by Sarah Hope
Albert comes towards the bench on which I had taken refuge.
‘Are you okay?’ he gestures towards my face as he takes a seat next to me.
I touch my still stinging cheek self-consciously. ‘Yes, I’m fine and thank you so much for sticking up for me.’
‘That’s alright it was nothing, anyone would have done the same,’ a scarlet blush creeps up his neck to his bloodied face.
‘No, it was really something to stand up to my father like that.’
‘What were you arguing about to get him so irate? Sorry I shouldn’t have asked that, it’s none of my business.’ He looks shyly into his lap, his hands clasped tightly.
‘No, no that’s fine. I don’t mind you asking. I came to find him to try and get him to come home early before he drank too much. I just don’t understand why he was so drunk already. He would only have knocked off work about half an hour ago.’
‘Ah, well I work in the plastics factory next door and we saw all the lads from your father’s place stream out about half past three. Apparently there was a breakdown of one of the main machines or something so they were all let out early.’
‘Oh that explains it. I’m so sorry you got involved.’
‘Not at all, I’ve already said don’t worry about it. No man should hit a woman.’
Now it was my turn to blush and look away, me a woman? I still think of myself as an annoying little girl.
‘Please, you won’t tell Betty about this will you?’
‘Not if you don’t want me to. But I am worried. Does he always treat you like that?’
‘It’s mainly my poor mum that gets it in the neck. Don’t get me wrong he’s great when he’s sober...’ saying it makes me realise that I can’t remember the last time he hadn’t he hadn’t had a drink, ‘...it’s just when he’s been drinking he completely changes. It’s like he’s possessed or something.’
‘I know what you mean. After hearing stories from my old man, that’s what my granddad was like. Which is why, like my father, I refuse to touch the stuff.’
‘I wish my father wouldn’t drink. I wish there was something I could do to stop him.’
‘I don’t think there’s anything you could do. If he’s going to change he’s got to do it for himself.’
‘I don’t think he ever will.’ Getting up to head home Albert gently tugs me towards him and wipes some blood from my lips.
‘If there’s anything I can do please let me know.’
Nodding weakly I turn towards home and walk quickly, feeling my cheeks burning with embarrassment. The truth is I’ve always liked Albert. Ever since I started going round Betty’s to play when I was little I always looked up to him and wished I had an older brother like him. But recently I’ve found these feelings changing into something I’m not entirely comfortable with and it’s this that makes me blush and gives me the funny butterflies in my stomach.
I take the long way home, meandering down the back alleys of town to pass time until I have to face Mum and tell her I’ve probably made things ten times worse. When I do eventually get home I let myself into the outside toilet first and try to wipe away the blood from my cut lip, smooth down my ruffled hair and make myself look more presentable.
I find Mum stoking the fire in the living room and when she hears me walk in she looks around.
‘Enid, are you okay love? Whatever’s happened? You look so pale and you’ve cut your lip.’
‘Oh Mum I’m so so sorry.’ sitting down on the old green settee I wait until she comes to sit beside me until I confess what I have done.
That night and every Friday night after Mum shares my bed and we blockade the bedroom door with Nana’s old chest of drawers and await my father’s return knowing that despite the hollering and banging on the door neither of us will face a beating that night.
After a fitful night’s sleep I wash, dress myself in my smart woollen green skirt and a cream blouse and feed Freda a pouch of her meat for breakfast. Then I get myself a bowl of muesli, half of which I don’t even touch.
Today is Peter’s birthday so I do what I always do on his birthday. I sit myself in my favourite chair, looking out onto the drive. At this angle I get a good view. Not only of the pathway leading up to my house but also the road coming into our cul-de-sac. And I wait. I look and wait. I will stay here all day besides the increasingly frequent trips to the bathroom and rushed trips to the kitchen to prepare a quick lunch and dinner.
I make myself believe that this will be the year that Peter turns up on my doorstep to introduce himself.
