time I could see that there may be ways out. For Jonty, it just felt like this Mum and Dad stuff got in the way of everything else, no one could ever get it right for Mum and Dad and his way of dealing with it was to be cross and thump around and shout at everybody.

  Carol wanted to talk to us together and Jonty, quite unusually for him, snuggled up to me. He didn’t really say much and when he did, he looked at me before he answered any of Carol’s questions, insisting, “I want what she wants.” We both agreed that we preferred to go together to see Mum and to be with Dad together because that’s what we had always done. Yes, Dad took us both to different things and that was good but I didn’t want my time with Mum to be separate and deep down, I know I was scared – I didn’t want Jonty to be with Dad and I to feel pushed out. I always had this fear that unless I was with Dad, he’d forget about me and not want me anymore.

  Carol said that she would talk to Dad about us staying overnight with Mum, each Wednesday and Thursday. My heart started to thump, I could feel a panic coming over me, my ears were burning, my cheeks were burning, I bit my lip, I could taste blood in my mouth. I blurted out, “But Dad’ll be so cross, he won’t love me anymore.”

  “Hey, now, now,” said Carol. “I’m not going to tell your mum and dad what they’ve got to do; I’m only going to suggest to them that quite often children find it easier if there’s a fairer division of time between them. I’m not taking you away from your dad. But let me talk to your dad and then we will see, you don’t need to say anything to him, let me do it. Okay?”

  I felt a bit reassured but I got this uneasy feeling that it would all go wrong and I guess I waited over the next few days for there to be some sort of explosion and for Dad to come storming in, being really angry, angry with me. But it wasn’t like that at all. Dad obviously had seen Carol ‘cos one evening before tea at his suggestion, we went and kicked a ball around on the ’rec’ with him, he seemed a bit quieter than usual and then as we walked back home, he came out with it. “I’m really disappointed and sad to hear that you don’t want to spend as much time with me. I th
ought we had such a great time together.” Why had he twisted it around like that? It wasn’t like that at all, it wasn’t that we didn’t want to spend time with him, but that we wanted to spend more time with Mum, couldn’t he see that, why did he have to make me feel so guilty? I burst into tears and Jonty kicked the football very angrily. Dad shouted at him because it went on the road. Nobody said anything until we got back. I desperately wanted my dad to put his arms around me. I couldn’t bear it if he stopped wanting me because he thought I’d chosen Mum rather than him.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I blurted out. “It’s just that we thought it might make a change, but we can tell Carol we’d rather leave it like it is.”

  “Too late now,” said Dad. “The damage is done. She’s off to court armed with her report and what you two have said. It’ll be a walkover, the judge will just give her whatever she asks for and you’ll be saddled with Wednesdays and Thursdays at your mum’s, forgetting your stuff, not having the right things with you, are you even sure that your mum’s going to pick you up, will she even manage to get out of work on time? Oh, I can see it all unfolding into complete disaster and then you’ll want to stop and for me to rescue you. You’ll see I’m right. All this messing around isn’t any good for you, Hetty, or for you, Jonty. Your school grades are going to plummet and Hetty, you need to do well this year. In September next year, you’re off to senior school. Sure, they’ve accepted you but if your grades slip, they may not be so keen.”