We had a happy childhood after we were taken away from our biological parents. Our adopted parents gave us a good life. My dad owned a timber business with depots across Central London and he worked hard. My mum couldn’t have her own children so when she got the three of us, she told us all her dreams had come true at once. She lived for us, for being our mum.
She spent her days in an apron and would teach us all how to cook and bake. In the summer she would potter in the garden and show me and my sister how to dead-head flowers and teach us the importance of watering them every evening so the heat didn’t make them bloom too soon. She was amazing at interiors and would make bedspreads and cushions, and every year she would strip and put fresh wallpaper in the lounge, changing the entire theme. My dad would pretend to be annoyed and moan, but secretly he loved it. He loved her – so much. She was an amazing mum, and she wanted what was best for all three of us. She supported our dreams and hopes, and I felt lucky, so very lucky.
Mum died of breast cancer when I was seventeen. It came out of nowhere and by the time we got the news it had already spread throughout her entire body and was in her bones. She had to make the decision to either have chemotherapy to try to extend the little time she had left or just roll with how she was. She had one round of chemo, but the side effects were truly gruesome; I remember her sleeping on the bathroom floor because she was so sick. My dad would lie next to her on a blanket and rub her back while she just hung her head in the toilet, vomiting and retching constantly. She made the choice to stop the chemo then and try to live for as long as she could without her body being pumped full of drugs. The cancer took her life in just under nine months. She was forty-nine years old when she died – three months away from celebrating her fiftieth birthday, and seven months away from her and Dad celebrating their silver wedding anniversary.
After Mum died, Dad continued to work, only harder and longer hours. He didn’t retire early like they had planned. When Mum died it felt like everything went with her. My dad no longer smiled or laughed, and my siblings left home pretty much immediately and rarely ever came back. Overnight our whole worlds turned upside down; we had gone from being a solid, happy family unit to all living independently – like strangers.
I remember after her funeral I overheard one of Mum’s friends in the kitchen say to my dad, ‘You need to make a choice. You either die with her or you fight hard and continue to live. These kids need you to live.’ Not even those words made him change. Our family had been totally destroyed by Mum’s illness and, if she could have seen what happened after she’d gone, it would have devastated her more than the day she received her diagnosis. I knew that life would never, ever be the same again.
The house was so quiet after Kitty and Joseph moved out, and being there alone made me feel so down. I don’t think I was depressed when I look back on that time – I was just sad. I was a teenage girl, grieving for my mum, with no one to talk to, and everywhere I looked there were reminders of her. I’d always known I wanted to do something to help others. After watching my mum go through the ordeal of breast cancer, after seeing the compassion and empathy nurses had shown us and the fact that they had made such a devastating, life-changing part of our worlds that little bit better by being so caring and kind, I decided that after college I wanted to go into nursing. Specifically, I wanted to be a children’s nurse.
A fresh start in a new area was just what I needed and I applied to Dundee University in Scotland – far away from everything that, at that time, was so bad. My dad drove me and my belongings all the way to Scotland and the journey there was so painful. He tried to make conversation but it was as if it hurt him to actually have to talk to me – as though any time I spoke about anything it triggered some kind of reminder about Mum, what we’d once had, what we had lost … I remember wondering if he was proud of me for getting accepted into uni, if he would miss me not being at home with him, or if it was a relief that he now had none of us there. I genuinely didn’t know any more.
We arrived and he helped me unload my stuff into halls. He gave me an envelope stuffed with cash and said he was at the other end of the phone if I needed anything. I watched through the huge window in the corridor as he sloped back to his car, my heart physically ached for his sadness and loss. His heart had been broken and he had shut himself off from his family. He would spend his days alone in our home, surrounded by reminders of what he would never have again. I remembered wondering so often if he would die of a broken heart.
The following morning, I began my nursing degree.
It was draining, and relentlessly hard work, but I powered through my first year and remained just as dedicated as I went into my second.
I didn’t go home during the holidays. I rarely spoke to my dad. Each time I called him, our conversation seemed to be even more strained and difficult than the time before. And Kitty and Joseph had moved on with their own lives too. Kitty had moved to Hong Kong to teach English and, although at first I missed her like crazy, I soon adapted once the uni work began flooding in. My brother had got married and joined the army, and he and his wife were now expecting their first baby. No one had been invited to their wedding, which hurt, because I knew things would have been so very different if Mum had still been alive. So many things would have been different. I imagine I wouldn’t now be sat here, writing this.
Our entire family dynamic had changed since Mum had gone, and rather than try to cope together, each one of us just battled it alone. Today, looking back, I wish we had done it differently – I wish we had ambushed Dad into getting help, I wish we had all stayed living at home, together – but Mum had been the leader of our pack, and none of us had a clue how to do things without her, how to make things better, and so we all decided it would be easier to look after ourselves than each other. I know that’s shit, because it’s not what family is about, and I’d be devastated to think of my kids losing contact with each other if anything ever happened to me.