As I sit here I watch as the girl who lives opposite, Lynette, shepherds her children to the car. She has a face on her that looks as though she’s torn between crying and shouting at the poor kids. What’s she got to worry about? Two lovely kids and a caring husband? These young women don’t know how lucky they are. She shovels lunch boxes and bags into the boot before slamming the driver’s door behind her.
I look at my watch; 8:45am, she’s late for the school run. Her little boy’s school is only a half mile up the road. I don’t understand why all these mothers insist on driving their children to school nowadays. I remember walking at least two and a half miles to school and back each day and it never did me any harm.
Off she goes almost knocking over the tabby cat from down the road. I wish people would drive with a bit more care.
It’s not until gone half past nine when I see any more activity in the street. This time it’s young mum Rachel coming out of her house pushing her ridiculously fancy pushchair. She looks as though she has only just risen; her long, dark hair is untidily scooped up into a hurried bun. Before I have chance to reposition the net curtains she catches my eye, plasters on a fake smile, and waves. I quickly pick up the nearest thing that comes to hand, which turns out to be the knitting pattern I worked on for Peter’s birthday jumper and pretend to be reading.
At 10:20am I notice Rachel returning, Co-op shopping bags hanging from the handles of her pushchair. Closely followed by Lynette, who swings her car into her drive and rushes round to Rachel’s house.
When I get back from making my lunch I spot Lynette’s husband’s expensive car pull into the drive behind Lynette’s car.
Chapter Six
Lynette
I decide to pop over to Rachel’s house, my trusted confidant, after dropping the kids off at school. My head is all over the place and I desperately need to talk things through with someone. Rachel’s just the person to help me make sense of it all, to reassure me things will sort themselves out. That Ste will come back. She’s been my rock throughout Mum’s illness. In fact, ever since she moved into the cul-de-sac four years ago we’ve become each other’s sounding boards.
Rachel comes to the door after my second knock, carrying a screaming Thomas.
‘Hi Lynette, lovely to see you. Sorry,’ she hefts Thomas up a little more on her hip, ‘He’s been like this all morning apart from a little nap when I went to the shops. What do you think is wrong with him? Do you think he’s teething again?’
I take a red faced Thomas from Rachel’s offering arms and look at his chubby flushed cheeks, hot tears running down them onto his little hands that he’s trying to shove into his open mouth.
‘I think he probably is. Why don’t you give him some teething gel and try those soothing teething granules I told you about?’
‘Good idea. Thanks I don’t know what I’d do without you next door.’
She ushers me in and through to the kitchen.
‘Here take a seat. Sorry about the mess.’
I stand holding Thomas as she scoops an armful of Thomas’ washing from a kitchen chair. Sitting down I bounce him on my knee, making soothing noises at him while Rachel hunts for teething granules and makes us both a coffee.
‘Rachel I just don’t understand him anymore, how could he say we’ve drifted apart? And to say I’ve been preoccupied with Mum, well who wouldn’t be? It’s been so difficult trying to keep her in her own ho
me and caring for her and...and now with her in the care home. That was such a difficult decision.’
‘I know it was Lynette, I can only imagine how hard that must have been for you.’
‘The worst thing about it was it was Ste’s idea, he pushed for me to put her in there. I would have happily had the garage converted to a bedroom and had her live with us. I never wanted her to go in there. I still feel as though I’ve let her down.’
‘Lynette, please don’t ever feel as though you’ve let her down. You haven’t. You couldn’t possibly care for her like she is now. She needs twenty four hour care. You couldn’t do that. Not with two kids to look after too. It wouldn’t be fair on them.’
I give Rachel a weak smile as she leans in to give me a hug.
Talking to Rachel has really put things in a clearer light. It just doesn’t make any sense that he would really be leaving me. That he meant those horrible things he said about us drifting apart. He’s where he wants to be in life. Where he’s always wanted to be. His career is going really well. And so it should be, he’s been working up to becoming a paediatric consultant for years now. He’s put in a lot of extra time and effort.
