by Diane Ezzard
This whole episode shook me quite badly. The least I should have done was to report him to the dating agency, but I just cancelled my membership the next day. I made the decision then that this wasn’t for me. After a restless night’s sleep, I decided the best thing to do if I wanted companionship was to get a cat.
So that was how I came by Max
Chapter Five
NOW
I’d not said anything to anyone about the malicious phone calls. I wasn’t sure if I was overreacting. I didn’t like their content. The messages had unnerved me and baffled me. I didn’t feel comfortable in the flat anymore. I needed to get out.
I quickly got ready to go for a run, putting on my jogging gear, trainers and kagool and left. I hoped it would help to clear my head as my thinking was all over the place.
I ran past the end house on the road and turned towards the narrow pathway that led onto the riverbank. I watched as the dark clouds raced over the hills in the distance. The wind rippled across the surface of the murky river. The air smelt fresh. I loved to watch the water as its constant circulation made it swirl or gush depending on its mood. The snowdrops danced along with the rhythm of my body as I sprang forward with each step. I brushed against some gorse.
My feet splashed and squelched through the muddy terrain. Branches swished. What were they whispering? Feeling in my pocket, I found a packet of mints and peeled one off. Further down the path, a heron was perched, watching for his prey. He stood there proud and majestic with his neck stretched out, looking, waiting. Normally, I enjoyed being outdoors close to nature but today didn’t feel normal. Sadly, the exercise was doing nothing to allay my fears. The wind rattled the fencing as I ran past and I could hear every sound magnified tenfold.
I wanted to run away with the river, to follow its meandering path and escape, to let it gently sweep me away. How I wished I could rid myself of the anxiety I felt. I looked over at the meadow. A great span of green greeted me. I looked back the way I had come. Was I being followed? Were those shadows by the trees? I knew my eyes could play tricks on me when I was fearful. I kept looking behind me, wishing I had the sixth sense to see around corners, to follow the river snaking back along its tracks.
I couldn’t run properly. My heart wasn’t in it today. I was too aware of my surroundings. They were making me jumpy. I tried to push myself forward but at the back of my mind, I was thinking how I didn’t want the nightmare to return. The tension in my body wasn’t eased by my movements. The rain pelted down. I felt miserable. I knew I couldn’t just ignore what had taken place, or could I? I slowed to a walk just as the rain started easing off. I bent down and put my hands on my knees, breathing deeply.
I needed to speak to someone about what had happened at home. I had to talk about the phone messages and not just push them out of my mind. I’d thought about the best person to offload to about it. I decided I would ring my big sister Stephanie. She was more sensible than me. I tended to mull over things in my head too much. She was hardly likely to drop everything and drive two hundred miles up the motorway to comfort me, which was a good thing because I didn’t want her making a fuss.
I was about to phone Stephanie when my mobile started ringing. It startled me. I looked at the caller ID and it was Steph. I didn’t think I was psychic. If anything I wasn’t a great believer in anything paranormal. I once went to see a medium by mistake. I’d thought I was going along to learn about spirituality but instead it was spiritualism. I did think she put on a good show though. It was done very professionally, the way she spoke to a family and told them their dead son liked their new wallpaper. I suppose some people got comfort from things like that but it made me laugh out loud. Everyone looked round at me for being so inappropriate. I didn’t go back.
My sixth sense could spook me out. I could be thinking about someone I hadn’t seen for a while then I’d either bump into them or they’d phone or text. I did believe I had well-honed intuition. It didn’t mean I always acted on it but my gut feeling didn’t normally let me down. I answered her call on the first ring.
“Hi Soph, are you okay?” It was good to hear Steph’s voice.
“I was just going to call you Steph and in answer to your question, no I’m not okay. I’ve had a bit of a scare.”
I told her about the menacing phone messages. Straightaway the efficient Mrs Robertson told me in her controlling manner what I needed to do. She’d always bossed me around, ever since I was small. I blushed as I thought about my internet dates. I hadn’t told her about them. In a lot of ways, I was still a very private person. I kept being told I needed to open up more, but that was easier said than done for me.
“Get straight on to the phone company and get your number blocked. Even if it was a wrong number, you don’t want any more of that sort of trash. And contact the police, let them know what’s happened. You want to be nipping this in the bud especially if it’s him again.”
I sighed, “Yeah, you’re right.” She was always right, but it didn’t necessarily mean I would follow her advice.
“Are you going to be okay, Soph?” I knew the underlying question was whether I was going to drink on this. Thankfully, I had no intention of turning to alcohol.
“I’m fine, Steph. I don’t want a drink and I know that won’t solve anything. It would just make matters worse.”
“Oh Soph, you don’t know how reassuring it is to hear that.” Stephanie always worried about me, even when she didn’t need to.
“I do worry about you living in that flat on your own.”
“Most of the time, I’m fine. I wish you were nearer, though, Steph.”
“I know, I mean it’s fantastic down here in London for the nightlife and everything but I do miss you and Dad. Oh, by the way, did I tell you we’ve booked to go and see The Bodyguard in the West End?”
