by Lily O'Brien
The next day was the same as all the rest, with Tim going out early and me being left alone with my baby; so as usual, I went around to the girls. But I didn’t see Tony, he must have been at work or something. I spent the next few days doing the same things as usual and I wandered from one sister’s house to another; and in the evenings, I went to the pub to see my friends.
Then one evening, as I was about to walk home, Tony came walking along the road. I smiled at him and, as he got closer to me, he smiled back at me and he stopped and asked me how I was. And after a couple of minutes talking, he asked me if he could walk me home and I said yes. The walk back to the hotel took about 45 minutes and, for most of the time, he asked me things about my baby and myself; and he said that he could not understand why I was still walking home on my own, so late at night. Then, as we got to the door of the hotel, he said goodbye and then he was gone again. And I thought to myself, ‘That’s life’ and I went up to my room feeling very sorry for myself. I liked Tony and even though he had just left I felt like we were a thousand miles apart.
The next day, I went back around to my sister’s, but I didn’t see Tony anywhere. For the next couple of weeks, I continued going to my sister’s flats day after day, hoping to bump into him, but he just didn’t seem to be around the area; so I decided to go and see Tony’s sister at her mum’s flat. I wasn’t missing him, but I was wondering what he was up to, but he wasn’t there either; so after a couple of hours, I asked her about him, and she said that he was off somewhere in Europe, riding around on his motorcycle. ‘Ah that’s nice’, I said and at the end of the evening I went home.
When I opened the door to my room, I walked in and I was all alone again. I sat on the end of the bed and I looked over at my baby, then I picked him up out of his pushchair, I put him on the bed next to me, and we both fell to sleep. When I woke up, it was three in the morning and Tim still hadn’t come home, so I got into bed and I closed my eyes, wishing that my life was different; but it wasn’t. This was it, this was my life and I had to make the best of it.
For the next few weeks, I hardly saw Tim as he spent most of his time hanging around with my family, and his behaviour towards me made me feel fed up all the time. Then one afternoon, as I was walking along Kilburn high road, I saw Tony ride past me on his bike; it was easy for me to spot him because he had the biggest motorcycle I had ever seen. It was a Honda Goldwing and he had music playing on it, and he must have seen me too because he stopped in the middle of the street, did a u-turn and pulled up next to me and we both looked at each other. Him on his bike and me with my pushchair and I had butterflies in my belly. We both spoke at the same time and then we both laughed as he asked me how I was. And after a quick conversation, we arranged to meet up later at the pub, and then he said that he had to go and he rode off and I walked home happy.
That evening, I went to the pub and after an hour Tony walked through the door and he sat next to me; and from that moment on, he would meet me every evening and escort me and my baby home. Then, after a couple of weeks, he began to buy me things that I needed for the baby, like nappies and food and I liked it. At first, I said no to him and I told him to stop buying me things, but I was beginning to like him even more than I thought I would and I was happy that he was helping me. But I still wasn’t sure how he felt about me and every time he left me outside the hotel I felt sad and lonely and I missed him.
He never once tried to do anything inappropriate and he never once said a word out of place; he would just make sure that my baby and I had everything that we needed and that we got home safely, then he would say goodnight and leave us standing outside the hotel. So I decided that I had to do something to see if he liked me the way I liked him and I decided to meet him in the pub on my own. And the next day, I asked one of my sisters if she would look after my baby for me while I went out and she said yes.
So off I went to the pub and I waited; then just before closing time and just as I expected he came through the door to walk me home. I jumped up and, before he could say a word, I told him that my sister was looking after the baby for the night, so we can walk home together. He smiled at me and he said ok, but instead of him walking me in our usual direction, he stopped at the end of the street and he asked me if I would like to go home on the back of his bike and I said yes. He said that his bikes were parked in his garage just across the road, so we walked over to his garage and I stood back as he opened the garage door; then he walked into the darkness and for a moment everything was silent. I stood still and I wondered what he was doing, and with a loud screech of the bike engine, the garage lit up from the bright lights of the bike, and then he backed the bike out of the garage.
It was the first time that I had seen his bike at night and almost every part of it had a light on it. He smiled at me and then he asked me to walk around the bike and into the garage with him, and in the corner of the garage was a custom chopper motorcycle. I stood and looked at the bike, as he smiled and told me a few things about it and I could tell that I had competition; then he put a crash helmet on my head and he told me to climb on the back of the Goldwing motorcycle.
He closed the garage door, then he got on the bike and as we set off the whole bike seemed to come alive with lights, and music seemed to be coming from every part of it. God, I felt like I was so special. He shouted back at me to see if I was ok and I leaned forward, hitting him in the back of his head with my crash helmet, and I said yes. Then I told him that I didn’t need to go straight home as no one was there and I told him that my sister was looking after the baby all night. We set off and, within a couple of seconds, he pulled up at the junction to the main road and he moved his left hand towards some controls on the bike and then we rode off up the road. And as we rode along, the radio on the bike came on and I sat back to the sound of Dire Straits, ‘Brothers in Arms’ coming through a sound system that seemed to fill the whole street with music. I couldn’t help but smile to myself and after a couple of seconds Tony said, ‘What do you want to do?’ ‘Anything’, I said. ‘But I don’t want to go home.’ It didn’t matter to me what we did as long as we didn’t go back to the hotel, as I was sick of being there on my own.
