by Sandie Jones
‘But I’ve got Poppy to think about,’ I said. ‘It’s not just me I need to think about anymore. She needs a dad.’
‘Em, I think if we’re being honest with ourselves, he’s probably been doing this for a long time,’ she said.
I nodded knowingly. I knew she was right, but I didn’t want to believe it. I thought about all his ‘Thursday nights out’ with the boys in the City.
‘It’s a given,’ he’d said, not long after we met. ‘Thursday nights are the holy grail. They can’t be moved for life, love or death.’
I’d laughed and thought little of it. I knew that was how the City worked, but had he been sleeping with other women all that time? Was there someone special that he went to on a Thursday, the pair of them happily ensconced, knowing that they had one night a week to be together? He’d often not come in until three o’clock in the morning, but at worst, I’d imagined him spending his heavenly money in a lap-dancing club, not in the arms of someone he cared about. But if that was the case, why hadn’t he just left me? He could have easily walked away before the wedding, before Poppy.
‘What? And not have his cake and eat it?’ Pippa exclaimed, as she patiently listened to me ponder the question. ‘I’m not saying he doesn’t love you, of course he does – why else would he have asked you to marry him? And have Poppy?’
‘Yes, but Poppy wasn’t exactly a life choice, for either of us,’ I said, feeling instantly guilty as the words tumbled out.
‘Sure,’ she acknowledged. ‘But you knew the chances you were taking, and you did have choices – whether or not you took them was up to you.’
I peered over into the moses basket where Poppy slept soundly, her little arms laid casually above her head. I couldn’t imagine ever making the choice not to have her.
‘But what we’re forgetting in all of this,’ I said, ‘is that we’re assuming he wants to come back. What I want might not even come into it.’
‘Oh, believe me, after a few days back out there, he’ll see that the grass isn’t just “not greener”, but it’s covered in moss, weeds, and bald patches too!’
I had to laugh. I was bored of crying. When I thought about it, I’d spent the best part of a year being miserable and sobbing over something or another: the wedding being cancelled, Pammie’s abhorrent behaviour, feeling hormonal with Poppy. ‘Thanks Pip,’ I said, hugging her to me as she left.
‘Love you,’ she whispered in my ear. ‘Don’t let him walk all over you.’
Adam turned up on the doorstep later that night. I could have sworn, slapped him, and slammed the door in his face, but instead, I just stepped aside and let him in. What was the point in all the dramatics? We were parents now, supposedly responsible adults, so it was time to start acting like it.
‘You look like shit,’ I mused. His eyes were sunken into grey-coloured skin, a five o’clock shadow peppered his chin and cheeks.
I sat down opposite him at the dining table. ‘Can I see Poppy?’ he asked.
‘No, she’s sleeping. What do you want?’
‘I want to come home.’
I sat back in the chair and folded my arms. ‘What, that’s it? You’re honestly expecting to turn up here and tell me you want to come back?’
He nodded.
‘So, are we just going to skirt over the tiny issue of you sleeping with someone else?’ I asked. I was aware my voice was rising, and I made an effort to lower it. I didn’t want to wake Poppy.
‘It wasn’t what it looked like,’ he said.
I laughed. ‘Tell me what it looked like, then.’
‘We were just fooling around,’ he said earnestly. ‘We had a kiss, that’s all.’
‘That’s all?’ I exploded.
‘I know, I know it doesn’t make it right, but that’s all that happened. I promise you.’
He must think I’m stupid. ‘And you think that’s okay, do you? You think it’s acceptable to be touching up another woman at your brother’s wedding, within three feet of your fiancée and child? You think that’s acceptable?’
I could hear myself getting louder and louder with every syllable, like a stereo system reverberating in my head, yet there was a faint sound coming from the rear speakers, a word of warning. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
‘How many others have there been?’ I asked. He dropped his head, and stared at the floor.
‘Well?’ I asked, when he didn’t answer.
He looked at me. ‘She’s the only one. I swear to you. I don’t know what I was thinking. It’s been so difficult . . .’