“No, but that sounds great, Steph. Is Tim okay?”
“Yeah, he’s good, working hard as usual but at least he’ll spend time with me when we go away. It’s only three weeks until we’re off to Barbados.”
“Oh lucky you.” I was genuinely happy for her.
We chatted for a while longer, catching up on family events and I was glad to listen to good news and take my mind off my fears. I ended the call thinking a holiday in the Caribbean would be just the thing to sort me out and make me feel better. Sadly, I didn’t have the same cash reserves as Stephanie so I was going nowhere. No, there was no running away. I had to face life head on.
I wondered if I could make some enquiries and discreetly find out what Jay was doing at the moment. I did occasionally bump into his brother-in-law, Martin at the gym so I could make a point of trying to find him to speak to him about Jay.
I wanted to believe it had been a wrong number, and the messages weren’t for me but I had my nagging doubts. I knew I had to try to think positively but my track record in the past seemed to have brought me nothing but bad luck.
I’d recently started to see shadows in the corner of my eyes. Is someone watching me or is it my imagination? Is it paranoia or could trauma have brought these feelings on? What would be worse, having someone following me or wrongly believing someone is following me? In my book that was a lose-lose situation.
My mind wandered back to how life had been when I first met Jay and how I’d wished I’d never set eyes on him.
Chapter Six
THEN
I left home at the age of seventeen. This was something I’d wanted to do for some time but with nowhere to go and no plan in place, it hadn’t happened. I figured out the only way I would survive on my own was to get a good job. Living at home with Mum and Dad had become unbearable. As a sensitive soul, I’d had enough of the constant arguments.
“What’ve you been buying this time?” Dad shouted.
“I needed a new dress. Have you seen my wardrobe? I’ve nothing to wear apart from a few measly old frocks collecting mothballs, they’re that old.” Mum said.
“But we can’t afford new clothe
s, woman. We’ve got the mortgage to pay.” Dad’s voice got louder by the syllable.
“Oh, I knew you’d begrudge me having something new.”
Their feuding was nearly always about money. We lived in a nice house that everyone realised we couldn’t afford, everyone apart from Mum and Dad, that is. I spent many hours sitting on the stairs listening to their bickering, afraid to go down. My sister Stephanie being five years my senior was a bit braver. The same year I left home, she found her own escape route, she got married. Stephanie wasn’t just older than me, she was wiser too.
Tall and skinny, she had long flame-red hair, a couple of shades darker than mine. She had the sort of attractiveness that other women envied. She didn’t wear much makeup. Her natural beauty shone through. Steph knew how to dress to bring out the best in her dark brown eyes and her style was floral and feminine. She always looked to me like she was going off to a festival, a throwback from the hippy era. She loved everything about the Sixties from the Beatles to flower power and she tried to push those influences on to me. I was more shabby chic meets grunge and my favourite outfit was a large sloppy t-shirt with Levis and cowboy boots. I rarely dressed to impress, more motivated by comfort.
“Are you coming to the shops, Sophie?” she asked
“No, I’ll stay here.” I was always in my bedroom.
“Come on, the walk will do you good.” she shouted.
“No, I don’t want to Steph.” I could be stubborn.
“I’ll treat you to a chocolate ice lolly.”
“Oh, go on then.” That was classic Steph at work and it normally did the trick. She could be pushy and manipulative and I did as I was told. Although I was the one with the brains academically, she was a lot more sensible than me and made better life decisions.
When I was at school, I got labelled a snob because of where we lived. Our home was a three-bedroomed semi in Whitefield, down Park Lane which was an area that had been made popular by the Jewish community. Our house wasn’t posh in the slightest. The furniture may have looked good when it was new but it certainly didn’t impress anyone now. Mum did all our painting and decorating. She was handy like that. I wasn’t always thrilled with the colour scheme she chose. The house had been built in the sixties and still had some of its original features, like a serving hatch and coal bunker. These were novelties when I was young but an embarrassment as I got older as was the avocado green coloured bathroom suite. I prayed that friends didn’t want to use the loo when they came round as I didn’t want them to see the state of the place. We didn’t have nice matching towels, just multicoloured cast-offs from our grandparents.
Mum loved spending money, and she always shopped at the best boutiques for herself. This continued to cause conflict with Dad who worked long hours to try to keep our head above water financially. Mum was still attractive with strawberry blonde hair which she said had been her natural colour in her youth but now came straight out of a bottle. I used to be fascinated watching her dye it when I was little. As a couple, Mum and Dad made a handsome pair when they were younger but the gap between them was ever widening and this mirrored itself in their appearance.
Mum had a slender frame that even younger women would have been happy with. However, her disinterest in food, both eating and cooking meant she was now underweight and had started to look gaunt and frail. Dad, on the other hand, made up for Mum’s lack of appetite. He loved his food. We normally had fish and chips from the chippy on a Friday, which I always looked forward to. His girth had increased considerably over the years, which had become more prominent, especially since he stopped cycling to work a few years earlier.