Then I sat back again, I looked around and everywhere we went people stopped and looked at us, you just couldn’t miss us. The bike shone with a deep red wine colour and the bike was covered in lights of all colours and the sound coming from the four speakers was so loud and crisp that you could probably have heard us coming from a mile away. I smiled to myself again and I couldn’t stop smiling because I felt so happy; then I asked Tony, ‘Where are we going?’ and he said, ‘Just sit back and relax’, so I did.
It was now almost midnight and the sky was clear, I was a bit cold, but I loved being on the back of the Goldwing and I soon forgot all about everything; and after a while, I noticed that we had ridden onto a motorway. I looked at the signs, but they never meant a thing to me, so I just sat back and listened to the music and the feeling that went through my body was fantastic and I wanted the moment to last forever.
Then, after about half an hour, we turned off the motorway, we headed down some country roads and then we rode along some back streets; and as we got to the end of one street, he stopped. I looked up and in front of me was a castle and it was all lit up with bright lights and it was massive. God, I thought to myself, this is fantastic. ‘Where are we?’ I asked. ‘It’s Windsor castle.’ I looked around, then he stopped the bike and we got off. It was very quiet and no one was around; so we spent a while walking along the narrow cobblestone streets that surrounded the castle, looking in the shop windows and then we walked back towards the bike.
Tony started the engine, I climbed on the back and he drove us to another part of the castle and we spent the next couple of hours lying on the grass bank of the castle, talking and getting to know each other better. And then he took me home. The ride back was just as impressive as the ride out and it was about three in the morning when we finally pulled up ou
tside the hotel. He turned the engine off and I got off the bike; and as he parked the bike up, I asked him if he wanted to come in and he said yes. And within that split second, I knew that I had him.
He still hadn’t made any advances towards me, but now I knew that he liked me and I knew that it was the age difference between us that was stopping him from making a move towards me; but I wanted him and I wasn’t going to let that stop me. He finished parking the bike up and then he followed me into the hotel and we walked up to my room. I knew Tim wouldn’t be home, as he spent most of his time at my sister’s, so I asked Tony into my room and he sat on a chair and I sat on the end of my bed.
We spoke for a while and then I decided to make a move, and I told him that I was cold because of the bike ride and that I needed to get into the bed to warm up, but he still never made a move towards me. I looked over at him and I could tell that he was being a gentleman; and I thought to myself, ‘Is he stupid or what?’ So I asked him to get up and to turn the light off, and he did and then I said, ‘Get into the bed with me’; and then he touched me for the first time. And as he put his lips against mine, he kissed me and then we made love, and I hoped that this was the turning point in my life.
After Tony left, I went to sleep and the next morning I went to my sister’s house to pick up my baby; and then I went looking for Tony, but no one had seen him, so I went home hoping that he would ring me. But he didn’t. And for the next week, I walked around feeling sorry for myself and I felt like I had been used. Then one evening, as I was walking home, Tony pulled up next to me and I stopped. ‘Why didn’t you come around to see me’, I said. He looked at me and said, ‘Sorry, but I am confused. You have a baby and a boyfriend, and I don’t know what to do.’ I looked at him and he looked sad; we both talked for a while and then he told me how he felt about me and that he had liked me for a long time. I told him that I had feelings for him too and, from that moment on, we made the decision to be with each other.
At first, we managed to keep our affair hidden from everyone, but everyone knew that Tony was walking me home every night and that he was helping me out with things that I needed for my baby. They also knew that his behaviour towards me was part of his good nature, as he had also helped them in the past, by buying them things when they had little money to live on. Plus Tim knew that another man was giving me some attention and taking the time to help me, but it didn’t seem to bother him because it gave him even more freedom and a chance to stay away from me and my baby even longer.
Tim didn’t know it, but his actions towards me were helping me get over him; and as time went on, my feelings for Tony got even stronger. No one had ever treated me with the kindness that Tony was showing me, and he even accepted the fact that my baby came first and without my baby, there would be no me. After a few months, Tony and I had become almost inseparable and we were spending as much time as possible with each other, while Tim did his own thing, spending most of his time drinking and hanging around with everyone else in my family apart from me; and when he was around me, all he did was hit me.
Then everything came to a head when I couldn’t take the beatings from Tim anymore and Tony and I told everyone what had been going on between us. Most of my family seemed to be happy for me, and I think they had an idea about what we were up to anyway, but Tony’s family were not so happy and neither was Tim. We could cope with Tony’s family and I knew that Tim was cheating on me anyway, and I think he had an idea of what was going on between Tony and me from the very beginning; so Tony and I just got on with what we were doing and we did our best to make the situation work for everyone.
