by Dawn Goodwin
After some time, I tried to focus on the landscape streaming past the partially fogged up window. How many stations had we passed? The scenery around me zoomed in and out like a manipulated camera lens, the faces across the aisle from me losing definition.
The train lurched sharply and I tried to grab onto the seat in front of me to steady myself, but my hand grabbed thin air instead and I fell from the seat. The jar of the hard floor jolted some clarity into me for a moment.
I heard the nurse exclaim, ‘Oh!’ as she reached out an arm to try and help me up. ‘Are you okay?’
I could hear laughter behind me and my cheeks combusted from booze and humiliation.
‘Too many swigs on the bottle there, love?’ someone jeered behind me.
The nurse was still trying to haul me back onto the seat by my arm, but I couldn’t get purchase on my feet to get up off the floor. I reached up to grab the handrail and shimmied to a crouch as the train began to slow and pull into a station. I managed to crawl onto my knees and push myself upright.
‘Let me help you,’ the nurse said, concern weighing down her every word.
‘S’fine.’ I shook free of the nurse’s hand and stumbled towards the train door just as it pulled to a stop. I stabbed at the door release and lurched into the fresh air with the sound of jeers and laughing in my ears, then rushed over to the bushes and vomited.
Cheering erupted from the train as the doors closed and it pulled away.
Fuck, could this get any worse?
A light drizzle started to fall and I actually laughed into the dark.
I looked around me, letting the cold rain bring a bit of clarity. My stomach churned again.
I recognised the station. I was one stop away from Fulwell, which meant a dark, ten-minute walk home. There was no one else on the station platform and my earlier panic engulfed me again. I opened my bag, took my mobile phone out and grabbed my keys. My mother’s voice echoed in my ears as I remembered a trick she had taught me when I was a teenager. I stuck the sharp end of my front door key between my knuckles like a blade and began walking, my head rubbernecking from side to side, my weapon held out in front of me and my phone clenched tightly in my other fist.
I reached the platform stairs and rushed down them, but the heel of my boot caught on the step and I tumbled down the last few, my ankle twisting and my knee jarring against the pavement. I pulled myself upright, looked around quickly, then carried on walking, ignoring the sharp pang in my ankle and the sting of my grazed knee inside my trousers.
I kept to the shadows and within minutes was relieved to see my street ahead. I needed the toilet. I couldn’t go any faster on my sprained ankle and the closer I drew to the house, the more I needed to pee. As I neared my front door, I couldn’t hold it any longer and I felt warmth flood between my legs.
How had I gone from euphoria to a sobbing, urine-soaked lush in such a short space of time?
Please don’t let Paul be waiting up for me.
I crouched on the front step, unzipped my boots and opened the door as quietly as I could. The hallway light was on, but the house was silent. I carefully latched the door and dumped my bag in the hallway before tiptoeing into the dark lounge. He must’ve gone to bed. All I wanted to do was strip off my piss-soaked trousers and curl into a ball on the floor. I wandered through to the utility room at the back of the kitchen and did just that, stripping down to my bra and shoving everything else into the washing machine.
A tub of freshly laundered clothes sat waiting to be sorted and I grabbed a pair of my pyjamas from the pile and went to lie in a foetal position under a blanket on the couch.
20
We know who you are. We’re coming for you.
We’re going to take your children away.
Payback time, Katherine. Payback for all those other children you’ve hurt.
I woke with a start, tears cooling on my cheeks and sweat soaking my pyjamas. I kept my eyes clamped shut, the nightmare still vivid but starting to fade in intensity until it was a sinister shadow lurking behind my eyes, leaving a feeling of breathless terror in its wake.
Something else had woken me, not just the dream. Shouting in the street and the tinkle of glass breaking. My eyes flew open, listening. My face felt stretched and puffy, and my throat hurt. I was still lying curled up on the couch. I must’ve fallen into an exhausted coma where I was last night.
I pushed myself upright and rubbed my eyes. The shouting outside the window continued and a dark shadow loomed behind the window shutters. I exhaled. The rubbish bin men were collecting the recycling bins, tossing the glass into the truck and shouting garbled conversations at each other over the shattering bottles.