The contact with my dad had by now totally stopped – it was too painful to try to make conversation when he had become someone I no longer knew – and without his financial support I needed another way of getting an income. I had no choice but to get a job, and when I saw a sign on the window of a bar in town, I jumped at the chance.
The pub was busy and, although it was mainly men who drank in there while watching Premier League football matches throughout the week, I enjoyed it. I loved just being out of my bedroom, socialising and talking to other humans for a few nights each week for the first time in a long time.
I got to know a lot of the locals; there was a total range of guys who came in – some were divorced who didn’t want to sit in their bachelor pads alone; others were young lads from uni who came in after the gym to watch the football. Then there were older men in suits, tapping away on their laptops while keeping their eye on the score. It was quite an odd bunch, but they were nice and they always chatted to me when I was on shift.
One night there was a new guy at the bar and I remember thinking how good-looking he was, but in a kind of bad-boy way. He had a lovely smile and a huge, cute dimple in his left cheek. We were introduced just before I finished my shift and I learned he was called Mark. I noticed immediately that he had a strong London accent, and there was something about him that seemed really cheeky, but nice. He asked me if I wanted to go grab some food with him when I finished and I smiled and rolled my eyes, trying to act cool as if it was just a ‘bite to eat’, but in reality my hands were clammy with sweat and my heart was beating through my chest. Going out with a total stranger wasn’t something I had ever done before.
It was the end of November; I remember it being so cold, and it was raining, which made the droplets of water feel freezing as they hit the back of my neck and hands. Mark told me his car was parked up just by the pub so we walked to get in it so we could eat our takeout food in the warm. I felt at ease with him; it wasn’t cringy or awkward, and I didn’t feel any type of pressure from him – th
at would all come much later.
We walked up the hill and I saw the lights flash on a huge, white, gleaming 4x4 Range Rover. Mark opened the driver’s door and got in and I was glad he hadn’t walked to my side to open the passenger door for me first. My mum had always made a point of my dad and brother opening and holding doors for women, and it was another painful reminder of her whenever any man did it for me. I clambered up onto the black matte leather seat, which was piped with red stitching.
The car looked brand new – smelt brand new too – I remembered that new-car smell from my dad – I recall asking him if he was test driving it or if it was a courtesy car while his battered old Nissan Micra was in for a repair. He’d laughed, said no and told me it was his. I was secretly impressed that a twenty-five-year-old could afford a car like this. I had thought that he must come from a wealthy family, a close-knit family who supported him. A family so unlike mine since Mum had gone … but rather than feel jealous of what he had, I had immediately felt a sense of contentment, and of wanting to belong beside this man.
We drove until we found a late-night café. We went in and grabbed a window seat, I got a hot chocolate and he ordered himself a coffee and as the rain smashed down on the window we sat there and talked for over three hours, about everything and nothing. Mark told me he worked in Central London and was in Scotland for three days on business. His job in sales meant he travelled a lot with work, and he made it sound like he was good at what he did without boasting about it. He seemed to be in complete control of his life – secure, with his future mapped out – which was so different to my struggling student life.
At around 3am, he drove me the five-minute journey home to a flat I shared with two housemates. As we pulled up, he took my number and put it into his mobile phone before leaning over and kissing my cheek. He didn’t do anything gross like you see in the movies, like hold my face or gaze into my eyes or ask to ‘come in for a coffee’, and I liked that. I liked that he didn’t make me feel any horrible kind of pressure because all of this was so new to me.
As I got to my bedroom, I quietly shut the door behind me and heard my message tone beep on my tiny Nokia mobile phone. Mark had already texted me and I’ve remembered the wording from that text, all these years later:
‘Hey, thanks for a good night. So now you have my number – if you want to meet up again just let me know and we can make plans for when I’m back soon. Goodnight xx’
I felt an excited fluttery nervous sick – a feeling I’d never felt before.
Despite me always being cool with being alone, and independent, things moved quickly with Mark. He seemed to be in Scotland every other week for business, and when he wasn’t, he would pay for me to fly to his apartment on the outskirts of London for the weekends and holidays. His apartment was stunning, decorated in a plain modern theme with thick cream carpets throughout. It was the opposite to what I’d grown up with and it was obvious to me that in order to live here you had to have money. A lot of fucking money.
Everything was immaculate – and new. It looked like a show home and I was worried about where I should put my bag as it was the only thing that looked out of place. Mark put me on the insurance of his Range Rover and there was always a wad of cash in the top drawer of his gloss white kitchen, which he repeatedly told me to ‘help myself to’ if I needed it. I never did, but I felt looked after. Safe, and wanted. It was a nice feeling. I imagine it was how Mum and Dad made me feel when I got to them as a baby after the life we had been living with our biological parents.
Mark loved to travel and we also went away a lot for weekends. I remember the first time he surprised me and told me we were flying to Milan that Friday. And when I told Mark I didn’t have a passport, he simply drove me to Wales to get one. I remember nothing ever being too much trouble or too stressful for him. He was so laid-back about everything.