I held my hand up to stop him.
‘No, listen,’ he said indignantly. ‘It’s been so difficult for me. I don’t know what’s been going on with us. Things haven’t been right, have they? You know they haven’t.’
I glared at him, daring him to say the next sentence.
‘You’ve not been yourself for quite a while, and it’s made me feel really low. You’ve been pregnant and had a difficult time having Poppy, and then the whole thing with my mum. I don’t know where I am from one day to the next. I don’t seem to figure in your list of priorities anymore.’
I allowed myself a wry smile. ‘Poor you,’ I said snidely. ‘Poor Adam for having a pregnant girlfriend, who then has to nurse and look after a new baby, and deal with your psychotic mother.’
‘Don’t start, Emily,’ he warned.
‘Yet despite all that, it’s not about me, is it?’ I went on, ignoring him. ‘You’ve somehow made it about you. How you’re hard done by. How you’re missing out.’
He looked down at his feet.
‘So, what do you do about it? You go out and screw whoever you can, to make you feel like a man again, to validate yourself as a red-blooded male. Because that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Proving to yourself that you’ve still got it.’
‘I felt rejected, like you didn’t find me attractive anymore.’
I laughed. ‘Isn’t that supposed to be my line? Yet instead of giving me time, or talking about it, you decided the way to solve it was to sleep with somebody else.’
‘You don’t know how you made me feel.’
‘For Christ’s sake, Adam, listen to yourself. What about me? What about my needs? Imagine how I feel, how difficult it is for me. Everything’s changed in my world: my body, my daily life, my priorities . . . everything. What’s changed for you? A little less sex, and a cute baby to come home to, play with for an hour, and then go to bed.’
He went to speak, but I cut him off.
‘But do you see me trawling the streets at night, desperate for a shag? Am I sloping off at a wedding to have a seedy encounter with a man whose name I don’t even know?’
‘It won’t happen again,’ he offered, as if I was supposed to be grateful for the sentiment. ‘I was drunk, I was lonely, and it was a mistake.’
‘Is that it?’ I asked. ‘Are you honestly expecting to just move back in, and then everything will be rosy again?’
‘I never meant to hurt you . . . I promise I’ll never hurt you again.’
His words echoed in my head, but it was as if someone else was saying them. I closed my eyes as a memory of James flashed before me: of him standing in front of me, saying the very same thing. ‘I promise I’ll never hurt you,’ he’d said. I felt sick at the sudden realization that his words were never about him making the promise not to hurt me. It was him warning me that Adam would.
‘What would you do if you were me right now?’ I asked Adam. ‘If you found out that I’d been with someone else?’
His face contorted, and a muscle spasm twitched along his jawline. ‘I’d kill him,’ he said.
44
Adam moved back in two weeks after James and Kate’s wedding. His pleas for me to take him back grew louder the closer it got to them returning from honeymoon, when no doubt he’d be kicked out of their flat.
‘You can always go and stay with your mum,’ I mused.
‘Are you joking? She’s bloody mad,’ he said.
We were getting somewhere. We were finally getting there.
Pammie was at the top of my list when it came to setting down a few ground rules when he came home. She could see Poppy whenever he chose to take her down there, but she was never to be left alone with her, unsupervised.
‘But what about when—?’ he went to say.
‘Under no circumstances,’ I said authoritatively.
He nodded solemnly.
There were to be no more Thursday nights out with the lads, and he could play rugby at the weekend, but after a quick drink, I expected him back home, not to still be getting drunk four hours later.
He stayed in the spare room for a few nights, but if we were going to make it work, there was nothing to be gained from sleeping in separate beds. I didn’t feel ready to be close to him, emotionally or physically, but I felt like I was sitting on a ticking time bomb, wondering how many hours and minutes would pass before he felt he was justified in getting it somewhere else. I hated that he made me feel that way.