I sat back against the couch. It was still early, too early. Awareness flooded in and I turned my head to see Paul sitting in the armchair across from me, his arms folded, my mobile on the arm of his chair and the laptop across his knees.
I didn’t know how long he had been sitting there, but all I wanted to do was lie down again, so I did. My head was throbbing, as was my ankle.
‘Why is your phone off? I called you repeatedly last night and couldn’t get hold of you!’
Why was my phone off? Thoughts and fractured memories of the night before battered behind my eyelids, bruising my skull, so I sat up again, but the sudden movement propelled vomit up my throat and I threw up frothy bile onto the carpet at our feet.
Paul recoiled. ‘You disgust me. Go to bed and we will talk about this when you’ve pulled yourself together.’ It was the kind of thing I imagined my dad would’ve said if he’d stuck around long enough to see me stumble home pissed. I wanted to laugh but couldn’t muster the energy.
I got to my feet and winced as I put weight on my ankle. Blood had soaked through the knee of my pyjama bottoms, but Paul was apparently too disgusted to look at me properly and hadn’t noticed my injuries.
I hauled myself up to bed and curled up under the cool duvet, burying my burning cheeks into the pillow. I hadn’t been this hungover since high school, if ever.
What a mess.
*
I woke some time later and rolled onto my back, staring at the fine cracks in the ceiling, following the lines with my tired eyes, anything so as not to have to think about how I had humiliated myself.
But the images were relentless and I wasn’t sure which were real and which were figments of my dehydrated brain creating an elaborate illusion just to punish me. Bottles of champagne; signing a contract I hadn’t read; kissing Sam. The child’s room? Had I really seen that? And the spoon with the white powder? Had I been drugged? I certainly felt like I had. But why would they? I was so out of it that they could’ve assaulted me or anything if that had been their motive. But Sam in particular was kind and looked after me, made sure I was safe, pushed me away when I kissed him, so that didn’t fit. But what could Viola’s possible motive be? Just to humiliate me? Why?
I was exhausting myself by turning it over and over in my head and getting nowhere. I couldn’t even say for sure I hadn’t just taken the pills myself after finding them in my bag. I couldn’t even remember putting them in there. I was sure I hadn’t used that bag in months. And the child’s room? I was very out of it then, so that could have been a paranoid delusion, concerning in itself.
I groaned and rolled onto my side, feeling my swollen brain throb. I had to get up and face the music. At some point, Bo had climbed up on the bed next to me and was curled up, snoring gently. I could hear faint sounds from downstairs, a television with the volume turned low, the children’s repressed giggling. Paul would’ve missed his Saturday morning cycle and would be even more annoyed at me now. In all the years I’d known him, he’d never found me passed out on the couch – and I’d certainly never vomited on the carpet at his feet. Even when I was at my lowest, I had never turned to alcohol. What a time to find my rebellious side.
I snorted at the absurdity of it all, then slowly swung my legs out from under the duvet and sat up. The room
spun a little, but not as bad as earlier. I slid my feet into my slippers and grabbed my gown from the chair next to the bed. Pulling the cord tight around me, I went to face the music.
His study door was closed, so in true cowardly fashion, I crept past it and went to make a cup of tea instead. The kids were watching a film while tickling and jabbing at each other for a reaction.
‘Hi, Mum, do you feel better?’ Jack asked.
‘Yes, thanks.’
‘You don’t look so good,’ Lily added.
‘I’ll be okay.’
‘Dad’s working. He told us to keep the noise down.’
‘Okay, I’m just going to make some tea.’
I was feeling dreadful. My legs were weak, my ankle was smarting and I felt like I wanted to just close my eyes and sleep standing up, leaning against the kettle. My stomach tossed and turned in time with the boiling water. I was never going to drink again.
As I stood leaning my forehead against the cupboard in front of me, I sensed the atmosphere in the room grow colder.
‘You’re up then,’ Paul said behind me.
I couldn’t look at him.