In the beginning, there was a lot of arguing between Tim and me about whose fault it was, with a lot of ‘if only we had done this and if only you had done that’ going on between us and with each of us blaming the other for the situation we were in. But at the end of the day, I had made my mind up; I was sick of Tim hitting me and I did not want to stay in the relationship anymore. So I told Tim that it was all over between us and within six months I moved into a council flat; and a couple of months later, Tony moved in with me and he treated my baby as his own.
At first, things were not great between us and it took a very long time for us to get used to living with each other. But he was good to my baby and me, so I did my best to behave myself; but I was still just seventeen, and he was twenty-six, so it was difficult for us to have a serious conversation on the same level as each other. I felt like I needed to go out and have some fun and he thought that our family should come first; he had a good steady job, he went to work every day, and he had an idea of what a home should be like. But I didn’t have a clue and I think that most of the time he must have felt as if he was a one-parent family looking after two kids, rather than having a partner and a child.
But he stuck with us and, after a few restless years, I did my best and I tried to settle down into a family life. Then at the age of twenty-two, I became pregnant again and I had my second child; and a year later, I had my third child and they were all boys. Tony kept working, but as our family grew money became an issue; so Tony had to sell the love of his life, his bikes, to make ends meet, and we eventually settled down into a family life. I brought my children up to be good and, over the years, things slowly got better for all of us. We even got to a point where we could afford to go on holiday each year; and as the kids grew up, the quality of all our lives improved.
I still had a problem coping with everyday life and, ever since coming to London from Ireland, I had been living on medication for the pains in my head that never went away. And every now and then, I would lose the plot and, for no reason at all, I would cause a lot of trouble between Tony and myself. I would scream at him and call him all kinds of names and I would even take my anger out on him and hit him whenever I felt angry; but I still don’t know why I did it, I just felt like I needed to.
Then one day, while arguing with him, I felt like I wanted to kill him for talking back to me, so I decided to shut him up for good and I made him a drinking chocolate laced with a few sleeping pills. I gave him the mug of hot chocolate and I sat down and watched him as he drank it all down. But after a while, I began to panic and, in the end, I decided to tell him what I had done, as I had gone too far. He looked at me and he just smiled, then he began to gently laugh; and he got up and walked away from me and he walked out of the flat and he never said a word about what I had done.
Later that evening, he came back and I asked him if he was ok and he said, ‘Yes, I am fine’ and then I told him that it served him right for nagging me and for talking back to me. He smiled and said that he walked around for hours to stay awake and then when he felt better he came back. I tried to say sorry, but I just couldn’t, we left it at that and we went to bed. And after that, I never did it to him again! I knew that he was only trying to help me, so I tried to help myself too; but every day my mind felt like it was going to explode and I felt like I was living in my own private hell. My family was never far away and they would constantly remind me of my past, and sometimes they would be a bad influence on me, by offering me drink and drugs, and it would cause problems between Tony and me.
I tried to stay away from my family as much as I could, but Simon, my youngest brother, still needed me, as he had never forgotten about what Kevin had done to him when he first came to London. And my family always seemed to be involved in everyone’s business all of the time; and over the last few years, all the pressures of Simon’s life seemed to catch up with him. Simon had a girlfriend and they had a baby together, but eventually they split up because he could not cope with all the pressures and the responsibility of being a parent; and soon after they split up, he became mentally ill. And he had no idea about what he wanted or if he even wanted to live; the abuse that he had suffered as a child back in Ireland and then the abuse he suffered at the hands of his own brother had almost driven him mad. He was now taking drugs and he was in a mixed-up relationship with a male partner, who was much olde
r than he was, and his partner was no good for him.
Simon tried to find comfort in painting and he would spend days alone, locked in his flat, mixing colours and creating paintings that expressed his feelings; but locking himself away only suppressed how he felt for a while and whenever he came out of his flat he would emotionally fall apart. I tried to comfort him and I went to see him at his flat all the time, but he did not always let me in to see him and I would have to stand outside for hours, just to catch a glimpse of him as he looked out of the window.
Then one morning, I received a phone call from the police. They said that they had found Simon wandering around the streets late at night on his own, and he had no idea of what he was doing or where he was going. So, they brought him to the hospital and they had to section him under the Mental Health Act, just in case he went off and hurt himself or someone else. I said thanks to the police for helping him, then I went straight around to the hospital and the doctors allowed me to go in and talk to him. His clothes were all dirty and he had grown a long beard. At first, I hardly recognised him and it wasn’t nice seeing him in the condition he was in, so I went home and I brought back some clean clothes for him to put on and the hospital allowed me to help him get cleaned up. I walked him into a shower room, I helped him to get undressed and then I gave him a wash. He was only twenty-six years old, but he looked like an old man of fifty. Once he was clean, I helped him change into clean clothes and then I put him to bed and, after a couple of hours, I went home. I loved my brother and I felt like he was my baby.
The next day, I went back to the hospital and he was still asleep, so I sat next to his bed for a while and I watched him as he slept like a baby. Before I went home, I gave him a kiss on his forehead. Later that evening, I returned to the hospital and a member of the staff said that they had contacted my mother, but she had told them not to let him out as he was a danger to her and her family and she said that he kept going around to her house and causing her trouble.