‘What do you want to do about the wedding?’ he asked one night, as we were having dinner. He’d just returned from Pammie’s. He and James were alternating taking her for her ‘second round of chemo’. I was surprised that she was still keeping up the charade, since Kate and James were married now. She’d failed in her attempt to stop them, so I wondered what the point was in her continuing to lie.
‘I don’t feel it’s something we should do anytime soon,’ I said. ‘But I would like to get Poppy christened though.’
He nodded in agreement. ‘How do you want to go about that?’
‘I was thinking just a simple ceremony in church, and then have some food and drink somewhere.’
‘I’d like to do that sooner rather than later,’ he said. ‘I want Mum there.’
I ignored the comment. ‘Well, I’ll look at it when I get time,’ I said.
‘I don’t think time is on our side,’ he said, his voice breaking. ‘I don’t know how much longer she’s got.’
‘Oh, I’m sure she’s going to be fine,’ I said matter-of-factly.
He shook his head. ‘It’s really taking its toll this time round. They think it’s spreading. I don’t know if she’s strong enough to get through this—’ He choked on the last sentence.
I half-heartedly reached over and put my hand on his. I couldn’t offer him sympathy I didn’t have.
I looked at Poppy in her bouncer at my feet, her trusting eyes smiling up at me, and wondered how a mother could possibly put their child through this hell. How cruel would you have to be?
‘What will I do?’ Adam began to sob. ‘What will I do when she’s gone?’ His shoulders shook, and I begrudgingly got up and went to him. ‘She doesn’t deserve this. She’s been through enough.’
I kissed his head as I rocked him back and forth in my arms. ‘She’s a tough cookie,’ was all I could offer.
‘She makes out she is, but she’s not. Not really,’ he said. ‘She’s had to toughen up, because of what he did to her, but inside she’s just as frightened as she’s always been.’
I held him away from me so I could see his face.
‘What who did to her?’ I asked.
He shook his head, and went to lean into me again, but I held him firm. ‘What are you talking about?’
He wiped his nose with the back of a shaky hand.
‘Will you please tell me what you’re going on about?’ I said impatiently.
‘Jim,’ he sneered. ‘Or Dad, if we’re going to pretend he ever was one.’
‘What’s your dad got to do with anything?’
‘He was a bastard,’ he spat.
‘What? Why?’ My mouth was moving faster than my brain.
‘He destroyed her. He beat everything out of her.’
I felt like I’d been slapped round the face. I dropped onto the sofa.
‘What are you talking about? She loved him. He loved her. What are you saying?’
His head fell into his hands again.
‘What did he do?’ I pressed.
‘He would come home and beat the shit out of her, that’s what he’d do. Night after night, it was like watching a beautiful flower die a little bit more every time.’
‘She told you this?’ I asked, flabbergasted.
‘She didn’t need to,’ he said. ‘I saw it with my own eyes. We both did, James and I. He’d go to the pub after work, and she’d have his dinner ready on the table for when he came home. But almost every night, he’d tell her she’d done it wrong, throw it against the wall and slap her.’
I sat unmoving. ‘I’d see his hand moving through the air, as if in slow motion, before it hit her. She’d make this small yelping sound, but held anything more in, so as not to wake us, but we’d be sitting at the top of the stairs, watching everything through the banisters, praying for it to stop.’
‘Are you sure? I mean, are you sure you saw what you think you saw? You were young. Maybe it wasn’t what it looked like.’ I was scrabbling around for reason, when all around me was insanity.
‘I saw things no one should ever have to see, let alone children as young as us. We were too little to understand why our dad was hitting our mum and making her cry, but we knew it was wrong. We’d hatch secret plans for the three of us to run away to the seaside, back to Whitstable, where we’d been on holiday the summer before Dad died. He hadn’t come with us, we’d gone with Auntie Linda, Fraser and Ewan. Mum had seemed so happy there, away from him.’
‘How did he die?’ I asked gently.