‘I’m so sorry about last night. I don’t know what happened. We were drinking gin and champagne and I guess I just had too much. As you know, it’s not something I usually do. I’m normally so careful with alcohol, especially with my meds.’ I didn’t mention my suspicions about my antidepressants. He thought I’d been taking them.
‘This is no example to set your children, Katherine.’
‘They didn’t see me.’
‘But they could have! Or you could’ve ended up in hospital. You had your mobile turned off, even though I said I wanted to be able to get hold of you. And why do you still have that laptop?’
I frowned. I didn’t remember turning my mobile off and it had been fully charged when I went out last night, so couldn’t have run out of battery. I remember picking it up off the coffee table when I left, but I hadn’t checked to see if it was on. Yet another confusing detail from last night. I remember Viola knocking it off the table. It was on then because I’d just spoken to Paul.
‘Well? Have you nothing to say?’
‘Um, well, I wanted to talk to you about the laptop,’ I said, ignoring the mystery of the phone. My brain was hurting just thinking about it.
I turned to face him finally. He was dressed, as he always was on the weekends, with a collared shirt, all but the top button done up, immaculately ironed chinos with razor-sharp creases down the front of each leg and his feet clad in suede slippers. I felt like a wrinkled, smelly mess next to him.
His face was stony. He turned and walked towards the lounge, then pulled closed the dividing doors between the lounge and the family room. Those doors were only ever closed when matters were deemed serious enough for a conversation that was not suitable to be overheard by small ears. I caught the curious glances of the kids before the doors closed on them.
I sighed and continued to make the tea, refusing to offer him one. Sometimes it felt like these little acts of rebellion were the only glimmers of independence I still had.
He sat at the table and folded his hands in front of him.
The headmaster will see you now.
I took my time, giving the teabag an extra squeeze, carefully replacing the milk in the fridge. I don’t know why I thought winding him up like this was a good idea. Maybe I just wanted to get a rise out of him for once, make him angry, anything other than the mild-mannered, vanilla flavour of his usual demeanour.
It made no difference. I sat opposite and wrapped my hands around the steaming mug, more to hide my still trembling fingers than for comfort. I should’ve added a spoon of sugar to my tea. That might’ve tipped him over the edge. He was always monitoring our sugar intake.
‘So, explain it to me,’ he said, his voice even but frosty.
‘Viola, Sam’s wife – the agent who you met? Well, I finished the manuscript last week and sent it to them, just so that they could see how far I had come with it. After our conversation, I told them I didn’t want to publish it, but she’s offered me representation. She thinks it could be very commercial and that I could get a really sound publishing deal with it.’ Despite my hangover, I could feel the bubbles of joy popping in my gut as I said it.
‘But we discussed this and we decided you wouldn’t be able to cope with this on top of looking after the house and the children. You’re barely able to do that as it is at the moment.’ He pointedly looked around the room at the piles of mess stashed to the side and the dust bunnies in the corners.
I swallowed down my frayed annoyance. ‘No, you said I couldn’t cope. I think I can.’
‘And last night was a good example of how you’re coping, was it?’
Touché.
‘Everyone has too much to drink sometimes, Paul, especially when they’re celebrating possibly the biggest news of their lives.’
‘Don’t be melodramatic, Katherine. There is no guarantee that you will get this publishing deal, nor that anyone will buy your little book. You’re not doing this – and that’s final.’
‘No, no it’s not final.’ My voice was rising in octaves. ‘You are not my father. You do not have the right to tell me what I can and can’t do!’
‘Oh, but I do have that right. You gave me that right when I married you and then cemented it when you had your breakdown and I had to pick up the pieces and put you back together. You’re still broken now. And I love you, but I cannot watch it happen again. I will not.’
‘I will always be grateful that you were there for me, but using it as an excuse to stop me from doing anything for myself is counterproductive. I was an intelligent, independent woman when I met you, a survivor, and now I am a shadow player with no thoughts, opinions or feelings of my own. Everything I do and say is dictated by you and that’s not fair.’ I was aware my voice was screeching at him, but I couldn’t stop myself.