And being a good wife I’ve always supported him and his decision to work his way up. I’m proud of him. He’s dedicated his life to saving and changing children’s lives; families have relied on him. I’ve been happy to support him. Yes, it has sometimes affected family life, as it would do. Children don’t choose when to get ill and so of course Ste has to be flexible and I completely understand the inflexibilities of his work. How it creeps into time at home. Although goodness knows how much I have put on hold for him, I’ve put my own career on hold and I worked bloody hard to achieve my BEd in teaching.
I think back to the time when I found out I was pregnant with Mandy. At twenty two, in my final year at university, and it was tough being pregnant whilst studying. Then once I had her I had to wait a year to start my NQT year giving me Qualified Teacher Status. That was one of the reasons we had such a long age gap between Mandy and Charlie, I wanted to get a couple of years’ experience under my belt. Then, of course, luck being against me as per usual it ended up taking us five years to conceive.
Ste does love me. He even basically railroaded me into giving up work to help me relax in the hope that I would conceive Charlie. Since then I have put all my energies into keeping our family. I’m thankful to him.
As for the promise of having a third child; being as it took so long for me to fall pregnant with Charlie I’ll never understand why Ste wasn’t willing to try whilst working towards his consultancy. But I didn’t question it as I wanted to keep him happy, and if that was focusing on his career first then so be it.
His workload has increased dramatically since he became a consultant. So I guess I can understand why Ste is feeling so stressed at the moment; he doesn’t get any time to himself, any time to relax. When he returns and apologises I’ll make sure we sit down and discuss how we can make his workload more manageable, or at least how he might be able to set aside some time each week for himself. And for us as a family. If I can just get him to relax and enjoy himself again, to realise that there’s more to life than his career, then I know we can be happy again.
It’s not even as though I can say the promotion has been worth it financially. There’s been no massive rise in his salary, yes we are a little better off each month and I can’t complain, I know we are lucky on that front. Ste assures me the prestige of becoming a consultant more than makes up for the lack of a massive financial gain.
Anyway, I think Rachel has hit the nail on the head so to speak.
‘Maybe he’s just going through his midlife crisis early. Look at the new car he brought.’
‘Yes I guess you’re right,’ smiling I remember how horrified I was, and how excited the kids were, when he turned up in his black, flashy two seater and told me he’d traded in his trusty four wheel drive. To keep up appearances now he was a consultant, apparently. The fact that he couldn’t drive his family around in it didn’t seem to be a concern to him.
Standing up, I jiggle baby Thomas as I go to the kitchen window which looks out onto Rachel’s drive. If I crane my neck to the left I can see the road outside my house. No, he’s not back yet. Going back to the table, I reach for a couple of car toys for Thomas which he contently puts straight into his mouth.
‘How about you? How are you doing? Is it this week your maternity leave finishes and you start back at work?’
Rachel’s face drops and I wish I hadn’t brought up the subject of her going back to work. I know she’s finding it really difficult to think about leaving Thomas.
‘Yes I start back on Thursday. I know it’s only for eight hours twice a week but I’m dreading it. How can I get through all that time without seeing Thomas?’
‘Oh Rachel.’
‘Lynette, is that Ste’s car?’ Rachel asks from the window where she had gone to get some more tissues.
Making a detour to Rachel’s bathroom mirror I carefully apply some of her make up and run her brush through my hair. I can’t let Ste see me like this, not with panda eyes and no lippy. I want him to come home, not frighten him away again. I should’ve known it was a silly argument. That he didn’t mean any of it. He loves me. I know that. Why did I waste all this time doubting it? How stupid have I been?
I bet Ste will have something nice planned for us for tonight to make up for his disappearance. Maybe he’ll make a fancy meal or get us a take away. After spritzing myself with Rachel’s new perfume I take a final look at myself in the mirror. Not bad I guess.