Adam looked to the floor, as if lost in thought. ‘He had a heart attack late one night after he’d come home from the pub. He just collapsed in the kitchen and that was it. Mum let me and James have the next day off school, and put us in shirts and ties, whilst the house buzzed with police and funeral directors.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘I remember how scratchy those shirts were, the collar irritating my neck. I remember worrying more about that than my dad being dead, and I thought there must be something wrong with me. I didn’t feel anything. I was just numb.’
‘Did he ever hit you?’ I asked.
‘No, he never touched James or me. He played the perfect dad and husband whenever we were around, but I knew. I knew what he’d do later. Mum knew too, she had a fear in her eyes, but she tried so hard not to let it show.’
‘Did you ever tell her what you’d seen?’
He shook his head. ‘It would break her to know that I knew. She’s gone to such great lengths to pretend that he was the best husband and the best dad. Even back then, all their friends thought he was the catch and she was the lucky one. But none of them really knew him. They didn’t know what he was like behind closed doors. How could they? She protected him then, and she still protects him now.’
I thought back to all the photos I’d seen of a couple so in love. Their friends seemingly jealous of what they had.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said, going to him and cradling his head to my chest. ‘No child should ever have to see that.’
None of this made any sense. How could this be? I willed myself to find a way to exonerate Pammie from everything she’d done. Surely, there must be a reason in all this, an explanation as to why she was like she was, but as much as I tried, I couldn’t find it. The more I rolled it all over in my head, the more difficult it was to understand her actions. If she’d been treated so badly in the past, why would she set out to intentionally inflict harm on someone else?
45
By the time the christening came around, I’d worked myself up into a frenzy about seeing Pammie, James, and for some reason or other, Kate. In my mind’s eye, she’d gone from being an ally, the only person that could possibly relate to me, to Pammie’s partner in crime. It gave Pammie more power to goad me with, and I found the prospect of seeing them together intimidating.
I’d bought a new dress for the occasion, something to give me confidence, I’d reasoned to myself, to ease the guilt when handing my credit card over.
‘Blimey, that’s a bit bright, isn’t it?’ commented Adam. ‘I’ll need sunglasses.’
‘Too much?’ I asked, looking down at the canary-yellow chiffon. I felt good in it. The asymmetrical cut gave me my pre-baby shape back – no one needed to know I was bound up with Spanx underneath.
‘No, I like it,’ said Adam. ‘I’m just glad the daffodil season is over, as otherwise we’d have the devil’s own job to find you.’
He laughed as I hit him with my clutch bag.
Poppy was looking on from the middle of our bed, happily gurgling away as her parents bickered.
‘Good job I put a bib on you, missy,’ I said, scooping her up in a ball of ivory taffeta. ‘We can’t have you dribbling down your dress, can we?’
‘Are you sure she wouldn’t be more comfortable in a Gap all-in-one?’ Adam asked, as he struggled to get her and her oversized gown into the car seat.
I tutted and pushed his fumbling hand out of the way. ‘There it is,’ I laughed as I burrowed deep into the fabric to retrieve a strap. ‘Now, where’s the other one?’
‘We should have got her a Cinderella carriage,’ he joked. ‘She’d look right at home in that.’
I didn’t want to jinx it, but it finally felt like we were getting our old rapport back, on the way to becoming the couple we had once been. I couldn’t wait to get to the church to show the doubters that we’d made it. Show them that, despite everything they’d tried to throw at us, we’d still survived. I don’t know why I think of it as them when in reality it’s only her, but sometimes it just feels like the whole world’s against me, and I struggle to keep things in perspective. But not today, because I’ve got what she wants. I’ve won.
We greeted our guests as they filed through the church gate, me happily batting away Adam’s rugby mates’ jibes about my resemblance to a bumble bee. I saw James and Kate get out of their car, just up the lane, and busied myself with over-exaggerated hellos. I fussed over my cousin Fran’s young boy, and bent down, with Poppy in my arms, to introduce her to another baby in a buggy. Anything to take my mind off the impending arrival of the Banks clan. Without even realizing, I’d turned my back, but I could hear people behind me saying hello and asking Pammie how she was feeling.