They both had health problems. Mum was a heavy smoker and suffered constantly with chest complaints. Dad had experienced a couple of heart scares and now took medication for his angina. This didn’t stop him working long hours though. In fact, neither of them took heed of the medical warnings. Mum smoked like a chimney and Dad ate what he wanted from pies to cream cakes. Mum had a part time job doing clerical work in a factory. Dad worked for the railways, rising to the level of supervisor yet he still needed an extra job in the evenings to survive financially.
Recently, their feuding had got worse. I couldn’t cope with the way Mum treated Dad. I noticed her behaviour change. It became apparent to me she was looking for someone else. She started going out with a girlfriend and she also started wearing makeup more often and taking pride in her appearance, regularly sporting a new outfit. I became suspicious that she might be seeing someone but never said anything.
On one occasion, she said she was meeting her friend, so I asked, “Can I come too?” I didn’t really want to go.
“No you can’t,” Mum said. She looked indignant.
“Why not?” I had a good idea why she didn’t want me to go with her.
She started having a tantrum, stamping her feet.
“No, no you can’t come with me.” I was bemused by this behaviour but I didn’t let up.
“Why not, Mum?”
“Because I said so.”
“That’s not a good enough answer.”
“You’re not coming,” she shouted.
In the end, I let her go out without me. I could have told Dad, but I didn’t want to cause a drama. I had witnessed enough of that already.
I dreamed of the day when I could walk out. I started buying household items for my bottom drawer and storing them in secret, waiting patiently for the time when I could leave home. I collected a cutlery set, pans, crockery and bedding.
I was bright at school and my parents planned for me to go to university. I felt I didn’t have the patience to wait that long to be free of them. My mother had the tongue of a viper and would say really cruel things, mainly aimed in my direction.
Often, in front of my friends, she said, “Have you not washed your neck again, our Sophie?” This would get her a laugh and make me go bright red.
“You’ll never get a boyfriend pulling faces like that.”
I was an easy target but Dad also received his share of her lashings.
“You’re not wearing that bloody jumper again are you, Derek?” she’d often say. She always criticised his appearance.
He’d look offended then, checking down to see the jumper wasn’t displaying any of his favourite tomato sauce, would reply, “It’s clean. What’s the matter with you woman.” He’d go off in a sulk for the rest of the day or bite our heads off about something and nothing. Dad always called Mum woman and never Jean.
It’d be, ‘Get the kettle on, woman’ or ‘Have you made tea yet, woman?’ I used to think that it wasn’t a good way to speak to someone if they were looking to patch up their disagreements.
Mum had other cruel ways of showing her annoyance with him and paying him back. When their rows kicked off, I tried to stay out of the way so they didn’t involve me. The atmosphere got really bad though, and I was often in tears. I didn’t like the loud crashing and shouting. There was never any peace.
My parents insisted I learn to play the piano as I was gifted musically. They even bought me a second-hand one to practise on. I hated it. Mum’s attitude didn’t help. I’d be practising my chords, and I’d hear her shout from the kitchen, “You’re not playing that bloody thing again are you? What a bloody noise! Sharrdapp, I can’t hear myself think.” Half the time, I wasn’t sure if she was joking. Why would she encourage me one minute then try to discourage me the next, I didn’t know? Perhaps she wasn’t in a good place mentally.
It was a constant barrage of ‘I’m sick of the lot of you,’ and, ‘You’ll be sorry when I’m not here anymore.’ Her favourite piece of music was a Mary Wells hit What You Gonna Do When I’m Gone and she constantly played and sang all the verses for us to hear.
The arguments between my parents gave me a headache to the point of feeling like my head might burst. Mum constantly lashed out at Dad and made outlandish threats. Thankfully, I never saw any violence between them but the verbal diarrhoea was bad enough to mak
e me freeze in my tracks at times. When the outbursts came, I felt unprotected and unloved.
I was doing my ‘A’ levels at school but was desperate to move out. I couldn’t wait another year until I went to university. I had to get out now, which meant finding a job.
Chapter Seven
THEN
Scouring the newspapers for jobs, I spotted an ideal position as a trainee accountant with a large practice. Maths was my best subject at school. Dad’s influence helped there as he always made me add up without a calculator and he taught me well. From a young age, I was top of the class at reciting my tables. The calculus and geometry that seemed like double Dutch to most of my friends were somehow easy for me.
I didn’t tell my parents when I went for the interview. They had high expectations for me and I knew they would be disappointed if I were to leave school. I got the job but was fearful of telling my family. I was right to be afraid.
“You’re no daughter of mine, our Sophie,” Dad’s harsh words shocked me. “You’ve ruined your life now.”
“But Dad…” I tried to argue but Dad wouldn’t see reason.
“You’ve missed out on the opportunity of a lifetime.” Dad got angrier with each sentence.
“It’s a really good job, Dad.”
“I can’t believe you’d go behind our backs and do something like this, our Sophie.”
“They’re a really big company, Dad. I’ll have a bright future.”
“You’d have a brighter future staying on at school and studying but you never listen to anything I say.”