In contrast, his voice was low and unnervingly calm. ‘Were you really surviving? Were you strong and independent when I met you? I seem to think the girl I met, the struggling, broke waitress with the unwashed hair because she couldn’t afford shampoo, who hadn’t eaten a proper meal in weeks, wasn’t a poster girl for feminism. She was lost and I saved her. Now, please lower your voice. You’re getting yourself worked up and this is not a suitable conversation for the children to overhear.’
I lowered my voice to barely above a whisper as tears threatened. ‘Yes, I was broken. I had left home only a few months before after escaping an abusive relationship, moved to a new city where I knew no one, was working in a dead-end job and still mentally coming to terms with having an abortion. Yes, I was a mess, but I was dealing with it – and I’d had the strength to get myself out. I was writing and the dream was alive then. That dream got me out of bed in the morning. Who knows, maybe I could’ve been published years ago if I’d not met you. You have never believed in me. You saw someone you could save, who would be indebted to you, who represented the family you didn’t have and I’ve been in your service ever since. And worse than that, I let you convince me that I needed saving.’
He ran his hands through his carefully combed hair. ‘Please don’t give in to the histrionics, Katherine. Have you taken your meds today?’
‘No, I have not. I haven’t taken them for weeks.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘For god’s sake, Katherine! No wonder!’
‘No, Paul, I am perfectly lucid and I need to say this.’ I slammed my hand on the table, spilling some of the tea over the rim of the mug. It pooled off the edge of the coaster and onto the wooden surface and I half expected Paul to insist I wipe it up immediately, but he was watching me with patronised patience, as though waiting for his tantruming toddler to wear herself out. ‘I wanted to study to be a teacher and you convinced me even that was too much. What did you say? “You’ll never be able to handle inner-city kids, Katherine. Let’s move to the suburbs and you can be a teaching assistant in a nice, middle
-class nursery school.” Well, that worked out well, didn’t it?’
‘And I suppose that was my fault too, was it?’
‘No, that was my own carelessness, but you’re deliberately missing the point, Paul.’
I could hear the home phone ringing in the lounge. Only a handful of people would call on that number, my mother being one of them, but it wouldn’t be her, not after how we left it the other day.
‘When I came out of hospital, you wrapped me in bubble wrap and I haven’t been able to breathe since. I’m suffocating!’ My anger was running out of steam and hot tears were now slaking my cheeks. I swiped at my runny nose. ‘You have to trust me when I say I can do this. I want to do this. I will get a cleaner in to help, which I will pay for from any money I get from my books; nothing will change for Jack and Lily because I will write when they are at school; and Sam says I can go as fast or as slow as I want.’ I leaned forward, pleading with my eyes.
‘Oh, Sam, of course. And he will be there holding your hand the whole time, will he?’ His eyes were like flint.
‘Don’t be like that. His wife would be my agent and he would be there for advice, that’s all. I’ll get them to come over for dinner and you can meet him.’
The phone started ringing again.
Paul pushed to his feet, the chair scraping harshly. ‘Lily, answer the phone!’ he shouted.
He remained standing, his hands planted on the table, towering over me.
‘My decision is final. I do not give you permission to do this. You will do as I say and hand over the laptop and forget about this nonsense. I’m doing this for you and your well-being and you will thank me in the long run. And take those damn pills!’
I stared, my mouth hanging open.
The dividing doors behind me were eased open and Lily stood with the phone in her hand. ‘Mum, it’s for you. He says he’s from the police.’
*
2 October 1997
I’ve told Mam about the baby. I could see she was disappointed because she went into her cold, calm mode. No shouting, but she won’t look at me. I told her that I wanted to keep it and that I hadn’t told Darren yet because I’d wanted to talk to her first. I said he would probably want to get married and I could just get a job around here, do some writing in my spare time. Loads of teenagers do it, after all. Have babies, I mean. The idea of a baby scares the hell out of me, but I didn’t tell her that. Then she told me what she’d seen yesterday. She said she’d seen Darren leaving Hayley Brooks’ house early in the morning. She said they were all over each other and it was clear where he’d been all night. When she had had a go at him, he said he was going to break up with me anyway because he loved Hayley and had been seeing her for a while. That he loved her, not me.