Hurrying over the front garden I take a deep breath, cross my fingers and let myself in the front door.
‘Ste? Ste, are you here?’ I call out gingerly, suddenly unsure of myself.
I listen carefully and hear footsteps and the opening and closing of drawers upstairs. Good, he’ll be putting his overnight stuff away, that’ll save me a job. I call for him again and after no reply follow the sounds to our bedroom.
‘Ste, what are you doing?’ I can’t keep the shock out of my voice as I watch him getting his clothes out of the wardrobe and chest of drawers and shoving them into one of our blue holiday suitcases, which he must have gotten down from the loft.
‘What does it look like I’m doing Lynette?’ he answers coldly, not even looking up, ‘I’m packing.’
‘Packing?’
‘Yes. And don’t act so surprised I did tell you I’d be back to collect some of my things.’ This time he glances hurriedly up at me as though he can’t tear his eyes off his precious packing for even a second.
‘I know you did but I never thought for a minute that you actually meant it,’ I drop down heavily onto the bed not trusting my legs to support me. Tears rise to my eyes and I feel a lump forming in my throat. ‘I thought you’d come back.’
Ste carries on packing, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he’s pulling my whole life apart.
‘I don’t understand,’ my voice comes out in a hoarse whisper.
‘I’ve told you already Lynette, it’s not working anymore.’
‘But we’re married. We have two kids. You can’t just walk out on us.’
‘Look, I’ve tried my best, I’ve thought long and hard about this. It’s the right thing to do. For the both of us. It’s just not working anymore. Surely you can see that?’
‘No, no I can’t. I know you’ve been working hard to get this consultancy and I know you’ve been under an awful lot of pressure recently but if we can just talk things through. I know we can be happy again.’
‘Happy? We’ve not been happy for a long time, at least I haven’t. And you talk about pressure? Yes, I’ve been under a lot of pressure, but pressure at work I can cope with. It’s the pressure you offload onto me I can’t. All this talk about having another kid, not to mention you being so preoccupied with your mother. I can’t take it anymore. I need to think of myself for once.’
Where has my lovely,
caring husband gone? I hardly recognise this cold hearted replacement. This is just not like him. And to bring Mum into it? It’s not her fault. She didn’t ask to get ill, did she? The Ste I know would never stoop so low.
He shuts the suitcase with such force that it makes the bed shake, grabs it and heads towards the bedroom door barely glancing at my pathetic figure hunched up on the bed hugging a pillow for support.
‘Please no, Ste, don’t go.’
He doesn’t even have the decency to acknowledge my presence, let alone my plea as I force myself to stand and desperately follow him down the stairs.
‘What about the kids? They’ll wonder where you are.’
‘Tell them then.’
‘Tell them? Tell them what?’
‘Tell them I’ve left you and I’ll be in touch to see them.’
‘Me? I don’t think so. This is your decision. Your doing. They deserve to hear it from you.’ The emptiness inside me suddenly vanishes and instead I’m left with an unbearable rage in the pit of my stomach. How dare he do this to the kids?
‘I’m going now. I’ll get my other bits and pieces and share the bigger items between us another time.’
‘Did you not hear me? You need to wait until the kids get home and tell them. If you’re serious about leaving they’ve got a right to know. It’s your duty to let them hear it from you.’
‘I don’t have the time to wait around idly. You’re their mother. You tell them.’ And with that he slams shut the front door. Right there in my face.
Grabbing the door knob I yank it open just in time to see Ste shutting his car door. Running towards him as he pulls away from the kerb I’m not sure what I intend to do.
How dare he leave me in this mess? Why should it be me who tells the kids? Our kids. Why should it be me who tears their world apart? He’s done this. He should take the responsibility.
Just as suddenly as it came all the anger seeps away and I’m left feeling numb and alone. Very alone. Feeling my knees go weak I lower myself onto the kerb, head in my hands.