Soon this way of life became normal for me. I was looked after, money was no object, and we could pack up and jet off all over the world at a moment’s notice. But my studies suffered. Suddenly becoming a nurse didn’t seem as important any more, and all that mattered was being with Mark. I’d never been in love before, or even in a relationship, and when Mark gave me life experiences I had never had, it was nice. More than nice. It made me feel less alone.
I remember one weekend, not that long into our relationship, Mark asked about my family. I explained a little more about my mum dying and not seeing my dad, and he picked up the car keys and said, ‘Come on – let’s go and visit him.’ I was really hesitant as I hadn’t spoken to my dad for over a year by this point and wasn’t sure what the situation was at home. I felt so unwell at the thought of just turning up unannounced, but also remember feeling as though I had no choice. Mark had decided and that’s what would happen, regardless of how I felt about it all.
Back then I believed he made all these decisions out of love, but now I see it for exactly what it was … control.
It was odd when we arrived. I could see Dad’s Audi estate parked on the drive, and noticed how unclean it was. In the past, Dad had always kept his cars immaculate, but, like everything else, since Mum had gone he’d lost interest, and like everything else in his life, it sat unloved and ignored. The huge oak tree that we’d climbed as kids had died, and that made me feel even more sad. It had once held so many memories for the three of us as kids and I wondered if it had died because, like Dad, it was also broken-hearted.
Dad took a while to answer the door, and when it opened, he looked surprised, and not happy surprised. He said, ‘’Ello Jo’, in his thick cockney accent and then turned round and walked back into the hall. He didn’t acknowledge Mark, which was beyond awkward, and I suddenly felt so, so sick.
There was no hug or kiss, which hurt, because growing up my father had smothered me and my siblings and our mum with affection. As we walked behind him into the kitchen, I noticed the house was still exactly as it had been before Mum died. All our pictures hung on the walls, the dried flowers were still in their vases, and the cross-stitch Mum had made when she was well was still on display. Everything looked just the same. It had a different smell now, though; it wasn’t a horrid smell, just one I didn’t recognise. It no longer smelled of our family.
I flicked the kettle on and introduced Mark. He instantly began talking to Dad; his accent seemed thicker than normal and I remember cringing at how he sounded, or how my dad would perceive him. He was asking my dad about business and what he does with his spare time.
Dad gave one-word answers, asked Mark nothing about himself and made it clear this visit was not something he was happy about. I wanted the ground to swallow me up. As I reached for the tea bags in the cupboard, I noticed how the handles felt greasy. Nothing in this house was ‘looked after’ or ‘gleaming’ any more. The entire visit was strained, awkward and actually, as I look back on it now, heartbreaking.
We left with Mark walking ahead, unlocking the car and getting in without saying goodbye. I still remember my dad’s parting words as I forced him into an awkward hug: ‘He could sell snow to an Eskimo that one, Jo. Just be careful.’
I couldn’t work out if Dad still loved me and was trying to protect me, or if he was just so unhappy with his life he was trying to find fault with every other human in the world. Either way I thought he was wrong, and when I mentioned it to Mark over lunch shortly after, he called my dad to tell him some ‘home truths’. I wasn’t privy to the phone call. He told me to sit in the car while he paced the restaurant car park, but I could tell he was livid, swapping the phone from one ear to the other while throwing his arms around erratically. When he ended the call, he jumped in the car, squeezed my leg, smiled so I caught a glimpse of his dimple – and said, ‘Well, that’s that. It’s the last time we will be speaking to that miserable wanker.’
I remember feeling so ashamed and riddled with guilt that my dad would know I had repeated his words to a man I had only recently met. I also knew deep down that he wasn’t a miserable wanker; h
e was just broken. But Mark was right; to this day I have never spoken to him again.
Mark and I carried on for the next few months as we were – happy, carefree and in love, still living between Scotland and London. And then I fell pregnant. I found out in the May of my second year, in the middle of my exams, that I was seven weeks gone. I was devastated and worried. This wasn’t what I had planned, and it didn’t fit in with what I wanted out of life.
I dreaded telling Mark and had no idea how he would react. I wasn’t on the pill but we were always careful. We had never discussed having kids and the reality was we had known each other for just six months. I wondered whether I should book a termination in secret, but then I panicked that if I DID spend the rest of my life with this man, like I wanted to, and one day we had a child, would it come out then, in my notes or at the hospital? And what would he think? I decided to just be honest and tell him.
But his reaction made me feel even more confused. He was happy – genuinely happy – and excited and, as usual, totally relaxed about the whole thing. When I started off-loading and worrying about the negatives of us having a baby so young, he batted them all away, assuring me that this was the best thing to happen to us.
We agreed to keep the baby and I battled through my exams, passing them all. I was so happy because it was the first year that I had focused on children’s nursing and it felt good to have done so well, but I was also sad because the baby was due at the beginning of January, which meant I wouldn’t be able to finish my studies or graduate. Mark kept telling me not to worry, that financially we were secure, and I could go back and finish at a later date, but I ignored him and started another year of uni, determined to be a nurse.
A Different Kind of Happy Page 2
